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Malay set to be Singapore's first woman president: Straits Times | SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A former speaker of Singapore s parliament, Halimah Yacob, was set to become the city-state s first woman president after other candidates did not qualify for the contest, the Straits Times newspaper reported on Monday. The largely ceremonial post had been reserved this year for candidates from the ethnic Malay minority. Only Halimah was given the certificate of eligibility to contest the election by the Presidential Elections Committee, the Straits Times reported on its website. | 0fake |
Ted Cruz Being Knocked Off The Ballot Just Became A Very Real Possibility | It looks at though Sen. Ted Cruz will actually have to contend with a complaint issued by an Illinois voter who believes that the Texas senator is not a natural born citizen of the United States. After all, it is true the Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta Canada, so if found not to be a natural born citizen, it would disqualify Cruz from not only being on the ballot in Illinois, but would raise questions nationwide.The voter, Lawrence Joyce, is bringing the complaint before the Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago. He tried previously to have it be heard, but the case was dismissed. However, according to USA Today, he appealed the decision and was granted a hearing for Friday before Judge Maureen Ward Kirby. Joyce, a pharmacist and attorney, and backer of Ben Carson, said: What I fear is that Ted Cruz becomes the nominee, come September, Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida will go forward with his threats and probably several other Democrats will file suit to prevent Ted Cruz from being on the ballot. What Democrats will do at that point is cherry pick which county courthouse they are going to show up in order to file these petitions. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens in this case, because if Cruz is determined not to be a natural born citizen, the implications nationwide would be huge.Just recently, another complaint was brought up in New York over his eligibility, and yet another in the senator s home state of Texas.Cruz has, time and time again, insisted that he is, in fact, a natural born citizen because his mother was born in Delaware, USA, thus making his a natural born citizen through birth. Although, this is still hotly contested by scholars nationwide. Perhaps only time will tell, and we ll all have to wait for the outcome of this hearing.Featured image: Flickr | 1real |
INSANE: SECRET DEAL OBAMA MADE WITH “Death To America’s” IRAN INCLUDES Iran Monitoring Their Own Nuclear Sites | Does anyone else find it strange the Obama would lobby so hard to make it easy for Iran to develop nuclear weapons they will likely use against us and our allies in the Middle East? Maybe he s not aware that we re dealing with a country who has an actual day set aside to celebrate their hate for America and Israel Iran s Quds Day: Death to America, Death to IsraelThe ritualistic rally cries of Death to America and Death to Israel. Quds Day has become a day in which Iran and protestors in other societies attack the legitimacy of the state of Israel ( The Little Satan ) and continue to threaten the United States ( The Big Satan ). Gatestone Institute An apparent draft of one of the secret side agreements to the Iran nuclear deal indicates that Tehran will be permitted to use its own experts to inspect the Parchin nuclear site believed to have housed nuclear arms development.The Associated Press obtained the document, which an anonymous official described as a draft of an agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that does not differ much from the final version. The IAEA is the U.N. agency responsible for ensuring that Tehran abides by the stipulations in the finalized deal.The secret agreements between Iran and the IAEA of which there are at least two have to do with the inspection of Iran s Parchin military facility as well as the extent to which Tehran must admit to the details of its alleged nuclear weapons program.Despite repeated calls from lawmakers, President Obama has refused to provide Congress with the details of the secret deals.The AP reports:Any IAEA member country must give the agency some insight into its nuclear program. Some countries are required to do no more than give a yearly accounting of the nuclear material they possess. But nations like Iran suspected of possible proliferation are under greater scrutiny that can include stringent inspections.But the agreement diverges from normal inspection procedures between the IAEA and a member country by essentially ceding the agency s investigative authority to Iran. It allows Tehran to employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence for activities that it has consistently denied trying to develop nuclear weapons.The document suggests that IAEA officials will merely monitor Iranian experts as they inspect the Parchin site and provide the U.N. agency with photos and videos taken only of areas that Iran has not deemed off-limits because of military implications.Iranian technicians are also to perform the sampling of weapons development work, which is limited to seven samples inside the facility building.In the face of criticism, the Obama administration has denied that the nuclear deal is built on the trust of the Iranians.Multiple GOP lawmakers have sounded the alarm regarding the secret agreements between Tehran and the IAEA, accusing Obama of violating the law by denying Congress access to the details of the side deals.Before the final deal was reached in Vienna, Obama signed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which requires congressional lawmakers view all documents of the nuclear agreement specifically including those reached on the side. Via: WFBWatch Barack Hussein Obama compare the GOP to Iranian s chanting death to America over their opposition to his heinous deal: | 1real |
What we know about U.S. probes of Russian meddling in 2016 election | (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey on May 9 renewed attention to allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election campaign to benefit Trump. The following describes what is publicly known and not known about U.S. investigations into meddling and possible collusion between Russia and members of the Trump campaign: How did the investigations begin? Former President Barack Obama ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to assess whether Russia tried to intervene in the election after a cyber attack on the Democratic National Committee in July 2016 and the publication of thousands of hacked personal emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager in the month before the Nov. 8 election. Obama told intelligence officials to deliver a report on possible foreign interference before he left the White House in January 2017. What did the intelligence agencies find? The Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency concluded in a report declassified in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign not just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system but to affect the outcome. The agencies said Putin and the Russian government had a “clear preference” for Trump to win the White House. Putin’s associates hacked information, paid social media “trolls” and backed efforts by Russian government agencies and state-funded media to sway public opinion, the agencies said. The report stopped short of assessing whether Russia succeeded in swaying the election result. Putin and other Russian officials have repeatedly denied interfering in the U.S. election. What has Trump said about Russia’s role in the election? Trump has not taken a clear public position. “I will tell you this, Russia: if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said at a July 2016 news conference, in reference to an FBI probe into Clinton’s use of a private email system when she was secretary of state and emails that had possibly been deleted. Trump subsequently dismissed reports, including from U.S. intelligence officials, that Russia had attempted to intervene in the election on his behalf. The first time Trump said he accepted the findings of the intelligence agencies was at a Jan. 11 news conference ahead of his inauguration. “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia,” Trump said, although he added: “It could have been others also.” Earlier this month, Trump said China may have hacked the emails of Democratic officials to meddle with the election, offering no evidence and countering the view of intelligence officials. How many U.S. probes are there into Russia’s election meddling? The Justice Department announced on May 17 that it has appointed Robert Mueller, a former FBI director, as special counsel to lead an independent Russia probe. Mueller would, if the evidence merits, work in tandem with the FBI, which is investigating, to handle any related criminal prosecutions. Committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate are also investigating and those probes will continue. Comey has been invited to testify about the agency’s Russia investigation and his dismissal. Has there been any fallout for Trump associates over contacts with Russia before, during or after the election campaign? Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, was fired in February. The White House said he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the contacts he had with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, before Trump took office. On May 9, federal prosecutors issued grand jury subpoenas seeking business records from people who worked with Flynn when he was a private citizen. On May 10, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued the first subpoena in its Russia investigation, demanding documents from Flynn after he declined to voluntarily comply with an earlier request. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related probes at the Justice Department because he had not told Congress of his own contacts with Kislyak in 2016. Rod Rosenstein, the deputy U.S. attorney general, is handling matters related to Russia; he appointed Mueller as special counsel. Will the FBI probe continue after Comey’s dismissal? Comey told the House Intelligence Committee on March 20 that the FBI was investigating Moscow’s role in the election, including possible collusion with Trump’s campaign. It was the first time he publicly acknowledged the agency was investigating the matter. Comey’s departure does not necessarily mean the FBI’s Russia investigation will be disrupted or ended as the career FBI officials Comey put in charge of it will likely continue working on the matter even as the search for a new director begins. FBI acting Director Andrew McCabe, who will lead the agency until a new director is named, promised the Senate Intelligence Committee that Comey’s firing will not affect the investigation and that he will notify the committee of any attempt to delay or derail it. Why was Comey fired? Attorney General Sessions sent Trump a May 9 letter attaching a memo from Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, on “Restoring Confidence in the FBI” that recommended Comey’s dismissal. Rosenstein’s memo said Comey erred in July 2016 by announcing the FBI had been examining Clinton’s use of a private email server and that the case should be closed without prosecution. Rosenstein’s view was that Comey’s decision to make a public statement on the matter broke with longstanding FBI precedent and should have been handled by the then-U.S. attorney general, Loretta Lynch. Trump called Comey a “showboat” and “grandstander” in an interview with NBC News on May 11, saying that he would have fired Comey regardless of Rosenstein’s recommendation. Did Comey’s firing have anything to do with the Russia probe? The White House says Comey was dismissed because of his handling of the Clinton email investigation. The New York Times was the first to report, on May 16, that a memo Comey wrote after a February meeting with Trump stated that the president had asked him to end the FBI’s investigation of Flynn. Trump aides have told Reuters that top Justice Department officials wanted a heads-up from Comey about what he would say during a May 3 congressional hearing about the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s private email system. The hearing was just days after Clinton said at a New York event that announcements by Comey in the week before the November election that he had re-opened, and then re-closed, the email probe had swung the election for Trump. Comey told the congressional panel the idea that he may have affected the election result made him “mildly nauseous.” Is Trump being investigated by the FBI? In the short letter Trump sent to Comey dismissing him from the FBI, he thanked Comey for informing him on three separate occasions that he was not under investigation. Comey has never stated publicly whether or not the FBI was investigating Trump and it would be unorthodox for him to say such a thing to the president. The White House has offered no proof to back Trump’s claim. News of Comey’s memo, along with a Washington Post report on May 15 that Trump had revealed classified info during a May 10 meeting at the White House with Russian officials, intensified calls from Democrats and some Republicans for an independent probe of Trump’s ties to Russia. Trump has made clear on multiple occasions he believes the Russia investigations have run their course and should be closed. “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” he wrote on Twitter on May 8. | 0fake |
SCOTUS Refuses to Hear Texas Voter ID Case -- For Now | The U. S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Texas’ appeal from an adverse ruling in the Texas voter ID case. [The Texas Attorney General said after the U. S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear the case, “While we are disappointed that the U. S. Supreme Court did not immediately take our case, Chief Justice Roberts made it very clear that the case will be an even stronger posture for Supreme Court review after further proceedings in lower courts. Texas enacted a common sense voter ID law to safeguard the integrity of our elections, and we will continue to fight for the law in the district court, the Fifth Circuit, and if necessary, the Supreme Court again. ” Breitbart Texas reported the day before the U. S. Supreme Court’s order denying review of the case that a federal magistrate delayed the next hearing in the Texas voter ID case so that the Trump Administration would have time to discuss the case with the government’s lawyers. Federal lawyers filed a motion for continuance on Friday, January 20, asking the court to continue a hearing that had originally been set for January 24. In an effort to temporarily address the “discriminatory effects” of the law as originally written, the trial court enforced a remedy shortly before the 2016 Election that allowed voters without proper ID to sign affidavits attesting to the reason why they could not obtain one before casting a regular ballot. Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart, who runs Texas’ largest voting jurisdiction, told Breitbart on Sunday, “The flawed solution pushed by the DOJ that we were forced to use last November allowed hundreds of illegal votes to be cast in Harris County. ” The latest Supreme Court ruling sets the stage for the lawsuit to continue down a track that could take many more months to resolve. The State of Texas is not without other options outside of the courtroom, however. Public Interest Legal Foundation President J. Christian Adams told Breitbart Texas that legislators can take the job of fixing the law into their own hands. “The Texas Legislature is also free to offer reforms that could serve to fix the ‘discriminatory effects’ of the law. A fix would be easy,” Adams noted. In July 2016, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that Texas’ voter ID law had a discriminatory effect under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act but said the district court erred in finding discriminatory intent, as reported by Breitbart Texas. The en banc ruling held that the law did not constitute a poll tax, either. The appellate court remanded the case to the district court to determine if the voter ID provisions were written to be intentionally discriminatory. The dissents to the opinion encompassed 100 pages. Judge Edith Jones, a Reagan nominated judge, wrote a dissent which was joined by four others. She wrote, “Requiring a voter to verify her identity with a photo ID at the polling place is a reasonable requirement widely supported by Texans of all races and members of the public belonging to both political parties. ” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said immediately after the appellate court decision, “The 5th Circuit rightly reversed the lower court’s finding of discriminatory purpose, but wrongly concluded the law had a discriminatory effect. Voter fraud is real, and it undermines the integrity of the election process. ” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responded to the Fifth Circuit’s ruling at the time, “It is imperative that the State government safeguards our elections and ensures the integrity of our democratic process. Preventing voter fraud is essential to accurately reflecting the will of Texas voters during elections, and it is unfortunate that this law, providing protections against fraud, was not upheld in its entirety. ” The seven acceptable forms of photo ID under the law include the following: a Texas driver’s license free Texas election identification card (EIC) Texas personal identification card Texas license to carry a concealed handgun U. S. military identification card U. S. citizenship certificate and a U. S. passport. Lana Shadwick is a contributing writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2. This article has been updated to reflect additional information. | 0fake |
Brexit means Brexit – should be the other way around. More soon. | hattip to Sinnick & Theresa May Share this story...
Posted: Nov 16th, 2016 by apepper Click for more article by apepper .. More Stories about: Ticker | 1real |
(VIDEO) GELLER ON HER OWN: AFTER DEATH THREATS FROM JIHADIS IT’S CRICKETS FROM FBI AND DHS | 1real | |
Trump officials brief Hill staff on Saudi reactors, enrichment a worry | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration briefed congressional staff this week on how the White House was considering non-proliferation standards in a potential pact to sell nuclear reactor technology to Saudi Arabia, but did not indicate whether allowing uranium enrichment would be part of any deal, congressional aides said. Non-proliferation advocates worry that allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich fuel in a nuclear power deal could also enable it to one day covertly produce fissile material and set off an arms race with arch-rival Iran that could spread more broadly throughout the Middle East. Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff members were briefed by State Department and Department of Energy officials in a meeting on Wednesday, the aides said. They learned the administration “is working to develop a position on non-proliferation standards” should they begin talks with Saudi Arabia on a civilian nuclear cooperation pact known as a 123 agreement, a committee aide said. The administration is still mulling whether any agreement would allow uranium enrichment, the aide said. The race to build Saudi Arabia’s first nuclear power reactors is heating up among U.S., South Korean, Chinese and Russian companies. U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Saudi Arabia last week, telling Reuters then that new talks between the two allies on a 123 agreement would start soon. An agreement would allow U.S. companies to participate in Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear program. Riyadh has said it wants to be self-sufficient in producing nuclear fuel and that it is not interested in diverting nuclear technology to military use. In previous talks, Saudi Arabia has refused to sign an agreement with Washington that would deprive it of enriching uranium. Uranium fuel for reactors is enriched to only about 5 percent, lower than the 90 percent level for fissile material in nuclear bombs. Some senators with proliferation concerns worry the administration is moving too quickly on talks about nuclear plants and enrichment with Saudi without consulting Congress. As required by a 2008 law, the president is required to keep the committees in the House and Senate that deal with foreign relations “fully and currently informed” on any initiative and talks relating to new or amended 123 agreements. “We’re frustrated by the lack of briefings and having to yet again learn about potential foreign policy developments from the press,” a congressional aide said. A day before the senate briefing, a report by Bloomberg citing sources said that the administration may allow uranium enrichment as part of an agreement. The congressional aide said there are concerns that plans for an agreement are only being conducted by a small number of people controlled by the White House. “It also appears that this is policy being driven out of the White House, which makes congressional oversight that much harder,” said the aide. If lawmakers oppose a civilian nuclear deal signed by the president they can try to fight it with legislation or other measures. The Trump administration and the previous Obama administration have pushed for selling nuclear power technology abroad, partly to keep the country competitive with Russia and China in nuclear innovation. A State Department official said the United States and Saudi Arabia have been in talks since 2012 regarding a 123 agreement but declined to comment on the discussions. Energy Department officials did not immediately comment on the briefing. Toshiba-owned Westinghouse is in talks with other U.S.- based companies to form a consortium for a bid in a multibillion-dollar tender for two nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia. Winning a bid would be a big step for Westinghouse. It went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy this year and abandoned plans to build two advanced AP1000 reactors in the United States. | 0fake |
BOOM! JOHN SUNUNU: “Bothers Me That Mueller Is Hiring “Blatantly Biased Lawyers” [Video] | Former NH Governor John Sununu let Alison Camarata have it when she asked about the Russia investigation and Robert Mueller. Sununu said that Trump should have been notified if he was under investigation and then he slammed Mueller for hiring all Dems.Camerota: Should the White House know if the President is being investigated for obstruction of justice? Sununu: If the President is being investigated for obstruction of justice, the White House should have been officially notified. Sununu: What bothers me the most and there must be a reason for it, is Mueller making four of his first hires so blatantly biased lawyers, pro-Democrat lawyers with a bias certainly against the President. Maybe Mueller has decided internally that this isn t going anywhere and that the only way he can have credibility on a decision saying that there s nothing there is to have that decision come from a group of lawyers that are so blatantly biased against the President. CNN Reports Three members of the legal team known to have been hired so far by special counsel Robert Mueller to handle the Russia investigation have given political donations almost exclusively to Democrats, according to a CNN analysis of Federal Election Commission records. | 1real |
Ron Paul on Burns Oregon Standoff and Jury Nullification for the Hammond Family | 21st Century Wire says If you ve been following the protest and federal standoff outside of Burns, Oregon, you ll have seen 99% of the news coverage has been about the presence of armed militia and endless rumors of FBI Waco Siege plots and not about the core legal issues surrounding the Hammond family.For more in-depth analysis on minimum sentencing laws, jury nullification and property rights, watch the following Liberty Report hosted by Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul is joined by the executive director of the institute for peace and prosperity, Daniel McAdams, along with Jacob Sullum, senior editor from Reason.com | 1real |
TRUMP SUPPORTER Whose Brutal Beating By Black Mob Was Caught On Video Asks: “What Happened To America?” [VIDEO] | https://youtu.be/kKFQ5i9jXmA | 1real |
Oakland's Honor Band Kneels in Protest of Police Violence | Oakland's Honor Band Kneels in Protest of Police Violence Oakland's Honor Band Kneels in Protest of Police Violence By 0 43
A group of middle and high school students in Oakland, California, recently made international news when they joined San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s silent protest against racism and police violence in the United States. The students, members of the Oakland Unified School District’s Honour Band, knelt as they played the national anthem before a professional baseball game.
The year 7 and 8 students spoke to Red Flag about their decision to “take the knee.” Inspired by Kaepernick, high school members of the district’s school band first proposed the idea. Right away, the middle schoolers knew that it would be controversial. From their first day of school, US children are taught to show extreme reverence for the national flag during the anthem. This includes standing with hats off and hands on their hearts. Anything else is seen as highly disrespectful.
Despite this, some of the students felt so passionately about the need to take a stand against recent police killings that they still wanted to do it.
One student, Mikayla, 14, delivered an impassioned speech to the others about the need to stand up against racism. “I wanted us to kneel because as a country we need to have a conversation about what is going on here,” she said, explaining why she felt so strongly. “We have been turning our backs on murder and racism, and I was tired of not doing anything about it.”
Before the game, band conductor Zack Pitt-Smith made it clear the decision to kneel would be each student’s choice. Even as they took the field, no-one was sure who was going to do it.
Serena, 14, remembers, “I was scared to kneel because I wasn’t sure if anyone else would join me. I was thinking, ‘Should I kneel? I feel very strongly about this — I’m going to do it.’ But I was still shaking because I didn’t know what everyone else would do.”
Nearly all of the 155 band members knelt as they played. Everyone had their own reasons. “I’m learning about human rights in history class, and the number… | 1real |
Leonard Litwin, New York Real Estate Mogul, Dies at 102 - The New York Times | Leonard Litwin, a developer who began with his father’s plant nursery on Long Island, built a New York City residential real estate empire and paid millions to Republican and Democratic leaders to ensure tax breaks, government financing and favorable rent laws, died on Sunday at his home on Long Island, in Melville. He was 102. His death was confirmed by Charles C. Dorego, general counsel for the Litwin family and Mr. Litwin’s company, Glenwood Management Corporation. In the small circle of wealthy, sometimes flamboyant real estate moguls in New York, Mr. Litwin was almost invisible: a secretive man who kept his company private and his books closed lived quietly on Long Island, in Great Neck shunned publicity and said little about his assets and activities that was not good for business or required by law. But his imprint is on the Manhattan skyline in dozens of buildings he built, owned and operated — more than 8, 700 apartments with amenities and lofty rents. The holdings were assembled over six decades in a enterprise that ventured into the city rental market in the early 1950s and expanded into an archipelago of towers with names like the Pavilion, the Lucerne and Liberty Plaza. Behind the scenes, Mr. Litwin’s influence and that of Glenwood Management reached far beyond the buildings he owned. He forged political connections in Albany and City Hall with campaign contributions, lobbying and payments that shaped rent laws affecting millions of tenants, as well as state and city regulations that helped the real estate industry thrive in New York. In 2015, two extraordinary federal corruption trials in New York led to the convictions and resignations of the state’s two most powerful legislative leaders in Albany and exposed bribery connections to Mr. Litwin’s empire, laying bare a seamy world of payoffs, political favors and legislation that reaped staggering profits and savings for the real estate industry, and for Glenwood Management in particular. Mr. Litwin was not charged with any crime, though he was named a in one case, and never appeared in a courtroom for either trial as the juries convicted Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat and former Assembly speaker, and State Senator Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican and Senate majority leader, of bribery, extortion and conspiracy charges. In both trials, prosecutors showed that Glenwood had received favored treatment in Albany by giving $10 million to political campaigns since 2005, mostly through a maze of 26 limited liability companies. Under a nonprosecution agreement, Mr. Dorego, a senior executive of Glenwood, testified that payoffs to leaders and members of the State Legislature assured Glenwood of continued benefits in taxes, state financing and rent laws. One program alone, he said, saved up to $100 million. In the Skelos case, the jury found that the senator and his son, Adam B. Skelos, had pressured Glenwood and two other companies into providing benefits worth $300, 000 to the son, who was also convicted. By naming Mr. Litwin a of Dean Skelos, prosecutors were able to elicit testimony from Mr. Dorego about conversations he had with Mr. Litwin on the amounts and recipients of payments. By 2006, when Forbes listed him as a billionaire — No. 374 among the 400 richest Americans — Mr. Litwin was one of a core group of builders and property owners that dominated the city’s residential real estate industry. It was an exclusive club that included Stephen M. Ross of the Related Companies, the Elghanayan family, Donald Zucker, the Resnick family, the Rudin family and Larry A. Silverstein. Even to tenants who never knew his name and could never afford to live in one of his buildings, Mr. Litwin was an unseen power: a voice in the Rent Stabilization Association, the landlord organization that battles tenant groups annually over rent increases, set by the New York City Rent Guidelines Board, that may legally be charged in hundreds of thousands of apartments in the city. Mr. Litwin retired in his late 90s, although at 96 he was still actively involved in business. “He comes to the office every day, goes to all of our meetings and has the final say on almost everything,” Gary Jacob, the executive vice president of Glenwood, told The New York Times in 2011. “He’s actively involved in our new construction projects — he pores over the architectural plans to make sure we have the proper amount of closet space, and is very . ” While Mr. Litwin carefully avoided publicity, he was in the news periodically for his political donations. Campaign finance records showed that over many years he gave millions to governors, state legislators, City Council members, candidates for office, and Republican and Democratic organizations. Public records also showed that he spent millions on lobbying. In July 2013, the New York Public Interest Research Group reported that Mr. Litwin had given Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo a total of $625, 000 in campaign contributions since December 2010, apparently making Mr. Litwin the governor’s largest donor. At the time, Mr. Cuomo was raising $1 million a month from contributors for his 2014 campaign. Mr. Litwin also gave large sums to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, and to many Republican officials, including former Gov. George E. Pataki and state legislators, particularly members of the Senate who favored real estate interests. Money trails in the 1990s showed that Mr. Litwin and other developers were heavy supporters of Republicans who pledged to abolish or limit tenant rent protections. Like other wealthy campaign donors, Mr. Litwin circumvented contribution limits by funneling many smaller gifts through dozens of limited liability companies he controlled. While legal, such gifts are worrying to advocates of campaign finance reforms, especially when the donations are made by individuals or companies doing business with the government. While politicians tend to minimize the impact of such donations, tenant advocates and others contend that the money is a prime mover in debates over rent laws and state and city regulations affecting the real estate industry. In any case, Mr. Litwin’s corporation benefited from special state financing, tax breaks, construction subsidies and other largess. In 2002, federal investigators said Mr. Litwin and dozens of other property owners had received illegal tax breaks arranged by a consultant who was charged with bribing tax assessors in a scheme that cost the city $160 million in revenue over four years. But the suspect, Albert Schussler, died of a stroke before he could testify, and Mr. Litwin and other owners denied knowledge of a crime and were not accused of wrongdoing. Starting in 1997, his company financed a series of buildings in New York using more than $1 billion in bonds issued by the state, a form of taxpayer subsidy that reduces interest costs to a borrower. The buildings included Liberty Plaza, a residential tower near the World Trade Center site. Liberty Plaza won approval for nearly $100 million in special state financing and a real estate tax exemption, and was the first new apartment building erected in Lower Manhattan after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Leonard Litwin was born in New York City on Oct. 16, 1914, to Harold Litwin and the former Gertrude Meyer. The boy and his sister, Faye, grew up in Queens, attending public schools. Their father wrote two volumes of poetry under the name Harry Woodbourne. In 1933, Harold Litwin founded Woodbourne Cultural Nurseries in Melville, N. Y. with his son, who attended Columbia University briefly. The business, still in the family, did landscape work for builders. The father and son went into building themselves in 1946, erecting garden apartments on Long Island, followed by a complex in Queens and a in Riverdale, in the Bronx. After his father died in 1962, Mr. Litwin built numerous apartment towers on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, including one of the city’s largest, the Pavilion on East 77th Street near York Avenue. Over the next half century, Mr. Litwin built dozens of properties in Manhattan, almost exclusively rental towers with amenities like swimming pools, fitness centers and concierge services, charging rents of $7, 000 a month for some layouts, and more than $30, 000 a month for penthouses. He rarely took on cooperative conversions and almost never a condominium project. Mr. Litwin, who also had homes in Great Neck, Manhattan and Boca Raton, Fla. is survived by two daughters, Carole Litwin Pittelman, now the president of Glenwood Management, and Diane Miller four grandchildren and six . His wife, Ruth, died in 2014. Mr. Litwin and his wife gave millions to philanthropic causes, hospitals, and medical research on cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. He and Mr. Zucker founded a center on Long Island for the study of Alzheimer’s. The Litwin charitable investments were nearly all managed by Bernard L. Madoff and substantially lost in his Ponzi scheme, which swallowed up many fortunes before being exposed in 2008. Mr. Litwin was a longtime governor of the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry trade group, and in 2012 was named its lifetime honorary chairman. In 2009, he received the organization’s highest honor, the Harry B. Helmsley Distinguished New Yorker Award for lifetime achievement. | 0fake |
