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Assange says WikiLeaks to release 'significant' Clinton campaign data | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange said on Wednesday his organization planned to release “significant” information linked to the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton before the Nov. 8 election. Asked if the data could be a game-changer in the election, the Australian told Fox News in an interview conducted by satellite: “I think it’s significant. You know, it depends on how it catches fire in the public and in the media.” Assange has been living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for five years to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces sexual assault accusations. He denies the allegations. WikiLeaks released files in July of what it said were audio recordings pulled from the emails of the Democratic National Committee that were obtained by hacking its servers. That release, during the Democratic National Convention where Clinton was officially named the party’s presidential nominee, was the second batch in a series that deeply rattled the party and prompted the committee’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to step down. “I don’t want to give the game away, but it’s a variety of documents, from different types of institutions that are associated with the election campaign, some quite unexpected angles, some quite interesting, some even entertaining,” Assange said when asked how the next revelations would compare with those in July WikiLeaks publishes leaked material, mostly from governments. In 2010, the organization published classified U.S. military and diplomatic documents in one of the largest information leaks in U.S. history. | 0fake |
Lights back on in Venezuela after five-hour blackout | CARACAS (Reuters) - A power outage hit parts of the Venezuelan capital Caracas as well as the nearby states of Miranda and Vargas for around five hours on Monday, in what critics said was another sign of the oil-rich nation s economic meltdown. Authorities blamed the outage, which began around noon (1600 GMT), on the collapse of an important cable linking a power plant and a transmission tower. The fault affected some phone lines, parts of the Caracas metro, and the main Maiquetia airport just outside the capital. Many workers had no choice but to walk home, shops and restaurants closed, and Venezuelans grumbled that another day was disrupted by tumult. The country is already grappling with the world s fastest inflation, rising malnutrition, and disease as the state-led economic system grinds to a halt. Venezuela has fallen apart, said David Garcia, 38, as he queued for a hotdog at a stand in the wealthier Chacao neighborhood. He had spent two hours looking for an open restaurant because he could not cook at home. Venezuela has in recent years suffered frequent blackouts that critics attribute to insufficient investment following the 2007 nationalization of the electricity sector. This is a symptom of a country collapsing due to the negligence of those in power, tweeted opposition lawmaker Tom s Guanipa. The government has in some cases attributed the blackouts to sabotage or accused critics of exaggerating problems. Energy minister Luis Motta on Monday tweeted articles on a recent power outage at Atlanta airport in the U.S. state of Georgia, adding: It happens there too. He did not provide details on the magnitude and effects of Monday s blackout. Shopkeepers complained that the outage had hurt business. It s a lost day, said Armindo Gomes, 24, whose Portuguese family runs two bakeries, as he pointed at dough, cheese and meat that should have been refrigerated. | 0fake |
Canada’s Foreign Policy and Academia | Canada’s Foreign Policy and Academia Canada’s Foreign Policy and Academia By 0 27
Should social scientists seek the truth regardless of whose toes may be stepped on and cite, up front, possible conflicts of interest regarding matters they study?
All academic disciplines claim independence of thought and transparency are principles that guide good research. So, what to make of a Canadian foreign policy discussion dominated by individuals with ties to the decision-making structures they study?
The highly regarded Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) is a prime example. The oldest global affairs school in Canada, Carleton University’s graduate program was established in 1965 with $400,000 ($5 million today) from long-time Senator Norman Paterson, a grain-shipping magnate. During World War II his company provided vessels for Atlantic convoys and Paterson was a major player within the Liberal Party.
Twice under-secretary of External Affairs and leading architect of post-World War II Canadian foreign policy, Norman Robertson was the school’s first director. Unhappy in a diplomatic post in Geneva, External Affairs colleagues secured Robertson the NPSIA position. During his time at Carleton, Robertson continued to be paid as a “Senior Advisor” to External Affairs, overseeing a major review of a department concerned about growing criticism that it was acting as a U.S. “errand boy” in Vietnam.
The initial chair of Strategic Studies at NPSIA was a former deputy minister of Veterans Affairs and Canada’s principal… | 1real |
THREE SHOCKING REASONS WHY Hillary Clinton Is Considered An Abortion EXTREMIST | EXTREME POSITIONS ON ABORTIONHillary Clinton positioned herself as a moderate on abortion for much of her career, but now holds the most extreme positions on abortion of any presidential candidate ever.Here are three reasons why:1. She wants taxpayers to pay for abortion.Clinton supports government funding for abortion. On June 10, Clinton delivered a speech at a Planned Parenthood event in which she called for repealing the Hyde Amendment, a policy that prevents taxpayer funding for abortion. Let s repeal laws like the Hyde Amendment that make it nearly impossible for low-income women, disproportionately women of color, to exercise their full reproductive rights, she said.The Democratic National Committee added this goal to its platform after Clinton became the nominee.An August YouGov poll found that 55 percent of Americans support the Hyde Amendment. This includes a large number of Democrats, who are about evenly divided. Forty-one percent of Democrats support the ban on abortion funding while 44 percent oppose it, which is within the poll s margin of error (4.8 percentage points for the full sample).2. She supports abortion until birth.Clinton supports abortion up until the moment of birth.She doesn t say it exactly like that, of course, because it sounds awful when you say a baby can be legally killed right before she s born. Instead, Clinton uses some shifty Clintonian lingo.Clinton has said she supports restrictions only in the third trimester and only if there are exceptions for the life and health of the mother. (In one interview she said there should only be restrictions at the very end of the third trimester. ) But as Clinton understands, and most voters don t, the health exception is just a huge loophole that allows for abortion for any reason.The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe v. Wade, that the health exception can be whatever the abortionist decides it is.An abortionist s medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman s age relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health, the court decided.So, when Clinton says she ll only support abortion restrictions in the third trimester if there is a health exception, she is effectually saying there should be no restrictions on abortion through the entire pregnancy. She admits this when pressed on the issue.In an April appearance on ABC s The View, Clinton was asked if she supports legal abortion just hours before delivery, and she agreed. That same week, on NBC s Meet the Press, she was asked, when or if does an unborn child have constitutional rights? She answered, the unborn person doesn t have constitutional rights. A July 16 Marist poll found that only 13 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal through the entire pregnancy. Similarly, a 2012 Gallup poll found only 14 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in the last three months of pregnancy, and a July 2014 HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 59 percent of Americans support a ban on abortions after 20-weeks of gestation, which is during the second trimester. 3. She thinks abortion should be common, not rare.Clinton no longer argues that abortion should be rare.During his 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton s husband, Bill, said that abortion should be safe, legal and rare. It was controversial at the time within the pro-choice community because saying that abortion should be rare implies that there is something wrong with getting an abortion. (What could that be?) But the phrase helped establish Bill Clinton s public image as a moderate on abortion.Read more: Christian Post | 1real |
WATCH: Chris Mathews DESTROYS Trump Surrogate Who Says Clinton Started Birther Movement | During an interview on MSNBC s Hardball with Chris Mathews on Friday, Trump surrogate Jack Kingston claimed that Hillary Clinton was the person who started the birther movement. Mathews did not hold back when he pressed Kingston on the accusation that is, frankly, as absurd as the claim the birther movement originally put forth.Already sounding a bit peeved at the assertion, Mathews asks Kingston, Where did you see this? Kingston claims that he saw an inter-party email from 2008 that was put out by the Clinton campaign: From the Clinton campaign itself? You ve seen this? Kingston says that he has seen a copy of the e-mail. No, you can t say Hillary Clinton is the mother of the birther movement and not have evidence, Mathews says. You knew you were coming on the show, why didn t you bring it with you? I may even have it my briefcase, Chris I don t know. Mathews tells Kingston that the show is live and they have enough time for him to find it if it is. This is a live show. We ve got an hour. Find it. Congressman, dead serious, if you can find something from the Clinton campaign not some blogger out there but somebody who actually worked for Hillary Clinton under her direction who said that the president wasn t born in this country that would be news. If you can produce it Now, of course, Kingston cannot produce any evidence because it is a lie. Should such an e-mail exist, it wouldn t just be news, it would be a bombshell that would severely cripple the Democratic Party. It probably would not convince many Democrats to start buying red hats and voting for Trump, though it would certainly make even her most die-hard supporters cringe.Kingston is merely trying to deflect from the fact that Trump still has not apologized for perpetuating the birther conspiracy theory. The allegations that Trump put forth about President Obama during the early years of Obama s administration were Trump s first foray into the political spotlight. His allegations were what built his base of radical right-wing conservatives. He cannot apologize for fear of alienating that base of supporters.Trump would love for most of the world to forget that he ever was a birther. We won t. It s important. No matter how many surrogates Trump s campaign throws out there to try and change the narrative surrounding the controversy, we won t forget.You can watch the interview below:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ISJaqJt_VMFeatured image from video screenshot | 1real |
Debate Over Role of ‘People’s Army’ in Israel Reflects Wider Fissures - The New York Times | JERUSALEM — In a politically fractious country troubled by monumental security challenges, Israel’s military has long served as an equalizer and unifier, a “people’s army” that, at least in the eyes of the Jewish majority, reflected the general interest. But the Israeli people, and with them the government, have shifted to the right amid an upsurge of Palestinian stabbings and other attacks. Now the military finds itself at the center of a tumultuous debate about its role as the nation’s conscience and most trusted institution. Some government ministers and an increasingly shrill segment of the public have been pushing for tougher action in the face of months of Palestinian attacks that have killed about 30 civilians and soldiers. Other Israelis want the military to remain a moderating force and a bulwark against extremism. The debate about the military’s role has been highlighted by a series of clashes among its high command, the government and an aggressive segment of the public in recent months. The pressure on the military is also growing in light of the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman, a as defense minister. Mr. Lieberman has been among the harshest critics of Israeli security policies and will now serve as the army’s overlord. His immediate predecessor, Moshe Yaalon, a conservative and former military chief of staff who was pushed out, had staunchly backed the generals, who have spoken out against manifestations of extremism in the ranks and in broader society. “Generally, the image of an army is that it wants to push forward and it has to be restrained sometimes by the politicians, statesmen who think in a wider context and know that they need to make compromises,” said Shlomo Avineri, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “In Israel, the present situation is almost the opposite. ” The military chiefs, Mr. Avineri said, are “not liberals. ” The fissure is not between the traditional Israeli right and left, he said, but between “strategic hawks,” or pragmatists who put Israel’s security first, and “ideological hawks” who are more concerned with historical rights and Jewish nationalism. In recent years, Mr. Avineri said, senior military officials, together with the Mossad and Shin Bet security chiefs, were widely credited with having opposed and ultimately blocked Israeli government plans to prepare for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, believing that it would have disastrous consequences. The debate over the military’s role could have a profound impact in Israel, where most Jewish are drafted for compulsory service, and many perform reserve duty for decades after. During Independence Day celebrations this month, millions looked skyward to catch a glimpse of the traditional flyover of fighter jets, Hercules transport planes, refueling craft and attack helicopters. The commanders of the air, ground and naval forces often become household names here. But the recent surge in violence has strained those views of the military. “The wave of terrorist attacks or intifada or whatever you want to label the events of the past eight months have raised the level of fear in Israeli society,” said Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research group. “That puts a lot of tension on the military leadership and the soldiers who are put in situations where they are supposed to fight terror, protect themselves and comply with the I. D. F. ’s values,” he said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, the chief of staff of the Israeli military, recently caused a stir when he told an audience of high school students that he would not want a soldier to empty a magazine on a Palestinian girl of 13 holding a pair of scissors. He was attacked by rightist politicians who advocate a policy based on the Talmudic lesson “Whoever comes to slay you, slay him first. ” The military chiefs have urged restraint and a strict adherence to regulations, saying a soldier should shoot to neutralize a threat, but not beyond that. At the same time, Palestinians and human rights groups accuse the military of excessive use of force in the West Bank, where it enforces Israel’s occupation. The military brass also came under fire for its swift condemnation of the actions of an Israeli sergeant, Elor Azaria, who fatally shot a disarmed and wounded Palestinian assailant in the head as he lay on the ground after he had stabbed and wounded another soldier. Many Israelis, including Mr. Lieberman, said the denunciation prejudged the case and undermined the troops as they battled Palestinian violence. Outraged Israelis flooded social networks and hailed Sergeant Azaria, who has been charged with manslaughter, as a hero. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the military prosecutors but, sensing the public mood, also called the soldier’s father in a show of support. Then Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, the deputy chief of the military, caused an uproar in a speech for Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day this month, when he said he discerned disturbing trends in Israeli society that reminded him of processes that led to the rise of Nazi Germany. Mr. Netanyahu rebuked General Golan, criticizing his remarks as outrageous, and said, “The I. D. F. is the people’s army and must remain out of political debates. ” The military’s code of ethics, known as the Spirit of the I. D. F. states clearly that the army’s mission is to protect Israel and its independence while being “subordinate to the directions of the democratic civilian authorities and the laws of the state. ” Still, commanders are encouraged to voice their opinions freely in what the politicians call appropriate forums. Yaakov Amidror, a major general in the reserves and a former national security adviser, said that “there is no war” between the military and the prime minister. Instead, he said, General Golan crossed a forbidden line between the professionals and the decision makers. “Because we force everybody to serve,” Mr. Amidror said, “we have to be even more conservative in what officers can say. ” Underlying the complexity of the issue, Mordechai Kremnitzer and Yedidia Z. Stern, both vice presidents of the Israel Democracy Institute, penned opposing views about General Golan’s speech in the Hebrew edition of the Haaretz newspaper. In an article written with Prof. Avi Sagi, one of the authors of the “Spirit of the I. D. F. ,” Mr. Stern criticized General Golan for becoming involved in the public discourse while in uniform. Mr. Kremnitzer countered, “Army values do not spring up from within the military but are derived from the core values of Israeli society. ” He argued that it was General Golan’s right, and even his duty, to warn of any damage to those values. lines are further blurred in Israel by the number of retired generals who try to capitalize on their army prestige by entering politics. But the army remains the one island of social solidarity where the country’s political and economic divides vanish. Micah Goodman, an Jewish philosopher, had just returned from a week of reserve duty with his infantry unit in northern Israel where, he said, he slept in the field with investors and truck drivers, all wearing the same uniform. “According to the ethos,” said Mr. Goodman, 42, “the people are meant to educate the army, meaning that the values of the army are a projection of the values of the people. ” But as in many other places in the world, he said, there is a sense that those social values are eroding. “The more that Israelis feel that Israel is losing its core values and that the army is the last bastion of those Israeli values,” he said, “so the temptation of reversing the model grows. ” | 0fake |
Two Florida ports cancel plans to ink pacts with Cuba | MIAMI (Reuters) - Two Florida ports have canceled plans to sign cooperation pacts with Communist-ruled Cuba after state Governor Rick Scott threatened to cancel their funding if they did business with the “Cuban dictatorship.” The news comes as Cuba watchers are looking closely for signs of how the United States’ fragile detente with Cuba will fare under President Donald Trump. Trump has threatened to scrap moves to normalize relations, one of former President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy initiatives, if he doesn’t get “a better deal.” “Disappointed some (Florida ports) would enter into any agreement with Cuban dictatorship,” Scott wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “I will recommend restricting state funds for ports that work with Cuba in my budget. Port authorities along the U.S. Southern coast are strong proponents of increased trade and travel with Cuba, and some have expressed interest in using Mariel, located on the northwest coast of the Caribbean island, as a transshipment hub. The Ports of Everglades and Palm Beach had been planning to sign agreements with Cuba during the visit of a Cuban trade delegation this week but said they decided to withdraw the deals. Port of Everglades spokeswoman Ellen Kennedy said this move would not impact trade with Cuba, which was conducted by tenants rather than the ports themselves. One of Port Everglades’ tenants, Crowley Maritime Corporation, has been exporting U.S.-made goods including poultry and medicine to Cuba since obtaining a license to do so from the Office of Foreign Asset Control in late 2001. On Tuesday, Crowley also imported two containers of charcoal from Cuba, the first direct legal import from Cuba to the United States in more than half a century. Kennedy said the memorandum of understanding had been designed to be a “good will gesture” to form a strong alliance with Cuban ports. Cuba and the United States have restored diplomatic ties and signed various cooperation agreements since Obama agreed with Cuban President Raul Castro in December 2014 to work to normalize relations. Obama, a Democrat, used executive orders to circumvent the longstanding U.S. trade embargo on Cuba and ease some restrictions on travel and business. The embargo can only be lifted by the U.S. Congress, which is controlled by Republicans. Trump, who can reverse Obama’s executive orders, has threatened to end the detente if Cuba does not make further political and other concessions, although he has not specified what these should be. | 0fake |
USA Today: Hijab Emerging as ’Symbol of Resistance and Feminism’ - Breitbart | The newspaper USA Today ran an article on Monday claiming that Donald Trump’s election last November has led to the hijab, commonly known as a symbol of oppression in the Muslim world, becoming a “symbol of resistance and feminism. ”[The piece predominantly focuses on the experiences of multiple Muslim women who have chosen to wear the hijab — rather than being forced — such as University of Maryland student Sameeha Ahmad, “whose very independence that drove her to cast off the traditional head covering has since drawn her to don one. ” “I do believe hijab support feminism,” Ahmad is quoted as saying, adding that “the way you look at it from a religious perspective, it empowers you by strengthening your relationship with God. It’s a step you are taking to further yourself within your own religion. ” The author also quotes the view of Dalia Mogahed, a director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, which seeks to empower American Muslims. Mogahed claims that the “the ‘hijab oppresses women’ narrative is not only racist, it is also sexist. ” Mogahed adds that the “hijab is a choice by the vast majority of women who wear it, especially in the U. S. where there is great societal pressure to not wear it, rather than the reverse. ” Since the election of Trump, the hijab has emerged as a new symbol of resistance and feminism. https: . #MuslimWomensDay, — USA TODAY (@USATODAY) March 27, 2017, Another student, Fatima Khan, who has worn a hijab for nine years, argues that her hijab “limits how much someone can objectify me and instead have the power to only be judged for my intellect, abilities and personality rather than simply my appearance. ” The backdrop to the article is Donald Trump’s election, which author Waseem Abasi argues led to “debate around Islamic dress has [taking] a new turn,” amid “policies from the Trump administration targeting Muslim immigrants. ” Earlier this month, sports brand Nike introduced a new line that includes a Hijab head covering featuring the Nike swoosh brand logo. “The Nike Pro Hijab has been a year in the making, but its impetus can be traced much further back to Nike’s founding mission, to serve athletes, with the signature addendum: If you have a body, you’re an athlete,” the company said in an announcement. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 0fake |
Future Replaces Himself at No. 1 and Sets a Billboard Record - The New York Times | Out with the old Future No. 1, in with the new Future No. 1. This week, the prolific Atlanta rapper Future has become the first artist in the history of the Billboard album chart to replace himself in the top spot with new albums. “HNDRXX,” his newest, opens at No. 1 with 48, 000 sales and 93 million streams in the United States in its debut week it bumps last week’s biggest seller, “Future,” to No. 2. Both albums were released by Epic. But Ed Sheeran is hot on his trail. After releasing two singles in early January that instantly became popular on streaming services, Mr. Sheeran on Friday issued his latest album “÷” (pronounced “divide”) which looks destined for No. 1 on next week’s chart, with yet more huge streaming numbers. (The accounting week for music sales runs Friday through Thursday.) Spotify announced that around the world, songs from “÷” racked up nearly 57 million streams on its first day, a record for that service. Also on this week’s chart, Bruno Mars is No. 3 with “24K Magic” (Atlantic) the country band Little Big Town opens at No. 4 with its new album, “The Breaker” (Capitol Nashville) and the soundtrack for “Trolls” (RCA) is in fifth place. | 0fake |
"It's Official ""Bernie Sanders Is Staying In The Race And Will Not Concede"""
| Contrary to the conventional wisdom saying that Bernie Sanders would never have been able to force a contested Democratic convention, Hillary Clinton has less than 2,383 pledged delegates. Thus, Bernie Sanders has recently confirmed his desire to continue, as stated by Time:
Bernie Sanders Vows to Continue Political Revolution in New York
But that did not stop the Vermont Senator from defiantly promising to continue the political revolution in a town hall on Thursday, giving a glimpse into his possible future role in the Democratic Party in which he campaigns for progressive candidates across the country.
Speaking with the cadence and conviction of a viable candidate in midtown Manhattan, Sanders again did not concede the nominationand did not endorse his opponent.
Heres the video of Bernies address from last week and theres also no concession; only a reassurance to millions that his campaign is alive and well.
Therefore, progressive media and pundits should refrain from their gleeful calls to end Bernies campaign. Vermonts Senator is taking his political revolution to Philadelphia and hell continue to run for the presidency.
Why would he stop?
Would you end your presidential campaign if your opponent faced on ongoing FBI criminal investigation?
Bernie Sanders, his campaign, and millions of supporters throughout the nation and world must wait until July 25th, knowing that the FBI will likely disclose its findings of Clintons email investigation before the Democratic convention. POLITICO confirmed the other day that Clintons email investigation is a criminal investigation, as stated by Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan:
Judge links Clinton aides immunity to criminal investigation
A former information technology aide to Hillary Clinton received immunity from the Justice Department in connection with a criminal investigation, a federal judge confirmed Tuesday.
Bryan Pagliano, a computer expert who worked at the State Department while Clinton was secretary of state and was also paid privately by her, was previously reported to have received immunity in connection with statements he gave to the FBI about Clintons private server set-up.
However, there had been no explicit confirmation that the investigationwhich Clinton has repeatedly referred to as a security reviewis actually a criminal probe.
The privacy interests at stake are high because the governments criminal investigation through which Mr. Pagliano received limited immunity is ongoing and confidential, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote in an order issued Tuesday.
When a U.S. District Court Judge confirms your opponent faces a criminal investigation, theres no reason to concede or leave a race for the presidency. Furthermore, Judge Sullivan clearly stated The privacy interests at stake are high because the governments criminal investigation through which Mr. Pagliano received limited immunity is ongoing and confidential.
Clintons security review days are over, especially since the White House also confirmed the criminal investigation.
But theres no chance of Clinton facing legal consequences, right?
If you know the answer to this question, then tell the world next years winner of the Super Bowl. Also, explain how Clinton circumvents repercussions from the following NBC article titled Hillary Clinton Emails Held Info Beyond Top Secret:
Emails from Hillary Clintons home server contained information classified at levels higher than previously known, including a level meant to protect some of the most sensitive U.S. intelligence, according to a document obtained by NBC News.
In a letter to lawmakers, the intelligence communitys internal watchdog says some of Clintons emails contained information classified Top Secret/Special Access Program, a secrecy designation that includes some of the most closely held U.S. intelligence matters.
Two American intelligence officials tell NBC News these are not the same two emails from Clintons server that have long been reported as containing information deemed Top Secret
While she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, Clinton conducted government business over private email. The arrangement was particularly unusual because the email system relied not on Yahoo or Google but her own server, which she kept in her home in Westchester County, N.Y.
The act of transferring Special Access Program intelligence from secure government networks onto an unsecure private server correlates directly to the Espionage Act. I explain why Clintons Special Access Program intelligence will lead to a Bernie Sanders presidency in the following YouTube segment.
Finally, nothing proves both election fraud and a Bernie Sanders presidency better than Clintons treatment of donors. As stated by CNN last week, Secretary of State Clinton put a Chicago commodities trader on an advisory board regarding nuclear strategy:
Washington (CNN) A major political donor to the Clintons and other top Democrats was selected by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to serve on a key State Department intelligence board in 2011, despite having no clear background in the area, according to emails released this week
In July 2011, Fernando was appointed to a seat on the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), a panel filled with top-level foreign policy advisers and security experts. Former Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart chairs the current panel, which includes retired generals, the former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other high-ranking national security experts
As a member of the top-level group, Fernando was granted a Top Secret security clearance and given access to highly sensitive information.
Fernando, professional State Department staff noted, seemed an awkward selection for the group and spurred concern when an ABC News reporter inquired about him in 2011
An aide, Wade Boese, replied that night that Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills had added Fernandos name to the list of appointees approved by Clinton. The true answer is that S staff (Cheryl Mills) added him. The boards membership preceded me. Raj was not on the list sent to S; he was added at their insistence, Boese wrote. S refers to Clinton, ABC News reported.
Not only did this commodities trader have no background in nuclear strategy, but hes also a Democratic super delegate.
Still believe the system didnt favor Clinton?
From private servers to advisory boards with donors and super delegates, Clintons candidacy is unique in American history. I recently challenged Nate Cohn and Harry Enten (polling experts who failed to predict the rise of Bernie or Trump) on the data pertaining to presidential candidates and FBI criminal investigations. I asked if they could crunch the numbers, and come up with some kind of analysis on whether or not Clinton will become president, based on prior candidates facing FBI criminal probes.
Something tells me that most observers have conveniently ignored the fact Bernies challenger risks serious legal consequences. One can only imagine what pundits would say about Bernie Sanders if he were in Clintons position. Therefore, Bernie has every reason to stay in the race, especially since nobody has ever become nominee alongside an FBI criminal probe.
With Bernie Sanders, theres no risk of scandal or FBI investigations. The talk of Bernie leaving the race must stop, especially since Clintons emails will dominate the media very soon. Bernie Sanders just made it official, and after the FBI discloses its findings, expect Bernie Sanders to become Democratic Nominee. The data driven analysis on candidates with ongoing FBI criminal investigations says Bernie Sanders is still the front-runner in 2016. | 0fake |
Lindsey Graham Wants Trump To Put Ted Cruz On The Supreme Court Bench | on November 11, 2016 3:30 pm ·
As if the election of Donald Trump couldn’t get even more disastrous and hypocritical, Senator Lindsey Graham just called on Trump to nominate a right-wing extremist to nation’s highest court.
All year long, Republicans have been blocking President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court because they want the next president to make the pick. And because they now have the conservative puppet president they have always wanted, they want to make sure that nominee is a conservative extremist.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham told WYFF-TV that Trump should pick Texas Senator Ted Cruz as the nominee and warned Democrats not to block him, which is hypocritical considering how Republicans have treated President Obama’s nominee and threatened to block any nominees Hillary Clinton would have made had she won the election.
“I’m here to tell my Democratic colleagues that I voted for Obama’s nominees. I expect them to give Trump’s nominees a fair shake. He won this election. He will pick a conservative. I would put Ted Cruz on that list. If they try to block this pick, they will regret it. If you don’t honor Trump’s nominee, you’re making a huge mistake.”
Democrats should stand up and give Graham a collective middle finger.
Since Antonin Scalia died in February, there has been a vacancy on the Supreme Court bench that has yet to be filled. The body wasn’t even cold yet before Republicans vowed to block any nominee President Obama picked to replace him, going so far as to even deny Garland a confirmation hearing. That’s far from the “fair shake” Graham is asking Democrats to give to a man as dangerous as Ted Cruz.
Putting Cruz on the Supreme Court would guarantee rulings against women’s rights and LGBT rights as well as putting laws like the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act in further peril. In no uncertain terms should Democrats grant Cruz a hearing, nor should they respect any of Trump’s conservative choices for the court. Republicans should have thought about “fair shakes” before taking the totally unprecedented step of being complete assholes toward the Supreme Court nominee of a sitting president who also won an election and s far more popular than Trump. Again, Senate Republicans didn’t even give Garland a hearing or a vote. They refused to do their jobs entirely out of disrespect towards President Obama. And so that’s exactly what Democrats should do to Trump. Turnabout is fair play and Republicans only have themselves to blame.
Featured Image: Ethan Miller/Getty Images Share this Article! | 1real |
Trump's eldest son testifies to Senate committee in Russia probe | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s eldest son met with the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday as part of the panel’s investigation into Russia, the 2016 U.S. election and whether his father’s election campaign colluded with Moscow. Donald Trump Jr. arrived at a Senate office building shortly after 10 a.m. Capitol police officers tried to keep journalists from witnessing his arrival, but he was spotted by reporters as he rushed to a room the committee uses for classified briefings. He testified for nine hours, a person familiar with the matter said. U.S. intelligence agencies said after Trump’s victory in the November 2016 presidential election that they had concluded Russia sought to influence the campaign to boost Trump’s chances of defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his Democratic challenger. Moscow has denied any such activity, and Trump has dismissed talk of possible collusion as a “witch hunt” led by Democrats disappointed about his victory. The Senate committee is conducting one of the main congressional investigations. Richard Burr, the panel’s chairman, told reporters on Tuesday he expected its probe to last into 2018, but likely not for many months into the new year. Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller is also investigating the matter. Trump Jr. testified to the House Intelligence Committee last week. Lawmakers are interested in talking to him about a meeting with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York at which he said he hoped to get information about the “fitness, character and qualifications” of Clinton. | 0fake |
BREAKING: CHARITY FAILED TO REVEAL 1,100 DONORS TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION | More and more dirt on these two grifters who re shockingly still denying the truth or saying nothing to defend themselves. They have pocketed most of the donations with only 15 cents of every dollar donated going to charity. And now this A charity affiliated with the Clinton Foundation failed to reveal the identities of its 1,100 donors, creating a broad exception to the foundation s promise to disclose funding sources as part of an ethics agreement with the Obama administration.The number of undisclosed contributors to the charity, the Canada-based Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, signals a larger zone of secrecy around foundation donors than was previously known.Details of the organization s fundraising were disclosed this week by a spokeswoman for the Canadian group s founder, mining magnate Frank Giustra.The Canadian group has received attention in recent days as a potential avenue for anonymous Clinton Foundation donations from foreign business executives, including some who had interests before the U.S. government while Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state.The partnership, named in part for Bill Clinton, sends much of its money to the New York-based Clinton Foundation. Two of the partnership s known donors Giustra and another mining executive, Ian Telfer are featured in the soon-to-be-released book Clinton Cash for their roles in a series of deals that resulted in Russia controlling many uranium deposits around the world and in the United States.With the foundation s finances emerging as an issue for Hillary Clinton s presidential campaign, a foundation official this week defended the arrangement with the Giustra group, noting in a blog post that Canadian law prevents charities in that country from disclosing their donors without the donors permission.The Canadian partnership has in recent days begun to reach out to its 28 largest donors, each of whom gave donations equivalent to at least $250,000 in U.S. dollars, to seek permission to release their names, said a person familiar with the foundation, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.The large number of undisclosed supporters of a Clinton-affiliated charity raises new questions about the foundation s adherence to the 2008 ethics agreement it struck with the Obama administration, which was designed to avoid conflicts of interest during Hillary Clinton s tenure at the State Department.Read more: WaPo | 1real |
U.S. agency seeks ideas for Trump's proposed border wall | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said on Friday it will accept proposals next month for the design of a wall to be built near the U.S.-Mexican frontier, a first step in picking vendors for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall. In a document on the federal government’s website for business opportunities, the CPB said it would release a request on or about March 6 asking companies for prototype ideas for a wall to be built near the U.S.-Mexican border. After reviewing the ideas submitted by vendors, the agency will evaluate and select the best designs by March 20, then issue a request for proposals by March 24 in which vendors would be asked to price out the cost of building the proposed wall. The document says multiple awards for the barrier are expected by mid-April as part of the process, an aggressive schedule for a government construction project. “It’s going to start soon. Way ahead of schedule, way ahead of schedule,” Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday. A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the solicitation published on Friday had “everything to do” with the wall that Trump has proposed. The spokesman said the initial request for information was to give industry the opportunity to tell the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, what is possible in constructing a border wall. “Once we get feedback from the vendors, we’ll look at the ones that are most feasible,” the spokesman said. That would be followed by the request for proposals to firm up exactly how much constructing the wall would cost. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security internal report seen by Reuters this month indicated the border wall would be a series of fences and walls that would cost as much as $21.6 billion to build and take more than three years to complete. The report’s estimated price tag is much higher than a $12 billion figure cited by Trump in his campaign and estimates as high as $15 billion from Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The plan laid out what it would take to seal the border in three phases of construction of fences and walls covering just over 1,250 miles (2,000 km) by the end of 2020. With 654 miles (1,046 km) of the border already fortified, the new construction would extend almost the length of the entire border. | 0fake |
FRAUD: Architect Who Was Scammed For $100k Exposes The Real Trump (VIDEO) | During Monday night s presidential debate, Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of screwing thousands of his workers out of the wages that they owe him. It was a shining moment for Clinton, that highlighted how Trump s entire fortune comes from not his business savvy, but his unending greed and eagerness to exploit anyone he can. Before saying that she is glad that Trump never did business with her father, she directly told Trump that he needed to apologize to all those he hurt, saying: Do the thousands of people that you have stiffed over the course of your business not deserve some kind of apology from someone who has taken their labor, taken the goods that they ve produced and then refused to pay them? One of those people that Trump stiffed over is an architect named Andrew Tesoro. Tesoro sat down for an interview on MSNBC Live, where he revealed how Trump did not pay him the $100,000 dollars that were owed to him for helping to a clubhouse at one of Trump s many golf courses. Tesoro was asked whether he was paid for the work he had done on the clubhouse. He responded by saying: No, he didn t. He paid partially along the way and the project snowballed over a four year period and our role in the project snowballed as well. We became very much involved in interior design and construction stage work. We made many supplemental agreements as we went along and in the end those agreements were not honored. Because Trump will do anything to distance himself from his fraudulent business practices, he recently asserted that Tesoro probably wasn t paid because of shoddy work. That comment should really be biting him in the ass now. That s because Tesoro revealed that Trump had written him a letter of recommendation in 2006. In the letter, Trump praised Tesoro for his work. Tesser s experience is not unique. It seems like every day that more people are coming out in droves and exposing the various ways that Trump has royally screwed them over.One report has been particularly damning. USA Today found that Trump has been involved in over 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades. They also found that he has left everyone from cabinetmakers to carpenters left without being paid in full, or on time. While those numbers certainly make it easier to understand how far reaching Trump s fraudulent practices are, hearing it from someone who was a victim of them makes it so much more real.You can watch Tesoro expose Trump for scam artist in his own words below. Featured image from video screenshot | 1real |
MUST WATCH: Kellyanne Conway PUNCHES BACK After Juan Williams Questioned How She Could Work And Raise 4 Kids: “I don’t play golf and I don’t have a mistress” [VIDEO] | Kellyanne Conway s response to Williams criticism is, as we ve all come to expect, very classy and absolutely perfect: | 1real |
THE FIX IS IN: Michigan Mayor Threatened By DNC For CHEERING For His Candidate At Debate [VIDEO] | Here is a screen shot of the Facebook post by Warren, MI Mayor Jim Fouts where he explains what happened to him at the Democrat Debate last night. It s interesting that the Mayor accuses the Democrat party of using totalitarian control to silence him. Where the heck has he been for the last several decades? I mean, no one forced him to be a Democrat, and certainly nothing has changed in decades if not for centuries. The Democrat party just seems to be more open about their unscrupulous behavior now, since stealing and cheating their fellow Americans seems to be more acceptable under the reign of their Community Organizer In Chief .Maybe the real reason they didn t want the Mayor at the debate is because the Democrat Mayor lauded GM valet driver, Didarul Sarder, a concealed carrier, who stopped a woman from stabbing her mother to death at the GM Tech Center last month. Fortunately Didarul Sarder was able to prevent any further stabbing by threatening the aggressor with his gun. Sarder was also able to hold her at gunpoint until the police were able to arrive. Any Democrat Mayor who celebrates a concealed carry hero is not someone who the gun-grabbing Hillary wants supporting her campaign.Here s a screen shot of the loving daughter who stabbed her mother so many times, she was clinging to life by a thread.Watch dramatic video here: The man who broke up a stabbing at the General Motors Tech Center last week was honored Thursday for stopping a crime that could have ended worse.Didarul Sarder was given a proclamation from Warren Mayor Jim Fouts and a $1,000 gift certificate to a Shelby Township jewelry store. My first reaction was to try to save this woman s life, the Warren resident said when he saw a 32-year-old woman stabbing her 52-year-old mother multiple times outside the main door of one of the buildings on the automaker s Warren campus on Van Dyke.Said Fouts: Any of us we never know when we ll need a Didarul Sarder. Without his help, I believe the woman would ve passed away. Sarder intervened, but how he did it nearly cost him his job.Legally licensed to carry a weapon, Sarder pointed his gun at the younger woman and gave a warning drop the weapon or I ll shoot and the woman complied. The problem is, Sarder s employer, Chicago-based contractor SP Plus, and General Motors, which contracts with the valet service, have a no-gun policy at the tech center.GM interceded on Sarder s behalf and SP Plus agreed he should keep his job, with the understanding he would comply with the no guns policy. He returned to work Monday.The incident happened around 9:17 a.m. last Wednesday when Sarder heard from the valets he manages that a woman was being attacked. Video shown at Thursday s event shows Sarder, 32, ran through the building s lobby, got outside and saw a woman being stabbed. He pulled his gun and ordered her attacker to stop.The aggressor is facing charges and the victim is recovering in the hospital.Fouts said if his political role model, President Harry Truman, were around, Sarder might have received a presidential proclamation, not just a mayoral one. Via: Detroit News | 1real |
Joe Biden praises Iraqi military | Washington (CNN) American officials attempted to explain on Monday the claim made over the weekend by Defense Secretary Ash Carter that Iraqi defense forces "showed no will to fight" prior to the ISIS siege of Ramadi.
