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Pelosi: Barring Illegal Immigrants From Citizenship Is ’Just Not Respectful, And Not Worthy of Our Country’ - Breitbart | On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” House Minority Leader Representative Nancy Pelosi ( ) stated that immigration reform that gives people in the country illegally legal status, but forbids citizenship is “just not respectful, and not worthy of our country. ” After stating that she hopes President Trump is open to immigration reform, Pelosi was asked about whether she could live with a path to legal status for people in the country illegally. She answered, “I think it’s more what our country is about. We have criticized other countries that said we utilize you as a workforce, but you’re not fully present in our country. In my view, it’s very important for us to say the path to citizenship is the dignity that these people — . ” She added, “[I]f it’s something that forbids citizenship, no, I couldn’t sign on to that. If we want to talk about — I think there are plenty of ways we can work in a bipartisan way on immigration. In fact, we have to. ” When asked about a plan that would give legal status initially, and a potential path to citizenship down the road, Pelosi answered, “It’s always just a path. All we’ve talked about is a path to citizenship. … But to be a country that says, we have — not even citizenship, because it isn’t citizenship, it’s just not respectful, and not worthy of our country. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 0fake |
This Is How Putin Celebrated Trump’s Election Win | Several people were victorious after Tuesday’s election – Donald Trump, the Republicans of America, and apparently Vladimir Putin. It appears that the president of Russia is ecstatic to work alongside business mogul turned statesman Mr. Trump.
Via ViralThread
It’s well known that American-Russian relations are pretty grim right now. Within the past few months, Russia has practiced nuclear evacuation drills and launched airstrikes on the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo. It seems as if we’re entering a second Cold War, however president-elect Trump is hoping to change all of that.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton also hoped to repair the relationship between the two old foes. Sadly however the conflicting ideologies between the Putin and Obama Administrations got in the way. Putin has previously pleaded Obama to come together with Russia. On Independence Day, he claimed: “The history of Russian-American relations shows that when we act as equal partners and respect each other’s lawful interests we are able to successfully resolve the most complex international issues for the benefit of both countries’ peoples and all of humanity.” Try as he might though, Obama hasn’t budged.
Just a few month ago, Obama claimed: “I’m not confident that we can trust the Russians or Vladimir Putin, which is why we have to have to test whether or not we can get an actual cessation of hostilities that includes an end to the kinds of aerial bombing and civilian death and destruction that we have seen carried out by the Assad regime.”
Difficulty surrounding stances on Ukraine and Syria are the main culprits for this distrust. So when Putin learned that he may have another shot at a healthy relationship with America (and Trump), he decided to celebrate.
Putin celebrated Donald Trump’s win in the election with the hope of a stable relationship with America. Trump spoke about repairing the relationship with Russia in his campaign, something Putin took note of. In the clip below, it’s clear that Trump will deal with Putin in a completely different way than Obama.
At a foreign ambassadors meeting in Moscow, Putin expressed his satisfaction with the election, where he congratulated both the American people and president-elect Trump. Putin also told the ambassadors that he was hopeful for future prospects between the two superpowers, America and Russia, especially when it comes to efforts in Syria.
Following his speech, Putin clinked glasses of champagne with the ambassadors in celebration. With the tensions between America and Russia growing at an alarming rate, the world has a watchful eye on what actions Mr. Trump will take when he finally enters the Oval Office.
| 1real |
WATCH: Former Army Major General Issues Serious Warning About Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign | Donald Trump s candidacy has been very concerning to experts and leaders on national security. His erratic and aggressive philosophies on war and security would likely get thousands of Americans and others killed, while destabilizing the world and making the entire planet less safe.To address those concerns, a new ad has been produced by the veterans group VoteVets starring Major General Paul D. Eaton highlighting why he cannot support Trump for president.Referencing his father s military service, and the men and women who served under them during his time in the military, General Eaton says, for all of them, and for our country, I cannot support Donald Trump. Eaton points out that Donald Trump does not have the temperament or judgement to be our commander-in-chief, that s why I m speaking out. Trump s agenda presents key dangers for America s military, including his expressed desire to renew the torture program that began under Bush/Cheney. Trump has said he would expand waterboarding, which is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and said he would make the military attack and kill the families of terrorists a likely war crime.The presumptive Republican nominee was widely criticized for a speech in which he praised dictator Saddam Hussein the so-called butcher of Baghdad for what he described as good policies against terrorism. Later fact checks pointed out that in addition to being an oppressive authoritarian dictator, Hussein actually provided shelter and refuge for terrorists.Eaton served as Commanding General of the military coalition section that trained soldiers in Iraq between 2003-4. He served in the military for over 36 years, then later became a critic of the Bush administration s reckless policies in Iraq. Eaton since then has served as a military adviser to Hillary Clinton s 2008 presidential campaign, and as a supporter of Obama later that year.Featured image via YouTube screen capture | 1real |
QUIZ – Which Matters Most to Mental Health? Rain, Temperature, Sunshine or Pollution | By Heather Callaghan, Editor There’s no denying that nature – and our exposure to it – has a profound effect on our mental well-being. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is only... | 1real |
Seven World-Historical Achievements of the Iraq Invasion of 2003 | Photo by The U.S. Army | CC BY 2.0
Here is a list of the noteworthy, ongoing results of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq beginning in March 2003. (Recall that invasion was denounced by the UN as illegal, based entirely on lies, and—given the U.S.’s hegemonic position in the world, allowing it to act with impunity—the crime’s architects have never punished.)
1/ The principal achievement of the war and occupation was the dramatic expansion of the al-Qaeda network that had attacked the U.S. on January 11, 2001. An al-Qaeda franchise was established in Iraq for the first time, playing a key role in the Sunni “insurrection” against the occupiers and their Shiite allies, then expanding across the border into Syria where it split into the al-Nusra affiliate and its even more savage rival, ISIL. Iraq also served and serves as a training ground for jihadis now operating from Iraq to Libya and beyond.
2/ The invasion and its consequences encouraged the cause of Kurdistan , an imagined state straddling Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The Kurds are the largest stateless people in the world, victims of British and French colonialists who divided the region between them after World War I. After the Gulf War of 1991, the U.S. established a “no-fly” zone over northern Iraq to discourage Baghdad from deploying troops in the region. Iraqi Kurdistan had already obtained a degree of autonomy before the invasion but the status became official under the occupation and a referendum for independence is likely to pass soon. This would infuriate Iraq and perhaps provoke Turkey’s intervention. As it is, the autonomous region is locked in struggle with Baghdad over territorial claims and control over oil fields.
3/ The invasion destroyed the Iraqi state , causing it to fracture into three: Kurdistan, the Sunni zone in the west, and the Shiite-majority areas around Baghdad. The Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein had been extremely repressive and brutal. But it had maintained order; discouraged religion in politics; protected the Christian and other religious minorities; promoted women’s rights; imposed no dress code; enforced a criminal code modeled after the Napoleonic (not the Sharia); licensed rock n’ roll radio stations, allowed the brewing of beer and its sale etc. The Shiite-led regime boosted into power by the occupation has reversed much of this. (A bill to ban the production and sale of beer was just passed by Parliament last week.) But the regime’s power does not extend into much of Anbar Province, ISIL still governs Mosul, and again, Kurdistan has become autonomous.
4/ Because Shiites are the majority in Iraq (60%), and dominate Iran next door; and because the leaders of Shiite parties have studied in Iran or lived their in exile and are sympathetic to Iran’s mullah-led regime; and because the U.S. was forced by peaceful mass protests to allow elections and the emergence of Shiites as the leaders of the country, Iran’s power and influence in the region has expanded dramatically. (Apparently no one in the State Department thought about that.) Since Iran has not attacked another country in centuries—but was savagely attacked by Saddam Hussein in 1981, sparking a long war killing over half a million people—and since Iran’s friendliness to its neighbor, one of the few Arab countries in which its co-coreligionists hold power, is entirely natural, one can ask why anyone might be alarmed by this. But it does alarm some, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, that crucial U.S. Arab ally governed by Wahhabi Sunnis, most of all.
5/ The invasion produced a regional power struggle between Sunni Islamists on the one hand, and their Shiite (and other) enemies on the other. This is often portrayed as a contest between Saudi Arabia (whose government-backed clerics condemn Shiites as heretics, and who fear the prospects for rebellion in Saudi Arabia’s own oppressed Shiite minority) and Iran, depicted as the protector of Shiites in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen etc. (The so-called “Shiite Crescent” extending from Iran to Hizbollah-controlled areas of Lebanon in fact embraces states and movements that have little in common with the Islamic Republic of Iran. But they are all targeted by the medieval regime in Riyadh which tars them all with the Iranian brush.) The Saudis were keen advocates for a U.S. strike on Iran (on the false pretext of a nuclear threat); are major supporters of al-Nusra in Syria and have funded ISIL as well, preferring such Islamist forces to the secular if Alawite-led Syrian regime; and are bombing the hell out of Yemen with active U.S. and British assistance under the false pretext that the Shiite Houthi “rebels” are agents for an expanding Iran. These things would not be happening, had the U.S. not ripped the lid off Pandora’s box in Iraq in March 2003.
6/ The invasion has produced friction between the U.S. and its important NATO ally Turkey (which has the second largest military in the alliance). Turkish war planes are bombing Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) militia in Syria who constitute the U.S.’s most reliable allies, producing U.S. protests (which the Turks ignore, arguing straight-faced that the YPG are just as terrorist as ISIL). The Turks warned before the invasion of Iraq that it would likely produce regional instability. But Ankara would have allowed the U.S. to attack from Turkish soil if Turkish forces as part of the “coalition of the willing” could be stationed around Mosul, once part of Turkey—the idea being to contain Kurdish nationalism.
Fortunately the parliament rejected the deal. But the predicted instability has occurred. The Arab Spring of 2011 in Syria was not directly connected to the Iraq invasion, but gave the U.S. the opportunity to pontificate that “Assad has lost legitimacy,” demand his immediate resignation, and bankroll the armed opposition including the Kurds. The fact that U.S. efforts to find and recruit Syrian Arab forces as allies—who are not in bed with al-Nusra—to topple Assad have failed so dismally binds the Pentagon ever closer to forces that Turkey wants to wipe out. (The conflict and contradiction are embarrassing to Washington. Oh, by the way, did you notice that the Turkish foreign minister just announced that Turkey would invade Iraq if it “felt threatened”?)
Having declared in 2011 that Bashar al-Assad must go, the U.S. was faced in 2014 with the horrible embarrassment of ISIL (that toxic fruit of its Iraq invasion) winning lightening victories from Raqqa to Fallujah, obliterating the Sykes-Picot line dividing Syria and Iraq. The now-Syria based terrorists were approaching Baghdad. So now the U.S. having withdrawn all troops in Iraq was back in action, bombing to prevent such a disaster. And it started bombing ISIL positions in Syria (although with far less efficacy than the later Russian efforts) in league with a list of largely reluctant allies dragooned into formal membership in what Washington likes to call a “coalition” to make its unilateral program for the region sound like the will of what they like to call “the international community” regardless of how many key nations that imagined “community” includes.
The U.S. command that Assad step down was made in the summer of 2011. Turkey’s President Erdogan, hitherto a friend and even mentor of the Syrian leader, opportunistically took up the U.S. demand and demanded his resignation. And Ankara itself began to interfere big-time in the neighboring country it once dominated, targeting Kurds more than anyone else. Since the U.S. relies on these allies, how could there not be a sharp conflict here?
7/ The invasion of Iraq and aftermath resulted in four million Iraqi refugees fleeing the country as of 2007. Hundreds of thousands have poured into Europe, alongside people displaced by U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Libya, and by the turmoil in Syria exacerbated by U.S. actions, producing a massive continent-wide crisis. Many Europeans aptly blame the deluge on the U.S., pointing to the U.S.’s paltry record of admitting refugees from the Middle East and complaining of strained national resources to handle the humanitarian catastrophe. (Another embarrassment.) ***
This is all what Buddhists call “karmic retribution” for past acts. Or what the Hebrew prophet Hosea referred to when he said “Those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind.” Or what the CIA meant when it invented the term “blowback.” It’s all heading towards something, unless decent people stop it.