Trump NATO plan would be sharp break with decades-long U.S. policy | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican foreign policy veterans and outside experts warned that the suggestion by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that he might abandon NATO’s pledge to automatically defend all alliance members could destroy an organization that has helped keep the peace for 66 years and could invite Russian aggression. “Statements like these make the world more dangerous and the United States less safe,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump critic who is one of the Republican Party’s leading foreign policy voices and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement on Thursday. “I can only imagine how our allies in NATO, particularly the Baltic states, must feel after reading these comments from Mr. Trump. I’m 100 percent certain how Russian President Putin feels – he’s a very happy man,” he said.Trump’s comments in a New York Times interview “would seem to put him on the same page with Mr. Putin,” Richard Armitage, who was deputy secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration, said in an interview with Reuters. In the New York Times interview, Trump, in response to a question about potential Russian aggression toward the Baltic states - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - said that if Moscow attacked them, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing whether those nations “have fulfilled their obligations to us.” He added, “If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes.” “It’s the end of NATO,” Robert Hunter, a former U.S. ambassador to the alliance under President Bill Clinton, told Reuters. “The essence of NATO, more than any other single factor, is the commitment of the United States of America to the security of the other 27 members.” Asked about Trump’s comments, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the EU knows it needs to “work more on our defense capabilities,” but said the United States needs to keep solidarity with its allies. “It’s very simple to realize that in the world of today, which is quite a complicated one and quite a dangerous one, you need friends,” said Mogherini, who spoke in Washington at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A letter signed by a bipartisan group of 39 national security experts said Trump’s “inflammatory remarks” do not represent the interests of the United States. “The strength of our alliances is at the core of those interests,” said the group, which includes prominent Republicans such as former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former State Department official Eliot Cohen. The United States must uphold the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s commitments “to all of our allies, including Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,” the letter said. U.S. Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the mutual defense commitment was the essence of the Atlantic alliance. But he added that both Republicans and Democrats “are becoming exasperated that most members of the alliance are not honoring their obligations” for military spending, Corker, a Tennessee Republican, said in a statement. Responding to Trump’s suggestion that his decisions would depend in part on whether states that were attacked were meeting their financial commitments to the alliance, former diplomat Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said it is important not to see NATO or any alliance solely in budget terms. “More important is the net benefit the U.S. derives from the stability and security of the country and region affected and the price the U.S. would pay if stability were to be lost or its interests undermined,” Haass told Reuters. Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which created NATO in 1949 and calls an attack on one member an attack on all, has been invoked once - to help defend the United States after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Following the attacks, NATO sent AWACS planes to patrol over U.S. skies, with more than 800 crew members from 13 NATO countries flying over 360 sorties. As part of the eight measures approved to support the United States, NATO, about three weeks later, sent elements of its Standing Naval Forces to patrol the Eastern Mediterranean and monitor shipping, expanding that to include the entire Mediterranean several months later. A NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also noted that the alliance “deployed a third of the troops in Afghanistan for over a decade, where over one thousand soldiers from non-U.S. NATO allies and partners gave their lives.” Still, some experts downplayed Trump’s comments, even as they criticized them. Kurt Volker, who was U.S. ambassador to NATO under both Republican President George W. Bush and Democratic President Barack Obama, said it was inadvisable to create doubts in adversaries’ minds about the consequences they would face if they invaded a country. “Putin loves it,” Volker said. But he said the general European attitude was to take Trump’s pronouncements with a grain of salt. “Everyone knows it’s an election campaign,” he said. | 0fake |
DELUSIONAL DEMOCRAT AL GREEN: “I Will Draw Up Documents of Impeachment” [Video] | Texas Democrat Rep. Al Green announced on Wednesday he would draw up articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. This is the second time he s done this he s obviously got Trump Derangement Syndrome!Two delusional Democrats can t let this go Trump derangement syndrome!Now There Are Two: Rep. Brad Sherman Joins Rep. Al Green in Call to Impeach Trump https://t.co/GoebRqz8zO pic.twitter.com/BhXq7LDpUq Mediaite (@Mediaite) June 7, 2017OUR PAST REPORT ON AL GREEN S CALL FOR IMPEACHMENT: Spewing falsehoods has become the favorite pastime of Democrats It s really pitiful to watch Last night, following the release of the Washington Post fake news on Trump and Russia, several videos immediately came out repeating the same fake news. It s uncanny that the media could be so coordinated in their reports on President Trump Of course, we believe there s something to that.Two Congresscritters have come out to call for the impeachment of President Trump .With ZERO evidence of ANY wrongdoing, it s laughable One of our favorites is Maxine Waters but this next Congressman runs a close second. Al Green claims Trump was hobnobbing with the Russians Haha!Congressman Al Green just released a statement on why he believes President Trump should be impeached. This statement is laughable. Was Al Green elected because of his name? Voters can be that way, ya know This guy is the definition of clueless! Who elects these brainiacs?Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has suggested impeachment during TV interviews, but Green is the first member of Congress to formally call for impeachment hearings.Green said Trump s own public statements showed he fired Comey over the Russia investigation, which he said was grounds for impeachment:Waters and Green are a total joke! These are just two of the jokers running Washington. This is truly scary. | 1real |
WATCH: INDOCTRINATED COLLEGE STUDENTS Are Stunned By Ugly Truth About Hillary: “Which candidate said this?” | Would Hillary s every day Americans answer these questions the same way as these indoctrinated college students? Who do you think is more responsible for indoctrinating the American voter, colleges and universities or our corrupt media? | 1real |
U.S. House will delay break if Senate passes health bill: House speaker | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday said he would delay his chamber’s August break in order to push forward final healthcare overhaul legislation if the Senate succeeds in passing their version before the scheduled summer recess. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has already said he plans to delay senators typical month-long recess by two weeks in order to try and pass a bill, and on Thursday released Senate Republican leadership’s latest proposal to unwind Obamacare. | 0fake |
Vice President-Elect Pence to Take Over Trump Transition Effort - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Vice Mike Pence will take over as the leader of Donald J. Trump’s transition effort, pushing aside Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, as Mr. Trump moves quickly to assemble a government after his stunning upset victory, the transition team said on Friday. The reorganization puts the urgent task of selecting cabinet officials and key West Wing posts in the hands of Mr. Pence, whose loyalty to Mr. Trump and deep contacts with the Republican establishment on Capitol Hill are seen as critical to navigating the often politically treacherous transition period. But in shuffling those responsible for shaping his administration, Mr. Trump is also keeping close the inner circle of campaign advisers who are deeply skeptical of Washington and who helped design an outsider campaign built on angry and often divisive rhetoric. Stephen K. Bannon, the conservative provocateur and chairman of the Breitbart News website, will be a top transition adviser. Three of Mr. Trump’s adult children and his who were among his closest campaign advisers, will join a advisory committee to help guide his choices. Rick Dearborn, the chief of staff to Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and a fierce advocate for Mr. Trump, will move from the campaign’s Washington office to help direct the transition operations. Mr. Christie will become a vice chairman of the transition effort, the campaign said. The new inner circle at the transition offices will direct the activities of dozens of corporate consultants, lobbyists and other specialists who will be responsible for recommending candidates for agency jobs across the breadth of the federal government. Some of those advisers come from industries for which they are now in charge of finding top regulators. “The mission of our team will be clear: put together the most highly qualified group of successful leaders who will be able to implement our change agenda in Washington,” the transition team announced Friday afternoon. The surprise moves will sideline Mr. Christie, who had been in charge of the transition for several months. After Mr. Christie dropped out of the Republican primary race, he became a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump. But his standing has fallen recently as two former aides were convicted in the scandal involving the closing of access lanes at the George Washington Bridge in 2013. In a statement, Mr. Christie said that he is “proud to have run the phase of the transition team” and said that he looks forward to working with Mr. Pence. “I want to thank Trump for the opportunity to continue to help lead in this next phase,” Mr. Christie wrote. Two people familiar with the reorganization discussion said Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s had wanted to marginalize Mr. Christie, who had come to recognize that he was not in the running to serve as a top adviser in Mr. Trump’s White House. It was unclear whether concerns about his ability to be confirmed might prevent him from being offered a cabinet post. The changes will also push aside Richard H. Bagger, a former top aide to Mr. Christie who had been working on the transition. The transition team said Mr. Bagger will “return to the private sector” but will remain an adviser. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and Michael T. Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who has been a top campaign supporter, will also serve as vice chairmen of the transition, the transition team said Friday afternoon. The advisory committee is made up of four women and 12 men. It will include several members of Congress Rebekah Mercer, a top Republican donor Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee Peter Thiel, a founder of PayPal Attorney General Pam Bondi of Florida Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive and Anthony Scaramucci, a manager and Trump supporter. Mr. Bannon will also serve on the committee. A political committee supporting Ms. Bondi received a $25, 000 donation from the Trump Foundation, raising questions because it was around the time her office was reviewing allegations against Mr. Trump’s education programs. “This team of experienced leaders will form the building blocks of our presidential transition team staff leadership roster, and will work with elected officials and tireless volunteers to prepare our government for the transfer of power on Jan. 20,” Mr. Pence said in a statement. There are some indications that the transition effort was slow to start, perhaps the result of Mr. Trump’s upset victory, which caught much of the political world by surprise. At least a few of the people helping organize the search for Mr. Trump were tapped at the last minute, while others have been preparing quietly for weeks. At the Pentagon and the State Department, officials of the Obama administration said on Thursday that they had not yet heard from Mr. Trump’s transition team about beginning the complex work of transferring responsibilities and authority. A spokesman for the State Department said he did not have “any firm word” on when briefings might begin for designated officials from the new government. Several people briefed on the transition process described it as somewhat chaotic after Mr. Trump’s surprise victory on Tuesday. His campaign was led by four leadership teams over 18 months, and most of those people were back in view on Thursday, including Corey Lewandowski, the campaign’s first manager. Mr. Lewandowski is said to have told people he would prefer a White House senior adviser role, although he has also been mentioned as a possible Republican National Committee chairman. Mr. Lewandowski resigned on Friday from his role as a CNN political commentator. One thing is clear already: those helping Mr. Trump make the decisions are the members of his campaign’s inner circle. On Friday morning at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the ’s closest aides arrived, one by one, waving to the press corps as they entered the elevators. Trump Tower, the ’s residence, has been transformed into a kind of fortress by the Secret Service and the New York police. The building has been ringed by Jersey barriers and concrete blocks marked with “NYPD. ” The Secret Service has set up checkpoints on each end of 56th Street near the tower, and pedestrian access has been restricted around the building. With just about 70 days left before the inauguration, Mr. Trump’s administration is largely being assembled behind the scenes. But like much else in the nation’s capital, little stays secret for long. The list of names being mentioned as possibilities for crucial posts in Mr. Trump’s cabinet is growing by the hour, giving official Washington what it craves most: a parlor game as speculation grows about who might actually get a nod. The latest to be swept into the speculation is Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, who was mentioned as a possible candidate for secretary of the Treasury by CNBC. Officials with the Trump transition team said they reached out informally to Mr. Dimon, who was clear he did not want the post. Aides to Mr. Trump have declined to confirm who is on the short list for cabinet posts. And despite the ’s return to Twitter on Thursday night, he has so far said nothing specific about his possible picks. The critical position of chief of staff — the gatekeeper for the president inside the West Wing — is expected to come down to a choice between Mr. Bannon and Mr. Priebus. The two men spent more than an hour in a meeting on Friday at Trump Tower. Mr. Giuliani told CNN on Thursday that he might accept an appointment as attorney general, saying that “there’s probably nobody that knows the Justice Department better than me. ” Mr. Mnuchin, who served as Mr. Trump’s campaign finance chairman, is said to be a serious contender for Treasury secretary (though Carl Icahn, the investor, and Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, have also been mentioned in the news media). | 0fake |
HOMELESS WOMAN Beaten By Thugs For Hillary After Protecting Trump’s Hollywood Star Speaks Out For Millions Of Forgotten Americans…A MUST READ | The woman s name is Denise Scott. You can donate to her here.All funds will go to provide Denise care: Immediate & Affordable Housing Health Assessment and Medical Treatment Food Supplies Winter and Summer Clothing / Shoes / Hygiene Products Personal Identification Registration as Needed (Licenses, SS Card, Birth Certificate, etc.) Employment AssistancePlease donate here and pass it on.After Trump saw this horrible video, he asked his attorney to find this woman, he said he wanted to give her a gift..@DiamondandSilk @realDonaldTrump someone please help me locate this woman as Mr. Trump has a gift for her Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) October 28, 2016The homeless woman seen in this video has allegedly now been identified on Twitter and other social media outlets as Denise Scott..@sandra48050139 with everyone's love and help, this woman will have the last laugh on these thugs Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) October 28, 2016In 2013, Denise Scott met up with Chris Mack, an outreach worker with JWCH Institute in Los Angeles Skid Row neighborhood. Denise Scott may be homeless and she may have been forgotten, even ignored by our society, but she believes in Donald J. Trump and she s not afraid to stand up and defend him. She believes Americans need to take care of their own citizens before allowing illegal aliens to flood our country looking for handouts from our government.Denise Scott may be homeless, but she represents a portion of the silent majority in America who are sick and tired of watching politicians putting their own interests and those of special interest groups and lobbyists before the American citizens who elected them.Denise Scott shouts angrily over the way America has forgotten her. We don t need no more illegals comin over here! she screams from a Skid Row sidewalk littered with chicken bones, paper plates and discarded clothes. Fix the problems in this country! I need a place to live! Christopher Mack, a lead community outreach worker for a health clinic in the heart of Los Angeles Skid Row, squats next to her. He softly tells her to calm down, to breathe, to remember to see her case worker in the morning about housing.He also wants to know if she has health insurance.But Scott, who will turn 61 soon and has lived on Skid Row for 18 months, is in no mood to hear sweet talk. She s bone thin. Her sweater is ripped and riddled with holes. Her clothes and important papers are squashed into various size bags all around her. Tears of frustration drip down her face. I m not a racist, she tells Mack apologetically, But I can t go to Mexico to get a house and you can t find me a place to live here. Today is not Scott s day, Mack determines. She is too angry. Despite the fact that she and many others will qualify for health insurance by the end of the year under requirements of the Affordable Care Act, finding a place to live, not health care, is Scott s priority. So Mack will try again another time.The encounter demonstrates how difficult it can be to provide health coverage to some of the most destitute, even those who qualify for free or subsidized plans. Some of them say that simply trying to survive or find a roof over their heads takes precedence even over caring for their own health. Daily News | 1real |
Obama to meet Raul Castro, dissidents on historic trip to Cuba | WASHINGTON/HAVANA (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will meet dissidents and President Raul Castro in Cuba next month, the White House said on Thursday, announcing a historic trip that will be another major step toward ending decades of animosity between former Cold War foes. In the first visit by a U.S. president to the Caribbean nation since 1928, Obama will meet entrepreneurs and people from different walks of life during the trip on March 21 and 22, but he is unlikely to see Fidel Castro, the former president and revolutionary leader, U.S. officials said. The White House hopes Obama’s trip will help accelerate change on the Communist-run island and cement progress made under his watch, but Republicans at home complained that it would give legitimacy to Cuba’s oppressive government. “Next month, I’ll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people,” Obama wrote on Twitter. After decades of hostility following Cuba’s 1959 revolution, the two countries agreed in 2014 to move to reopen ties, but the U.S. embargo on Cuba remains and Washington frequently criticizes Havana’s human rights record. The opening to Cuba was a diplomatic feat that is likely to form part of Obama’s foreign policy legacy along with the nuclear deal he struck with another long-time U.S. foe, Iran. Officials decided that traveling to Cuba now rather than at the end of Obama’s term would give them more leverage to make progress on expanding Internet access and opening up business opportunities for Cubans and Americans. Obama regularly meets with civil society groups when he travels abroad, and officials said this trip would be no different. “He’ll be meeting with dissidents, with members of civil society, including those who certainly oppose the Cuban government’s policies,” Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told reporters. Josefina Vidal, the director of U.S. affairs for the Cuban Foreign Ministry, said the Cuban government is willing to talk with the United States about its concerns. “Cuba is open to speak to the U.S. government about any topic, including human rights,” Vidal told reporters. She said the Cuban government wants Guantanamo Bay returned to Cuba and the embargo lifted before relations can be normalized. Cuban dissidents gave a cautious welcome to the trip. “He should take advantage of this opportunity to send a loud, clear message,” prominent opposition blogger Yoani Sanchez wrote on her website. “The material and moral poverty that surrounds us is not the responsibility of the United States.” The United States has upheld a strict economic embargo on Cuba for more than 50 years, providing the Cuban government with a strong propaganda tool against Washington. Obama’s visit is likely to spark debate in the campaign for the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election, particularly in the swing voting state of Florida, where many anti-Castro Cuban-Americans live. Two Republican candidates, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, are conservative sons of Cuban immigrants and foreign policy hawks. Rubio urged Obama to reconsider his trip, citing political arrests in the past year. “You will send the message to the oppressed Cuban people that you stand with their oppressors,” he said in a letter on Thursday. First lady Michelle Obama will accompany her husband on the trip to Cuba and also to Argentina. Obama’s Havana visit carries huge symbolic value as his administration takes steps to expand commerce with Cuba, only 90 miles (145 km) from Florida. The last sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba was Calvin Coolidge. Tourism has surged recently. Airbnb, an online home-rental site, says U.S. rentals of homes in Cuba are booming. The countries have agreed to restore airline flights, and companies ranging from tractor manufacturers to telecommunications firms are assessing the market. Cuba and Major League Baseball are discussing holding an exhibition game between the Cuban national team and Tampa Bay Rays in Havana on March 22, raising the possibility that Obama could throw the ceremonial first pitch. Obama still seeks to pressure U.S. lawmakers to remove the decades-old embargo on Cuba but Republicans control Congress and are unlikely to act soon. A persistent congressional critic of the thaw in relations with Cuba, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, said the trip would be a reward that the Cuban government did not deserve. “Pitiful that Obama rewards Castros with visit to Cuba while conditions for the Cuban people are getting worse,” said Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican from south Florida. Rhodes said he expected Cuban officials would bring up the status of the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay during the trip, but the administration opposes returning the area to the Communist government. The White House did not provide details about which groups Obama would seek to meet, and said the United States would like to see more freedom of assembly and speech in Cuba. Cuba says it has no political prisoners but the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a dissident group, counts about 80 political prisoners in detention. Fifty-three were released around the time of the 2014 agreement to normalize relations with the United States, but others were arrested last year, the group said. | 0fake |
Bulgaria parliament passes anti-corruption law under EU pressure | SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria s parliament passed anti-corruption legislation on Wednesday under European Union pressure over its failure to prosecute venal officials, but President Rumen Radev has said the bill is not fit for purpose and he will veto it. The Balkan, formerly communist country is the poorest as well as one of the most corrupt countries in the EU, which it joined in 2007, and has made scant progress towards stamping out graft and organized crime. The European Commission, the EU s executive, has repeatedly rebuked Bulgaria for failing to prosecute and sentence allegedly corrupt officials and for not overhauling a creaking judiciary. This law corresponds to the wishes of Bulgarian citizens and the European Commission, said Tsvetan Tsvetanov, chairman of the ruling GERB party s parliamentary group. Analysts voiced concern, though, that the bill would not allow efficient investigations of corruption networks. The management of a special anti-graft unit envisaged by the legislation would be appointed by parliament, something analysts said could limit its objectivity. Radev said the new five-person unit, meant to investigate persons occupying high state posts as well as assets and conflict of interest, may not be truly independent and could be used by those in power to persecute opponents. The instruments envisaged in this law are ineffective, Radev said last week. It does not deal a blow on those who feed corruption, and it can be used as a weapon against inconvenient people. He said he would veto the measure. The president, prime minister and lawmakers could be targets of investigation, as well as municipal councillors, directors of hospitals and border customs bosses. The new law also focuses on improving control and accountability of law-enforcement agencies, just before Bulgaria assumes the six-month, rotating EU presidency in January. Corruption has deterred foreign investment since communism collapsed in Bulgaria in 1989, and the EU has kept Sofia as well as neighboring Romania - for the same rule-of-law failings - outside its Schengen zone of passport-free travel. | 0fake |
U.S. struggles to convince Iraqis that Washington doesn’t support ISIS | They took out Saddam in two weeks, but they can t finish IS in two years? asked Falih, another Iraqi who asked that his last name not be used out of security concerns. It just doesn t make sense. 21st Century Wire says This latest report serves as a reminder of just how thin the US-led international game of supporting extremist militants has become.The most comical part of this story is how US military court scribes at the Associated Press are still in denial that Iraqis are harboring ill will against the US for suffocating (via crippling sanctions), bombing and destroying, looting and occupying their country over the last 25 years.Aside from numerous reports showing US weapons and equipment being dropped by accident and then used by ISIS, it s undeniable by now that the US have been the primary driver in fueling the rise and growth of this militant fighting group over the last 7 years.Associated Press writers are very careful to frame this narrative and advance the establishment s favorite meme that the debacle of Iraq was down to US government incompetence , rather than inherent malice even though history clearly demonstrates that malice has been omnipresent in US foreign policy for at least the last 70 years.SEE ALSO: 50 Years of Targeted Kill Lists by US Government Why can t they (the Iraqis) appreciate what we ve done for them? Seriously Sinan Salaheddin and Susannah George AP/Military.comBAGHDAD For nearly two years, U.S. airstrikes, military advisers and weapons shipments have helped Iraqi forces roll back the Islamic State group.The U.S.-led coalition has carried out more than 5,000 airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq at a total cost of $7 billion since August 2014, including operations in Syria. On Tuesday a U.S. Navy SEAL was the third serviceman to die fighting ISIS in Iraq.But many Iraqis still aren t convinced the Americans are on their side.Government-allied Shiite militiamen on the front-lines post videos of U.S. supplies purportedly seized from ISIS militants or found in areas liberated from the extremist group. Newspapers and TV networks repeat conspiracy theories that the U.S. created the jihadi group to sow chaos in the region in order to seize its oil.Skepticism about U.S. motives is deeply rooted in Iraq, where many still blame the chaos after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein on American malice rather than incompetence Read more at Military.comREAD MORE ISIS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire ISIS Files | 1real |
Is Jeb Bush conservative enough? | Washington (CNN) He cut billions in taxes, intervened in controversial abortion cases, railed against affirmative action and gun control and dreamed of a state capital in which government buildings would forever be drained of unneeded workers.
Yet the biggest barrier between former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the White House may be a perception that -- despite his record -- he's not conservative enough for today's Republicans.
"Many things he's said have rubbed conservatives raw," said Morton Blackwell, a Republican National Committee member from Virginia, who said a lot of base voters were particularly suspicious of Bush's departures from party orthodoxy on education and immigration.
Bush's presidential hopes are complicated by multiple factors. As the son and brother of former presidents, he's undeniably part of an establishment that is loathed in many corners of the GOP base. The party has also shifted rightward in the years since he left office under the influence of the tea party, and activists have embraced populist conservatives like Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz.
But Bush, 61, is also facing an uphill battle because his time running Florida seems fuzzy to many people -- particularly GOP primary voters. That's in part because he has yet to highlight the most conservative aspects of his 1999 to 2007 governorship. And the issues that he's most vocal about -- the Common Core education standards and immigration reform -- are the positions that most infuriate conservatives.
Glenn McCall, a South Carolina RNC member, says activists in his state aren't interested in Bush's record.
Whether he talks about it or not, Bush's legacy in Florida will come under sharper scrutiny as he makes moves to launch a presidential campaign. That's especially true if Mitt Romney mounts a third White House bid and campaigns to Bush's right.
Bush will mark a rite of passage for Republican presidential candidates next Wednesday by addressing the Detroit Economic Club. Ahead of that speech, he's beginning to make the kind of arguments for small government that closely echo his rhetoric from his days in Florida.
"Our government gets in the way each and every day," he said in a speech in San Francisco last week. "It is time to challenge every aspect of how government works, how it taxes, how it regulates, how it spends."
Those who know Bush believe his record in Florida could be a tool to blunt attacks from conservatives and lay to rest -- once and for all -- the idea that he isn't one of them.
"He was in no way a moderate," said Florida political strategist Mike Hanna, who advised Bush during his gubernatorial runs. "After Governor Bush gets out there and starts to introduce himself to the voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and other states, I think they will realize ... he is a card-carrying, unabashed, capitalist conservative."
John Dowless, who headed the Christian Coalition in the Sunshine State while Bush was governor, said "there is no question that Jeb Bush was and is a conservative. There never was a question in Florida."
But talking about that conservatism hasn't always come easy to Bush.
During his first gubernatorial campaign in 1994, his attempts to demonstrate his politics were brash and sometimes clumsy.
Not only did he advocate for abolishing the Department of Education, for voter approval of all new taxes, and "privatization in every area where privatization is possible," he also suggested welfare reforms that would have cut recipients' access to benefits after two years.
His 1994 pronouncements on gay rights haunt his image to this day.
During that failed first campaign, he argued in the Miami Herald that there was no need for "special categories" to protect members of the gay and lesbian community. Should "sodomy be elevated to the same constitutional status as race and religion?" he asked in one controversial line. "My answer is no."
Bush's narrow loss that year to popular Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles prompted deep self-reflection before his next try in 1998. He later admitted he had run with "unvarnished conservative views" and needed to become a better storyteller. By the time he left office after two terms he was more comfortable laying out his conservative vision -- and he had approval ratings of over 60%.
Bush's politics also evolved after his conversion to Catholicism, his wife's religion, in the mid-1990s, which strengthened his resolve on issues like abortion.
In 2009, after leaving office, he explained that he admired "the fact that the Catholic Church believes in and acts on absolute truth as its foundational principles and doesn't move with modern times as my former religion did."
He also spoke disapprovingly of politicians who put their religion "in a safety deposit box" while in office. In San Francisco, he said his faith gave him "serenity" and was hugely important during tough times as governor.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Bush's record in Florida is his use of muscular executive power on social issues that are important to conservatives.
Backed by a pliant Republican legislature, he vigorously sought restrictions on abortion while governor -- from a ban on late-term procedures to a constitutional amendment that would circumvent the courts, which had struck down a law requiring girls notify their parents before getting an abortion.
Bush's abortion activism shocked some state officials who believed he was reaching beyond the powers of his office.
In 2003, Bush unsuccessfully tried to get the courts to appoint a guardian for the fetus of a 22-year-old disabled woman with cerebral palsy and autism, who became pregnant after being raped by an operator of a state-supervised group home.
In 2005, he intervened in the case of 13-year-old girl, known as L.G., who was a ward of the state and was 13½ weeks pregnant when she tried to get an abortion. Bush fought hard to prevent the procedure, but was overruled by a judge.
Shortly after those episodes Bush told Republicans at the 2005 Georgia GOP convention that "there is such a thing as right and wrong."
"Republicans cannot continue to win unless we talk with compassion and passion about absolute truth," he said.
That principle clearly guided Bush's extraordinary intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, a mentally impaired woman deemed in a "chronic vegetative state." Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler -- with aid from then-Governor Bush -- repeatedly tried to prevent Schiavo's husband from removing her feeding tube to end her life.
After five years of litigation in 2003, Bush tried to get a different court-appointed guardian for Schiavo and filed a friend of the court brief to block removal of the feeding tube. He lost that round, but then persuaded the legislature to pass a law giving him the power to prevent a feeding tube or hydration device from being removed from a patient who had not laid out their end-of-life directives.
In the midst of the debate, Bush proclaimed that he was "probably the most pro-life governor in modern times," according to Associated Press reports.
After the feeding tube was reinserted, Michael Schiavo's attorney railed against the "gross and illegal intrusion into the private liberty of citizens" and the Florida Supreme Court ruled that hastily drafted state law was unconstitutional. The Florida governor kept pushing the case through all possible avenues, including action by Congress and then-President George W. Bush. Ultimately, he lost.
In polls, many Florida voters said they felt Bush had gone too far, but his actions were based on "personal and religious tenets from which he could not retreat," said Mac Stipanovich, a Republican political strategist who advised Bush during the 1994 campaign.
Those battles suggest that he is unlikely to back away from his positions on controversial issues like immigration and Common Core, even during a heated presidential campaign.
Bush "will change his mind about stuff, but it is grudgingly, fact-based and he really thinks about it," Stipanovich said. "He seldom looks for the path of least resistance."
While Bush's Catholicism looms large in his social policy, his economic approach is molded by his lifetime immersion in top-level Republican politics.
Jeb Bush closely observed President Ronald Reagan, a conservative icon who he later termed "spectacular," when his father was vice president. In office in Florida, Bush took as his model Reagan's mantra that government was not the solution to America's problems, but the problem itself.
During his second inaugural address in 2003, he gazed out at government offices and said "there would be no greater tribute to our maturity as a society than if we make these buildings around us empty of workers, silent monuments to a time when government played a larger role than it deserved or could adequately fill."
Over the course of eight years, Bush signed into law $19 billion in tax cuts. He sought to privatize key government providers, including foster care, state parks and even legal aid to death row prisoners. His business-friendly state's bonds were top-rated.
He reshaped Florida by wiping out 13,000 government jobs and vetoing $2 billion in new spending, an economic approach influenced by the conservative gospels of Milton Friedman. He enforced conservative solutions on taxes, gun control, dismantling affirmative action in universities, taking on teachers unions over testing and performance.
But despite all this, Bush faces an important question as he embarks on a presidential run: Will he get a hearing among grassroots activists who view his support for immigration reform as akin to amnesty for illegal immigrants and his backing of Common Core as an unacceptable embrace of state power?
"Is there enough space in our media environment in the Republican primaries for people to listen to his entire record?" asked Matthew Corrigan, author of a new book on Bush's tenure in Florida, "Conservative Hurricane." Or "will his opponents be able to yell amnesty and federal government control of education and not pay attention to anything else?"
Blackwell said he believed that it would simply not be possible for Bush to convince the base he truly has the conscience of a conservative.
"We've been down this road repeatedly before with members of his family who ran like they were going to be movement conservatives," he said. "But his father broke the no new taxes pledge and his brother expanded federal programs in various directions, which conservatives didn't like."
Tea party supporters, who could be important in some early voting states like Iowa and South Carolina, are also worried that the former Florida governor not only does not reflect their views -- but is not listening to them. They warn a ticket topped by Bush could face lukewarm Republican turnout in a general election.
Laurie Newsom, president of the Gainesville, Florida, Tea Party, noted that many in the grass roots were disappointed by the performance of Republicans who had professed their conservative fiscal bona fides -- like President George W. Bush -- and had unhappily accepted previous GOP nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
"We have held our noses and voted in '08 and '12," Newsom said. "Jeb Bush -- he hasn't got a prayer. Poor Jeb has clouds hanging over his head right now."
But Bush is warning that the Republican Party simply will not win in 2016 if it does not offer a positive vision for the future, despite boiling conservative resentment at Washington.