The comment, made in an exclusive interview with CNN, was the harshest public criticism of the Iraqi security forces to date from the Obama administration. The United States has said local fighters, rather than U.S. forces, must lead the fight against ISIS, a strategy that has come under withering criticism as the terror group gains ground in Iraq and Syria.
The remark surprised Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who told the BBC that Carter was "fed the wrong information."
In a Monday phone call with Abadi, Vice President Joe Biden "recognized the enormous sacrifice and bravery of Iraqi forces over the past 18 months in Ramadi and elsewhere," according to a statement from the White House.
Biden, who told Abadi before Ramadi's fall that shipments of weapons were being expedited to help protect the city, explained to the prime minister on Monday the U.S. was planning to ramp up training to combat ISIS truck bombs, which were deployed in brutal fashion during the group's takeover of the Anbar capital.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials were parsing what precisely Carter meant when he told CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr that "we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves," despite outnumbering ISIS forces.
A senior administration official said Carter's remarks were in reference to the Ramadi siege specifically, which came after months of fighting and was hastened by a rash of ISIS suicide bombings, some of them at the same magnitude as the 1995 Oklahoma City blast.
"The reference to lack of will was in relation to this specific episode, which followed 18 months of fierce (Iraqi Security Forces) attrition against ISIL in Ramadi, coupled with what the Iraqi government has acknowledged were breakdowns in military command, planning, and reinforcement," the official said.
A senior defense official pointed to specific factors that may have contributed to Iraqi troops' lack of fighting will in Ramadi, including the absence of regular payments, the inability to visit family members and a general sense that commanders weren't looking after their battalions.
According to this official, the U.S. has grown increasingly concerned about a lack of leadership skills within the Iraqi ranks, seen as crucial to winning the support of troops in combat situations like the battle for Ramadi.
The White House has consistently ruled out sending American combat forces back into Iraq after the decade-long war begun by President George W. Bush. Instead, the U.S. is relying on a strategy of empowering local forces to beat back ISIS where they've made gains.
President Barack Obama, speaking to The Atlantic magazine last week, said that "if the Iraqis themselves are not willing or capable to arrive at the political accommodations necessary to govern, if they are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them."
Officials say in Anbar province, the equipping and training of Sunni tribes is a priority as Iraqi forces regroup and attempt to retake Ramadi.
"The rapid integration of the Sunni tribes into the fight alongside other Iraqi forces is essential as they will be the most invested in fighting for their areas," an administration official said.
Michele Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense who Obama considered naming to the top Pentagon post, said on CNN Sunday the administration has "under-resourced" its counter-ISIS strategy.
"We need to provide more fire power support, more intelligence surveillance," she told CNN's Jim Acosta on "State of the Union." | 0fake |
'Wiping out' extremist ideology is my mission: head of Saudi-based Muslim body | PARIS (Reuters) - The head of a Saudi-based organization that for decades was charged with spreading the strict Wahhabi school of Islam around the world has said those times were over and his focus now was aimed at annihilating extremist ideology. Former justice minister Mohammed al-Issa, appointed secretary-general of the Mecca-based Muslim World League (MWL) just over a year ago, told Reuters during a European tour that his organization would no longer sit by and let Islam be taken hostage by extremists. The push for a more moderate Islam underscores efforts by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to modernize the kingdom, which finances groups overseen by the organization, and cleave to a more open and tolerant interpretation of Islam. The ambitious young prince has already taken some steps to loosen Saudi Arabia s ultra-strict social restrictions, scaling back the role of religious morality police, permitting public concerts and announcing plans to allow women to drive next year. The past and what was said, is in the past. What happened in the past and the way in which we worked then, is not the subject of debate, Issa said in an interview late on Thursday. We must wipe out this extremist thinking through the work we do. We need to annihilate religious severity and extremism which is the entry point to terrorism. That is the mission of the Muslim World League. Saudi Arabia has used the MWL to export its strict Wahhabi version of Islam since it was set up in 1962 as a bulwark against radical secular ideologies. The missionary society controls mosques and Islamic centers around the world, which critics say promote hatred and intolerance of other sects and religions - a charge the group has denied. Issa said the MWL would be much more hands on now and aim to tackle any sign of extremism in areas where it operates, but also if it became aware of any other schools, centers or mosques where an extremist ideology was being propagated. While he declined to give specific details, a week earlier he was in Geneva where he vowed to reform the city s largest mosque after French and Swiss authorities raised concerns that it had become a hub of extremism. The mosque is supported by the MWL. Every time we spot such a message, we won t keep our arms crossed, we will do everything to annihilate this ideology, the 52-year-old said through a translator. What we are doing and want to do is purify Islam of this extremism and these wrong interpretations and give the right interpretations of Islam, he said. Only the truth can defeat that and we represent the truth. The emergence of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq with its thousands of foreign fighters has highlighted how Europe in particular has become a breeding ground for angry and fragile people to turn to radical Islam. In France alone, a string of attacks that saw hundreds of people killed since 2015 were in large part carried out by French Muslims. Issa said part of his work was to address the difficulties Muslims may have in adapting their religion to non-Muslim nations. We try to bring answers to face down these messages that change the reality of Islam. We want to offer the real interpretation of the sacred texts that have been taken hostage and interpreted in a wrong way, he said. As part of those efforts, Issa said he was also working with other faiths. After the Lebanese Maronite patriarch made a historic visit to Riyadh last week, Issa visited religious officials at Paris landmark Notre Dame Cathedral, but also Paris Grand Synagogue. We have a common objective to end hatred, he said. The Muslim World League really believes that we can accomplish that, and religions are very influential in doing that. | 0fake |
Hot on the Trail of ‘La La Land,’ Here Come More Movie Musicals - The New York Times | LOS ANGELES — Dead. Embalmed. Buried. A year ago, that is what most movie studios would have said about musicals, pointing to a long line of box office calamities: “Rock of Ages,” “Burlesque,” “Jersey Boys,” “Across the Universe,” “Nine. ” The few successes in recent decades have been adaptations of Broadway classics (“Les Misérables,” 2012) or marketed in misleading ways. When 20th Century Fox was selling Baz Luhrmann’s hit “Moulin Rouge!” in 2001, the studio was so afraid that people would stay home if they knew it was a musical that the trailer rather awkwardly tried to avoid singing at all costs. But Hollywood, excited in part by the critical and commercial success of “La La Land,” which cost Lionsgate $30 million to make and has taken in $132 million worldwide as it streaks toward the Academy Awards, is taking out its jazz hands again. There are roughly 20 musicals in the works at studios, according to the film database IMDBpro. Some are adaptations of classic animated musicals, like “Beauty and the Beast,” directed by Bill Condon and set for release by Disney in March. Others are films (among them, “Wicked”) based on contemporary Broadway hits. Moreover, several studios — for the first time since the 1990s — are devoting meaningful resources to films with original music. This year, Fox will release “The Greatest Showman,” which stars Hugh Jackman as the circus impresario P. T. Barnum it has a dozen original songs. Disney has “Bob the Musical,” about a man whose life becomes filled with song after a head injury. Universal Pictures won a bidding war for an untitled musical comedy starring Josh Gad, with original songs by the Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz. There are several reasons for renewed studio interest, said Marc Platt, a “La La Land” producer whose other projects include an original film that will star Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig and a sequel to “Mary Poppins” with a new score. “Thankfully, as much as Hollywood is interested in brands, I think people are still looking for originality and freshness,” Mr. Platt said. “Musicals can also be their own brand: They have an event status. I also think the ceiling on the audience is lifting. You’ve got a new generation of fans who have grown up with television shows like ‘Glee. ’” Mr. Platt added, “Music has a way of getting inside all of us and lifting us up. ” Put another way, there is an inherent entertainment proposition in musicals, a heightened emotional experience that people go to the movies to find. Mr. Platt, a former senior executive at Universal (and the father of Ben Platt, star of the hit stage production “Dear Evan Hansen”) has in many ways become Hollywood’s producer of movie musicals. In 2014, he shepherded Disney’s adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical “Into the Woods,” which took in $213 million worldwide. As a major force behind “Wicked” on Broadway, Mr. Platt is working with Stephen Daldry (who directed the film version of “Billy Elliot”) to bring a movie version to theaters in 2019. “Yes, still on track,” Mr. Platt said of that project. Nothing fuels a Hollywood boom (or a boomlet, as the case may be with musicals) like a track record of success. And some studio executives said that they were becoming more open to musicals because the animated variety had experienced such a renaissance. “Frozen” was a monster hit, selling $1. 3 billion in tickets worldwide. Over the past few months, three animated musicals — “Sing,” “Moana” and “Trolls” — have taken in a combined $1 billion at the global box office. Disney will release a singalong version of “Moana” (with lyrics on the screen, karaoke style) on Jan. 27. Some studios have also had recent success with including films like “Pitch Perfect” that rely on pop hits and mostly keep the singing to stage settings. Television may also be giving film executives confidence specials like “The Wiz Live!” and “Grease: Live” have reintroduced entertainment to a mass audience. Still, not everyone in Hollywood is convinced of a musical comeback. Kevin Goetz, chief executive of the film research company Screen said in an email that he had no research indicating increased demand. “I think it’s a long shot to think that animated movies with music, which have been around for years now, have a material effect in increasing the desire to see musicals,” he added. If “La La Land” is an exception to the box office rules, it is becoming quite an exception. On social media sites like Instagram and Facebook, young people — no prompting from Lionsgate, it promises — have been uploading videos of themselves singing “Audition,” one of the film’s showcase numbers. During the past week, the soundtrack has shot up the sales charts. “La La Land,” starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as aspiring performers, won a record seven Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 8, including one for Damien Chazelle’s directing and one for Justin Hurwitz’s score. Powered by that publicity pop, the film took in about $14. 5 million over the weekend (its sixth in release) in North America. The producers of “La La Land” also include Jordan Horowitz and Fred Berger. The weekend’s No. 1 film was the drama “Hidden Figures,” which collected a strong $20 million. Produced by Chernin Entertainment and Levantine Films and released by Fox, “Hidden Figures” has a domestic total after four weeks of about $54. 8 million. | 0fake |
Project Veritas 4: Robert Creamer's Illegal $20,000 Foreign Wire Transfer Caught On Tape | RedFlag News |
Zero Hedge
Project Veritas has just released Part IV of it's multi-part series exposing numerous scandals surrounding the DNC and the Clinton campaign, including efforts to incite violence at Trump rallies and, at least what seems to be, illegal coordination between the DNC, Hillary For America and various Super PACs.
Part IV focuses on a $20,000 foreign donation made by an undercover Project Veritas journalist to Americans United for Change (AUFC). Ironically, shortly after the $20k donation wire was released, the contributor's "niece" was offered an internship with Creamer's firm, Democracy Partners.
In the new video, Creamer says: “Every morning I am on a call at 10:30 that goes over the message being driven by the campaign headquarters … I am in this campaign mainly to deal with what earned media with television, radio, with earned media and social media, not with paid media, not with advertising.” He also mentions a conference call discussing a woman potentially coming forward to accuse Trump of inappropriate behavior.
Creamer, a seasoned Chicago activist who is married to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), whose Republican opponent, Joan McCarthy Lasonde has called for her to resign over her husband’s activities, also talks about his work with Barack Obama, whom he says he has known since the 1980s, when Obama was a community organizer in Chicago: “He’s a pro, I’ve known the President since he was a community organizer in Chicago.”
Elsewhere, Creamer adds: “I do a lot of work with the White House on their issues, helping to run issue campaigns that they have been involved in. I mean, for immigration reform for the… the health care bill, for trying to make America more like Britain when it comes to gun violence issues.” | 1real |
What's behind the debate over the Republican debates? | Just three debates in, the saga over the CNBC Republican showdown in Colorado last week has dashed the hopes of party bosses that the storm of controversy and recrimination over debates that clouded the 2012 campaign -- and hampered eventual nominee Mitt Romney -- could be avoided.
Last time around, candidates griped that there were too many debates -- there were 20 in all -- and that their frequency and need for preparation interrupted campaigns and elevated long-shot hopefuls who had no chance of winning the nomination in the media spotlight.
This time, especially following the CNBC debate Wednesday, candidates are complaining that the moderators are taking too much airtime, keep interrupting those on stage and are biased against conservatives. Front-runners say that those stuck in single digits in the polls shouldn't even be in the debates while the dark horses complain that being confined to second-tier events is killing their campaigns.
But while the candidates have been quick to jump on the moderators and the networks hosting them, in truth each candidate has reasons for wanting a different format that most suits his or her campaign. The result has been another round of controversy and recrimination.
Sunday's meeting of campaign operatives produced a tentative truce with a modest set of demands for changes to the format of future debates, but even that initiative split the GOP field. By Monday night, Donald Trump, John Kasich, Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina had declined to sign on.
The issue is likely to persist as long as the GOP field remains bloated, guaranteeing constant tensions as each candidate jockeys for position -- whether for more time on screen or fewer minutes in the hot seat.
Here is how the Republican White House hopefuls are playing the debate over debates for their own advantage.
What he wants: Trump has made no secret of his desire for cuts in the size of the top-tier GOP debate. He's publicly warned the likes of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul they shouldn't even be sharing a stage with him.
"There are too many people on the debate stage. It should be five. Let the other eight or nine or 10 go onto the second debate," Trump's special counsel Michael Cohen said on CNN's "New Day" on Monday. Trump, who faded during a three-hour-long debate on CNN in September, has also led calls for the events to be limited to two hours.
Why he wants it: The billionaire front-runner is a master of manipulating the media and doesn't want to share his spotlight. The more candidates he can exclude from the stage, the less competition he has to confront head on at the top.
What he wants: The former neurosurgeon has called for the GOP to abandon the current format for televised debates. He says journalist moderators ask "gotcha" questions and wants debates to be stripped from the networks and carried on YouTube or Facebook and become more of a forum-style event, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Why he wants it: Since Carson is not a professional politician, he has far less experience in the cut-and-thrust of debate than many of his competitors. His soft-spoken, laid-back style seems a better fit for less adversarial settings. And some of his answers on the details of policy have been shaky during the past two debates, giving him even more incentive to avoid such scrutiny.
What he wants: Rubio is happy to take the chance to turn tough questions or those he deems unfair into a chance to lash the "liberal" media. He's called the moderators of the CNBC debate biased and says they asked trivial questions. And he didn't wait until the showdown was over last week before castigating the media as a de facto arm of the Democratic Party.
"The Democrats have the ultimate super PAC ... called the mainstream media for every single day," Rubio said while on the debate stage.
Why he wants it: Rubio wants to have his cake and eat it, too. He's got strong political reasons to slam the media, as doing so delights conservative voters who harbor suspicions about his record, including on immigration.
But the Florida senator also wants to ensure GOP debates remain on platforms such as cable television outlets that draw huge audiences and are introducing him to a wide spectrum of voters before a possible general election campaign.
Rubio has improved his performance in each of the three Republican debates so far and his sharp political skills -- evidenced in his putdown of Jeb Bush in Colorado -- are ideally suited to such an adversarial setting.
What he wants: Jeb Bush probably cannot wait until the next Republican debate, on November 10, to try to dispel memories of his lifeless and disjointed showing in the CNBC clash. He partly blamed the moderators of the CNBC debate for his woes, telling NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that the event was "weird" and that he was stopped from answering a Rubio slapdown by moderators.
Why he wants it: Bush is fighting a narrative of decay that is beginning to envelop his campaign after his disaster in the Rockies. He must seize on any and all debate opportunities to try to ignite a comeback narrative.
What he wants: The New Jersey governor has one thing to say to those who complain that the debates are unfair: Bring it on.
"Do not count me in this group that is doing this moaning and complaining about this," Christie told CNN's "New Day" on Monday. "The presidency is almost never scripted. We shouldn't have these debates scripted either."
Why he wants it: Christie has his own comeback narrative to work on as he languishes at 1% in national polls. So any time he can get into a debate with the front-runners, he benefits -- as he did after a strong performance in the Colorado debate.
Christie is another candidate who does well when the back-and-forth heats up, so he would join a debate every week if he could. Debate appearances also allow him to exploit the "straight shooter" persona he adopted as governor of the Garden State and which he is using to try to haul himself into contention in the New Hampshire primary -- his best chance for a decent result in an early voting state.
What he wants: Thank the Texas senator for getting this ball rolling. Cruz, using the forensic debating skills honed at Harvard Law School and as one of the most talented Supreme Court litigators of his generation, lacerated the CNBC debate as it was still going on. He followed up that coup by demanding debates hosted by the high priests of the conservative talk radio scene -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin.
Why he wants it: Cruz, who is quietly building a strong challenge for the nomination, is keen to do anything he can to dominate the conservative voting bloc, which also happens to revere the trio of talk show hosts. Though his rivals appear unlikely to allow it to happen, such a spectacle would leave Cruz basking in reflected glory.
What she wants: "I'll debate anyone, any time, any place," the only woman in the GOP field tweeted Monday. Fiorina would also be keen to get key conservatives into the mix. In another tweet, she said that conservative radio host Glenn Beck should be considered.
Why she wants it: In a sense, Fiorina's campaign barely exists off the debate stage. Her fiery showing in the undercard debate on Fox in August nudged her poll numbers up sufficiently to get her into the top-tier debate CNN hosted in September.
But away from the debate stage, Fiorina has struggled to keep in the public eye, and her hopes of a future in Republican politics rely on as much exposure as possible.
What he wants: The Ohio governor is another candidate who wants more debates and is seeking the moral high ground by being happy to take any question that comes up. He told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" Sunday that he is "the governor of the seventh-largest state in America, and I have had so many questions thrown at me over the course of my time."
Why he wants it: Kasich is billing himself as the kind of candidate the Republicans need, someone who can win his own crucial general election swing state and others like it. So parrying hostile questions from moderators that other candidates consider biased and reaching out to the vast cable television audience watching the debates makes strategic sense.
What he wants: Trust the libertarian Republican to have an idea far from the mainstream. The Kentucky senator and veteran filibusterer joked that he'd back a 13-hour debate and give each candidate an hour to talk. He says having no moderator at all would be worth looking at and hit out at "gotcha" questions.
Why he wants it: At this point, with his campaign falling well short of expectations, the more time before a national audience Paul can get, the better.
What he wants: Mike Huckabee, the former cable news pundit and Arkansas governor, said on Fox News after Wednesday's debate that changes that were needed in the debate format because running for president was a serious business and candidates shouldn't be part of a TV station's effort to drive up ratings.
Why he wants it: Huckabee's campaign has barely made a ripple this time around, after he won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 on the way to coming second in the GOP delegate count. So any publicity is good publicity and Huckabee's brand of folksy humor is tailor-made for the debate stage.
What they want: Each man, stuck in the purgatory of undercard debates, wants a chance to hit prime time. South Carolina Sen. Graham, for instance, wants two GOP debates of seven candidates each.
"We have too many people on one stage and too few on the other," Graham told CNN on Monday.
Former New York Gov. Pataki believes that if Americans only get to see him, they will view him as a potential commander in chief. As many Americans as possible must be exposed to the candidates, he said, as it's "the best way to pick a president."
Why they want it: Survival. | 0fake |
Hecklers disrupt Trump rally, photographer shoved to the ground | WASHINGTON - A Donald Trump rally in Virginia was repeatedly disrupted on Monday by protesters, including some from the Black Lives Matter movement, in a stark display of the divisions the Republican front-runner’s presidential campaign has long been accused of sowing. A Time magazine photographer trying to document the exit of dozens of black protesters from the rally in southwestern Radford, Virginia, was grabbed by the neck and shoved to the ground by a U.S. Secret Service agent. Hecklers disrupted the rally on a day when the New York billionaire fended off criticism that he had not clearly condemned white supremacist support during an interview on CNN on Sunday. Trump taunted the protesters, shouting “Are you from Mexico?” at one of them. Supporters in the audience confronted the hecklers in angry, face-to-face exchanges. As black protesters were escorted from the rally, the crowd around them began to chant, “All lives matter.” Trump waited for the scene to quiet down before saying, “Folks, you’re going to hear it once: All lives matter.” The crowd roared with applause. Black Lives Matter is a civil rights movement that sprang from police shootings of black Americans in recent years. The Trump rally took place on the eve of Super Tuesday, the biggest voting day in the race to pick the 2016 presidential nominees for the November election. A number of Southern states including Virginia are holding contests on Tuesday, and opinion polls show Trump is likely to consolidate his status as favorite to win the Republican nomination. It was unclear whether Trump would be damaged by support from white supremacists. He has risen in opinion polls and won three of four early nominating contests while proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, calling Mexican immigrants criminals and insulting women. His rivals for the Republican nomination, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, urged him to ask the New York Times to release a recording of his recent interview with its editorial board, following a report he told it he was not serious about his immigration proposals. On Monday, the protesters disrupted Trump’s remarks several times for long stretches, prompting him to shout to security guards several times, “Get them out please, get them out.” Trump appeared to relish the discord, saying after the turmoil in the crowd that his rallies were more exciting than those of the other candidates: “But it is fun, and exciting.” At a rally last week in Nevada, Trump also jumped into the fray with a protester when he said, “I’d like to punch him in the face.” Time photographer Chris Morris was on the fringe of an enclosed media section when he was seized by an agent from the Secret Service, which has the job of protecting the U.S. president and some White House candidates. “I stepped 18 inches out of the (press) pen and then he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me and then he slammed me to the ground,” Morris told CNN at the scene. The Trump campaign said it was not aware of the details of the incident and directed inquires to local law enforcement. Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback said the agency was aware of the incident involving one of its employees but it still working to “determine the exact circumstances that led up to this incident.” Earlier on Monday, Trump’s rivals criticized him for equivocating on white supremacist support when he was asked repeatedly on CNN if he would condemn the Klan and disavow support from white supremacists, including David Duke, a former Klan grand wizard from Louisiana. Trump said that he had been hampered by a faulty earpiece during the CNN interview. Duke on Monday denied that he had endorsed Trump. But he said he planned to vote for him and had advised his friends to do so too because of the candidate’s views on immigration and world peace. Duke told Fox News Radio he disapproved of Trump’s “lip service” in support of Israel, but “I told my people to vote for him in the election” for strategic reasons. He said he had not been part of the Ku Klux Klan for nearly 40 years. On the Democratic side, front-runner Hillary Clinton alluded to the country’s divisions on Monday after a landslide victory on Saturday in South Carolina’s primary shifted her attention from party rival Bernie Sanders to the candidate she may end up facing in November. “I don’t think America ever stopped being great,” she told supporters in Massachusetts, adding a twist to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. “What we need to do now is make America whole.” (Additional reporting by Amanda Becker, Susan Heavey, Megan Cassella and Eric Walsh; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 0fake |
Paul LePage, the Governor of Maine, Now Says He’s Not Quitting - The New York Times | AUGUSTA, Me. — Paul R. LePage, the embattled Republican governor of Maine, declared on Wednesday that he would not step down despite widespread criticism over a profane threat and generalizations about drugs and race that had prompted him to hint on Tuesday that he might abort his second term. “I will not resign,” said Mr. LePage, who tried to put to rest swirling questions about his state of mind. “I’m not an alcoholic, and I’m not a drug addict, and I don’t have mental issues,” he said. “What I have is a backbone. ” Mr. LePage nevertheless said he was seeking “spiritual guidance,” had apologized for his threat, and vowed to make one change to his behavior: “I will no longer speak to the press ever again after today,” he said. Behind the scenes, state lawmakers — Democrats and Senate Republicans — exasperated after six years of political controversies and what they saw as erratic behavior, were scrambling to figure out what, if anything, they could do to formally address this latest crisis. The controversy, which has galvanized the state, started last Wednesday when Mr. LePage made sweeping statements linking minorities to the state’s drug crisis. As criticism against him swelled, Mr. LePage came to believe that a Democratic lawmaker had called him a racist. The governor then left him an voicemail message, which he followed up by threatening to shoot the lawmaker between the eyes. In the ensuing days, Mr. LePage also reiterated his insistence that blacks and Hispanics were the vast majority of those arrested for dealing heroin in Maine. Both Democrats and Republicans have denounced the remarks, as many legislators called for a special session to at least rebuke the governor over his latest tirade. The state’s four legislative caucuses have said that they believe all four would have to agree for a special session to be scheduled. But on Tuesday, Mr. LePage’s Republican allies in the House, including the minority leader, Kenneth Fredette, announced that they would oppose those efforts — essentially shielding him from any official political consequence. That decision did not sit well with some other state Republicans, and on Wednesday morning, the spotlight shifted to them as the president of the Senate, whose members govern larger and more competitive districts, made a public break with his colleagues in the House. “With all due respect, I completely disagree with Representative Fredette’s position,” the Republican leader, Michael Thibodeau, said in a statement. “The Republican senate caucus has clearly stated that we need an acceptable plan for corrective action before the determination of whether the Legislature should convene is made. ” Mr. Thibodeau said many Senate Republicans were still deciding whether or not Mr. LePage’s apology and promise to seek “spiritual guidance” had allayed their concerns about the governor — a process that could deepen their divide with Republicans in the House and pull the controversy into a second week. “There should be consequences for our actions,” Mr. Thibodeau said, “and I think that’s why we’re really struggling. ” There is no precedent for such a situation here — a fact that has sent lawmakers like Senator Roger Katz, a Republican who has been critical of Mr. LePage, back to reading their state Constitutions on Wednesday to figure out what, if anything, they could do now to convene a special session. Mr. Katz, a lawyer, suggested it may require only a simple majority of the House and senate, which could reduce the House Republicans’ ability to block such a move, although he added there could be other hurdles to an agreement. “It’s never been done before, so we’re in a little bit of uncharted waters,” said Mr. Katz, who said he wanted Mr. LePage to get “a competent evaluation and follow the recommendations of the evaluator. ” Democrats have continued to call for Mr. LePage’s ouster, and on Wednesday said they were scheduling meetings with Republican leadership to discuss how to proceed. “Coming back in for a special session will be discussed and all options around the governor’s political future are on the table,” said the Democratic leader of the Senate, Justin Alfond. Mr. LePage’s six years in office here, which began as part of the Tea Party sweep in 2010, have been marked by controversy. Even as he fueled outrage among Democrats and angst among many moderate Republicans, his well of support, fed by voters drawn to his unfiltered political style, never seemed to run dry. By all indications, Mr. LePage seemed determined to again ride out the political storm. “I want to put this behind us,” Mr. LePage said, during a meeting with a select group of reporters in his office on Wednesday morning, adding, “I will never talk about it again. ” Mr. LePage spoke shortly after he met with — and apologized to — Representative Drew Gattine, the state Democratic lawmaker who had been the recipient of the angry voice mail. And in meeting with reporters, Mr. LePage spoke emotionally about Maine’s heroin crisis. But he but did not apologize for statements he made last week that linked trafficking in the drug to blacks and Hispanics. “I didn’t use racially charged language,” Mr. LePage claimed, although he also said, “Let’s leave ethnicity out of it. ” | 0fake |
Cuba could stop 'attacks' against Americans: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump s chief of staff said on Thursday that Washington believes Havana could put a halt to the mysterious incidents that have sickened nearly two dozen American diplomats and some tourists in Cuba. We believe that the Cuban government could stop the attacks on our diplomats, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told reporters when asked about the situation at a White House briefing. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said later she thought Kelly was referring to the fact that the Vienna Conventions dealing with diplomatic relations between countries require the host nation to provide for the safety and security of diplomatic personnel. Nauert told a briefing at the State Department that the investigation into the attacks was still under way and the department did not know who or what is responsible for it. She also suggested the United States believes Cuba might know more than it has divulged about the incidents. In a small country like Cuba where the government is going to know a lot of things that take place within its borders, they may have more information than we are aware of right now, she said. The Trump administration last week expelled 15 Cuban diplomats to protest Havana s failure to protect staff at the U.S. embassy in the communist country. Washington also has recalled more than half its diplomatic personnel from Cuba. At least 22 U.S. diplomatic personnel have reported having health issues after being subjected to the apparent attacks. They have suffered hearing loss, dizziness, fatigue, cognitive problems and other health issues. The Associated Press obtained what it said on Thursday was an audio recording of the sound that Americans heard during the incidents in Cuba. The audio was of a high-pitched, electronic squeaking noise. | 0fake |
Moscow denies Russian involvement in U.S. DNC hacking | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday denied involvement in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee database that U.S. sources said gained access to all opposition research on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. “I completely rule out a possibility that the (Russian) government or the government bodies have been involved in this,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman told Reuters in Moscow. | 0fake |
Arizona Rancher Protesting in Oregon is Targeted by CPS, Loses Custody of Foster Children | RTOne of the most visible members of the armed militia that took over a wildlife refuge in Oregon says his four foster sons were taken away due to his involvement in the standoff, and he blames the federal government who must have gotten to the governor. Robert LaVoy Finicum and his wife Jeanette have fostered more than 50 boys over the last decade at their ranch near Chino Valley, Arizona. The couple is licensed and has a care contract with the Catholic Charities Community Services. Many of the children came from mental hospitals, drug rehabs and group homes for emotionally distressed youth, he told Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB). IMAGE: Robert LaVoy Finicum. My ranch has been a great tool for these boys, Finicum said. It has done a lot of good. He traveled to Oregon to take part in the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge at the beginning of January, leaving Jeanette to care for the four boys. But now the Finicums have no more fosters to care for.A social worker began removing the last four of the family s foster kids on January 4, the fourth day of the Oregon standoff. The last left five days later, he said. They didn t go out at the same time, Finicum said. One was there for a year, one of the boys was there six months, another eight months, and a month. I don t know where they ended up. He blamed the kids removals on pressure from the feds. They were ripped from my wife, Finicum said. We are very successful [foster parents]. Our track records are good, it s been a good relationship. [Federal authorities] must have gotten to the governor, who told the state to get them out of there. Continue this story at RTREAD MORE HAMMOND RANCH NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Hammond Ranch Files | 1real |
Did UPS Secretly Fly “Refugees” Into U.S. From The Middle East? WATCH Governor Chris Christie’s Shocking Interview With Bill O’Reilly | So far, this video has over 530,000 views. Does that make the content legitimate? Certainly not. But the premise is certainly not that far-fetched, considering our government has been bringing mostly Muslim refugees to America for over 35 years through the very secretive US State Department Refugee Resettlement Program.A large number of refugees that have been strategically placed throughout the U.S. are Muslims. So why are Catholic and Lutheran charities the #1 and #2 largest benefactors of our taxpayer dollars when it comes to delivering Muslims from countries who hate us?I placed a call to our local Catholic charity office where the director assured me over the phone that they aren t selective about who comes here. I told her, that as a Catholic, I was more concerned about helping the Christians who are being left behind to be slaughtered by Muslims than bringing Muslims to America. She assured me there really is no difference. I asked her what the rate of conversion is once they bring tens of thousands of Muslims to our local area in Michigan? Silence.Bill O Reilly seems genuinely shocked to find out that our very own State Department has been quietly dumping off refugees in New Jersey with no approval from the state or its citizens.Watch here:Of the approximately 2,000 Syrian refugees who have come to the United States over the past several years, an estimated 97 percent are Muslim.In FY 2015, the State Department, through the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, spent more than $1 billion on these programs, which settled international refugees vetted by the United Nations High Commission on International Refugees in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The federal government spent hundreds of millions of dollars more than that on refugees, however. The Department of Health and Human Services also provided a number of entitlements to these refugees.Much of this $1 billion in annual revenue goes to voluntary agencies (VOLAGs), several of which are Christian non-profits, such as Catholic Charities, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, World Relief Corporation, Church World Service, and Domestic and Foreign Missionary Service of the Episcopal Church of the USA. (also referred to as Episcopal Migration Ministries), who are contracted on behalf of the government to help these refugees get settled in their new homes in America.Five of the top nine VOLAGs are Christian non-profits. The other four are Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Rescue Committee, US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and the Ethiopian Community Development Council.After providing three to four months of resettlement services to these refugees, having been well compensated for their assistance services, these Christian non-profit VOLAGS stop providing services and are not required to keep track of the refugees location within the United States.As Ann Corcoran wrote recently at Refugee Resettlement Watch, the arrangement benefits the VOLAGs but provides little comfort to Americans worried about the national security implications of bringing in so many unvetted refugees:Refugee resettlement is profitable to the organizations involved in it. They receive money from the federal government for each refugee they bring over. They have almost no real responsibilities for these refugees. After 4 months the sponsoring organization is not even required to know where the refugee lives.A good percentage of the revenues of these Christian non-profit organizations, many of which were originally established to provide charitable services to the poor already within local American communities, now comes from their work as subcontractors to the federal government to relocate these foreign, often Muslim, refugees.In effect, critics argue, these VOLAGS have become agents of the federal government whose new mission is to import terrorism to the United States under the false flag of Christian compassion.As Refugee Resettlement Watch reported, there are multiple ways for these VOLAGs to generate revenue from this program:a. $1,850 per refugee (including children) from the State Department.b. Up to $2,200 for each refugee by participating in a U.S. DHHS program known as Matching Grant. To get the $2,200, the Volag need only show it spent $200 and gave away $800 worth of donated clothes, furniture, or cars.c. The Volag pockets 25 percent of every transportation loan it collects from refugees it sponsors .d. All Volag expenses and overhead in the Washington, DC HQ are paid by the U.S. government.e. For their refugee programs, Volags collect money from all federal grant programs Marriage Initiative, Faith-based, Ownership Society etc., as well as from various state and local grants.The program is so lucrative that in some towns the Catholic Church has lessened support for traditional charity works to put more effort into resettlement. It uses collection offerings to promote the refugee resettlement program.Despite claims that these Muslim refugees have been vetted to keep out terrorists, numerous reports, including those by the Department of Homeland Security and FBI, indicate that this process is flawed, especially for refugees from countries like Syria, where virtually no data bases to perform background checks exist.Of the approximately 2,000 Syrian refugees who have come to the United States over the past several years, an estimated 97 percent are Muslim.President Obama wants to bring in an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States in FY 2016 (which ends September 30, 2016). At least 26 governors and the vast majority of Americans oppose this plan on national security grounds, but the President is doubling down. | 1real |
Senator Warren calls on Fed to remove Wells Fargo board members | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren called on Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to remove members of Wells Fargo & Co’s board after revelations the company improperly charged customers for auto insurance. In a letter sent Friday to Yellen, Warren, a Democrat, said the recent revelation of more improper charges at the bank indicates “deep risk management problems,” and called for the removal of all board members who served from 2011 to 2015, when the activity reportedly occurred. The New York Times reported Friday that more than 800,000 Wells Fargo customers were charged for auto insurance they did not request. | 0fake |