But when I watch people like Michael Moore line up behind the foremost advocate of war in U.S. politics, joining (consciously, philosophical) amoral thugs hell-bent on maintaining and expanding the empire when it’s in a stage of precipitous decline, I am not optimistic. Not only will she win, but she will rival Dick Cheney as a cold-blooded latter-day Cold Warrior, cynically exploiting fear and stupidity to try to bring Russia to its knees.
Hillary doesn’t recognize any of these seven points, which to recapitulate are:
+ US actions have greatly strengthened al-Qaeda
+ US actions have encouraged Kurdish nationalism (with unpredictable ramifications)
+ The US through its vicious illegal actions has destroyed the modern Iraqi state
+ US actions have solidified ties between Iran and Iraq’s majority Shiite community, strengthening a country still targeted for “regime change”
+ The invasion of Iraq and the regime change there exacerbated the historical Sunni-Shiite divide, and encouraged Saudi Arabia as the ultra-Islamist protector of the shrines to redouble its efforts to support extremist Sunnis everywhere in the region
+ The results of the invasion place Turkey and the U.S. at loggerheads over the question of Kurdish nationalist movements in both Iraq and Syria
+ US interventions in the Middle East and North Africa since 2001 have produced a massive refugee crisis, inflicted mainly on Europe
She does not acknowledge that George W. Bush’s invasion (that she so passionately endorsed, fully exposing her Valkyrie soul, was criminal and not somebody’s well-meaning “mistake”). She doesn’t have any analysis of the Kurdish question. (She is not—as sometimes alleged by supporters—a “policy wonk” but a lazy intellect who doesn’t know jack-shit about the real world.)
She has never expressed regret for the horrific destruction of Iraq, nor given any attention to the plight of its women, who were (as she surely knows) much better off under Saddam Hussein. (To acknowledge that would be to suggest that sometimes U.S. imperialism favors misogynist Islamists over relatively progressive secularists, for its own pragmatic empire-building purposes. She can’t mention that publicly.)
She deals with the rise of Iran—made inevitable by the U.S. invasion of Iraq—by doubling down on her crude clueless Iran rhetoric, which rests on the assumption—repeatedly debunked by U.S. intelligence agencies—that Iran might pose a nuclear weapons threat. She doesn’t understand the history of the Sunni-Shiite divide; I believe she rolls her eyes in irritation that these people have these differences so hard to understand, impeding the Exceptional Nation’s ability to straighten everything out by bombing, and conquering, and making people die. She doesn’t understand anything about the history of the Kurds and their fate in the region.
She feels no guilt at all about her orchestration of the ruin of Libya. She sees no reason to link her own actions to the flooding of Europe with refugees fleeing terror. But she will probably be the next president, with fellow shieldmaidens Michele Flournoy (as “secretary of defense”) and Victoria Nuland or Samantha Power (as secretary of state).
Never acknowledging what happened yesterday, never able to absorb historical lessons, determined to maintain and expend its global hegemony (just as that becomes absolutely impossible to do, because other nations rise too, and great nations like Spain and Britain actually get humbled over time), the U.S. under Clinton will likely head methodically towards a showdown with Russia. She wants so badly, to show she can do it. She’ll do it for women, everywhere, to show how strong a woman can be.
And then there will be a sudden strange change in your environment. As you wonder what’s going on you’ll be painlessly vaporized, on account of Hillary’s passion to topple Assad, or forcibly reintegrate the Donbass into Ukraine.
The brilliance of the 2003 invasion will be clarified as never before in that bright blast, as Hillary—a very strong woman—cackles in the background from her bunker about how she came, saw, and a million died. | 1real |
Election 2016 - Prediction Of Things To Come | Written by Daniel McAdams We know that one of the major candidates will win today's presidential election. We don't know which one. But we do have a few predictions for what will change and what will stay the same regardless of who wins. Foreign policy - will it change? How about Congress - will they finally begin standing up to their Constitutional obligations? The Supreme Court - is the next nominee so important and what Congress can do. In today's Liberty Report we balance our cynicism with a solid dose of silver lining in discussing what to look for in the immediate future: 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 |
Saudi foreign minister says backs Trump's stance on Iran | LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia supports U.S. President Donald Trump s stance on Iran after he decided not to certify that Tehran is complying with a nuclear accord, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Tuesday. U.S. President Donald Trump broke ranks with other major powers this month by refusing to formally certify that Tehran is complying with the deal, even though international inspectors say it is. Jubeir said the nuclear deal had shortcomings, and that he agreed with Trump s assessment that Iran was working to destabilise the region and was funding militant organisations. Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally, has been at loggerheads with Iran, a Shi ite Muslim country, for decades, and the countries have fought a long-running proxy war in the Middle East. (Iran s behaviour) is not acceptable, and there will be consequences to the Iranians. This is what President Trump has said, and we are very supportive of that, Jubeir said at a conference in London. Following Trump s decision, U.S. Congress has until mid-December to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under the pact. Jubeir said that new sanctions on Iran would be welcome, and that a delay could mean that by the time sanctions had impact, Iran could have already developed a dozen nuclear bombs. The international community needs to support those (sanctions) in order to send a very strong message to Iran that your behaviour, your nefarious activities, have consequences, Jubeir said. Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes and denies it has aimed to build an atomic bomb. | 0fake |
Trade bill clears Senate hurdle | The 62-38 vote to end debate on the bill, moving it toward a final vote, was a victory for Obama, who had linked with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, to push the bill despite opposition from Senate Democratic leaders.
"This last vote was a major step forward on this important legislation," said Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican who sponsored the bill.
The Senate is now set to vote on changes to the bill, including one that would force the Obama administration to use trade deals to crack down on countries that manipulate the value of their currencies to give their exports a price advantage in the United States — an amendment the White House opposes because it would add a huge new complication into trade negotiations.
Even though Senate passage is ultimately now much more likely, the House could be tougher. There, tea party conservatives are linking up with liberals to form a broader populist opposition than what existed in the Senate.
The measure would hand the President six years' worth of "trade promotion authority" — the power to submit trade deals to Congress for an up-or-down vote with limited debate and no amendments. It's considered crucial to finalizing the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal that serves as the economic underpinning of Obama's "Asia pivot." It would link 40% of the world's economy, including the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada and Mexico. The trade deal has launched an obscure commerce policy discussion into a fiery political battle that has positioned the President at odds with most of his party, particularly Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and driven a wedge between the Democratic presidential front-runner, Hillary Clinton, and her primary challengers. The Senate is also looking to dispense with the trade votes to move forward and take up bills to reform or reauthorize the Patriot Act, an issue that considers to deeply divide the Senate and Republicans on Capitol Hill. The House overwhelmingly passed the USA Freedom Act, a bipartisan bill to reform the Patriot Act and effectively end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone data on millions of Americans. And while that bill was the result of a compromise between reform advocates and House Republican leadership, the bill is facing tough opposition in the Senate from powerful Republicans like McConnell, though the majority leader has vowed to allow a vote on the reform measure. He is pushing a competing bill to reauthorize the expiring Patriot Act provisions without any reforms. | 0fake |
German political limbo threatens European reform push | BERLIN (Reuters) - Half a year ago, the political stars seemed perfectly aligned for a deep reform of the European Union and its euro currency. Emmanuel Macron had won the French presidency on a promise to relaunch Europe. And Angela Merkel, on track to win a fourth term as German chancellor, looked ready to embrace his bold vision, telling an audience in Bavaria that it was time for Europe to take its fate into its own hands. Following the collapse of German coalition talks, however, the prospects for a meaningful leap forward in European cooperation, driven by newly minted governments in Berlin and Paris, look dimmer than ever. Political uncertainty has crossed the Rhine, said Jean Pisani-Ferry, an economist and academic who helped write Macron s election program. Europe has gotten used to having a strong German government with clear positions. That is something we may not have for some time. Germany now faces months of political limbo which will narrow an already tight window for agreeing reforms of euro zone governance and EU defense and asylum policies. Should Germany be forced to hold new elections, its partners may have to wait until next summer for a government to take form. By then, Europe will be entering crunch time in its Brexit negotiations with Britain, preparing for sensitive discussions on a long-term EU budget and gearing up for the election of a new European Parliament. Euro zone leaders were due to begin a six-month discussion on closer integration of their 19-nation currency bloc next month at a special summit in Brussels. Now that debate seems likely to be delayed and officials say the chances of reaching any conclusions by June 2018, as proposed by European Council President Donald Tusk, are slim. Things will go on hold until there is a formal acting German government, one euro zone official said. At this stage I don t see what steps the leaders could take in December or June for deepening euro zone integration when there is a German government without a mandate. Another casualty could be the completion of an EU pact on closer defense cooperation, known as PESCO. Berlin and Paris had hoped to sign it into law at a regular EU summit next month. Now diplomats involved in EU foreign policy say that may be overly ambitious. Germany has also been a driving force behind EU efforts to reform its asylum policies in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis. Those discussions, pitting countries like Italy and Greece against Poland and Hungary, were already bogged down. Without a new government in Berlin, there is next to no hope of a breakthrough. We have so many things we need to do urgently that slowing us down is not good for Europe as a whole, Frans Timmermans, a former Dutch foreign minister who is deputy head of the European Commission, told CNN. He played down the risks, however, saying: It might slow us down a little bit but I don t think it would take Europe off course, whatever happens. Perhaps the only pressing issue which will not be significantly affected by the political uncertainty in Germany is Brexit, where there is a broad political consensus among German parties. That means that Merkel, who will remain in place in a caretaker capacity until a new coalition is formed, should have sufficient room to maneuver in talks that, in any case, are being led by the European Commission and its chief negotiator Michel Barnier. Still, hopes that the two political earthquakes of 2016 Britain s decision to leave the EU and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump might shock European capitals into bold reforms, once elections in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Austria were out of the way, are fading. Even before the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) walked out of coalition negotiations with Merkel s conservatives and the Greens in the early hours of Monday, doubts were rising about whether she would have the flexibility to meet Macron halfway as head of an awkward three-way Jamaica alliance. Now that those talks have collapsed, she would appear to have three options: convince the Social Democrats (SPD) to enter another right-left grand coalition ; form a minority government with the Greens or the FDP; or take the risk of new elections. So far the SPD leadership has shown no signs that it will go back on its pledge to go into opposition. On Monday, Merkel appeared to rule out a minority government. So unless something changes, a new election could be the only way forward. That would probably not take place before March or April, around the same time that Italy is due to hold elections which could also result in a hung parliament. Crucially, polls suggest that a new German election would not give Merkel more coalition options than she had coming out of the Sept. 24 vote. Indeed, if voters blamed her conservatives for failing to form a government the first time around, she could emerge even weaker than she is now. That would be a further blow to German political stability and to Macron s European ambitions. | 0fake |
Lack of clear UK stance making Brexit talks tough: French PM | BERLIN (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said during a visit to Berlin on Friday that Britain had still not clearly defined its positions on Brexit and that this was making negotiations with the EU-27 more difficult. Answering questions from an audience in Berlin after a speech on the French government s reform drive, Philippe rejected a suggestion that other European countries were being tough on Britain and said it bore blame for difficulties in the talks. Our aim is not to be tough with the British. What is true is that these are difficult negotiations, Philippe said. And they are difficult, they have been made difficult, because the initial positions of British diplomats still need to be clearly defined to a certain extent, he added, before heading to the chancellery for a meeting with Germany s Angela Merkel. Nearly three months into talks on the terms of Britain s departure from the European Union, the two sides have made little progress on the issues that Brussels wants resolved before talks on a future trading relationship begin. These include expatriate citizens rights, the Irish border and the bill that London should pay its EU partners to settle existing financial commitments. Philippe said he regretted Britain s decision to leave the EU and, coming from Normandy, felt like he was among cousins when he traveled to the United Kingdom. But he said it was important for the EU-27 and its lead negotiator, Frenchman Michel Barnier, to ensure that the interests of citizens on the continent were protected. For that, the bloc had to stick to its sequencing plan. It is our responsibility to ensure that the exit is done in an orderly manner, Philippe said. | 0fake |
State Department OK'd most Bill Clinton speech requests within days | State Department officials under Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton moved quickly when aides to Bill Clinton asked them in March 2010 to approve plans for the former president to address clients of a multinational British bank, Barclays. Within four days, the department's ethics office signed off on the request -- as it did for hundreds of others from the former president during his wife's four-year tenure leading the agency.