"We are not going to win votes as Republicans unless you lay out a hopeful, optimistic message," he said in San Francisco. "A positive agenda wins out against anger and reaction every day of the week." | 0fake |
Most Hotly Contested Down-Ballot Measures Of 2016 - The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Hostages Trapped Inside Walmart Insisting They Never Shop At Walmart A gunman at a Dearborn, MI Walmart is holding dozens of shoppers who say they only happened to be at the tacky megachain by coincidence. Nation Puts 2016 Election Into Perspective By Reminding Itself Some Species Of Sea Turtles Get Eaten By Birds Just Seconds After They Hatch WASHINGTON—Saying they felt anxious and overwhelmed just days before heading to the polls to decide a historically fraught presidential race, Americans throughout the country reportedly took a moment Thursday to put the 2016 election into perspective by reminding themselves that some species of sea turtles are eaten by birds just seconds after they hatch. Report: Election Day Most Americans’ Only Time In 2016 Being In Same Room With Person Supporting Other Candidate WASHINGTON—According to a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, Election Day 2016 will, for the majority of Americans, mark the only time this year they will occupy the same room as a person who supports a different presidential candidate. New Heavy-Duty Voting Machine Allows Americans To Take Out Frustration On It Before Casting Ballot WASHINGTON—Saying the circumstances of this year’s presidential race made the upgrade necessary, election commissions throughout the country were reportedly working to install new heavy-duty voting machines this week that will allow Americans to physically take out their frustrations on the devices before casting their votes. Clinton Staff Readies EMP Launch To Disable All Nation’s Electronic Devices NEW YORK—In an effort to prepare for any new revelations that might emerge about her emails during her tenure as secretary of state, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton reportedly told her staff Tuesday to ready the launch of several electromagnetic pulses to disable all of the nation’s electronic devices. New Report Finds Voters Have No Idea How Outraged They Supposed To Be About Anything Anymore WASHINGTON—Saying that at this point, they were just taking their best guesses at how they should react to each new scandal that emerged about the presidential nominees, voters across the country admitted Monday they had no clue how outraged they are supposed to be about anything anymore. Anthony Weiner Sends Apology Sext To Entire Clinton Campaign BROOKLYN, NY—In response to the FBI’s announcement that its investigation of him had produced new evidence that could pertain to its probe of the Democratic presidential nominee, Anthony Weiner reportedly sent an apology sext early Monday morning to the entire Hillary Clinton campaign. Nation Too Terrified To Look At What Trump’s Recent Rise In Polls Attributed To WASHINGTON—Claiming it felt queasy just thinking about what the cause could be, the nation’s populace said Monday it was too terrified to look at what Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s recent rise in the polls was attributed to. Anthropologists Discover Isolated Tribe Of Joyful Americans Living In Remote Village Untouched By 2016 Election WALDPORT, OR—A team of anthropologists announced Friday it had discovered an isolated tribe of blissful Americans who have never been exposed to the current presidential campaign or its candidates, noting that the newly identified population lives contentedly in a remote village completely untouched by the 2016 race. | 1real |
Paul Ryan Exposed As SPINELESS As Leaked Audio Shows Him TRASHING Trump (VIDEO) | It s no secret that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is spineless that s a reputation he s earned for himself throughout his entire career. But thanks to an audio clip from October 2016 that has just resurfaced, everyone is now being reminded how unreliable and weak Ryan truly is when it comes to holding to his beliefs.Coming at a time when Ryan is receiving tons of negative criticism due to his celebration that the CBO report on the American Health Care Act is going to cost millions of Americans to lose their health insurance, this looks pretty bad for the House Speaker. The footage from October 2016 was posted by none other than Breitbart, and it shows Ryan distancing himself from Trump after the corrupt businessman s misogynistic comments on the infamous Access Hollywood footage. Ryan can be heard saying: I am not going to defend Donald Trump, not now, not in the future. I m not going to be campaigning with him for the next 30 days. I m doing what I think is best for you, the members, not what s best for me. I m going to focus my time on campaigning for House Republicans. Ryan then trashed Trump, suggesting that he was an awful nominee that pretty much had no chance. He stated the only way the GOP might survive would be to preserve a House majority: It s amazing how easily she could be beaten. We need a check on Hillary Clinton, if Donald Trump and Mike Pence don t win the presidency. You can listen to Ryan trash Trump below:In response to the leaked audio, Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck said: The world is well aware of this history. And obviously a lot has happened since then. Yes, a lot HAS happened since then but Ryan is still spineless as ever and is now kissing Trump s ass. The GOP should be ashamed of him.Featured image via Win McNamee / Getty Images | 1real |
U.S. partisan split widening over Russia probe: court documents | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are refusing to endorse a Republican move to find out who paid the firm that commissioned a dossier alleging ties between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, a court document made public on Monday showed. The split was the latest sign of partisan feuding that current and former U.S. officials say is undercutting a House Intelligence Committee probe into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Republicans on the committee earlier this month subpoenaed an unidentified bank for the last two years of records of the accounts of Fusion GPS, the political research firm that hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to pull together the dossier on Trump. The move was an apparent effort to find out who had paid for the work that led to the dossier. The firm assures its clients it will not disclose their identities. A source familiar with the situation said the law firm Perkins Coie had retained Fusion GPS on behalf of Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. “To aid in its representation of the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, Perkins Coie retained Fusion GPS, entering into an engagement for research services that began in April 2016 and concluded before the election in early November,” the source said. Perkins Coie’s involvement in paying for the research was first reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday. Last week, Fusion GPS sued the unnamed bank in federal court in Washington, requesting a court order to block the subpoena. In a Monday night court filing, lawyers for the House, saying they represented the Intelligence Committee, asked the court to reject Fusion’s request. The legal challenge was made without support from Democrats, throwing into further question a tradition of bipartisanship in Congress on intelligence issues. Democrats, who are in the minority, and some Republicans on the House panel, want to investigate Russia’s role in the 2016 election, as well as allegations that Trump’s team colluded with the Kremlin. Moscow has denied meddling in the election and Trump has denied collusion. Representative Devin Nunes, the Intelligence Committee’s Republican chairman, and his allies have focused instead on other issues, including the activities of Fusion GPS. Some Republicans, including Senator Charles Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, have charged that Fusion GPS took Russian money while compiling the dossier on Trump. “Domestic American clients paid for Fusion GPS to research Donald Trump, period. No Russian was involved, in any way, in the payment to Fusion GPS for this work,” Joshua Levy, an outside attorney for the firm, said in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday. A footnote in Monday’s court filing said that House lawyers went to court to enforce the subpoena with the authorization of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the entire House. But it added that the House’s “Democratic Leader and Democratic Whip decline to support the Group’s position in this case.” Representative Nancy Pelosi is the House Democratic leader, and Representative Steny Hoyer is the Democratic whip. The top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff, was not immediately available for comment. In their court filing, the House lawyers argued that Fusion GPS had no right to quash a valid congressional subpoena. “The relief Plaintiff seeks is extraordinary and would directly impede an ongoing congressional investigation of the highest national importance,” they wrote in the filing. The filing confirmed that Nunes retained control of the committee’s Russia probe, despite saying in April he would step aside and let fellow Republican Representative Mike Conaway take charge. Nunes “did not ‘recuse’ himself from the investigation,” the document said. | 0fake |
U.S. Treasury's Mnuchin urges Congress to lift debt limit before recess | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin urged Congress on Wednesday to raise the federal debt limit before lawmakers start their August recess, to avoid higher interest costs to taxpayers and market uncertainty about a potential default. Maintaining U.S. creditworthiness is of the “utmost importance” and the United States must pay its bills on time, Mnuchin told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. “As I’ve suggested in the past, based upon our best estimate at the time, we do have funding through September, but I have urged Congress to take this up before they leave for the recess,” Mnuchin said. However there was little sign Congress would heed Mnuchin’s call, at least for the moment. The House of Representatives is due to start its recess on Friday with no hint of movement on the issue, while the Senate is consumed with trying to pass a healthcare overhaul bill. That could leave the debt limit unaddressed until Congress returns on Sept. 5, perhaps one month before the Treasury runs a real risk of not being able to pay all of its obligations. The last extension of the federal borrowing limit expired in March with total debt of around $20 trillion, but the Treasury has extended its ability to issue debt by employing extraordinary cash management measures, including deferring reinvestments in federal employee pension funds. But short-term Treasury bill markets have grown nervous about the potential for the Treasury to exhaust its borrowing capacity by mid-October, sending yields higher and crushing demand for a recent 3-month bill auction. The situation is costing taxpayers money and stoking market uncertainty, said Mnuchin, a former banker and Hollywood film financier. “Right now effectively, as opposed to borrowing in the market at lower rates, we’re borrowing and making our trust funds whole at slightly higher rates, so there is a real cost to doing that,” he said. “There’s also an implied cost of uncertainty into the market. And the longer we wait, that more that uncertainty will be.” Senator James Lankford, a Republican, said at the hearing that his best estimate, derived through working with Treasury officials, was that the use of extraordinary measures would amount to about $2.5 billion, largely because the government would have to cover interest owed to the affected pension funds. Mnuchin did not dispute that estimate. Lawmakers showed varying levels of concern on Capitol Hill this week as the Senate focused on trying to pass a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. “Right now, my focus is Obamacare,” said Senator Ted Cruz when asked on Tuesday if the lack of action on the debt limit was a concern. Cruz led fellow Republicans in 2013 to demand spending cuts as part of a fiscal fight that led to a 16-day partial government shutdown. Another fiscal conservative senator, David Perdue, said however he would prefer that Congress stay in session in August to deal with raising the debt ceiling, adding: “We’ve just got to get it done.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to pass a debt ceiling increase but does not have timing nailed down, a spokesman said. | 0fake |
THE FIX IS IN: JUDGE QUICKLY BLOCKS ABORTION VIDEOS AND NOW WE KNOW THE REST OF THE STORY | Judge William H. Orrick, III joins Obama in his desire to keep the Planned parenthood abortion videos from coming out. He quickly granted a restraining order against the release of the videos. Did anyone else think it was really fast and very unusual that a judge would take such swift action? Well, we thought so too and now we know why. Orrick is an Obama appointee and was a bundler for the Obama campaign!A federal judge late Friday granted a temporary restraining order against the release of recordings made at an annual meeting of abortion providers. The injunction is against the Center for Medical Progress, the group that has unveiled Planned Parenthood s participation in the sale of organs harvested from aborted children.Judge William H. Orrick, III, granted the injunction just hours after the order was requested by the National Abortion Federation.Orrick was nominated to his position by hardline abortion supporter President Barack Obama. He was also a major donor to and bundler for President Obama s presidential campaign. He raised at least $200,000 for Obama and donated $30,800 to committees supporting him, according to Public Citizen.Even though the National Abortion Federation filed its claim only hours before, Orrick quickly decided in their favor that the abortionists they represent would, ironically, be likely to suffer irreparable injury, absent an ex parte temporary restraining order, in the form of harassment, intimidation, violence, invasion of privacy, and injury to reputation, and the requested relief is in the public interest. Read more: The Right Scoop | 1real |
Factbox: Corporate alternative minimum tax threat hits pharma, tech | (Reuters) - The tax overhaul legislation passed by the U.S. Senate jettisoned a long-held Republican goal of repealing the corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT), a move seen as hurting companies that invest heavily in research and development. The Senate’s inclusion of the AMT puts the bill, passed narrowly last Saturday, on a collision course with Republicans in the House of Representatives, whose version would repeal the corporate AMT. House Republicans are calling for the tax to be eliminated in final legislation to be hammered out by a House-Senate conference committee. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, said on Wednesday a final tax bill that congressional Republicans hope to get to President Donald Trump for his signature by the Dec. 25 Christmas holiday likely will not retain the AMT. Here are some details on the impact of the AMT and which companies and industries invest the most in R&D. — The 20 percent corporate AMT is an alternative to the regular corporate income tax in computing taxes owed, designed to limit the benefit of deductions and tax credits, including credits for R&D that are popular with Silicon Valley. — With the top corporate rate now at 35 percent, few wind up paying the AMT. But since congressional Republicans want to cut the tax rate to 20 percent, the AMT could affect many companies. — “Retaining the AMT in reform is even more harmful than it is in its present form,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce business lobby group said on its website. “This cannot be the intended impact from a Congress who has worked for years to enact a more globally competitive tax code.” — Companies in the U.S. pharmaceutical and medical research industry plowed about 17 percent of total revenue into R&D in their most recent fiscal year, according to Thomson Reuters data. — The software industry and IT services invested 14 percent of revenue in R&D while technology and equipment companies invested 12 percent of their revenue in R&D. — The healthcare services and equipment sector spent 5.6 percent of its revenue on R&D in the most recent fiscal year. — Manufacturers also invest significantly in R&D, with Boeing (BA.N) investing 5 percent of its revenue in R&D last year. — “Research and development is the lifeblood of manufacturing. The NAM supports pro-growth tax reform, and is working with key policymakers to ensure the final bill does not inadvertently harm manufacturing,” said Chris Netram, vice president for tax and domestic economic policy at the National Association of Manufacturers lobby group. | 0fake |
Family of Lebanon PM Hariri visit French president in Paris | BEIRUT (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday received members of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri s family in Paris, days after intervening to facilitate Hariri s departure from Saudi Arabia, Hariri s press office said. Hariri resigned as prime minister in a video broadcast from Riyadh on Nov. 4. After intervention by France he returned to Lebanon this week and postponed his resignation at the request of Lebanese President Michel Aoun while a dialogue takes place. Top Lebanese officials have said Riyadh was holding Hariri against his will and forced him to resign. Saudi Arabia has denied this. Hariri s office said his wife Lara, daughter Louloua and one of his two sons, Abdelaziz, arrived in France on Thursday for a holiday and will stay in Paris for a few days. Hariri is a dual Saudi-Lebanese citizen and the two children attend schools in Saudi. Hariri thanked Macron and his wife on Twitter for inviting them to the Elysee Palace. | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton v Donald Trump in 2016 | With just four days left until election day, many Americans are still perplexed. Who should the people cast their vote for on November 8? 2016 has brought a variety of topics to the surface for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. However, Americans seem to miss a lot of information from both parties during the debates and rallies. Each person is preoccupied with defending themselves or offending the other. Believe it or not, during all the drama there are clear proposals from both Clinton and Trump on several concerns.
A Few Prominent Proposals: Education: When it comes to higher education, Clinton and Trump cannot be more opposites. Clinton introduced the New College Compact. This would allow students entering a four-year college, within their state, not have to borrow money for tuition, books, and fees.
Trump has opposed the New College Compact and claims he would fight any proposal for debt-free public higher education.
Taxes: However, both do see eye to eye on many tax related problems. Clinton and Trump promised the working middle-class Americans a massive tax reduction. Also, they both ensure that the wealthy will pay their fair share in taxes.
Gun Control: Another area that Clinton and Trump agree upon is gun control. This may come as a surprise for many, yet the similarities cannot be ignored. They both want to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals and the severely mentally ill. They also want to expand background checks. Trump goes as far as suggesting “that we empower all law-abiding gun owners to defend themselves because the police cannot be everywhere all the time.” With either candidate, all gun owners rightfully able to bear arms will be entitled to do so, no-one is threatening to disarm anyone.
Immigration: This is one of the most talked about topics among the presidential nominees. Within the first 100 days of office, Clinton says she will set forth a plan that will treat people with respect, fix the family visa backlog, end the three and ten-year bars, and protect American borders.
Trump claims he will have Mexico pay for a wall on the Southern borders and end the catch and release process. Trump also explained that he will deport illegal immigrants, who have committed a crime, in one day.
By going to each of the candidate’s website, people can see a complete copy of their goals, as president of the United States. Determining which nominee would be a better fit as the commander in chief, is an opinion based on how much or how little voters relate to each candidate’s ideas.
Unfortunately, getting acquainted with Clinton and Trump’s prospective plans is not an easy task. There has been chaos from the very beginning with these campaigns. There has never been a dull moment, that is for sure. However, now is the time to become serious and to remember that the world is watching.
By Amy Weins
Edited by Jeanette Smith
Sources:
NASFAA: 2016 Presidential Candidates’ Higher Education Proposals
Hillary Clinton.com: A Fair Tax System; Gun Violence Prevention; Immigration Reform
Donald Trump.com: Tax Plan; Second Amendment Rights; Immigration
Featured Image Courtesy of Steven Bevacqua’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Top Image Courtesy of Matt Wade’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License clinton , hillary , presidential election , Trump | 1real |
German, Chinese leaders agree on need to tighten North Korea sanctions | BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in a telephone call on Thursday about the need to tighten sanctions against North Korea in light of Pyongyang s latest nuclear weapons test, a spokesman for Merkel said. Both leaders expressed deep concern about the current situation in North Korea, and viewed the latest North Korean nuclear weapons test as a significant danger for the security of the entire region, as well as a violation of international law, Steffen Seibert said in a statement. Both leaders said they supported a tightening of the sanctions against North Korea, he said. At the same time, however, it was important to continue seeking dialogue to peacefully resolve the current tensions, he added. | 0fake |
IS YOUR CONGRESSMAN Selling You Out For More ‘Refugees’? | When President Trump announced that the U.S. would take 45,000 refugees for Fiscal Year 2018, it was a lower number than previous years but don t forget we take another 50,000 in the Diversity Visa Lottery! We have taken more refugees than any other nation in the world Our congress wants more We re not kidding! 100 of them sent a letter to President Trump begging for more MORE VOTES FOR DEMOCRATS To Read the entire letter: CONGRESS WANTS MORE REFUGEESHERE S THE PART REQUESTING MORE REFUGEES:The refugee number is woefully insufficient when compared to the millions of people who have been forced to flee their home countries. Establishing a PD of 45,000 is the lowest refugee admissions goal in our nation s history. This would prevent tens of thousands of people from enriching American communities while seeking safety, protection, and an opportunity to provide a better future for themselves and their families in the United States.PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO TELL THESE CONGRESSCRITTERS THAT YOU DON T WANT MORE REFUGEES:Eddie Bernice JohnsonDonald S. Beyer, Jr.Earl BlumenauerLisa Blunt RochesterSuzanne BonamiciRobert A. BradyAnthony BrownMichael CapuanoSalud CarbajalTony C rdenasAndr CarsonJudy ChuDavid N. CicillineKatherine ClarkYvette D. ClarkeSteve CohenJohn Conyers, Jr.J. Luis CorreaJoe CourtneyJoe CrowleyElijah E. CummingsDanny K. DavisPeter DeFazioDiana DeGetteJohn K. DelaneyMark DeSaulnierTed DeutchDebbie DingellLloyd DoggettMichael DoyleKeith EllisonEliot L. EngelAnna G. EshooAdriano EspaillatElizabeth H. EstyDwight EvansBill FosterLois FrankelRuben GallegoJohn GaramendiJimmy GomezJosh GottheimerGene GreenRa l GrijalvaLuis V. Guti rrezColleen HanabusaAlcee L. HastingsBrian HigginsJames HimesEleanor Holmes NortonPramila JayapalHakeem JeffriesMarcy KapturWilliam R. KeatingRobin L. KellyJoseph P. KennedyRo KhannaDaniel T. KildeeJames LangevinRick LarsenJohn B. LarsonBrenda L. LawrenceBarbara LeeSander LevinTed W. LieuZoe LofgrenAlan LowenthalStephen LynchCarolyn B. MaloneyDoris MatsuiBetty McCollumJames P. McGovernGwen MooreSeth MoultonJerrold NadlerGrace NapolitanoDonald NorcrossBeto O RourkeFrank Pallone, Jr.Jimmy PanettaBill Pascrell, Jr.Donald Payne, Jr.Ed PerlmutterScott PetersChellie PingreeMark PocanJared PolisDavid PriceMike QuigleyJamie RaskinBen Ray LujanLucille Roybal-AllardBobby RushTim RyanJohn SarbanesJan SchakowskyAdam SchiffBradley S. SchneiderRobert C. Bobby ScottJos E. SerranoCarol Shea-PorterAlbio SiresLouise SlaughterAdam SmithDarren SotoEric SwalwellMark TakanoDina TitusPaul TonkoNorma J. TorresNiki TsongasJuan VargasMarc VeaseyFilemon VelaNydia Vel zquezPeter J. ViscloskyTimothy WalzDebbie Wasserman SchultzBonnie Watson ColemanPeter WelchJohn Yarmuth | 1real |
Miracles Man: Metaxas Vs. Closed Minds And A Closed Universe | Last Christmas, Christian apologist, Eric Metaxas published an article in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal about a ‘miracle’, or perhaps I should say 'the miracle’ -- the origin of the universe. That article, Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God went on to become, if not quite a miracle, at least a sort of wonder. It was shared via email and social media more than any other opinion article in the history of the Wall Street Journal. That’s really saying something, since the Journal is known to have one of the most popular op/ed pages in the world. Former editor Robert Bartley quipped that his was the only opinion page in journalism that actually sold papers.
Metaxas certainly tapped into something. As of this writing this morning, that article has over 470,000 Facebook shares and well over 9,000 comments. The wonder is not the article itself, but the phenomenon that in an age of angry pop atheism and sloppy ‘God-is-dead’ scientific journalism, intelligent, well-educated people, the kind of people who read the Wall Street Journal, still have minds which are open to the idea that the universe is not closed; that there is something (or Someone) beyond it who can intervene into it, Who started it whirling into existence in the first place.
I sat down across a Skype line with Metaxas recently to discuss the paperback release of his book, Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life. The first third of the book deals with philosophical issues: Are miracles possible? What are they exactly? And why are philosophical objections to them not quite as final or decisive as they purport to be?
The rest of the book is actual miracle stories, stories from history and stories from Metaxas’ circle of acquaintances. The latter are more persuasive than one might expect. We’ve all seen the toupee’d theurgist circuses of Christian television, hawking Jordan river water and magic oils to the gullible. But the people Metaxas describes in this book are a little harder to write off: Educated, well-read, accomplished leaders. The charming little story of Gregory Alan Thornbury and his wife and the miracle of the car keys packs a little extra power when you realize that Dr. Thornbury is a highly accomplished philosopher. I’m not saying that it’s right that secular elites in this country should write-off the testimony of people from trailer parks, I hate that contempt. But I am saying that if class and IQ are your excuses to not listen to people’s miracle stories, then Miracles takes away at least that excuse.
One of the most important features in the book is that miracles are not just intervention, they are information. I found myself wanting more along this line than the book offered. The koine Greek word for miracle is teras, and the word for sign is semeion, which is etymologically related to ‘sign’. Miracles are a form of communication. Modern materialists and those believers who live in reaction to materialism seem to think that the message of miracles is that God exists (or gods exist) and that this world is not the only world. The problem with that is that the miracles of the New Testament appeared in a world in which materialism was very rare, almost unknown outside upper class Romans. Jesus’ disputes with the religious leaders were not about whether God existed, they were about who God approved of and who He did not. In information science terms, miracles have 'entropy’ departures from the expected deterministic route, conferring signal or, as my friend George Gilder would say it, ‘surprise’.
Below you can find a partial transcript of the interview (which has been edited for clarity), and if you want the whole thing you can listen here.
JERRY BOWYER: Eric Metaxas is our guest. He's the author of Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life, which has just been published in the paperback edition.
Eric, thanks for joining us today.
ERIC METAXAS: Well, it is my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
METAXAS: Well, that's not so easy to answer. I would say that there are two answers; they're equally true, because it depends on what your definition is. And I kind of go with both in the book. One definition is anything that is an injection into the material world, into the universe of time and space, from outside of that world. So anytime anything happens in this world, and you say this isn't possible to explain naturalistically, that can be a miracle.
The parting of the Red Sea was not a coincidence. Jesus walking on water was not a hallucination. If those things actually happened, you can say those are miracles.
But also -- well, let me put it this way. I say that those kinds of miracles are God's way of speaking to us, trying to get our attention. And so that's a particular kind of miracle. So most of us, when we say something is a miracle, that's what we're talking about. We're not just talking about something amazing; we're talking about something amazing that actually involves God.
But alternatively, when we're talking about, let's say the creation of the universe, the Big Bang, when you look at the details of it -- and the first part of my book deals with faith and science -- the scientific details of it, the more we know from science, the scientific details of it are so staggering that you can't help but think this had to have been something that God did.
So on one level, everything, all of creation, partakes in the miraculous; if you believe that God is involved on any level, every electron spinning around every nucleus of every atom is somehow miraculous.
But basically, when we're talking about miracles, we're not talking about that. We're typically talking about, you know, I prayed for Uncle Jimmy and suddenly he could walk again. You know, that's the kind of a miracle typically we're talking about. And most of the miracles in the book are those kinds of miracles. And the thirty miracle stories at the end of the book are definitely those kinds of miracles.
BOWYER: So your definition of miracle does not include, say, the act of creation. That might be a wonder, because it's not an intervention into an existing set of physical laws; it's the origin of that existing set of physical laws.
METAXAS: That is extremely heavy. I wasn't prepared for that. I would have gotten the coffee before the interview. That is a brilliant, wonderful observation and clarification. And I'm not used to this, Jerry, so thank you for doing that.
I would actually say that the act of creation is a miracle, but it is -- as I meant to clarify earlier, it's a different kind of miracle, because there was no one there to observe it happening. Although, in retrospect, through science, we can see what happened, and we can be staggered retroactively, or retrospectively, we can be staggered. The more you look at the origins of the universe, the more you look at what was necessary for the universe to come into being, the more you say this simply could not have happened, that makes no logical sense. Occam's razor says it's much easier to say God did it, than to say, you know, a thousand things had to line up perfectly, and, oh by the way, coincidentally, they did. That makes infinitely less sense; it's infinitely less plausible.
BOWYER: All right. So just a quick aside for nonphilosophical listeners and readers, Occam's razor refers to the principle that all other things being equal, the simpler the explanation which explains all the observations, the more likely that explanation is to be true.
METAXAS: Yeah. When you're talking about science, sometimes people are so put off by the idea that God created the universe that they come up with these baroque, really hilarious alternative explanations. Like, they say oh, there's an infinity of universes; by the way, we can't see them and we have no evidence for them, but there has to be. And of all of those infinite universes, one of them got everything perfectly right. And guess what, we just happen to be living here right now… It's just swell. Now, to me, when people say that, I think that's actually less scientific than saying a creator created the universe.
BOWYER: Because by definition, there is no possible observation of multiverses. They were completely hermetically sealed off from us.
METAXAS: Right. And this is what people -- people who advocate for so-called multiverse theory, themselves, say that there's no evidence for them. So it's a really tremendous speculation that makes believing in the God of the Bible look infinitely scientific in comparison. | 0fake |
New Audio Tapes Reveal Trump Called His Pregnant Wife A’Blimp’ And A ‘Monster’ | It turns out that there are more than just one audio recording out there where you can hear Donald Trump saying terribly misogynistic things. Around the same period a hot mic caught Donald Trump bragging about using his fame to sexually assault women in 2005, he also did an interview with Howard Stern where he said some very creepy and misogynistic things about his wife and daughter. This includes a bit of audio where Trump told Stern that it was okay for the shock DJ to call his daughter a piece of ass. My daughter is beautiful, Ivanka, says Trump during the interview. By the way, your daughter, says Stern. She s beautiful, responds Trump. Can I say this? A piece of ass, Stern responds. Yeah, says Trump.During the show, Trump also called his wife Melania Trump a monster and a blimp. According to Trump he meant this to be a positive statement. That s because he was referring to Melania s breasts. Like a blimp in the right places. In her case, the right places. I mean she really has become a monster in all the right places. I mean monster in the most positive way. She has gotten very, very large in all the right places. Donald Trump s mouth is costing him big. It seems as if every hour another elected Republican has denounced Trump after Friday s release of the now infamous audio that has Trump s campaign burning in flames. Several have called for him to drop out of the race altogether. Even Mike Pence, his running mate had some sharp words for his electoral wingman. Funding halts suggest the RNC is prepared to stop supporting the Republican presidential nominee altogether. From now until the election or Trump actually does end up dropping out more skeletons from Trump s past are going to come out and consume his campaign. Remember just last week when it was revealed that Trump probably has not paid any income taxes in nearly two decades? The scandals just do not end with this loser. His campaign is toast. The fact that he has managed to stay as strong as he has in the race is a sad commentary on the state of the U.S. politics. Trump, do yourself a favor and drop out already. It s only going to get worse from you from here on out.Featured image from Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1real |
Citizens Reject Forced Diversity Policy by Supporting Candidate Trump | 1real | |
European Union Offers a Million Debit Cards for Syrian Refugees in Turkey | European Union Offers a Million Debit Cards for Syrian Refugees in Turkey Breitbart
In an effort to keep more Syrian migrants from flooding into Europe, the European Union (EU) is providing funding for a million debit cards for Syrian refugees in Turkey.
Turkey is currently home to some 3 million Syrian migrants who have been prevented from traveling to Europe thanks to an accord between the EU and the Turkish government that went into effect last March.
Life in Turkey for many of the migrants is reportedly very harsh, and their presence has also placed an added economic burden on their host country. To combat both of these problems the EU has launched an ambitious aid program of more than $375 million, targeting a million of the neediest Syrians in Turkey.
The debit cards , called the Kizilay card (Turkish for “Red Crescent”), are meant to ease the economic burden on Syrian migrants as well as provide a substantial cash injection into the Turkish economy.
The cards can be used to buy virtually anything—food, medicine or clothing—or redeemed for cash. According to Red Crescent’s Director General Mehmet Gulluoglu, they will allow refugees living outside camps to spend or redeem up to 100 Turkish lira a month, or about $30 for each registered family member.
“They can pay their rents, pay their bills or for food, whatever they need,” Gulluoglu said. “Because it will be certain, it will be concrete and it will be regular support.”
Recipients for the card are being chosen based on need, according to EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Christos Stylianides.
“They will get monthly cash transfers to the card. And of course they will be able to buy what they need to put bread on the table for their families, to provide a roof for their families, to send their children to school instead of being forced to send them to work,” he said. | 1real |
LIVE FEED: WATCH IVANKA AND DONALD TRUMP LIVE [VIDEO] | Watch the speeches live; | 1real |
BREAKING: SOUTH CAROLINA SENATE CAVES: VOTES TO REMOVE CONFEDERATE FLAG FROM STATEHOUSE GROUNDS…BECAUSE IT’S ALL ABOUT THE FLAG, YA KNOW | Another successful cleansing of our history like it or not what s next?Just a reminder of something Michelle Obama said in 2008 on the campaign trail in Puerto Rico: MICHELLE OBAMA: Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we re going to have to change our traditions, our history; we re going to have to move into a different place as a nation. Change our traditions and change our history. What did she mean by that?Changing history means not just telling the same old tall tales of the free market system and the Founders. No, it s the history according to progressives. And it s not merely spinning the old facts; it s taking current events and molding them to fit the progressive agenda and, in this case, completely ignoring history. HERE S A BACKWARDS TIMELINE OF WHAT HAPPENED TODAY VIA THE POST AND COURIER:Members of the South Carolina Senate have voted 37-3 to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse grounds.Sen. Lee Bright, R-Roebuck, objected to giving the bill automatic third reading, which is usually a procedural vote, on Tuesday. For the bill to be sent to the House, it will need a two-thirds vote.Monday s three nay votes were from Bright, and Sens. Harvey Peeler and Danny Verdin. Plus, for the bill to be amended on third reading, it would need a three-fifths vote.Senate is scheduled to return Tuesday at 10 a.m.3:20 p.m. update: The senate has voted to table amendments that would have pushed the vote on the Confederate flag issue to a statewide referendum (36-3), allow the flag to flown on Statehouse grounds on Confederate Memorial Day (22-17) or replace the current flag with the First National Flag of the Confederate States of America (34-6). Now, various senators are taking turns speaking about the issue. No one has yet made a motion to vote on the bill that would remove the Confederate battle from the Statehouse grounds.1:50 p.m. update: After a short break, the Senate returned to debate the fate of the Statehouse s Confederate battle flag just after 1:15 p.m.Roebuck Republican Sen. Lee Bright s amendment has already died on a 36-3 vote. It would have placed the fate of the flag in the hands of voters.The Senate has now moved to discuss an amendment by Sen. Danny Verdin, R-Laurens. It would allow for the flag to be flown at the Confederate Soldier Monument on Confederate Memorial Day, which is May 10. Verdin has the floor.COLUMBIA It s been a morning of impassioned speeches in the South Carolina Senate, as lawmakers brace for discussion on a bill that will determine the fate of the Confederate battle flag on the Statehouse s grounds.The Senate is on recess until 1 p.m. Senate President Pro Tempore Hugh Leatherman said the heads of both the GOP and Democratic Caucus asked for body to break for a recess so that the caucuses could meet. But lawmakers are still planning on discussing the bill today. My intent is to give it second reading today and my intent would be to give it third reading tomorrow, Leatherman said. Will the Senate do that? Don t know. But we ll try to head in that direction. If the bill follows Leatherman s planned track, it ll be before the House for a vote on Wednesday. Only one amendment has been proposed in the Senate so far.Roebuck Republican Sen. Lee Bright s amendment would place the fate of the banner in the hands of voters. When the bill crosses the hall, it ll likely be met with an amendment by Rep. Mike Pitts, R-Laurens, who said he d like to see the battle flag replaced with Bonnie Blue.Meanwhile, members from both sides of the aisle have made speeches calling for the flag s removal this morning, including Pickens Republican Sen. Larry Martin, who said his view on the flag changed after the shooting that took the lives of nine churchgoers in Charleston on June 17.Martin said he looked at the flag as if it was given some sort of official status, because it flies on the capitol s grounds. That doesn t represent all of the people of South Carolina, Martin said. It isn t part of our future. It s part of our past. A two-thirds vote in each chamber is needed to do anything with any monument on the capitol s grounds, including the battle flag which is part of the Confederate Soldier Monument. That vote threshold has been met, according to a survey by The Post and Courier.Outside the Statehouse, dozens of protesters began to arrive Monday morning. Some called for the flag to come down. Others, such as Nelson Waller in his rebel flag tie, said the state was giving in to Northern liberals and civil rights activists. Waller carried a sign that read Keep the flag. Dump Nikki! Two decades ago, he carried a Dump Beasley sign after then-Gov. David Beasley made an unsuccessful attempt to get the Confederate flag off the Statehouse dome. | 1real |
Have The Sun really darkened the image of Brexit legal challenge winner Gina Miller? | Next Swipe left/right Have The Sun really darkened the image of Brexit legal challenge winner Gina Miller?