Obama To Give “Goodies” To His Latest Favorite Group…Criminals | Earlier today, White House Correspondent Mark Knoller was Tweeting out the info from Obama s announcement about goodies for criminals and I just couldn t believe it. I know, I know it s really not hard to believe for some but this is such a blatant slap at the rule of law and to the law abiding American taxpayers it really is shocking: Obama plans several things via executive order that will benefit criminals. One executive order installs a program called ban the box where government agencies can t ask about criminal history when hiring. The second thing Obama s doing for inmates is to give them education grants and housing assistance .WTH! Ever in search of benefits to hand leftist constituencies, Democrats have decided to give goodies to their most natural constituency of all: criminals. According to the Associated Press, President Obama will announce executive orders Monday attempting to prevent screening for prior criminality in government hiring. The so-called ban the box program would prevent government agencies from asking about criminal history until later in the interview process. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Vermont Senator Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (D-Loonbag), and former Maryland Governor Martin O Malley have all joined Obama in calling for banning the box meaning the check box for criminal conviction. Obama also wants to prevent public housing from hindering the ability for convicted criminals to gain access to subsidies. So, in short, we all get to hire unhireable employees with criminal backgrounds, and subsidize those who wouldn t be able to find housing because they have committed crimes. All of this merely represents the latest in a string of attempts by Democrats to reach out to those at odds with law enforcement. Last summer, Obama visited a federal prison, where he told prisoners that as a former user of both marijuana and cocaine, he could have ended up in prison, too. These are young people who made mistakes that aren t that different from mistakes I made, Obama said. The difference is they did not have the support structure, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive these mistakes. Actually, the difference is that Obama didn t get caught, tried, and convicted. And while Obama finds pandering to convicted criminals cute, those who live in the neighborhoods such drug dealers destroy might find it less endearing. Meanwhile, just days ago, Hillary Clinton said she would sign a law that would ban racial profiling. She did not explain how the legal standard of racial profiling would be proved, thus placing every arrest of a person of color at risk of potential legal liability. She also said she would use executive action to destroy sentencing differentials between crack and powder cocaine, despite the fact that crack cocaine and powder cocaine use differs widely, and that black legislators originally sought the sentencing differential to rid drug-ravaged inner cities of the crack scourge. The same day, Clinton demonstrating her own belief that crime and ethnicity are inherently tied launched African Americans for Hillary at Clark Atlanta University after lunching with vicious Jesse Jackson. We have to create those channels of opportunity so that we go from childhood to adulthood pursuing your dreams, instead of cradle to prison and seeing them die, she intoned. This weekend, Obama echoed that message. I believe we can disrupt the pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails, he said in his weekly address. I believe we can address the disparities in the application of criminal justice, from arrest rates to sentencing to incarceration. Obama did not explain how school funding leads people to become criminals, because there is no information suggesting that it does. Nor did he present statistics showing systemic bias against people of color in the criminal justice system as opposed to white people with the same criminal histories and same crimes. And he certainly didn t discuss the Welfare-driven collapse of the black family, which has contributed to criminality in the black community more than any other single factor. No, he pandered, just as he has over and over again with regard to anti-police militancy. Obama s pattern is simple: the police are always wrong at first glance, and even if they re not wrong based on the eventually revealed fact pattern, their innocence is an outlier. After all, Obama is fond of saying, black Americans aren t making up issues with law enforcement. Read more: Breitbart | 1real |
GOP Explodes As Mitch McConnell Directly Blames Trump For Republican Failures (DETAILS) | Donald Trump has absolutely ravaged the reputation of the Republican Party, and conservatives know it. Their failure to repeal and replace Obamacare was a multi-failure disaster that made the GOP the laughingstock of politics, with Trump championing the train wreck. Now, Republicans are desperate to save the last remaining strands of dignity the party might have, and some are throwing Trump under the bus.CNN has just reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is blaming Trump for giving the Republican Party a horrible reputation and making them look incompetent and incapable of governing. In a whiny rant in which he complained that Trump is making him look bad, McConnell said: Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before. I think he had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process. More specifically, McConnell insisted that the GOP is working just fine. In the same breath, he pointed the finger at Trump s tendency to give the GOP artificial deadlines for legislature. Part of the reason I think people think we re under-performing is because of too many artificial deadlines unrelated to the reality of the legislature which may have not been understood. It s not surprising that McConnell is going after Trump now he s become increasingly frustrated with Trump s failure to understand how to run a country or how the government actually works. While Trump is certainly to blame for being a total imbecile and having ridiculously unrealistic expectations of what he can actually get done, McConnell s leadership in the Senate has been highly flawed.Of course, McConnell and Trump are not going to take any responsibility for their part and will just keep blaming each other as the GOP continues to crash and burn. We re currently witnessing the ugly breakdown of the Republican Party, and it s a shame that Trump is making sure the rest of America goes down with it.Read more:Featured image via Alex Wong and Scott Olson / Getty Images | 1real |
CREEPY: You’ll Never Believe The Deranged Thing This Trump Fan Does With His Cardboard Donald Daily (VIDEO) | You know how many Trump fans seem to have a sick obsession with their orange-tinged fuhrer? We may have possibly found the one who is basically the ultimate Donald Trump fanboy, in a 1940 s Germany sort of way.Meet Gene Huber. Trump pulled Huber up on stage at his first campaign rally in Melbourne, Florida which, once again, happened about a month into his presidency to address the crowd.Huber is already being compared to George W. Bush s living prop Joe The Plumber, who went on to run a functional white supremacist blog after his 15 minutes of fame faded.But who is Huber? His social media reveals that he is a typical Trump supporter in many ways (and in one hopefully not-so-typical way) right down to Trump nibbling on his ear lobe wait, what?One creepy tweet from Huber claims that Trump kissed his ear lob [sic] in 1970:@WDFx2EU7 @P0TUSTrump Let's see, liar, Thief, racist, corrupt, making fun of Americans! In 1970 Trump kissed my ear lob! #MAGA #TrumpTrain Gene Huber (@Squeakey6) October 16, 2016He also wants to lock her up @pgpfoundation Yes, Mrs. Clinton I would love to know yr plan, if I may Mrs.Clinton, my plan I see, you sitting in jail!#MAGA3X #MAGA3X #US Gene Huber (@Squeakey6) October 22, 2016@wpjenna Another brainwashed liberal! So sad, she has 2 investigations on her! I tell you what is true,Crooked Hillary going to jail! #MAGA Gene Huber (@Squeakey6) November 3, 2016@JenniferJJacobs who gives a shit, still hearing this crap! Crooked Hillary is a Criminal, Trump is not! Lock her Up! #TrumpTrain #Trump Gene Huber (@Squeakey6) October 22, 2016This is how I feel,Crooked Hillary belongs in jail, We the People will do this. Keep the message strong, it's working! #MAGA #MAGA3X #Trump pic.twitter.com/mmh9W2mcCn Gene Huber (@Squeakey6) October 22, 2016 so she can make his license plate in prison:@ronbucme Thanks Crooked Ronnie, great info.That bitch is gonna make my license plate, and eat 3 meals a day sucker! @MyTake1234 #Trump2016 Gene Huber (@Squeakey6) October 22, 2016He thinks Barack Obama is a Muslim:@modestypictures @thebestcloser What's Questionable, are you living on Fantasy island. He has done more then your Muslim president! #MAGA Gene Huber (@Squeakey6) January 18, 2017@CNN @megynkelly he is a Muslim been hearing this crap for a year and a half and Megan I'm sure we will hear it tonite Disgrace #TrumpTrain Gene Huber (@Squeakey6) October 14, 2016According to Facebook, he has visited Trump s properties (and the White House) a lot recently:It is unclear if he met with Trump during any of these visits, but he does say that Fearless Leader called him on Valentine s Day:But what truly makes him special is this totally not creepy thing he does with a cardboard cutout of The Donald. In an interview with CNN shortly after Trump christened him a star, Huber explained:He also talks to it regularly and prays either for it or to it, depending on how one interprets this:He wasn t lying, either. He has a cutout of Trump:The Best Vistor I could ever have!President Trump came to Florida to see me! Wow, never will forget [email protected] @thebestcloser pic.twitter.com/galTF85biz Gene Huber (@Squeakey6) January 9, 2017Let s face it when you confess to talking to your cardboard Donald Trump and saluting it every day, you re kinda asking for the sort of response you get on social media:@Squeakey6 @thebestcloser Talking to a cardboard cut out everyday? You are nuts. Hopelessly Chaotic (@chaos_4ever) February 19, 2017@Squeakey6 @thebestcloser .. I'm speechless. Seriously. #Independent J. Canfield (@CreativeBoulder) February 19, 2017I bet if someone shined a blacklight on that cardboard Trump it would light up like the 4th of July with #GeneHuber "samples" (@Cvinciguerra1) February 19, 2017I wish the cardboard cutout of #donaldtrump that #GeneHuber salutes every morning was president instead. I'd feel much safer #TrumpRally pic.twitter.com/vsl0USJd4o dj (@dljones66) February 19, 2017@Squeakey6 Gene Huber's cardboard Dictator salutes back after he does "this & that." #TrumpRally #Melbourne #DemocracyOverFascism#NoToWWIII pic.twitter.com/ptCdrjXOHq #TheResistance ? (@ISayNoToFascism) February 19, 2017@sidnknj @Gallaecian Here is his cardboard trump pic.twitter.com/H4DHIb6LPg NORTH (@Mikeyabcdefg) February 19, 2017Find you a man that loves you as much as Gene Huber loves his 6 foot tall cardboard cutout of Donald Trump except not fuckin creepy as hell. Emma Sch tzkowski (@emmaschuetz) February 19, 2017Gene Huber's cardboard cutout of Donald Trump is more diplomatic, presidental, and legitimate of a leader than Donald Trump is. Matthew Cooper (@ILoveMorrigan) February 19, 2017I shudder to think what other things #GeneHuber does to his cardboard Trump ROH (@RealOldHouswife) February 19, 2017Gene Huber salutes a 6 ft. cardboard Donald Trump in his living room every day. Mmkay. #TrumpRally Micha (@mighty_mite14) February 19, 2017Watch Huber make the creepiest admission ever below: As an added bonus, here s him doing whatever this is:(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));I Swear Back in the Eighties, I was Called Vince Neil walking down the Halls in School!!!!Posted by Gene Huber on Thursday, February 16, 2017Featured image via Twitter | 1real |
Bus bomb kills eight in Syria's Homs city: state media | BEIRUT (Reuters) - A bomb blast killed eight people and injured 16 others on a bus in Syria s Homs on Tuesday, state media said, citing the city s health authority. Islamic State claimed the attack, saying the blast killed 11 members of the Syrian army, its official news agency AMAQ said. Many of the passengers were university students, Homs Governor Talal Barazi told state-run Ikhbariya TV. The blast in the government-held city hit the Akrama district, near al-Baath University. Footage showed people crowding around the burned shell of a vehicle in the middle of a street. State television said a bomb that terrorists planted in a passenger bus exploded . Islamic State militants had claimed responsibility for a similar attack in Homs in May, when a car bomb killed four people and injured 32 others. A string of bombings have struck cities under government control in Syria this year, including the capital Damascus. The Tahrir al-Sham alliance led by fighters formerly linked to al-Qaeda has also claimed some of the deadly attacks. Security agencies are constantly chasing sleeper cells, the Homs police chief said on Ikhbariya. Today, it could be a sleeper cell or it could be an infiltration. Barazi, the governor, said the state s enemies were trying to target stability as the stage of victory drew near. The city of Homs returned to full government control in May for the first time since the onset of Syria s conflict more than six years ago. With the help of Russian jets and Iran-backed militias, the Damascus government has pushed back rebel factions in western Syria, shoring up its rule over the main urban centers. The army and allied forces then marched eastwards against Islamic State militants this year. The United States has voiced concern about Syrian and Russian attacks. The U.S. State Department on Tuesday strongly condemned attacks this week on eastern Ghouta believed to have been carried out by Syrian and Russian jets. The jets struck crowded residential areas in the besieged rebel enclave near Damascus on Sunday, killing at least 27 people, aid workers and a war monitor said. Deliberate tactics to starve Syrian civilians, including women and children, block humanitarian and medical aid, bomb hospitals, medical personnel and first responders in eastern Ghouta, we consider that to be deeply troubling, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. She urged Russia to live up to its obligations to uphold the de-escalation zone in eastern Ghouta. | 0fake |
Obama, Pressing Senators, Delays Veto of Bill Exposing Saudis to 9/11 Suits - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — President Obama is delaying a planned veto of a bill that would allow the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for any role in the plot, hoping to tap into an unusual well of buyer’s remorse among senators who passed the measure unanimously in the spring. The measure sailed through the House last week after a surprise vote, raising the prospect of the first veto showdown between Mr. Obama and a bipartisan coalition in Congress. But an intense lobbying campaign by the White House and Saudi Arabia, among others, has cast doubt on what had appeared to be an inevitable override of the president’s veto. Officials have refused to say when Mr. Obama would veto the bill, and he has until next Friday to do so. His advisers are considering whether he should wait until then, after Congress is expected to recess on Thursday for the November elections, which could give him weeks to persuade lawmakers to drop their support for the measure before they return and consider the veto override. Already, cracks are showing, even among Republicans who generally would love to exercise the first veto override against Mr. Obama. “I have tremendous empathy for the victims,” said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, who, like the rest of his colleagues, agreed to the measure in May. “But at the same time, I have concerns about the precedent it would set,” fearing, as many lawmakers now do, that Americans could be sued by other nations in retaliation, or by the families of innocent people killed in drone attacks. The trepidation about overriding a presidential veto is shared by Republicans and Democrats alike. Many lawmakers apparently had believed that the House would never pass the bill, as it hastily did after the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, encountered families of the Sept. 11 victims at a on Long Island. “I’m going to have to give very careful consideration to the president’s explanation for his veto,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware. “This is a delicate balancing act. ” If Mr. Obama cannot persuade lawmakers, his aides acknowledge, proponents of the bill could muster the of the House and Senate necessary to override a veto. “You don’t have to have an advanced degree in math to understand the significant support that exists in the United States Congress for this bill,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday. “But the concerns that we have about this legislation are significant, and there are many members of Congress who are sympathetic to the argument. ” Mr. Obama argues that the legislation, whose passage has demonstrated the lasting clout of the Sept. 11 families, could open the United States to a barrage of lawsuits from private citizens overseas. It would amend a 1976 law that grants other countries broad immunity from American lawsuits, allowing nations to be sued in federal courts if they are found to have played any role in terrorist attacks that killed Americans on United States soil. The passage of the bill last week in the House left opponents scrambling, and it set off a week of lobbying by Saudi officials and firms that Riyadh has hired to advance its interests in Washington. On Thursday, the Saudi foreign minister, Adel spoke with Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, to reiterate Saudi concerns about the bill and warn of its potential consequences. “They made it very clear to us that this is a hostile act,” Mr. Graham said. “This is an odd situation. The families are high on everyone’s list to be taken care of. But it comes at a time when Saudi Arabia believes America is not a reliable ally. ” Earlier this year, Mr. Jubeir told lawmakers that the Saudis might be forced to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of assets inside the United States if the bill became law — a defensive measure to ensure that they are not exposed in civil litigation. Mr. Jubeir is in the United States for the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Two lobbying and public relations firms under contract with the Saudi government, Qorvis MSLGroup and Podesta Group, circulated this week a compilation of recent statements by foreign officials warning that passing the legislation could set off a wave of retaliatory measures by other counties. But the families have also been a force for policy makers to reckon with since the weeks right after the attacks, and lawmakers had no interest in getting into a public brawl with them a few months before an election. “The families have been an immensely powerful voice and face in this tragedy,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who is pressing members to override the impending veto. In a statement Thursday night, several family members said senators, including Mr. Corker and Mr. Graham, were forsaking them by working to postpone the override vote until after the elections. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” the statement said. “Who knows what if anything Congress will be doing in two months?” The White House is eager to push the veto override into the lame duck session in November both so it has more time to lobby members of Congress, and because several Republican senators who are up for may feel pressure to override the bill now but would be less inclined to once their race is behind them. | 0fake |
In HISTORY MAKING Kiss Cam Moment, Gay Couple Featured At NHL Game (VIDEO) | During nearly every sporting event, at one point in the game, the cameras are taken off the game to scan the crowd for loving couples to smooch each other on the infamous Kiss Cam. Almost always, or let s just say it like it is, these cameras seem to always find straight couples. However, last year, a beautiful couple got caught on the Kiss Cam at Dodger stadium, and it looks as though another beautiful couple got their moment recently during a hockey game.In what is being reported as the first same-sex Kiss Cam moment in NHL history, Brad Parr and Andy Evans, while attending a Los Angeles Kings game at the Staples Center, were featured. The kiss drew huge cheers from the crowd.Parr told Outsports: It was a particularly sweet night since the Kings were playing and beat my hometown Toronto. My parents and siblings live in LA but the rest of my family think I am a terrible traitor for being a Kings fan; I ve lived in LA for 17 years. Not only did these fantastic men get to smooch in front of thousands of fellow King s fans, but they are also triathletes raising money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society s Team in Training.This beautiful moment in history is wonderful and shows the progress we ve made as a nation, but it also highlights that in 2016, we re just now getting around to acknowledging that gay couples, male and female, do in fact attend sporting events.Congrats to the beautiful couple, and if you d like to donate to help their cause, go HERE.You can see the full video HERE, but here s a highlight of just the pair in their moment in history: Progress! Hear the cheers for the first gay kiss on Kiss Cam. A first in NHL history. LA Kings vs Maple Leafs Game. pic.twitter.com/ngEJnqqqif My Daughter s Army (@mydaughtersarmy) January 9, 2016 Video/Featured image: Twitter | 1real |
Comey Investigation a Red Herring to Cover Up Wikileaks Dump | Comey Investigation a Red Herring to Cover Up Wikileaks Dump 11/01/2016 In today’s video, Christopher Greene of AMTV explains why the Comey Investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails is a Red Herring to Cover Up Wikileaks Data Dump. 10/10/2016 Citizen Quasar
Publishing news about one of the candidates before an election is NOT “interfering” with an election.
The criminal gang that controls the United States today is systemically inherent in representational government. NO government will be constructed that protects rights until people know what rights are. For Americans, this is decades, if not centuries, in the future from now.
In the meantime, Americans will continue saying the Pledge of Allegiance and continue thinking this is patriotic and puzzling over how Americans couldever be taught the definition of a right on such a wide scale. Citizen Quasar
Further, here is some speculation:
Somebody shoots Hillary Clinton dead two days before the election. This gives President Obama an excuse to “temporarily” delay the election. Follow AMTV! | 1real |
After Trump Win, Mexico Issues Statement on Trump Wall… Sounds Like They’re Pleading | RedFlag News |
CONSERVATIVE TRIBUNE
President-elect Donald Trump ran for office on a promise of securing the nation’s southern border, partially through the construction of a border wall, with the added caveat that Mexico would somehow pay for it .
The Mexican government has consistently stated that it had no intention of paying for any such wall, and it didn’t waste any time after Trump’s victory to reiterate that.
According to Newsmax , Mexico’s foreign minister made clear that paying for a border wall was not on her country’s agenda.
“Paying for a wall is not part of our vision,” said Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu to a local television station.
Ruiz Massieu added that her government had remained in contact with Trump’s campaign team ever since his much-discussed visit to Mexico in August.
“There has been a fluid, daily communication with different members of the campaign,” she stated.
Obviously Trump and the Mexican government don’t see eye to eye on this issue at the moment, but with the admission that the two sides are talking on a regular basis, it stands to reason that something could be worked out.
Considering how adamant Trump has been about building the wall and having Mexico pay for it in some way, he may just need to be a bit more persuasive with Mexican leaders to help them adjust their “vision” to include a border wall. | 1real |
Zimbabwe state broadcaster preparing for announcement: source | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s ZBC state broadcaster is preparing for an announcement in the next few hours, sending a broadcast van to State House where President Robert Mugabe is under pressure to resign, a source at the broadcaster said on Sunday. | 0fake |
Obama to hold press conference at White House on Friday | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will hold a press conference at the White House on Friday at 2:15 p.m. ET (1915 GMT) before leaving for his annual family vacation in Hawaii, the White House said on Thursday. | 0fake |
John Oliver Started A Debt Collection Agency, And What He Did With It Will Blow You Away (VIDEO) | John Oliver, of HBO s Last Week Tonight, dove into the deeply shady world of debt buying and collection on his Sunday segment. But Last Week Tonight isn t just about giving out information. The show often does surprising things well in advance of an air date so they can make the biggest impact possible, and Sunday s episode was no exception. What they did will impact 9,000 people in the U.S.So what happened? Oliver started a debt buying/collection agency in Mississippi called Central Asset Recovery Professionals, Inc., or CARP, for short. He used it to show just how easy and cheap it is to get into this business: Debt buying is a grimy business and badly needs more oversight, because as it stands any idiot can get into it. And I can prove that to you because I am an idiot and we started a debt-buying company. And it was disturbingly easy. Not long after CARP incorporated, they were offered a portfolio of medical debt worth nearly $15 million, and given the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of the 9,000 people who owed that debt: We bought it, which is absolutely terrifying because it means if I wanted to, I could legally have CARP take possession of that list and have employees start calling people, turning their lives upside down over medical debt. The portfolio cost CARP $60,0000 they got it for pennies on the dollar. That s the norm for this business.CARP didn t start sending employees after these people like a regular agency, though. Instead, Oliver and Last Week Tonight got together with a charity called RIP Medical Debt, and forgave all $15 million of it. Those 9,000 people don t have to worry about what they owe to hospitals, clinics, and individual practitioners anymore. They might not even have to worry about whether they ll have to file for bankruptcy anymore.John Oliver just wiped out the medical debt of nine thousand people. Let that sink in while you watch the entire segment, which details out just how disgusting and grisly the debt-buying business is, below:We re the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn t have some form of nationalized healthcare available to everyone, and medical debt is the number one reason people file for bankruptcy here. In fact, more than 60 percent of bankruptcies in the U.S. have to do with medical debt. It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for one necessary procedure. Cutting-edge cancer treatments can run into the millions.In English, our system is f*cked all to hell because of profit.This move technically cost less than the famous Oprah Winfrey show where she gave her entire audience a new car, spending roughly $8 million. But the impact, and the message, are far greater. Hats off to John Oliver for this.Featured image via screen capture from embedded video | 1real |
Will Islamic State attacks bolster prospects for political solution in Syria? (+video) | The West and Russia are closer than ever to agreeing to implementing a peaceful end to Syria's civil war. But key differences remain, including over the future of Bashar al-Assad.
A hand-written message is seen on flowers placed near the French embassy to commemorate victims of attacks in Paris, in Moscow on Sunday. The words on the poster reads: 'It is our common grief. France! Russia is with you!'
After multiple major attacks in less than two weeks – including the alleged bombing of a Russian jetliner over Egypt, a double-suicide bombing in Lebanon, and Friday's deadly attacks in Paris – a resolution to the Syrian conflict and the threat of the Islamic State has become top priority for Europe's major powers.
Perhaps most crucially, the West and Russia have moved closer than at any time in the past four years toward a political solution in Syria, which many believe is central to fighting IS-inspired terrorism.
“There is a new pragmatism emerging in Europe to work with Russia and Iran, and other European partners, and to try and work towards a political solution,” says Eugene Rogan, director of the Middle East Centre at the University of Oxford.
But the obstacles to a Syrian solution remain high, amid Western reticence about further military involvement there and unresolved differences between the Kremlin and the West over the future of President Bashar al-Assad.
“This is a very critical junction for where we go from here,” says Sajjan Gohel, a London-based international security director for the Asia-Pacific Foundation. He says the declaration of “war” by French President François Hollande, and the support by President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron, amid other heady talk, must be followed by action. “Otherwise [IS] are going to believe they can get away with it again.... This can only be a game-changer if the West does something meaningful.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Turkey, Mr. Obama joined with President Hollande in calling the Paris attack a pivotal moment. “We will redouble our efforts, working with other members of the coalition, to bring about a peaceful transition in Syria and to eliminate [IS] as a force that can create so much pain and suffering for people in Paris, in Ankara, and in other parts of the globe," he said.
US-led efforts to eradicate IS were complicated after Russia intervened six weeks ago, with an expeditionary force of about 50 attack aircraft and supporting troops. But there is a growing consensus, given the reach and sophistication of IS terror, that Russia has helped change the diplomatic conversation, especially the idea that overthrowing Assad is an impossible immediate goal.
“It is dawning on everyone that the only way out of this is a political solution that takes into account the Assad government and the large numbers of people it represents. It hasn't survived for four years, with all the forces arrayed against it, without strong social roots," says Sergei Karaganov, a senior Russian foreign policy expert. "It's also clear that Russia will have to be a part of that solution. The old US approach of just getting together a bunch of like-minded 'friends of Syria' to decide things is finished.”
The terror attacks in Paris will add to the sense of urgency, at least for Europeans, who have already felt increasing pressures from the growing refugee crisis to move on a negotiated solution for Syria, experts say.
Talks in Vienna on Syria have already made more progress in the past 10 days than in the previous four years, says Andrei Klimov, deputy chair of the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, Russia's Senate. A rough draft of a transitional program lays out a path to a ceasefire, a new Syrian constitution, and fresh elections within 18 months. Crucially, this was jointly announced by Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry in Vienna on Saturday.
“A lot has happened rather quickly in the wake of Russia's intervention, and it's pleasant to note that our initiatives are finally getting some traction," says Mr. Klimov. "But peoples' minds are also being focused by the victories the Russian-backed Syrian forces are gaining in the field, and by the terrible tragedies from recent terrorist strikes in Turkey, Lebanon, and now Paris. We do see movement, and we are hopeful."
One agreement made at the Vienna talks that the Russians say is key is the general consensus that any government that succeeds the Assad regime must be "secular." That will exclude most of the Syrian rebels opposed to Assad, if implemented, they say.
At the same time, the US and Europe are weighing what the next steps are in their own military involvement. France ordered its fighter jets to carry out a massive bombardment Sunday night on Raqqa, the Syrian city that IS claims is its caliphate, as part of a growing global momentum to stop the spread of terrorism.
The US has said it plans to step up its efforts but that it won’t put boots on the ground for now. “The further introduction of US troops to fully re-engage in ground combat in the Middle East is not the way to deal with this challenge,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security adviser, said Sunday.
Unlike France and the US, Britain has not conducted airstrikes against Syria, amid a public wearied by British involvement in the Iraq war of 2003, politicians skeptical of the efficacy of bombing there, and a nation generally looking inward.
But Mr. Cameron has stirred the debate, warning the population that the new degree of planning and coordination – as well as ambition for mass causalities – seen by IS in Paris makes the UK more vulnerable.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Monday, according to local media reports, that his government will try to win anew parliamentary support for airstrikes in Syria. But Mr. Rogan in Oxford says it will be an uphill battle to convince politicians that joining a bombing campaign will not squander their diplomatic potential, which many see as the more important role for Britain in Syria.
Some have even called for NATO’s Article 5 to be invoked, which declares that all members join forces if one NATO member is attacked. But Sven Biscop, the director of the Europe in the World program at the Egmont – Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels, a think tank associated with Belgian Foreign Affairs ministry, says there is no need to put a “NATO flag in the Middle East," he says. "It will contribute to image of this being a crusade.”
Instead he says that long-term plans from Vienna and private talks between the West and Russia and allies is where the solutions will be found. This will help bolster support for more troops from countries in the surrounding region as well as help garner pressure on issues like Saudi Arabia financing. “This is where we need the acceleration,” he says.
There are still concerns that the US-Russia rivalry in Syria could scuttle diplomacy and turn Syria into a cold war-style proxy war.
The issue of Assad, and whether he might be allowed to run in new elections, remains the key obstacle. The US and all its allies insist that while Assad may be allowed to play some sort of transitional role, he must leave soon. The Russians say they are not wedded to Assad, but remain vague on when and how he might relinquish power.
That might stymie forward movement in the peace process, since most Syrian rebels have insisted they will never deal with Assad. “One of the problems at Vienna is that we still don't have any definition of 'moderate' rebels. Everyone will agree that IS and Al Qaeda must be excluded. But there are many rebels who took up arms to depose Assad, that is why they are in the field,” says Sergei Strokan, international affairs columnist with the Moscow daily Kommersant.
"It is urgently necessary to drop all the polemics, and identify those forces who might be ready to stop shooting, sit down at the negotiating table, and then participate in a provisional government. This sort of thing has happened in many places, at many times, and it's perfectly possible for Syria. But none of these groups is going to engage with Russia and come into the process until there is clarity about Assad. It's time for the Russian government to seriously address this issue," Mr. Strokan says. | 0fake |
220 ‘Significant’ Pipeline Spills Already This Year Exposes Troubling Safety Record | By Dan Zukowski
Three major U.S. pipeline spills within the last month are just a small part of the 220 significant incidents reported so far this year—and 3,032 since 2006—that provide a stark reminder of the environmental hazards of an aging pipeline infrastructure carrying fossil fuels. The costs of these leaks since 2006 has amounted to $4.7 billion.
1. Oklahoma: On Oct. 24, the 30-inch S-1 pipeline carrying crude oil from the critical Cushing, Oklahoma hub to refineries and chemical plants on the Gulf Coast began to leak and was shut down overnight. It was the second release connected with the Cushing storage facility in less than a month.
2. Pennsylvania: On Oct. 21, 55,000 gallons of gasoline gushed from a ruptured Sunoco Logistics pipeline in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, just upstream from the Susquehanna River. Carol Parenzan, Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper , said that witnesses who contacted her office reported that the “smell of petroleum is so thick you can taste it.” The 80-year old pipeline was damaged by a heavy storm that dumped seven inches of rain on the area.
3. Alabama: Last month, the Colonial Pipeline in Alabama leaked an estimated 336,000 gallons of gasoline and triggered concerns about gas shortages for drivers in the East. That spill was Colonial’s fifth in the state this year and occurred on a 43-year old section of the pipeline.
Based on data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), an arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, the number of significant pipeline incidents grew 26.8 percent from 2006 to 2015. A significant incident is defined as one that results in serious injury or fatality, costs more than $50,000, releases more than five barrels of volatile fluids such as gasoline or 50 barrels of other liquids, or results in a fire or explosion. In 2015, there were 326 such incidents—almost one per day.
Some 55 percent of the U.S. network of 135,000 miles of pipeline is more than 45 years old. Technology designed to detect pipeline leaks is highly unreliable, even though companies like Colonial Pipeline tout their use as a way “to insure safe operations.” But a recent Reuters report found that these technologies are “about as successful as a random member of the public” finding a leak. Of 466 incidents studied by Reuters, only 22 percent, or 105, were detected by advanced detection systems. The others were found in different ways, with the public finding 99 of the leaks.
In testimony before a House subcommittee earlier this year, Carl Weimer, executive director of the watchdog group Pipeline Safety Trust , said, “Under the current statutes there is no requirement that a pipeline company obtain any permit or permission to operate a pipeline in this country.” Weimer called on Congress to require PHMSA to issue permits for interstate transmission pipelines and ensure that the company follow all rules and regulations.
“It is important that we not only maintain our aging energy infrastructure, but that we also remain vigilant about new pipelines and energy interests that threaten water quality,” said Parenzan.
Dan Zukowski — Environmental journalist and nature photographer. Member, Society of Environmental Journalists. Follow me on Twitter @DanZukowski and visit DBZ Photo
Source: EcoWatch
| 1real |
California governor vetoes bill to repeal tampon tax | SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday vetoed a bill to end state sales taxes on feminine hygiene products, angering women and advocates who call the taxes unjust. Brown, a Democrat, cited imperatives of fiscal restraint and viable revenue streams in blocking the bipartisan bill, which would have added tampons, sanitary napkins and other menstrual products to a list of necessities such as food and prescription medicines that are exempt from sales tax. Brown also vetoed several similar bills that would have ended certain state taxes for diapers and other items. He said those measures, together with repeal of the tax on feminine hygiene products, would collectively reduce state revenue by $300 million through the coming year. “Each of these bills creates a new tax break or expands an existing tax break,” Brown said in a statement. “As I said last year, tax breaks are the same as new spending – they both cost the general fund money.” State Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, chief sponsor of the tampon tax relief bill that passed both houses of the state legislature with unanimous support, railed against the veto in a posting on Facebook. “Jerry Brown please #mansplain why it’s OK to balance the budget on women’s backs?” she wrote, including a slang portmanteau of “man” and “explain” that is used to disparage men who talk to women in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing. Lawmakers in at least 15 states have introduced measures to abolish their sales taxes on menstrual products. New York repealed its tampon tax in June, joining Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New Jersey. The movement appeals to Republicans because it would repeal a tax and is favored by Democrats, who say it eliminates an unfair burden on women, especially those living in poverty. Garcia, the California assemblywoman, said she would press on in seeking repeal, vowing to “keep pushing until we get it done.” But it was not immediately clear whether a veto override bid was an option. Overriding a veto in California requires a two-thirds vote in both the state Senate and Assembly, and the legislative session ended Aug. 31. | 0fake |
Republicans Assault The Poor With A New Plan To Starve The Unemployed | Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership are rolling out plans to keep wages stagnant in America for the foreseeable future. A $23 billion cut is aimed at eliminating food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to people on unemployment who are either in school or job training. It s an age-old GOP tactic. Eliminate the help for people who are looking to do better and they are forced out of school or training and into minimum wage jobs.Once they get there, the Republicans can claim they re teenagers living at home for free and it s their own fault for settling for a minimum wage job when all they have to do is go back to school or get some training. And the cycle continues. According to Roll Call:Republican leaders have proposed more than $23 billion in food stamp cuts in a budget plan that could be brought to the House floor in the next two weeks, several sources say.The proposed changes in the food stamp, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, include the end of waivers that allow some adults to receive assistance for a limited amount of time, while they are in school, or training for a job.$23 billion in cuts to food for people. Is there nowhere else we could look for $23 billion dollars? How over budget is that fighter jet program again? We re not talking about handing people cash outside a liquor store here; we re talking about food. All the BS about fraud and dependence and still one in four children in this country struggle with food. Republicans have been after the food stamp program for no reason other than to keep people as desperate as possible.Just imagine if Donald Trump is elected with a Republican majority in Congress. Food will be distributed to the poor in the streets in the form of bags of flour and rice and maybe some milk and whey to make cheese. OK, maybe that s a little extreme. There won t be any free food. Certainly in a Trumptopian society, the poor will stay out of sight where they belong.Featured image from foodsecuritychallenge.com | 1real |
Trump: If I’m Elected, I’ll Appoint Justices Who Will Destroy Marriage Equality | The nightmare that is Donald Trump just keeps barreling on, and there seems to be no end in sight. In fact, it seems that he just might become the GOP nominee for the 2016 presidential election. There are endless reasons that this is beyond scary, and he has given us yet another.Earlier this week, Trump showed just how ignorant he is of the law in a bumbling interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC s This Week. The host didn t go easy on Trump in a conversation about the Supreme Court and the appointment of justices, and Trump showed himself to be utterly unqualified to be in any position of political power, much less president of the United States and leader of the free world. Here is a transcript of the exchange, courtesy of The New Civil Rights Movement:STEPHANOPOULOS: Let s talk about some of the issues. Judges. What kind of judges will you appoint? Will they be conservative?What does that mean to you and how will you ensure it?TRUMP: Well, first of all, we have a lot of judges that have to be appointed because we have a lot of openings in terms of judges. And I m very happy about that, to be honest, because I think, you know, appointing judges is a very important and a very, frankly, a very, very important element of what we re doing.STEPHANOPOULOS: But Ted Cruz says he s going to appoint rock rib conservatives with a paper trail. What are you going to do?TRUMP: Well, I m going to appoint conservative judges. I m going to appoint people that have great reputations, that are great with the legal profession STEPHANOPOULOS: Like?TRUMP: Well, I can say like any you know a judge who is a totally underrated and not spoken is Justice Thomas. I mean, if you look at if you look at some of the judges that we have like on the Supreme Court, Justice Roberts turned out to be a nightmare for conservatives. I mean STEPHANOPOULOS: But how are you going to TRUMP: Wait, let me first say. Ted Cruz, was the one that really wanted Justice Roberts to go on the Supreme Court. You know that, right? Have you heard that?STEPHANOPOULOS: So, how are you going to make sure you don t get a Justice Roberts? Are you going to ask your appointees TRUMP: Well, excuse me, excuse me, how are they going to make sure? Bush appointed him. And Cruz was the biggest advocate. Cruz fought like hell to get Justice Roberts in there. Justice Roberts turned out to be an absolute disaster. He turned out to be an absolute disaster because he gave us Obamacare. So, you tell me, ask Cruz, why did he push STEPHANOPOULOS: I m asking you. How are you going to make sure?TRUMP: No, I m asking you, why did he push so hard to have a judge who has absolutely set the conservative movement back and said everything STEPHANOPOULOS: When I interview him, I ll ask him. How you re going to make sure you don t get betrayed by your appointees.TRUMP: I will study it carefully. I will work with people that I respect, conservative people, and we ll appoint judges that will be good. And I don t think I ll have any catastrophic appointment like Justice Roberts, which was really more than anybody else, pushed by Cruz and Bush.With this level of incompetency on full display for all to see, Trump went on Fox News Sunday to redeem himself on the same issue and this time, he did what every Republican does when trying to woo audiences and cover up for mistakes: he turned the discussion to those Fox viewers hate the most: LGBT people. In fact, Trump says that if he is elected president, the justices on his Supreme Court will be those who oppose marriage equality, and he would find a way to have them throw out the Obergefell v. Hodges decision that made equal marriage the law of the land.First, Trump dodged the question, simply telling host Chris Wallace: They have ruled on it. I wish it was done by the states. Wallace didn t let Trump off the hook though, and plowed on, finally forcing Trump to say to the conservative audience on the issue of justices who would overturn the marriage equality decision: I would strongly consider that, yes. There you have it, folks. We knew Trump was a bigot, but he had never come out and said he d actively work to roll back LGBT right on this level. Not surprising at all, though. Just another reason to make sure his fantasy of ruling America never becomes a reality.Featured image from Gage Skidmore/Flickr | 1real |
Obama's Presidential Library Will Be In Chicago, Foundation Announces | Obama's Presidential Library Will Be In Chicago, Foundation Announces
President Obama's presidential library will be in Chicago, his foundation announced on Tuesday.
"The future Presidential Center will include the library, museum, as well as office and activity space for the Foundation to inspire and engage citizens here and globally," the foundation said in a press release.
"It wasn't as easy for Chicago to win the Library as might be expected. The city had to scramble to find a solution when using park land for the location became an issue. Hawaii and New York also had strong bids, but Chicago is where President Obama grew up politically. He was a faculty member at the University of Chicago Law School for more than a decade."