Its standard response, fired off in a short memo: "We have no objection."
That decision remained unchanged even after the Justice Department announced just months later, in August 2010, that Barclays Bank agreed to pay nearly $300 million in penalties for violating financial sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Libya and Burma. The long-running case had hardly been a secret: Barclays had openly acknowledged in its annual reports -- as recently as the same month as Clinton's 2010 request -- that it was under investigation by the Justice Department and others for sanctions violations, and it cautioned that the impact on its profits "could be substantial."
In November, the former president mingled with top Barclays executives and clients at a bank-sponsored question session in Singapore. A little more than two months later, he again joined Barclays officers and clients at an exclusive dinner in Davos, Switzerland. The two appearances for Barclays netted Bill Clinton $650,000.
During Hillary Clinton's tenure as the top U.S. diplomat, lawyers and other ethics officials in the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser gave near-blanket approval to at least 330 requests for Bill Clinton's appearance at speeches, dinners and events both in the U.S. and around the globe. More than 220 paid events earned the family nearly $50 million, according to a review of State Department documents and Hillary Clinton's financial disclosure forms by The Associated Press.
Now, as Hillary Clinton moves forward with her presidential campaign, the ease with which her husband was repeatedly cleared to address companies and governments around the world highlights potential ethical complications that are likely to intensify if she becomes the country's next president.
"It's politically going to be very treacherous," said Jan Baran, head of the government ethics group at Washington law firm Wiley Rein LLP, who served as general counsel to the Republican National Committee. "It just becomes controversy all the time."
The potential "first dude" has said he intends to continue accepting speaking fees during the presidential campaign.
"I got to pay our bills," he said in an interview with NBC's "Today Show" last week.
Taken together, the State Department and financial disclosure documents show the agency sped through Bill Clinton's steady stream of requests for events while rarely raising concerns about potential conflicts. At the same time, the agency's ethics office, which had primary responsibility for the decisions, was hobbled by "strained program operations," according to a 2012 report by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, the government's top ethics agency.
State Department ethics officials gave quick approval, for example, for the two Barclays appearances and events paid by other international banks under legal scrutiny. Bill Clinton's $200,000 appearance in Florida for British-based HSBC in 2011 was cleared despite an ongoing federal money-laundering investigation that led to a 2012 settlement with prosecutors.
Five U.S. events in 2011 and 2012 earned the former president $840,000 from the wealth management unit of UBS Bank less than two years after the Swiss bank had acknowledged a massive tax evasion scheme aiding American clients and paid $780 million in penalties. The banks declined to comment about their dealings with the former president.
The State Department also green-lighted requests by foreign governments to hire the former president for events, despite potential complications for his wife's diplomacy at the time and for a future Hillary Clinton presidency. Similar concerns about foreign influence have been raised about the millions of dollars donated by foreign governments over the past decade to the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton family's global charity.
The former president was paid $600,000 to appear at a government-sponsored event in the United Arab Emirates in December 2011. The State Department also approved a 2010 Clinton event in Bangkok co-sponsored by a Thai government energy ministry and state gas firm, but despite news coverage of the speech there is no record of payment in his wife's financial disclosure. An aide to Bill Clinton said the Thai speech fee was donated to the Clinton Foundation.
Not all appearances were approved: A request for Clinton to speak in Shanghai in 2009 was rejected because of State Department hesitation that a prospective host might be an agent of the Chinese government. The former president's team withdrew the request.
The Clinton campaign declined to comment, referring questions to the State Department and Bill Clinton's private office.
State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said last week the agency was not "aware of any actions taken by Secretary Clinton that were influenced by donations to the Clinton Foundation or its offshoots or by speech honoraria and consultancies of former President Clinton." Another spokesman, Alec Gerlach, declined to address specific cases such as the Barclays events.
The State Department's scrutiny, which went beyond the standard ethics requirements for all federal officials, was the result of a voluntary process agreed to by both Clintons to avoid "even the appearance of a conflict of interest," according to a January 2009 memo sent by David Kendall, Bill Clinton's personal lawyer, to Jim Thessin, who oversaw the vetting in the State Department. Clinton's office agreed to provide the names of organizations hosting the former president at least 14 days before the event, according to the memo. Lawyers at the agency would then aim to complete their review within five days.
While most internal emails between State Department ethics officials about Bill Clinton's proposed appearances were redacted to protect internal legal considerations, snippets that survived the censoring depict a vetting process that appeared both strained by the workload and rushed by the former president's deadlines.
"This is overdue and our host needs a signed contract today," wrote Terry Krinvic, Clinton's director of scheduling, in a March 2, 2011, email to State Department officials. A State Department official working on a speech request described herself in a February 2011 email as "totally stressed out, but will do it this afternoon."
In another memo from June 2010, an agency official dashed off a memo warning: "URGENT RE: Clinton Foundation Issue." The official told a State lawyer: "I'd very much appreciate a turnaround this afternoon as former President Clinton is scheduled to arrive in Tanzania tomorrow and (diplomatic) Post needs to run out these details." The issue, not identified in the redaction, was left unresolved overnight. "Former POTUS Clinton is on the ground in Tanzania," the agency lawyer wrote the next morning. "We need guidance fairly urgently to still be relevant." The censored emails do not indicate whether the State officials resolved the issue in time. POTUS means "president of the United States."
As State Department officials processed Clinton's event requests in September 2012, the Office of Government Ethics warned that the State Department's office "has extremely limited capacity to respond to the increased demands on its program." It said it was "concerned about the lack of compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements in the areas of financial disclosure, annual training and ethics agreements."
Gerlach, the State Department spokesman, said the department's review of former President Clinton's speeches and consultancies was not within the scope of the review by the government-wide ethics agency.
A former senior State Department official familiar with the vetting process in the early months of Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state described the department as often shut out from both relevant internal department information and ongoing investigations at other federal agencies that might have aided their reviews. The former official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the department's ethics work.
On all sides, the process involved lawyers with long ties to the Clinton family -- and each other. Cheryl Mills was Hillary Clinton's chief of staff at the State Department and was frequently included on the other end of emails during the State Department review of the requests. Mills was a former White House deputy counsel who collaborated with Kendall on Bill Clinton's impeachment legal defense before working for Hillary Clinton at the State Department.
Less than a month after Hillary Clinton was confirmed, a request to approve some of Bill Clinton's proposed private consulting work was sent by his long-time personal aide Doug Band, prompting Mills to prod the agency's deputy legal adviser to review the arrangement. Approval for the former president to enter into a consultancy arrangement with Band's corporate advisory firm, Teneo, came in 2011, allowing Clinton to offer "services regarding geopolitical, economic and social trends" for three years.
Only a handful of proposed arrangements appear to have been rejected. A consulting contract with Saban Capital Group Inc., a firm headed by major Clinton donor Haim Saban, was rejected because of what the State Department deemed Saban's active involvement in foreign affairs, particularly the Middle East.
Two other consulting contracts -- one with longtime friend Steve Bing's Shangri-La Industries and another with Wasserman Investments GP -- raised no such concerns. A corporate entity for Wasserman Investments GP could not be found, but California's Wasserman Media group is run by entertainment and sports executive and Democratic donor Casey Wasserman.
On Thursday, Saban hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's campaign at his Beverly Hills home, raising at least $1.2 million from 450 attendees.
Occasionally, the agency offered guidance to avoid a clear conflict. In the case of White & Case, an international law firm based in New York, a department lawyer signed off on the speech but noted for "situational awareness" that the firm was representing the 1979 U.S. hostages seeking damages from Iran -- a case the State Department was trying to have dismissed. "We think it would be best to avoid being drawn into any discussion of the litigation," the lawyer wrote.
Bill Clinton's November 2010 appearance for Barclays in Singapore was one example of the potential for conflict posed by the frenetic stream of requests.
In March 2010, Krinvic forwarded a Clinton proposal to appear at two bank events, a Barclays Asia Forum in Singapore in November and Barclays dinner in Davos in January 2011. In Singapore, the plans called for Clinton to speak during a moderated question-and-answer session before 650 Asian investors and pose for photos. In Davos, Clinton would attend a similar session before 20 Barclays senior executives and 140 clients and their spouses.
Thessin replied on March 23, telling Krinvic that "we have no objection."
It was widely known by then that Barclays was under investigation by federal prosecutors for repeated illegal transactions with banks in Iran, Libya, Cuba, Sudan and Burma and for violating U.S. financial sanctions against those governments.
Barclays had voluntarily disclosed four illegal banking transactions to federal and New York financial authorities in 2006. That led to an internal inquiry by the bank and investigations by federal and New York state prosecutors. The scrutiny resulted in Barclays' acknowledgement in federal court in August 2010 that it had violated U.S. sanctions. The bank also agreed to cooperate with the government under a deal that deferred prosecution for two years under supervision of a federal judge. Barclays agreed to pay $298 million in fines.
The same week in November 2010 that Barclays' lawyers submitted a status report to the trial judge overseeing their case, Bill Clinton appeared at the Barclays forum in Singapore and mingled with clients who also attended a golf tournament sponsored by the bank. There is no documentation in State Department files whether officials had reconsidered their approval after Barclays acknowledged violating U.S. laws. Barclays declined to comment about Clinton's appearances or the investigation.
"People admire the way he can take complex issues and break them down for a global audience," Barclays Plc CEO Robert Diamond said in an interview with Bloomberg News two days after Clinton addressed bank clients in Davos.
While the Treasury Department administers oversees the administration of U.S. financial sanctions, the State Department has its own Office of Economic Sanctions Policy, which is responsible for developing foreign policy-related sanctions to counter threats to national security.
The criminal case against Barclays also noted that the presidential orders for sanctions against Iran were authorized by the treasury secretary in consultation with the secretary of state.
While the State Department's lawyers concluded that most of Clinton's speeches did not violate foreign policy interests, some of his appearances could pose political risk for his wife's presidential bid by giving Republican opponents an opening to depict the couple as beholden to powerful interests.
Over a three-day period in November 2011, the Swedish telecom company Ericsson paid $750,000 for Clinton to address industry leaders in Hong Kong; Chinese executives paid $550,000 for a speech in Shanghai; and he made $260,000 addressing the annual meeting of HCL, an Indian outsourcing giant, at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. His total haul: $1.56 million.
While the former president traveled the world, efforts to assure the ethics of his itineraries bounced around the State Department. A request to speak at a climate change summit organized by an Abu Dhabi government environmental group prompted an email to the UAE desk officer asking whether "potential affiliation with it by high-level officials" would pose "any harm to foreign policy." The response: "No concerns here." Bill Clinton was paid $600,000 by the group, the Abu Dhabi Global Initiative.
When Clinton was invited to participate in the China Philanthropy Forum in November 2012, an event aimed at promoting Chinese charitable giving, the State Department raised concerns that the event's sponsor was an association made up of former and current senior Chinese government officials. "We will need to further consider this one," it said.