@Crookedfootball over on Twitter says, “Look how the Sun has darkened Gina Miller’s skin compared to the Times”
The Sun:
The Times:
Obviously this could be just web bollocks but @Ajjolley has checked the paper versions next to each other:
“Printed in same plant”, he says, “Little doubt the Sun darkened photo of Gina Miller”
However @CaeruleanSea says, “as much as I loathe the Sun, the Times have upped the exposure on their pic. Google pics from that speech.”
And yep – he has a point: look at the BBC coverage Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37861888
In conclusion: the media has sent us all entirely mad that we’re now checking how dark people are in Photoshop. | 1real |
Nigeria: Thousands of Women Protest Boko Haram Suicide Bombings, Rape, Abductions - Breitbart | Thousands of women in Nigeria took the streets of the northern capital Maiduguri this weekend to protest the government’s inability to eradicate the Islamic State affiliate Boko Haram, which has not ceased in committing mass abductions, rapes, and murders since the government claimed victory over them in 2015. [Recent reports indicate that Boko Haram terrorists, mostly sheltered in the dense Sambisa Forest of the nation’s northeast, have continued to force poor underage girls to engage in suicide bombings, paying them as little as 50 cents for their lives. The women who organized in Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern Borno state, did so to attract the attention of representatives of the United Nations Security Council, who were visiting the city to evaluate the condition of the refugee and person (IDP) camp for Boko Haram victims in the area. The protests targeted not only Boko Haram terrorists but the government of President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja, who won the nation’s presidency on a campaign promise to ride the nation of Boko Haram entirely. Protesters complained that the government was not doing enough to ensure the safety of IDPs at the camp in question. “We told the (UN) delegation about our grievances. There’s no food, there is nothing good here for us,” one protester told the Agence . “We were expelled from our homes by Boko Haram and we came to Maiduguri to seek refuge, but unfortunately we haven’t been well treated. ” Reports of abuse of Boko Haram victims at the Maiduguri camp have continued to surface for years. In September, an NGO report revealed that Nigerian officials had done such an inadequate job feeding the refugees that many of the women and girls stranded there were forced to have sex with Nigerian soldiers in exchange for food to survive. Many Boko Haram victims are either pregnant or have given birth to children after being repeatedly raped by Boko Haram jihadists, making their need for a stable food source even more desperate. A report published a month later accused Nigerian soldiers of raping Boko Haram victims, sometimes impregnating them or coercing sex out of them by promising them marriage and a stable home. 43 women told Human Rights Watch that they had experienced “sexual abuse, including rape, and exploitation” at the hand of Nigerian soldiers. Buhari vowed to investigate the charges upon the release of the report. The abuse and neglect in Nigeria’s northern refugee camp have led some women to choose to join Boko Haram. The terrorist group, some women have told NGOs, offered “financial empowerment” by ensuring the women are fed and teaching them to read and write in Arabic — in order to study the Quran — so long as they succumb to extreme sexual abuse. In addition to abusing its residents, the Nigerian military conducted an airstrike on the Maiduguri camp in January, killing over 100 displaced Nigerians. The military called the bombing a “regrettable operational mistake. ” protests have not solely occurred against Buhari in Nigeria. On Saturday, thousands of protesters took over Niamey, the capital of Niger, demanding President Idriss Deby improve the quality of life in Niger. The protesters demanded an improved economy and the release of political prisoners, holding signs reading “Life is too hard. ” The nation’s economy has been hit by, among other factors, a wave of mass abductions and suicide bombings by Boko Haram. Borno state lies on the Niger border, allowing Boko Haram terrorists access to that country as well as neighboring Cameroon. Despite claims from both governments that the Boko Haram threat has been significantly limited, reports this week indicate that Borno residents continue to face the near constant threat of suicide bombings, abductions, and other jihadist activity. Boko Haram terrorists often seek young women and girls to conduct their terrorist attacks, as they can hide bombs under their Islamic clothing. A Sky News report published this week reveals one such exchange, in which a Boko Haram terrorist pays a girl 50 cents to wear a suicide bomb and explode it in a Maiduguri market. The girl surrendered to police before detonating her explosives. In one attempt to disguise a suicide bombing, as police have learned to suspect of young girls, Boko Haram sent two women holding an infant into a village to detonate a bomb in May 2016. The Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD) estimates that women and girls tied to Boko Haram have committed at least 123 suicide bombings in the past three years. These women are among the estimated thousands Boko Haram has abducted and forced into slave marriages and terrorist activity. While Boko Haram jihadists turn their young girls into suicide bombers, the boys are taught at an early age how to properly rape women while limiting the chances of her escape. “They tell us to remember to hold the girl tight on both hands, pinned to the floor,” a boy identified as “Ahmed” explained to reporters last year. “They said we shouldn’t let a woman overpower us. ” President Buhari declared that Nigeria had “won the war” against Boko Haram in December 2015 and has not yet retracted that claim. | 0fake |
Obama Faults F.B.I. on Emails, Citing ‘Incomplete Information’ | November 3, 2016 Obama Faults F.B.I. on Emails, Citing ‘Incomplete Information’
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — President Obama threw the power of the White House behind Hillary Clinton on Wednesday. He faulted how the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, handled new emails related to the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s private server, and then shouted out to college students here in a pivotal battleground state that it was crucial that they vote because the “fate of the world is teetering.”
Mr. Obama’s comments about Mr. Comey, broadcast early in the day as recent polls showed a tightening race, were striking for a president who has insisted he does not comment on F.B.I. investigations. But Mr. Obama appeared to be doing exactly that in implicitly criticizing Mr. Comey’s decision to send a vague letter last week to Congress — and by extension, the public — informing lawmakers about a discovery of new emails related to Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private server as secretary of state.
“We don’t operate on incomplete information,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with NowThis News. “We don’t operate on leaks. We operate based on concrete decisions that are made.” | 1real |
ILLEGAL ALIENS WHO LIED TO COURT, USED FAKE SS#’s AND COMMITTED FELONIES Are Granted Special Privileges Because They Are Considered “Victims” | You can t make this up! Why are these criminals who illegally entered our country are being given special status? They are not expected to live by the same rules as US citizens and are being fast-tracked to citizenship. Meanwhile, others who are waiting in line to become American citizens and have followed the rule of law would likely be deported for committing the same crimes as these illegals from Mexico and South America.U.S. District Court Judge Sandy Mattice sentenced eight illegal aliens to two years of supervised probation Wednesday morning. The eight were earlier found guilty of illegally entering the United States and of knowingly committing perjury by signing an I-9 form and stating that they were eligible to work in this country.Each had also purchased false and fraudulent documents such as Social Security cards and green cards which they used to gain employment.The light sentences and lack of a deportation order came about due to each of the defendants having earlier been issued a U visa by the Department of Homeland Security, the judge said.Judge Mattice described this type of visa as for lack of a better word, a reward, for assisting a U.S. agency prosecute another federal case in this instance against Durrett Cheese Sales, Inc. of Manchester, Tn. Their assistance, which was challenged by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Humble as questionable at least, was due to their part in a human trafficking case against Durrett Cheese. The case proved to be one that was not prosecutable.According to court documents, the defendants, Luciana Moreno-Lopez, Maria Ramirez-Mendoza, Flora Rivera-Pablo, Teresa Ayala-Rosales, Cirilo Castillo-Amaro, Meremedios Cervantes-Cano, Sarai Contreras-Martinez and Mercedes Eugenio-Gomez were arrested by the Coffee County Sheriff for criminal trespass on Oct. 22, 2007. They were arrested after their employer was unable to pay them and they refused to leave company property until they were paid.Upon their arrest the sheriff determined that they were most likely illegal aliens and then notified Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.ICE contacted the United States Attorney s Office for help in investigating possible human trafficking and other possible violations of federal law. Several of the defendants were interviewed by ICE agents and a representative of the Department of Justice s Human Trafficking Section of the Civil Rights Division. Also participating in the interviews was a representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) . The SPLC had made the allegations that the defendants were victims of human trafficking.The court documents state: Based on the defendants statements and other investigation, it was obvious that there was no prosecutable human trafficking case. This was pointed out by prosecutor Humble during sentencing when attorney Clay Whittaker, defense counsel for Ms. Moreno-Lopez, requested probationary sentencing for his client by saying that she had provided and continued to provide the government with assistance.Mr. Humble stated, The defendants have not provided any reasonable assistance to the government; in fact, they basically refused to implicate anyone (in the company s management hierarchy). Each of the defendants received a sentence of two years supervised probation on each of three counts, to be served concurrently. A special fine of $300 was waived by Judge Mattice in each case based on the defendants inability to pay.In a previous case involving this matter, former Durrett Cheese Sales, Inc. employee, Shanna Ramirez, was convicted of conspiracy to commit social security fraud (count 1); aiding and abetting social security fraud (count 2); and false declarations before the grand jury (counts 4 and 5). She was sentenced on Dec. 23, 2009 by Judge Mattice to 15 months of incarceration. In another related case, Montano-Perez was sentenced on March 1 to two years probation.The SPLC had filed a claim on the defendants behalf with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) while the defendants had applied for the U visas from the Department of Homeland Security.The eligibility requirements for a U visa or U non-immigrant status are, according to U.S. State Department directives, strict. This status is, in part, a recognition by Congress that a category of non-citizens is so vulnerable that it deserves protection in the form of legal status and a path to citizenship. A U visa holder is entitled to four years of non-immigrant legal status in the U.S. The holder of such a status may apply for permanent status three years after being granted a U visa.U visas are issued to illegal aliens when they have been judged to have been substantially abused and are helpful or willing to help designated agencies, including law enforcement agencies, in the detection, investigation or prosecution of crimes.According to U.S. Code, the purpose of the underlying statute is not to create a blanket amnesty or to legalize everyone who claims victim status. The Act s Congressional purpose is demonstrated in three aspects of the enabling legislation and its history: (1) the U visa as a tool for law enforcement; (2) the U visa as humanitarian relief for those who are helpful to law enforcement; and, (3) the U visa as protection for workers who suffer crimes in the workplace.In their original claims to the EEOC, the defendants, under penalty of perjury, falsely denied committing the crimes for which they had been arrested. According to a brief filed by the U.S. Attorney, they had, in fact, committed these and many other crimes before applying for the visas. The EEOC, based upon their claims, designated each of the defendants a victim and informed DHS that their presence was necessary to enable them (EEOC) to conduct an investigation.The EEOC then closed its investigation, but did not notify DHS that the defendants presence in this country was no longer necessary. When it was not notified by EEOC, DHS moved ahead and granted the U visa status to all eight defendants.It is the U.S. Attorney s Office view that the defendants were not victims of any qualifying crimes or that they have not suffered any substantial abuse mental of physical because of qualifying criminal activity The U.S. Attorney believes that the defendants have been able to manipulate the system to achieve legal status, despite their illegal entry and the commission of felony crimes. Via: Chatanoogan.com | 1real |
Inside Jonathan Lethem’s Oddball Trove - The New York Times | Writers are different from the rest of us. Their castoff scraps can be worth money, not to mention the obsessive attentions of future scholars. Jonathan Lethem, 52, recently became the latest author to sell his personal paper trail to a major archive. The Beinecke Rare Book Manuscript Library at Yale University acquired a trove of his manuscripts, letters, notes and other artifacts, which will now sit alongside material from Walt Whitman, Sinclair Lewis, James Baldwin and Marilynne Robinson in its rich American literature collection. Mr. Lethem’s papers contain items relating to the novels that made him something of a reluctant patron saint of Brooklyn’s literary ascendance, including “Motherless Brooklyn” (1999) and “The Fortress of Solitude” (2003). But as befits a lifelong collector, music obsessive, comics geek and dedicated chronicler of underground culture, there are also cartoons, New York 1970s ephemera and what is surely the largest cache of drawings of vomiting cats in any university collection. “For an author who is so much fun as a novelist, it’s interesting to see there is so much fun in his archival documents as well,” said Melissa Barton, the curator of American prose and drama at the Beinecke. (Ms. Barton, citing library policy, declined to say what Yale paid in the sale, which was arranged by the Manhattan book dealer Glenn Horowitz.) Mr. Lethem’s archive also includes two computer hard drives, a laptop and other digital materials, especially from more recent years. “You can feel the evaporation of the physical ephemera,” Mr. Lethem, whose most recent novel, “A Gambler’s Anatomy,” appeared in October, said in an interview. But the bulk of the collection consists of artifacts, some of them charmingly weird. We asked Mr. Lethem, who left New York in 2010 to teach creative writing at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. about some of the odder items in his literary closet. The archive includes a number of comic books Mr. Lethem made as a child, featuring invented superheroes like Man, whose origin story included an attempt to start a nudist colony in Alaska. In one installment, Man (who later got a passing in “The Fortress of Solitude”) battled Ed Koch, who was no hero to Mr. Lethem’s bohemian parents. “I didn’t make multiple copies to sell or anything,” he said. “It was more like I was collecting my own weird artifacts from a pretend universe where Man was a real comic. ” Mr. Lethem swiped this sticker after stumbling on a shoot for the 1979 movie “The Warriors” in the subway station in Brooklyn, which was standing in for the Times Square station. “This was my subway stop, and the fact that they were turning it into 42nd Street seemed absurd,” Mr. Lethem recalled. “I remember thinking that no one would see or hear about this movie. Nothing that anyone was shooting in my neighborhood could possibly be important. ” The archive contains typescripts of his novels, often affixed with alternate titles. (Would “Motherless Brooklyn” have been a hit if it had been called “Jerks From Nowhere”?) The earliest is “Apes in the Plan,” an unpublished “fake Philip K. Dick novel,” as Mr. Lethem put it, named for a Devo lyric and written between ages 18 and 23. “I wrote three novels on an electric typewriter,” he said. “If I live long enough, I could end up being one of the last living humans who can say that. ” This diary tracking his writing progress, social interactions, exercise and, um, digestion comes from the when Mr. Lethem had dropped out of Bennington College and moved to Berkeley, Calif. to try to become a writer. “I had thrust myself into a kind of vacuum,” he said. “I had no visible means of support, nor was anyone expecting to hear from me. This kind of weird probably had to do with externalizing my superego and answering the question ‘Who are you and what did you actually do today? ’” About those drawings of vomiting cats … “For about 15 years, every time I had a really good dance party that went late, with people lolling around drunk and exhausted, at about 2 a. m. I would hand out paper and ask everyone to draw a vomiting cat,” Mr. Lethem said. “I ended up with an incredibly thick file of drawings, some by people who went on to be published cartoonists and writers. ” Some of the goofy character names in Mr. Lethem’s novels are drawn from lists he typed up early in his career, a habit he connects with the wordplay of “Motherless Brooklyn,” whose narrator has Tourette’s syndrome. Mr. Lethem recalled a moment of recognition sparked by an Oliver Sacks essay about a surgeon with Tourette’s who kept a list of more than 200 unusual names as “candy for the mind. ” “He was collecting real names,” Mr. Lethem said. “But when I read that, I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s me. ’” Names from this list showed up in “Gun, With Occasional Music” (1994) and “Chronic City” (2009). “The Fortress of Solitude,” inspired by Mr. Lethem’s Brooklyn childhood, describes a store called Samuel J. Underberg, “a site of mysterious life,” where graffiti artists came to buy ink that was specially formulated for stamping prices on slimy packages of meat and therefore ideal for tagging. While writing, Mr. Lethem acquired some random items from the real Underberg’s (now demolished) which are shown here with a 1978 Billboard Hot 100 list, an old calendar and other research materials. “I became a collector of all this tawdry used signage,” he said. “I just thought it was really weird and cool. ” The archive contains dozens of letters from fellow writers and artists, including Donna Tartt, Paul Auster, Suzanne Vega, Jennifer Egan, Thomas Berger and Ursula K. Le Guin. This missive, written on an airline safety card, is from the novelist David Bowman, who died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 2012. “All his letters were like mail art,” Mr. Lethem said. “David had a great, crazy brain. He never stopped covering the world in language. ” | 0fake |
Patrick Henningsen LIVE with guest Ray McGovern – Podesta Emails Leaked, Not ‘Hacked’ | Join Patrick every week at 21WIRE.TV for news, views and analysis on all top stories domestically and abroad THIS WEEK: Episode 3 Did the Russians Do It? The 4th Estate become a fifth column, as The Washington Post loses the plot scapegoating Russia over Wikileaks rather than face up to the Democratic Party s own electoral debacle. Also, how Podesta Emails likely LEAKED to Wikileaks from inside the US, not hacked by the Kremlin. And will Trump drain the swamp, or simply fill it up again? Host Patrick Henningsen talks to Ray McGovern, former CIA Analyst and founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) about these and many more topics. Listen: This program broadcasts LIVE every Wednesday night from 8pm to 9pm, right after the Savage Nation, on Independent Talk 1100 KFNX over the terrestrial AM band across the greater Phoenix and central Arizona region, and live over global satellite and online via www.1100kfnx.comREAD MORE WIKILEAKS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Wikileaks Files | 1real |
Damien Chazelle, ‘La La Land’ Director, on California’s Allure - The New York Times | Damien Chazelle, the writer and director of the musical “La La Land,” never had any doubts about Los Angeles as an artistic canvas. From the film’s opening, with commuters dancing and singing on a congested freeway exit ramp, to the visually stunning final sequence, the city is depicted as a place where dreamers may struggle but where optimism also abounds. Growing up in New Jersey, Mr. Chazelle said, “I had some negative conceptions of Los Angeles, but I was willing to try something other than the East Coast because I wanted to do movies. ” He added: “For a few years, there were ups and downs, but I slowly became smitten. I had never lived in a city with palm trees, and now I’ve been here for almost nine and a half years. ” His debut directorial film, “Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench,” was first shown in 2009, followed by the drama “Whiplash” in 2014. Mr. Chazelle, who recently won the 2016 Golden Globe Award for best director for “La La Land,” recently discussed his current film, Los Angeles and some of his travel forays. Below are edited excerpts from that conversation. Q. In famously Southern California, what logistical issues did you face with the opening scene of “La La Land”? A. After searching for a filming location, we decided on the FasTrak ramp that connects Interstate 105 to Interstate 110, since it would be easier for the city to shut down. We rehearsed in parking lots, and were able to shut down the ramp to film on a Saturday and a Sunday. On both days, there was a heat wave. In the film, Mia and Sebastian, played by Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, visit the beloved Griffith Observatory. What was it like to shoot there? We were able to film there on a Monday, which is the only day that they’re closed, but you can’t change or touch anything. Filming isn’t allowed in the planetarium at the Griffith, so professional designers built a replica of the actual planetarium on a sound stage. However, we could light the Observatory on the outside. What’s the story behind the Rialto Theater in South Pasadena, where Mia and Sebastian watch the James Dean classic “Rebel Without a Cause”? The theater is used for special events, but it hasn’t been a functioning commercial movie theater in a while. [The Rialto closed in 2007.] It’s a beautiful old structure, inside and outside. What led you to film in nearby Pasadena? Pasadena is really wonderful. The city is one the best places for architecture in the Los Angeles area since so much has been preserved there. The Colorado Street Bridge [which features a scene with Mia and Sebastian] is one of those places. There are also the homes of silent movie stars. Pasadena seemed far away from where I was living. What has traveling been like since you’ve been promoting the movie internationally? There’s been a fair amount of travel. I’ve had a mini East Asia tour the film opens in China and Japan in February. I’d never been to Japan and had been dying to go there forever. My father is French, so I have a lot of relatives in Paris and France, which is nice. France is like a third home. When you’re headed out of town, what do you usually bring? Ever since I was a kid, I have been fond of long train trips. I like the idea of forced sitting time. I always bring a couple of books and headphones, and weigh down a backpack. If I have something to read and music to listen to, I’m fine. | 0fake |
Any UK-U.S. trade deal will put Britain first: PM May | LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday any trade deal agreed with the United States would put British interests and values first. Speaking in parliament, May said her meeting with newly inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump later this week was a sign of the strength of the special relationship between the two countries. “We will be looking for a UK-U.S. trade deal that improves trade between our two countries that will bring prosperity and growth to this country ... and I can assure ... that in doing that we will put UK interests and UK values first,” she said. She also said she was “not afraid to speak frankly to a president of the United States” when asked whether she was concerned by Trump’s comments about women. | 0fake |
Ramadan Abdullah Set Free On Bail After Police Make Shocking Discovery Of Weapons In Storage Locker Destined For Secretive Islamic Compound In Upstate NY | How is a man with ties to a US based terror organization, who according to authorities, was caught planning to deliver a large cache of weapons to a secretive Islamic compound in upstate New York allowed to roam the streets while he awaits a trial that won t take place until November? This incredible story should make every American wonder how serious we are about fighting homegrown terrorism in the United States A long-time associate of a U.S.-based Islamist terrorist organization, Muslims of America (MOA), was arrested in New York following the discovery of a large cache of weapons that were intended for MOA s Islamberg headquarters in Hancock, NY.Ramadan Abdullah, 64, was arrested in Johnson City, NY, and is no stranger to law enforcement. Abdullah was previously arrested along with another man in 1977 for attempting to rob a Brooklyn candy store, resulting in a murder.At the time, police searched Abdullah s home and discovered enough material to build 50 bombs. Even so, the charges against Abdullah were ultimately reduced.Abdullah was arrested on May 31 after attempting to steal four boxes of ammunition from a local Gander Mountain store. When asked by police about the purpose of the ammunition, Abdullah s answers raised suspicion among police who obtained a search warrant for a storage locker he was renting in the town of Union.During the search, the police discovered the following:8 assault weapons 4 loaded handguns 1 loaded shotgun 2 rifles 64 high-capacity ammunition feeding devices flak jacketsThousands of rounds of ammunition, including .50-caliber armor-piercing roundsPolice searched other residences linked to Abdullah and found a loaded handgun, and more high-capacity ammunition feeding devices and ammunition, including .38-caliber rounds.New York State Police Major Jim Barnes declined to confirm whether Abdullah was associated with terrorist groups or organizations but noted that police believe Abdullah had traveled overseas. There s no indications there was a plan in place to commit an act of violence. However, it begs the question, what was he doing with all this and what were his intentions down the road? Barnes said.Johnson City Police Chief Brent Dodge said, It s just a tremendous blessing to be able to take all these high power weapons and high power ammunition off the streets, and who knows what kind of large scale tragedy that this investigation may have prevented later down the road. Abdullah is a longtime associate of the U.S.-based Islamist cult Muslims of America.Apparently, a Muslim man with a large cache of weapons set to be delivered to a secretive Islamic compound in upstate New York, who also has a prior criminal record, doesn t pose enough of a security threat in the eyes of the judge, to keep him in jail until he is tried. The Johnson City man facing 16 charges in a massive weapons bust was granted release on bond Tuesday, as he awaits a Nov. 13 trial in Broome County Court.Ramadan Abdullah, 64, has pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging more than a dozen felonies connected to his arrest in June, which police described as being one of the area s largest gun takedowns in recent memory.Judge Kevin Dooley granted Abdullah s release from jail on bond Tuesday, after defense lawyer Matthew Ryan presented the court with two Binghamton properties that would be put up for collateral.(MOA), which has been described as a terrorist organization in documents from the FBI and other agencies. A 2003 file says MOA is linked to terrorists in Pakistan, including Al-Qaeda affiliates.The group s headquarters is a 70-acre compound in Hancock, NY called Islamberg. It is just a 50-minute drive from where Abdullah was arrested.Dennis Michael Lynch visited Islamberg to see what was really going on in the remote Islamic compound. Here is a clip from his visit:MOA is led by a radical cleric in Pakistan named Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, who demands a cultish loyalty from his followers in America. Gilani indoctrinates them to follow a hate-filled extremist ideology that includes violent jihad against perceived enemies of Islam and a belief that they are fulfilling apocalyptic prophecies.The group has claimed to have 22 Islamic villages across the U.S., mostly in rural areas, which have been used as guerilla training compounds. The group also has a history of committing acts of terrorism and crimes including murder, gun smuggling, narcotics trafficking and money laundering.A 2007 FBI report warns that MOA possesses an infrastructure capable of planning and mounting terrorist campaigns overseas and within the U.S. It says members of the MOA are encouraged to travel to Pakistan to receive religious and military/terrorist training from [Sheikh] Gilani. Confidential sources inside MOA say that Ramadan Abdullah has been a significant member of the group since it first formed in the United States in 1980 and helped buy the land that became Islamberg. Additional research substantiates their information that he is close to MOA members.They say that he is an elder and often visits Islamberg to spend time with older members but does not live inside the commune. He s also provided firearms instruction for MOA, they report.The sources say that Abdullah s weapons were destined for the group, specifically Islamberg.Via: Clarion Project | 1real |
Twitter ‘Off-Boards’ (Bans) RT and Sputnik Ads Ahead of Capitol Hill Testimony | Twitter s pitch deck for RT?21st Century Wire says In what appears to be a coordinated attack on RT and Sputnik, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey (@jack) has declared all advertising purchased by the two media outlets unfit for the online news and social networking service.Off-boarding advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik.We re donating all projected earnings ($1.9mm) to support external research into the use of Twitter in elections, including use of malicious automation and misinformation. https://t.co/zIxfqqXCZr jack (@jack) October 26, 2017The move comes just days before Twitter and other Silicon Valley companies go to Washington to testify on Capitol Hill regarding alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Election.In the company s official announcement, it states the decision is based on the U.S. intelligence community s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government. To be fair, there was no conclusion. The DNI report was only an assessment of high confidence by a group of hand-picked analysts from the CIA, FBI and NSA.What s both ironic and embarrassing about the Twitter bird s ad blockade of the Russian-owned media outlets is their recent ad pitch to RT, specifically, during the election cycle:Hope @jack won t forget to tell @congressdotgov how @Twitter pitched @RT_com to spend big $$s on US elex ad campaign. pic.twitter.com/7GqoEoSaY8 (@M_Simonyan) October 26, 2017That s a tweet on Thursday by RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan.It s quite clear that Twitter, along with other Silicon Valley properties like Google and Facebook, saw the 2016 U.S. Election as a lucrative ad sales pipeline and decided to cash-in like any other media outlet would do.Now, ahead of their upcoming testimony on election meddling , Twitter just put itself squarely in the crosshairs of the government to curry favor to, and to be push even further as Russiamania pushes forward.More from The Duran READ MORE RUSSIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire RUSSIA FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Vice President Biden chides Turkey over freedom of expression | ISTANBUL (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday that Turkey, once vaunted by Washington as a model of Islamic democracy, was setting a poor example for the region in intimidating media, curtailing internet freedom and accusing academics of treason. On a two-day visit to the NATO ally, part of the U.S.-led alliance against Islamic State in neighbouring Syria and Iraq, Biden said the strength of Turkey’s democracy had a direct impact on its ties with the United States. Turkey is a vital partner for both Washington and Europe in efforts to combat Islamic State, end Syria’s civil war, and curb the flow of migrants and refugees. Opponents of the government have accused the West in the past of pulling its punches over the country’s human rights record as a result. “The more Turkey succeeds, the stronger the message sent to the entire Middle East and parts of the world who are only beginning to grapple with the notion of freedom,” Biden said, flanked by members of Turkish civil society groups. “But when the media are intimidated or imprisoned for critical reporting, when internet freedom is curtailed and social media sites...are shut down and more than 1,000 academics are accused of treason simply by signing a petition, that’s not the kind of example that needs to be set,” he told reporters. Turkey was cited by Washington as an example for the Middle East of a functioning Islamic democracy in the early years of then prime minister Tayyip Erdogan’s rule. More recently, reforms have faltered and Erdogan, now president, has demonstrated a more authoritarian style. Last week, he denounced as “dark, nefarious and brutal” more than 1,000 signatories, including U.S. academic Noam Chomsky, of a declaration that criticised Turkish military action in the largely Kurdish southeast. Security forces briefly detained 27 academics on accusations of terrorist propaganda. Dozens face investigation by their universities. Biden met members of the Turkish parliament from the ruling AK Party, the secularist opposition CHP and the pro-Kurdish HDP, largely to discuss the southeast. Biden, who laid roses at the site of a suicide bombing blamed on Islamic State that killed 10 German tourists last week, will meet Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Saturday. Talks are expected to focus on Syrian border security and the role of Syrian Kurdish fighters, backed by Washington in the campaign against Islamic State. Turkey fears their advances will fuel separatist sentiment among its own Kurds. Turkish media reports said Biden also met the wife and son of jailed journalist Can Dundar, editor-in-chief of the secularist Cumhuriyet newspaper, arrested in November over the publication of footage purporting to show the state intelligence agency helping send weapons to Syria. He also met prominent journalists fired over the past year following critical coverage of Erdogan and the government. The government says journalists are held for promoting terrorism or for anti-state activities, not their journalism. It denies intimidating media bosses, many of whose parent companies hold lucrative government contracts in other areas of industry. “If you do not have the ability to express your own opinion, to criticise policy, offer competing ideas without fear of intimidation or retribution, then your country is being robbed of opportunity,” Biden said. | 0fake |
Woman arrested trying to scale gates of UK's Buckingham Palace | LONDON (Reuters) - British police said they had arrested a woman who was trying to scale the front gates of Queen Elizabeth s Buckingham Palace home in central London on Saturday, saying the incident was not terrorism-related. The woman, believed to be in her 30s was quickly detained by officers before she gained access to the palace grounds, police said. She was arrested on suspicion of trespass and is being questioned at a central London police station. The incident is not being treated as terrorist-related, police said. British police are on high alert after five attacks blamed on terrorism this year. In August a man wielding a sword outside the palace was charged under terrorism laws. Three police officers suffered minor injuries detaining him. There have been a number of other incidents in recent years in which people have tried to get into the palace grounds. Last October, a 21-year-old man was arrested after scaling a gate of the palace. He was later detained under a hospital order. In May 2016, a man with a conviction for murder climbed over the wall and walked for about 10 minutes around the grounds of the palace before being arrested. He was jailed for four months. Four years ago, a man armed with a knife tried to enter through a gate and was later jailed for 16 months. A month earlier, two men were arrested following a break-in at the palace. One of the biggest security breaches at Buckingham Palace happened in 1982 when an intruder, Michael Fagan, climbed a wall and wandered into a room where the queen was in bed. | 0fake |
Senate committee approves authorization for U.S. commodities regulator | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday approved a reauthorization of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, nearly three years after the legislative authority for the country’s commodities and swaps regulator expired. The head of the CFTC, Timothy Massad, praised the committee for clearing the way for the full Senate to vote on authorization. “I am committed to continuing to work with Congress throughout this process, particularly on making sure end-users like agricultural producers can continue to safely and affordably use the derivatives markets, while ensuring these markets do not generate excessive risk to our financial system,” he said in a statement. The CFTC has operated on year-by-year funding since the end of 2013 because Congress has not passed a new authorization, which lawmakers say created uncertainty in many markets. The House of Representatives has already approved a similar bill. Republicans, who control the Senate, said the bill would allow farmers, ranchers and small energy providers to use derivatives for hedging operational costs without being ensnared in regulation intended to prevent the risky type of swap deals that contributed to the financial crisis. The bill “allows for anticipatory hedges and the management of a hedge when it serves as a risk management tool for our producers and commercial end-users and not an investment or for speculation,” said Committee Chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas. Still, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a proponent of strong Wall Street oversight, said the bill as written would also benefit financial players. “It’s clear that this bill is all about helping Wall Street traders and big energy companies like Koch Industries under the guise of helping farmers,” he said. Massad’s major concern involved funding. The senior Democrat on the committee, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, sought to add a provision that would create a model for backing the CFTC similar to that used for the Securities and Exchange Commission, which offsets taxpayer funds it receives with fees and fines. The proposal was not included in the final bill. “The funding language proposed by Senator Stabenow addresses the fact that we are the only federal financial regulator without some form of fee-based funding,” Massad said. Republican John Boozman of Arkansas, who has say over the CFTC’s budget as chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on financial services, shot down the idea, describing funding tied to fines as a “bounty program.” | 0fake |
WATCH: INTOLERANT GAY COFFEE SHOP Owner Screams Profanities at Christian Pro-Life Group, Kicks Them Out Of Business: “I’m gay. You have to leave” | Remember the time when a gay couple destroyed the business of a Christian couple who owned a very successful bakery, after they refused to bake the gay couple a wedding cake? Remember the time when an elderly florist, who was friends with a gay couple, was sued by them for refusing to supply flowers for their wedding because it went against her religious beliefs? Remember the time when a venue that hosted weddings was sued because they refused to host a gay wedding? Remember the time when the Oregon baker was sued because he refused to go against his religious beliefs and bake a cake for a gay couple? Yeah, well, that was okay with the gay mafia, because, well, because you shouldn t deny service to someone just because they re gay that s just intolerant.Speaking of intolerant A gay coffee shop owner in Seattle kicked a Christian pro-life group out of his coffee shop because he felt offended by their presence, according to video footage of the incident.The Washington Times reports that the group, called Abolish Human Abortion, decided to order drinks at Seattle s Bedlam Coffee after passing out pro-life pamphlets in the area when the owner angrily asked the group to leave.(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=v2.10"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));Angry homosexual kicks Christian customers out of coffee shop. WARNING! This video includes extremely graphic, hate-filled, blasphemous language.Watch and Share before Facebook takes it down! And let us know what YOU think.Posted by Abolish Human Abortion on Sunday, October 1, 2017 I m gay. You have to leave, owner Ben Borgman said in the Facebook video. Are you denying us service? activist Caytie Davis asked. I am. Yeah, Borgman replied.The group had been handing out pamphlets about the Bible, sin, and abortion to Seattle residents and one of the baristas let Borgman know what he was doing, according to the Blaze.Borgman did not take the news well and further confronted the group. This is offensive to me. I own the place. I have the right to be offended, he said.The group tried to explain to him that they did not leave any pamphlets in the cafe, but Borgman continued to berate the group. There s nothing you can say. This is you and I don t want these people in this place, he said.Borgman then asked activist Jonathan Sutherland whether he would tolerate a sex act between two men. Can you tolerate my presence? Really? the owner asked. If I go get my boyfriend and f**k him in the a** right here you re going to tolerate that? Are you going to tolerate it? That would be your choice, Sutherland replied. Answer my f***ing question! Borgman yelled back. No, you re going to sit right here and f***ing watch it! Leave, all of you! Tell all your f**king friends don t come here! Via-Breitbart | 1real |
Scared by Trump, some migrants on Mexico border give up American dream | NOGALES, Mexico (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s election victory and his plans to crack down on illegal immigration is so troubling for the groups of men gathered just south of a rusty, towering fence on the U.S.-Mexico border that some are even considering going home. For most poor Central Americans and Mexicans at travelers’ shelters in the desert town of Nogales, Trump’s threats to build a wall along the whole border and deport millions of illegal immigrants have not made them abandon their harrowing journeys and hopes of a better life in the north. But for some like Juan Alberto Lopez, the prospect of living in a country they believe will become more hostile to people like them no longer holds enough appeal to make the risky crossing across the desolate Arizona borderland. “Now everything’s changed,” said the despondent Lopez, 25, as he sat staring blankly at the ground in outside one migrant center, under a cobalt sky. Lopez hails from the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest, and lived for two years in Arizona and Utah working in construction before being deported in January. Under one of Trump’s proposals, he would face a two-year federal prison sentence for returning after deportation. He had decided to go back to the United States when Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was projected to win the election. Now, he plans to seek work in Nogales instead, or go home. “They’re going to detain all the migrants, and if it’s like that, it’s better to stay here with your own people, be happy, and just endure it,” he added, echoing the sentiments of a third of more than a dozen migrants interviewed by Reuters in Nogales following Trump’s victory. In running for president, Trump promised to deport millions of illegal immigrants as well as build a wall along the border to stop others entering the United States, and make Mexico pay for it. His uncompromising stance helped drive a rush over the U.S. border as some migrants calculated it was better to cross over before the election in case Trump won. That could continue in coming months even as some like Lopez decide they no longer want to live in the United States. During fiscal year 2016, which ended in September, the number of people detained along the U.S.-Mexico border surpassed 408,000, a 23 percent jump from last year, although it was less than in 2014, official U.S. data published last month showed. “I really don’t care about President Trump. I’m always going to cross regardless of any walls he wants,” said Alexi Solano, 20, a migrant from El Salvador, whose wife and young son are already in Los Angeles. “That doesn’t matter to us. What we want is to be together with our families.” Mexico’s deputy interior minister for migration, Humberto Roque Villanueva, said he expected that flow to peak in 2016 as Trump will ramp up already tough deportation policies applied by President Barack Obama. “A certain radicalization of the North American immigration policy is coming,” Roque Villanueva said. In Nogales, a city of 230,000 dotted with factories of multinational firms like Motorola and B/E Aerospace, migrants say people smugglers typically charge $4,000 per person for a one-way ticket across the border. As with long stretches of the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border, a 25-foot-tall fence already exists along the international boundary here, built in 2011 and made up of thick rust-colored metal beams that follow the rocky terrain for miles to the west and east of the city. Beyond the fence on the U.S. side, a parallel set of wooden posts are topped with cameras and sensors. In the distance, U.S. immigration vehicles slowly patrol the border. Some 25 miles (40 km) to the east of town, the towering fence comes to an end and is replaced with a waist-high barrier that mainly serves to stop trucks plowing through the desert. While some migrants trudge around the barricade, risking weather exposure on foot through rugged terrain menaced by drug cartel thugs and poisonous snakes, others opt to ride hidden in trucks that drive through official crossings, a route made possible, several said, by bribes. Maria Engracia Robles, a Roman Catholic nun who runs El Comedor center for deportees and migrants within sight of the border fence in Nogales, thinks Trump’s victory will likely bring more hardship and worries about the challenges that mass deportations would bring. “More anguish, tears, laments, and lots of people in Mexico without work, without anything to do and no place to go,” said Robles, whose center provides free meals, clothes and basic medical care. Braced against the dry wind, dozens of hungry migrants line up around El Comedor’s entrance for breakfast each morning. On Thursday, two men just inside the shelter could be overheard on mobile phones asking for a coyote, or human trafficker, to attempt another crossing. “Here there is no work, and salaries are terrible,” said Robles. The U.S.-Mexico border is home to the largest per capita wage differential of any land border on the planet, with average U.S. wages about five times higher than Mexican wages. Further south, in Central America, incomes are even lower, and crime worse, fueling a surge of migration in recent years. More Central American migrants were apprehended on the U.S. southern border than Mexicans this year. Jose Flores, 19, a Honduran migrant who set out for the United States three months ago, ticked off the perils posed by violent gangs and dismal job prospects in his home country. “I imagine it’s going to get a lot harder to cross,” he said. “But what hasn’t changed is we’re looking for a better life.” (This story has been refiled to fix typo in 20th paragraph) | 0fake |
Climate Change Has Already Altered Nearly Every Ecosystem on Earth | in Climate Change — by Nadia Prupis — November 15, 2016 The researchers say 82 percent of “core ecological processes” on land and sea have been affected by climate change in a way that has not been expected “for decades.” (Photo: Lwp Kommunikáció/flickr/cc)
Climate change is already affecting life on Earth, despite a global temperature increase of just 1°C, according to a new study published in the journal Science on Friday.