The foundation puts it simply: The Obama family was "shaped by Chicago" from their "wedding day to Election Day." | 0fake |
Clinton criticizes Trump for remarks on security briefing, Putin | WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton slammed Republican rival Donald Trump on Thursday for talking about things he learned in classified intelligence briefings and for praising Russia’s Vladimir Putin as a better leader than President Barack Obama. Speaking to reporters the day after a New York security forum featuring separate appearances by the two candidates, Clinton also criticized the businessman for saying U.S. generals had been “reduced to rubble” by Obama’s policies. At the televised forum on Wednesday night, Trump said he was “shocked” by information he got during the briefing. “What I did learn is that our leadership, Barack Obama, did not follow what our experts ... said to do,” Trump said. Clinton, who was secretary of state during Obama’s first term, said Trump’s comments on the briefing were “totally inappropriate and undisciplined.” “I would never comment on any aspect of an intelligence briefing I received,” Clinton said before boarding her campaign plane. As nominees for the Nov. 8 presidential election, she and Trump are entitled to receive intelligence briefings. Clinton said Trump’s praise of Putin as a better leader than Obama was “not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country, as well as to our commander in chief, it is scary.” “It suggests he will let Putin do whatever Putin wants to do and then make excuses for him,” Clinton said. Trump fired back at Clinton, saying her comments were an effort to make up for a poor performance during the security forum. “Hillary Clinton is always complaining about what’s wrong,” he said during a campaign stop in Cleveland, where he visited a charter school and proposed federal spending on “school choice” programs. “I just watched her on the tarmac. She tried to make up for her horrible performance last night,” Trump said. The intensifying political combat came as Clinton’s lead in opinion polls has slipped in recent days. The current average of polls by website RealClearPolitics puts her at 45.6 percent support, compared with Trump’s 42.8 percent. Obama also hit back at Trump for criticizing his foreign policy record, saying the Republican nominee was unfit to follow him into the Oval Office and the public should press Trump on his “outright wacky ideas.” The televised “Commander-in-Chief” forum on Wednesday, attended by military veterans, was the first time Trump and Clinton had squared off on the same stage since accepting their parties’ White House nominations in July, although they did not appear at the same time. The forum offered a prelude to how Clinton and Trump will deal with questions of national security in their three upcoming presidential debates later in September and in October. Clinton has said her experience in government as secretary of state and a U.S. senator makes her uniquely qualified for the White House, and that Trump’s series of controversial comments make him temperamentally unfit for the office. Some of Trump’s foreign policy positions, such as his proposal to fight terrorism by imposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, have alarmed not just Democrats but many in his own party’s leadership. Trump, who has never held elected office, has criticized Clinton’s judgment for backing the 2003 Iraq war and her support for the U.S. intervention in Libya in 2011. The Republican candidate was widely criticized recently when he called her a “co-founder,” along with Obama, of the Islamic State militant group. Clinton, who voted in favor of the 2003 Iraq war as a senator but has since said she regrets doing so, said she would convene a meeting of bipartisan security experts on Friday to discuss the fight against Islamic State. “What you didn’t hear from Donald Trump last night was any plan to take on ISIS,” Clinton told reporters, using an acronym for the group. “That’s not only dangerous, it should be disqualifying.” Trump and Clinton supporters went on the offensive on social media Wednesday night and Thursday morning, defending their candidates’ performances during the forum. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway spoke with Trump supporters in Congress on Thursday morning, and Trump spoke with the group by phone to thank them for their support. Some supporters shrugged off his comments about Putin. “I think he is being very smart in how he addresses Putin and you know, maybe he’s playing with Putin’s ego,” said Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Mike Pence, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, told CNN it was “inarguable” that Putin had been a stronger leader of Russia than Obama had been in the United states. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top elected Republican official, who has frequently broken with Trump, took a sharply different view. “Putin is an aggressor that does not share our interests. Vladimir Putin is violating the sovereignty of neighboring countries,” Ryan told reporters at his weekly news conference. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told reporters at the Cleveland rally that Trump was not endorsing Putin with his praise. “He doesn’t agree with his style of government. He wasn’t saying that,” he said. Clinton said Republicans holding or seeking office across the country should be pressed on whether they agree with Trump’s comments, including his views on Putin and U.S. generals that surfaced during the forum. “Republicans are just in a terrible dilemma trying to support a totally unqualified nominee, I have no sympathy for them, it’s their nominee,” she said. | 0fake |
U.N. to join Syria talks in Astana, with humanitarian hopes | MOSCOW/GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. special envoy on Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday he would take part in the latest round of Syrian peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana on Friday, with a month to go before he hopes to break the deadlock in political talks in Geneva. De Mistura s Geneva peace process reached deadlock this month, missing what said was a golden opportunity to close out almost seven years of war. Blaming intransigence on both sides, he told the U.N. Security Council he would start 2018 with a proposal to involve a wider constituency in constitutional and electoral reform, since the warring sides were stuck. He said on Thursday he planned to hold the next round in Geneva in the second half of January. I am planning to go to Astana just after this meeting, de Mistura said in Moscow at the start of Syrian talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. U.N. timetables routinely slip, but the presence of many of the global power elite at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos on Jan. 23-26 could also create some political momentum. Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have made big gains on the ground since Russia joined the war in late 2015, but the fighting shows no sign of ending conclusively. De Mistura s humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said that although fewer people were now under siege or out of reach of humanitarian aid, 2017 had defied expectations by being worse than 2016 in many respects, and fewer aid convoys were going in. In December we haven t reached a single soul (in besieged areas), Egeland told reporters in Geneva. He hoped Astana might bring a cessation of hostilities in the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta, where Assad s forces are besieging almost 400,000 people. U.N. aid convoys are waiting for Syria s government to give them a green light. Food prices have risen eightfold since August, Egeland said. 495 people were on the priority lists for medical evacuations. That number is going down. Not because we are evacuating people, but because they are dying. Russia, Iran, China, Egypt, Algeria and Iraq could all bring their influence to bear, he said. If we are going to get out of this quagmire it is because there will be political agreements, really. So I hope that out of the Astana meetings in the next couple of days we will have some kind of impulse for a change on the humanitarian side. | 0fake |
'Is a Tweet policy?' State Department officials ponder | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When is a tweet just a tweet? A debate is percolating in the U.S. State Department, where diplomats measure their words with demitasse spoons, on how to handle Donald Trump’s Twitter commentary if he continues to tweet after he becomes U.S. president on Jan. 20. By tradition, anything the president says is regarded as U.S. policy and can be repeated to foreign officials without fear of contradiction, at least from the White House. But Trump has questioned bedrock planks of U.S. policy, such as whether Taiwan is part of “one China” or whether Washington would defend NATO allies, causing consternation at home and abroad. “I have never hesitated to take anything that POTUS said in speeches, press conferences, and other remarks as anything but policy,” a midlevel diplomat who has served on four continents wrote Dec. 7 on an internal State Department discussion board, in reference to the President of the United States (POTUS). “But what about tweets?” he asked. “Given the president-elect’s penchant for using (Twitter) in a much more spontaneous context than most other USG officials, how should FSOs regard those statements?” he added, referring to U.S. government (USG) foreign service officers (FSOs). “In theory, we all should have a firm grasp of what is hyberbole (sic) and what is not, but in practice we should not be so sure. I for one am done making assumptions in this area for at least the next four years,” the diplomat added. He then appealed to the State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs to issue an ALDAC, or formal message to “All Diplomatic and Consular Posts,” clarifying matters. The post, titled “Is a Tweet policy?” on “The Sounding Board,” a forum on the State Department’s intranet, prompted thoughtful, though equally perplexed, comments. Another official wrote that he was confident President Barack Obama’s comments are to be taken “seriously and literally”, Trump may want his tweets to be taken both “seriously and figuratively,” he wrote. “Assuming there is a strategy here, it would seem that it would be to create a sense of ambiguity around issues previously thought to be settled for the purpose of leveraging a better deal to advance USG interests,” he added. “Miscommunication may be the very purpose of the President Elect’s tweets.” A spokesman for the State Department said it would have no comment on how the next administration and president may use social media. Obama has tweeted since 2015 from the account @POTUS. Rather than suggesting specific policies, Obama used the handle to encourage Americans to vote, to cheerlead for Hillary Clinton, Trump’s election opponent, and to remember the recently deceased, including writer Elie Wiesel and golfer Arnold Palmer. From his Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump, Trump has mocked Clinton as “Crooked Hillary,” attacked a former Miss Universe and sniped at the parents of a Muslim American U.S. Army captain who died in Iraq after the soldier’s father spoke against him. On Nov. 27, he tweeted “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally” but provided no evidence for the claim, which electoral officials have denied. Trump lost the popular vote by close to three million votes. The president-elect has not said definitively whether he will continue tweeting after Jan. 20. Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A third official said the entire government would need to deal with the issue to “limit the amount of miscommunication a specific POTUS tweet could engender.” “As the great Bette Davis line goes, ‘Fasten your seatbelt, it’s going to be a bumpy ride,’” he wrote. | 0fake |
Pence slams Venezuela government, drawing rebuke from Maduro | MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence held up Venezuela on Thursday as a prime example of what happens when democracy is undermined and urged Latin American leaders to condemn its government, in comments that Venezuela’s president called nauseating. Already suffering a severe economic crisis, Venezuela, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has recently been convulsed by clashes between security forces and anti-government protesters. “We need only look to the nation of Venezuela to see what happens when democracy is undermined,” Pence told the gathering of leaders in Miami. “That once-rich nation’s collapse into authoritarianism has pushed it into poverty and caused untold suffering for the Venezuelan people.” Stepping up Washington’s war of words with Caracas, Pence added: “We must all of us raise our voices to condemn the Venezuelan government for its abuse of power and its abuse of its own people, and we must do it now.” At least 69 people have died in the unrest in Venezuela since early April, with hundreds injured. Opposition has been fanned by Maduro’s plan for July 30 elections for a special assembly to rewrite the constitution, which critics say are stacked in his favor. The Maduro government calls the protesters violent coup-mongers, supported by the United States. “I tell the vice president of the United States, get your nose out of Venezuela, there will be no gringo, Yankee, imperialist intervention in Venezuela,” Maduro said in a TV broadcast with members of the armed forces. Maduro added that he read Pence’s comments “and it provokes nausea that a man who doesn’t know where Venezuela is on the map gives his opinion about our country.” Earlier this month, the United States denounced Venezuela for suppressing protests and called for free elections, saying Maduro must not be allowed to follow a “dictatorship” path like Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Pence was at a conference to discuss improving security and economic prosperity in Central America, specifically in the violent nations of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Foreign ministers from across the hemisphere will travel to Cancun, Mexico, next week for a meeting of the Organization of American States, where Venezuela will be discussed. | 0fake |
Obama Delivers The PERFECT Trump Insult That Will Make Republicans Cry | President Barack Obama is sick and tired of talking about Republican nominee, and he didn t hesitate to let everyone know how eager he is for Trump to disappear from the political limelight.While on his 16-day vacation in Martha s Vineyard, Obama took a short break to join Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton at a fundraiser and honored everyone in attendance with an insult the GOP will never forget. Speaking to the 60 donors in attendance, Obama said: I know this is not an audience where I need to make a hard sell. To some degree, I had you at hello when it comes for voting for Hillary. Then Obama laid down some cold truth for the Republican party Trump is doing such a good job at destroying himself that no one needs to spend time and energy making a case against him: Frankly, I m tired of talking about her opponent. I don t have to make the case against her opponent, because every time he talks, he makes the case against his own candidacy. Ouch. The GOP knows this is true, too they are currently planning on dumping Trump if he can t stay on message and turn his campaign around. Without a doubt, Obama s words are going to hit too close to home.Obama also spoke about the GOP s unrelenting negative campaign against Clinton, and urged Americans to continue to take this election seriously and be fierce in getting their fellow Americans to the polls to vote against Trump, even though numerous sources report that Trump s campaign is tanking. Obama warned that this is no time to relax: If we are not running scared until the day after the election, we are going to be making a grave mistake. If we do our job, then Hillary will be elected president of the United States. But if we do not do our jobs, then it s still possible for her to lose. When I say do our jobs, what I mean is we are going to have to continue to be engaged, we are going to continue to have to write checks, we are going to continue to have to make phone calls and rally people behind her candidacy. Obama doubled down and said We have to be aggressive in our campaign for 80 days and that s not a lot, but when you think about the stakes, there s nothing more important. Featured image via Pool and Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 1real |
Chinese political dissidents are having their organs cut from their bodies for 'transplant tourists' | Chinese political dissidents are having their organs cut from their bodies for 'transplant tourists'
Tuesday, November 01, 2016 by: J. D. Heyes Tags: China , organ harvesting , political prisoners (NaturalNews) In the U.S. these days, supporting GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump will earn you an assault from Left-wing cowards and bullies who support Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton . But in China, being a political dissident and opposing the ruling Communist government could earn you a trip to a hospital operating room.Where you'll have your organs removed for waiting "transplant tourists."As reported by the Epoch Times , Chinese officials began persecuting the 100 million practitioners of Falun Gong in July 1999, and have continued to do so ever since. To the Chinese communists, there is no such thing as a religious deity or belief, because communists insist that their form of government should be the only thing requiring loyalty and faithfulness.Not long ago this kind of treatment of Chinese "dissidents" would draw loud rebukes from the U.S. government, the United Nations and various human rights organizations around the world, as well as major media coverage. But since the Chinese manufacturing economy has become such an integral part of the economies of most of the world's advanced countries, outrage has been muted.The lack of outrage and subsequent media coverage and pressure by governments has essentially given the Chinese communists a green light to treat Falun Gong – and anyone else deemed a political dissident – in any barbaric way they choose. 'A new form of evil' Hence, the creation of a cottage industry of sorts – Transplant Tourism. As the Epoch Times noted, this is essentially " murder on demand " for an organ that is purchased ahead of time by someone who then travels to China for a transplant operation. It is a huge source of revenue both for the Chinese military and for private hospitals around the country, according to Nobel Prize nominees and investigators David Matas, an international human rights attorney, and David Kilgour, a former Canadian foreign secretary for Asia-Pacific.Matas and Kilgour published their first investigative report in 2006 , and evidence about forced harvesting of organs in China from prisoners of conscience has only mounted in the years since. The investigators found that the overwhelming majority of the pool of victims did not come from prisoners sentenced to death but rather from prisoners of conscience, primarily followers of Falun Gong – the largest group in China's prisons.In their 2006 report, Matas described the systematic harvesting of organs from Falun Gong adherents by the Chinese Communist Party as "a new form of evil we have yet to see on this planet."One of the founding board members of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), Dr. Dana Churchill, spoke at rallies in Los Angeles and Santa Monica Beach earlier this month. She said that to this point the world had never witnessed a "more horrific and barbaric crime as the Chinese Communist Party has committed against Falun Gong." 'Crime against humanity' She added that it wasn't just Falun Gong adherents who were being victimized, however. Others include Christians, the Uyghurs and Tibetans, all of whom have also had their organs harvested "while they are alive, unwilling, and between 20 and 40 years old, the prime of their life," Churchill – a naturopathic doctor from Pasadena, Calif., said. Epoch Times noted that recently released findings on the number of Chinese prisoners who have been murdered go way beyond original estimates collected from various investigators and organizations.Churchill said: "With Falun Gong, approximately 65,000 have been murdered, and that is according to DAFOH, our organization."At a Washington, D.C., rally on July 17, 2015, following nine years of investigation, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong announced that it had "concluded that since July 20, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), lead by its former head Jiang Zemin, has utilized China's entire state apparatus to harvest organs from living Falun Gong practitioners," as a way to "physically destroy" the group as a whole."This is genocide and a crime against humanity," the organization concluded. Sources: | 1real |
Exclusive: Trump says Republican border tax could boost U.S. jobs | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday spoke positively about a border adjustment tax being pushed by Republicans in Congress as a way to boost exports, but he did not specifically endorse the proposal. Trump, who has lashed out at U.S. companies for moving operations and jobs to countries such as Mexico, had previously sent mixed signals on the proposal at the heart of a sweeping Republican plan to overhaul the tax code. “It could lead to a lot more jobs in the United States,” Trump told Reuters in an interview, using his most approving language to date on the proposal. Trump sent conflicting signals about his position on the border adjustment tax in separate media interviews in January, saying in one interview that it was “too complicated” and in another that it was still on the table. The proposal has divided American businesses. Critics say the planned 20 percent tax on imports could be passed along in higher prices to consumers, including manufacturers that rely on imported goods to make their products. Some critics have warned of a potential global trade war which would sharply curtail U.S. and world economic growth. Advocates say U.S. exporters will gain as their revenues will be excluded from federal taxes. They say the tax on imports will encourage domestic production and cause the already strong dollar to rise, offsetting upward pressure on import prices. Trump has also called for a 35-percent border tax on U.S. companies that move jobs abroad and import products back into the U.S. market. It has been unclear in the past if those references referred to the border adjustment proposal. “I certainly support a form of tax on the border,” he told Reuters on Thursday. “What is going to happen is companies are going to come back here, they’re going to build their factories and they’re going to create a lot of jobs and there’s no tax.” White House spokesman Sean Spicer also came to the defense of border adjustment on Thursday, disputing the claim that it could lead to higher consumer prices. “That benefits our economy, it helps American workers, it grows the manufacturing base,” Spicer told reporters at a White House briefing. The Mexican peso MXN= weakened slightly against the U.S. dollar immediately after Trump's comments and was last trading at 19.68 per dollar. Earlier on Thursday, the Mexican currency hit its strongest level since Trump's Nov. 8 election victory. Stocks of retailers, which could be hurt by border adjustment, weakened on Wall Street after Trump’s remarks. The S&P 500 retailing index .SPXRT ended down 1 percent. Shares of Wal-Mart Stores (WMT.N) slipped and closed down 0.6 percent. Trump said his administration will tackle tax reform legislation after dealing with Obamacare, the health insurance system that his fellow Republicans have bashed since it was put in place in 2010 by his predecessor, President Barack Obama. Earlier on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC the Trump administration aimed to formulate a tax plan with support from the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate and pass it before August. Lawmakers and corporate lobbyists say the border adjustment tax could die in Congress, potentially jeopardizing the prospects for tax reform, mainly because of opposition from a handful of Senate Republicans. But experts say Trump’s endorsement could change the political climate. “If Trump supports it, that makes it considerably more likely,” Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai told Reuters. Trump’s comments were followed by dueling statements from lobbying groups. A statement from the pro-border adjustment American Made Coalition said the White House was “sending its strongest signals yet that it’s leaning toward supporting the House blueprint with border adjustability.” The Americans for Affordable Products coalition that opposes the border adjustment tax issued a statement saying Trump’s remarks were “consistent with what he’s already said” and that it was “impossible” to know if they were specific to any individual legislative policy. Trump spoke to Reuters after meeting with more than 20 chief executives of major U.S. companies to discuss ways to return manufacturing jobs to the United States, one of the linchpins of his 2016 presidential campaign. Many CEOs of large multinationals back the border adjustment tax. The chiefs of 16 companies, including Boeing Co (BA.N), Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N) and General Electric Co (GE.N), sent a letter to Congress on Tuesday urging support for it. A border adjustment has emerged as the most controversial segment of the House Republican tax reform blueprint. Under the House plan, it would raise more than $1 trillion in revenues to help pay for a corporate tax cut. | 0fake |
Krauthammer on Bannon at CPAC: He Showed He Was ’the Brains of the Operation’ - Breitbart | Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer reacted to the joint appearance of White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and chief of staff Reince Priebus earlier in the day at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Krauthammer told host Tucker Carlson the focus on reports of friction between the two was “trivial” and that Bannon’s first public appearance since inauguration was the real tell because he described Bannon as “the brains of the operation. ” “I think they’re going to bat down these stories in the media that there is a terrible conflict going on all the time,” Krauthammer said. “I think they felt that there is the first order of business, I think it’s somewhat trivial because it was a very substantive exchange and from Bannon who we’ve not heard of since the swearing in, it was extremely revealing. This is the brains of the operation. This is the guy who thinks strategically, and large categories, and he laid them out. I thought that was the most interesting part, and unfortunately, it got the least amount of coverage. ” Carlson asked Krauthammer to elaborate on that strategy, which Krauthammer broke down to three “overarching” ideas — international relations, trade, and the “administrative state. ” “His representation of Trump is that you can never get out of Reince or out of Trump,” he said. “He basically said there are three overarching ideas. One is the international arena. We are going to break that down, where essentially, you got this in the inaugural address, the world and our allies have been parasitic on us years with alliances and trade and multilateral trade, where done with that — America first. That’s number one. The second is what he calls economic nationalism — meaning trade and immigration. We are looking at America first regarding the economy. The third is the destruction of the administration administrative state. ” “Now, on the third one, I think you can get a consensus among all conservatives, and I think we’re all rooting that on,” Krauthammer continued. “And I think the first salvo in that war happened yesterday when the Trump administration reversed the bathroom bill that had been issued by the Obama in administration, which whatever your ideas about transgender sexuality, it is not the province of the federal government. It has nothing to do with the overblown leviathan state. It’s a way to say we’re going to smash all this and we’re going to eliminate this sort of excess. That’s Reaganism, that’s hardcore Reaganism, the regulatory rollback. On the other two, this is going against the tradition of the last 30 years. And he will run into trouble, especially on the second having to do with trade in Congress. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 0fake |
Scottish parliament says security incident is over | EDINBURGH (Reuters) - The security incident at the Scottish parliament is over, a spokesman for the parliament said on Tuesday. The MSP block is now open and members and their staff can return to their offices, the spokesman said. The devolved parliament in Edinburgh was evacuated earlier after a package containing what was thought to be white powder was investigated by police. | 0fake |
MH17 UKRAINE PLANE CRASH: ADDITIONAL DETAILS REVEALED (+EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS FROM THE SCENE) | #DONBASS Editor's choice 25.11.2016 - 374 views 5 ( 2 votes) MH17 Ukraine Plane Crash: Additional Details Revealed (+Exclusive Photos from the Scene) 5 out of 5 based on 2 ratings. 2 user reviews. MH17 Ukraine Plane Crash: Additional Details Revealed (+Exclusive Photos from the Scene) Donate
SouthFront received this text in Russian via email. It reveals additional details about the MH17 shot down in Ukraine in 2014. SouthFront Team decided to translate it into English and publish at our website so that our readers acquire a more complete picture of events that took place on the ground directly after the incident. Photos below have never been pulished online until now.
The text below is recorded by Aleksandr Netyosov . He’s a member of the Union of Journalists of Russia, chief department editor of the Military Herald of the South of Russia newspaper, author of dozens of military history publications, and a native of Donetsk.
The events from more than two years ago, concerning the MH17 Boeing 77 that crashed on the territory of former Ukraine (currently the Donetsk People’s Republic) are now part of history. An investigation team from the Netherlands working on this case which has promised to publish the results of its investigation in October in the end made general statements in which, contrary to facts, the law enforcement from the “land of tulips” placed the responsibility for this crime on the Donbass militia and Russia. The author of this essay personally learned that the accusation is baseless when he spent a vacation in his home region, in the capital of the coal country, and now the capital of the DPR, the lovely city of Donetsk.
My schoolmates who now occupy high DPR posts and who know about my journalism career, arranged for me to meet interesting people who, by dint of their service at the time, were the first to arrive at the Boeing crash and to carry out an inspection of the crash site which is necessary in such cases. I spent several days with Donetsk law enforcement who fulfilled their duties to the last, in spite of the fact that Ukraine all but abandoned its responsibilities and tried to use a variety of administrative and psychological measures to first delay the investigation and then to stop it altogether. This is a very telling indication of who was the beneficiary of all the noise concerning the “Russian trail” in the MH17 tragedy that unfolded on July 17, 2014 in the skies above the villages of Grabovo and Rassypnoye, in the Shakhtyorsk district of the Donetsk Region of Ukraine.
The internal political situation at the time appeared confused and even odd. The civil war on the Donbass was escalating, the first blood was already spilled, but in Donetsk Ukraine’s law enforcement on the Donbass were still peacefully coexisting with the DPR which was making its baby steps. Until a bolt from the blue, in a very literal sense, which divided the professional lives of fellow servicemen from local law enforcement into a “before” and “after”. Unfortunately, the work of Donetsk investigators who spent two days on the Boeing 777 crash site were not used by anybody. Which means this is the first attempt to bring their words and deeds to the attention of broad range of readers in order to cast light on events that took place more than two years ago.
Please get acquainted: Senior Justice Councillor Aleksandr Vasilyevich Gavrilyako, DPR Prosecutor General Office’s department head, a high-grade professional with 32.5 years of flawless service under his belt, against whom the post-Maidan leaders of “sovereign Ukraine” launched a criminal charges for maintaining his professional integrity in a new political reality. During that time, Colonel of the Police Gavrilyakko was the head of the investigative department of the Makeevka Regional Office of Internal Affairs, and was considered one of the top investigative department heads in the entire Ukraine MVD. Here’s what he said:
– I learned of the Malaysian Boeing crash from TV news. I caught myself thinking that it might be good to inspect the site. When I was about to leave for duty, I got a phone call. It was from Aleksandr Vasilyevich Mostovoy, DPR’s Internal Security Service head, who suggested that I take a group of investigators to conduct a site inspection. I asked him: why was I chosen? To which he responded that I was recommended as the best specialist. So I had to reply that as an active-duty Ukraine MVD officer, I can’t make that decision on my own, I need sanction from higher authorities.
– Upon arriving at work, I received a directive from the director of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of the Donetsk Region MVD, Major General Pozhidayev, to assemble an investigative team and take it to the crash site. This directive was confirmed by Col. Goncharov, the head of the Investigative Directorate of the Donetsk Region Internal Affairs Directorate, whom I called shortly after receiving the directive to remind him that the site is outside of my official jurisdiction. “The locals will help you”, he encouraged. And I was permitted to assemble a team of whoever I chose, which included two people from each of the five Makeevka regional departments. Which made a total of 10, plus me and two investigators from Makeevka City Internal Affairs Directorate. I asked my higher-ups for expert support and received it.
Our group worked with four experts, including Bogdan Olegovich Maklakov and the head of the Donetsk Regional Medical Forensics Bureau, Dmitriy Anatolyevich Kalashnikov.
On the morning of July 18, we were met by DPR Prosecutor General office representatives with two cars to take us to the site. Although at that time Ukraine prosecutor’s office still function and DPR MVD entities were not yet formed. While in transit, I got a call from Col. Goncharov who wanted to learn where we were? “Where are you?” he asked insistently. I, naturally, told him about the route we were taking, together with DPR colleagues, toward Rassypnoye and Grabovo to the crash site, where Ukraine’s Emercom was already beginning to function. Goncharov then categorically ordered me to return, citing orders he received from Ukraine MVD not to inspect the crash site. Naturally, I refused, since I was in a vehicle that belonged to DPR colleagues. They even made a bit of fun at me, proposing I jump off from a moving vehicle.
I have to add that at that time there was an ongoing cadre reshuffle, with the regional MVD leadership in toto moving to Mariupol, with their direct subordinates, the law enforcement officers in Donetsk and Makeevka, continued to work as before. There was no sense of division into us and them, though there was some alienation in interpersonal relations. Upon arriving at the site, we were greeted by Emercom and local self-government who already had a basic idea of what happened. It turned out that the main wreckage mass, including the tail section, engines, wings, and most of the corpses were on the outskirts of Grabovo. They were scattered all over the field.
But we, upon the request of local authorities, started with inspecting Rassypnoye and its surroundings where, according to the reports from inhabitants, there were corpses in the back yards and even on the streets. The cabin with remains of the crew was also found there. Therefore we quickly started to investigate in the village, and the surrounding fields only later. Even as we were resolving all manner of questions, including organizational ones, it was almost evening. Therefore I decided that, given the huge volume of work, to inspect corpses, of which there were 36 in the village, note where they were found, and enter them into protocol. I was taking into consideration the heat, the pouring rains, and the livestock, all of which were threatening to nullify our efforts. Moreover, I earlier discussed with Col. Goncharov and Col. Miroshnichenko, the head of Makeevka UVD, who ordered me to go to the crash site, various technical aspects of working on the site.
In particular, this concerned obtaining a truck with a crane, a refrigerator for corpses, and a hangar to store aircraft remains so that they could be subsequently laid out. Particularly since we already knew what caused the crash, which meant a more thorough inspection of crash site in order to locate killing elements which could be inside the bodies of the passengers, the fuselage skin, or the topsoil, and to find traces of the explosives. In order to identify the munition which brought down the Boeing.
We already had the sad experience of similar type of work, when we investigated crash sites of several airliners in the Donetsk Region though, to be sure, we experienced no outside interference in those cases. The most recent such crash took place in 2006, when a Tu-154 with 176 passengers flying from Anapa to St. Petersburg went down. Therefore the initial crash site inspection is crucial to any such investigation, because it contains all the clues to reconstructing the tragedy.
The regional center assigned us a facility on the territory of a vehicle park in their jurisdiction, complete with vehicles and a crane. So we began inspecting the site. What we saw shocked us. In one house, a female corpse broke through the roof and was stuck in the ceiling tiles, though one leg broke off and landed directly on a bed. On another property, six sets of passenger remains landed on garden vegetables. The shattered pilot cabin crashed just outside the village. The remains of the crew were scattered nearby, and we recognized them by the remnants of their uniforms. Having placed our investigators throughout the site, I called Col. Goncharov. He did not even want to listen to me, demanding that I explain why I disobeyed his order to turn around and not to investigate the site. In response, I said literally the following: first of all, the group was traveling on a vehicle belonging to DPR Prosecutor’s Office, secondly, how could I have done that in the presence of armed people, and moreover the inspection had already begun.
Then he demanded that I sabotage the investigation in any way possible and create delays. Naturally, I asked him why the confusion. One minute I’m ordered to go, and now I’m to return. So he explained that orders came from Kiev not to inspect anything, because the SBU will look into it. But he did allow me to carry away the 36 corpses found in Rassypnoye.
Naturally, we haven’t seen any SBU people, ever, because they left Donetsk already in May. We, of course, packed up the found and labeled human remains and sent them to the morgue at the Kalinin regional clinic. At the last minute, we were brought the corpse of a child found somewhere in Grabovo. We sent it to the morgue with the others. Our activities were curtailed by that very same Goncharov who first approved of us visiting the site, and then categorically forbade to inspect it. Then everything became clear to me. If Ukraine were interested in investigating this case in which, according to the official Kiev version, both local militia and Russia were implicated, nobody would have held us up. Rather to the contrary, they’d be asking us to leave no stone unturned to find every last piece of evidence, monitoring my every move confident in my thoroughness and professional ability. We arrived at the local Emercom HQ, located in Grabovo, close to the evening. Naturally, I told DPR Prosecutor’s Office about orders from higher up, but I responded in the affirmative to their question whether I’d continue, believing that the innocent victims of this tragedy ought to be collected and inspected, otherwise who would do it otherwise. After that, we departed. On Saturday morning of July 19, we returned to the site as if nothing had happened yesterday. While traveling, I once again got a call from Goncharov who wanted to know where I was, and then we engaged in verbal sparring. I told him point blank: fields are littered with corpses of innocent people, we can’t just leave them, which we’d do had we obeyed Kiev’s orders. “In that case, Aleksandr Vasilyevich, you have made your choice,” he replied and ended the conversation. I never heard his voice again.
Our first find that day was part of fuselage skin, in which some penetrating objects left punctures, with edges bent inward. This suggested the penetrations were made from the outside. Upon our arrival in Rassypnoye, we continued inspecting the site, though we were immediately warned not to wander into the woodline unless necessary. Because of tripwire mines placed there by both warring parties. At that time, volunteers from among the miners came up to help, so that we could cover as much of the site as possible. It was then that 20 corpses were found in a wheatfield on the edge of Grabovo. But, as a rule, the corpses were scattered: one here, another or a few somewhere else.
It was then that members of the OSCE mission, accompanied by Berkut troops and the deputy director of Donetsk Region MVD, Colonel Aleksey Aleksandrovich Dikiy, arrived.
I turned to Dikiy for help, because I did not have enough people to do everything necessary: inspecting, extracting, packaging and, most importantly, recording all these actions in the protocol. He connected me to Gen. Pozhidayev, who initially was surprised by my presence there contrary to orders. He silently listened to my arguments about Christian and human duties, but was curious to know where we were sending the bodies, and directed to send them to Kharkov instead of Donetsk. But he did not explain how to do that, given the ongoing fighting, particularly since cannon fire was drawing closer. After he learned of DPR officials’ presence, he hung up. But in any event a group of investigators from Shakhtyorsk, 4 total, came to help me.
In a command tent I was shown an announcement on some Ukrainian site which stated that local Emercom workers and the Donetsk investigative group went over to the separatists, helping them hide the corpses. Nevertheless, all the remains found on July 19 were properly inspected, in accordance with all the relevant procedures, and sent to Kharkov. Subsequently we suspended our work on the insistence of our security force, because gunfire was clearly approaching our location. After that we went home, but ended up in Rassypnoye. In order to question the witnesses of Boeing’s crash among the local inhabitants who were quite happy to see us.
But it is the actions of the Ukrainian side that give reasons to wonder. First they approved the inspection, then forbade it. If the militias were involved in that, the situation would have looked very different. It’s no coincidence that two days later all law enforcement officials received orders, of which I did not know, to take back roads to Slavyansk. The majority obeyed, but some, mainly those born on the Donbass, stayed.
The conclusion practically asks to be drawn, in accordance with the ancient “cui bono?” maxim. If one looks at who the beneficiary was, then it makes no sense for Russia to have instigated the shoot-down. Given the international situation, it drew no benefit from it. Rather to the contrary, the Russian side was the most interested one in a transparent investigation. But it was labeled the guilty party already on the next day by the Western media. There is likewise little to point at the militia. There are all kinds of people among them, certainly. But downing a Boeing—pardon me, that’s a whole different ball game. Because they would have been labeled terrorists on the international level. Shooting down a plane flying at an altitude of 10km is beyond their ability even now, let alone two years ago when some of them were carrying hunting shotguns. Promoting hysteria aimed at Russia was very telling in itself. As usual, the guilty party usually yells “stop thief!” the loudest. But the whole story was very convenient for Ukraine and its sponsors. The Americans have long mastered similar provocations. Black rectangles were added to hide the graphic content
I can’t even call the Dutch specialists, who picked up where we left off, proper investigators. To be honest, they picked all manner of rejects for this important task. It may be they were in law enforcement of some sort. But they are no specialists. I came to that conclusion for one simple reason. After their departure from the crash site, they left behind a lot that would have drawn attention of professional investigators. In such cases, not only the wreckage and corpses are transported away, but also a layer of topsoil underneath. The Dutch did not hing of the kind, having collected only big pieces and leaving the rest behind. They did not even ask anyone for help, considering the large territory on which the wreckage was scattered. Therefore the site inspection was done in an unprofessional manner by the Dutch. After their visit, the locals kept finding pieces from the plane.”
The next direct participant of the investigation is the director of the DPR Medical Forensics Bureau, Dmitriy Anatolyevich Kalashnikov. At the time, he led the same bureau, though at the time it was the Donetsk Regional Bureau. Some 27 departments scattered all over the region answered to him. Now there are only 13 left in DPR, the rest are on the territory controlled by Ukraine. Here’s what he said:
“I received the news of the crash on the evening of the same day from a worker at a local office, who lived in Rassypnoye. She saw everything with her own eyes. It’s then that I started to get ready to go to the site. I had some experience with such work, when a Tu-154 crashed in our region in 2006. Moreover, I had to deal with the victims of major accidents in coal mines. At times, there were 30-40, or even 80 corpses to examine.
We worked around the clock, without breaks, due to the ongoing fighting. It took about a day and a half before a decision was made and coordinated with other agencies. The weather at that time was very humid: heat interspersed with showers, which also played its role. On the site, I worked jointly with criminal investigators. I didn’t think it necessary to bring along my subordinates, who were busy themselves, therefore I went alone. I expressed my view at the Emercom field HQ on how I viewed my responsibilities. In order to thoroughly record all the finds, I proposed to divide the area of the crash into squares. For example, one spot with burn spots had dimensions of 200 by 200 meters. Quite a large area.
Another such spot was near Rassypnoye, where the crew cabin was. We decided to go there first, record the location of everything, and start describing the corpses. Because the corpses were scattered among the village houses. These are old buildings, and human remains falling from great height literally broke through roofs. I numbered every square and labeled all the pieces of evidence, corpses, fragments, personal effects, naturally with coordinates. Human remains were described in a most detailed fashion, including such details as tattoos, jewelry, and other important visible characteristics.