Clinton eventually spoke at the forum's annual conference -- nine months after his wife left office. | 0fake |
Egypt's Sisi discusses repercussions of U.S. embassy decision with Palestinian President Abbas: presidency statement | CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi received a phone call from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss the repercussions of the U.S. decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem, a statement from the Egyptian presidency said on Wednesday. Sisi expressed Egypt s rejection of the move and of any implications resulting from it, the statement said. | 0fake |
6 Corporations Control 90 Percent Of American Media | By True Activist The majority of America’s mainline media is owned and controlled by a mere 6 corporations, but few in the U.S. are aware of this… Unless you go out of your way to seek truthful news... | 1real |
Brazil struggles to help state dependent on Venezuela for power | SAO PAULO (Reuters) - The Brazilian government is looking at all options, including large batteries, to help northern Roraima state with power supplies after a series of blackouts in recent months largely related to its dependency on cash-strapped neighbor Venezuela. Roraima is the only Brazilian state not connected to the national power grid. Its capital, Boa Vista, and most other cities in the state are supplied by power produced in Venezuela and transmitted through a line that was opened in 2001. Documents produced by a Brazilian government committee monitoring the power sector show the state suffered 17 large-scale power outages since August. The documents, seen by Reuters, said only one instance was not related to Venezuela. The situation underscores how Venezuela s economic collapse is affecting its neighbors. Roraima is already dealing with a flood of Venezuelan migrants looking for food and work. The economic situation in Venezuela is precarious, and it affects power line maintenance, F bio Lopes Alves, electricity secretary at Brazil s Energy Ministry, told Reuters. It is extremely worrying, we are studying how to assist them, he said. The Energy and the Information ministries in Venezuela did not respond to requests for comment. A source at state-controlled Venezuelan power firm Corpoelec acknowledged that lack of maintenance is hurting Venezuela s power transmission system. The dams are full of water, the rainy season has filled the dams, but the lack of maintenance means that we still have power outages, the source said, asking not to be named because he was not authorized to speak about the issue. Brazil s government is evaluating quickly awarding licenses for companies to build local power generation projects of various types, including both renewable and non-renewable energy. It is also studying the possibility of buying large-scale batteries. Asked why Roraima is still not connected to the national power grid, Alves said a project for a new line awarded in 2011 to a consortium formed by Centrais El tricas Brasileiras SA and Alupar Investimento SA was never built because of difficulties obtaining environmental permits. Roraima is home to some of the largest indigenous lands in Brazil, such as the Raposa Serra do Sol reserve with 1.74 million hectares (4.2 million acres), an area similar to that of Kuwait. The proposed line would cut through one of them. The government plans to award a new license early next year for the construction of a power line to connect Roraima to the grid, Alves said. | 0fake |
Quiz: How Many Of These Things Did You Google Immediately After Watching ‘The Social Network’? | Email ‘The Social Network’ is an award-winning film about Facebook written by Aaron Sorkin. It is the story of how the gorgeous Mark Zuckerberg stole the incredible website Facebook.com from the incredible, wonderful, and intelligent and horrendous Winklevoss twins. When you are done watching ‘The Social Network,’ you will be curious about many things from the movie, and zero seconds after the end credits roll, you will begin using Google to find answers to your ‘Social Network’-related questions. How many of these things did you Google immediately after watching ‘The Social Network’? Take this quiz to find out! 1. Please check off all of the phrases you Googled immediately after you finished watching The Social Network : did mark zuckerberg teach aaron sorkin to swim as a reward for making the social network? Should Winklevoss Twins actors eat Winklevoss Twins real? is it legal to sue Mark Zuckerberg if my cousin bit my thumb off while the social network was playing in a different room of the house? mark zuckerberg hair for sale (donkey food) feed mark zuckerberg hair to donkey Will Mark Zuckerberg’s hair kill my donkey or make my donkey louder? foods that will make jesse eisenberg a baby again Jesse Eisenberg (infant at last once more) again baby Jesse Eisenberg Facebook Aaron Sorkin + yelling (jail for sorkin) did aaron sorkin call the sun his wife? Aaron Sorkin says “the sun is my wife” (video) aaron sorkin pointing to the sun and saying “there goes my wife the sun, she bit me” What is the name of the left Winklevoss twin? are the winklevoss twins allowed to hide from each other? if the winklevoss twins hide from each other are the police legally required to go to aaron sorkin’s house and cut him in half with a sword and then say, “we did this because the winklevoss twins hid from each other?” did my wife switch religions while I was watching the social network? wife religion different after the social network? new god for wife after Facebook movie? wife neglects CHRIST because of aaron sorkin windowless church of unknown purpose becomes my wife’s home after Zuckerberg flick? jesse eisenberg on a ladder EYES OPEN Mark Zuckerberg + Edward Snowden are father and son? does peter thiel have a Jackal noise inside of him? peter thiel haunted by jackals? Jackal God chases Peter Thiel through the grocery store? peter thiel calling Terminex to rid house of immortal jackals (audio only) Jesse Eisenberg gold chain allergy sequel to the social network is coming out during which Olympics? Pics of Winklevoss twins breaking a wishbone Winklevoss twins buying huge bag of wishbones no meat (video + commentary) Mark Zuckerberg ultimate roller rink disappearance 2 guyz tiny eyez Winklevoss twins switch brains every time they shake hands? which Winklevoss man is going to heaven How Good Are You At Using Google To Find Out About Gorgeous Zuckerberg And His Movie? Results for How Many Of These Things Did You Google Immediately After Watching ‘The Social Network’? Via Columbia Pictures You’ve Never Google Anything After Watching 'The Social Network'! I have news that will make Grief your emperor: You do not ever Google even one thing after you watch 'The Social Network.' When the movie is finished you think, “I have solved all of the riddles of this film, and there are no further mysteries about gorgeous Zuckerberg that I need to solve.” Then you go to sleep and dream the indecipherable nightmares of the willfully ignorant. When the universe starts over again and you are born for the seventh time, please try to Google more things after you watch 'The Social Network.' Share Your Results | 1real |
Amid state dinner glamor, a serious agenda for Obama-Trudeau talks | OTTAWA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Canada’s charismatic Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be traveling to Washington this week for talks with U.S. President Barack Obama, hoping to revitalize a frayed relationship and draw rare attention to Canadian issues. Trudeau’s Liberals came to power in November by ousting the right-wing Conservative leader Stephen Harper, whose ties with Washington deteriorated as he hectored Obama in a failed bid to gain approval for a major Canada-U.S. pipeline. Trudeau, who has basked in international media attention since coming to power and whose progressive politics are much more in tune with Obama’s, will attend a state dinner Thursday, becoming the first Canadian leader to do so since 1997. “We want to strengthen our relationship with the United States at a time when it is key for our agenda of economic growth,” Foreign Minister Stephane Dion said in an interview on Monday. Canada sends 75 percent of its exports to the United States. It is also the United States’ largest trading partner and biggest supplier of oil, but has found it hard to stand out. “We’d sometimes like to think that Americans would pay attention to us from time to time,” Trudeau said in an interview with the CBS television show “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday. Trudeau will press his message on Thursday, holding talks with Obama, lunching with Secretary of State John Kerry and then attending the state dinner. Canada wants to avoid a fresh trade fight over its softwood lumber exports, while the United States will reiterate long-standing concerns about how much information Ottawa shares on terror suspects, say officials involved with the talks. The two sides are also set to sign a declaration committing to the fight against climate change, sources said. “Canada’s not an issue that gets a lot of attention normally,” said a senior U.S. administration official. “(But) I’d be hard-pressed to identify a relationship that’s more important day in, day out, and that affects more Americans day in, day out.” Trudeau has a higher profile than any Canadian leader since his father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, was in power four decades ago. The New York Times and Vogue magazine are among the U.S. outlets that have run sympathetic profiles about him. Still, his visit may be overshadowed by the raucous race between Republican candidates vying to run for the White House. Thursday’s dinner coincides with a Republican debate in the battleground state of Florida. | 0fake |
Why Niger and Mali's cattle herders turned to jihad | NIAMEY/NAIROBI (Reuters) - When Doundou Chefou first took up arms as a youth a decade ago, it was for the same reason as many other ethnic Fulani herders along the Niger-Mali border: to protect his livestock. He had nothing against the Republic of Niger, let alone the United States of America. His quarrel was with rival Tuareg cattle raiders. Yet on Oct. 4 this year, he led dozens of militants allied to Islamic State in a deadly assault against allied U.S.-Niger forces, killing four soldiers from each nation and demonstrating how dangerous the West s mission in the Sahel has become. The incident sparked calls in Washington for public hearings into the presence of U.S. troops. A Pentagon probe is due to be completed in January. Asked by Reuters to talk about Chefou, Nigerien Defence Minister Kalla Mountari s face fell. He is a terrorist, a bandit, someone who intends to harm to Niger, he said at his office in the Nigerien capital Niamey earlier this month. We are tracking him, we are seeking him out, and if he ever sets foot in Niger again he will be neutralized. Like most gunmen in so-called Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, which operates along the sand-swept borderlands where Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso meet, Chefou used to be an ordinary Fulani pastoralist with little interest in jihad, several government sources with knowledge of the matter said. The transition of Chefou and men like him from vigilantes protecting their cows to jihadists capable of carrying out complex attacks is a story Western powers would do well to heed, as their pursuit of violent extremism in West Africa becomes ever more enmeshed in long-standing ethnic and clan conflicts. For now, analysts say the local IS affiliate remains small, at fewer than 80 fighters. But that was also the case at first with al Qaeda-linked factions before they tapped into local grievances to expand their influence in Mali in 2012. The United Nations this week released a report showing how IS in northern Somalia has grown to around 200 fighters from just a few dozen last year. The U.S. military has ramped up its presence in Niger, and other neighboring countries, in recent years as it fears poverty, corruption and weak states mean the region is ripe for the spread of extremist groups. For centuries the Tuareg and Fulani have lived as nomads herding animals and trading - Tuareg mostly across the dunes and oases of the Sahara and the Fulani mostly in the Sahel, a vast band of semi-arid scrubland that stretches from Senegal to Sudan beneath it. Some have managed to become relatively wealthy, accumulating vast herds. But they have always stayed separate from the modern nation-states that have formed around them. Though they largely lived peacefully side-by-side, arguments occasionally flared, usually over scarce watering points. A steady increase in the availability of automatic weapons over the years has made the rivalry ever more deadly. A turning point was the Western-backed ouster of Libya s Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. With his demise, many Tuareg from the region who had fought as mercenaries for Gaddafi returned home, bringing with them the contents of Libya s looted armories. Some of the returnees launched a rebellion in Mali to try to create a breakaway Tuareg state in the desert north, a movement that was soon hijacked by al Qaeda-linked jihadists who had been operating in Mali for years. Until then, Islamists in Mali had been recruiting and raising funds through kidnapping. In 2012, they swept across northern Mali, seizing key towns and prompting a French intervention that pushed them back in 2013. Amid the violence and chaos, some of the Tuareg turned their guns on their rivals from other ethnic groups like the Fulani, who then went to the Islamists for arms and training. In November 2013, a young Nigerien Fulani had a row with a Tuareg chief over money. The old man thrashed him and chased him away, recalls Boubacar Diallo, head of an association for Fulani livestock breeders along the Mali border, who now lives in Niamey. The youth came back armed with an AK-47, killed the chief and wounded his wife, then fled. The victim happened to be the uncle of a powerful Malian warlord. Over the next week, heavily armed Tuareg slaughtered 46 Fulani in revenge attacks along the Mali-Niger border. The incident was bloodiest attack on record in the area, said Diallo, who has documented dozens of attacks by Tuareg raiders that have killed hundreds of people and led to thousands of cows and hundreds of camels being stolen. That was a point when the Fulani in that area realized they needed more weapons to defend themselves, said Diallo, who has represented them in talks aimed at easing communal tensions. The crimes were almost never investigated by police, admits a Niamey-based law enforcement official with knowledge of them. The Tuareg were armed and were pillaging the Fulani s cattle, Niger Interior Minister Mohamed Bazoum told Reuters. The Fulani felt obliged to arm themselves. SELF-DEFENSE Gandou Zakaria, a researcher of mixed Tuareg-Fulani heritage in the faculty of law at Niamey University, has spent years studying why youths turned to jihad. Religious belief was at the bottom of their list of concerns, he told Reuters. Instead, local grievances were the main driving force. Whereas Tuareg in Mali and Niger have dreamed of and sometimes fought for an independent state, Fulani have generally been more pre-occupied by concerns over the security of their community and the herds they depend on. For the Fulani, it was a sense of injustice, of exclusion, of discrimination, and a need for self-defense, Zakaria said. One militant who proved particularly good at tapping into this dissatisfaction was Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, an Arabic-speaking north African, several law enforcement sources said. Al-Sahrawi recruited dozens of Fulani into the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), which was loosely allied to al Qaeda in the region and controlled Gao and the area to the Niger border in 2012. After French forces in 2013 scattered Islamists from the Malian towns they controlled, al-Sahrawi was briefly allied with Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an al Qaeda veteran. Today, al-Sahrawi is the face of Islamic State in the region. There was something in his discourse that spoke to the youth, that appealed to their sense of injustice, a Niger government official said of al-Sahrawi. Two diplomatic sources said there are signs al-Sahrawi has received financial backing from IS central in Iraq and Syria. How Chefou ended up being one of a handful of al-Sahrawi s lieutenants is unclear. The government source said he was brought to him by a senior officer, also Fulani, known as Petit Chapori. Like many Fulani youth toughened by life on the Sahel, Chefou was often in and out of jail for possession of weapons or involvement in localized violence that ended in deals struck between communities, the government official said. Yet Diallo, who met Chefou several times, said he was very calm, very gentle. I was surprised when he became a militia leader . U.S. and Nigerien sources differ on the nature of the fatal mission of Oct 4. Nigeriens say it was to go after Chefou; U.S. officials say it was reconnaissance mission. One vehicle lost by the U.S. forces was supplied by the CIA and kitted with surveillance equipment, U.S. media reported. A surveillance drone monitored the battle with a live feed. The Fulani men, mounted on motorbikes, were armed with the assault rifles they first acquired to look after their cows. | 0fake |