Nearly every ecosystem on the planet is being altered, and plants and animals are being so affected that scientists may soon be forced to intervene to create “human-assisted evolution,” the study, titled The Broad Footprint of Climate Change from Genes to Biomes to People , found.
The researchers say 82 percent of “core ecological processes” on land and sea have been affected by climate change in a way that had not been expected “for decades.”
Co-author and professor John Pandolfi of the University of Queensland said , “Temperature extremes are causing evolutionary adaption in many species, changing them genetically and physically. These responses include changes in tolerances to high temperatures, shifts in sex-ratios, reduced body size, and migration of species.”
“Understanding the extent to which these goods and services have been impacted allows humans to plan and adapt to changing ecosystem conditions,” he said.
Dr. James Watson, associate professor of planning and environmental management at UQ’s School of Geography, added, “We are simply astonished at the level of change we observed which many of us in the scientific community did not expect to see for decades.”
The changes have manifested in some species shifting to higher or lower ground as the planet heats up, while others are becoming smaller, “as a higher surface-area-to-body-mass ratio makes it easier to stay cool,” the Independent reported . The outlet wrote:
For example, six species of woodland salamander in the Appalachian Mountains have undergone an average eight per cent reduction in body size over the past 50 years.
Slightly smaller lizards might not sound like something to overly concern humans, but there is evidence this response is also affecting important sources of food.
“These multi-level biological impacts of climate change will affect humans. Increasing disease outbreaks, inconsistent crop yields, and reduced fisheries productivity all threaten our food security,” said co-author Dr. Tom Bridge.
Average global temperatures have risen 1°C since the industrial era. The study states that this has “already had broad and worrying impacts on natural systems, with accumulating consequences for people. Minimizing the impacts of climate change on core ecological processes must now be a key policy priority for all nations.”
The study called on governments to follow through on the promises made in the Paris climate agreement , which aims to keep global warming below a 1.5°C threshold—although an increasing amount of scientists are sounding the alarm that even those pledges may be too little, too late.
“Time is running out for a globally synchronized response to climate change that integrates adequate protection of biodiversity and ecosystem services,” the study continued.
“It is no longer sensible to consider this as a concern for the future—if we don’t act quickly to curb emissions it is likely that every ecosystem across Earth will fundamentally change in our lifetimes,” said Dr. Watson. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License Share this: | 1real |
WATCH WHAT HAPPENS When Guy Makes Undercover Video: Applies For Min Wage Jobs…Says He’s “Under FBI Investigation” [VIDEO] | YouTuber Joey Salads makes brilliant undercover video to illustrate the idiocy of the narrative put forth by the Left that American voters shouldn t consider that Hillary has been under FBI investigation (she s actually been under some sort of criminal investigation pretty much her entire adult life).We are about to select the next President of the United States of America her history, and her extreme disregard for the rule of law and our national security actually does matter.Watch what happens when this poor guy tries to get a minimum wage job after he comes clean about his current FBI investigation status: | 1real |
John Oliver Successfully Turns Trump’s ‘Plan’ For A Wall Into A Pile Of Decaying Pig Sh*t (VIDEO) | When it comes to Donald Trump, there s really not much you can believe that comes out of his mouth except for what can only be assumed is a putrid odor, and this is explained by the fact that he talks out of his ass.Beautifully proving this point was none other than Last Week Tonight s John Oliver in a segment utterly dismantling Trump s plan for a border wall with Mexico.Point by point, down to the size, capability, location, and price tag, Oliver successfully turns Trump s plan into a decaying pile of pig shit. It s absolute nonsense, and better plans have been constructed on the back of a napkin at Chuck-E-Cheese by a desperate father brainstorming his escape from the chaos.However, knowing that this great wall is pretty much one of the few things Trump talks about, Oliver said: The border wall is one of the few policy proposals Trump has talked about in detail, so instead of mocking or dismissing it out of hand, tonight let s take a serious proposal by a serious presidential candidate seriously. It was then that the dismantling began, and there was absolutely no refuting it. And no matter how much the wall costs, Oliver points out that according to the Sierra Club, The Congressional Budget Office estimates that wall maintenance costs will exceed the initial construction costs within seven years He then used this brilliant comparison: It s a big, dumb thing that only gets more expensive over time. It s like getting a pet walrus: You think it s stupid now, wait until you learn what a bucket of sea cucumbers costs. You ve not prepared for that! Which pretty much sums up the realism of the wall and how it s going to be built and maintained, because Mexico has made it damn clear they re not going to be the ones paying for it. And if you need proof that this wall is just simply never going to happen, the Washington Post fact checked everything right here.Trump has no plans to actually build this wall. He has no plans for anything. He s talking out of his ass, and because so many Americans are racist shiteaters, they gleefully consume every last ounce of his poppycock.Kudos to Oliver for this brilliant takedown. Well f*cking done.Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
James Bowman: “Vote For The Creep, It’s Important” | 1real | |
Russia Unveils Update of Advanced Nuclear Weapon | Russia Unveils Update of Advanced Nuclear Weapon 10/26/2016
EPOCH TIMES
Russia has unveiled a new nuclear missile that “is capable of wiping out parts of the earth the size of Texas or France.”
Reports say that the RS-28 missile, dubbed the “Satan 2,” was unveiled this week, with the first image of the weapon being released to the public by designers at the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau . It’s also known as “Sarmat” in Russian.
The report comes as Moscow has been flexing its military muscle amid tensions with the United States over the war in Syria and lingering fallout from the invasion of Crimea in Ukraine. NATO, meanwhile, has been shoring up its defenses in countries near Russia’s border amid concerns about its military direction.
“The prospective strategic missile system is being developed in order to assuredly and effectively fulfill objectives of nuclear deterrent by Russia’s strategic forces,” according to a statement from V. Degtar and Y. Kaverin, listed as the bomb’s chief designer and leading designer, respectively, reported RT , a Russian government-funded news site.
Earlier this year, the Kremlin-aligned Sputnik News website said the missile could “wipe out” portions of the earth the “size of Texas or France.”
The RS-28 will replace the R-36, which was called the “SS-18 Satan” by NATO when it was introduced in the 1970s.
Robert Kelley, a former nuclear weapons expert at the U.S. Department of Energy, told NBC News that the new missile most likely had an upgrade in the device’s electronics, rather than an increase in its explosive payload or range.
“The range of the missiles will be about the same, the explosive destructive power will be about the same [but] the reliability, flexibility and confidence [in the warheads’ ability to hit their targets] will go way up,” said Kelley.
He noted: “Your iPhone can do thousands of more things today than in the 1970s when these systems were first deployed. Many of the clunky electronic circuits of that era no longer exist and no one knows how to make them anymore.”
The RS-28 weighs about 100 tons, and it features a large, 10-ton nuclear payload capacity. The missile is expected to enter service in 2018. | 1real |
CLINTON CHARITIES RAKED IN TAXPAYER DOLLARS IN THE MILLIONS | This is like one big slush fund for Hillary 2016. The Clintons not only collected millions from foreign donors, they also rake in $7 million in taxpayer dollars. Really outrageous! The Clinton Foundation and its major health charity have raked in more than $7 million from the U.S. government in recent years, according to an analysis of public records conducted by the Washington Free Beacon.The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), chaired by Bill Clinton and run by the former president s long-time associate Ira Magaziner, has received $6,010,898 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since 2010. CHAI, the biggest arm of the Clinton family s charitable efforts, accounting for 60 percent of all spending, received $3,193,500 in fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012, according to federal contracts, during Hillary Clinton s tenure as secretary of state. The organization received an additional $2,817,398 from the CDC in FYs 2013, 2014, and 2015.The grants, including $200,000 awarded as recently as January, have gone to CHAI s Global AIDS program, and are filed under Global Health and Child Survival. The CDC is listed as a $1 to $10 million contributor to CHAI, according to its donor list released earlier this month.The Boston-based health arm of the Clinton Foundation has come under scrutiny for failing to disclose donations from foreign governments in violation of a pledge Clinton made to the Obama administration before she assumed office as secretary of state.A Reuters report found that the health initiative stopped making its annual disclosure in 2010 and that no complete list of donors to the Clintons charities has been published since. The group only recently published a partial donor list, which its spokesperson Maura Daley told Reuters made up for CHAI s oversight of failing to meet the disclosure agreement.When asked whether the CDC has any concern regarding its funding of CHAI or plans to provide grants to the organization in the future, an agency spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon that it can t predict who will apply for and be awarded grants. CDC and potential grantees must follow federal guidelines when applying for or awarding and monitoring grants, said Shelly Diaz. CHAI, like any other organization meeting federal requirements, may apply for CDC grants. They would also be expected to meet the same ongoing requirements for grantees (e.g. reports, audits, performance standards). CHAI received hundreds of millions from foreign nations between 2009 and 2014, including: the United Kingdom ($79.7 million), Australia ($58.6 million), Norway ($38.1 million), Canada ($12.1 million), Ireland ($11.7 million), Sweden ($7.2 million), and New Zealand ($1.2 million).The Boston Globe found that foreign donations sharply accelerated to CHAI when Hillary Clinton became secretary of state.Read more: WFB | 1real |
New Las Vegas Casino ONLY for Chinese Gamblers | New Las Vegas Casino ONLY for Chinese Gamblers 10/27/2016
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Casino operators know there are no gamblers quite like the Chinese.
With their affinity for baccarat, the most lucrative game in Las Vegas, Chinese gamblers have long commanded special treatment — be it with private Chinese gaming salons, Lunar New Year festivities or performances from pop stars flown in from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
No one in Las Vegas, however, has built a casino and hotel strictly for Chinese visitors until now.
The Lucky Dragon Hotel & Casino is billing itself as Las Vegas’ first Asian-themed resort, funded in large part by Chinese investors. The property, set to open Dec. 3 with a traditional lion dance, will offer bilingual staff and signage, a luxury tea bar and a host of restaurants with food that wouldn’t look or taste out of place in Guangzhou or Shanghai.
“No General Tso’s or egg rolls here,” said David Jacoby, chief operating officer for the resort, which left no Chinese superstition unturned.
The rose-colored resort’s front entrance is designed in a dragon motif. A feng shui master blessed its kitchens. The main bar is eight-sided for good fortune. And it’s hard to find a No. 4 on the property. The unlucky digit is absent from room numbers and the phone directory. The nine-story hotel even skips a fourth floor.
“This place is heavily feng shui’ed” Jacoby said.
With all that attention to detail, you’d think Lucky Dragon’s brain trust was born in Beijing. But the idea behind the 203-room boutique resort off the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip was largely conceived by an American veteran gaming executive, Bill Weidner, the former president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp.
Weidner, an advisor to Lucky Dragon, is no neophyte to the Chinese market. He worked with some of China’s most powerful government figures to lead Sands’ expansion into Macau when the former Portuguese colony relaxed its monopoly on gaming licenses in 2002. Macau now generates nearly five times the gambling revenue of the Las Vegas Strip, forever changing the fortunes of the global casino industry.
Weidner was also involved in the development of the $5.5-billion Marina Bay Sands in Singapore before leaving the company in a bitter dispute in 2009.
Weidner and Jacoby know major Las Vegas gaming resorts like the Sands’ Venetian, MGM or Wynn already cater to China’s high rollers with VIP parlors and relationships forged in Macau.
Lucky Dragon, though tiny compared with those properties, addresses what they see as a gap in the market: middle-class Chinese gamblers, Chinese Americans as well as the broader Asian American community.
“Let them fight over the 1% and let us fight over the remaining 99%,” said Jacoby, who previously worked for Weidner’s firm, Global Gaming Asset Management, opening a casino resort in the Philippines.
That pool of Chinese gamers will almost certainly grow. On Dec. 2, Hainan Airlines will fly the first direct flights from China to Las Vegas’s McCarran International Airport (Lucky Dragon guests are confirmed to be on that flight, Jacoby said).
Already, a record 206,743 visitors from China traveled to Las Vegas last year, nearly double the number in 2010, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Meanwhile, ground was broken on another Asian-themed resort, this one much bigger than Lucky Dragon. Resorts World, a Malaysian hospitality and casino giant with decades of Asian gaming experience, is spending up to $4 billion for a 3,200-room property on the North Strip that will feature Chinese architecture such as an ersatz Great Wall. It’s slated to open in 2019.
Plans are also underway to build a $2-billion resort on the Strip called Alon Las Vegas. The project is owned by Australia’s Crown Resort, who count Chinese gamers as a major source of business.
“It’s going to be even more of a competitive market,” said John DeCree, an analyst at Union Gaming in Las Vegas. “Everyone’s coming for the same customer. It’s going to be a challenge.” With 203 rooms, the hotel is small compared with many on the Strip. But with five restaurants, it offers more dining options than many its size. (Isaac Brekken / For The Times)
Competition could also be fierce for Chinese high rollers, whose gambling activity has been curtailed by a slowing Chinese economy and an anti-corruption campaign at home that, until recently, sent Macau gambling revenues into a two-year slump.
Las Vegas isn’t immune to those headwinds. After years of explosive growth, casinos on the Strip experienced a decline in the amount of money bet on baccarat to about $10 billion in 2015. That’s nearly $2 billion less than 2014, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
The casino industry uses the card game as a proxy for Chinese gambling activity because of its massive popularity within the culture. That’s both for practical and superstitious reasons. Baccarat has the best statistical odds of beating the house compared with other games. And as a game of chance over skill, baccarat also plays into Chinese fatalistic attitudes toward luck.
“The vast majority of baccarat play comes from the Asian market,” said Jacoby of Lucky Dragon.
Jacoby’s casino will offer seven VIP baccarat tables on a second-floor terrace with access to a vast menu of authentic Chinese food. In addition to live seafood flown in from all over the world, the property will serve staples like congee, wonton noodles and dim sum.
Food is expected to be a big draw because Chinese vacationers overwhelmingly prefer their native cuisine over others.
Las Vegas has a number of well-regarded Chinese restaurants such as Ping Pang Pong at Gold Coast Hotel & Casino, China MaMa in Chinatown and an outpost of Chengdu Taste, the San Gabriel Valley stalwart for Sichuan cuisine. High-end Chinese food is also served at high-roller rooms such as the Venetian’s Paiza Club.
No casino, however, boasts the concentration of Chinese restaurants that Lucky Dragon will, with five altogether. The hope is Chinese tourists staying at other properties will choose to eat — and gamble — at Lucky Dragon when they venture off the Strip.
The emphasis on food means Lucky Dragon’s owners can eschew things that aren’t particularly important to Chinese tourists, like a whiskey bar or nightclub. And because Chinese tourists often don’t like to sunbathe, Lucky Dragon’s pool isn’t much bigger than the backyard variety.
Jacoby says his competitors on the Strip offer Chinese gamers a diluted experience by operating a handful of Chinese restaurants and parlors in mega-casinos that have to serve all manner of people, not just Chinese. By comparison, visitors to Lucky Dragon can start conversing in Mandarin with staff as soon as they walk in, he said.
“We’re trying to take [the Asian gaming experience] and bring that front and center instead of hiding the most valuable customer in a segregated portion of a large building,” Jacoby said.
Though Lucky Dragon will rely heavily on Asian American customers at first, its funding was largely drawn from mainland Chinese investors through the federal EB-5 visa program. The visa allows foreigners and their immediate family to gain permanent U.S. residency in exchange for a minimum investment of $500,000 that also creates American jobs. Rather than focusing on bars and nightclubs, the casino is prioritizing dining options. That includes a tea room, still under construction. (Isaac Brekken / For The Times)
Chinese investors have dominated the program nationwide, accounting for 80% of applicants awaiting EB-5 visas. Though occasionally subject to fraud, the program has successfully funded a handful of mixed-used projects in New York, the JW Marriott hotel at L.A. Live and the SLS Hotel & Casino across from Lucky Dragon.
Jacoby declined to say how many Chinese investors are involved in Lucky Dragon, which is expected to employ 800 people. Jacoby also declined to disclose how much the project cost, adding that earlier media reports pegging the price tag at about $370 million were inaccurate.
The company hit a snag last year when it unsuccessfully sought tax subsidies from the city. But financial commitments from Weidner’s family and others put the project back on track.
Lucky Dragon isn’t the first Las Vegas resort to target a specific demographic. The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and the Palms Casino Resort opened years ago catering to young partygoers and clubbers before eventually being overshadowed by larger competitors on the Strip such as the MGM Grand and the Cosmopolitan.
Lucky Dragon’s early backers even considered building an LGBT resort before settling on their current strategy, one they say will live and die on being able to deliver an authentic Chinese gambling experience.
“We set out trying to put together a place that would stand alone in Shanghai if you dropped it off down there today,” Jacoby said. “We didn’t want to [have] just gongs, Asian tapestries and caricature-stuff like that.” | 1real |
Iowa caucus results: Ted Cruz wins, Hillary Clinton declares victory | (CNN) Hillary Clinton declared victory early Tuesday morning in a razor-thin contest against Bernie Sanders in Iowa. But Democratic party officials have not yet declared a winner.
"Hillary Clinton has won the Iowa Caucus," the Clinton campaign said. "After thorough reporting -- and analysis -- of results, there is no uncertainty and Secretary Clinton has clearly won the most national and state delegates."
The state party indicated in a separate statement that it was not ready to make a call.
"The results tonight are the closest in Iowa Democratic caucus history," Iowa party chairman Andy McGuire said. "We will report that final precinct when we have confirmed those results with the chair."
One thing is clear after Monday night's Iowa caucuses: there's a long, volatile election season ahead before two deeply fractured parties can unite behind a nominee.
Cruz's victory sets him up as a formidable force in delegate-rich, Southern states to come and offers movement conservatives hope that one of their own can become the Republican nominee for the first time since Ronald Reagan.
Claiming victory, Cruz fired immediate shots at both Trump and the party elites he has so infuriated by waging an anti-establishment crusade that has nevertheless endeared him to the GOP's rank and file.
"Iowa has sent notice that the Republican nominee and the next President of the United States will not be chosen by the media, will not be chosen by the Washington establishment," Cruz said.
With about 99% of the GOP vote in, Cruz was ahead of Trump 28% to 24%. Rubio was at 23%.
"It is breathtaking to see what happens when so many Americans stand up and decide they're fed up with what happens in Washington and they want something different. They want a leader they can trust, they want a leader that stands for them against the corruption of Washington," Cruz told CNN's Dana Bash in an interview aired Tuesday on "New Day."
Trump, hours after predicting a "tremendous" victory, delivered a short but gracious speech that lacked his normal bombast, saying he loved Iowa and vowed to bounce back next week in New Hampshire.
"We will go on to get the Republican nomination and we will go on to easily beat Hillary or Bernie," Trump told supporters. "We finished second, and I have to say I am just honored."
Rubio will also leave Iowa with a leg up over other establishment rivals including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who have a lot at stake in New Hampshire.
"This is the moment they said would never happen. For months, they told us we had no chance," a jubilant Rubio said. "They told me that I needed to wait my turn, that I needed to wait in line. But tonight here in Iowa, the people of this great state have sent a very clear message — after seven years of Barack Obama, we are not waiting any longer to take our country back."
On the Democratic side, Clinton and Sanders are deadlocked at 50% with 99% of the votes counted. Clinton, the national front-runner, admitted breathing a "big sigh of relief" after escaping Iowa -- the state she handily lost to Obama in 2008 -- but promised a vigorous campaign with Sanders.
"It's rare that we have the opportunity we do now," she said in a speech that didn't explicitly claim victory but sought to position her as the authentic progressive in the race.
Sanders, who trailed Clinton in Iowa by 30 points three months ago, told a raucous crowd chanting "Bernie, Bernie" that his campaign made stunning progress.
"Nine months ago, we came to this beautiful state, we had no political organization, we had no money, we had no name recognition and we were taking on the most powerful political organization in the United States of America."
"And tonight," he said, "while the results are still not known, it looks like we are in a virtual tie."
Though Sanders fared well in Iowa and is nicely posited in New Hampshire, his hurdle is proving that he can appeal to more ethnically diverse electorates in later contests in places such as South Carolina.
Sanders made the case to CNN's Chris Cuomo, when he campaign plane landed in New Hampshire early on Tuesday morning, that he expects to challenge Clinton among nonwhite voters.
"We lost (the nonwhite vote), but that gap is growing slimmer and slimmer between the secretary and myself. I think you'll find as we get to South Carolina and other states, that when the African-American community, the Latino community, looks at our record, looks at our agenda, we're going to get more and more support," Sanders told Cuomo on "New Day."
The caucuses resulted in two casualties -- one on each side. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, both dropped their candidacies after faring poorly.
Even before the caucuses began, Ben Carson's campaign said he wouldn't go directly to New Hampshire or South Carolina -- the site of the next primary contests. Instead, the retired neurosurgeon, who was briefly the Iowa front-runner last fall, will go to Florida to rest and see his family.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is also skipping New Hampshire but will go straight to South Carolina, which holds its Republican presidential primary on February 20. | 0fake |
It Happened: Personal Notes From A Young Chicago Cubs Fan | Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo stepped up to the microphone during the World Series rally in Grant Park and choked up, as he spoke about what it meant to be able to be on a team with the 38-year-old catcher David Ross, who was a mentor to him. Rizzo, Ross, and center fielder Dexter Fowler stood shoulder-to-shoulder singing that silly jingle, the one that goes, “Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey, Chicago, whaddya say? Cubs are gonna win today.” It all really hit home for me as a Cubs fan.
Life is full of things that bring us joy but carry unsavory aspects to them. The Cubs team is owned by Tom Ricketts, a man who donated $1 million to Donald Trump and bears a frightening resemblance to Ted Cruz; so much that one might think Ricketts was his brother. The Cubs also signed Aroldis Chapman, a closer, who served a 30-game suspension this year for domestic abuse. Cubs executives and city officials are responsible for some pretty rapid gentrification in the area of Wrigleyville. With that said, almost all of the Cubs players had fun with each other and never let the pressures of fan-fueled folklore around “curses” defeat them. That made the postseason truly blissful.
This is where I wrote, Thomas G, my father’s name on the wall. I had to squeeze it in near the brick sidewalk.
I live about seven blocks from Wrigley Field. I went down there multiple times in the past week. The day after they won, I went down to Wrigley Field to write my father’s name on the stadium wall and join thousands of other Cubs fans in paying tribute to family, who died before they could see the Cubs win a World Series. In the immediate hours after their sweet victory, I took my life into my own hands and went down to the area around Clark and Addison to snap a photo of the stadium sign with “World Series Champions” emblazoned on it.