Most of the corpses were found naked. It later led to the speculation that the Boeing was loaded with dead corpses. In actuality, the corpses fell from great height, and the air resistance stripped clothing off them, except for tight articles. For example, shorts, underwear, and watches. That’s why we found them that way. Practically without any visible injuries—few external injuries and heavy internal ones. It was a sign that the fall came from a great height, when the plane broke apart. I won’t affirm whether the plane was downed by an external or internal action, but everything suggests it broke up in midair. If one examines, by comparison, the crash of the Russian airliner, it fell like a leaf following engine failure. Which is why its crash site could fit in a single photo. The Tupolev’s remains were all togehter and the corpses of 176 passengers were inside the cabin. But here everything was scattered over a big territory, which immediately prompted me to say the explosion took place at great height. During the inspection, as I went from one spot to another, I was told the crew remains were discovered. They were near Rassypnoye, together with pilot cabin wreckage which confirmed by theory it was an explosion (internal or external) at great height while the plane was over this village, causing the separation of pilots’ cabin from the rest of the plane. That’s why I believe the blow happened near the cabin, which led to the further disintegration of the plane whose fragments were so widely scattered. At first I was surprised by the sheer amount of seemingly unrelated personal belongings from passenger baggage. And also by one corpse that clearly was not a member of the crew. But everything became clear after I studied the Boeing 777 design on the internet, and realized that the baggage compartment begins right under the pilots’ cabin.
Characteristically, one of the pilots was tightly buckled into his seat. Which means he was not running around the cabin at the time of the explosion but was behind the controls. Several other crew bodies were next to him. We identified them by the remains of the uniforms still on their bodies. We discovered 37 corpses in Rassypnoye, all of which were sent to the Donetsk morgue. Out of that total, we inspected 27 sets of remains, before receiving an order to send all remains to the Kharkov morgue in a specially assigned refrigerator. I was leaving body inspection for later. Now I regret doing that. Because we would have definitely found pieces of shrapnel and all manner of other things that could have shed light on this tragedy. But who would have believed us then, or now for that matter. They would have said we planted the evidence.
Incidentally, nobody has said anything about evaluation of human remains in Netherlands. Apparently they have something to hide . But I can show photographs which clearly show penetrating punctures in the corpse of the crew member who was strapped into his seat. His uniform shirt looks like a sieve. Two months later we were visited by an international commission, 6 people total, interested in that question, which contained Dutch and Canadian specialists, and I don’t know who else. We provided them with all the collected materials and photographs. We don’t understand why they are keeping quiet about it. Perhaps they contain evidence that’s inconvenient for the West. Even though we did not dissect the corpses for ethical reasons (most of the passengers were Muslim) as well as political ones (because they were foreigners), instead we performed an external inspection to ascertain external injuries. We had no right to act as we pleased. We were waiting. For someone from a diplomatic post, but nobody ever showed up.
Dutch specialists appeared only a week after the crash, when all the corpses were in Kharkov. Morgues in Europe, including Netherlands, are much better equipped than ours. With the aid of x-ray machines, they could have easily discovered the multiple fractures or the metallic shrapnel inside human remains or inside airliner parts. But since the Dutch have so far not shown anything of the sort to the rest of the world, it seems that they have something to hide. Moreover, we took samples from all the corpses for future DNA analysis. The Dutch categorically refused to take them along, and I barely managed to force them to take them. I also insisted on a formal transfer of the remains. They did not want to sign any official papers.”
The general picture of the July 17, 2014 tragedy is completed by the words of the members of the investigative team headed by Col. Gavrilyako. They are now law enforcement officials at DPR. They are Evgeniy Anatolyevich Bazilskiy, Andrey Yuryevich Mozgunov, and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Murvyov, currently still serving with Col. Gavrilyako, and Bogdan Olegovich Maklakov, currently the deputy director of the Criminology Scientific Research Center at the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of Donetsk Region.
They said they divided themselves into pairs and began to inspect the site with the help of the locals. They were following the routine procedure of entering everything into a protocol, including the human remains and aircraft fragments. It was a sad sight, many corpses looked terrible, but they were “fresh.” They began to smell the next day. On the first day, the Makeevka investigators were exclusively describing the found corpses. Punctures were found in the wing found at a farm near Grabovo, which looked like entry holes from shrapnel. Returning from a second working day, the investigators talked to the eyewitnesses in Rassypnoye. Here’s what they said into the protocol. First of all, they heard multiple aircraft. In one of the houses, its owners, husband and wife, said that they saw a Ukrainian fighter fall down, nose up, behind a forest on Ukraine-controlled territory. They even watched two pilots descend by parachute.
Similar testimony was given by another inhabitant of Rassypnoye, a former soldier, who was even offended when he was being checked using leading questions. He even observed the explosion at the fighter’s crash site. Though he couldn’t confirm it, because the whole woodline was full of tripwire mines. But here’s the most important thing: several witnesses heard the sound coming from another plane which circled for some time above the crash site of its colleague, then flew toward Debaltsevo. It couldn’t be seen due to the low clouds. But it could be heard. This testimony was, naturally, entered into the protocol. And they are kept in DPR Prosecutor’s Office archives. So the mystery of the Malaysian Boeing’s death on July 17, 2014, is still awaiting its day. Without any doubt, the facts discovered and recorded by the experts listed above, all of whom are acknowledged professionals, and whom Ukraine hastened to call traitors due to their honesty in discharging their professional duties, will play an important role.
More photos from the scene: | 1real |
Taiwan president calls for breakthrough in China relations | TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan and China need to drop historical baggage to seek a breakthrough in relations, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in her first public comments since China s ruling Communist Party unveiled a new leadership line-up. Relations nose-dived after Tsai, who leads the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, took office last year, with China suspecting that she wants to push for the island s formal independence, a red line for Beijing. Beijing has suspended a regular dialogue mechanism with Taipei established under Taiwan s previous, China-friendly government, and there has been a dramatic fall in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan under Tsai s administration. Right now is a turning point for change. I once again call on leaders of both sides to ... seek a breakthrough in cross-straits relations and to benefit the long-term welfare of people on both sides and to forever eliminate hostilities and conflict, Tsai told a forum. While acknowledging the changes in China s leadership announced on Wednesday, Tsai did not comment specifically on the composition of Xi s core team. But she reiterated that while the island s goodwill towards China would not change, Taipei would not submit to pressure. Responding to Tsai s speech, China s Taiwan Affairs Office said the political basis for relations across the Taiwan Strait was the one China principle, which states that the mainland and Taiwan are part of one China. As long as that is recognized, there are no obstacles to any talks between the sides, the office said in a statement carried by state media. China has been stepping up the pressure on Taiwan. This year, China s air force has carried out several rounds of drills near Taiwan, prompting the island s air force to scramble fighters. Defence Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said Taiwan was a part of China and the military exercises would continue as normal, adding that China was sincere in seeking peaceful reunification . At the same time, we have the ability, confidence and means to protect the country s unity, sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, he told a monthly news conference in Beijing later in the day. Chinese President Xi Jinping drew strong applause at last week s start of the Communist Party Congress when he said any attempt to separate Taiwan from China would be thwarted. Taipei s Mainland Affairs Council delivered a swift response, saying it was absolutely the right of Taiwan s 23 million people to decide their future. China regards self-ruled and democratic Taiwan as a wayward province, to be brought under Beijing s rule by force if necessary. | 0fake |
Schumer to Trump: Don't fire U.S. consumer agency's head | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of the most powerful Democrats in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday pressed President-elect Donald Trump to keep the consumer financial watchdog agency’s current director, as rumors about a possible termination and replacement swirled. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told reporters that Trump will break his campaign promise of “standing up for workers and consumers against the rigged system” if he fires the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) director, Richard Cordray, after taking office on Friday. “If Trump intends to keep any of his promises and un-rig the system, he would keep Rich Cordray,” the senator from New York said in a phone call with reporters. Created in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, the CFPB has battled all sorts of lenders through regulation and litigation. It most recently participated in a settlement with Wells Fargo for $190 million for allegedly creating ghost accounts. By law, the president can only fire the agency’s director for cause, but a recent federal court decision says the U.S. chief executive should be able to dismiss the director at will. That decision has been stayed pending appeal. Some want Trump to not wait for the appeals court and fire Cordray for cause as soon as he becomes president. At the earliest, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is expected to announce in February whether it will review the case. Last week, Trump met with one of the agency’s biggest critics, former Republican Representative Randy Neugebauer of Texas, who is frequently mentioned as a top choice for to replace Cordray. Conservatives say Neugebauer would limit the reach of the CFPB, which they say has gone too far and does not have enough accountability. Congress is controlled by the Republican Party, and most Republicans would prefer having a commission in charge of the agency, instead of a director who both creates and enforces rules. During the call with reporters, Schumer characterized the possibility of making Neugebauer director as an attempt to dismantle the CFPB from the inside. Also on the call, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said removing Cordray would allow Trump to block the CFPB’s current work on rules on mandatory arbitration, payday lending and debt collection. Democrats like Warren, who came up with the idea of an agency to protect individuals’ finances after the 2007-09 crisis, say the CFPB is an important guard against fraud in mortgages, student loans and other consumer products. | 0fake |
PRESIDENT TRUMP TWEETS The Perfect New Years Message…It’s Who He Included In His Tweet That Has Everyone LAUGHING! | As 2017 comes to a close, we d like to acknowledge our gratitude to President Trump, who is truly a gift to America. He came at a time when we needed him most. He came at a time when We The People were watching our freedoms and rights being stripped away by an out-of-control government. He came at a time when educators were teaching our youth that America was the enemy. He came at a time when American citizens were being forced to cede our country to unvetted foreign invaders and illegal aliens in exchange for Democrat Party votes. He came at a time when Democrats, celebrities, and the media were shaming gun owners and Christians for their conservative beliefs, and where daring to say Merry Christmas was a borderline punishable offense. He gave up a successful business and time spent with his close-knit family to step into a hornet s nest like no one could ever have imagined, but he did it because he believed in the greatness of America, and in defending that greatness, no matter the personal cost. That s what makes his New Years tweet so perfect!President Trump took time tonight, to wish his supporters, enemies the very dishonest Fake News Media and even his haters a Happy and Healthy 2018. As we say goodbye to an incredibly successful 2017, led by an incredibly successful President, we d like to thank President Trump for the incredible sacrifices he s made on behalf of every American (even those who don t yet understand) to Make America Great Again!President Trump tweeted: As our Country rapidly grows stronger and smarter, I want to wish all of my friends, supporters, enemies, haters, and even the very dishonest Fake News Media, a Happy and Healthy New Year. 2018 will be a great year for America! As our Country rapidly grows stronger and smarter, I want to wish all of my friends, supporters, enemies, haters, and even the very dishonest Fake News Media, a Happy and Healthy New Year. 2018 will be a great year for America! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017As a special tribute to President Trump, as he wraps up his unbelievably successful first year, we d like to share this powerful article, written by Evan Sayet. The article brilliantly explains why America loves the fighter Donald J. Trump. HE FIGHTSMy Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I m not bothered by Donald Trump s lack of decorum. They ask if I don t think his tweets are beneath the dignity of the office. Here s my answer:We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency. We tried statesmanship. Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized collegiality as John McCain? We tried propriety has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney? And the results were always the same.This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.I don t find anything dignified, collegial or proper about Barack Obama s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party. I don t see anything dignified in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks. I don t see anything statesman-like in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent. Yes, Obama was articulate and polished but in no way was he in the least bit dignified, collegial or proper. The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the 60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale. It has been a war they ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one the violent take-over of the universities till today.The problem is, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality, and propriety.With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America s first wartime president in the Culture War.During wartime, things like dignity and collegiality simply aren t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming. Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today. Lincoln rightly recognized that I cannot spare this man. He fights. General George Patton was a vulgar-talking, son-of-a-bitch. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum, then Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.Trump is fighting. And what s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel s, he s shouting, You magnificent bastards, I read your book! That is just the icing on the cake, but it s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he s defeating the Left using their own tactics.That book is Saul Alinsky s Rules for Radicals a book so essential to the Liberals war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton s senior thesis. It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.Trump s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after the fake media and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri Trump has isolated CNN. He made it personal. Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as the most powerful weapon of all. Everyone gets that it s not just CNN in fact, in a world where Al Sharpton and Rachel Maddow, Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristof are people of influence and whose reporting is in no way significantly different than CNN s CNN is just a piker.Most importantly, Trump s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. With Trump s ability to go around them, they cannot simply stand pat. They need to respond. This leaves them with only two choices.They can either go high (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery.The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive. Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright s, church.Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration s weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration s cover-up. This makes going high a non-starter for CNN. This leaves them no other option but to ratchet up the fake news, conjuring up the next nothing burger and devoting 24 hours a day to hysterical rants about how it s worse than Nixon. This, obviously, is what CNN has chosen to do. The problem is, as they become more and more hysterical, they become more and more obvious. Each new effort at even faker news than before, and faker outrage only makes that much more clear to any objective observer that Trump is and always has been right about the fake news media.And, by causing their hysteria, Trump has forced them into numerous, highly embarrassing and discrediting mistakes. Thus, in their desperation, they have lowered their standards even further and run with articles so clearly fake that, even with the liberal (lower case l ) libel laws protecting the media, they ve had to wholly retract and erase their stories repeatedly.Their flailing at Trump has even seen them cross the line into criminality, with CNN using their vast corporate fortune to hunt down a private citizen for having made fun of them in an Internet meme. This threat to dox release of personal information to encourage co-ideologists to visit violence upon him and his family a political satirist was chilling in that it clearly wasn t meant just for him. If it were, there would have been no reason for CNN to have made their deal with him public.Instead, CNN playing by Chicago Rules was sending a message to any and all: dissent will not be tolerated. This heavy-handed and hysterical response to a joke on the Internet has backfired on CNN, giving rise to only more righteous ridicule.So, to my friends on the Left and the #NeverTrumpers as well do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be collegial and dignified and proper ? Of course, I do. These aren t those times. This is war. And it s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.So, say anything you want about this president I get it, he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don t care. I can t spare this man. He fights.Townhall published this brilliant article on July 13, 2017. It was written by Conservative author and pundit Evan Sayet, who is the author of The KinderGarden of Eden: How The Modern Liberal Thinks. His lecture to the Heritage Foundation on this same topic remains, some ten years later, by far the single most viewed lecture in their history.Here is the link to the video of Evan Sayet s viral lecture on How the modern liberal thinks. | 1real |
EXCLUSIVE – Rep. Ron DeSantis: Trump Should Ignore Palestinian Threats Over Moving Embassy to Jerusalem | JERUSALEM — Speaking from Jerusalem in a Breitbart Jerusalem exclusive interview, Congressman Ron DeSantis ( ) strongly rejected Palestinian threats regarding the possibility of the U. S. moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. [DeSantis, chairman of the subcommittee for National Security for the House Oversight Committee, was in Israel on Saturday and Sunday with a small delegation as part of a tour to study the possibility of relocating the U. S. Embassy to Jerusalem. In response to his visit, Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party warned, the “US Congress should understand that moving the US embassy to Jerusalem will explode the situation in the Mena region (Middle East and North Africa. ” “This same team should consult with its military and political consultants in the (U. S.) State Department that stated several times in the past that (such) actions put American interests and presence in the region in danger,” Zayyad said. Numerous PA officials in recent weeks made similar statements about the possibility of violence in response to any embassy relocation to Jerusalem. Responding to those threats, DeSantis told this reporter: They say that about if we were to do anything. There is always going to be a pretext for them to use to go on their cycle of violence. As you’ve mentioned, they rejected peace time and time again. So, I think for us to do policy based on what a Palestinian Arab is saying they are going to do in response given their history is unacceptable. The second thing is, I think it would actually be very good for Donald Trump to follow through with his promise. Because I think it will show that this is a guy who means business. That he is exercising leadership. That he is not afraid to take bold action even in the face of these threats. And ultimately in the Arab world they have a different psychology than in the Western World. They respect strength. And they respect a strong horse. So, if you cower in the face of these threats to me you will end up losing respect not only from Palestinian Arabs, but also from some of the Arab states in the Gulf. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. | 0fake |
A Saudi Morals Enforcer Called for a More Liberal Islam. Then the Death Threats Began. - The New York Times | JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — For most of his adult life, Ahmed Qassim worked among the bearded enforcers of Saudi Arabia. He was a dedicated employee of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — known abroad as the religious police — serving with the troops protecting the Islamic kingdom from Westernization, secularism and anything but the most conservative Islamic practices. Some of that resembled ordinary police work: busting drug dealers and bootleggers in a country that bans alcohol. But the men of “the Commission,” as Saudis call it, spent most of their time maintaining the puritanical public norms that set Saudi Arabia apart not only from the West, but from most of the Muslim world. A key offense was ikhtilat, or unauthorized mixing between men and women. The kingdom’s clerics warn that it could lead to fornication, adultery, broken homes, children born of unmarried couples and societal collapse. For years, Mr. Ghamdi stuck with the program and was eventually put in charge of the Commission for the region of Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. Then he had a reckoning and began to question the rules. So he turned to the Quran and the stories of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions, considered the exemplars of Islamic conduct. What he found was striking and life altering: There had been plenty of mixing among the first generation of Muslims, and no one had seemed to mind. So he spoke out. In articles and television appearances, he argued that much of what Saudis practiced as religion was in fact Arabian cultural practices that had been mixed up with their faith. There was no need to close shops for prayer, he said, nor to bar women from driving, as Saudi Arabia does. At the time of the Prophet, women rode around on camels, which he said was far more provocative than veiled women piloting S. U. V. s. He even said that while women should conceal their bodies, they needed to cover their faces only if they chose to do so. And to demonstrate the depth of his own conviction, Mr. Ghamdi went on television with his wife, Jawahir, who smiled to the camera, her face bare and adorned with a dusting of makeup. It was like a bomb inside the kingdom’s religious establishment, threatening the social order that granted prominence to the sheikhs and made them the arbiters of right and wrong in all aspects of life. He threatened their control. Mr. Ghamdi’s colleagues at work refused to speak to him. Angry calls poured into his cellphone and anonymous death threats hit him on Twitter. Prominent sheikhs took to the airwaves to denounce him as an ignorant upstart who should be punished, tried — and even tortured. I had come to Saudi Arabia to explore Wahhabism, the Saudi strain of Sunni Islam that is often blamed for fueling intolerance around the world — and nurturing terrorism. I spent weeks in Riyadh, Jidda and other cities speaking with sheikhs, imams, religious professors and many others as I tried to peel back the layers of a closed and private society. For the Western visitor, Saudi Arabia is a baffling mix of modern urbanism, desert culture and the effort to adhere to a rigid interpretation of scriptures that are more than 1, 000 years old. It is a kingdom flooded with oil wealth, skyscrapers, S. U. V.s and shopping malls, where questions about how to invest money, interact with or even treat cats are answered with quotes from the Quran or stories about the Prophet Muhammad. Religion is woven into daily life. Banks employ clerics to ensure they follow Shariah law. Mannequins lack heads because of religious sensitivities to showing the human form. And schoolbooks detail how boys should cut their hair, how girls should cover their bodies and how often a person should trim his or her pubic hair. While Islam is meant to be a complete program for human life, interpretation is key when it comes to practices. The Saudi interpretation is steeped in the conservatism of central Arabia, especially regarding relations between women and men. In public, most women wear baggy black gowns called abayas, designed to hide their forms, as well as veils that cover their hair and faces, with only thin slits for their eyes. Restaurants have separate sections for “families,” meaning groups that include women, and for “singles,” which means men. Many Saudis mix in private, and men and women can usually meet in hotel lobbies with little problem. Others do not want to mix and see gender segregation as part of their cultural identity. In some conservative circles, men go their whole lives without seeing the faces of women other than their immediate family — even their brothers’ wives. Inside the kingdom, all other religions are suppressed. Not only are there no public churches, there is no Church’s Chicken. (It is called Texas Chicken in the kingdom.) When asked about this, Saudis deny that this reflects intolerance. They compare their country to the Vatican, saying it is a unique place for Muslims, with its own rules. Officials I spoke with were upset by the kingdom’s increasingly troubled reputation abroad and said over and over that they supported “moderate Islam. ” But what exactly did they mean by “moderate Islam”? Unpacking that term made it clear how wide the values gap is between Saudi Arabia and its American ally. The kingdom’s “moderate Islam” publicly beheads criminals, punishes apostates and prevents women from traveling abroad without the permission of a male “guardian. ” Don’t even ask about gay rights. Instead of calls for jihad, what I heard were religious leaders insisting that the faithful obey the state. The Saudi royal family is terrified that the jihadist fervor inflaming the region will catch fire at home and threaten its control. So it has marshaled the state’s religious apparatus to condemn the jihadists and proclaim the religious duty of obedience to the rulers. And while it was once common, I heard little disparaging talk about Christians and Jews, although it was open season on Shiites, whose faith is frequently bashed as part of the rivalry with Iran. The only Saudis who suggested I was an infidel were children. Once, a Saudi journalist proudly introduced me to his daughter, whom he had put in private school so she could study English. “What is your name?” I asked. “My name is Dana,” she said. “How old are you?” “I am 9. ” “When is your birthday?” Confused, she switched to Arabic. “We don’t have that in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “That’s an infidel holiday. ” Shocked, her father asked where she had learned that, and she fetched one of her textbooks, flipping to a lesson that listed “forbidden holidays”: Christmas and Thanksgiving. Birthdays had been part of the same lesson. Another time, I met a religious friend for coffee, and he brought his two young sons. When the call to prayer sounded, my friend went to pray. His sons, confused that I did not follow, looked at me and asked, “Are you an infidel?” The first thing many Saudis will tell you about Wahhabism is that it does not exist. “There is no such thing as Wahhabism,” Hisham told me the first time we met. “There is only true Islam. ” The irony is that fewer people have a purer Wahhabi pedigree than Mr. Sheikh, a direct descendant of the cleric who started it all. In the early 18th century, Sheikh Mohammed ibn called for a religious reformation in central Arabia. Feeling that Islam had been corrupted by practices like the veneration of saints and tombs, he called for the stripping away of “innovations” and the return to what he considered the pure religion. He formed an alliance with a chieftain named Mohammed ibn Saud that has underpinned the area’s history ever since. Then the Saud family assumed political leadership while Sheikh and his descendants gave legitimacy to their rule and managed religious affairs. That mix proved potent among the warring Arabian tribes, as Wahhabi clerics provided justification for military conquest in some cases: Those who resisted the House of Saud were not just enemies, but infidels who deserved the sword. The first Saudi state was destroyed by the Ottomans in 1818, and attempts to build another failed until the early 20th century, when King Abdulaziz undertook a campaign that put him in control of most of the Arabian Peninsula. But the king faced a choice: to continue expansionary jihad, which would have invited conflict with the British, or to build a modern state. He chose the latter, even crushing a group of his own warriors who refused to stop fighting. Since then, the alliance between the royal family and the clerics has endured, although the tensions between the quest for ideological purity and the exigencies of modern statehood remain throughout Saudi society. Fast forward to 2016, and the main players have transformed because of time and oil wealth. The royal family has grown from a group of scrappy desert dwellers into a sprawling clan awash in palaces and private jets. The Wahhabi establishment has evolved from a puritan reform movement into a bloated state bureaucracy. It consists of universities that churn out graduates trained in religious disciplines a legal system in which judges apply Shariah law a council of top clerics who advise the king a network of offices that dispense fatwas, or religious opinions a force of religious police who monitor public behavior and tens of thousands of mosque imams who can be tapped to deliver the government’s message from the pulpit. The call to prayer sounds five times a day from mosques and inside of malls so clearly that many Saudis use it to organize their days. “Let’s meet after the sunset prayer,” they would tell me, sometimes unsure what time that was. So I installed an app on my phone that let me look up prayer times and buzzed when the call sounded. And so it was, after the sunset prayer, that I met Mr. Sheikh, a proud descendant of Mohammed ibn . He was a portly man of 42 who wore a long white robe and covered his head with a schmag, or checkered cloth. His beard was long and he had no mustache, in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad, and he squinted through reading glasses perched on his nose while peering at his iPhone. We sat on purple couches in the lobby of a Riyadh hotel and shared dates and coffee while he answered my questions about Islam in Saudi Arabia. “I am an person,” he told me early on. It was clear that he hoped I would become a Muslim. His life had been defined by the religious establishment, but he proved to be a case study in the complexity of terms like “modern” and “traditional” in Saudi Arabia. He had memorized the Quran at a young age and studied with prominent clerics before completing his doctorate in Shariah, with his thesis on how technology changed the application of Shariah. Now he had a successful career and a host of religious jobs. He trained judges for the Shariah courts, advised the minister of Islamic affairs, wrote studies for the clerics who advise the king and served on the Shariah board of the Medgulf insurance company. On Fridays, he preached at a mosque near his mother’s house and welcomed visitors who came to see his uncle, the grand mufti. He had traveled extensively abroad, and when he found out I was American he told me that he loved the United States. He had visited Oregon, New York, Massachusetts and Los Angeles. On one trip, he visited a synagogue. On another, a black church. He had also visited an Amish community, which he found fascinating. A relative of his lived in Montgomery, Ala. and he had spent happy months there, often visiting the local Islamic center. The hardest part, he said, was Ramadan, because there were few eateries open late that did not have bars. “All I had was IHOP,” he said. He said Islam did not forbid doing business or having friendships with Christians or Jews. He opposed Shiite beliefs and practices, but said it was wrong to do as the extremists of the Islamic State and declare takfir, or infidelity, on entire groups. When it came to birthdays, which many Saudi clerics condemn, he said he did not oppose them, although his wife did, so their children did not go to birthday parties. But they had celebrations of their own, he said, showing me a video on his phone of his family gathered around a cake bearing the face of his son Abdullah, 15, who had just memorized the Quran. They lit sparklers and cheered, but did not sing. He was on the fence about music, which many Wahhabis also forbid. He said he had no problem with background music in restaurants, but opposed music that put listeners in a state similar to drunkenness, causing them to jump around and bang their heads. “We have something better,” he said. “You can listen to the Quran. ” Since much of what differentiates Saudi Arabia is the place of women, I wanted to talk to a conservative Saudi woman, which was tricky because most would refuse to meet with any unrelated male — let alone a correspondent from the United States. So I had a female Saudi colleague, Sheikha contact Mr. Sheikh’s wife, Meshael, who said she would meet me. But I asked Mr. Sheikh’s permission. “She is very busy,” he said, and changed the subject. So Ms. Sheikh met Ms. Dosary at a women’s coffee shop in Riyadh, where women can uncover their faces and hair. Her marriage to Mr. Sheikh had been arranged, she said. They met once for less than an hour before they were married, and he had seen her face. “It was hard for me to look at him or to check him out as I was so shy,” she said. They were cousins. He was 21 she was 16. He agreed to her condition for marriage that she continue her studies, and she was now working on a doctorate in education while raising their four children. She disputed the Western idea that Saudi women lack rights. “They believe we are oppressed because we don’t drive, but that is incorrect,” Ms. Sheikh said, adding that driving would be a hassle in Riyadh’s snarled traffic. “Here women are respected and honored in many ways you don’t find in the West,” she continued. She, too, is a descendant of Sheikh and said proudly that her grandfather had founded the kingdom’s religious police. “Praise God that we have the Commission to protect our country,” she said. The primacy of Islam in Saudi life has led to a huge religious sphere that extends beyond the state’s official clerics. Public life is filled with celebrity sheikhs whose moves, comments and conflicts Saudis track just as Americans follow Hollywood actors. There are old sheikhs and young sheikhs, sheikhs who used to be extremists and now preach tolerance, sheikhs whom women find sexy, and a black sheikh who has compared himself to Barack Obama. In the kingdom’s society, they compete for followers on Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat. The grand mufti, the state’s highest religious official, has a regular television show, too. Their embrace of technology runs counter to the history of Wahhabi clerics rejecting nearly everything new as a threat to the religion. Formerly banned items include the telegraph, the radio, the camera, soccer, girls’ education and televisions, whose introduction in the 1960s caused outrage. For Saudis, trying to navigate what is permitted, halal, and what is not, haram, can be challenging. So they turn to clerics for fatwas, or nonbinding religious rulings. While some may get a lot of attention — as when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran called for killing the author Salman Rushdie — most concern the details of religious practice. Others can reveal the sometimes comical contortions that clerics go through to reconcile modernity with their understanding of religion. There was, for example, the cleric who appeared to call for the death of Mickey Mouse, then tried to backtrack. Another prominent cleric issued a clarification that he had not in fact forbidden buffets. That same sheikh was recently asked about people taking photos with cats. He responded that the feline presence was irrelevant the photos were the problem. “Photography is not permitted unless necessary,” he said. “Not with cats, not with dogs, not with wolves, not with anything. ” The government has sought to control the flow of religious opinions with official fatwa institutions. But fatwas have provoked laughter, too, like the fatwa calling spending money on Pokemon products “cooperation in sin and transgression. ” While the government seeks to get more women into the work force, the state fatwa organization preaches on the “danger of women joining men in the workplace,” which it calls “the reason behind the destruction of societies. ” And there are fatwas that arm extremists with religious justification. There is one fatwa, still available in English on a government website and signed by the previous grand mufti, that states, “Whoever refuses to follow the straight path deserves to be killed or enslaved in order to establish justice, maintain security and peace and safeguard lives, honor and property. ” It goes on: “Slavery in Islam is like a purifying machine or sauna in which those who are captured enter to wash off their dirt and then they come out clean, pure and safe, from another door. ” Once while we were having coffee, Mr. Sheikh answered his cellphone, listened seriously and issued a fatwa on the spot. He got such calls frequently. The query had been about where a pilgrim headed to Mecca had to don the white cloths of ritual purity — an easy one. The answer, in this case, was Jidda. Others were harder, and he demurred if he was not sure. Once, a woman asked about fake eyelashes. He told her that he did not know, but thought about it later and decided they were fine, on one condition: “that there is no cheating involved. ” A woman, for example, could put them on before a man came to propose. “And then after they get married, they’re gone!” he said. “That is not permitted. ” One Friday, Mr. Sheikh took me to see his uncle, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz . We entered a vast reception hall near the mufti’s house in Riyadh, with padded benches along the walls where a dozen bearded students sat. In the center, on a raised armchair, sat the mufti, his feet in brown socks and perched on a pillow. The students read religious texts, and the mufti interjected with commentary. He was 75, Mr. Sheikh said, and had been blind since age 14, when a German doctor carried out a failed operation on his eyes. Mr. Sheikh said I could ask him a question, so I asked how he responded to those who compared Wahhabism to the Islamic State. “That is all lies and slander. Daesh is an aggressive, tyrannous group that has no relation,” he said, using another term for the Islamic State. After a pause, he asked, “Why don’t you become a Muslim?” I responded that I was from a Christian family. “The religion you follow has no source,” he said, adding that I should accept the Prophet Muhammad’s revelation. “Your religion is not a religion,” he said. “In the end, you will have to face God. ” The first time I met Mr. Ghamdi, 51, formerly of the religious police, was this year in a sitting room in his apartment in Jidda, the port city on the Red Sea. The room had been outfitted to look like a Bedouin tent. Burgundy fabric adorned the walls, gold tassels hung from the ceiling, and carpets covered the floor, to which Mr. Ghamdi pressed his forehead in prayer during breaks in our conversation. He spoke of how the world of sheikhs, fatwas and the meticulous application of religion to everything had defined his life. But that world — his world — had frozen him out. Little in his background suggested that he would become a religious reformer. While at a university, he quit a job at the customs office in the Jidda port because a sheikh told him that collecting duties was haram. After graduation, he studied religion in his spare time and handled international accounts for a government office — a job requiring travel to countries. “The clerics at that time were releasing fatwas that it was not right to travel to the countries of the infidels unless it was necessary,” Mr. Ghamdi said. So he quit. Then he taught economics at a technical school in Saudi Arabia, but didn’t like that it taught only capitalism and socialism. So he said he had added material on Islamic finance, but the students complained about the extra work, and he left. He finally landed a job that he felt was consistent with his religious convictions, as a member of the Commission in Jidda. Over the next few years, he transferred to Mecca and cycled through different positions. There were occasional prostitution cases, and the force sometimes caught sorcerers — who can be beheaded if convicted in court. But he developed reservations about how the force worked. His colleagues’ religious zeal sometimes led them to overreact, breaking into people’s homes or humiliating detainees. “Let’s say someone drank alcohol,” he said. “That does not represent an attack on the religion, but they exaggerated in how they treated people. ” At one point, Mr. Ghamdi was assigned to review cases and tried to use his position to report abuses and force agents to return items they had wrongfully confiscated, he said. He recalled the case of an older, single man who was reported to receive two young women in his home on the weekends. Since the man did not pray at the mosque, his neighbors suspected he was up to no good, so the Commission raided the house and caught the man — visiting with his daughters. “Often, people were humiliated in inhuman ways, and that humiliation could cause hatred of religion,” Mr. Ghamdi said. In 2005, the head of the Commission for the Mecca region died, and Mr. Ghamdi was promoted. It was a big job, with some 90 stations throughout a large, diverse area containing Islam’s holiest sites. He did his best to keep up, while worrying that the Commission’s focus was misguided. In private, he looked to the scriptures and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad for guidance on what was halal and what was haram, and he documented his findings. “I was surprised because we used to hear from the scholars, ‘Haram, haram, haram,’ but they never talked about the evidence,” he said. Realizing the gravity of such a conclusion for someone in his position, he stayed silent and filed the document away. But his conclusions would, soon, emerge. Around the time he was rethinking his worldview, King Abdullah, then the monarch, announced plans to open a university, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or Kaust. What shocked the kingdom’s religious establishment was his decision to not segregate students by gender, nor impose a dress code on women. Kaust followed the precedent of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, which had also been shielded from clerical interference, highlighting one of the great contradictions of Saudi Arabia: Regardless of how much the royal family lauds its Islamic values, when it wants to earn money or innovate, it does not turn to the clerics for advice. It puts up a wall and locks them out. Most clerics kept quiet out of deference to the king. But one member of the top clerical body addressed the issue on a show, warning of the dangers of mixed universities: sexual harassment men and women flirting and getting distracted from their studies husbands growing jealous of their wives rape. “Mixing has many corrupting factors, and its evil is great,” said the cleric, Sheikh Saad adding that if the king had known this was the plan, he would have stopped it. But mixing was in fact the king’s idea, and he was not amused. He dismissed the sheikh with a royal decree. From his office in Mecca, Mr. Ghamdi watched, frustrated that the clerics were not backing a project he felt was good for the kingdom. So after praying about it, he retrieved his report and boiled it down to two long articles that were published in the newspaper Okaz in 2009. They were the first strikes in a yearslong battle between Mr. Ghamdi and the religious establishment. He followed with other articles, went on TV and faced off against other clerics who insulted him and marshaled their own evidence from the scriptures. His colleagues at the Commission shunned him, so he requested — and was swiftly granted — early retirement. Once off the force, he questioned other practices: forcing shops to close during prayer times and urging people to go to the mosque, requiring face veils, barring women from driving. Each comment lit a new inferno. A woman once asked him on Twitter if she could not only show her face, but also wear makeup. Sure, Mr. Ghamdi said, setting off new attacks. Then in 2014, he was to appear on a popular talk show, and the producers filmed a segment about him and his wife, who appeared with her face showing and said she supported him. Harsh responses came from the top of the religious establishment. Many attacked his religious credentials, saying he was not really a sheikh — a dubious accusation since there is no standard qualification to be one. They targeted his résumé, too, saying he had no degree in religion and pointing out, correctly, that his doctorate was from Ambassador University Corporation, a diploma mill that gives degrees based on work experience “in the Middle East. ” “There is no doubt that this man is bad,” said Sheikh Saleh a member of the top clerical body. “It is necessary for the state to assign someone to summon and torture him. ” The grand mufti addressed the issue on his show, saying that the veil was “a necessary order and an Islamic creation” and calling on the kingdom’s television channels to ban content that “corrupts the religion and the morals and values of society. ” If the clerical attacks on Mr. Ghamdi were loud, the blowback from society was more painful. His tribe issued a statement, disowning him and calling him “troubled and confused. ” His cellphone rang day and night with callers shouting at him. He came home to find graffiti on the wall of his house. And a group of men showed up at his door, demanding to “mix” with the family’s women. His sons — he has nine children — called the police. Before the Mr. Ghamdi had also delivered Friday sermons at a mosque in Mecca, earning a government stipend. But the congregation complained after he spoke out, and he was asked to stay home, later losing his pay. Mr. Ghamdi had not broken any laws and never faced legal action. But in Saudi Arabia’s society, the attacks echoed through his family. The relatives of his eldest son’s fiancée called off their wedding, not wanting to associate their family with his. “Are you with your brother or with me?” Mr. Ghamdi said his sister’s husband had asked her. “She said, ‘I am with my brother. ’” They soon divorced. Mr. Ghamdi’s son Ammar, 15, was taunted at school. Ammar said another boy had once asked him: “How did your mom go on TV? That’s not right. You have no manners. ” So Ammar punched him. One evening in Jidda, a university professor invited me to his home for dinner. His wife, a doctor, joined us at the table, her hair covered with a stylish veil. They had recently been married and he joked that they were meant for each other because she was good at cooking and he was good at eating. His wife chuckled and gave him more soup. I asked about Mr. Ghamdi. “From what I read and what I saw, I think he’s right and he stood up for what he believes in,” the professor said. “I admire that. ” The problem, he said, is that tolerance for opposing views is not taught in Saudi society. “Either follow what I say or I will classify you, I will hurt you, I will push you out of the discussion,” he said. “This is . We have many people thinking in different ways. You can fight, but you have to live under the same roof. ” His wife had no problem with mixing or with women working, but did not like that Mr. Ghamdi had caused a scandal by making his views public. The royal family sets the rules, and it was inappropriate for subjects to publicly campaign for changes, she said. “He has to follow the ruler,” she said. “If everyone just comes out with his own opinion, we’ll be in chaos. ” After dinner, a young cleric who works for the security services dropped by. He, too, agreed with Mr. Ghamdi, but would not talk about it openly. The response, he said, is part of the deep conservatism in the clerical establishment that is impeding development. He often gave lectures to security officers, followed by discussions, he said, and a common question he heard was, “Isn’t the military uniform haram?” Many Wahhabi clerics preach against resembling the infidels, leading to confusion. He believed that wearing uniforms was fine, and worried that such narrow thinking made people susceptible to extremism. “It’s like in those American movies when they invent a robot and then they lose control and it attacks them and the remote control stops working,” he said. The next day, the professor thanked me for my visit in a text message. “I’d like to remind u that any story that would uncover the source may hurt us. I trust your discretion,” he wrote, followed by three flowers. All that was left, really, was to to speak with the Commission. What did its leaders and rank and file think about all of this? But for a force portrayed as and all powerful, it proved surprisingly shy. I could not visit Mr. Ghamdi’s former office because are barred from entering Mecca. So I had multiple contacts ask for interviews with relatives who worked for the Commission, but they all declined to speak. I called the Commission’s spokesman, who told me that he was traveling and then stopped answering my calls. I even dropped by the Commission’s headquarters, a boxy, building on a Riyadh highway between a gas station and a car dealership. Its website advertised open hours with the director, so I went to his office, through halls filled with bearded men milling about and slick banners proclaiming “A Policy of Excellence” and “Together Against Corruption. ” “He didn’t come today,” the director’s secretary told me. “Maybe next week. ” On my way out, two men invited me into an office and served me coffee. “How do you like working for the Commission?” I asked. “Everyone who chooses this job loves it,” one said. It was the work of “the entire Islamic nation,” and it felt good “to bring people from the darkness into the light. ” The other man had been on the force for 15 years and said he preferred working in the office. “You rest more in the administration,” he said. “Out there we have problems with people. They call us the religious police. Criminals! Thieves! You never get to rest out in the field. ” A scowling man appeared in the doorway and told me that I was not allowed to talk to anyone. The first man soon left. The second offered me more coffee, then tea, then forced me to take a bottle of water when I left. The first irony of Mr. Ghamdi’s situation is that many Saudis, including members of the royal family and even important clerics, agree with him, although mostly in private. And public mixing of the sexes in some places — hospitals, conferences and in Mecca during the pilgrimage — is common. In some Saudi cities it is not uncommon to see women’s faces, or even their hair. But there is a split in society between the conservatives who want to maintain what they consider the kingdom’s pure Islamic identity and the liberals (in the Saudi context) who want more personal freedoms. Liberals make cases like Mr. Ghamdi’s all the time. But sheikhs don’t, which is why he was branded a traitor. The second irony is that this year, Saudi Arabia instituted some of the reform Mr. Ghamdi had called for. It had been a rough year for the Commission. A video went viral of a girl yelping as she was thrown to the ground outside a Riyadh mall during a confrontation with the Commission, her abaya flying over her head and exposing her legs and torso. For many Saudis, “the Nakheel Mall girl” symbolized the Commission’s overreach. Then the Commission arrested Ali a popular talk show host who often criticized religious figures. Photos appeared online of Mr. Oleyani in handcuffs with bottles of liquor. The photos were clearly staged and apparently had been leaked as a form of character assassination. Many people were outraged. In April, the government responded with a surprise decree defanging the religious police. It denied them the power to arrest, question or pursue subjects, forced them to work with the police and advised them to be “gentle and kind” in their interactions with citizens. Mr. Ghamdi applauded the decision, although he remains an outcast, a sheikh whose positions rendered him unemployable in the Islamic kingdom. These days, he keeps a low profile because he still gets insults when he appears in public. He has no job, but publishes regular newspaper columns, mostly abroad. Near the end of our last conversation, his wife, Jawahir, entered the room, dressed in a black abaya, with her face showing. She shook my hand, exuding a cloud of fragrance, and sat next to her husband. The experience had changed her life in unexpected ways, she said. And like her husband, she had no regrets. “We sent our message, and the goal was not for us to keep appearing and to get famous,” she said. “It was to send a message to society that religion is not customs and traditions. Religion is something else. ” | 0fake |