OBAMA APPOINTED JUDGE Sides With Dems In Critical Swing State…Doesn’t Matter If Vote-by-Mail Ballot Signatures Don’t Match…Votes Still Count | After only serving less than 4 years on the bench, Barack Obama nominated U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in 2012. Only one week ago, Judge Walker made what many consider a very controversial decision that forces the state of Florida to accept voter registration forms for one extra day because of Hurricane Matthew. Today, Obama appointed U.S. District Judge Mark Walker made another controversial decision after the Democratic Party sued the state. This decision clearly opens the door for extensive voter fraud. If you don t sign your ballot, your vote doesn t count. Seems like a pretty simple concept Pay attention to, and know about the judges on your ballots this November because judges decisions matter Calling the state s current law illogical and bizarre, a federal judge late Sunday ordered the state of Florida to give thousands of voters a chance to make sure their vote-by-mail ballots are counted.U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ruled that county election offices should notify voters if their signature on a vote-by-mail ballot and their voter registration forms don t match. Voters would then be given a chance to fix the problem by 5 p.m. the day before the election.The Florida Democratic Party sued the state because currently voters who don t sign their vote-by-mail ballot are given a chance to fix it. But voters whose signatures don t match aren t told about the problem until after the election is over and their ballot is discarded.Walker said that makes the law unconstitutional.Meredith Beatrice, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner, said state officials were reviewing the decision.It is not clear exactly how many voters would be affected by the decision. But more than 23,000 vote-by-mail ballots were rejected by Florida election officials during the 2012 presidential election where President Barack Obama carried the state by slightly more than 74,000 votes.Nearly 513,000 Floridians have already voted by mail according to data compiled by the Florida Division of Elections. And another 2.4 million vote-by-mail ballots have been requested.Judge Walker, citing the contentious 2000 Florida election where George W. Bush carried the state over Al Gore by 537 votes, said he needed to act because the current practice was enough of a burden to affect the outcome of an election and by extension, our country s future. Florida s Republican-controlled Legislature in 2004 passed a law that said all vote-by-mail ballots that had mismatched signatures or did not contain a signature were to be tossed out. But then in 2013 legislators changed the law to allow people who turned in a ballot without a signature to fix the mistake prior to the election.Detzner, the state s top election official, did not try to defend the current law. Instead his lawyers asserted that he could not order county election offices to correct the problem and that he was not the proper person to sue. Walker disagreed sharply in his decision. Via AP | 1real |
Russia says to veto Western-backed draft U.N. resolution on Syria - Ifax | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will veto a draft U.N. resolution being pushed by the United States, Britain and France which aims to bolster support for international inquiries into a deadly toxic gas attack in Syria, the Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday. The U.N. Security Council could vote on the draft resolution later on Wednesday. It is similar to a text circulated to the 15-member council last week that condemns the April 4 attack and pushes Syria’s government to cooperate with investigators. Interfax cited Russian deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov as saying Russia would veto it in its current form. | 0fake |
Puerto Rico expects U.S. to lift Jones Act shipping restrictions | (Reuters) - Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello said on Wednesday he expected the federal government to waive the Jones Act, which would lift restrictions on ships that can provide aid to the island devastated by Hurricane Maria. He said he has been speaking with members of Congress from both parties who have supported an emergency waiver. “We expect them to waive it,” Rossello said in an interview with CNN. He noted there was a seven-day waiver after Hurricane Irma, which was much less devastating to the island. On Tuesday, the Trump administration said there was no need to waive shipping restrictions to help get fuel and supplies to storm-ravaged Puerto Rico, saying it would do nothing to address the island’s damaged ports, the main impediment to shipping. A waiver would allow Puerto Rico to get help not only from U.S. ships but from any ships that can bring aid. “That is critical, particularly for fuel,” he said. “One of the considerations right now is the priority of getting fuel, diesel, gasoline, all across the island. Right now we have enough fuel. We’re limited by the transportation logistics, but at some point of course, getting fuel into the island is going to be critical so that we can have the major functions of telecoms, hospitals, water, to be running appropriately.” The Jones Act requires that all goods shipped between U.S. ports be carried by American owned-and-operated ships. U.S. Senator John McCain asked acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke on Tuesday to grant an emergency waiver of the law. He said that Puerto Rican residents would have to pay at least twice as much for food, drinking water and other supplies without the waiver. (This corrected version of the story fixes paragraph four to show the administration has not formally denied a waiver request). | 0fake |
U.S. anti-border tax coalition to target lawmakers during Congressional recess | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Opponents of a proposal to create a U.S. border tax on imported goods are targeting lawmakers in their home states for the next two weeks while Congress is in recess, according to organizers of the lobbying effort. The anti-border tax coalition, known as Americans for Affordable Products, includes large corporations that require imports like automakers and retail giants like Target (TGT.N) , Best Buy (BBY.N) and Walmart (WMT.N). The tax opponents will target 40 members of Congress in 11 states, said coalition spokesman Joshua Baca. “We’re talking to businesses, local associations, having a frank conversation with them about how dumb this idea is,” Baca said. His group argues the proposal will raise consumer prices. As part of a total overhaul of the U.S. tax code, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has proposed lowering the corporate income tax to 20 percent from 35 percent, imposing a 20 percent tax on imports and excluding export revenue from taxable income. The proposal has some strong corporate backers who say it will boost American jobs and not raise prices, including companies that do considerable amount of exporting, such as Boeing (BA.N), Caterpillar (CAT.N) and Pfizer (PFE.N). The anti-border tax group is planning to host a town hall meeting next week in Nevada with Republican Senator Dean Heller, which will also be co-sponsored by local business groups and Americans For Prosperity, the conservative group funded by the Republican Koch brothers which also opposes the border tax. Town hall meetings have gained more attention recently as events featuring Republican lawmakers have been targeted by activists to voice their opposition to several proposals, including repealing the Affordable Care Act which widened health insurance coverage for about 20 million Americans. Additionally, the anti-tax group will hold a discussion in Ohio with Republican Representative David Joyce, where he will hear from local furniture store owners who would be affected by a border tax, Baca said. Concurrently, members of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which is comprised of large retailers like Autozone (AZO.N) , Walgreens Boot Alliance, Inc. (WBA.O) and J.C. Penny Company, are using the recess to give members of Congress behind-the-scenes tours of both their headquarters and stores in an effort to persuade them against the tax, spokesman Brian Dodge said. Both groups are hoping to make more voters aware of their position and are armed with an opinion poll by a pollster who also works for several Republican members of Congress. The poll, shared first with Reuters and which was conducted with funding from opponents of the tax, found 63 percent of voters are against the tax, including 70 percent of women. Additionally, the poll makes the case that 56 percent of voters say they would be less likely to vote for a member of Congress who supports the tax proposal. | 0fake |
WAY TO GO! Sarah Sanders Shuts Down Black Reporter Trying to Make Anthem Protest About Race [Video] | SARAH SANDERS does a fantastic job shutting down April Reid on the topic of the anthem protest. Reid tries to change the narrative to make the protest about race. Sarah wasn t having it Great job Sarah!Ryan said the protesting players had said it was not about the flag but about protesting for such things as women s rights and civil rights. What does the president say when you look at history and see how people love this country but wanted to challenge the system to make it better? Ryan asked. I think if we re going to look at history, we should look at the thousands of Americans who have given their life to protect that flag, to protect that anthem. We should be celebrating those people, Sanders said, adding she wanted to finish her statement as Ryan interrupted.Sanders said the White House would always be for celebration of the American flag and that would not change. Just to clarify on that Ryan said. I don t think there s much to clarify, Sanders said. It s pretty black and white. Ryan said that it was a major issue and a racial issue to some, but Sanders continued to defend the Trump administrations belief that respect should be shown for the flag first.Read more: WFB | 1real |
El Chapo, Mexican Drug Kingpin, Is Extradited to U.S. - The New York Times | MEXICO CITY — Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo who twice slipped out of Mexican prisons and into criminal legend, was extradited to the United States on Thursday night, officials said, drawing to a close a quest to prosecute the head of one of the world’s largest narcotics organizations. A federal court in Mexico denied an appeal by Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers to block the extradition, clearing the way for his transfer to the American authorities in New York, where he faces numerous charges for his role as the chieftain of the Sinaloa cartel. Mr. Guzmán was put on a plane on Thursday in Ciudad Juárez, near the border with Texas, and arrived in the United States on President Obama’s final night in office. According to a Justice Department statement late Thursday, he was flown to Long Island MacArthur Airport in Islip, N. Y. The decision to extradite Mr. Guzmán was an for the Mexican government, which once claimed that he would serve his long sentence in Mexico first. However, after his escape in 2015, when his associates tunneled him out of Mexico’s most secure prison, officials began to reconsider. When he was recaptured early last year, after one of Mexico’s most exhaustive manhunts, the government publicly said it would allow the extradition of Mr. Guzmán, thus relieving itself of the potential embarrassment of another escape and preventing further souring of its relationship with the United States. Mr. Guzmán’s extradition came suddenly, after nearly a year of appeals and legal procedures. Even his own lawyer was surprised. In an interview after the announcement by the Mexican government, the lawyer, José Refugio Rodríguez, said he had only just learned about the extradition. Indeed, he was at the prison where Mr. Guzmán was being held, planning to see his client, when it was locked down for two hours. “I was supposed to visit him today,” he said. “I know nothing of this. ” An American law enforcement official said the United States authorities had not known that the Mexicans were about to hand over Mr. Guzmán until late Thursday afternoon. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss the case, said the “guesstimate” was that the timing of the extradition was “politically motivated. ” The official did not elaborate. Mr. Guzmán — whose nickname, El Chapo, means “Shorty” — was a major trophy for law enforcement officials in both countries. Over the years, as the drug trade blossomed into a industry, he became much more than a mere trafficker. As a with a flair for the dramatic, he became a symbol of Mexico’s broken rule of law, America’s narcotics obsession and the failure of both nations’ drug wars. And yet, amid the anguish caused by Mr. Guzmán — the trail of blood left by his henchmen across swaths of Mexico the addiction crisis fueled by his networks in America — his legend only seemed to grow. In Mexico, he became a folk hero to the masses. In Sinaloa, tales of Mr. Guzmán’s handing out freebies to the poor and covering checks for diners in the restaurants he frequented are commonplace. But his daring escapes cemented his reputation as an outlaw. Mr. Guzmán first managed to break out of a prison in 2001 — according to some accounts, by hiding in a laundry cart. In the ensuing years, while on the run, he seemed always just out of the grasp of the authorities, slipping into secret passages beneath bathtubs or absconding seconds before federal raids. The fascination with Mr. Guzmán stemmed from the fact that one could never really count him out. He perfected the escape hatch, the underground tunnel and the trap door — all tools he used to evade law enforcement during his years on the run, which ended with an arrest in 2014. He sent his engineers to Germany for training, then dispatched them to his homes, where they would outfit closets, bathrooms and refrigerators with secret exits. A pioneer of the tunnel, used to shuttle tens of thousands of tons of drugs into America, he ultimately adapted those feats of secret underground engineering for his escape from the Altiplano prison: a facility in the State of Mexico where he lived in isolation, under surveillance by a camera in his cell. On the night of July 11, 2015, shortly before 9 p. m. Mr. Guzmán stepped into his shower and passed through a small hole in its floor, positioned in the camera’s one blind spot. From there, he descended into a tunnel, equipped with a motorcycle on rails, and raced to freedom. His escape was a stinging embarrassment for the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto, which had trumpeted his capture as a crucial victory in its bloody campaign against the narcotics trade. Again a fugitive, Mr. Guzmán found the time to rendezvous with film stars, including Sean Penn, to discuss a biopic about his life. But his freedom was . After a manhunt that involved more than 2, 500 people, he was seized in the town of Los Mochis in early 2016 after crawling out of a sewer. Once he was back in prison, many worried that he would escape once more, prompting the authorities to rotate him from cell to cell and, eventually, to send him up north, to the border with Texas. The general belief is that, in the United States, El Chapo’s antics will be much harder to pull off. Though his reputation may not diminish, his chances of escape, or acquittal, are drastically lower there, experts say. Mr. Guzmán faces charges stemming from six separate indictments in the United States. In the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, where he is expected to face prosecution, he is charged with the manufacture and distribution of a range of drugs, the use of firearms, money laundering and running an ongoing criminal enterprise. The indictment, first filed in 2009, has been updated three times since then. In a statement on Thursday night, the United States Justice Department said it extended “its gratitude to the government of Mexico for their extensive cooperation and assistance in securing the extradition of Guzmán Loera to the United States. ” In ridding itself of Mr. Guzmán, the Mexican government has lifted at least one giant weight from its shoulders: that of keeping and successfully prosecuting the notorious escape artist. He is departing, however, at a time of deep political unrest in the country, as protests over an increase in gasoline prices continue and corruption scandals, as well as rising crime, nag at the nation’s image. The American Donald J. Trump, has made threatening Mexico over trade and immigration a center of his platform. It is unclear whether the decision to extradite Mr. Guzmán the day before Mr. Trump’s inauguration was connected in any way with the hostile tone the has adopted toward Mexico. “The fact that we delivered him to Obama is a clear political message that says this is a government we have long collaborated and worked closely with,” said Jorge Chabat, an expert on security at CIDE, a Mexico City research institution. “By not waiting to send him to Trump after his inauguration, it is a subtle statement saying, ‘We could do this for you, too, in the future, if we have a good relationship. ’” “If not, there won’t be any other powerful narco traffickers extradited,” he said. | 0fake |
Wells Fargo Offers Regrets, but Doesn’t Admit Misconduct - The New York Times | Wells Fargo was flowing with regrets on Friday, taking out ads in nearly a dozen newspapers saying the bank took “full responsibility” for creating sham bank accounts without its customers’ permission. The bank’s chief executive officer, John Stumpf, even called one prominent Democrat in Congress to express his willingness to assume personal responsibility for the mess. The bank fired at least 5, 300 employees and refunded millions of dollars to customers. But with its banking regulators, Wells Fargo was not as contrite. The bank agreed to pay $185 million in fines and hire an independent consultant to review its sales practices, but it was able to settle the investigation into the questionable accounts without officially admitting to any of the suspected misconduct. It was classic Wall Street. Since the financial crisis, regulators have brought dozens of cases against banks and other financial firms, hitting them with tens of billions of dollars in fines and requiring the companies to overhaul their business practices. But frequently, regulatory cases are settled without a bank having to admit doing anything wrong. Some Congressional officials and governmental watchdog groups say regulators may be too eager to extract a fine and to settle a case quickly than to prove a bank’s guilt in court. It could take years of court battles for regulators to prove that every one of the 1. 5 million accounts that Wells said may have been unauthorized was indeed phony. “It’s very troubling,” Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat and member of the Banking Committee, said in a telephone interview Friday. “Wells Fargo is saying they take responsibility, but they aren’t actually taking responsibility in the official sense. ” Mr. Merkley said he wants the leadership of the Banking Committee to hold hearings on the Wells Fargo scandal. He hopes to hear testimony not only from bank executives, but from regulators on why they agreed to the settlement terms without an admission of wrongdoing from the bank. Republican staff members of the banking committee were briefed by Wells Fargo executives on Friday. The staff is still collecting information from the bank to help committee members decide whether the scandal warrants hearings, people briefed on the matter said. A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said that while the bank readily admits that it created questionable accounts, it does not agree with other findings by its banking regulators, namely that the bank’s culture and business model fostered such behavior. “We recognize that these instances occurred, and we want to be very open about that and make sure they don’t happen again,” said Mary Eshet, the Wells Fargo spokeswoman. “But this was not part of an intentional strategy. ” Legal experts say that not admitting wrongdoing may have another benefit for Wells Fargo: helping the bank defend itself against lawsuits from aggrieved customers. “It ends up being a ”’ said Robert Hockett, a professor at Cornell Law School. “The regulator gets some kind of payment from the accused, and the accused gets to ease the risk of private plaintiff litigation by not admitting to guilt. ” Wells has already been hit with a number of lawsuits over the phony accounts. In addition to the 1. 5 million sham bank accounts that regulators say may have been opened, there were an additional 565, 000 credit card accounts that bank employees may have applied for without customer consent. In some cases, bank employees would move money from a customer’s existing deposit account to open up another one. The unauthorized account was then quickly closed, but the bank employee got credit for drumming up new business. Regulators said employees were given financial incentives to open up as many new accounts as they could, as part of a bank culture to grow business. Much of the illegal activity took place in California, including in and around Los Angeles, where the city attorney filed a lawsuit against the bank last year over the questionable accounts. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency then joined the investigation, which broadened to encompass several other states. As part of the settlement, Wells agreed to pay $100 million to the consumer protection bureau, the largest fine ever levied by that agency. Still, the fine pales next to the penalties that banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America paid to settle civil investigations into soured mortgage securities sold in the to the financial crisis. “Wells is paying what amounts to a couple of parking tickets for each of the 1. 5 million accounts,” Mr. Hockett said. Regulators say that the Wells Fargo fine may look small by comparison, but that the amount of financial harm to the consumer is relatively small. Wells said that the average refund to consumers was $25. Some regulators have vowed to push more financial firms to officially own up to their misdeeds. In a speech in 2013, Mary Jo White, the chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, noted that in criminal court, judges will not accept a guilty plea unless the accused admits to the unlawful conduct. Ms. White said in the financial industry, pushing companies to officially admit to their actions was important to public accountability. “Anyone who has witnessed a guilty plea understands the power of such admissions,” Ms. White said in her speech. “It creates an unambiguous record of the conduct and demonstrates unequivocally the defendant’s responsibility for his or her acts. ” That said, there will still be times that the securities agency would settle cases without such admissions. Just this week, the S. E. C. settled a case with the investment firm Raymond James over trading commissions. The firm settled the case “without admitting or denying the findings” by the agency. | 0fake |
Morawiecki sworn in as Polish PM amid dispute with EU | WARSAW (Reuters) - Mateusz Morawiecki was sworn in as Poland s new prime minister on Monday and European Council President Donald Tusk called on the new leader to pursue European unity. Poland s ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) is at odds with the EU over immigration, logging in an ancient forest and government attempts to control the courts and the media. Critics say the eurosceptic party s policies have subverted democracy and the rule of law. At the same time, acrimony between Tusk and the PiS dates back years. Poland, acting on orders from the PiS boss and long-time Tusk adversary Jaroslaw Kaczynski, was the sole member of the 28 EU members to vote in March against Tusk s re-election. Morawiecki, 49, replaced Beata Szydlo, who became a deputy prime minister. PiS sacked the popular Szydlo last week in a bid to improve Poland s image abroad and prepare the conservatives for a series of elections. Morawiecki will remain finance minister and economy minister. All other ministers have kept their jobs for now, although some ministerial changes are expected in weeks to come. Morawiecki said his government will continue the work of Szydlo. He is expected to outline his policies on Tuesday. Tusk, a former Polish prime minister before PiS came to power in 2015, said he counts on good cooperation. Acting for Poland s strong position in the European Union and for the unity of all member states is the need of the moment, Tusk wrote. Former Polish President Lech Walesa, who is a critic of the PiS said on Twitter: The circus has stayed the same, only the clowns have changed their roles. Walesa led protests and strikes that shook communist rule in the 1980s. Szydlo s government was one of the most popular in Poland since the 1989 collapse of communism. It registered around 40 percent approval due to low unemployment, increases in public spending and a focus on traditional Catholic values in public life. | 0fake |
Republican Senator Johnson opposes Senate tax proposal: WSJ | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson said he opposes the Senate Republican tax proposal because it unfairly benefits corporations more than other types of businesses. “If they can pass it without me, let them,” Johnson told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. “I’m not going to vote for this tax package.” | 0fake |
SUPREME COURT JUSTICE Goes All Creepy Predicting The 2016 Election: “Everything is up for grabs” | What the heck is wrong with these loony liberal political hack Supreme Court justices? We had a proclamation from Latina Sotomayor that white men couldn t possibly know what it s like to be a minority huh? Now we have Ruth Buzzy Ginsburg saying that if Hillary doesn t win then everything is up for grabs . She also put in a plug for a pro-Hillary presidency saying she doesn t want to think about a Trump presidency. What the heck is up with these supposedly unbiased people who should not be speaking out politically. All the more reason to vote for Trump to make the court more conservative just to piss off the political hags hacks on the court WASHINGTON Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she doesn t want to think about the possibility of Donald Trump winning the White House, and she predicts the next president whoever she will be will have a few appointments to make to the Supreme Court.In an interview Thursday in her court office, the 83-year-old justice and leader of the court s liberal wing said she presumes Democrat Hillary Clinton will be the next president. Asked what if Republican Donald Trump won instead, she said, I don t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs. That includes the future of the high court itself, on which she is the oldest justice. Two justices, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer, are in their late 70s. It s likely that the next president, whoever she will be, will have a few appointments to make, Ginsburg said, smiling.She didn t sound as though she is preparing to step down soon and shows no signs of slowing down. Ginsburg said she has been catching up on sleep since the court finished its work last week before a busy summer of travel that will take her to Europe and, as is her custom, to see as much opera as she can fit in.In the wide-ranging interview, Ginsburg reviewed the just-ended term during which she lost her best friend on the court and, partly as a result, was on the winning side of most of the high-profile cases. Justice Antonin Scalia died in February, depriving his conservative allies of a reliable vote and leaving eight justices to decide nearly five dozen cases.President Barack Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland for the ninth seat, but Senate Republicans have refused to hold a hearing or vote on Garland s nomination, arguing the next president should have the right to name Scalia s replacement. Even if the Senate were to confirm Garland after the election, the court probably would hear three months of cases without him, Ginsburg said.And if there s no action in a post-election, lame-duck session of Congress, the vacancy could last the entire term, she said.She said court majorities this term moved to shut down tactics used by opponents of abortion and of affirmative action in higher education in two major cases.Ginsburg said she doesn t expect to see any more such cases after the court upheld the use of race in college admissions in Texas and struck down Texas abortion-clinic regulations that the state said were needed to protect patients. It seemed to me it was a sham to pretend this was about a woman s health, rather than about making it harder to get an abortion, Ginsburg said.She disputed reports that the court is taking on only relatively unimportant cases while waiting for a ninth justice. It isn t so. We haven t selected them with a view to dodging challenging cases. We take them as they come to us, she said.Via: CBS | 1real |
null | I -KNOW- Hitlery AND the Dear Leader are in full 'cover my a$$' mode, and so tense you couldnt drive a toothpick up their rears with a sledge hammer because they know there is PROVABLE crimes and corruption still to be released in those emails. For me, the vast difference in the rally crowds are THE indicator of just how many of the American people believe anything Hillary or this admnistration says. | 1real |
HILLARY IS FURIOUS OVER EMAIL HACKS…Openly Threatens War With Russia…Media Is SILENT [VIDEO] | But the media s concerned Trump is the threat to our national security with his reckless words. LOL!Watch #UnFitHillary threaten Russia here: | 1real |
Fiorina blasts CNN for debate rules that could exclude her despite rise in polls | Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina is blasting CNN for relying in large part on old polling to determine who makes their prime-time debate stage next month.