On Sunday, right before Game 5, down 3-1 in the series, I stood outside the friendly confines and said to myself—and to my father, even though I don’t really believe in this kind of stuff, this was going to be the game where they turned it all around. That they could still come back. Also, I bought a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times after each game, even the editions with the devastating headlines on Game 3 and Game 4, because it was important to have the full story. I can now put those papers side-by-side and forever see the journey the Chicago Cubs took and relive the heart-wrenching and euphoric moments that took place.
This seismic sports event—ending the longest championship drought in American sports history—gripped me like so many other Americans. It taught me, once again, the importance of slowing down life and reveling in these kind of experiences. Which I know is easy for me to say. I did not have a boss, who told me I had to work a night shift or else I would be fired. I did not have to worry about what I was going to do to feed my children or prevent my home from being foreclosed. I did not have to be concerned about an array of disadvantages people should not have to confront on a daily basis, but all too often we just go, go, go, and lose sight of those little things that can make us feel a bit more content in life. Or we reject slowing down to appreciate something amazing that magnificently disrupts our routine.
Additionally, during an election that has smothered and shaken many of us, the perfect antidote was watching this team play baseball. Players like Rizzo let their guard down and made themselves vulnerable in front of us. They were on a world stage, where they perhaps may have thought they needed to maintain a level of toughness or masculinity. Rizzo, on the other hand, as he now famously told Ross during Game 7, was an “emotional wreck,” and he did not seem to be ashamed of making that confession.
Many of us were “emotional wrecks.” Everyone watching this series felt like “emotional wrecks” at some point. Not everyone watched all moments of the games, unless you happened to be in the select group of people that possibly had tickets to all the games.
I’ll never forget how Ross told Rizzo it was only going to get worse in the 9th inning. He was right. The Cleveland Indians tied the game in the 8th, acrobatic second baseman Javier Baez had a mishap with a bunt that could have been costly in the 9th, and fans had to bow their heads and hope Chapman would not make a mistake, even though manager Joe Maddon clearly overworked him the past few games.
Statue outside Wrigley Field of Ernie Banks (Photo by Kevin Gosztola)
The weather went from great to pouring rain. There was a delay. That delay gave the team a kind of gift, a bit of a halftime to find their composure to go out and win in the 10th inning. (It was suggested during the rally that this may have been a gift from legendary shortstop and first baseman, Ernie Banks, who was “Mr. Cub.” Or, legendary third baseman Ron Santo, who later became a WGN radio broadcaster. )
So, Rizzo, the “emotional wreck,” stepped up to the microphone during the rally and gave this very real and human tribute to a mentor, “Grandpa” Ross, who played his last game on November 2.
“Gramps and I sat down a few years ago in an offseason before his last season with Boston. He was a free agent, and we just talked,” Rizzo shared. “We had the same agent. We’re talking, and I say to my agent, man, this is what the Chicago Cubs need. He is exactly what we need to bring everything together. Obviously, a lot of pieces came through with that, but he taught myself personally how to become a real winner. He’s like a brother to me.”
Fighting back tears, Rizzo continued, “He’s taught me a lot in life—on the field, off the field, how to be a better person. I’m forever grateful for him. He’s going out a champion forever. For the rest of his life, he can say the last game that he played he’s a world champion.”
That to me is what has made these past moments special. The fact that it took so very long for the team to finally win a baseball championship means all three-to-four generations were brought together. Sons and daughters know their parents longed for this, and many of them have parents, who longed to see what happened. If those parents are still alive, their parents were ecstatic to have lived to see a Cubs World Series.
Kevin Gosztola
Families shared stories about their first games, games they remembered, games they want to forget, and games they saw with their fathers or mothers. They shared stories of players they remembered or recalled when they first put on a Cubs baseball hat or wore a jersey with their favorite player’s name on the back. I dug out a photo of me when I was a toddler wearing my Cubs shirt.
I am 28 years-old. I waited 13 years for this because 2003 was the first postseason, where I really got into watching the Cubs play and experienced what it meant to fail to end the drought when they lost to the Florida Marlins in the National League Championship Series. That is a rather short time span when compared to legions of fans.
Maddon said, “It’s a players’ game.” Indeed, but for the Cubs, it’s unique. Cubs baseball was essentially a fans’ game, much more so than other ball clubs.
The last two years of decisions by business executives were made for the fans. The scouts, who went out and found these all-star players, did it for the fans. They recognized there were so many aging Chicago Cubs fans, who kept asking them on the street if they were going to live to see the Cubs win a World Series. Theo Epstein, one of the executives who enabled this team, did not want to have to tell any more fans to take their vitamins when asked if this would be The Year.
Even with 103 wins in the regular season and the status of number one team in baseball, all too many fans were aware of the record for teams, who came in to the postseason on top and did not make it to the World Series. We also took note of the statistics for comebacks in the World Series when teams were down 3-1. So few ever win not only three games in a row but three games in a row, including two on the road.
That put tremendous pressure on the Cubs players. They clearly felt it, and we thank them for putting up with millions of “emotional wrecks.”
As fans process and revel in the fact that it happened (as Maddon would say, how we did not suck), I think about what this means for next year. For the first time, it is possible to watch the Cubs without bringing a legacy of doubt and negativity to games. There are no more goats. There is no more Steve Bartman. There are no more distractions that are not typically part of baseball. Everyone’s favorite punchlines don’t really work anymore. They all are part of the past, and the immediate future is baseball with a team that will have some of the players, who won this championship and who will undoubtedly find ways to dazzle us again as they attempt to repeat as champions in 2017.
***
For a coda, Chicago Cubs fan Caitlin Swieca pledged a day after Chapman signed with the team in July to donate $10 to a Chicago domestic violence organization every time he got a save. Her campaign managed to raise over $31,000, especially when it took off after she shared it on Twitter.
Swieca told ESPN she thought during Game 7, “We all compromised what we believed in to root for this guy, and he’s gonna blow it.” Then, it shifted to a celebration. Cubs pitcher Mike Montgomery got his first career save ever, and it was in Game 7 of the World Series. She was happy Chapman did not get the glory and said it couldn’t have been scripted better.
Oh, and at the parade, some of us fans looked up to see a plane with a banner that read, “Chinese Americans For Trump Go Cubs.” I stood next to a Filipino American family, who had some Chinese heritage in their ancestry. She thought it must be a joke. Then, someone told her it was real. They read something about this group of Chinese Americans. Instantly, she said she was insulted.
We’re not all Trump fans because Ricketts owns our team. Only a small segment are, and they are the same kind of white men and women disconnected from reality, who you will find in the fandom of just about every American sports team. They would probably support Trump whether Ricketts was a Cubs executive or not.
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel were at the rally, but they are both hot garbage. Neither took the stage to speak, and I view that as some kind of small political victory that sweetens the victory over a baseball team with a racist/colonialist sports mascot, which should be replaced immediately. In fact, let’s conjure the Curse of the Racist Mascot and say the Cubs passed it on to them and that’ll prolong their championship drought until they replace Chief Wahoo. Maybe then the Indians will get rid of him.
The post It Happened: Personal Notes From A Young Chicago Cubs Fan appeared first on Shadowproof .
| 1real |
Private Equity Energy Funds Did So Badly They Might Have to Do the Unthinkable – Pay Clawbacks | by Yves Smith
The law firm Akin Gump issued a warning that might chill the bones of some private equity general partners: clawbacks may be a-comin’. From the firm’s website :
In recent months, managers of private equity funds in the energy sector have been facing a scenario they likely never imagined: having to return millions of dollars of their “carried interest” earnings back to investors.
For newbies to this private equity practice, private equity funds typically pay the profit share, prototypically 20% once a target rate of return has been met. What creates the possibility of a clawback is the fact that for most US funds, the profit computation and any payouts are made every time a portfolio company is sold. By contrast, in “European” deals, the carry fees are paid only at the end of the fund’s life.
The conventional US approach, combined with strong general partner incentives to realize profits on at least some promising deals early in the fund’s life, means that the general partners can pay themselves carry fees that are more than they deserved once the impact of doggy companies, which are sold late in the fund’s life, are factored in. Hence the limited partnership agreements provide for “clawbacks,” as in the recovery of overpayments of carry fees.
Yet as we’ve written, clawbacks are almost never paid in practice. Why? First, the clawback provisions have tax language that is very favorable to the general partners, and has the economic effect that they can hang on what are excessive carry fees based on raw cash flows. Second, possession is 9/10ths of the law. In those instances where the general partner owes limited partner clawbacks, the general partner usually goes to the limited partners and offers them a special deal (details often unspecified!) on their next fund. Needless to say, this approach has the desirable effect of pre-committing those limited partners.
Akin Gump flagged specifically the lousy performance of some unnamed energy funds. In light of the discussion above, the limited partners have been sufficiently burned that they have no intention of investing in energy funds any time soon, and may also be willing to be atypically forceful about getting money back. Recall that limited partners fetishize maintaining friction-free relationships with general partners. Again from the firm’s missive:
Several energy-related funds that were formed in nascent stages of the boom now have terms ending during collapse-protracted downturns. Managers may feel as though they could recoup some losses if they could delay liquidating assets until oil recovers further. Many fund agreements provide for a one or two year extension of the fund’s investment period at the manager’s discretion; however, to the extent that this option has already been exhausted, some managers are now going back to investors to seek additional time and, potentially, additional capital. To placate investors in such cases, a manager may need to reduce or eliminate management fees charged to a fund for the duration of any extension period. Unfortunately, apart from extending a fund’s investment or harvest period, managers have little recourse after a fund’s inception.
In other words, Mr. Market did not bail these funds out and a day of reckoning is coming.
Interestingly, Akins Gump uses pain in the oil patch to argue that general partners should consider building in better means for assuring that general partners can pay clawbacks back if they are due and owing. What this document reveals is that limited partners have signed up for clawback agreements that are likely to be empty in practice. The money went years ago into the firm’s carry pool, and hence for payouts to senior and mid-level staffers. The top dogs may have tied the money up in investments or property (houses, art) that they can’t readily liquidate. Or the funds may be beyond their reach entirely by having gone to outlays (political fundraising or a campaign, big gifts to charities) or an ex-wife. People below the senior level may have moved on. And perhaps as important, all the true partners (owners of the management company) have vis-a-vis everyone else who is in the firm is moral suasion. How far do you think that is going to go in getting people to write checks to disgorge monies they banked or worse spent, years ago?
What is striking about the Akins Gump article is that the firm is giving what amounts to marketing rather than legal advice:
The best way a manager can avoid the predicament of having to return a large sum to investors in respect of a clawback is to build preventative measures into the organizational documents of the fund or the vehicle earning the carry at the outset (i.e., escrows at the carry level or the contractual ability to get any distributions back from employees).
Mind you, the private equity business has been around for 40 years, and has had large and supposedly savvy institutional investors for 30 plus years. The general partners have always been expose to the risk of paying clawbacks when their limited partnership agreements allow for them. So what is different now?
Perhaps it is that investors are more acutely aware of the risk of investing at the peak of cycle than in the past, and the example of what happened to energy funds has made them realize that they could see problems like that on a broader basis. Moreover, given that the mainstream media is much less reverential in its treatment of private equity than in the past, if a meaningful minority of funds were to post overall crappy returns, resulting in meaningful clawbacks due, the press is more likely to expose the failure of investors like public pension funds to get insistent about getting their money back. Limited partner suing general partners is unheard of, but in a weak returns environment, private equity would no longer be a “must have” portfolio allocation. So Akins Gump appears to be alerting the industry to a risk that they had been able to cavalierly ignore that may start to bite them.
And another reason for concern:
Further, although Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank Act relating to executive compensation could impose a mandatory return-of-incentive compensation scheme on certain financial institutions, it is unlikely that the proposed rules, in their current formulation, would apply to carried interest distributions, but they are subject to further clarification.
The suggestions acknowledge that money-driven private equity professionals wouldn’t be happy with a “wait until the dust has settled” European structure. Some of the ideas include escrowing some carry but not so much as to demotivate staffers (30% was the suggested level), interim clawbacks that require the general partner “to reckon with any shortcomings as they occur.” A modified deal-by-deal structure would require the general partner to tally up losses and writedowns and earn back the shortfall before any more carry could be paid.
Akins Gump curiously omitted another option: a performance bond. It’s not hard to imagine that Wall Street firms would be willing to insure this risk (or at least after the general partners paid a first loss amount) for a suitable fee.
Nevertheless, this alert to general partners, as occurs so routinely in private equity, illustrates how remiss the limited partners have been. It would be gratifying if the underlying assumption in the Akins Gump piece were correct, that the deterioration in private equity profit generation is leading to contract terms becoming less one-sided in favor of general partners. But given the degree of complacency among limited, don’t expect these changes to take place any time soon. 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 1real |
U.S. suspends official travel to Myanmar's troubled Rakhine | YANGON (Reuters) - The United States temporarily suspended travel for American officials to parts of Myanmar s Rakhine state, the U.S. embassy said on Thursday, citing concerns over potential protests after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Myanmar of ethnic cleansing in the state. | 0fake |
’Facezam’ App Lets Strangers Stalk Your Facebook Profile by Taking a Picture of You **UPDATE** It’s a Hoax - Breitbart | Creepers of the web, rejoice! Now you can find someone’s social media account just by taking their picture. [Jack Kenyon, founder of smartphone app Facezam, says that it “could be the end of our anonymous societies. ” Kenyon outlines the function of the app with alarming clarity: “Users will be able to identify anyone within a matter of seconds, which means privacy will no longer exist in public society. ” Facezam uses Facebook’s user information database to match the picture you snap with the person’s social media information. It claims a less than turnaround on most queries. In testing, its facial recognition has maintained about 70% accuracy. If you do not want to participate, you are unfortunately out of luck. Being one of the almost 2 billion Facebook users means that you are already part of the developer database that Facezam uses for identification. And Facebook already uses facial recognition to suggest who should be tagged in your photos, so the proverbial prize is right there for the taking. The app is set to launch on March 21, but Facebook itself may stand in the way. The social network says that Facezam “violates [their] terms” and that they are “reaching out to the developer to ensure they bring their app into compliance. ” Kenyon, however, disagrees. He says that his company has “looked into this,” and they remain “confident the app won’t be violating Facebook’s terms. ” Furthermore, he claims the ramifications of the app could have “a mix of positives and negatives” and that it could even help to reduce crime. Right now, the only way to reduce Facezam’s effectiveness is to obscure your face in pictures. If you are prone to wearing sunglasses, or have hair that falls across your face, you may be fortunate enough to reduce the chances of being identified by a stranger’s phone to about 55%. **UPDATE** Facezam has been revealed as a hoax, with their website stating, “This was a publicity stunt by Zacozo Creative, a Viral Marketing Agency. ” Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both. | 0fake |
Boiler Room #62 – Fatal Illusions | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Randy J of 21Wire, Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blog Spot and Jay Dyer of jaysanalysis.com. Tonight the Boiler Gang discusses Brexit, Orlando Shooting, Istanbul Airport Bombing, gang vs counter-gang political shenanigans in Sacramento CA and whatever else floats into our air space during the show!BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY! Reference Links: | 1real |
Boiler Room #100 – An Unlikely Alchemy | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight at 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along with Patrick Henningsen of 21WIRE, Funk Soul, Infidel Pharaoh, Andy Nowicki of Alt-Right Blogspot, Jay Dyer from Jays Analysis and Stewart Howe for the 100th episode of BOILER ROOM. Water the kids, put the plants to bed and get your favorite mead horn ready so you can drop deep into the Boiler Room with the crew. Tonight the gang is discussing the latest a myriad of news and main stream media shenanigans that have taken place since the last meeting of the ACR brain-trust know as THE BOILER ROOM.Listen to Boiler Room #100 An Unlikely Alchemy on Spreaker.Direct Download Episode #100Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved!Reference Links: | 1real |
WOW! 1996 NYT’s Stunning Article SLAYS First Lady Hillary Clinton…Calls Her A “CONGENITAL LIAR”…”she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying” | How did we ever get to the point where we would even consider electing a woman who is the most well-known liar in America? The media has been buzzing since what many consider an inappropriate private conversation that Donald J. Trump had with another man 11 years ago was released. Funny how the media is willing to gloss over a shameful career of a congenital liar simply because her last name is Clinton (wife of the former President Bill Clinton who was impeached for lying under oath to a Grand Jury) and because she comes equipped with the right genitatlia Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation is a congenital liar.Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit.1. Remember the story she told about studying The Wall Street Journal to explain her 10,000 percent profit in 1979 commodity trading? We now know that was a lie told to turn aside accusations that as the Governor s wife she profited corruptly, her account being run by a lawyer for state poultry interests through a disreputable broker.She lied for good reason: To admit otherwise would be to confess taking, and paying taxes on, what some think amounted to a $100,000 bribe.2. The abuse of Presidential power known as Travelgate elicited another series of lies. She induced a White House lawyer to assert flatly to investigators that Mrs. Clinton did not order the firing of White House travel aides, who were then harassed by the F.B.I. and Justice Department to justify patronage replacement by Mrs. Clinton s cronies.Now we know, from a memo long concealed from investigators, that there would be hell to pay if the furious First Lady s desires were scorned. The career of the lawyer who transmitted Hillary s lie to authorities is now in jeopardy. Again, she lied with good reason: to avoid being identified as a vindictive political power player who used the F.B.I. to ruin the lives of people standing in the way of juicy patronage.3. In the aftermath of the apparent suicide of her former partner and closest confidant, White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, she ordered the overturn of an agreement to allow the Justice Department to examine the files in the dead man s office. Her closest friends and aides, under oath, have been blatantly disremembering this likely obstruction of justice, and may have to pay for supporting Hillary s lie with jail terms.Again, the lying was not irrational. Investigators believe that damning records from the Rose Law Firm, wrongfully kept in Vincent Foster s White House office, were spirited out in the dead of night and hidden from the law for two years in Hillary s closet, in Web Hubbell s basement before his felony conviction, in the President s secretary s personal files before some were forced out last week.Why the White House concealment? For good reason: The records show Hillary Clinton was lying when she denied actively representing a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S.& L., and indicate she may have conspired with Web Hubbell s father-in-law to make a sham land deal that cost taxpayers $3 million.Why the belated release of some of the incriminating evidence? Not because it mysteriously turned up in offices previously searched. Certainly not because Hillary Clinton and her new hang-tough White House counsel want to respond fully to lawful subpoenas.One reason for the Friday-night dribble of evidence from the White House is the discovery by the F.B.I. of copies of some of those records elsewhere. When Clinton witnesses are asked about specific items in lost records which investigators have the White House finds its copy and releases it. By concealing the Madison billing records two days beyond the statute of limitations, Hillary evaded a civil suit by bamboozled bank regulators.Another reason for recent revelations is the imminent turning of former aides and partners of Hillary against her; they were willing to cover her lying when it advanced their careers, but are inclined to listen to their own lawyers when faced with perjury indictments.Therefore, ask not Why didn t she just come clean at the beginning? She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends.No wonder the President is fearful of holding a prime-time press conference. Having been separately deposed by the independent counsel at least twice, the President and First Lady would be well advised to retain separate defense counsel. New York Times | 1real |
Argentina judge says death of prosecutor Nisman was murder | BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Alberto Nisman, the Argentine prosecutor who was found dead days after accusing former President Cristina Fernandez of covering up Iran s role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center, was murdered, a federal judge said on Tuesday. In a 656-page ruling, judge Julian Ercolini said there was sufficient proof to conclude that the shot to the head that killed Nisman in January 2015 was not self-inflicted. That marked the first time any judge has said the case was a murder. Fernandez and others had suggested the death was a suicide, but a prosecutor investigating the case last year recommended it be pursued as a murder probe. Nisman s death could not have been a suicide, Ercolini wrote in Tuesday s ruling, which also charged Diego Lagomarsino, a former employee of Nisman s, with accessory to murder. Lagomarsino has acknowledged lending Nisman the gun that killed him the day before he was to appear before Congress to detail his allegation against Fernandez. But he has said Nisman asked him for the gun to protect himself and his family. Fernandez, now a senator, was indicted for treason earlier this month over Nisman s allegations that she worked behind the scenes to clear Iran of blame for the attack on the AMIA Jewish center, which killed 85 people, in an effort to normalize relations and clinch a 2013 grains-for-oil deal with Tehran. Human rights groups and the former head of Interpol have criticized that indictment. Tehran has denied links to the attack. | 0fake |
Deadly twin suicide attack hits Damascus police station | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers struck a police station in Damascus on Monday, with at least 10 people reported dead, in the first such attack to hit the Syrian capital since July. The interior minister said the blasts killed a number of policemen and civilians in the al-Midan neighborhood, but did not say how many. At least 10 people were killed and 20 more injured when four armed men assaulted the station, the pro-Damascus television channel al-Mayadeen reported. Russian news agency RIA put the toll at 15. Militants targeted the al-Midan police station and clashed with police officers there, Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar said on state television from the station. One man blew himself up at the main entrance and another detonated his explosive device on the first floor, he said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Footage on state TV showed bodies in shrouds on the floor of the station and fire fighters putting out flames. The capital has enjoyed relative security as Syria s six-year civil war has raged on nearby and across the country. But several such attacks have hit Damascus in recent years, including a car bomb that killed 20 people in July. A bomb blast had also hit the same police station in al-Midan late last year. Islamic State and the Tahrir al-Sham alliance - led by fighters formerly linked to al-Qaeda - have each claimed separate suicide attacks that killed scores of people in Damascus in the past. Monday s attack came as a response to the major victories that our armed forces are achieving on Syrian land, the interior minister said. With the help of Russian jets and Iran-backed militias, the government has pushed back rebels in western Syria, shoring up its rule over the main urban centres. In recent months, it has also marched eastwards against Islamic State. It s natural to expect that the terrorists will resort to acts like this ... but they are all desperate acts, Shaar said. Such operations are thwarted on a daily basis. Syrian troops and allied forces have captured several suburbs of Damascus from rebel factions over the past year. The army and its allies are currently fighting insurgents in the Jobar and Ain Tarma districts on the capital s eastern outskirts. | 0fake |
Factbox - Pot Nation: Canada's plans for legal marijuana | (Reuters) - Recreational marijuana is on track to be legalized in Canada by July 2018, making Canada the first Group of Seven country to allow the drug nationwide and the second in the world after Uruguay. While the federal legislation proposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau s Liberal government will regulate cannabis production, the details of who can sell it and who can buy it will be largely left up to the country s provinces. The following are details of some key factors of how legal marijuana is shaping up in Canada. So far, five of Canada s 10 provinces have come forward with frameworks for retail marijuana sale. In Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, cannabis sales will be run by provincial government-owned entities. The western provinces of Manitoba and Alberta have said they will license private retailers. The federal government set the minimum legal age for buying marijuana at 18, but the provinces can raise that if they wish. In Ontario, Canada s most populous province, the legal age will be 19. The federal government s proposed law also permits adults to grow up to four marijuana plants at home, although Quebec announced Thursday it will not allow residents of the province to grow their own marijuana. Federal and provincial governments are tightening the rules around impaired driving and bringing in a roadside saliva test to check for drug impairment. The federal government is setting up systems to track all cannabis from seed to sale, to license non-medical producers and to test marijuana for potency and quality control. The federal government has already issued more than 70 licenses for producing medical marijuana, which has been legal in Canada since 2001. MJIC Inc s equal-weighted Canadian Marijuana Index, which tracks stocks of major legal cannabis companies, is up 28 percent this year. The Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF, the first exchange traded fund in North America to focus on the legal market, is up more than 20 percent since it launched in April. Canopy Growth Corp, Aurora Cannabis and Aphria, three of Canada s four biggest marijuana producers by market cap, have gained 89 percent, 137 percent and 71 percent respectively this year. MedReleaf Corp, the fourth, which listed in June, is up 107 percent since its debut. Marijuana stocks listed have surged since Oct. 30, when U.S. alcohol company Constellation Brands bought a nearly 10 percent stake in Canopy for about C$245 million ($192.05 million). A battle is brewing between the federal government and some provinces over how tax revenue is divided between the two levels of government. The federal government said last week it wants an excise tax on all cannabis products of C$1 (78 cents) per gram (0.04 ounce), or 10 percent of the retail price, whichever is higher. The government proposed splitting the tax 50-50 with the provinces, drawing criticism from Ontario which says it will face higher costs related to enforcement and establishing a system for sales. ($1 = 1.2757 Canadian dollars) | 0fake |
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: Firing Workers With Expired Papers Is Discrimination? Outrageous! [Video] | Our Justice Department is beyond out of control to give 6 months extra to those who ve let their permission to work in America expire! How in the world is being negligent rewarded? Do these people have a personal responsibility to renew papers themselves?The goal ultimately is to make it harder and harder for companies to fire anyone.Sounds good for workers right? Well, it s a double edged sword. If it s harder to fire it s much harder to hire. Companies fearing being stuck with poor performers will choose to not hire or to automate.And check this video out:This is the sort of thing employers have to concern themselves with these days. Good luck keeping all the rules straight. But you d better or you might find yourself subject to a government inquiry.The video is shot in a dimly lit office, where two actors discuss whether their fictional company should let go of some Salvadoran employees who have failed to provide updated paperwork on their immigration status.After a discussion about whether retaining the workers would violate the law, a woman says, I think this is an exception to that rule, and recommends that they contact the the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices before making any decisions. We want to follow the rules but we don t want to lose these workers or discriminate against them, she concludes. They are too valuable. | 1real |
Harry Reid Just Accused FBI Of Hiding “Explosive Info” About Trump & Putin | Comments
Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid just sent a scathing open letter to FBI Director James Comey, calling him out for smearing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton while hiding a sinister truth about Donald Trump that the public deserves to know. In it, he accuses the controversial FBI Director of sitting on secret “explosive” intelligence information about the Republican presidential campaign’s coordination with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. Reid wrote :
The double standard established by your actions is clear.
In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.
By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicize it in the most negative light possible. Moreover, in tarring Secretary Clinton with thin innuendo, you overruled longstanding tradition and the explicit guidance of your own Department.
You rushed to take this step eleven days before a presidential election, despite the fact that for all you know, the information you possess could be entirely duplicative of the information you already examined which exonerated Secretary Clinton.
Senator Reid continued by notifying Comey of violating the Hatch Act, whic forbids federal employees from engaging in partisan acts. Even further, Reid said that he regretted helping President Obama break a long Republican filibuster of his nomination to head the FBI just three short years ago.
It’s not surprising that there is a tangible link between Putin and Trump, especially after an interview of the Republican claiming he has a relationship with the Russian dictator was unearthed by the Democratic Coalition Against Trump and authenticated by MSNBC host Thomas A. Roberts this week .
Which begs the question, what is the Republican Party’s standard bearer hiding regarding his dealings with Vladimir Putin? Related Items: | 1real |
Bill Clinton Speech Unveiled in Podesta31: Over 50,000 Emails Released |
Over 2,500 hacked Clinton Campaign staff emails have been released by Wikileaks, bringing the total number of emails released to over 50,000. In the most recent batch, there is a transcript of a paid speech given by Bill Clinton at a “Hillary for America” fundraiser while Hillary was secretary of state.
An email from January 2016 from Tina Flournoy, Bill Clinton’s aide, had an attached document with a transcript of a speech given by Bill Clinton at the home of Mike and Patti Miller in October 2015.
“I haven’t run for office in 20 years, and yet every election I feel like an old horse that once won a bunch of races and somebody comes to the barn, gives me an extra bale of hay, hauls me on the track and slaps me on the rump, just to see if I can get around one more time,” Bill Clinton joked.
Speaking about the presidential primary debates, Clinton said, “These people actually think they can insult their way to the White House, or compete with each other for who can say the most politically correct things.”
Speaking of the Iran nuclear deal, he said:
Even the people that don’t like this Iran nuclear agreement like the sanctions that were imposed on Iran. She did that, and she got Russia and China to go along… you don’t know yet whether this Iranian thing is going to be good or bad. It depends on whether we enforce it. And you’ve got to have somebody in there tough enough, with enough connections in these other countries, to enforce the trigger that will re-impose the sanctions if they violate the rules.
Speaking about Republicans who oppose Hillary Clinton, Bill said:
Because, don’t be fooled: these guys do a lot of serious psychological studies. And they know that if you badmouth somebody enough in the press, day in and day out, especially if you’ve got your own microphone with Fox News, even if every single charge turns out to be false, you can hurt them.
Referring to a call he received from Barack Obama to tell him that Osama Bin Laden was killed, Bill said:
I could take CIA papers every day if I wanted to. I don’t, because of Hillary’s jobs in the Senate and Secretary of State, because I give too many public speeches and I’d hate to accidentally say something that I read in a government document.
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Is She Drunk? Nancy Pelosi Giggles Then Orders Crowd To Clap…Says She Wants To Stop The ‘Bulleting’ [Video] | Has Nancy Pelosi been drinking? She repeated herself and giggled while ordering the crowd at an GLAAD function to clap on command bullying became bulleting? Wow! It s a little unsettling when a woman who is supposedly a leader in Congress giggles like a young girl over and over. If she s serious about the policy she s trying to promote then it s probably not the best idea to behave like this Ya think? This isn t the first time Pelosi has behaved this way in front of the cameras. We have a huge list of past gaffes and giggles from the California Rep:Nancy Pelosi: You Can t Cry Wolf in a Crowded Theater Not a day goes by that we have another gaffe from Nancy Pelosi Term Limits Please!.@NancyPelosi screws up the oath of office while lecturing reporters about the seriousness of her job. pic.twitter.com/hLGCxsqK4m Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) July 30, 2017 PELOSI: As you know, today we ll be debating what s called the minibus, minibus. Not an omnibus, everything, minibus. And it, on the subject of security, as you know, all of us, anyone who serves in government or civically involved takes an oath of office to protect and defend. Support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Our first responsibility is to protect the American people and our constitution. If people are not safe, how can we proceed in any other way? | 1real |
Supreme Court throws out conviction for violent Facebook postings | The Supreme Court on Monday made it harder for prosecutors to convict those who make violent statements on Facebook and other social media, saying it is not enough that an ordinary person would find the rants threatening.
In its first examination of the murky rules regarding conduct on the Internet, the court moved cautiously while throwing out the conviction of a Pennsylvania man whose postings, delivered in rap-lyric style, suggested killing his estranged wife, federal law enforcement officials and even a kindergarten class.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., noting that Anthony Douglas Elonis had said he intended his postings to be fictitious and even therapeutic, said a defendant’s state of mind had to be considered.
But the opinion offered little in the way of specifics about what must be proved for a conviction, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. criticized the opinion as more confusing than enlightening.
“This failure to decide throws everyone from appellate judges to everyday Facebook users into a state of uncertainty,” Thomas wrote in dissent.
The narrow opinion said it was not necessary to address whether the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech protected Elonis’s Facebook statements. The opinion also declined to take a position on whether it would be enough for a conviction to show that a defendant had been reckless in making inflammatory statements, as Alito proposed.