Trump administration reverses policy on fiancés as travel ban takes effect | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration reversed a decision late on Thursday and said fiancés would be considered close family members and therefore allowed to travel to the United States as its revised travel ban took effect. The U.S. State Department concluded “upon further review, fiancés would now be included as close family members,” said a State Department official who requested anonymity. The Trump administration had previously decided, on the basis of its interpretation of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, that grandparents, grandchildren and fiancés traveling from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen would be barred from obtaining visas while the ban was in place. The 90-day ban took effect at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT Friday), along with a 120-day ban on all refugees. On Monday, the Supreme Court revived parts of Trump’s travel ban on people from the six Muslim-majority countries, narrowing the scope of lower court rulings that had blocked parts of a March 6 executive order and allowing his temporary ban to go into effect for people with no strong ties to the United States. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, who also requested anonymity, said it would be updating its guidance to state that fiancés would not be barred from obtaining visas while the ban was in place. The Supreme Court exempted from the ban travelers and refugees with a “bona fide relationship” with a person or entity in the United States. As an example, the court said those with a “close familial relationship” with someone in the United States would be covered. The state of Hawaii asked a federal judge in Honolulu on Thursday evening to determine whether the Trump administration had interpreted the court’s decision too narrowly. Hawaii said in a court filing that the U.S. government intended to violate the Supreme Court’s instructions by improperly excluding from the United States people who actually have a close family relationship to U.S. persons, echoing criticism from immigrant and refugee groups. Hawaii called the refusal to recognize grandparents and other relatives as an acceptable family relationship “a plain violation of the Supreme Court’s command.” Hawaii’s Attorney General Doug Chin asked U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu, who blocked Trump’s travel ban in March, to issue an order “as soon as possible” clarifying how the Supreme Court’s ruling should be interpreted. Watson ordered the Justice Department to respond to Hawaii’s request by Monday, and said he would allow Hawaii to reply by July 6. A senior U.S. official did not answer directly when asked how barring grandparents or grandchildren would make the United States safer, but instead pointed to Trump’s guidance to pause “certain travel while we review our security posture.” The U.S. government expected “things to run smoothly” and “business as usual” at U.S. ports of entry, another senior U.S. official told reporters. A handful of immigration lawyers gathered at Dulles International Airport outside Washington on Thursday in case of any problems. “We’re going to keep fighting this ban, even if it applies very narrowly,” said Sirine Shebaya, a senior staff attorney at Muslim Advocates. “It’s still a Muslim ban, and its still trying to send a message to a whole community that they’re not welcome here.” The administration said refugees who have agreements with resettlement agencies but not close family in the United States would not be exempted from the ban, likely sharply limiting the number of refugees allowed entry in coming months. Hawaii said in its court filing it was “preposterous” not to consider a formal link with a resettlement agency a qualifying relationship. Refugee resettlement agencies had expected that their formal links with would-be refugees would qualify as “bona fide.” The administration’s decision likely means that few refugees beyond a 50,000-cap set by Trump would be allowed into the country this year. A U.S. official said that, as of Wednesday evening, 49,009 refugees had been allowed into the country this fiscal year. The State Department said refugees scheduled to arrive through July 6 could still enter. Trump first announced a temporary travel ban on Jan. 27, calling it a counterterrorism measure to allow time to develop better security vetting. The order caused chaos at airports, as officials scrambled to enforce it before it was blocked by courts. Opponents argued that the measure discriminated against Muslims and that there was no security rationale for it. A revised version of the ban was also halted by courts. The State Department guidance, distributed to all U.S. diplomatic posts on Wednesday evening and seen by Reuters, fleshed out the Supreme Court’s ruling about people who have a “bona fide” relationship with an individual or entity in the United States. It defined a close familial relationship as being a parent, spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling, including step-siblings and other step-family relations. A department cable said grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, fiancés, “and any other ‘extended’ family members” were not considered close family. The guidelines also said workers with offers of employment from a company in the United States or a lecturer addressing U.S. audiences would be exempt from the ban, but that arrangements such as a hotel reservation would not be considered bona fide relationships. | 0fake |
Bloomberg opts out of U.S. presidential bid, calls for centrism | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday he would not mount an independent bid for the U.S. presidency because he feared it would increase the chances that Republicans Donald Trump or Ted Cruz could end up in the White House. A billionaire media mogul who combined business-friendly fiscal policies with liberal views on gun control and other social issues, Bloomberg could have potentially appealed to centrist voters in a year when candidates from the far left and right of the political spectrum have gained traction. But Bloomberg, 74, said he had concluded that any candidate would be unlikely to win a clear majority in a three-person race. That would throw the election into the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which would be able to hand the White House to Trump, a real-estate billionaire, or Cruz, a conservative U.S. senator from Texas. “That is not a risk I can take in good conscience,” he wrote on Bloomberg View, an opinion website that is part of his media empire. Bloomberg never received much interest from American voters. About 12 percent of likely voters said they would support him in a three-way race for president with Democrat Hillary Clinton and Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national poll conducted from Wednesday to Monday. Among respondents, 41 percent said they would support Clinton and 31 percent would support Trump. The poll of 1,695 likely voters had a credibility interval of 3 percentage points. Bloomberg said Trump, who is leading the battle to win the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election, had backed policies that would undermine religious tolerance and threaten national security. Trump has called for building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, deporting the country’s illegal immigrants and temporarily barring Muslims from entering the country. “He has run the most divisive and demagogic presidential campaign I can remember, preying on people’s prejudices and fears,” Bloomberg wrote of Trump. He said Cruz, a favorite of evangelicals and the conservative Tea Party movement, was divisive as well. Bloomberg also hit out at Clinton and her rival for the Democratic nomination, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, for criticizing free trade and the financial industry. “Extremism is on the march, and unless we stop it, our problems at home and abroad will grow worse,” he wrote. Spokespeople for Trump and Cruz did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Bloomberg’s criticism. Bloomberg founded and is majority owner of Bloomberg L.P., a news and financial information provider that competes with Thomson Reuters Corp TRI.TO. The fear of a general election contest between Trump and Sanders, a democratic socialist, had driven Bloomberg to begin seriously exploring an independent run, a senior adviser said on condition of anonymity. But with Clinton pulling away from Sanders in the Democratic race, Bloomberg concluded the path to victory and the rationale for running were gone, the aide said. Clinton reacted to the news with polite praise, saying she had the “greatest respect” for Bloomberg. “He has to make his own decisions, but I look forward to continuing to work with him,” she said on Fox News. Sanders, when asked about Bloomberg’s decision not to run, said election laws should be changed to make it easier for people who are not rich, or not friendly with rich people, to run for office. “I think it’s a bad idea for American democracy that the only people who feel in many ways they can run for president are people who have so much money,” he said on Fox News. | 0fake |
FCC Passes Sweeping Internet Privacy Rules in ‘Big Win for Civil Rights’ | FCC Passes Sweeping Internet Privacy Rules in ‘Big Win for Civil Rights’ Posted on Oct 27, 2016 Shutterstock
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday passed sweeping new privacy rules designed to keep broadband providers from giving customers’ private data to third parties.
The rules, approved by a vote of 3-2, require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to get customers’ explicit consent before using or sharing behavioral data like browsing history, location, and other sensitive information with marketing firms or other companies, the Washington Post reports .
“It’s the consumers’ information,” FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said. “How it is used should be the consumers’ choice. Not the choice of some corporate algorithm.”
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According to the Post’s Brian Fung:
Also covered by that requirement are health data, financial information, Social Security numbers and the content of emails and other digital messages. The measure allows the FCC to impose the opt-in rule on other types of information in the future, but certain types of data, such as a customer’s IP address and device identifier, are not subject to the opt-in requirement. The rules also force service providers to tell consumers clearly what data they collect and why, as well as to take steps to notify customers of data breaches.
However, the new rules do not require providers to get clear permission before using the data themselves.
Still, watchdog groups praised the announcement, with the digital rights organization Fight for the Future calling it “a big win for consumers [and] civil rights.”
Chris Calabrese, vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said , “This rule represents a significant step forward in protecting internet users, who have no choice but to expose massive amounts of information to broadband providers. It reflects the reality that where we go online is private and the people we pay to carry it should treat it as private.”
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said the vote was “a historic win for privacy and free expression and for the vitality of the internet. Just as telephone companies are not allowed to listen in to our calls or sell information about who we talk to, our internet providers shouldn’t be allowed to monitor our internet usage for profit.”
Still, he noted, “The FCC’s order is not airtight. We can expect the industry to try to exploit every crack in these protections, and hope that the spirit of vigorous oversight and consumer protection that has animated this proceeding will continue.”
The racial justice group Color Of Change, which advocated for stronger privacy protections as a safeguard against data collection—which disproportionately affects communities of color—also welcomed the announcement.
“When Color Of Change began their advocacy on behalf of communities of color, the FCC listened, and today ends the era of corporations having unfettered access to our personal data and information, which has been routinely used to take advantage of the vulnerable,” said the organization’s campaign director Brandi Collins. “Third party marketing and advertising entities can no longer shamelessly target and prey upon black people and communities of color. This ruling also takes a strong stance to eliminate schemes that require payment for data to be protected and safeguards our actions online.”
Dallas Harris, policy fellow at the media democracy group Public Knowledge, said the decision “marks a significant step forward in protecting consumer privacy. For the first time, [ISPs] will be required to get consumer consent prior to using the sensitive information they collect. While much remains to be done to protect consumers online writ large, the commission’s rules establish a baseline level of protection for all.”
“Thanks to the rules passed by the commission today, consumers now have more control over how their information is used online than ever before. Yet, consumer protection rules are only as strong as their ability to be enforced, so it is imperative that the commission follow these strong rules with strict enforcement,” Harris said. TAGS: | 1real |
U.N. chief urges communication with North Korea to avoid escalation | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Friday it was time to immediately re-establish and strengthen communication channels with North Korea, including inter-Korean and military to military channels, to reduce the risk of a misunderstanding escalating into conflict. While all concerned seek to avoid an accidental escalation leading to conflict, the risk is being multiplied by misplaced over-confidence, dangerous narratives and rhetoric, and the lack of communication channels, Guterres told the U.N. Security Council. | 0fake |
State Attorney General Orders Trump Foundation to Cease Raising Money in New York - The New York Times | The office of the New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, has issued a “notice of violation” to Donald J. Trump’s foundation, ordering it to immediately stop soliciting charitable donations in the state. The letter, which was sent on Friday and released on Monday morning by Mr. Schneiderman’s office, said its charities bureau had determined that the Donald J. Trump Foundation had been in New York this year when it was not registered to do so under state law. “The Trump Foundation must immediately cease soliciting contributions or engaging in any other activities in New York,” wrote James Sheehan, the chief of the charities bureau. Mr. Trump’s foundation has come under increasing scrutiny amid questions about his fulfillment of large charitable pledges and his lack of financial support in recent years. The foundation’s compliance with the rules that govern nonprofit groups has also been a concern. The New York Times reported last month that Mr. Trump’s foundation does not show up on the charity registers in many states, and The Washington Post subsequently reported that the foundation did not have the certification necessary to solicit money in New York. “While we remain very concerned about the political motives behind A. G. Schneiderman’s investigation, the Trump Foundation nevertheless intends to cooperate fully with the investigation,” Hope Hicks, Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman, said in a statement on Monday. “Because this is an ongoing legal matter, the Trump Foundation will not comment further at this time. ” Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has previously deflected criticism about his charitable giving, saying that he makes contributions personally and that he has been supportive of his foundation. Mr. Schneiderman’s office is investigating Mr. Trump’s foundation to determine if it is in compliance with state laws, including how it spends its money and courts donations. The attorney general’s office was particularly interested in a held by Mr. Trump this year to benefit veterans in lieu of attending a Republican primary debate. The event raised $5. 6 million, including some money from wealthy donors, and the Trump Foundation said $1. 67 million had come from online donations. The foundation did not break down the sources by state. Over the years, Mr. Trump has donated $5. 4 million to his charity, according to the organization’s tax filings. But the last of those contributions was in 2008, and in recent years, the foundation’s coffers have been filled by outside donors — including organizations and people in New York. (The foundation’s most recently available filing was for 2014.) From 2009 to 2014, the foundation raised $4. 36 million, with $2. 5 million from New Yorkers, records show. State rules require nonprofits raising more than $25, 000 a year in New York to register and file audited financial statements and annual financial reports to the attorney general’s charities bureau. In the letter, Mr. Schneiderman’s office provided notice to Mr. Trump’s foundation that it must provide those financial documents within 15 days. It also must file any “delinquent reports” for past years within that time frame. “The failure immediately to discontinue solicitation and to file information and reports” with the charities bureau, Mr. Sheehan said, “shall be deemed a fraud upon the people of the state of New York. ” Mr. Schneiderman, a Democrat and a supporter of Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, has also asserted in a separate pending case that Mr. Trump defrauded students who participated in Trump University, his educational program. | 0fake |
null | No, you'll be a dog licking of the vomit of your Chinese overlords... | 1real |
ONLY HOURS AFTER DEATH Of Supreme Court Justice Scalia, Democrats Demand Obama Chooses His Replacement | The US Supreme Court is set to decide the first major abortion case in nearly 10 years as well as critical decisions on immigration, affirmative action and voting rights. Will the Republican party have the spine to stand up to these reprobates and demand that we wait until after the election to appoint a new US Supreme Court Justice? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Saturday that the Senate should wait until a new president is elected to confirm a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, whose sudden death Saturday shook Washington and threatened to reshape the 2016 presidential race.Democrats said that with 11 months left in Mr. Obama s tenure, the Senate has enough time and indeed an obligation to confirm a replacement. The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president, the Kentucky Republican said in a statement.News of Scalia s death was just hours old before the debate heated up.With the court now divided between four Republican-appointed justices and four Democratic picks, Mr. Obama would have a chance to tilt the bench decidedly to the left, and liberal lawmakers said he should have that chance.Via: Washington Times | 1real |
Erdogan, Putin say U.S. decision on Jerusalem will have negative impact on region: sources | ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed in a phone call on Thursday that the U.S. decision on Jerusalem will negatively impact the region s peace and stability, sources in Erdogan s office said. President Erdogan emphasized that the latest move by the U.S. government would negatively impact the peace and stability in the region. Russian President Putin stated he shared the same views, the sources said. Earlier on Thursday, Turkish presidential sources said Erdogan and Pope Francis had agreed in a phone call that any attempts to change Jerusalem s status should be avoided, after President Donald Trump on Wednesday reversed decades of U.S. policy and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. | 0fake |
Overcoming Anxiety/ Spirit Communications | Overcoming Anxiety/ Spirit Communications Overcoming Anxiety/ Spirit Communications Date Wednesday - November 16,
First Half: Psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin will discuss techniques to overcome guilt, shame and anxiety and how to handle life's obstacles. He'll also address the overprescribing of psychiatric drugs in the US, and the alternatives available.
Second Half: Hans Christian King , a direct voice medium for more than sixty years, will outline how to create a clear channel for spiritual communication, which enables practitioners to discover, activate, trust, and follow the soul’s directions. He'll also share stories from the spirit world, and from those who've experienced spiritual awakenings. Website(s): | 1real |
Tanzania suspends fourth newspaper since June in media crackdown | DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Tanzania s government on Tuesday suspended publication of an opposition-leaning newspaper for three months, the fourth newspaper to be shut down since June in what critics say is a crackdown on press freedom. The newspaper, Tanzania Daima, was shut down for publishing an article about the number of Tanzanians on life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs used to treat AIDS, the director general of the Tanzania Information Services, Hassan Abbasi, said in a statement. The article was factually incorrect, Abbasi said. The move comes after President John Magufuli warned in January that the days of newspapers his government viewed as unethical were numbered a statement that triggered concern about censorship. The government banned the critical newspaper MwanaHalisi in September for two years after accusing it of inciting violence. Another independent newspaper, Mawio, was banned in June over articles linking two former presidents to alleged improprieties in mining deals signed in the 1990s and early 2000s. Magufuli has won some praise from western donors for an anti-corruption drive and cutting wasteful public spending. But opponents accuse him of increasingly undermining democracy by curbing dissent and stifling free speech. Magufuli has denied opposition accusations that his government was becoming increasingly autocratic. | 0fake |
Vladimir Putin Just Defended Trump In The WORST Way Possible (VIDEO) | According to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, it s silly to worry about little things like whether or not a couple of Russian ladies peed on Donald Trump s bed because it s much, much worse to publish memos that reveal these allegations.Putin says that there is a conspiracy to delegitimize the man and his team of hackers, fake news writers, and trolls he worked hard to install in the Oval Office by hacking Trump s political opponents and running an aggressive propaganda campaign. I don t know Mr. Trump, I have never met him, I don t know what he will do in the international arena, so I have no reason either to attack him, criticize him or defend him, Putin said at a press conference. Donald Trump has been with the most beautiful women in the world, so why would he need prostitutes in Moscow? To answer that question, we need only look to a 2001 edition of the Howard Stern Show in which Trump was reminded that he bragged that he likes to go to Russia to have sex with women because they have no morals. Putin says that Russian security services do not chase every US billionaire, and that the release of the documents was worse than prostitutes. In a way, he s right, as the documents presented to both Trump and President Obama also allege that members of the President-elect s campaign staff directly worked with the Russian government during the campaign.On numerous occasions, Trump has repeated Russian propaganda while attacking U.S. intelligence agencies that have been exposing him for what he is and, of course, has directly quoted Putin (a man whom Trump says is very smart ) while hurling barbs at Hillary Clinton.Trump and Putin have been screaming about the fake news release of actual documents that actual intelligence agencies are in possession of, but the BBC reported recently that the whole pissing Russian ladies thing is just the tip of the iceberg. Correspondent Paul Wood revealed last week that at least four sources have confirmed the information, with one U.S. intelligence source informing him that there is audio and video of The Donald s escapades, and an Israeli news source reports that the country s spies have been warned against sharing information with the United States for fear that Trump will relay it to Putin.Putin and Trump s bromance is disconcerting at best especially when more than a baker s dozen intelligence agencies have confirmed that the man who stood up to join Trump in his attacks on our intelligence agencies has been confirmed to have interfered in our election.Watch it below:Featured image via Getty Images | 1real |
Former CIA Chief Blasts Trump’s Speech To Boy Scouts: ‘Like Watching A Dictator’ | When Donald Trump addressed the Boy Scouts National Jamboree Monday night, nobody could possibly have expected the cluster bomb of impropriety he detonated in the middle of a crowd of kids. From regaling the youngsters with tales of interesting yacht outings and real estate moguls, to leading them in a chorus of boos at the expense of Barack Obama, Trump essentially used a gathering that usually represents the best of America as a campaign rally with a captive audience.That s just how former CIA Director John McLaughlin saw it, as well:Trump's Boy Scout speech had the feel of a third world authoritarian's youth rally. john mclaughlin (@jmclaughlinSAIS) July 25, 2017In an interview with Business Insider, McLaughlin said the speech gave [him] the creeps. It was like watching the late Venezuelan [President Hugo] Chavez. You want to signal to young people the concept in democracy of loyal opposition, of remaining loyal to government He was attacking his predecessor for no good reason, and his competitor in the last election. He was showing disloyalty to his subordinates ranting on about financial stories in New York.From the Insider:Trump basically told the Boy Scouts, don t respect your opponents, only believe me, and cheer for me, McLaughlin said. What message is this giving to young people? McLaughlin, a Republican, was not alone in his assessments. In addition to noted conservative commentator Bill Kristol, who McLaughlin was responding to on Twitter, parents of Scouts across the country were outraged. Many threatened to pull their kids from the organization, and some even vowed to returned their badges if the BSA didn t issue an apology for Trump s behavior at the Jamboree. The Boy Scouts Facebook page was inundated with comments after they posted a half-hearted perspective on the president s visit a tepid response that did nothing to address the content or tone of the speech. The power of the presidency is the power to inspire, McLaughlin said.There was nothing inspiring about Trump s completely inappropriate speech in front of 40,000 kids.Featured image via George Frey/Getty Images | 1real |
Montel Williams DESTROYS Pro-Trump Pastor In INSANE Twitter Fight (TWEETS) | Montel Williams isn t afraid to express his absolute disgust and disdain for Republican nominee Donald Trump he s made it perfectly clear in the past that he would never support or vote for him, and continuously speaks out against the business mogul.That s why there was nothing unusual about what Williams did over the weekend, when the radio talk show host called out one of Trump s biggest supporters Pastor Mark Burns. When Williams saw Burns complaining about the media s hesitance to call the weekend explosions in New York City a terror attack, he couldn t just let it slide.TwitterBurns was merely echoing what Trump himself had said, when the GOP presidential candidate jumped to conclusions and immediately called the explosion a bomb even before officials could investigate or confirm it. Fed up with the baseless fear mongering the Trump campaign has been become infamous for doing, Williams flat-out told Burns he d had enough of your crap. TwitterLittle did Burns know when he responded to Williams, that he d just started a Twitter fight that he had no chance of winning:TwitterWilliams was not going to back down, and as the day continued the men continued to take shots at each other, with Williams continuously calling the Trump-loving pastor out for falsifying details of his past and stating that Burns was not even a real pastor. What resulted was a seemingly never-ending stream of back and forth tweets, in which Burns was clearly on the losing side:TwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterWilliams had ripped Burns a new one and exposed all of his flaws for all of social media to see. Several hours later, Williams ended his feud with Burns on a high note, reminding his followers that Burns had gotten himself into this mess:TwitterTwitterFeatured image via screenshots | 1real |
How Donald Trump changed the world of dating | Print
Politics, said Katie Oldenburg, is like an ex-boyfriend — you don’t bring it up on the first date.
Or so it used to go. This historically divisive election year has prompted Oldenburg, a 29-year-old public relations specialist who lives in New York City, to make a new dating rule: no Donald Trump supporters.
“Talking about politics on a first date is a big no-no,” she said. “But given the state of affairs and how awful things have been, I’ve made a conscious effort to try and determine if I’m on the same page as whomever I’m dating at the time.”
She added: “Just because Donald Trump’s comments have been so repulsive and disgusting that I don’t even want to be on a date with somebody who supports that person.”
Trump and his demagogic presidential campaign have proven to be a major friction point in friendships, family relationships and even some marriages, as Americans grapple with one of the ugliest, most polarizing elections in American history. | 1real |
NEW YORK KNOWN WOLF: Halloween Truck Attacker Known to DHS Prior to ‘Act of Terror’ | Shawn Helton 21st Century WireYears before allegedly carrying out a truck rampage on Halloween, the man named in New York s most recent act of terror was already well-known to the United States Department of Homeland Security. This latest supposedly homegrown ISIS-inspired attack produces yet another known wolf with ties to suspected terrorists as well as authorities. According to officials, 29 year-old Sayfullo Saipov, the man charged in a deadly Manhattan vehicular assault on October 31st, was previously questioned over suspected ties to terrorism in 2015 by the US Department of Homeland Security. Saipov reportedly became a permanent legal resident upon arriving in the US on a diversity lottery visa in 2010. Since that time, the suspected terrorist moved from Ohio, Florida, and most recently to New Jersey, where he was interviewed by DHS in 2015.As media attention on this case is focused on immigration laws, terror propaganda and security protocols America s latest terror tragedy reveals much more below the surface KNOWN WOLF There s a distinct pattern with acts of terror committed on Western soil. (Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton)Another American Known Wolf Suspected terrorist Sayfullo (Habibullaevic) Saipov, who bounced across America, committed only minor traffic violations before his alleged involvement in the New York truck attack.Over the past 24 hours, the suspected truck attacker Saipov, was said to have driven a Home Depot rental truck from New Jersey to the Manhattan area, where it is believed he deliberately targeted pedestrians and cyclists on a bike path alongside the Hudson River according to police reports. Shortly after the vehicular attack authorities state that Siapov brandished a pellet gun and paintball gun prior to being shot by NYPD and taken into custody. All told, at least eight people were said to have been killed, while nearly a dozen others were injured in the high-profile terror incident.Reports state that Saipov became radicalized in America, allegedly taking ques from ISIS terror propaganda. However, Saipov, originally from Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan, was supposedly from a modest and secular family that did not go to mosques, making this yet another suspicious terror-related case that paints a murky portrait on the way towards extremism. SUSPECT The alleged New York truck attacker was apparently a registered driver for popular car services Uber and Lyft. (Image Source: twitter)Rather intriguingly, in a published report at ABC News we re told Saipov, had been the subject of a deeper counter-terror investigation back in 2015: Sayfullo Saipov, who has been charged with killing eight people in a vehicle attack on the West Side of Manhattan on Tuesday, was interviewed in 2015 by federal agents about possible ties to suspected terrorists but a case was never opened against him, law enforcement officials tell ABC News. Continuing, the article outlined the following: Saipov was listed as a point of contact for two men who were listed in a Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism database and later overstayed their tourist visas, a federal official told ABC News. One was flagged after arriving from a so-called threat country, while the other vanished and was being actively sought by federal agents as a suspected terrorist. Incredibly, in less than 24 hours after the deadly vehicular assault in New York, FBI authorities have located the suspected terrorist who supposedly vanished from the gaze of authorities said to be linked to Saipov.Today FBI investigators released an alert regarding 32 year-old Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, a person of interest, who authorities also believe is linked to the recent attack.CNN reported the following background information regarding Siapov:In a recently published report from the NY Times, elements of a recent FBI probe into a suspected terror cell charged in Brooklyn over the past two years was revealed: Over the last two years, a terrorism investigation by the F.B.I., the Department of Homeland Security, the New York Police Department and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn resulted in charges against five men from Uzbekistan and one from Kazakhstan of providing material support to ISIS. Several of the men have pleaded guilty. It is unclear whether Mr. Saipov was connected with that investigation. QUESTION: Will the FBI eventually reveal that Saipov and Kadirov were on their radar prior to the New York truck attack? Only time will tell This latest act of terror in America may well prove to be similar in scope to many other known wolf cases in recent history, as readers might recall the alleged New York bombing suspect 28 year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami, had been known to the FBI for years prior to supposedly carrying out plots in New York and New Jersey in the fall of 2016.According to The Washington Post, the FBI had already known Rahami since 2014, which only added to the strongly suspicious event: The FBI s probe into Ahmad Khan Rahami, the 28-year-old named as the only suspect in the bombings, was launched based on comments his father had made. An official said his father later recanted his comments. Agents conducted interviews, checked with other agencies and looked at internal databases, none of which revealed ties to terrorism, the bureau said in a statement. DARK DAYS The crime scene of the recent New York truck attack. (Image Source: twitter)HAND IN HAND: Terror & Security QUESTION: Is it possible the FBI or any intelligence agency played some part in the latest New York City attack plot whether inadvertently or otherwise?In the search for answers regarding the investigative tactics of various intelligence agencies that have come into question, there s none perhaps more dubious than the FBI s Newburgh sting operation that resulted in the entrapment four men who participated in a fabricated event created by the bureau.Here s a 2011 passage from The Guardian describing how a FBI informant named Shahed Hussain coerced four others into a fake terror plot: The Newburgh Four now languish in jail. Hussain does not. For Hussain was a fake. In fact, Hussain worked for the FBI as an informant trawling mosques in hope of picking up radicals.Yet far from being active militants, the four men he attracted were impoverished individuals struggling with Newburgh s grim epidemic of crack, drug crime and poverty. One had mental issues so severe his apartment contained bottles of his own urine. He also believed Florida was a foreign country.Hussain offered the men huge financial inducements to carry out the plot including $250,000 to one man and free holidays and expensive cars.As defence lawyers poured through the evidence, the Newburgh Four came to represent the most extreme form of a controversial FBI policy to use invented terrorist plots to lure targets. There has been no case as egregious as this. It is unique in the incentive the government provided. A quarter million dollars? said Professor Karen Greenberg, a terrorism expert at Fordham University. The reputation of the FBI has suffered greatly in the recent past as well as over the past couple of decades. Following the 1993 WTC bombing, the FBI was revealed to have been handling Emad A. Salem, a former Egyptian army officer who was a prized undercover operative thrust into confidential informant status and person who played a key role in the bomb plot.QUESTION: Will authorities reveal that Siapov may have also had ties to informants or other known wolves?Here at 21WIRE, we ve kept a running report on known wolf actors involved in many attacks on Western soil. Take a look below at an updated version that includes other suspicious intelligence informant and terror cases that have held that distinction over the years:Tamerlan Tsarnaev (see his story here) Buford Rogers (see his story here) Jerad Miller (see his story here) Naji Mansour (see his story here) Quazi Mohammad Nafis (see his story here) Mohamed Osman Mohamud (see his story here) Timothy McVeigh (see his story here) Salim Benghalem (see his story here) Michael Adebolajo (see his story here) Daba Deng (see his story here) Elton Simpson (see his story here) Man Haron Monis (see his story here) Abu Hamza (see his story here) Haroon Rashid Aswat (see his story here) Mark Vicars (see his story here) Glen Rodgers (see his story here) Omar Mateen (see his story here) Tashfeen Malik (see her story here) Djamel Beghal (see his story here) Anjem Choudary (see his story here) Cherif Kouachi (see his story here) Said Kouachi (see his story here) Amedy Coulibaly (see his story here) Hayat Boumeddiene (see her story here) Salah Abdeslam (see his story here) Michael Zehaf-Bibeau (see his story here) Nidal Malik Hassan (see his story here) Abdelhakim Dekhar (see his story here) Abdelhamid Abaaoud (see his story here) Samy Amimour (see his story here) Isma l Omar Mostefa (see his story here) Mohamed Lahouij Bouhlel (see his story here) Anis Amri (see his story here) Esteban Santiago-Ruiz (see his story here) Abdulkadir Masharipov (see his story here) Khalid Masood (see his story here) Khuram Butt (see his story here) Youssef Zaghba (see his story here)Since 9/11, the city of New York has dedicated a massive amount of resources to anti-terror training, with a police department larger than the standing armies of 84 countries. It is a city that has done more than any other American city as far as terror readiness yet, it continues to be plagued by a series of plots and attacks over the last 16 years.Following America s previous most deadly mass shooting in Orlando were reports revealing that the FBI had a close relationship with the suspected attacker through the use of a well-known confidential informant. Similarly, recent reports state that FBI, court filings have revealed how the agency allowed an alleged home grown ISIS attack to take place in Garland, Texas. 21WIRE previously uncovered suspicious elements regarding the cartoon event in Garland when the attack occurred.QUESTION: How is it that federal agencies continue to let known wolves slip through the cracks?As we ve stated before, mass media injects their own formula for laying out a familiar series of polarizing political points in the aftermath of any tragic event. Appearing to purposefully redirect the public to look at a ready-made laundry list of hateful rhetoric, social media declarations and random writings as an ironclad motive for a crime. The aftermath in the recent terror case of New York is no different, as it has already rapidly descended into a barrage of politically motivated theorizing.The story of a Uzbekistan truck attacker also recalls the the suspicious terror case involving the Turkish nightclub shooting at the start of the year on New Year s Eve.To unravel future cases, it s important to keep a watchful eye on any links to past plots 21WIRE associate editor Shawn Helton is a researcher and writer, specializing in forensic analysis of high-profile crime scene and counter terrorism investigations, and the deconstruction and analysis of the mass-media coverage surrounding those cases. He has compiled an extensive body of work covering a number of high-profile events since 2012.READ MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Daily Shooter FilesSupport our work by Subscribing and become a Member @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Trump threat to renegotiate U.N. climate deal causes dismay abroad | OSLO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s vow to renegotiate the global accord on climate change if elected U.S. president caused dismay abroad on Wednesday, with supporters of the deal saying it was in his interests to embrace a plan that seeks to end dependence on fossil fuels. U.S. insistence on renegotiation could unravel a 195-nation compromise to curb greenhouse gas emissions reached in Paris in December after fraught talks between nations as different as China, the United States, small island states and OPEC members. “The Paris Agreement is as much in the United States’ interests as any other country,” said Tony de Brum, ambassador for climate change of the Marshall Islands who, as his country’s foreign minister, helped broker the U.N. deal. “Seeking to unravel it would not only threaten the U.S. economy, damage its environment, and weaken its security, but it would do a great disservice to all of humanity,” he said. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told Reuters on Tuesday he was “not a big fan” of the climate accord. He said China and other countries would not stick to the “one-sided” deal, which seeks to transform the world economy from fossil fuels in coming decades to slow global warming. “I will be looking at that very, very seriously, and at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum. And at a maximum I may do something else,” he said. Trump has said in the past he believes global warming is a concept that was invented by China to hurt the competitiveness of U.S. business. Government officials meeting in Bonn, Germany, from May 16-26 to find ways to implement the deal, raised concerns about Trump’s comments but doubted he would take serious action. That’s because the deal imposes no real constraints on the United States - it lets all nations define their own actions for fighting climate change. President Barack Obama has promised to cut emissions by 2025, but his successors will face no penalties if they do not comply, meaning little incentive to challenge the U.N. deal. Many officials also say it is in U.S. interests to limit greenhouse gas emissions, partly because cuts in the use of fossil fuels also means less air pollution, a big cause of disease. Even many nations traditionally sceptical that man-made greenhouse emissions stoke climate change, like OPEC countries, have gone along with the Paris Agreement. George David Banks, a senior climate change adviser to President George W. Bush and a Trump supporter, said Trump could try to force countries like China to pledge deeper emissions cuts by renegotiating the agreement. That’s wishful thinking, according to John Coequyt, director of green group the Sierra Club’s international climate campaigns. “You can’t get more than 190 countries to renegotiate a deal they are implementing,” he said. The Paris Agreement will formally enter into force when 55 nations representing at least 55 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions have ratified it. China and the United States, representing 38 percent, say they will join this year. If the deal enters into force before the next U.S. president takes office next year, it will in theory be harder to pull out. Article 28 says any nation wanting to leave has to wait four years from the date of entry into force - the length of a U.S. presidential term. Trump’s easiest option is to neglect the deal if elected, legal experts say. Trump could ignore the targets set by Obama and promise instead to help developing nations cope with global warming. The Paris Agreement’s flexible approach, allowing all to set their own goals, is radically different from the U.N.’s 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set mandatory targets for developed nations to cut emissions until 2012. The United States did not take part in Kyoto - President George W. Bush denounced it as an economic straitjacket that, he said, unfairly omitted targets for developing nations led by China and India. Former French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who helped broker the Paris deal, said this month that the U.S. election was critical to its future. “If a climate change denier was to be elected, it would threaten dramatically global action against climate disruption,” he said. But U.S. chief climate envoy Jonathan Pershing said last week that other nations were likely to push ahead with the Paris Agreement whoever wins the White House. | 0fake |
Zimbabwe's axed VP is safe, traveling to South Africa: ally | JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was fired by President Robert Mugabe this week, is safe and will travel to South Africa very soon , the head of the war veterans Chris Mutsvangwa said on Wednesday. Mnangagwa s removal on Monday was a boost for Mugabe s wife, Grace, who has been a vocal critic of the former vice president and is seen as a potential successor to her husband. Mutsvangwa, a close ally of Mnangagwa, told reporters in Johannesburg that Grace was behind the purge of Mnangagwa and his allies. | 0fake |
West Africa Is Being Swallowed By The Sea | Source: ForeignPolicy.com
Encroaching waters off the coast of Togo, Ghana, Mauritania, and others are destroying homes, schools, fish, and a way of life.