The former Hewlett-Packard CEO has been rising in the polls since what was widely seen as a breakout performance in the first Aug. 6 Fox News-Facebook debate where lower-polling candidates squared off.
But in determining who makes their prime-time debate on Sept. 16, CNN plans to count a number of polls from the three weeks before the August debate, when Fiorina's numbers were low. The calculation could well exclude her.
"It's frustrating to say the least if CNN is putting their thumb on the scale," Fiorina told Fox News on Friday.
CNN plans to take an average of major polls from July 16 to Sept. 10, and allow the top 10 on the prime-time debate stage in Simi Valley, Calif. Others will be invited to an earlier debate. However, the Fiorina camp says because there were far more polls taken in the three weeks before the debate than since, CNN will be weighting pre-debate polls more than three times as heavily as post-debate polls. They argue it doesn't make sense to rely so heavily on old polling.
"It doesn't seem right to me," Fiorina said Friday.
Since the Aug. 6 debate, a Fox News poll has Fiorina in seventh place nationally with 5 percent, a significant increase from a pre-debate poll that put her in 12th place with 2 percent.
A post-debate Rasmussen poll put her in a tie for fourth with 9 percent and this week's Quinnipiac poll has her in eighth place with 5 percent. Some key state polls have her doing even better.
"I'm also comfortably within the top five in virtually every statewide poll that has been taken since that debate," Fiorina said Friday.
A CNN spokeswoman told Fox News that "we believe our approach is a fair and effective way to deal with the highest number of candidates we have ever encountered."
However, the Fiorina campaign blasted both CNN and the Republican National Committee for "rigging the game" to keep her off the main stage. Fiorina has also nudged CNN to simply take more polls to remedy the situation.
"To be clear, if Carly isn't on the main stage, it will not be because her rise in the polls can't overcome lower polling from July, but because only two of CNN's chosen polling companies have released polls at all since the first debate," a Fiorina campaign aide told Fox News.
An RNC spokesman told Fox News the party is legally barred from interfering with the media's rules.
Still, Fiorina told Fox News on Thursday she wants the RNC to take charge.
Fox News' Serafin Gomez and Howard Kurtz contributed to this report. | 0fake |
Donald Trump Trashes Nafta. But Unwinding It Would Come at a Huge Cost. - The New York Times | When you buy an “ ” car, you are probably buying a car that has an immensely complicated mix of components that were also made in Mexico and Canada. The same is true for many electronics, and advanced textiles like carpeting. The beef in your grocery store might be from a cow that was fattened and slaughtered in the United States, but that was very likely born across the border in Mexico. That is the world that has evolved in the almost 23 years since the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted. These deep economic interconnections show why trying to unravel what Donald J. Trump, in last week’s debate, called “the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country” would be no easy feat. It would risk disrupting the very underpinnings of industries that employ millions of Americans. The view among mainstream economists is that Nafta, over all, has raised incomes in the United States while also costing it thousands of manufacturing jobs. But whether you view the agreement as a net positive or a net negative for the country, the reality is that the United States, Canada and Mexico are now for all practical purposes a single integrated economy. That has consequences — especially if the next president tries to reshape or abandon the deal. At the border between Santa Teresa, N. M. and the Mexican town of San Jeronimo, up to 5, 000 head of cattle a day amble across the border they are less likely to become stressed and lose weight when they walk under their own power than when loaded into semis. After being bred in the hills of Northern Mexico, and after eating American corn, they become a key input for the American beef industry. It creates jobs in feedlots and slaughterhouses in the United States, where the animals are fattened, and produces less costly beef for consumers in the United States and in the global markets to which the beef is exported. A few miles away, Mexican workers in a Foxconn facility assemble Dell computers that were designed in Texas and will be sold all over the world. Low labor costs keep Dell on a competitive footing with global competitors like China’s Lenovo. Because of that, Dell can employ thousands of highly paid engineers and salespeople in the United States. And American automobile companies have supply chains that are so thoroughly integrated across the Canadian and Mexican borders that when huge traffic backups developed on the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, because of intensive security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Michigan auto factories were at risk of having to shut down for want of supplies. The auto industry is so intertwined among the three countries that it’s almost useless to think of a car as being “made in the United States,” even if the final assembly takes place within America’s borders. “You have what looks like an American car, with Mexican labor and materials that went into it and Canadian materials,” said James Bookbinder, a professor of logistics and manufacturing at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. “It’s really from the Nafta region, and in the process some of those jobs created are in Mexico, but there are also jobs in the United States because all these pieces fit together. ” As a general rule, Mexican suppliers make parts that can be done with labor and relatively simple assembly — plastic bumpers, seats or dashboards. More complex parts like engines, transmissions and electronics components are more likely to be made in the United States or Canada, where the workers and suppliers with more advanced skills are in greater supply. “A transmission is a complicated piece of machinery and might go back and forth across the border three or four times as different components are added at different plants,” said Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. There are parallels elsewhere in the world. In Europe, German manufacturing is extraordinarily successful on the world stage — but many of the more inputs for German cars and other manufactured goods come from countries in the European Union like Poland and Hungary. It’s true that there have been fewer jobs in the United States since the introduction of Nafta. The 926, 000 jobs making motor vehicles and parts is down 15 percent since December 1993. But it’s hard to untangle the impact of trade and the shifting of some work to Mexico from the advanced technology like robotics that reduces the it takes to build a car. Overall manufacturing employment in the United States is down 27 percent in the same span. “There’s this tendency to say, ‘It’s all moving to Mexico,’ ” said Bernard Swiecki, a senior analyst at the Center for Automotive Research. But the center’s research finds that automakers have spent $77 billion on new or upgraded capital projects in the United States since 2010, compared with $26 billion in Mexico. The improved competitiveness of American companies in the global auto market since the 1990s has happened in part because they have built more efficient North American supply chains. Different parts of the car are made in the place where the local labor force and cost structure are the best fit. “If a product uses really sophisticated materials like steels and advanced composites, and more sophisticated processes,” Mr. Swiecki said, there’s a better chance you can find the people with the skills needed in the United States or Canada. Meanwhile, the lower price of parts imported from Mexico helps control the cost of the overall automobile and makes it more competitive with cars built in Europe or Asia. Since the 1990s, major automakers based outside the United States have built American factories to gain access to these local supply networks and get closer to American consumers. That has to do with a lot more than Nafta, but the connections between North American parts suppliers across borders surely helped speed the process. The North American auto industry is not the only sector where such a transformation has occurred, Mr. Hufbauer says. American textile companies make technologically advanced fabrics like those for carpeting, parachutes or the steel mesh inside tires. They are exported to Mexico, where the more work of turning those into finished goods is done. The same goes for many electronics. But even if you accept that these trends contribute to higher economic output, and to more jobs and more competitive companies in the United States, it’s not as if the anxiety about losing jobs that Mr. Trump describes doesn’t have a realistic basis. After all, it’s fine to say that Dell is a more competitive, successful company by assembling computers in Juarez, which creates more jobs for the people who design and sell those computers. But that isn’t much solace if you were one of the 905 people who lost jobs at the plant in N. C. doing that same work. In other words, the narrative promulgated by trade skeptics that a more integrated global economy has worsened job opportunities for certain workers isn’t wrong. But it’s also not a given that the trend will reverse itself if the next president does seek to renegotiate Nafta. We don’t know exactly what a President Trump would do in seeking to renegotiate Nafta, or what exactly the consequences would be of a trade war between the United States and its partners. And a trade war could well erupt if he were to follow through on some of his aggressive statements. What we do know is that even relatively small tariffs can stand in the way of the kind of supply networks on which many modern industries are based. With these networks, goods can cross back and forth across national borders multiple times as part of the pipeline that leads to a finished automobile or a computer or even a side of beef. It’s not that companies couldn’t adjust over time they could. It’s that the networks evolved this way for a reason, and readjusting would come at a considerable cost. More fundamentally, trying to reject the deal with America’s neighbors entirely would mean upending major industries and a generation’s worth of economic integration. Nafta has had its flaws and downsides. But either major American industries would have to figure out how to restructure themselves to rely less on the movement of goods across borders, or the United States would find itself poorer and more of an island in the global economy. | 0fake |
#RESISTANCE Organizers Have An AMAZING New Anti-Trump Campaign; Trump Will Be FURIOUS (IMAGES) | If there is anything that really gets under Donald Trump s skin, it is people questioning his authority and his legitimacy as president. This is the reason that he keeps making up claims of fake voter fraud whenever anyone points out the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by close to three million. It is also why he took such exception to Saturday Night Live portraying his chief strategist, former Breitbart News head Stephen K. Bannon, as the real president.Well, that narrative has been taken to a whole other level by #RESISTANCE organizers. They, like anyone sane, realizes that Bannon has an unusual amount of power in the Trump White House. That is troubling, considering that Bannon is a white supremacist who also has said he wants to destroy the state. Therefore, the answer to this is to make sure that people understand that it is quite possibly Bannon, rather than Trump, calling the real shots up there in Washington.The new campaign has put signs in major cities around the nation that read, Impeach President Bannon. Spotted in DC this morning these are so newly posted the wheat paste is still wet. pic.twitter.com/pwTubJVFmu Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) February 19, 2017According to the people who organized the effort, their reasoning for doing so is the following: No one voted for Steve Bannon. Yet he is the de-facto 45th President of the United States. This could very well be true; after all, Trump has named Bannon to the National Security Council, all the while demoting the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence. Further, it is pretty clear to anyone watching that Bannon has quite a bit of influence over Trump so much so that TIME Magazine actually put Bannon on the cover instead of Trump, and called him the great manipulator. As for the goals of this campaign? Well, there are a few possibilities, according to those behind it: Maybe we ll encourage an angry tweet or two. Maybe even get Trump to say his two favorite words to Bannon, You re Fired. We ll tune in. It ll be great for ratings. Hopefully, Trump s ego takes over on this one, and Bannon is out the door sooner rather than later. That would definitely be a win for #THERESISTANCE.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 1real |
DERANGED LEFTISTS Cross The Line: Chicago Play Targeting 10 Yr Old Barron Trump Opens Tonight In Obama’s Old Neighborhood | A play scheduled to open Saturday night in Chicago targets Barron Trump, the ten-year-old son of newly sworn in President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.The play, titled, Barron Trump Up Past Bedtime , stars comedian Shannon Noll as Barron and is set for the Revival Theater in Hyde Park, the neighborhood of Trump s predecessor former President Barack Obama. Melania Trump will also be targeted in character on stage. But the main target, of course, is President Trump.After eight years of presidential children being off limits (to the point news articles about them disappeared after White House warnings), they are fair game now that a Republican is president. A headline about the play at the Chicago Reader makes that very point about young Barron Trump being fair game : Barron Trump is fair game in Barron Trump: Up Past BedtimeThe Revival Theater s description of the play: Join Donald Trump s youngest heir Barron Trump (as played by Shannon Noll) for a Pee Wee s Playhouse-style show that features celebrity guests (Melania Trump, Ben Carson, and Vladimir Putin) patriotic games (Pin the Email on the Clinton), and fancy fun! The Chicago Reader interviewed Noll about the play. Noll says her approach is decidedly lighthearted: an exploration of the current political moment through the eyes of a child enmeshed in it. When I set out to do this show, I did it to use [Barron] as a vehicle to comment on this administration, Noll says. She was initially inspired to take on the title role due to her resemblance to the youngest Trump, who stepped into the spotlight when he appeared to struggle to stay awake during his father s presidential victory speech, which occurred at around 3 AM.Up Past Bedtime begins as Melania Trump tucks Barron in for the night. He then secretly stays awake to explore a fantastical world, a la Pee-wee s Playhouse, populated by the likes of Vladimir Putin and Ben Carson.Noll told the Chicago Tribune that Barron Trump is absolutely not the butt of a joke. I noticed that I looked like Barron Trump and I thought that would be an interesting approach, she said. She has brought on collaborators who will perform solo material (the aforementioned imaginary friends) and I m facilitating that as Barron Trump as master of ceremonies. Barron Trump is absolutely not the butt of a joke, she said.Asked if she had any second thoughts about going ahead with the show, Noll said, No, I sort of doubled-down. I was originally going to create a fake Trump child, but I look so much like Barron. And going into this, I specifically created this character so that he bears no resemblance in personality to what we ve seen of Barron Trump. I m just playing him as a generic kid. Gateway Pundit | 1real |
Comment on Nomi Prins: Hillary Clinton Will Continue the Big Bank Protection Racket by EndOfTheWorld | by Yves Smith
Yves here. It’s hardly a secret that the Clintons are deeply loyal to Wall Street. Bob Rubin and his numerous well-heeled followers are a powerful, arguably dominant, faction in the Democratic party, and they are tightly aligned with the Clintons.