For the justices, it was sufficient for now, Roberts wrote, to correct a misinterpretation by most lower courts that the poster’s intent is immaterial and what matters only is how the message is received.
Roberts defended the majority’s go-slow approach. “Such prudence is nothing new,” he wrote.
Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the law “for centuries required the government to prove criminal intent before putting someone in jail. That principle is especially important when a prosecution is based on a defendant’s words.”
He added, “The Internet does not change this long-standing rule.”
Groups battling domestic violence and advocating for victims said they worried the ruling would make it harder to convict those who make threats and said the ease and accessibility of social media have made the problem worse.
“The Internet is the crime scene of the 21st century. The laws governing social media require swift interpretation to keep pace with the ever-advancing criminal activity in this space,” said Mai Fernandez, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime. She said the justices had left victims in jeopardy.
“Threats play a central role in domestic abuse and is a core tactic that many abusers employ,” said Kim Gandy, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, adding that threats cause devastating harm “regardless of whether the abuser intended to threaten or only intended to vent or to make a joke.”
Writing about his estranged wife, Tara, Elonis had posted: “There’s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.”
At oral argument six months ago, justices seemed to agree there was a need for more than the “reasonable person” standard — which says that a reasonable person would consider a particular statement to be a threat — but there was no consensus on exactly what that standard should be. The limited ruling issued Monday and the length of time required to produce it indicated that no such agreement on a different standard had emerged.
Roberts said there is “no dispute” that the state-of-mind requirement is satisfied “if the defendant transmits a communication for the purpose of issuing a threat, or with knowledge that the communication will be viewed as a threat.”
But Alito, who agreed the case should be sent back to lower courts, said the decision left too many unanswered questions.
“The court refuses to explain what type of intent was necessary,” Alito complained. “Did the jury need to find that Elonis had the purpose of conveying a true threat? Was it enough if he knew that his words conveyed such a threat? Would recklessness suffice? . . . Attorneys and judges are left to guess.”
[Supreme Court case tests the limits of free speech on Facebook and other social media]
Paraphrasing the famous holding from Marbury v. Madison that it is the court’s prerogative to say what the law is, Alito said the court was announcing, “It is emphatically the prerogative of this court to say only what the law is not.”
The justices were considering a federal law that makes it a crime to communicate “any threat to injure the person of another.”
Prosecutors said there was no doubt Elonis was doing that on his Facebook feed during a two-month period in 2010. His wife had left with their two children, and Elonis, then 27 and working at an Allentown amusement park, grew increasingly despondent and angry.
He was fired and responded with a post about being a nuclear bomb about to explode. He pondered making a name for himself by shooting up an elementary school.
That brought a visit from an FBI agent, and the prolific Elonis later posted a fantasy about slitting the agent’s throat and turning her into a “ghost.”
Elonis was convicted after a judge told jurors that the government needed to prove only that Elonis made the statements and that a reasonable person would foresee that the words would be interpreted as “a serious expression of an intention to inflict bodily injury or take the life of an individual.”
Elonis served three years of a 44-month sentence before being released from prison.
The Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit upheld the conviction, saying Elonis’s subjective intent in writing his postings did not matter.
The Morning Call reported in April that Elonis had been arrested by police in Freemansburg, Pa., on charges of hitting his girlfriend’s mother with a pot.
The cases is Elonis v. U.S. | 0fake |
U.S. judge to review FBI's Clinton emails search warrant | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Tuesday directed federal prosecutors to show him the search warrant application used to enable the FBI to access emails related to Hillary Clinton’s private server that were discovered shortly before the Nov. 8 presidential election. U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan ordered prosecutors by Thursday to turn over the application, which investigators obtained shortly after FBI Director James Comey informed Congress of newly discovered emails on Oct. 28, 11 days before the election won by her Republican opponent Donald Trump. Castel made the order as he considered whether any portion of the search warrant materials could be made public in response to a lawsuit filed by Randol Schoenberg, a Los Angeles-based lawyer who specializes in cases to recover artwork stolen by the Nazis, seeking to force the release of the documents. In court papers, Schoenberg said the public had a “strong interest” in the disclosure of the search warrant materials, saying transparency was “crucial” given the potential influence the probe had on the election’s outcome. The search warrant was obtained after Comey issued a letter to top U.S. lawmakers disclosing that emails potentially related to the Clinton server probe had been discovered in an “unrelated case.” Comey’s Oct. 28 announcement roiled the campaign and drew new attention to a damaging issue for Clinton. Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, used the server while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Comey in July had recommended to the Justice Department that no criminal charges be brought against Clinton over her handing of classified information in the emails. Only two days before the election, Comey disclosed that the newly reviewed emails did nothing to change his earlier recommendation after all. Clinton days after her loss blamed Comey’s letter, so close to the election, as a reason she lost to Trump. Sources close to the investigation have said the emails were discovered during an unrelated probe into former Democratic U.S. congressman Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. In court, Castel said he would not be surprised if prosecutors, in submitting the materials to him, cited the presence of an ongoing probe in a case unrelated to Clinton as a reason to keep the search warrant application confidential. “It could be potentially terribly unfair to a person who ultimately winds up not being charged,” Castel said, apparently referring to Weiner. Castel said it was possible information unrelated to the Clinton email probe could be redacted, and noted that in Clinton’s case, Comey later indicated in a subsequent letter that the server probe was closed. Castel invited prosecutors to propose redactions in case he decides to release the search warrant application. | 0fake |
HILLARY’S PHYSICIAN CLAIMS She Has Pneumonia…Does Pneumonia Cause Convulsions?…Do People With Pneumonia Hug Little Girls, Expose Newborn Grandchildren? [VIDEO] | Hillary s been coughing to the point of almost passing out, spewing strange objects into her glass of water, flinging metal pieces from her pant legs, and convulsing as secret service agents lift her into her vehicle. So today, her doctor clarified what s been causing her Parkinson s disease like symptoms. Her doctor claims she has pneumonia, and that she s had it since last Friday. Do people who have pneumonia lie about it to reporters and blame their bizarre coughing fits on allergies? Do they convulse? Do they visit their daughter and her newborn baby unannounced after being lifted into their car by secret service? Secretary Clinton has been experiencing a cough related to allergies, Dr. Lisa R. Bardack said in the statement. On Friday, during follow up evaluation of her prolonged cough, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule. While at this morning s event, she became overheated and dehydrated. I have just examined her and she is now re-hydrated and recovering nicely. Walking pneumonia can be contagious and between the ceremony today and the Barbra Streisand event on Friday night, she was among hundreds of people.Today, including Chuck Schemer and Bill De Blasio. WZEither she s lying gasp! or she s incredibly selfish or maybe she s just both?The touchy, feely infected with pneumonia Hillary can be seen here at the 9-11 memorial service, clearly taking every precaution to not infect everyone around her (that is, if she indeed does have pneumonia and not Parkinson s disease:She also staged a hug with a little girl outside Chelsea s apartment following her convulsions and falling down episode hours earlier: | 1real |
ACTOR JAMES WOODS SHARES Hair-Raising Video That Shows Real Reason President Trump Refuses To Share In Angela Merkel’s Horrific Legacy | #MerkelLegacy pic.twitter.com/wBh5Cjj2IW James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) February 24, 2017In August 2016, Angela Merkel defended her open-borders policy: Aug. 23, 2016 ANGELA Merkel has defended her open-door immigration policy claiming it was a humanitarian duty to let in almost two million migrants last year.However, the German Chancellor admitted some areas of her immigration stance could be improved following a U-turn in public opinion against refugees.This was sparked in part by the Cologne sex attack, carried out by migrant gangs on thousands of women, and a string of recent terror attacks where the attacker was an asylum seeker.Nearly a year on from when Germany s borders were opened, Mrs Merkel still defended the controversial decision but identified certain areas where change was needed.Faced with international criticism, she claimed the open-door policy was necessary and right .On September 4, 2016 Angela Merkel s party CDU party was soundly defeated by the anti-migrant AfD party in the German state election. Merkel assumed some of the blame for her reckless immigration policy, but still defended her position.On September 19, 2016, Merkel admitted for first time she may have blundered over the migration crisis in the wake of another bitter poll drubbing.The German Chancellor admitted she was unprepared for last year s one million strong migrant influx. If I could, I would go back in time to be better prepared for the refugee crisis in 2015, for which we were rather unprepared. So why are the mainstream media sources ignoring what is really happening to countries like Germany, Sweden, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Greece, France and the UK? Why are they not reporting the truth about the damage this invasion of refugees has done to their culture, to crime rates (specifically rape and sexual assaults) in their communities and to their welfare systems?Watch this eye-opening interview with filmmaker Ami Horowitz as he explains to FOX News Tucker Carlson what he found when he traveled to open-borders Sweden to make a documentary on the effects of the invasion of refugees:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aVs2u-R1Mk | 1real |
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Ages 68 and 70, Share Few Health Details - The New York Times | Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton have been more secretive and selective than many recent presidential nominees in providing details about their personal health — a particularly striking departure, experts say, given the candidates’ age. No American election has ever featured two nominees as old as Mr. Trump, 70, and Mrs. Clinton, 68, and they have kept a grueling pace for more than a year. Yet they have declined to share the latest information about their health or to make their doctors available for interviews. Each released a brief medical statement in 2015 neither has added to it since. Mr. Trump has been especially unforthcoming, even as he has sought to turn health into an issue in the presidential race, questioning Mrs. Clinton’s “physical and mental strength and stamina” as his allies push unfounded rumors that she is ill. Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said Monday that he would have “no problem releasing additional records” about his health if Mrs. Clinton did the same. Advisers to Mrs. Clinton, who has released more details than Mr. Trump, said the onus was on him to match her disclosures. Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney have released details in the months before Election Day or directed their doctors to field questions. John McCain allowed some reporters to review more than 1, 100 pages of his medical records. Among Democratic nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry spoke openly about their health Mr. Kerry had survived prostate cancer. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were more reticent: Their aides argued that the two were young men with no health problems, though Mr. Clinton granted an interview on his health in 1996 under pressure from his Republican opponent, Bob Dole. Mr. Trump, who regularly eats fast food and says he does not sleep much or take long vacations, has provided only a statement from his gastroenterologist last December. It contained no details about his heart rate, respiratory rate, cholesterol level, past medications or family medical history. It did include several laudatory declarations, describing Mr. Trump’s blood pressure ( ) and laboratory test results as “astonishingly excellent. ” The doctor, Harold N. Bornstein of Manhattan, concluded that Mr. Trump, if victorious, “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency” — a claim that was widely mocked as unprovable and unscientific. Mrs. Clinton issued a significantly more detailed letter from her physician in July 2015 that included information about a concussion Mrs. Clinton suffered in 2012, which left her with a blood clot in her head and double vision. Her doctor, Lisa Bardack of Mount Kisco, N. Y. said those symptoms were resolved within two months. Mr. Clinton, however, has said that Mrs. Clinton “required six months of very serious work to get over” the concussion — a statement that helped feed conspiracy theories among Republicans that Mrs. Clinton’s concussion was worse than disclosed, though there is no medical evidence to support that conclusion. Doctors and medical experts said they had rarely seen so few details or updated information about the health of presidential nominees. “Voters deserve far more information from Clinton and Trump about their health than we have now,” said Dr. Burton Lee, who was the elder George Bush’s personal physician during his four years as president. “The public has a right to know, but you just don’t have transparency with these two candidates on much of anything. That’s a given. ” Lawrence O. Gostin, a lawyer on the faculty of medicine at Georgetown, said Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump had both fallen short of releasing medical information, which he described as “extremely important,” given their age. “A person’s fitness, particularly at an older age, can change very quickly, and the rigors of a campaign — all the speeches, travel, long days and nights — can take a toll on your health as well,” said Mr. Gostin, who worked with Mrs. Clinton on her health insurance overhaul effort in 1993 and 1994. “The campaign is a kind of trial run on a patient’s ability to serve as president, so the public deserves details on their health after a year of running. ” Mr. Gostin, who is supporting Mrs. Clinton, said he was not implying that she had any health problems. Advisers to Mrs. Clinton said Monday that she had provided sufficient information about her personal health in the 2015 statement and had no plans to release more, though they pointed to remarks last week by Dr. Bardack reiterating that Mrs. Clinton “is in excellent health and fit to serve as president of the United States. ” The statement last week was a response to fake documents, purportedly by Dr. Bardack, claiming that Mrs. Clinton had suffered seizures and memory loss after her concussion. Her advisers pushed back forcefully when asked if Mrs. Clinton or her doctor would give an interview about her health, arguing that the 2015 statement disclosed far more details about past examinations, vital signs and incidents like Mrs. Clinton’s concussion than Mr. Trump’s medical summary last year. “Hillary Clinton is the only candidate in the race who has met the standard expected of presidential candidates,” said Glen Caplin, a Clinton spokesman. “Donald Trump needs to produce a real doctor’s letter, written by a credible doctor, that details the state of his health for voters. ” Trump campaign advisers said Mr. Trump had no plans to grant interviews about his health, insisting that his age was not an issue. They said he was in good shape, disputing the opinion of some friends of Mr. Trump that he has gained weight recently. The Trump campaign declined a request for an interview with Dr. Bornstein. For much of American history, presidents and candidates were secretive about their health. Woodrow Wilson suffered a severe stroke in 1919 that largely incapacitated him, a condition that he and his advisers hid for a time. Franklin D. Roosevelt was rarely photographed in his wheelchair, and John F. Kennedy’s chronic back pain and regimen of medications were concealed. Mental health issues emerged as a liability, too: Thomas F. Eagleton gave up the 1972 Democratic nomination after acknowledging his past electroconvulsive therapy for depression. But since Reagan’s nomination in 1980 at age 69 — then the oldest nominee to date — candidates’ medical histories have been routinely disclosed and scrutinized. Tad Devine, a veteran Democratic strategist, recalled that Lloyd Bentsen, the 1988 nominee, provided extensive details about his health “because he was 67, which was considered quite old at the time. ” “I think health transparency is important and candidates have to take that responsibility seriously,” Mr. Devine said. “As transparency goes, Trump’s statement is preposterous. ” Steve Schmidt, a Republican strategist who was a senior adviser to Mr. McCain in 2008, said most presidential campaigns want to disclose as little as possible while providing enough information to claim to be transparent. But he suggested that the balance should tilt toward more disclosure this year. “You have two candidates around 70 years old, and while it hasn’t happened since 1974, you’ve had many vice presidents succeed to the office of the presidency,” Mr. Schmidt said. “When you have candidates at their ages, the disclosure should be on the burdensome side. ” | 0fake |
90% Of Hollywood Political Contributions Have Gone To This One Candidate | Nothing says Hollywood like supporting a serial liar who s managed to keep herself in the spotlight by clinging to the coattails of her husband, fellow grifter, serial philanderer and former President, Bill Clinton According to the Los Angeles Times, Hollywood donors have given $5.5 million to candidates on both sides of the 2016 presidential race. Of those donations, 90 percent have gone to Hillary Clinton s campaign.Hillary Clinton and die hard progressive singer Katy Perry While talk of Vice President Joe Biden jumping into the race had swept Hollywood in recent months, with donors previously announcing they would be ready to back him financially, Biden announced this week he would not run for a third time.That leaves the door open for Clinton to consolidate the industry s financial backing, which she largely has accomplished.Aside from a number of artists and other entertainment figures standing behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)16% , Clinton has not only garnered support from most democrats, but has received about $5 million of the total $5.5 million given by Hollywood this cycle.Danny DeVito, who gave $2,700, and Jackson Browne, who pledged $1,350, are supporting Sanders. Others, such as Sarah Silverman, Will Ferrell, and Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis, are also supporting Sanders.Meanwhile, Clinton has collected maximum personal donations from Kanye West, Usher, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks, and Barbra Streisand.Clinton has also received $2,700 apiece from Dana Walden, head of Fox Television Group; Patrick Wachsberger, co-chair of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group; and HBO s president of programming, Michael Lombardo, according to the LA Times.On the GOP side, Jeb Bush has received $5,400 from CBS sports commentator Jim Nantz and $2,700 from producer Jerry Bruckheimer.Bush leads the Republican Party with roughly $165,000 in donations from Hollywood, while New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie comes in second with almost $90,000. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Rep. Jody Hice: Obamacare Repeal Delayed Because ’Very Few People Thought Trump Would Win’ | Rep. Jody Hice ( ) spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Friday, discussing several topics, including President Trump’s Tuesday night address to Congress, calling it “outstanding. ”[“I think it’s the best joint session speech I’ve ever heard. He knocked it out of the park,” added Hice. Hice also discussed this session’s legislative agenda and what looks like on repealing Obamacare. “The problem is on Obamacare. Just to be very honest with you, I think very few people thought Trump would win. They were in defense mode, as to what are we going to do if Hillary wins this thing, and then when, fortunately, Trump won, everything started changing rapidly. ” Hice added that there are multiple plans to replace Obamacare, and he is confident it will get done. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. | 0fake |
South Korea plans to buy 20 additional F-35 aircraft: report | SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea plans to buy an additional 20 F-35A stealth fighter aircraft from the United States, a South Korean newspaper reported on Thursday, less than two months after U.S. President Donald Trump announced Seoul would be purchasing billions of dollars in new military equipment. South Korea s Defence Acquisition Program Administration has established a process for procuring the 20 additional aircraft, the Joongang Ilbo newspaper reported, citing multiple government sources. In 2014 South Korea formally announced a plan to buy 40 F-35As from American defense contractor Lockheed Martin. | 0fake |
Hidden in Plain Sight – The Global Depopulation Agenda | “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.” — Georgia Guidestones By Nathanial Mauka
This is one of the first of ten commandments blazoned across the Georgia Guidestones, an occult monument for which no person or organization has taken credit. Though the monument was commissioned by someone named R.C. Christian more than two decades ago, the true identity of the person who built this specter is still unidentified, and the message is but one of the many examples of a cabalistic desire to cull the population.
There are many more ‘hidden’ in plain sight.
The Georgie Guidestones state :
1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.
10.Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.
Though some of these commandments seem harmless enough, the very first describes the supreme sentiment of the mysterious group of masons who erected the stones. If you want further narrative for what they bode, you don’t have to look far. As Stanford University Professor, Paul Ehrlich , the author of The Population Bomb states ,
“The first task is population control at home. How do we go about it? Many of my colleagues feel that some sort of compulsory birth regulation would be necessary to achieve such control. One plan often mentioned involves the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired population size.”
We can see clearly that the ‘elite’ class, intent on ridding the planet of its burdensome load, has already poisoned the water of 42 out of 50 states with lead . Pesticides and fertilizers poison the remaining states’ water along with the original 42 states. Male infertility is rising due to these contaminants, and premature births along with miscarriage are more common due to others. If the water doesn’t kill you, it will simply lobotomize you, or at least start the process. Harvard medical has pronounced that fluoridated water lowered IQ scores in children who drank it, and aluminum along with fluoride is a known neurotoxin, also contributing to the rising numbers of Alzheimer’s, Parkinsons, and similar neurodegenerative diseases.
Should poisoning the water be insufficient to keep the population down, we can look to the advice of David Brower, once Executive Director of the Sierra Club and founder of the Friends of the Earth. He suggests that,
“Childbearing [should be]a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license … All potential parents [should be]required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.”
Forced and coerced sterilization at the hands of the Eugenics Board and other bodies is nothing new. Some investigators recently found that 148 female inmates in two California prisons were sterilized between 2006 to 2010 — and there may be 100 more incidents dating back to the late 1990s. One reporter wrote ,
“ The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the California Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men’s prison.
Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.
Crystal Nguyen, a former Valley State Prison inmate who worked in the prison’s infirmary during 2007, said she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s not right,’” Nguyen, 28, said. “ Do they think they’re animals, and they don’t want them to breed anymore? ”
Today vaccines are used in a similar manner to help cull the population against their informed consent. Eugenicist, Bill Gates tried to ‘ field test ’ his HPV vaccine in India on indigenous young girls, but the Indian government eventually brought a stop to this. The Rockefeller family also quietly funds vaccines that alter a woman’s hormones to make her less likely to become pregnant or to maintain a pregnancy. A book titled Disciplining Reproduction by Adele E. Clark explains what the elites were planning as early as the 1930s.
“ Other lines of current immunological contraceptive research continue to seek what, during the 1930s, Max Mason of the Rockefeller Foundation called “anti-hormones”: vaccines to block hormones needed for very early pregnancy and a vaccine to block the hormone needed for the surface of the egg to function properly .”
Barack Obama’s top science advisor , John P. Holdren has also said :
“ A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men .
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.”
A simple look at the peer-reviewed Plos One site offers over 7,500 additional scientific articles that connect vaccines to sterilization.
Should vaccines or forced implants be insufficient to reduce the number of ‘useless eaters’ in the world, as Henry Kissinger has implied, then there is also the revealing text of Dr. John Colemann, who outlines the aims of a Committee of 300, otherwise known as the original hierarchical organization to plan a New World Order . Among their plans are genocide, war, the installation of dictators, the legalization of drug use, and the normalizing of pornography :
“To bring about depopulation of large cities according to the trial run carried out by the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. It is interesting to note that Pol Pot’s genocidal plans were drawn up in the US by one of the Club of Rome’s research foundations, and overseen by Thomas Enders, a high-ranking State Department official. It is also interesting that the committee is currently seeking to reinstate the Pol Pot butchers in Cambodia.
“….To cause by means of limited wars in the advanced countries, by means of starvation and diseases in the Third World countries, the death of three billion people by the year 2050, people they call ‘useless eaters.’ The Committee of 300 (Illuminati) commissioned Cyrus Vance to write a paper on this subject of how to bring about such genocide. The paper was produced under the title “Global 2000 Report” and was accepted and approved for action by former President James Earl Carter, and Edwin Muskie, then Secretary of State, for and on behalf of the US Government. Under the terms of the Global 2000 Report, the population of the US is to be reduced by 100 million by the year of 2050.
“……To encourage, and eventually legalize the use of drugs and make pornography an ‘art-form,’ which will be widely accepted and, eventually, become quite commonplace.”
Look no further than Syria , Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, and a myriad other examples of false flag terrorism . Look no further than the top twenty pharmaceutical companies (all U.S., Illuminati based ) that control almost 99 percent of the world’s massive, ‘legalized’ drug trade. See clearly, the genocide happening around the globe , and the child sex trafficking and pornography which is silently abided in Hollywood, Washington, and in every government circle run by cabal-funded individuals.
Look at the money usurped for the task of culling the masses, as former U.S. Secretary of State and presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton has stated :
“This year, the United States renewed funding of reproductive healthcare through the United Nations Population Fund, and more funding is on the way. The U.S. Congress recently appropriated more than $648 million in foreign assistance to family planning and reproductive health programs worldwide . That’s the largest allocation in more than a decade – since we last had a Democratic president, I might add.”
Furthermore, weather modification, or geoengineering , also known as chemtrails , additionally help the slow kill , or fast degeneration of the human species. NASA has admitted to using these weather altering programs, so there is no sense denying their presence. Aside from spraying lithium, strontium , barium, nano aluminum-coated fiberglass [known as CHAFF], radioactive thorium, cadmium, chromium, nickel, desiccated blood, mold spores, yellow fungus, and more, these chemical concoctions act as a global pandemic to further population control.
Without mention of contaminated food, DARPA contrived control devices, and further attempts to make slaves of the remaining sheeple who live through these demonic efforts, know this; you are swimming in the depopulation agenda. The effects are all around you, and it is high time to put up some kind of resistance.
Nathaniel Mauka is a researcher of the dark side of government and exopolitics, and a staff writer for Waking Times .
This article ( Hidden in Plain Sight – The Global Depopulation Agenda ) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Nathaniel Mauka and WakingTimes.com . It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution and author bio.
| 1real |
Wikileaks: CNN’s Donna Brazile Shared More Debate Questions With Hillary Clinton | Videos Wikileaks: CNN’s Donna Brazile Shared More Debate Questions With Hillary Clinton We can't imagine that Bernie supporters are very happy that this is the person chosen to takeover the leadership position at the DNC after Schultz was pushed out for showing favoritism toward the Clinton campaign. | October 31, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile speaks during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Tuesday, July 26, 2016.
Over the past several weeks DNC Chair Donna Brazile has been pummeled in the media after Podesta’s emails revealed that she provided a debate question to Hillary in advance of a March 13, 2016 debate with Bernie Sanders.
Now, the latest WikiLeaks dump reveals that it wasn’t just a one-off thing. The following email from Brazile, sent one day prior to a March 6th debate with Bernie, shows yet another occasion of her providing an advanced peak at debate questions to the Hillary campaign. We can’t imagine that Bernie supporters are very happy that this is the person chosen to takeover the leadership position at the DNC after Schultz was pushed out for showing favoritism toward the Clinton campaign.
And, sure enough, according to the following transcript from the New York Times , Hillary was well prepared for a question from Lee-Anne Walters about lead poisoning…she even had a handy stat about 500k children having “lead in their bodies”….but those are just stats that most people have on the top of their minds.
COOPER: I want to go to Lee-Anne Walters. This is Lee-Anne Walters. She was one of the first people to report problems with the water in Flint. One of her twin boys stopped growing. Her daughter lost her hair.
She says she’s undecided, and has a question for both of you to answer, but we’ll start with Senator Sanders. Ms. Walters?
QUESTION: A fter my family, the city of Flint and the children in D.C. were poisoned by lead , will you make a personal promise to me right now that, as president, in your first 100 days in office, you will make it a requirement that all public water systems must remove all lead service lines throughout the entire United States, and notification made to the — the citizens that have said service lines.
SANDERS: I will make a personal promise to you that the EPA and the EPA director that I appoint will make sure that every water system in the United States of America is tested, and that the people of those communities know the quality of the water that they are drinking, and that we are gonna have a plan to rebuild water systems in this country that are unsafe for drinking. COOPER: Let me just point out for accuracy’s sake, there is 10 million lead service pipes delivering water to people all across this country tonight. Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, I agree completely. I want to go further though. I want us to have an absolute commitment to getting rid of lead wherever it is because it’s not only in water systems, it’s also in soil, and it’s in lead paint that is found mostly in older homes. That’s why 500,000 children today have lead — lead in their bodies.
So, I want to do exactly what you said. We will commit to a priority to change the water systems, and we will commit within five years to remove lead from everywhere.
We were making progress on this in the 1990’s. I worked with then Senator Obama to get more money, more support to do more to remove lead.
And then there is also this follow-up to a previous email in which Brazile promises even more debate questions.
Donna Brazile was noticeably uncomfortable for every second of the following 10-minute interview with Megyn Kelly of Fox News. Kelly pushed hard on the recent Project Veritas undercover videos showing DNC operatives plotting to incite violence at Trump rallies and commit massive voter fraud and over Brazile’s leaked email showing that she provided a CNN debate question to Hillary ahead of a March 2016 debate with Bernie. Brazile tried every trick in the book to deflect and pivot but Kelly held her feet to the fire.
Brazile’s response on the Project Veritas videos were mostly nonsensical though she did summon the typical democrat argument that O’Keefe is a criminal and has a history of doctoring videos. But the real fireworks came when she was pressed on her leaked email revealing that she shared a debate question with Hillary in advance of a debate.
“ I did not receive any questions from CNN , let’s just be very clear.”
“First of all what information are you providing to me that will let me see what you are talking about?”
“ As a Christian woman I understand persecution, but I will not sit here and be persecuted because your information is totally false. ”
“Podesta’s emails were stolen. You’re like the thief that wants to bring into the night what you found in the gutter. ”
“ I am not going to try to validate falsified information. I have my documents, I have my files.
Because Donna seems to be afflicted with the same disease that haunted Hillary during her tenure as Secretary of State, an awful condition the causes the host to “not recall” significant life events, below is a refresher of the email in question.
And here is a similar interview by Jordan Chariton of The Young Turks :
Yeah, but Russia.