FUVEMEH, Ghana — The tide is just starting to come in when David Buabasah begins nervously checking the waters creeping up the coastline toward his partially destroyed home.
As the high tide mounts the steep shore of this small Ghanaian fishing village perched on a shrinking peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and the Volta River estuary, he and other inhabitants prepare for the worst.
“When the big waves come, they can easily kill you. Last week, the ocean took away part of my house while my family was sleeping inside,” says the 32-year-old fisherman, gesturing toward a crumbling brick wall and a pair of door frames, the only remains of his family’s compound.
Growing stronger by the minute, the tide begins to push wave after wave into the village, pounding the dilapidated dwellings with unrepentant force. House walls collapse under the fury of the ocean, and huge pools of saltwater fill the center of town. Those whose houses are the closest to the shoreline can only watch as the waves carry away all of their belongings.
Twenty years ago, Fuvemeh was a thriving community of 2,500 people, supported by fishing and coconut plantations that are now completely underwater. But in the past two decades, climate change and industrial activity — such as sand mining and the construction of dams and deep-sea ports, which trap sediments and prevent them from reaching the coastline — have accelerated coastal erosion here. Gradually but inexorably, the ocean has swallowed up hundreds of feet of coastline, drowning the coconut plantations and eventually sweeping away houses.
For a time, villagers retreated, rebuilding destroyed houses farther away from the advancing shoreline. But eventually they ran out of land to fall back on: The narrow peninsula is now less than 1,000 feet across, and high tides routinely wash over the entire sandy expanse. The last trees have been uprooted by the waves and lie dead along the shore, a grim omen of what awaits fishermen like Buabasah, who have seen their livelihoods destroyed in the span of a single generation. A young boy carries his two turkeys to save them from the flood caused by the rising sea level in Fuvemeh.
Fuvemeh is one of thousands of communities along the western coast of sub-Saharan Africa, stretching more than 4,000 miles from Mauritania to Cameroon, at risk of being washed away. Spurred by global warming, rising sea levels are causing massive erosion — in some places eating away more than 100 feet of land in a single year. Sea levels around the world are expected to rise by more than two-and-a-half feet by the end of the century, but they are expected to rise faster than the global average in West Africa, according to the West African Economic and Monetary Union. In a region where 31 percent of population lives along the coastline, generating 56 percent of total GDP, according to the World Bank , this is a potentially catastrophic problem.
“In West Africa, infrastructure and economic activities are centered along the coastal region, so as sea levels continue to rise, it threatens our very existence and source of income,” says Kwasi Appeaning Addo, a professor in the University of Ghana’s department of marine and fisheries sciences. “We are sitting on a time bomb.” Togbe Agbavi Koffi, 60, is the chief of village of Agbavi in Togo. “The sea advances all year long,” he said. “It has devastated our villages and many of our people have already left.”
And it’s not just small fishing villages that are being threatened. Low-lying areas in Lagos, the Nigerian megalopolis that is the seventh-fastest growing city in the world, as well as in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, whose annual economic output is around $3 billion, are at risk of inundation. Already, both cities are grappling with more frequent — and severe — flooding than in the past. Low-lying areas of Accra now flood every year during the rainy season. Last year, at least 25 people died as a result.
The southern parts of Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, lose up to 80 feet of beach every year, and coastal erosion has already damaged several hotels in Gambia and Senegal,as well as vital water treatment facilities in Cotonou, Benin’s economic hub. The situation is the same in neighboring Togo, where last year the coast retreated 118 feet in some places, according to local authorities. On the outskirts of the capital, Lomé, rows of destroyed buildings line the beach in the town of Agbavi.
“The national route used to pass there, just beside my first and second house,” says Togbe Agbavi Koffi, the town’s 60-year-old chief, pointing to the faint outline of a highway that is now submerged deep in the ocean. “My third house is about to crumble into the sea as well. I would like to cry, but a chief cannot cry.” Local boys stand on the terrace of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Castle. Originally built in 1653, it was an important slave trading post along the West Africa coast; now it’s one of Ghana’s main attractions.
But it’s not just homes and businesses that are being swept away. Livelihoods, cultural heritage, and the social fabric of entire communities are disappearing as well. Rising temperatures have precipitated the migration of fish stocks while erosion and salinization have reduced arable land and contaminated freshwater reserves. Near Fuvemeh in Ghana, breeding grounds for sea turtles are disappearing, and the populations of dolphins, sharks, and whales are rapidly dwindling. At risk also are the UNESCO-protected colonial forts along the coasts of Ghana and Ivory Coast that served as conduits for the slave trade.
Stripped of their livelihoods and their heritage, coastal communities lose their most resourceful young people to migration while unemployment fuels drug and alcohol consumption at home. In Agbavi, the situation is so desperate that droves of young men have joined criminal syndicates involved in fuel smuggling and beach-sand mining, an illegal enterprise that worsens erosion.
“Some of our children go mining as soon as they come back from school, in order to gain some money,” Koffi says. “People are hungry, and small kids are forced to steal. We are suffering a lot.” People living in Fuvmeh walk across the village flooded by the rising sea level. A little girl stands on a traditional fishing boat holding her doll in Baguida, on the Togo coastline. The town is experiencing massive coastal erosion, forcing the local population to relocate away from the sea. Tanks filled with petrol are lined along the ocean. As fishing has become less remunerative due to the effects of climate change on the fish stocks, several local fishermen have resorted to fuel smuggling, a highly lucrative but illegal practice which consists in trafficking jerrycans of petrol from Nigeria through Benin and Togo by sea. Alice Kwashi, 68, sits outside her house in the village of Blekusu. The ocean has destroyed part of her house, filling it with sand and contaminating the freshwater well with saltwater. In order to prevent water from seeping into the house, the woman built a small barrier of soil just outside the entrance. ´“When I fall sleep, I don't know if the sea will come and take me away” she said. Two schoolgirls stand on the ruins of their school. Two years ago, the Dzita EP Basic School had one of its four compounds destroyed by coastal erosion during the rainy season. Four classrooms were lost, forcing the school management to combine classes in order to shelter all the 670 students.
Instead of investing in ecologically sustainable techniques to manage rising sea levels, like developing aquatic farms or restoring mangrove shrubs, governments in West Africa have so far largely resorted to engineering less time-intensive defenses like sea walls and groins. When built properly and maintained well, groins — vertical structures erected perpendicular to the coastline that trap sediments and prevent them from moving along the coast — are an effective short- to medium-term solution. But because they disrupt the natural flow of sediments, they can worsen erosion elsewhere on the coast, sometimes starving neighboring communities of much needed sand.
The eastern coast of Ghana offers a stark illustration of the trade-offs involved with groins. Once a thriving trading hub, the city of Keta has suffered massive coastal erosion in recent decades that forced more than half of the population to flee. Fort Prinzenstein, a landmark Danish castle that was once at the center of town now teeters on the shoreline, partially destroyed by the waves. A late government intervention allowed the construction of a sea defense wall and a series of groins that have saved what remains of the city’s elegant colonial buildings, which retain the eerie atmosphere of a ghost town.
But the last-ditch effort to save Keta has further exacerbated erosion in the village of Blekusu, located a little more than six miles to the east. “We are having so many problems because of those groins,” explains 68-year-old Alice Kwashi, a widow whose house has already been partially damaged by the waves. “The ocean has destroyed electric[al] lines and contaminated water wells. Every time I go to sleep, I know it could be my last night, because the waves could take me away.” A home destroyed by rising sea levels in the village of Agbavi in Togo.
A more environmentally friendly method of replenishing the coast involves pumping enormous amounts of sand from the seabed back on shore. But beach nourishment, which has been tried in the United States, Mexico, Australia, and the Netherlands,among other places, is extremely expensive and has to be repeated every few years in order to keep pace with erosion. Even without such costly interventions, adapting to coastal erosion by rebuilding infrastructure farther inland and resettling endangered communities is expected to cost between 5 and 10 percent of GDP in affected countries, according to the United Nations. It’s an open question how one of the poorest regions in the world should come up with the resources for costly sea walls and beach replenishment schemes.
And as long as man-made climate change continues, such costs will continue to incur. That is why countries around the world face the challenge not only of pursuing projects to help manage the environment, but also of exploring new ways to better live in harmony with it, and thus slow the rate of global warming.
“If we can’t find a balance between our insatiable appetite for modernity and allowing nature to replenish itself,” says Fredua Agyeman, the environment director at Ghana’s Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, “we will always run into problems, no matter the advancements in modern science or engineering.”
The people of Fuvemeh are among hundreds of millions who are paying a heavy price for a problem they didn’t create. At the current erosion rate, villagers predict that their homes will disappear in less than six months. Left with the bitter choice of staying to be swept out to sea or abandoning his land, history, and way of life, Buabasah doesn’t know what to do. He has moved his wife and children to another village, but he can’t follow them because Fuvemeh serves as his fishing base. Migrating would mean giving up on his job and his ability to feed his family, since the government will only facilitate resettlement to inland communities.
“I am very afraid for the future of this place,” he says in despair. “Sooner or later we will have to leave, but we have nowhere to go.”
View the photo essay companion piece on the devastating effects of climate change on the region “ The Waves Will Take Us Away ,” by Matilde Gattoni. | 1real |
Google appoints Vice-President | Katehon think tank. Geopolitics & Tradition | Главная » News » Google appoints Vice-President Google appoints Vice-President Tuesday, 1 November, 2016 - 09:30
Israel Meir Brand has become a new Vice President of Google Corporation. Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Google Inc reported this information. Brand was the first Google Israel employee and was appointed CEO of Google Israel.
At the same time Meir Brand will continue to rule Israel, the Middle East, Africa, Russia, Turkey, and Greece.
Against the background of the latest Wikileaks data about rigging custom queries of Google and Yahoo in favor of Clinton and other assistance provided by the corporation of the Democratic Party headquarters (also financing by Israeli billionaires), the appointment of Meir Brand means the strengthening Israel's role in the information space.
Despite the fact that Google has apologized for the changes on their maps (Palestine, for example, has not been marked as autonomy one, there was no Serbian monastery of Visoki Dečani), Tel Aviv is known to use actively possibilities of censorship in Internet. The recent changes are likely aimed to an active information attack including at strategically important areas, with which Meir Brand is familiar (Russia, Turkey, Middle Eastern countries). Related links | 1real |
Mattis says 'very, very' confident in U.S. intelligence agencies | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, said on Thursday that he had a “very, very high degree of confidence” in U.S. intelligence agencies. Mattis, speaking at his Senate confirmation hearing, said he expects Trump to be open to his view on intelligence matters, and that the world order was under its biggest attack since World War Two. | 0fake |
U.S.-backed militias seize key oil field in east Syria: SDF | BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S.-backed militias said they captured Syria s largest oil field on Sunday, pressing their assault against Islamic State in the east of the country. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said they took al-Omar field on the eastern bank of the Euphrates river in the early hours. Our forces managed to liberate the fields without notable damages, said Lilwa al-Abdallah, spokeswoman for the offensive in Deir al-Zor province. The jihadists holed up in buildings in a nearby district, where the SDF was trying to hunt them down, she said. With U.S.-led jets and special forces, the SDF has been battling in Deir al-Zor bordering Iraq. The alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias has focused on territory east of the river, which bisects the oil-rich province. The Syrian army, with Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, has been waging its own separate offensive against Islamic State, mostly to the west of the river. The U.S.-led coalition and the Russian military have been holding deconfliction meetings - to prevent clashes between planes and troops - though the two offensives have sometimes come into conflict. Islamic State has lost vast territory across Syria, and has now come under attack in its last footholds in a strip of the Euphrates valley and the desert in Deir al-Zor. The SDF declared victory over the jihadists in their former headquarters in Raqqa city this week. SDF fighters would now move to the frontlines in Deir al-Zor, speeding up the battle in eastern Syria. Last month, the Kurdish-led militias captured a major natural gas field upstream of Sunday s advance. Al-Omar oil field lies some 10 km (6.21 miles) north of the town of al-Mayadin, which government troops and their allies took earlier this month. The town had turned into a major base for Islamic State militants after the U.S.-backed offensive drove them out of Raqqa. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State fighters who had withdrawn from the oil field mounted a counter-attack overnight against government forces. The militants made some gains around al-Mayadin, the Britain-based monitor said. But a Syrian military source denied this, saying there was no significant attack and fighting raged on at the same pace. Any attack by the Islamic State militants there was a desperate attempt , the source said. The Syrian Arab Army is attacking, hitting Daesh positions...and advancing, the source said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. | 0fake |
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY…Your First Grader Just Rated Your Mommy Skills For Her Public School Teacher | Rate your mom for Mother s Day sounds like the perfect project that only an intrusive, progressive public school teacher would assign. A first grade class at Ridgecrest Elementary in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, (and scads of other schools around the country, too, if the 1,994 downloads are any indication) made a Mother s Day gift to take home. Was it a sentimental card? A loving poem? Perhaps the impression of the child s hand forever memorialized in plaster of paris? No.Some teacher (or in this case it may have been Principal Teri Mattson) thought it was a grand idea to have six-year-olds rate their moms on personal behaviors. The report card reveals how well the mom lives up to expectations! Kids get to rate (with smiling, neutral, or frowning faces) their moms on these items:The mom cares for her children. The mom cooks healthy meals for her children. The mom has an organized bedroom. The mom takes time to enjoy her hobbies, such as reading. The mom works hard to make money for her family. The mom is funny and makes her children laugh. The mom takes care of herself by getting her hair done and taking bubble baths. The mom is a safe driver and does not get distracted when driving. Inspire Me, ASAP! the username of a woman who offers items on Teachers Pay Teachers created this worksheet. It is apparently receiving lots of positive feedback (and smiling faces!) with comments like:The moms will love these! How fun is this?! Can t wait to have my kiddos make this! Super adorable! Adorable idea. I can t wait to see their answers.Now the questions are:How many parents are going to speak up about this? How could teachers/administrators be this clueless? Whenever things like this happen, I see a ton of private griping and moaning and negative social media commentary. Few parents, however, are willing to push back.In a nutshell, parents are afraid of school employees. These taxpayer funded teachers and administrators hold so much power (grades, influence, activities, resources) that parents vehemently object in private while smiling and nodding in public.They work for us, people. They must be held accountable.Giving such a worksheet is not just invasive and stupid. In Utah, it s illegal.Title 53A Chapter 13 Part 3 Section 302Except as provided in Subsection (7), Section 53A-11a-203, and Section 53A-15-1301, policies adopted by a school district or charter school under Section 53A-13-301 shall include prohibitions on the administration to a student of any psychological or psychiatric examination, test, or treatment, or any survey, analysis, or evaluation without the prior written consent of the student s parent or legal guardian, in which the purpose or evident intended effect is to cause the student to reveal information, whether the information is personally identifiable or not, concerning the student s or any family member s: (e) critical appraisals of individuals with whom the student or family member has close family relationshipsVia: Mormonmomma | 1real |
Trump, reacting to U.S. appeals court ruling, tweets: "SEE YOU IN COURT" | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!” shortly after a U.S. federal appeals court on Thursday unanimously upheld a temporary suspension of his order that restricted travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. | 0fake |
NEW Wikileaks Emails Discuss “Fastwalker” UFOs | In the latest Wikileaks UFO news, a recently released email implies the U.S. government’s knowledge of so-called “Fastwalker” UFOs. “Fastwalker” is a term used by NORAD and branches of armed forces to describe unidentified aerial phenomena moving and/or changing directions at high speed far beyond what current aerospace technology is capable of.
The March 6, 2015 email concerning Fastwalkers was written by Bob Fish, a NASA historian and Apollo Curator for the USS Hornet Museum, and sent to John Podesta, Chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and former adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
So-called “Fastwalker” UFOs are often spotted in ISS live feeds.
In the email, Fish describes overhearing members of the U.S. government’s Defense Satellite Program (DSP) discussing recent sightings of Fastwalker UFOs. According to Fish’s email, these Fastwalkers came from unknown locations in distant space :
One of these times, a member of that group was really excited – said they’d just picked up Fastwalker (I assumed that same day). He described how it entered our atmosphere from “deep space” (origin actually unknown, of course, but from the backside of the satellite) and zipped by the DSP satellite pretty closely on its way to earth.
Fish’s email is pure hearsay, no doubt, but Fish seems to recognize that such anecdotal evidence, blurred photographs, and crop circles will never win over the minds of the general public. In another email dated March 5, 2015, Fish wrote Podesta again, this time to stress the need for hard scientific proof of extraterrestrial intelligence :
What needs to be collected and publicly disseminated is hard scientific data collected from instruments that are known to be accurate and reliable. Within the US, this information has existed for many years and is still available today, if one knows “where to look” and “what to look for.
Some of these emails were forwarded to Leslie Kean, an investigative journalist and noted UFO researcher who co-founded the Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFi), an “independent alliance advocating for greater government openness on information about UFOs.” Kean has been known to accuse the government of UFO coverups in the past, so her presence in these email chains adds some credibility to the theories that the Obama administration might be close to announcing the government’s knowledge of UFOs . Fingers crossed, and eyes to the skies.
Source: Mysterious Universe
| 1real |
Flint’s #CrookedMayorWeaver Tells Trump He’s Not Welcome In Broken, Jobless, Violent Democrat Ruled City | Flint s Democrat Mayor Karen Weaver is throwing a hissy fit over Trump s unannounced visit to the broken, violent city of Flint, MI. Mayor Weaver is currently embroiled in a lawsuit after former City Administrator Natasha Henderson blew the whistle on her for allegedly trying to steer money from a charity for local families into a campaign fund. Henderson claims she was wrongfully fired for blowing the whistle on Hillary s loyal minion, the mayor of the city of Flint. Donald Trump will be visiting the broken, violent city of Flint today, where he plans to visit a church and the Flint Water Treatment Plant. But one of Hillary s biggest cheerleaders won t be throwing out the welcome mat Flint Mayor Karen Weaver says she s baffled by the visit, and didn t receive a call from Trump s campaign ahead of time.Does Trump need to get clearance from Hillary s de facto Flint campaign manager before he can visit a violent and broken city that s been destroyed for decades by Democrats? I would think, if you are very concerned about Flint and the people, you would contact the mayor and want to have a conversation about what s going on so that puts a question mark in my mind that I wasn t even contacted or notified about something today about something tomorrow, says Weaver.Weaver is in Washington D.C. and will not be in Flint during Trump s visit. I had not been notified by Donald Trump or his people finally, this afternoon, a call to my press person, but I did not know. These plans were made without contacting me. Her reaction when she was contacted by Trump s campaign? That s kind of not the way it s supposed to go I wish that he had come when things were in more dire straits maybe before we had even received help when the debates were going on. We were crying out for a long time. The fact that Trump didn t rush to Flint, MI for a photo-op when Hillary and Bernie were making regular visits as part of their pandering for the Black vote effort in a city ignored for decades by Democrats, speaks volumes about Trump s serious nature. Americans are getting to see firsthand how a successful businessman approaches serious issues vs. how a career politician promises to fix issues with no real plan to ever come back once the press packs it up and leaves these broken neighborhoods. Trump s desire to create jobs for people who have been unemployed for decades is real and the Democrats biggest fear is that his message is resonating in these forgotten neighborhoods. | 1real |
China may grasp climate leadership at U.N. talks with Trump pulling out | BONN, Germany (Reuters) - China has a chance to assert leadership of a global plan to combat global warming this week at the first U.N. climate talks since U.S. President Donald Trump decided to quit the 195-nation Paris Agreement, delegates say. Government experts are to work on a rule book for the 2015 climate pact at the Nov. 6-17 annual meeting in Bonn, Germany. The accord seeks to end the fossil fuel era this century with a shift to wind, solar and other clean energies. Trump once dismissed climate change as a Chinese hoax to harm the U.S. economy and said in June that he would pull out of the agreement and instead promote U.S. coal and oil. A formal U.S. withdrawal will take until 2020. No other nation has followed his lead. U.S. influence is likely to wane compared to other big greenhouse emitters led by China, the European Union and India even though Washington will still have a place at the table in Bonn. The rest of the world, including all major emerging economies, has made it clear that it is committed to the Paris Agreement, Maldives Environment Minister Thor Abraham, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (OASIS), told Reuters. China, on track to beat its goal of a peak in carbon emissions in 2030, seems best placed to step up leadership of an agreement largely designed by Washington under former president Barack Obama, many delegates say. The meeting will be a great free advertisement for China, one European environment minister said. And Beijing plans to launch a nationwide carbon market this year, albeit delayed from the first half. The results (in Bonn) will prove that this (Paris) process has certainly not stopped, China s top climate official, Xi Zhenhua, told a news conference last week. He expressed hopes that Washington will end up staying in the Paris pact. Adding urgency, 2017 is set to be the second warmest on record, behind 2016, according to NASA. And 2017 has had weather extremes of hurricanes, floods and drought-fuelled wildfires. Fiji will preside at the Bonn talks, the first small island nation to do so in more than two decades of U.N. climate negotiations. That may give OASIS, at risk from rising seas, unprecedented influence. The Paris rule book, including details of how to measure and report emissions, is due to be in place by the end of 2018. Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said governments will face a tougher test in coming years when they have to ratchet up national ambitions to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. The United Nations says average temperatures will rise about three degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times by 2100 with existing policies, against a Paris goal of keeping them well below two degrees (3.6F), ideally 1.5 (2.7F). And on Friday, U.S. scientists released a report saying it was extremely likely that human activities are the main source of warming, contradicting Trump s views. The U.S. has painted itself into a corner, isolated both from other nations and from mainstream science, Christiana Figures, who was the U.N. climate chief in Paris, told Reuters. | 0fake |
PressTV-US troops could be prosecuted for war crimes | Military An American soldier talks with Saudi troops. (File photo by the US Army)
A US congressman has warned that American troops could be prosecuted for providing military support to the Saudi war on Yemen.
Ted Lieu made the warning in a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, saying the US government’s denial of target selection for Saudi airstrikes in Yemen does not excuse Washington from legal responsibilities.
“I find it deeply troubling that the US apparently has no advanced knowledge of what targets will be struck by jets that are refueled by US personnel with US tankers,” Lieu said in his letter.
“The US would appear to be violating LOAC [laws of armed conflict] and international standards by engaging in such direct military operations if US personnel are not aware if targets are civilian or military, if the loss of life and property are disproportional, or if the operation is even militarily necessary,” he noted. A Yemeni boy walks past a mural depicting a US drone and reading: "Why did you kill my family." (Photo by AFP)
Pointing to the 18-month involvement of the US in Saudi war on the Yemeni people, the Democratic congressman stressed that Washington had knowledge of a bombardment campaign hitting civilian targets, including schools and hospitals, multiple times.
“US personnel are now at legal risk of being investigated and potentially prosecuted for committing war crimes. Under international law, a person can be found guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes. Under US law, a person can be found guilty for conspiring to commit war crimes,” Lieu wrote.
The Pentagon has been providing logistic and surveillance support to Saudi Arabia in its military aggression against Yemen, the kingdom’s impoverished southern neighbor, which has killed more than 10,000 Yemenis since its onset in March 2015.
The unprovoked war started by a coalition of Saudi-allies in an attempt to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.
Washington has on several occasions criticized the Saudi regime for its crimes against humanity in Yemen, but has shown no sign of ending its support for Riyadh. US Representative Ted Lieu of California addresses delegates on the fourth and final day of the Democratic National Convention at Wells Fargo Center on July 28, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by AFP)
In August, the US State Department approved the sale of more than 130 Abrams tanks, 20 armored recovery vehicles and other equipment worth about $1.15 billion to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi-led bombardments have struck hospitals, markets and other places where civilians gather.
In September, Amnesty International reported that a US manufactured bomb had been used in a Saudi strike against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Yemen’s northwestern province of Hajjah which claimed the lives of 19 people.
In October, more than 140 people lost their lives and over 525 others sustained injuries after Saudi military aircraft struck a hall in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a, where rows of people were attending a funeral. Yemeni rescue workers pull out a victim from amid the rubble following a Saudi airstrike against a packed funeral site in the capital, Sana’a, on October 8, 2016. (Photo by AFP)
UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said last month that the death toll from the Saudi military aggression could rise even further as some areas had no medical facilities, and that people were often buried without any official record being made. Loading ... | 1real |
Cost, Not Choice, Is Top Concern of Health Insurance Customers - The New York Times | It is all about the price. Millions of people buying insurance in the marketplaces created by the federal health care law have one feature in mind. It is not finding a favorite doctor, or even a trusted company. It is how much — or, more precisely, how little — they can pay in premiums each month. And for many of them, especially those who are healthy, all the prices are too high. The unexpected laser focus on price has contributed to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses among the country’s top insurers, as fewer healthy people than expected have signed up. And that has created two vexing questions: Will the major insurance companies stay in the marketplaces? And if they do, will the public have a wide array of plans to choose from — a central tenet of the 2010 Affordable Care Act? “The marketplace has been and continues to be unsustainable,” said Joseph R. Swedish, chief executive of Anthem, one of the nation’s largest insurers. Most Americans with health insurance get it through their employers or from government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The marketplaces were created under the health care law to give the millions of people not covered in those ways a way to buy health plans. While major insurers continue to make profits over all, they say that the economics of the marketplaces do not work for them. Insurers can offer marketplace plans at four different coverage tiers, and the government subsidizes the premiums for millions of people. The thinking was that enough healthy people would buy insurance to balance out the costs for the . But things are not going exactly as envisioned. People shopping in the marketplaces are overwhelmingly choosing the cheapest plans they can find, according to a federal analysis. In 2014, of people went for the or plans in each of the tiers. In 2015, about half chose the cheapest plans. The pricing pressure is playing out on multiple fronts. People with expensive medical conditions, knowing that they need reliable coverage, seem willing to pay a little more for plans offered by the large companies. Those plans tend to have a wider choice of doctors and a stronger brand name, and the insurers say the people signing up are sicker than they expected. Healthy and young people — who are essential to insurers to offset the costs of care for unhealthy people — are regularly turning to whatever plan is cheapest, including those from insurers or with the smallest networks of hospitals and doctors. Many other young and healthy people, particularly those not eligible for generous subsidies, are shunning plans altogether, finding all of the prices too high. That decision puts them at risk of tax penalties. By some estimates, about 10 million people are signed up, fewer than half of the 21 million expected by now. All of this has the major insurance companies, as they finish their third year of selling individual policies under the law, reevaluating their role in the marketplace. The top insurers have essentially stopped talking about expanding their marketplace ambitions. Two companies, UnitedHealth Group and Humana, have said they plan to largely exit the marketplaces. Aetna has halted plans to enter more states. Even insurers that insist they are committed, like Anthem, which offers Blue Cross plans in more than a dozen states, are struggling to find their way. Mr. Swedish describes the market as “not predictable and not reliable. ” If the major insurers keep cutting back, it could lead to a cascade of effects for the people who depend on the marketplaces for coverage. People could potentially face higher premiums because there are fewer insurers competing, and they could have more limited choices of plans and doctors. The apprehension is not lost on regulators and lawmakers. On Thursday, the Obama administration said it was exploring ways to protect insurers from very expensive medical claims. And recently in The Journal of the American Medical Association, President Obama wrote that more financial assistance for people may be needed. So the mainstream insurers are struggling to find a business model for the marketplaces that works. If an insurer is successful at being the cheapest in a market, it has often found that it priced its plans too low to cover its medical costs. Some smaller insurers have already gone out of business. But if an insurer prices a plan too high, it might not attract enough healthy people to break even. Companies both large and small now plan to raise prices sharply for 2017, which could prevent even more people from buying policies. “The price competition has turned out to be much more cutthroat than anyone expected,” said Larry Levitt, an executive with the Kaiser Family Foundation, which closely tracks the law. Still, most experts say there is no immediate danger that the market will collapse. Marjorie Connolly, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that the Obama administration was confident that the marketplaces would “continue to thrive for years ahead. ” The department said on Thursday that the people entering the marketplaces are becoming more mixed over time, and the marketplaces are attracting more young and healthy people over all. The major insurers, though, say the healthy people are going to other plans, often the least expensive ones offered by their smaller competitors. Some defenders of the law say it is working as intended, harnessing competition to keep premiums as low as possible. “We have to be realistic,” said Linda J. Blumberg, a health care expert at the Urban Institute, noting that some large companies may not be nimble enough to succeed. “You can’t lower costs without breaking some eggs. ” Not every insurance company is struggling. The exceptions seem to be those that offer the most limited choice of doctors and hospitals and may pay them the least, including plans offered by companies like Molina and Centene, which previously specialized in covering Medicaid patients. The insurers faring the worst sell plans that resemble those traditionally offered through employers. The plans give customers much greater latitude over where to get care and cover some of the doctors and hospitals. The trouble is that people signing up for those plans are less healthy — and more expensive to treat — than anticipated. The companies also say that the provisions of the law aimed at stabilizing the market and protecting them from heavy losses are not working. Several say that consolidation is the answer. Anthem, for example, says the only way it can expand in the marketplaces is by merging with Cigna, a deal the Justice Department is trying to block. Another remedy is to attract a broader range of customers. “We have to get a healthier pool of people in the market,” said Kurt Kossen, an executive at Health Care Service Corporation, which operates nonprofit Blue Cross plans in several states but lost $1. 5 billion last year. The result could be a market essentially left to insurers that offer the same narrow networks found in Medicaid plans and some remaining Blue Cross plans, said Mr. Levitt, of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “The market is sustainable but with a different mix of plans,” he said. | 0fake |
Kristie Kenney named State Department's new counselor | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kristie Kenney, a former U.S. ambassador to Thailand, the Philippines and Ecuador, was named on Friday as the State Department’s new counselor, succeeding Tom Shannon, who has been confirmed as under secretary of state for political affairs. Kenney’s appointment makes her one of the most senior women foreign service officers in the United States, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement naming her to the position. Shannon’s nomination had been delayed mainly by Senator Ted Cruz’s opposition to the Iran nuclear deal reached last July by six major world powers, including the United States, and Iran. | 0fake |
Why Russia’s Cyberattack Wasn’t Stopped - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — It was utterly avoidable. In retrospect, anyway. The most brazen, disruptive and manipulative attack on the American electoral system since Watergate — a vast cyberattack by Russia, aimed squarely at Democrats in 2016 — hinged on a series of human errors and institutional misjudgments. In the latest episode of “The ” we explore how Russia hacked the election, why a foreign power would take such a drastic step and why everyone seemed to react so underwhelmingly to the historic intrusion — from the main target of the attack, the Democratic National Committee, to most powerful Democrat in the country, President Obama. I traveled to Washington to speak with two of my colleagues, Eric Lipton and David Sanger, who a stunning story about out how the hack unfolded, moment by moment, stealing and publishing thousands of pages of embarrassing internal documents from the D. N. C. and John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. We may never know if Russia’s digital offensive, which spared Donald J. Trump and his Republican allies, cost Mrs. Clinton the election. But we do know how much it hurt candidates in campaigns for Congress. I spoke with a victim of the cyberattack, Annette Taddeo, who believes the embarrassing documents released by Russian hackers were a deciding factor in her defeat this year. “I don’t think we are as shocked as we should be and as angry as we should be,” Ms. Taddeo tells me. “This is very alarming to our democracy and everything we stand for. ” From a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above. Or if you’re on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series. On your iPhone or iPad: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Podcasts” with a purple icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Tap on the “search” magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, type in “The ” and select it from the list of results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, tap on the “subscribe” button to have new episodes sent to your phone free. You may want to adjust your notifications to be alerted when a new episode arrives. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, tap on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. On your Android phone or tablet: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Play Music” with an icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen, search for the name of the series and select it from the list of results. You may have to scroll down to find the “Podcasts” search results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, click on the word “subscribe” to have new episodes sent to your phone free. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, click on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. | 0fake |
Paul Ryan: There Will Be No Mass Deportations (VIDEO) | Now that Donald Trump has scared and fleeced uneducated, gullible people into giving him the White House, there are many concerns regarding many of his campaign promises namely the insane so-called deportation force that will round people up and ship them from the country. Thanks to the many, many protests regarding Trump s win, it is now up to the leadership of the GOP to clean up Trump s mess, because he is incapable of doing so himself. Therefore, House Speaker Paul Ryan went on CNN s State of the Union to speak to Jake Tapper on Sunday, in which he addressed the promise of mass deportations. Ryan said: We are not planning on erecting a deportation force. Donald Trump is not planning on that. That s not what we re focused on. We re focused on securing the border. We think that s first and foremost, before we get into any other immigration issue. We ve got to know who s coming and going in the country. We ve got to secure the border. Of course, this is not what Trump himself said on the campaign trail. Here is what Trump insisted, via The Hill: You re going to have a deportation force, and you re going to do it humanely, Trump said a year ago. Look, we have to do what we have to do, and Ike did it and other people have done it, Trump said, referring to President Dwight Eisenhower s policy of deporting 1.5 million people by bus and dropping them off at remote parts of the border.So, whose promise should we trust? Ryan s or Trump s? Considering the lying, sniveling, skeevy nature of today s Republican Party, we must assume the worst That they are planning on mass deportations, but want people to be caught unaware when they start.These people are truly frightening. Buckle up, folks. It s going to be a long four years.Paul Ryan: We are not planning on erecting a deportation force https://t.co/KNeF02vhbv #CNNSOTU https://t.co/skw76OndVK CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) November 13, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
More Bang for the Buck | New Eastern Outlook | Region: Russia in the World More bang for the buck is the most apt description when we compare spending of the United States Government with that of the Government of the Russian Federation on its defense sector and military technology development. A closer look at the two budgets reveals the huge fault line that cuts across the entire US economy today. It also mirrors the true collapse of the American hegemon as a world power. It need not have been. In the official Fiscal Year 2017 the US Department of Defense officially requested $523.9 billion in what they call “discretionary funding,” as in, “we use it as we please, no independent audit allowed.” Another $58.8 billion was requested for so-called Overseas Contingency Operations, typical Pentagon-speak for wars everywhere from Afghanistan to Syria to military operations around the South China sea. That made an official total of $583 billion requested and granted by a docile Congress . On October 13, the Russian wire-service Tass.ru reported that the Russian government is set to spend 948.59 billion rubles on national defense in 2017, according to the draft federal budget posted. It sounds like a lot, almost one trillion rubles. If we convert at the current dollar exchange rate, this translates into a mere $15 billion. Of that 793.79 billion rubles or $12.7 billion is planned to be spent on the Russian Armed Forces. In 2015 the Russian Federation spent $26 billion on the state military-industrial complex development program will reach 1.67 trillion rubles . That total for military industry investment and maintaining Russia’s armed forces, some $49 billion, equals 8.4 % of the dollar amount the United States Defense Department plays with annually . To that must be added the separate amount of $400 billion for modernization of Russian armed forces military capabilities by 2020. That’s roughly another $80 billion a year. Now the relevant question at a time when Washington-led NATO forces are aggressively moving to the borders of the Russian Federation, when US Pentagon Special Forces and mercenaries like Blackwater aka Academi are mucking around Ukraine causing mischief, destruction and murder, is which country is getting better defense or military capacities for every dollar spent. Astonishing performance The answer came following the September 30, 2015 Russian announcement that it had agreed to respond with military support to the call of the legitimate government of Syria. What Russian military efforts have accomplished with meager resources, has astonished most western military experts. Far from being the dilapidated, technologically obsolescent Soviet-era military that many US planners reckon, Russia’s armed forces have undergone a quiet and impressive modernization ever since it became clear around 2007 that Washington was intent on pushing NATO to Moscow’s front door in Ukraine and Georgia as well as threatening with US missile “defense” in Poland, Czech Republic and now also in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shiogu is a remarkable organizer who is known for reorganizing large Russian government departments. Before becoming Defense Minister he was head of the large Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, responsible for emergency situations, such as floods, earthquakes and acts of terrorism. The result of Russia’s military modernization, partly demonstrated in the military intervention in Syria, has been a strategic shift in the global military balance of power that Washington’s neo-conservatives, none of whom have served in active duty military theatres, did not reckon with. Russian science and engineering have accomplished astonishing results with minimum investment. Just a select glance at what is being developed is instructive. Hypersonic nuclear missile On October 25 the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau published the first image of the newest heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, the RS-28 Sarmat known under NATO’s reporting name SS-X-30. It will replace its predecessor, the R36M2 Voyevoda or NATO reporting name SS-18 Satan. It is now in test phase and will enter service at the end of 2018. The SS-X-30 will replace the world’s most powerful strategic missile, the SS-18 Satan. One reason Washington pursued the Start-1 strategic arms reduction treaty with Moscow was because the Pentagon estimated that the SS-18 with its multiple warhead consisting of ten independently targetable re-entry vehicles each having a yield of 750 kilotons was a serious threat. Now, the new successor, SS-X-30 according to Tass military analyst, Viktor Litovkin, is far more threatening. While specific details are top secret, according to Litovkin, the new ICBM will evade any missile defense arrays Washington can install. It has far smaller liftoff mass and a greater range of flight up to 17,000 kilometers, able to reach virtually any target in the Continental USA. It is designed to go on flight paths crossing the South Pole, from where they are least-expected and where no missile shields are being created. Each missile will carry between 10-15 independently targetable nuclear warheads, in a “grape cluster” able to separate from the cluster one by one when a pre-loaded program issues the order to attack the selected target, Litovkin adds . He says that the SS-X-30 re-entry vehicle, called by Russian media Yu-71, and by its developer ‘object 4202′, or Aero-ballistic Hypersonic Warhead, will fly at hypersonic speeds of Mach 17, roughly 4.3 miles (7km) per second, with flight path’s altitude and direction constantly changing all the time making it immune to any missile defenses the Pentagon has deployed in Poland or South Korea, even those relying on space-based elements. “For the SS-X-30 it makes no difference if there is a missile defense or if there is none. It will slip through unnoticed,” says Litovkin . The new missile is capable of wiping out a country the size of France with nuclear explosions 2,000 times more powerful than the bomb used at Hiroshima in 1945 by Washington . Pentagon bucks go to waste The SS-X-30 development is but one of numerous game-changing weapons technologies Russia has been combat testing in Syria. Another is the cutting-edge Russian T-14 Armata tank that has no western competitor. Russian fighter jets have demonstrated their value in Syria and Russian anti-missile Contrast this with the colossal waste of US defense budget spending. Washington is used to fight wars, like the school classroom bully, only against tiny unequipped enemies like Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi in Libya. Granted US defense giants like Boeing or Lockheed Martin are working on hypersonic jets and other classified new weapons. However, the efficiency of every dollar spent on US military hardware is overshadowed by the effective of Russian defense spending. A recent US Defense Department report stated that the budget controls of the pentagon are non-existent. Alone the US Department of the Army cannot provide an audit trail for a cumulative $6.5 trillion of expenses . There are deep cultural and historical reasons why Russia has responded to the actions of Washington and NATO since 2007 as they have. They are deadly serious about defending the Russian Motherland as they term it. Washington politicians, regardless who is President, would do well to take this into their calculations when they egg on European NATO partners to provoke Russia in every way imaginable. Europeans would also do well to reconsider whether being Washington’s front line in NATO is worth the price of possible nuclear pulverization. I think not personally. F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” Popular Articles | 1real |
Venus Williams, Off the Court - The New York Times | WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Venus Williams’s ability to get around a tennis court quickly is well known. She is and nearly can get from one side to the other in a single . Less known is her speed in taking meetings. Earlier this week, on Tuesday, Ms. Williams hit nearly every department of her fashion and interior design companies in about an hour and a half. It was a few days after she had returned from Rio de Janeiro, where she won a silver medal in mixed doubles tennis, and one day before she was to leave for New York for the United States Open, which begins Aug. 29. In the morning, she had practiced for two hours in the sweltering sun of South Florida in summer, run home for a shower and then come to the office with Harry, her Havanese, in tow. Dressed in a hot pink tank top, heather gray capri yoga pants and hot pink sneakers, she hovered over a couch on which a panoply of tennis clothes had been draped: tennis dresses with a bright geometric pattern skirts in the same pattern blue tank tops visors headbands a fuchsia hoodie. “I have been waiting to wear this dress, it is such a fun dress to wear,” she said as she decided on one of the graphic dresses, the flagship piece of the new Prism collection, which she will debut next week on her own sort of New York runway, a tennis court in Queens. The agenda for this gathering was “scripting,” in which an athlete chooses which outfits she will wear for tournament play. “What about this?” asked her marketing director, Marlon LeWinter, pointing to a blue sleeveless top. “If it’s daytime,” Ms. Williams answered, “I may want something else because that color can actually attract a lot of heat. ” To all of her matches at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, in fact to all of her matches everywhere, Ms. Williams, 36, wears EleVen by Venus Williams, her fitness and athleisure clothing line. At the Olympics, she wore a Wonder dress of her own design, and had red strands woven into her braids (“my Olympic hair,” she called it). As she sifted through the Prism options, she was rethinking her braids. “The big question is what hair color now,” she said as she pointed to splashes of blue and magenta in the dress’s pattern. She quickly dismissed a suggestion that she braid in strands of all the colors. “Too schizophrenic,” she said. “I’m liking the orange. ” Next meeting. Ms. Williams became a professional tennis player in 1994, when she was 14 years old, and quickly emerged onto the national tennis scene. She has won seven Grand Slam singles events and 14 more in women’s doubles, playing alongside her sister Serena, 34. Venus has won five Wimbledon singles titles. In 2002, she became the first woman to earn the world’s top ranking in tennis since the onset of the open era in the late 1960s. By 2011, though, her tennis career had been slowed by illness and injury. She announced she was suffering from Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that results in joint pain and sometimes crushing fatigue, among other symptoms, and withdrew from the second round of the United States Open. But she has regained momentum. She reached the semifinals in women’s singles at Wimbledon this summer and won doubles with her sister. Venus is once again in the top 10, ranked sixth in the world (Serena is ranked No. 1) and is seeded sixth at the United States Open. “I never would have predicted I would have played this long, apparently you can play this long I am learning,” she said with a laugh. “At some point it’s got to end and it will be an extremely sad day. ” But not yet. Even when she doesn’t win, she (and her sister) still garner plenty of attention. Though Venus lost in the first round of singles at the Olympics — she spiked a fever of 103 degrees the night before the match — her record became one of the biggest stories to come out of the tennis portion of the Games when a British broadcaster congratulated Andy Murray on being the first tennis player to win two gold medals. Mr. Murray corrected him, replying, “Venus and Serena have won four each. ” “People have been talking about this a lot,” Venus said when asked about this. “Kudos to Andy Murray. ” She trains every day, playing a few hours of tennis and then hitting the gym for plyometrics or other programs. She tries to take a day off, here and there. She takes November off altogether, no workouts at all, except for the dance classes that she began to take regularly once she and Serena added a dance competition to their annual Williams Invitational reunion. Venus attributes her confidence as a designer to her sister. When Venus started out, her first collection was too conservative, she said, and had to be scrapped. “The real EleVen started to emerge after,” she said. “I designed a dress and I asked Serena what she thought. She said, ‘Oh my god, I love it!’ That’s when my shoulders went up and I started feeling confident. Because you know sisters, they’re always honest. ” About 10 years ago, she began to build a foundation for life off the tennis court by studying fashion and interior design, and business. In deciding on an undergraduate program focused on business administration, Ms. Williams contacted David Frantz, a professor of management at Indiana University East. “When she called up I thought it was one of my friends playing a practical joke,” said Professor Frantz, who became Ms. Williams’s adviser. “She was an excellent student. ” She graduated with a bachelor of science degree in business administration in August 2015. She said she is now studying for a master’s degree in interior architecture. All the coursework has fed into her two main businesses. EleVen, a company, is undergoing a serious reboot since Ms. Williams hired two seasoned retail executives last year to help her centralize and take charge of operations. With a focus on getting the tennis skirts, yoga pants and lesiurewear into more boutiques and starting to leverage Ms. Williams’s international popularity, sales volume has increased by three times, according to Ilana Rosen, EleVen’s chief operating officer and Ms. Williams’s close professional confidante. Also operating from the same space is Ms. Williams’s V*Starr Interiors, a design firm with seven employees, and clients ranging from tennis clubs to luxury residential developers. The two companies sometimes collaborate. V*Starr designed the hangout space adjacent to a rooftop tennis court in the Hamptons and covered in EleVen fabric. Steven Schwartz, the chief executive officer of the Midtown Athletic Club chain, recently met with Ms. Williams and Ms. Rosen. He has decided to both carry the EleVen line and to hire V*Starr to help design the tennis lounge and some hotel suites at its flagship club in Chicago, which is under renovation. “She wins Wimbledon doubles on Saturday afternoon and she comes to Chicago on Tuesday,” Mr. Schwartz said. “We met with her all afternoon. Athletic ability fades, and she is smart enough to know this, and she is humble enough to work with. ” At the office, she showed easy camaraderie with her employees. “Everyone here is in their lane, but they’re expected to speed,” she said. Ms. Williams sketches the EleVen designs herself on vellum paper she worked on her most recent batch in Paris, while playing in the French Open. Sipping a green juice (she drinks so much water on the court that she avoids it elsewhere) she sat on a swivel chair as V*Starr designers filled her in on current projects. Sonya Haffey, the company design director, explained that they were almost finished with a proposal being sent to a Miami hotel developer. Ms. Haffey was concerned about some of the constraints imposed by the potential client. “The art needs come in under $130 per piece,” she said, with an accessories budget of $200 an item. Ms. Williams leaned back. “Well,” she said, “let’s find the best lamps we can for $200. ” She turned her chair to look at a floor plan for a space they were designing for a luxury multifamily building. Since she had last seen the plans, the client had asked the V*Starr team for alterations. “I am still brokenhearted over the changes,” Ms. Williams said. “I guess I need to move on. ” Then she did, calling out a question to a woman sitting a few desks away. “Lorena, you started class yet? You need to teach me AutoCAD,” she said, referring to a computer software application for design and architecture. Lorena Baldridge is an intern who has been at V*Starr for two months. Ms. Williams eventually headed back into the warehouse space from where the orders of EleVen activewear are shipped to online customers and the boutiques, spas and fitness clubs that carry it. The inventory had been reorganized to make room for incoming shipments of the Prism collection. She climbed ladders and rooted through bins looking for certain pieces to pack into a box. She likes occasionally to tuck handwritten notes into packages going off to unsuspecting customers. “I pitch in, every little bit helps, though I think they secretly check the boxes I pack to make sure I didn’t screw anything up,” she said. Ms. Williams’s main office is still the tennis court. On Tuesday, she arrived for practice at her preferred court at BallenIsles Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. a little later than she had planned. She was running a fever the night before. Today’s practice, she said, would be modified. Instead of cardio baseline drills, there would be drills. And she would forgo her workout. “I usually just power through,” she said. “I’m trying to make better choices. ” To help combat the effect of Sjogren’s syndrome, she pays close attention to her diet. She is “chegan,” as she put it, a vegan who sometimes cheats. (“I like butter,” she said.) When Serena told her she was cutting out sugar, Venus followed suit. “It’s working very well for helping with energy,” she said. “I’m on Day 58. I have a little app and it keeps track. ” For the United States Open, particularly, she needs to maintain her energy. “The U. S. Open is very New York,” she said. “It is intense, you have to fight. Just getting is an effort. ” She arrived for the practice session with her hitting partner, Jermaine Jenkins. He lives in Orlando, Fla. but had come to town to help her practice after Rio and before the year’s final major. He has been hitting with her the past year, since they met the year before at the French Open. Also joining was her assistant of six weeks, Zebe Haupt. His mother is friends with Venus’s mother. This is how things work in her life: Her network springs from her family. On her court, she and Mr. Jenkins worked on her backhand. She thwacked the ball and unleashed a signature grunt. “Let me try that again,” she called out to him. He fed her another and another. Harry puttered around on the adjacent court, which is where Serena usually practices. He will travel with her to New York but was unable to go to Rio. “I couldn’t get an Olympic pass for him,” Ms. Williams said. On a water break, she tipped her head toward a couple practicing several courts away. “I need to congratulate her, I haven’t seen her since they got married,” she said, and remarked that similar fitness interests are good for family ties. “Look at us,” she said, “Serena and I are still playing doubles. ” Read More: Venus Williams Gave Me a Tennis Lesson Serena is a huge part of Venus’s life even in her absence, that is obvious. When you ask Venus a question about her life or tennis, she often answers using the pronoun “we. ” (Are her parents proud of her? “I think they’re proud because we are good daughters,” Venus said.) They have played against each other in the finals of eight Grand Slam events Serena has beaten Venus six times. Venus seems prepared for the inevitable questions about sibling rivalry. “You probably want to win because you’re the older sister and the younger sister wants to win because she’s the younger sister. We don’t talk about it much,” she said, later adding, “Losing is no fun no matter who you lose to. Beating her is not as exciting as beating someone else. I care. I care if she wins or doesn’t. ” As she has gotten older, she has become more nervous watching Serena play. “It’s hard for me to watch her matches,” she said. Venus becomes animated when she talks about Serena. It’s endearing. “When you’re a big sister,” she said, “it’s a great job. I don’t know how little sisters feel about their job, but when you’re a big sister, you’re supposed to take care of everything. And you feel good about it, I do. ” Perhaps this has informed Venus’s role advocating fair treatment of women tennis players. She began arguing for pay equity in prize money as far back as 1998, when she was 18, and then more famously took the case to a Grand Slam committee in a boardroom at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in 2005, the day before she would win at Wimbledon. She was the subject of a documentary, “Venus Vs. ” made by Ava DuVernay, the trailblazing filmmaker whom Disney selected to direct “A Wrinkle in Time. ” More recently, at Wimbledon this year, she spoke out for fair court assignments for women, after playing a match on one of the club’s courts. Munching on kale chips in the EleVen conference room last Tuesday, Ms. Williams said her goal is to point out realities to people who may not be fully aware of them, and to give them a chance to do the right thing. “I don’t think anyone wants to look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m ’ they don’t see themselves that way and you can’t treat them that way,” she said. “But you have to tell the truth. It’s important to be respectful of the things that have been accomplished but also to acknowledge what hasn’t been accomplished yet. ” Even she realizes she is taking on a lot, but she seems happy, incapable of idleness. “I need that pressure in my life,” she said. She carries with her a that tries to anticipate the next shot, the next point, the next set. “I have always said that after sport, I wanted a life, I wanted an opportunity, I wanted to be able to do something,” she said. “And if something happens — the economy falls out or the dollar is worthless, anything could happen — you have to be ready to work. And I’m ready. ” | 0fake |
California becomes second state to raise legal smoking age to 21 | California becomes second state to raise legal smoking age to 21
Ethan A. Huff, staff writer Tags: smoking age , California , prohibition (NaturalNews) If you're between the ages of 18 and 21, live in California and are a smoker, expect to be denied your favorite pack at the convenience store. Beginning in June, the new minimum age for officially jumped from 18 to 21, a prohibition move that lawmakers claim will curb the number of smokers in the Golden State, and ultimately help save lives.Joining both Hawaii and the city of Needham in Massachusetts, California is the third locale in the U.S. to raise the legal smoking age to 21. Officials there hope that, like in these other places, age restrictions on smoking will help reduce the number of smokers and minimize the number of individuals who develop smoking-related health conditions like emphysema and lung cancer.Citing statistics from Needham that show a nearly 50 percent reduction in the number of smokers in the five-year period following the change that was made in 2005, April Roeseler, head of the California public health department's Tobacco Control Program, told the Los Angeles Times that she expects similar reductions in her state.In Needham, the number of high schoolers smoking cigarettes fell by nearly half, according to a study published last year. And adult smoking rates in the town also fell from about 18.1 percent to a mere 8 percent – statistics that experts say can be replicated all across the country."If we can push that age up where fewer and fewer people start smoking as a teen, it's likely that we will start to have some tobacco-free generations ," the Times quotes her as saying. Prohibition never works; people who want 'contraband' will find a way At this point, though, very little, if any, evidence exists to show that the rule change is working as intended. University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) professor Dr. Stanton Glantz, for instance, admitted to the Times that the policy still needs time to "settle in." The California Smokers' Helpline also says it hasn't noticed any increases in the number of callers in the prohibited age range trying to quit, which suggests that not much has changed.There's also the contraband factor – older kids still buying cigarettes for younger kids, for example, including those younger than the former threshold age of 18. Illegal buying has always been an issue, law or no law, which is something that the government never really seems to understand when it comes to issues of prohibition ."They're hanging out and partying together, so they'll just get someone else to buy," says Leonard Charles, the owner of a liquor store in Oakland. Charles says he strictly enforces the new cigarette age law, but believes that if somebody wants cigarettes, he or she is going to find a way, regardless of the law.In the internet age, cigarettes are also freely available to anybody with a WiFi connection. People can order cigarettes off the web and have them delivered right to their doorstep, which means that state-level restrictions are basically moot.And what about e-cigarettes? The State of California classifies e-cigs as a "tobacco product" just like cigarettes, and they are subject to the same laws. However, everybody has them these days, they're very discreet, and they don't produce that typical tobacco smell that's so hard to get out of a room , so trying to enforce restrictions against their use is next to impossible, say experts familiar with the reality of how easy it is to obtain tobacco, regardless of what the law says.When asked how the new law will realistically work in light of the fact that smoking laws often aren't effective, Glantz responded, "The short answer is I don't know." Sources for this article include: | 1real |
Peace prospects dead if Trump moves U.S. embassy to Jerusalem: Palestinian aide | JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior Palestinian official warned on Friday that implementation of Donald Trump’s pledge to relocate the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would destroy any prospects for peace with Israel, even as a spokesman for the U.S. President-elect said he remained committed to the move. Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, issued the grim prediction just a day after Trump announced his decision to nominate as ambassador to Israel David Friedman, a pro-Israel hardliner who supports continued building of Jewish settlements and shifting the embassy from Tel Aviv. Speaking to foreign journalists, Erekat said Jerusalem was a final-status issue to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians, who also want it as the capital of a future independent state. Successive U.S. administrations have avoided formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. If Trump makes good on his campaign promise, it would up-end decades of U.S. policy, enrage the Muslim world and draw international condemnation. Jerusalem is home to sites sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians. “No one should take any decisions which may preempt or prejudge (negotiations) because this will be the destruction of the peace process as a whole,” Erekat said, according to a transcript provided by an aide. The last U.S.-backed talks on statehood collapsed in 2014. He further warned of dire consequences if Israel annexes settlements built on occupied land. Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer and close friend of Trump who has no diplomatic experience, has advocated the idea of Israel annexing the West Bank, as it did with Arab East Jerusalem following its capture in the 1967 Middle East war in a move not recognized internationally. Erekat said he would like to look Trump and Friedman in the eye and tell them “if you were to take these steps of moving the embassy and annexing settlements in the West Bank, you are sending this region to more chaos, lawlessness and extremism.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has had a fractious relationship with President Barack Obama, was satisfied with Friedman’s appointment, according to the Israeli website Ynet, and several members of his right-wing government welcomed the choice. Liberal Jewish-American groups have raised objections over positions he has stated in writings and press interviews, which they see as a rejection of a two-state solution, a longtime bedrock of U.S. Middle East policy, and alignment with Israel’s far right. Trump spokesman Jason Miller said the president-elect “remains firmly committed” to relocating the embassy but that it was “premature” to present a timetable for such a move. U.S.-based analysts said that while Friedman’s appointment could signal a break with longstanding U.S. policy as well as Obama’s sometimes tough approach to ally Israel, U.S. ambassadors typically do not drive Middle East policy and it was still unclear how far Trump would be prepared to go. Friedman, who must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, declined to answer questions when contracted by Reuters. “I’ll do that at some point, but I’m not providing any comments just yet,” he said. In Thursday’s announcement, Friedman said he looked forward to doing the job “from the U.S. embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.” “Appointing David Friedman ... is a positive declaration of intent,” Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked tweeted. “David is a true friend of Israel.” Friedman has also called liberal Jewish Americans supporting a two-state solution “worse than kapos,” a reference to Jewish prisoners in World War Two concentration camps assigned by Nazi guards to supervise fellow inmates. J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group, told supporters Friedman’s appointment was “unacceptable” and it would fight to persuade U.S. senators not to confirm his nomination. | 0fake |
Libya launches voter registration with election date unclear | TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan electoral officials announced on Wednesday the opening of a two-month voter registration period, though it is unclear when elections will next be held in the divided nation. The United Nations is supporting the voter registration process as it seeks to reconcile rival factions and relaunch a political transition that would lead to new polls. The U.N. Libya mission has previously said it hopes elections can be held by the end of next year, but has also acknowledged complex security, political and legislative challenges to organizing a vote. Libya last held elections in 2014 but the results were disputed, deepening divisions that emerged after the country s 2011 uprising. The poll led to an escalation of armed conflict and to rival parliaments and governments being set up in the capital and the east. Some Libyan political figures have called for elections as a way to break the deadlock after the stalling of a U.N.-backed peace deal signed in late 2015, with a new U.N. push to amend that deal so far producing no breakthrough. U.N. Libya envoy Ghassan Salame expressed sympathy with that view at a joint press conference with Libya s High National Election Commission (HNEC) on Wednesday, calling elections the best way to separate competitors . I heard a large number of those demanding elections, some of whom decided on the type of elections and some who left it vague, Salame said. But he said certain conditions had to be met first, including electoral legislation being passed and Libyans agreeing to accept the results in advance. You do not want these elections to be another area of disagreement between Libyans, Salame said. The voter registration period is aimed at updating the voter register and allowing citizens who have not registered in the past to do so, said HNEC head Emad Alsayah. The registration process will last for 60 days, and the extension of process can be considered as required, he said. Libyans living abroad will be able to register online from Feb. 1. Turnout in national elections in 2014 was low, with 630,000 out of the 1.5 million registered casting a vote. | 0fake |
ANTIFA BEWARE! BIKERS FOR TRUMP Makes Huge Announcement On Tonight’s Phoenix Rally [VIDEO] | BIKERS FOR TRUMP announced their support for Pro-Trump attendees at tonight s Phoenix Rally for Trump. This just got more interesting because the bikers will not put up with the Antifa violence. Check out the announcement below:The statement released by bikers for Trump s Steven emery:This group of brave Patriots deserves our support! Please check out the Go Fund Me for bikers for Trump.Don t forget that violence against trump supporters has been over-the-top since last year. How could we forget the Chicago, San Diego and other cities that brought out the leftists who only wanted violence.It s a good thing Bikers for Trump will be a presence in Phoenix tonight. Please pray for their safety.IN CASE YOU FORGOT ABOUT WHAT THE LEFT DID LAST YEAR:When will the media report on this nice group of illegal aliens and racist American thugs SINCE THE MEDIA WON T REPORT ON ATTACKS ON CONSERVATIVE TRUMP SUPPORTERS, WE VE GOT THE LIST FOR YOU: Pro-Trump supporters have known the truth for a long time that conservatives are being attacked. Do you have any idea of the number of attacks? You might be shocked to see the list created by The Daily Caller.We feel like it s even more important to know who s behind the effort to attack and silence conservatives in America. There are groups like MoveOn.org and Black Lives Matter that have been instigating violence in a big way. Antifa is the worst with their tactics of extreme violence and destruction.Just as destructive as the violence is the left s effort to hijack the narrative anytime something happens between both sides. It s an Alinsky tactic that the left has been using long before President Trump came on the scene. The only difference now is that they re on overdrive with the attacks on Trump! It s downright scary!Take the The Huffington Post s recent article calling for the execution of Trump and everyone assisting his agenda. If you ve noticed a hijacking of the narrative on just about everything to do with President Trump then look no further than the attack on his comments yesterday. Trump s words were twisted, replaced and totally misinterpreted. So it shouldn t surprise anyone that you haven t heard much about physical attacks on conservatives what s the left got to gain by telling the truth? Suppression of information is right up there with lying A low as you can get!HERE S THE TRUTH AND IT S SHOCKING: Protesters jumped on cars, stole hats, fought with and threw eggs at Trump supporters outside a Trump rally in downtown San Jose, Calif. Trump supporters sued San Jose over the violence.July 2016:-A Hillary Clinton supporter lights a flag on fire and attacks a Trump supporter in Pittsburgh.August 2016:-Anti-Trump protesters attacked pushed, spit on and verbally harassed attendees forced to walk a gauntlet as they left a Trump fundraiser in Minneapolis, Minn., and beat an elderly man. Protesters also attacked Trump s motorcade. A Tennessee man was assaulted at a garage sale for being a Trump supporter.-A Trump supporter in New Jersey was attacked with a crowbar on the street.September 2016:-Protesters in El Cajon, Calif., chased and beat up a Trump supporter.October 2016:-A GOP office in North Carolina was firebombed and spray painted with Nazi Republicans get out of town or else. November 2016:-A high school student was attacked after she wrote that she supported Trump on social media. The perpetrator ripped her glasses off and punched her in the face.-The president of Cornell University s College Republicans was assaulted the night after Trump won the election.-Students protesting Trump punched and kicked a Maryland high school student wearing a Make America Great Again hat.-A high school student was arrested in Florida after he punched a classmate for carrying a Trump sign at school.-A group of black men in Chicago attacked a white man while raging against Trump.-Maryland high school students punched a student who was demonstrating in support of Trump, and then kicked him repeatedly while he was on the ground.- You support Trump. You hate Mexicans, a California high school student yelled at a Trump supporter, before viciously beating the girl.-An anti-bullying ambassador was arrested for shoving a 74-year-old man to the ground in a fight outside Trump tower where people upset over his win had gathered. The woman tied to Black Lives Matter caused the man to hit his head on the sidewalk.-A Texas elementary school student was beaten by his classmates for voting for Trump in a mock election.-Two men punched and kicked a Connecticut man who was standing with an American flag and a Trump sign.December 2016:-A Trump supporter was beaten and dragged by a car.January 2017:-A Trump supporter was knocked unconscious after airport protesters repeatedly beat him on the head.-A Trump supporter was attacked after putting out a fire started by anti-Trump protesters.-When Trump protesters encountered a driver with a pro-Trump flag on his car, they surrounded the vehicle, ripped off and began burning the flag, and pounded the car. They also punctured the tires.February 2017:-California GOP Rep. Tom McClintock had to be escorted to his car after a town hall because of angry protesters. The tires of at least four vehicles were slashed.-Protestors knocked a 71-year-old female staffer for California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher unconscious during a protest outside the representative s office.-Milo Yiannopoulos speech at the University of California-Berkeley was cancelled after rioters set the campus on fire and threw rocks through windows. Milo tweeted that one of his supporters wearing a Trump hat was thrown to the ground and kicked.March 2017:-Masked protesters at Middlebury College rushed AEI scholar and political scientist Charles Murray and professor Allison Stranger, pushing and shoving Murray and grabbing Stranger by her hair and twisting her neck as they were leaving a campus building. Stranger suffered a concussion. Protesters then surrounded the car they got into, rocking it back and forth and jumping on the hood.April 2017:-A parade in Portland, Ore.,was canceled after threats of violence were made against a Republican organization.-Fears of violent protests shut down Ann Coulter s UC Berkeley speech. Campus police had gathered intel on protesters who were planning to commit violence.May 2017: Republican Rep. Tom Garrett, his family and his dog were targeted by a series of repeated death threats deemed credible by authorities.-FBI agents arrested a person for threatening to shoot Republican Rep. Martha McSally over her support for Trump.-Police in Tennessee charged a woman for allegedly trying to run Republican Rep. David Kustoff off the road.-Police in North Dakota ejected a man after he became physical with Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer at a town hall.-A former professor was arrested after police said they identified him on video beating Trump supporters with a U-shaped bike lock, leaving three people with significant injuries. June 2017:-James Hodgkinson opened fire on a congressional GOP baseball practice, injuring five, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.-Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney received an email threat that read, One down, 216 to go, shortly after the shooting at the Republican congressional baseball practice.-A man driving a white Malibu reportedly fired several shots at a man driving a truck displaying a Make America Great Again flag in Indiana. | 1real |
Doctors in Aleppo Tend to Scores of Victims in Gas Attack - The New York Times | BEIRUT, Lebanon — As rebel negotiators unveiled a new plan on Wednesday for a political transition in Syria, doctors in the city of Aleppo were still treating people in intensive care after an attack believed to involve the use of chlorine gas sickened more than 120 people, including 10 women and 37 children. At least two people died in the attack, which witnesses said was carried out by government forces in the section of Aleppo. Rescuers and citizen journalists who went to the scene said by text message that there had been a strong smell of bleach. One of the victims, a girl named Hajer Kyali, died Wednesday afternoon. She had been in intensive care since the attack, which doctors said they believed had struck her family’s house directly, delivering a deadly dose of the gas. Medical staff members described seeing people with symptoms such as shortness of breath, coughing, sneezing, irritation of the eyes, nausea and in some cases respiratory failure. Such symptoms are consistent with attacks involving chlorine, which can kill in high concentrations. Rescue workers also said that four members of the White Helmets volunteer rescue group had been killed responding to attacks in the past day in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, both in “ ” strikes that hit the area a second time to target rescuers. The rescue workers said the Sukari district, the same neighborhood hit by the suspected chlorine attack on Tuesday, was struck on Wednesday by two barrel bombs, killing an estimated 20 people, according to witnesses and rescuers. Doctors were still working to confirm the final death toll. In London, the Syrian oppositions’ negotiating body, the High Negotiations Committee, presented a new vision of a political transition to end the civil war, now in its sixth year. The group said that it would preserve the human rights of all Syrians and the institutions of the state, including the military, and seek to avoid the mistakes made by the United States occupation in Iraq. That means having a military council made up of both and opposition figures, and no wholesale purges, with punishment only for those directly responsible for crimes. The committee’s leader, Riyad Hijab, a former Syrian prime minister who defected after a crackdown on protests that began in 2011, laid out the plan in London at a meeting of countries supporting the opposition. He said that the group could talk with members of President Bashar ’s government but that, at the end of the negotiation process, Mr. Assad should leave office — a proposal that fails to resolve an impasse with Russia and the Assad government, which insist that he can stay in office during a political transition. The gas attack came three years after the Syrian government agreed to give up its chemical weapons program under a deal brokered by the United States and Russia. It also accompanied several days of intense aerial bombardment of eastern Aleppo by government and allied Russian forces that have continued as Russian and American diplomats seek to negotiate a deal. There was no independent confirmation of who carried out the attack or that chlorine was used the Assad government and its armed opponents have accused each other of using chlorine as a weapon of war. A recent United Nations report determined that both the government and Islamic State militants have used chemical weapons on several occasions. In Aleppo, the forces fighting the government range from groups with American backing to factions that until recently were officially affiliated with Al Qaeda. The Islamic State is not a player in the city. The first death reported from the gas attack in Sukari was that of Abdulkareem Afefa, 29. Numerous videos and photographs that doctors, rescuers and witnesses shared online showed men, women and children being treated with oxygen. Abdelkafi an activist and citizen journalist who filmed the aftermath of the attack, said that when he arrived at the scene, the fumes were still so strong that he could not catch his breath. “I couldn’t speak to the camera without a mask,” he said. Mr. Hamdo said that some people at the scene had reached such a level of despair — having concluded that publicizing such attacks brings no help from the outside world and may even bring more danger — that they tried to stop him from filming. “Some people think that if they told the world that they are being killed, Assad will drop many weapons on them,” he said. He added that people had told him they believed the government was targeting civilians to encourage them to flee, and that showing many civilian victims makes the area a good target for the next attack. “The message from Assad and Russia is this: ‘You have to accept my conditions or die,’” he said. The sputtering negotiations over a include a Russian proposal for civilians to leave the area residents fear they will never be allowed back. Russia and the government say that civilians have been taken hostage by the fighters in areas. “Nothing, just chemical once again, don’t worry, don’t be sad, it is normal,” Aref an activist with the Aleppo Media Center, said in a sarcastic text message as he shared his photographs of victims. In 2013, after sarin gas attacks killed more than 1, 000 people in suburbs of Damascus, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution authorizing militarily enforceable sanctions for any party using chemical weapons in Syria. But Russia has blocked the use of those sanctions against the Syrian government, which denies it was responsible. Under threat of United States retaliation for the sarin attacks, the government agreed to eliminate its previously secret chemical weapons program. Chlorine gas is not listed as a banned chemical weapon in the international Chemical Weapons Convention that Syria agreed to join under the agreement, but its use as a military weapon is banned under international law. | 0fake |
Putin and Trump to Potentially Meet in Slovenia | 21st Century Wire says The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, had his first phone meeting with President Donald Trump after his inauguration in January and now it looks like the ground work is being laid for the first face to face meeting with Trump in person, perhaps in Slovenia.There certainly is a lot to discuss between trade, economic issues, security and of course terrorism. Putin noted, By joining our efforts, we could make a considerable contribution to settling these issues, including fighting international terrorism RT explores this report further in the below article. RT Ljubljana and Slovenia in general is of course a great place to hold such dialogue, Putin said on Friday.Putin, who is currently welcoming Slovenian President Borut Pahor in Russia on an official visit, thanked his guest for his eagerness to host such a meeting, but said that the choice of venue did not depend on Moscow alone. If this meeting takes place someday, we have nothing against Ljubljana [as the venue], Putin said at a press conference. He reminded that he also met with former US President Barack Obama in the Slovenian capital.READ MORE: Lavrov: Undoing Obama-inflicted damage to Russia-US ties will take great effortThe Russian and the new American presidents had their first phone conversation after Trump s inauguration in January. Yet, after Trump was sworn into presidency, Kremlin said it would take months rather than weeks to organize a meeting between the two leaders. It won t happen in a matter of weeks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the BBC, adding the meeting could hopefully happen in the months to come. Relations between Moscow and Washington have deteriorated badly over the past five years, the Russian president said on Friday. They require recovery in the interests of both the Russian and American people, Putin added, saying that Moscow has always welcomed mending ties with the US. We have always welcomed and count on restoring our relations to the full scale and in all directions, but it depends not only on us, but also on the American side, Putin said.READ MORE: Trump confronting rabid Russophobia found in DNA of Republican Party The new US president needs to finish forming his team, which will decide on who will participate in the dialogues, the Russian president told the media. Trade, economic, and security issues are to be among the topics discussed, including the regions in the world suffering from numerous conflicts, he said.'I don t know #Putin, but if we can get along with Russia that s a great thing' #Trump https://t.co/6WmvIJcSQk pic.twitter.com/2OAohTJzxR RT (@RT_com) January 27, 2017 By joining our efforts, we could make a considerable contribution to settling these issues Continue this report at RTREAD MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
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