This article originally appeared on ZeroHedge.com . Be Sociable, Share! | 1real |
Former CIA Director Says Trump Is Actually HELPING ISIS – Here’s How | Donald Trump s idiotic followers may believe that Trump is going to eradicate the Islamic State, especially considering the fact that he threatens to bomb the sh*t out of them every chance he gets, but quite the opposite is actually happening. According to former CIA director Michael Hayden, who was also the head of the NSA, Trump s anti-Muslim rhetoric is probably helping the terror group instead. In a recent interview with the Guardian, Hayden explained that the jihadist narrative is that there is undying enmity between Islam and the modern world. When Trump says they all hate us, he s using their narrative. He s feeding their recruitment video. Hayden is correct, no one has slammed Muslims more than The Donald. No once can forget his comments in December, which came a few days after a terrorist shooting in San Bernardino, California. Trump s reaction to the Muslim shooters attack was: Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life. Islam is a religion of 1.6 billion people and Trump threatened to ban every single one of them from entering the United States. If that s not a major motivator for terrorists to attack America, I m not sure what is. Even after Trump s horrific anti-Muslim comments, the xenophobia didn t stop. In fact, it was just the beginning. Trump s anti-Muslim rhetoric has inspired violence and harassment toward Muslims all over the United States for example, people wearing hijabs are being called terrorist or are being physically attacked for no reason other than their religion. It s not a coincidence that these attacks were all performed by Trump supporters. Hayden isn t the only one to recently suggest that Trump s anti-Islamic rhetoric is actually a good thing for the terrorist group. Just a few days ago, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said that the Islamic State would love it if Donald Trump got elected. Friedman said: They would want someone who they think would do something more extreme than the other, push America back in the Middle East, and therefore inflame the situation in a way that ISIS thinks would benefit them. Featured image via Win McNamee / Getty Images | 1real |
Confused Looking Trump Totally HUMILIATES Himself When He Gets Lost On Stage In Poland | Donald Trump simply cannot seem to stop embarrassing himself and thus America on the world stage. Right now, he is in Europe for the incredibly important G-20 Summit, in which he is sharing a stage with people who are, well, qualified to be world leaders, whereas he clearly is not. It s also no secret that all of those leaders think he is a fool and a buffoon. As if that wasn t bad enough, Trump also spent his time bashing the American free press in a joint press conference with the Polish president. He also went after the intelligence community, and of course, couldn t resist taking a few shots at President Obama.Now, those things are already seriously problematic. However, the real, visible shocker came as Trump finished his speech on the stage in Poland in front of a crowd the Polish government had bussed in to cheer for Trump because they are aware of how fragile his ego is. When he was done speaking, Trump walked from behind the bullet proof barrier that was there to protect his life. But instead of walking off the stage or going toward his security detail, he just wandered around looking confused, clearly unsure of what to do next. Finally, he just stood there like a deer in headlights.Now, I am no doctor, and far be it from me to diagnose the man with anything. I won t do that. But something seems to be seriously wrong there. That s not just Trump s rank incompetence. That s clear confusion. He literally had no clue what was going on around him or what he was supposed to be doing. I guess we should be grateful he managed to read from a teleprompter for a bit before whatever is going on with him reared its ugly head.And this is the guy with the nuclear codes. Think about that and fear for the future of the world.Watch this amazing video below:Trump gets lost in Poland. pic.twitter.com/mLSZsWDwAZ Vic Berger IV (@VicBergerIV) July 6, 2017Featured image via Olivier Douliery Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
Wells Fargo’s ‘Living Will’ Plan Is Rejected Again by Regulators - The New York Times | Wells Fargo has run afoul of banking regulators once again: On Tuesday, for the second time this year, the bank did not pass a key regulatory test that was created after the 2008 financial crisis to reduce the threats that large banks pose to the broader economy. In April, regulators announced that they had rejected the “living will” plans proposed by Wells Fargo and four other major banks. Each bank had been required to submit a plan to unwind itself in a way that would safeguard the economy in case of the bank’s failure. Since then, all five banks have resubmitted their plans only Wells Fargo’s plan did not pass muster. Because of the continuing problems with Wells Fargo’s plan, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will prohibit it from establishing new international units or acquiring a subsidiary that is not a bank. Those penalties can be lifted if Wells Fargo fixes its plan by March 31. Wells has until then to submit its plan a third time if the problems linger too long, regulators could place additional limits on the company. For instance, the bank could be forced to start selling assets in certain units, including at its brokerage arm. In a statement on Tuesday, Wells Fargo said it believed it had already addressed the areas with which regulators had found fault. “We will continue to work closely with the agencies to better understand their concerns so that we can bring our resolution process in line with their expectations,” the bank said. Regulators said the issue with Wells Fargo’s plan was not related to its huge sham accounts fraud, which has plunged the bank into turmoil since September. Wells is still struggling to investigate and contain the damage from that scandal, in which thousands of bankers were fired for creating secret and unwanted accounts on behalf of customers, some of whom lost money or had their credit records damaged. Still, the issue is the latest black eye for Wells Fargo, which was only a few months ago was considered one of the nation’s most banks. All the largest American banks must submit to regulators their living wills, or strategies for unwinding themselves in an orderly way — something they lacked in 2008, when the federal government had to prop up sagging banks like Citigroup and Bank of America. The requirement, passed as part of the 2010 financial overhaul, is meant to prevent taxpayers from having to bail out big banks again in the event of a huge financial failure. Of all the rules passed in the wake of the crisis, this requirement is designed to address most directly the issue of big banks’ being too big to fail. lobbyists have grumbled that the living wills are another costly exercise that requires companies to spend months trying, often unsuccessfully, to divine the will of regulators. In its statement, Wells Fargo said it had created an office within the bank dedicated to correcting problems with its proposal. Democrats are holding up the living wills as an example of the strength and success of at a time when Republicans are vowing to undo parts of the law once Donald J. Trump takes office. Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who is the ranking member of the banking committee, said, “Today’s joint determination is a reminder that Wall Street reform is working to rein in the megabanks that crashed our economy and got bailed out by taxpayers. ” It is ironic, in some ways, that Wells is the one bank that continues to have problems proving to regulators that it could manage its unwinding itself in the event of a bankruptcy. During the financial crisis, Wells avoided many of the mortgage missteps that nearly sank Wall Street. Compared with other large banks, it was relatively well capitalized to withstand the shocks of the 2008 crisis. But its regulatory star has fallen since the sham account scandal erupted. The bank’s longtime leader, John G. Stumpf, was called to testify twice before Congress, where he faced a barrage of criticism for failing to properly manage the bank and stamp out the bad behavior. Mr. Stumpf has since stepped down. In a settlement over the illegal accounts, Wells paid $185 million — including $100 million to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the largest fine that agency had ever assessed. The regulators cited specific technical deficiencies in Wells’s living will, including issues of “shared services” and “legal entity rationalization. ” These problems generally point to the fact, regulators have said, that Wells has not figured out how to adequately unwind all of the many complex and interconnected parts of its banking empire. Regulators said the other four other banks they had faulted in April — Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, State Street and JPMorgan Chase — had addressed the deficiencies in their plans. | 0fake |
U.S. military to accept transgender recruits on Monday: Pentagon | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Transgender people will be allowed for the first time to enlist in the U.S. military starting on Monday as ordered by federal courts, the Pentagon said on Friday, after President Donald Trump’s administration decided not to appeal rulings that blocked his transgender ban. Two federal appeals courts, one in Washington and one in Virginia, last week rejected the administration’s request to put on hold orders by lower court judges requiring the military to begin accepting transgender recruits on Jan. 1. A Justice Department official said the administration will not challenge those rulings. “The Department of Defense has announced that it will be releasing an independent study of these issues in the coming weeks. So rather than litigate this interim appeal before that occurs, the administration has decided to wait for DOD’s study and will continue to defend the president’s lawful authority in District Court in the meantime,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. In September, the Pentagon said it had created a panel of senior officials to study how to implement a directive by Trump to prohibit transgender individuals from serving. The Defense Department has until Feb. 21 to submit a plan to Trump. Lawyers representing currently-serving transgender service members and aspiring recruits said they had expected the administration to appeal the rulings to the conservative-majority Supreme Court, but were hoping that would not happen. Pentagon spokeswoman Heather Babb said in a statement: “As mandated by court order, the Department of Defense is prepared to begin accessing transgender applicants for military service Jan. 1. All applicants must meet all accession standards.” Jennifer Levi, a lawyer with gay, lesbian and transgender advocacy group GLAD, called the decision not to appeal “great news.” “I’m hoping it means the government has come to see that there is no way to justify a ban and that it’s not good for the military or our country,” Levi said. Both GLAD and the American Civil Liberties Union represent plaintiffs in the lawsuits filed against the administration. In a move that appealed to his hard-line conservative supporters, Trump announced in July that he would prohibit transgender people from serving in the military, reversing Democratic President Barack Obama’s policy of accepting them. Trump said on Twitter at the time that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.” Four federal judges - in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Riverside, California - have issued rulings blocking Trump’s ban while legal challenges to the Republican president’s policy proceed. The judges said the ban would likely violate the right under the U.S. Constitution to equal protection under the law. The Pentagon on Dec. 8 issued guidelines to recruitment personnel in order to enlist transgender applicants by Jan. 1. The memo outlined medical requirements and specified how the applicants’ sex would be identified and even which undergarments they would wear. The Trump administration previously said in legal papers that the armed forces were not prepared to train thousands of personnel on the medical standards needed to process transgender applicants and might have to accept “some individuals who are not medically fit for service.” The Obama administration had set a deadline of July 1, 2017, to begin accepting transgender recruits. But Trump’s defense secretary, James Mattis, postponed that date to Jan. 1, 2018, which the president’s ban then put off indefinitely. Trump has taken other steps aimed at rolling back transgender rights. In October, his administration said a federal law banning gender-based workplace discrimination does not protect transgender employees, reversing another Obama-era position. In February, Trump rescinded guidance issued by the Obama administration saying that public schools should allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity. | 0fake |
Romance Turns Sour for Swansea Fans, and Bob Bradley Is Caught in the Middle - The New York Times | SWANSEA, Wales — The protests started even before the humiliation was done. Zlatan Ibrahimovic had yet to score his second goal, which would be Manchester United’s final one in a victory over Swansea City on Sunday, but already the dull hum of mutiny flickered around the losing team’s Liberty Stadium. The songs began in the corner of the East Stand, where Swansea’s most vocal supporters are corralled. Each chant was greeted with a ripple of applause from the rest of the stadium. “We want our club back,” the first chorus went. The second demanded that “greedy” members of the board leave the club. A third suggested an explicit use for “dollars,” an allusion to the recent American takeover of the team. Bob Bradley, Swansea’s American manager, heard what he called the “back and forth” but tried to shut it out of his mind and focus on the game unfolding in front of him. The fans kept voicing their dissent as Manchester United waltzed through, almost unchallenged, once more. Over the last decade or so, Swansea has been British soccer’s story, with an improbable rise that seemed to belong to another age. The tale proved so irresistible that it even made it onto celluloid. That movie, “Jack to a King,” depicts a club saved from financial ruin by lifelong fans and then lifted from oblivion and into the elite by a succession of young, imaginative managers preaching an adventurous style of play. It is, strictly speaking, a documentary, but it follows the narrative arc of a romance. For a while, it seemed that Swansea would have its happily ever after. In 2013, the club won its first major trophy in more than a century of existence, prevailing in the English tournament now known as the EFL Cup. The following season, the team, not far removed from the threat of extinction, earned a rare spot in one of the prestigious European competitions, the Europa League. That was only two years ago, but it seems like a lifetime. Devotion, all of a sudden, is in short supply in this corner of South Wales. Managers have come and gone with alarming, uncharacteristic frequency: Michael Laudrup, Garry Monk and Francesco Guidolin, who yielded to Bradley last month. Cornerstone players have departed. New owners — Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, American sports executives — have arrived. The mounting discontent among supporters suggests that rapid change has not been universally welcomed. Results make it hard to disagree: Swansea has not won a game since the opening day of the season Bradley has picked up just 1 point from his first four matches in charge. The club is 19th in the Premier League, with the same point total as Sunderland. The threat of relegation to a lower division is very real. Who is to blame is not entirely clear. The accusations of greed might have been directed at Kaplan and Levien, seen as speculators coming to profit from others’ hard work. Or the song might have been meant for Huw Jenkins, the chairman, and a number of other directors who made millions from the club’s sale this year but retain their places on the board. Who will play the role of lightning rod, though, is not in question. Bradley has spent much of his career awaiting a chance in the Premier League. Now he has it, and he is getting the full experience: not just the full stadiums, the razzmatazz and the chance to pit his wits against the likes of José Mourinho and Arsène Wenger, but the politics, the impatience and the cutthroat Darwinism, too. Wisely, he chose to avoid the issue of the protests, insisting after the match that the only way to “win the support of the fans is to play better and take points. ” He added, “The players, the coaches, the professionals — we have to focus on the only part we can control. ” Bradley, though, will not be afforded the chance to be neutral. To some fans, he is a manifestation of the second transformation in Swansea’s recent history. After its gleeful metamorphosis into a Premier League fixture, there is now the grudging mutation from local institution into international concern. It is Bradley’s nationality that condemns him. Danny Gabbidon, a former Wales international, said on the radio after the game that the accent of Bradley, a New Jersey native, meant that he “could not take him seriously. ” One fan, as the game petered out, loudly suggested that Bradley was “out of his depth. ” By that point, a goal from the Dutch defender Mike van der Hoorn had given the final score a veneer of respectability for Swansea and muted the worst of the dissent for the final 20 minutes of the match. The lull will not last. Some fans are convinced that Swansea is managed by an American because it is owned by Americans. To them, Bradley is a reason for unrest, not a victim of it. There are holes in this particular plotline. Swansea’s dramatic elevation was characterized by stability. From 2007 to 2014, Swansea employed four managers: Roberto Martínez, Paulo Sousa, Brendan Rodgers and Laudrup. Each joined a club with a clear vision of not only where it was going but also how it wanted to get there. Since Laudrup’s acrimonious exit, Swansea has had four managers in less than three years. The smoothness, that mentality in which the club rolled on regardless of the man on the sideline, has long since disappeared. In December, Monk, a former player, was replaced by Alan Curtis, a trusted coach and local hero, on a temporary basis because the board did not have a successor in mind. Guidolin, an experienced Italian, eventually took the post — after not working for two years. He was hardly an obvious extension of Swansea’s reputation for stylish play. The players like Bradley and enjoy his training sessions, and the club’s staff members admire his insatiable work ethic, but the concerns about Guidolin apply to him, too. Whatever else he is, and whatever his passport says, Bradley is not cast from the same mold as Martínez and Rodgers. That does not mean he will be a failure, of course, and it does not mean he should be run out of town. But it does speak of a club that has, somehow, lost its sense of self. That development, most likely, lies at the root of the discontent among Swansea’s supporters. Swansea won admiration during its romantic period because of what it stood for: the idea that fans could run a club, and run it well the belief that style could bring success. Now, that story has ended, but nothing has emerged in its place. Swansea was different now it looks like any other Premier League club, owned from afar, its only ambition to survive, thinking from one game to the next. Wins would lift the pressure from Bradley, but they may not heal the deeper rift. What the club that wrote a tale worthy of a film needs, more than anything, is another script. | 0fake |
FBI chief sought more funds for Russia probe days before he was fired: NYT | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former FBI Director James Comey had requested additional funding and personnel for the agency’s probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election just days before he was fired, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Comey, fired by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, had asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last week for a significant boost in resources and later briefed U.S. lawmakers on the request, the New York Times said, citing three unnamed officials. | 0fake |
Senate deal to end Illinois budget impasse grinds to halt | CHICAGO (Reuters) - Movement on a bipartisan deal to end Illinois’ record budget impasse halted on Wednesday with the Democratic head of the state Senate pinning the blame on Republican Governor Bruce Rauner. The Senate had been scheduled to continue voting on a package of legislation negotiated by Senate President John Cullerton and Republican Leader Christine Radogno in an effort to end Illinois’ 20-month budget stalemate. The chamber passed some of the bills on Tuesday. But Cullerton told the chamber on Wednesday that Rauner “decided to inject himself in this process and doesn’t want this approved in this form,” a move, he said, that removed Republican votes for the bills. “For now we are in a holding pattern,” Cullerton said, adding that the chamber would be ready to start voting again “as soon as we get word there is Republican support.” Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said while some progress has been made, “more work is needed to achieve a good deal for taxpayers.” Although the governor has not been involved in the Senate negotiations, his proposed fiscal 2018 budget incorporates aspects of the deal to fill a funding gap. Illinois, the nation’s fifth-largest state, is limping through a record-setting second consecutive fiscal year without a complete budget due to an ongoing feud between Rauner and Democrats who control the legislature. A six-month fiscal 2017 budget expired on Dec. 31. The state’s pile of unpaid bills has mushroomed to $12 billion, while its unfunded pension liability has climbed to $130 billion. As a result, Illinois’ credit ratings, which have been downgraded six times since January 2015, are the lowest among the 50 states. The Senate’s bipartisan legislative package includes bills to complete the fiscal 2017 budget, hike taxes, cut pension costs by about $1 billion annually, authorize borrowing to pay down the bill pile, expand casino gaming and freeze local property taxes. All of the bills are tied to each other, so that if one failed to pass the entire package would go down. While Cullerton expressed frustration with the governor’s action during a post-session press conference, Radogno was more optimistic. “I know the governor will be joining us to get in trying to get that done,” she said on the Senate floor. “We need to get this done and done soon.” | 0fake |
Donald and Vladimir | Written by Daniel McAdams Friday November 18, 2016 Are we seeing an opening to better US/Russia relations? One of president-elect Donald Trump's first moves after victory was a telephone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin. But turning away from the past several years of deteriorating relations will not be an easy task even if the incoming president makes it a priority. The Trump/Putin call sent shockwaves through Capitol Hill, with certain Senators warning the incoming president against further moves toward rapprochement. What's next? RPI's Daniel McAdams joins Crosstalk to give his views: Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given. | 1real |
Trump Budget Guru, Long a Fiscal Hawk, Now Has to Sell Spending - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Making the rounds at the Capitol on a recent evening, Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s budget director, decided to add an unscheduled stop: a meeting of the House Freedom Caucus, the group of conservatives that once counted Mr. Mulvaney as a founding member. This history, it seems, does not afford lifetime privileges. After addressing the room briefly, amid the group’s push to oppose the Republican health care bill endorsed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Mulvaney was interrupted, respectfully, by the caucus’s chairman, Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina. “Mark said, ‘Look, Mick, we’re going to ask you to step out because we know your loyalties are different now than they were,’” recalled Mr. Mulvaney, a South Carolina congressman from 2011 until his confirmation last month. “And I said, ‘Mark, you’re absolutely right. ’” He left without complaint. As Mr. Trump unveils his budget plans this week — against the backdrop of a health care bill that Mr. Mulvaney’s former colleagues detest — the man charged with executing the White House’s fiscal vision is a figure who, not very long ago, might well have been leading the opposition to much of it. While Mr. Mulvaney’s first budget does call for some of the deepest cuts to domestic programs in decades, in many ways his fiscal philosophy appears at odds with that of the president. Mr. Mulvaney has long railed against runaway military spending Mr. Trump wants a huge increase. He has favored drastic changes to Medicare and lifting the eligibility age for Social Security, placing him at odds with Mr. Trump, who has pledged to protect those entitlement programs. And as administration officials and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill strain to muscle the health care bill through the House, Mr. Mulvaney has been placed in the unusual position of selling his former comrades on its merits. “He’s a very worthy opponent, let’s put it that way,” Mr. Meadows said. “You can be a worthy adversary and not be an enemy. ” Before being asked to leave the meeting, Mr. Mulvaney did persuade the group to hold a future gathering at a more exclusive address: the White House bowling alley, for a night of pizza and health care policy. Those who knew Mr. Mulvaney before he was the nation’s budget guru say that such gestures are typical of a man whose leanings in Congress belied a collegial style. “He had a great sense of humor that could take you by surprise,” said Carolyn Tillman, who was a classmate of Mr. Mulvaney’s at Charlotte Catholic High School in North Carolina. “He was always very interested in other people’s opinions. ” But even then Mr. Mulvaney’s ambition was apparent. He edited the school newspaper, served as student council president, acted in theater performances and served as president of the science club. He was also on the wrestling and golf teams and was a manager for the varsity basketball team. After graduating from Georgetown University, Mr. Mulvaney went on to become a lawyer and then worked in the real estate and restaurant industries before jumping into South Carolina politics. By then a father of triplets, he was elected in 2006 to the State House of Representatives, where he gained a reputation as a budding fiscal hawk and policy maven. “He very much believes in the smaller government, lower taxation model,” said Joel Lourie, a former Democratic state senator in South Carolina who is a friend of Mr. Mulvaney’s. “During his career both in the legislature and in Congress he was very consistent in that regard. ” Mr. Lourie did note that some of Mr. Mulvaney’s former colleagues in South Carolina have wondered how he really feels about carrying out a Trump administration agenda that includes plans for big infrastructure spending and health care legislation that subsidizes insurance. “It’s been a little surprising for many in this state to see Mick on the front lines pushing a health care proposal that many of the more conservative members of Congress are not supporting,” Mr. Lourie said. “That’s a little bit of a departure for him. ” This is, after all, the same man who once gathered in a Capitol Hill chapel with three fellow conservative freshmen members from South Carolina in 2011, seeking spiritual guidance as the government was hours away from shutting down. (His decision: a vote against a spending deal to keep the lights on.) And Mr. Mulvaney found an unlikely kindred spirit, at least on one issue, in Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the liberal Democrat with whom he joined forces on a push to stifle military spending. After his nomination, Mr. Mulvaney was eventually approved with just 51 votes, navigating a confirmation process that included revelations that he had failed to pay more than $15, 000 in payroll taxes for a household employee. At his committee hearing, Mr. Mulvaney pledged to be a sober purveyor of bad news, if necessary. “The credibility I think I bring to this job is that I believe very firmly in real numbers,” Mr. Mulvaney told lawmakers. “My job is to tell the president the truth. My job is to tell you the truth. ” Since taking the job, he seems to have embraced a more targeted mission statement, articulated at a White House briefing last month. Mr. Mulvaney had been asked why foreign aid, a small fraction of federal spending, was an expected target of the Trump budget. “Yes, it’s a fairly small part of the discretionary budget, but it’s still consistent with what the president said,” Mr. Mulvaney said. “When you see these reductions, you’ll be able to tie it back to a speech the president gave or something the president has said previously. ” The administration’s task, he said, was “taking his words and turning them into policies and dollars. ” At times, he has also found occasion to dispute certain numbers that displeased the White House. After the Congressional Budget Office projected an increase of 24 million people without health insurance by 2026, Mr. Mulvaney began an appearance on Fox News from snowy Washington by declaring, “Welcome to Washington, where the C. B. O. says it’s sunny and 75 degrees. ” Before the report’s release, he suggested that estimating the effects of legislation, a chief function of the C. B. O. “probably isn’t the best use of their time. ” Then there was the claim, presented without evidence on CNN, that the Obama administration had been “manipulating the numbers” in recent years to suppress the unemployment rate. Mr. Frank, the former congressman, recalled his bygone alliance with Mr. Mulvaney fondly, even as he expressed little sympathy for any discomfort Mr. Mulvaney might now encounter in his new role. “The president does not have the power to force you to become budget director,” Mr. Frank said. He was reminded, he said, of a line attributed to King Henry IV of France, who converted to Catholicism to seize the throne: “Paris is worth a Mass. ” “I guess,” Mr. Frank said, “being budget director is worth military spending. ” | 0fake |
Suicide risk torture victim can be deported: EU court adviser | LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - European governments can refuse asylum to traumatized torture victims and deport them even if a lack of healthcare in their home country means they may well kill themselves on return, a top EU court adviser said on Tuesday. An advocate general of the European Court of Justice gave the opinion in the case of a former Tamil rebel who was refused asylum in Britain and appealed on the grounds that he would not get treatment in his native Sri Lanka for mental stress caused by his previous torture by government forces. Yves Bot advised ECJ judges who will rule on the case later that the man, identified only as MP , no longer risked torture in Sri Lanka. The LTTE rebels were defeated in 2009. ECJ judges typically follow the advice of the advocate general, although they are not bound to do so. MP may not claim subsidiary protection ... even if it is unlikely that he could receive the necessary treatment to manage the post-traumatic stress syndrome he suffers from, owing to shortcomings in the health system, and is likely to commit suicide if he is returned to his country of origin, Bot said. Britain s Supreme Court had sought the ECJ s guidance. Bot said the British judges could still choose to rule that the man was entitled to protection as a very exceptional case , but said MP did not appear to fit that category. Bot stressed that a broader reading of the relevant law, giving asylum to all those who had suffered persecution in the past, would considerably increase the obligations of EU member states and would go beyond the intentions of lawmakers. The European Union has faced deep political crisis in the past few years over large numbers of people seeking asylum; more than a million arrived in 2015. That has fuelled nationalist opposition to the EU as an institution and raised tensions among the member states, which have tightened controls on immigration. Immigration, and the power of the ECJ to overrule British law, were both among the reasons cited by campaigners when Britain voted to leave the bloc. | 0fake |
Expert Explains How Mike Pence Is The Worst Candidate For Women’s Rights There Has Ever Been (VIDEO) | Now that Indiana governor Mike Pence has officially been announced as Donald Trump s running mate, it s important to understand exactly who he is and what his stances on key issues are. Those who were expecting Trump to select a more moderate VP pick are going to learn really fast that Pence is anything but moderate.During a segment on MSNBC s AM Joy, an expert on Christian fundamentalism made it very clear that Pence is a dangerous right-wing radical, especially concerning his views on women s healthcare rights.The show s host, Joy Reid asked Sharlet what his thoughts on Pence are concerning the nexus between evangelicalism and Republicanism in Washington. Sharlet answers, calling Pence a broker between the two. To understand Mike Pence and to understand that kind of religious conservative politics, you have to not think of social conservatism and fiscal conservatism as separate, but like Mike Pence say, Our goal, our mission, is to marry fiscal and moral values. He sees them as one in the same, so when you go back in his record and you look at his speeches about abortion, which are really something, Sharlet answered. He is probably the most anti-abortion presidential or VP candidate we ve had. You see him also bringing in financial. He sees it if we don t stop abortion, our economy will collapse. So he s the guy who sort of stands in the middle between those two factions of the Republican Party. At that point, Reid brings up Pence s record regarding abortion, Planned Parenthood, and his failures as a leader during a recent HIV outbreak, saying: On abortion, he signed a law as Indiana governor banning abortions because of genetic anomalies, abortions that were unfortunate anomalies, and he also signed a law mandating, and this is weird, women who have a miscarriage or an abortion had to have a burial for the fetus and must cremate after a miscarriage or abortion. On LGBT rights, he signed a law allowing religious beliefs as a defense against discrimination in lawsuits, and then after a backlash, he s revised the law to exclude LGBT discrimination which got him in trouble with conservatives in Indiana. On prison, he reinstated a ten-year mandatory minimum drug sentencing, said Reid.That s only a small sampling of what Sharlet and Reid had to say about Pence s record. It s very clear that the GOP has no interest in supporting even a faux-moderate candidate this election judging by the support he is receiving.The bottom line is that Pence is too dangerous to allow into office. Find out more on why by watching the segment below:https://youtu.be/-3aUzRornckFeatured image from video screenshot | 1real |
Vote fraud expert Bev Harris exposes electronic voting machines [Video] | Leave a reply The second video on this post is very important – g
Black Box Voting , founded in 2003, performs nonpartisan investigative reporting on elections in an attempt to stop vote rigging.
You may be wondering what the term “black box” means. A “black box” system is non-transparent; its functions are hidden from the public. Elections, of course, should not be black box systems.
Here is a link to a free copy of the book, Black Box Voting HERE .
Author Bev Harris became known for groundbreaking work on electronic voting machines, which can remove transparency of the vote count.
With voting machines, all political power can be converted to the hands of a few anonymous subcontractors: SF Source InfoWars Oct. 2016 Share this: | 1real |
Kenya president: dialogue with opposition must wait until court cases done | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Monday that he expects the opposition to challenge his victory in the Oct. 26 repeat presidential election in court and that any dialogue must wait until that process is done. My victory today is just part of a process that is likely to once again be subjected to a constitutional test through our courts ... I will submit to this constitutional path regardless of the outcome, Kenyatta said in his acceptance speech. Those who are going to ask me: Are you going to engage in dialogue? ... Let them (the opposition) first and foremost exhaust all their constitutional options. | 0fake |
Freeing Yourself From Overwhelm | By Jacob Devaney / upliftconnect.com
Overwhelm is a constant state of being for many of us, but it doesn’t need to be. Most of us are under a deluge of responsibilities like running errands, responding to emails, keeping up with house-chores, hurrying to meetings, and more. Though this is normal in our modern lives, our nervous system struggles to keep up. If we don’t make a conscious effort to relieve this kind of stress, our adrenals get depleted, and sometimes we get sick. Luckily overwhelm is not about how much is going on in your life, it is all about how you manage things. Let’s dissect overwhelm from a neurological perspective and explore ways to reduce its impact on our lives.
When life’s circumstances overwhelm our ability to cope or integrate, our nervous system goes into a stress response. It doesn’t need to be a life-threatening incident for the nervous system to trigger a fight, flight or collapse response. The interesting thing is that it is purely subjective. It can be as simple as a “perceived threat”, like being embarrassed in public, imagining that you will get fired for being late, or having a squirrel run in front of your car. Regardless of how big or small the incident is, our system can go into overwhelm, causing our brain to release all the stress hormones that accompany it.
It can be as simple as a “perceived threat” like imagining that you will get fired for being late. Self Awareness to the Rescue
We pride ourselves in being busy. Many of us feel like something is wrong if we are tired, or feeling lazy and want to lay on the couch and stare at a wall. Actually, this is the parasympathetic, restorative nervous system that is inviting us to step out of our constant ‘go-go-go’ state so that we can unwind. Laying in the grass and looking at the clouds is actually much better for us than being on a couch staring at a wall, but we rarely make a conscious decision to do so. Instead, we collapse right in the middle of cleaning our house and then beat ourselves up for being lazy.
Humans have a very different way of coping with stress than all other primates. In order to conquer fire (a trait that has allowed humans to climb to the top of the food chain), we had to develop regions of the brain that suppress our fear so that we can overcome it. The stress hormones associated with fear are still released even if we don’t indulge them. Animals instantly discharge these hormones, but humans need to do this consciously. In other words, we have to make a choice to actively engage in practices that reset our nervous system. As we have explored in How to Relieve Stress Stored in our Bodies , this process can be a whole lot of fun and very rewarding on many levels.
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. Do not make yourself ill with overwhelm. -Clarissa Estes
Humans have a very different way of coping with stress than all other primates. Information Overwhelm
We live in a time of extreme bombardment of information, along with a desire to wake up socially and address the many problems facing the world. There is no effective solution when we come from a constant state of overwhelm. Being relaxed and clear-minded is the only way to approach these seemingly insurmountable issues. This research is well documented in the Uplift article Will Humanity Choose Love or Fear? Is the information you are reading an immediate threat to your survival… Probably not.
Information overload occurs when a person is exposed to more information than the brain can process at one time. – Lucy Jo Palladino , Ph.D Hemispheric Disconnect
The right hemisphere of our brains is great for creativity and spirituality, it is where we go when we ponder the eternal nature of things, yet it doesn’t comprehend time sequencing. Understanding this is paramount to taking the reigns on our overwhelm and positioning us to have greater coping skills. This unconscious, biologically-wired, stress response is explored in Get to Know Your Amygdala .
The right hemisphere processes experience differently from the left – non-verbally through body sensations, visual images, emotions, and holistically – it processes the gestalt of someone’s face or energy globally, all at once, rather than in a linear data bit by data bit mode. The right hemisphere is where we get our “gut” intuitive sense of things and the gestalt of things as a whole. The right hemisphere is the seat of the social and personal self. The right hemisphere regulates the sub-cortical limbic system and is dominant for social-emotional processing. -Linda Graham
We live in a time of extreme bombardment of information. How Do We Get Past Overwhelm?
Step One is as simple as recognizing that you are operating from a state of overwhelm. Self-awareness breaks us out of unconscious patterning, and this is central to the practice of mindfulness. Learning to check in with one’s self by pausing is also a great way to develop emotional intelligence.
Step Two is to take a few deep breathes after recognizing that you are overwhelmed. This also works if you are angry, sad, or reacting out of fear. Since the emotional response is rooted in the right hemisphere, it always feels immediate. By breathing you are helping your mind integrate the threat level into time synchronisation, which is a left-brain process that will help relax your nervous system.
Step Three is to remind yourself that you are safe, and to develop strategies to call on this sense of safety when needed. This is known as resourcing one’s self, and there are healthy ways of doing it, as well as unhealthy ways. Hint: reaching for a cigarette, or indulging in television, drugs, or junk-food is not as effective as 5 minutes of stretching, mindful breathing, or taking a moment to connect with nature.
Step Four is to help your body let go of any stress hormones that may have been released into your system at the first moment of panic/overwhelm. Shake like a dog, jump up and down or do some psoas stretches to discharge the nervous system and help you reset your physical body as well as your emotional body.
Self-awareness breaks us out of unconscious patterning.
Overwhelm has a whole lot to do with our perceptions. We expand our mental-emotional container to be able to integrate larger and larger amounts of information without succumbing to overwhelm in the first place. The steps above will help you deal with overwhelm when it hits you, but a daily mindfulness practice will help you reduce the instances when you are thrown into overwhelm. The ability to respond without reacting, to observe without indulging, will help you increase success in your life on many levels. It will also be a valuable skill in rapidly changing times!
Jacob Devaney - Founder and director of Culture Collective, creative activist, musician, and producer. 0.0 · | 1real |
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