Nomi Prins gives a useful overview of how Hillary has attempted to blame the financial crisis on everything but the deregulation that her husband supported and the reckless behavior that resulted and how her anti-bank noises, like her criticism of Wells Fargo, is tepid and late in coming.
However, I quibble with some of her article. It’s surprising to see her single out Gary Gensler, former head of the CFTC, as a bank crony. Gensler is widely seen as pushing for much tougher oversight and enforcement despite being in the disadvantaged position of being at a secondary regulator. Recall that he was up against Bernanke and Geithner, a weak Mary Shapiro at the SEC, and an indifferent-to-captured Obama at the helm.
It’s also surprising to see Prins fail to mention the cronies rumored to be Clinton’s top picks for Treasury Secretary: Larry Fink of BlackRock and Tony James of Blackstone. Both firms would profit ginormously if the Wall Street looting plan that Hillary supports and James is promoting, that of having all workers pay 3% of their pay into mandatory retirement accounts, were to become law.
As we’ve indicated, the cost of this “fix” is greater than any of the ideas proposed to shore up Social Security (as opposed to cut it by stealth). I hate to say it, but I believe Prins’ failure to flag this risk is due to her still hewing to orthodox financial views and thus believing that Federal deficits are a problem, as opposed to desirable, most of the time, and regarding senior members of the asset management heavyweights as less dangerous than executives of TBTF banks. Since even the modest re-regulation that has taken place since the crisis has increased shadow banking, and firms like Blackrock and Blackstone are major players, it would be naive to depict them as problem-free and disinterested.
By Nomi Prins, a former Wall Street executive and the author of six books of which the most recent is All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power (Nation Books). Originally published at TomDispatch
As this endless election limps toward its last days, while spiraling into a bizarre duel over vote-rigging accusations, a deep sigh is undoubtedly in order. The entire process has been an emotionally draining, frustration-inducing, rage-inflaming spectacle of repellent form over shallow substance. For many, the third debate evoked fatigue. More worrying, there was again no discussion of how to prevent another financial crisis, an ominous possibility in the next presidency, whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton enters the Oval Office — given that nothing fundamental has been altered when it comes to Wall Street’s practices and predation.
At the heart of American political consciousness right now lies a soul-crushing reality for millions of distraught Americans: the choices for president couldn’t be feebler or more disappointing. On the one hand, we have a petulant, vocabulary-challenged man-boar of a billionaire, who hasn’t paid his taxes, has regularly left those supporting him holding the bag , and seems like a ludicrous composite of every bad trait in every bad date any woman has ever had. On the other hand, we’re offered a walking photo-op for and well-paid speechmaker to Wall-Street CEOs, a one-woman money-raising machine from the 1% of the 1%, who, despite a folksiness that couldn’t look more rehearsed, has methodically outplayed her opponent.
With less than two weeks to go before E-day — despite the Trumptilian upheaval of the last year — the high probability of a Clinton win means the establishment remains intact. When we awaken on November 9th, it will undoubtedly be dawn in Hillary Clinton’s America and that potentially means four years of an economic dystopia that will (as would Donald Trump’s version of the same) leave many Americans rightfully anxious about their economic futures.
None of the three presidential debates suggested that either candidate would have the ability (or desire) to confront Wall Street from the Oval Office. In the second and third debates, in case you missed them, Hillary didn’t even mention the Glass-Steagall Act, too big to fail, or Wall Street. While in the first debate, the subject of Wall Street only came up after she disparaged the tax policies of “ Trumped-up, trickle down economics ” (or, as I like to call it, the Trumpledown economics of giving tax and financial benefits to the rich and to corporations).
In this election, Hillary has crafted her talking points regarding the causes of the last financial crisis as weapons against Trump, but they hardly begin to tell the real story of what happened to the American economy. The meltdown of 2007-2008 was not mainly due to “tax policies that slashed taxes on the wealthy” or a “failure to invest in the middle class,” two subjects she has repeatedly highlighted to slam the Republicans and their candidate. It was a byproduct of the destruction of the regulations that opened the way for a too-big-to-fail framework to thrive. Under the presidency of Bill Clinton, Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era act that once separated people’s bank deposits and loans from any kind of risky bets or other similar actions in which banks might engage, was repealed under the Financial Modernization Act of 1999. In addition, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act was passed, which allowed Wall Street to concoct devastating unregulated side bets on what became the subprime crisis.
Given that the people involved with those choices are still around and some are still advising (or in the case of one former president living with) Hillary Clinton, it’s reasonable to imagine that, in January 2017, she’ll launch the third term of Bill Clinton when it comes to financial policy, banks, and the economy. Only now, the stakes are even higher, the banks larger, and their impunity still remarkably unchallenged.
Consider President Obama’s current treasury secretary, Jack Lew. It was Hillary who hit the Clinton Rolodex to bring him back to Washington. Lew first entered Bill Clinton’s White House in 1993 as special assistant to the president. Between his stints working for Clinton and Obama, he made his way into the private sector and eventually to Wall Street — as so many of his predecessors had done and successors would do. He scored a leadership role with Citigroup during the time that Bill Clinton’s former Treasury Secretary (and former Goldman Sachs co-Chairman ) Robert Rubin was on its board of directors. In 2009 , Hillary selected him to be her deputy secretary of state.
Lew is hardly the only example of the busy revolving door to power that led from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration via Wall Street (or activities connected to it). Bill Clinton’s Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs , Timothy Geithner worked with Robert Rubin, later championed Wall Street as president and CEO of the New York Federal Reserve while Hillary was senator from New York (representing Wall Street), and then became Obama’s first treasury secretary while Hillary was secretary of state .
One possible contender for treasury secretary in a new Clinton administration would be Bill Clinton’s Under Secretary of Domestic Finance and Obama’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman, Gary Gensler (who was — I’m sure you won’t be shocked — a Goldman Sachs partner before entering public service). These, then, are typical inhabitants of the Clinton inner circle and of the political-financial corridors of power. Their thinking, like Hillary’s, meshes well with support for the status quo in the banking system, even if, like her, they are willing on occasion to admonish it for its “mistakes.”
This thru-line of personnel in and out of Clinton World is dangerous for most of the rest of us, because behind all the “talking heads” and genuinely amusing Saturday Night Live skits about this bizarre election lie certain crucial issues that will have to be dealt with: decisions about climate change, foreign wars, student-loan unaffordability, rising income inequality , declining social mobility , and, yes, the threat of another financial crisis. And keep in mind that such a future economic meltdown isn’t an absurdly long-shot possibility. Earlier this year, the Federal Reserve, the nation’s main bank regulator, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation , the government entity that insures our bank deposits, collectively noted that seven of our biggest eight banks — Citigroup was the exception — still have inadequate emergency plans in the event of another financial crisis.
Exploring a Two-Faced World
Politicians regularly act one way publicly and another privately, as Hillary was “outed” for doing by WikiLeaks via its document dump from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s hacked email account. Such realities should be treated as neither shockers nor smoking guns. Everybody postures. Everybody lies. Everybody’s two-faced in certain aspects of their lives. Politicians just make a career out of it.
What’s problematic about Hillary’s public and private positions in the economic sphere, at least, isn’t their two-facedness but how of a piece they are. Yes, she warned the bankers to “ cut it out ! Quit foreclosing on homes! Quit engaging in these kinds of speculative behaviors!”— but that was no demonstration of strength in relation to the big banks. Her comments revealed no real understanding of their precise role in exacerbating a fixable subprime loan calamity and global financial crisis, nor did her finger-wagging mean anything to Wall Street.
Keep in mind that, during the build-up to that crisis, as banks took advantage of looser regulations, she collected more than $7 million from the securities and investment industry for her New York Senate runs ( $18 million during her career). In her first Senate campaign, Citigroup was her top contributor. The four Wall-Street-based banks (JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) all feature among her top 10 career contributors. As a senator, she didn’t introduce any bills aimed at reforming or regulating Wall Street. During the lead-up to the financial crisis of 2007-2008, she did introduce five (out of 140) bills relating to the housing crisis, but they all died before making it through a Senate committee. So did a bill she sponsored to curtail corporate executive compensation. Though she has publicly called for a reduction in hedge-fund tax breaks (known as “closing the carried interest loophole”), including at the second debate , she never signed on to the bill that would have done so (one that Obama co-sponsored in 2007). Perhaps her most important gesture of support for Wall Street was her vote in favor of the $700 billion 2008 bank bailout bill. (Bernie Sanders opposed it.)
After her secretary of state stint, she returned to the scene of banking crimes. Many times. As we know, she was also paid exceedingly well for it. Friendship with the Clintons doesn’t come cheap . As she said in October 2013, while speaking at a Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments’ Symposium, “running for office in our country takes a lot of money, and candidates have to go out and raise it. New York is probably the leading site for contributions for fundraising for candidates on both sides of the aisle.”
Between 2013 and 2015, she gave 12 speeches to Wall Street banks, private equity firms, and other financial corporations, reaping a whopping $2,935,000 for them. In her 2016 presidential run, the securities and investment sector (aka Wall Street) has contributed the most of any industry to PACs supporting Hillary: $56.4 million .
Yes, everybody needs to make a buck or a few million of them. This is America after all, but Hillary was a political figure paid by the same banks routinely getting slapped with criminal settlements by the Department of Justice. In addition, the Clinton Foundation counted as generous donors all four of the major Wall Street-based mega-banks. She was voracious when it came to such money and tone-deaf when it came to the irony of it all.
Glass-Steagall and Bernie Sanders
One of the more illuminating aspects of the Podesta emails was a series of communications that took place in the fall of 2015. That’s when Bernie Sanders was gaining traction for, among other things, his calls to break up the big banks and resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. The Clinton administration’s dismantling of that act in 1999 had freed the big banks to use their depositors’ money as collateral for risky bets in the real estate market and elsewhere, and so allowed them to become ever more engorged with questionable securities.
On December 7, 2015, with her campaign well underway and worried about the Sanders challenge, the Clinton camp debuted a key Hillary op-ed , “How I’d Rein in Wall Street,” in the New York Times . This followed two months of emails and internal debate within her campaign over whether supporting the return of Glass-Steagall was politically palatable for her and whether not supporting it would antagonize Senator Elizabeth Warren. In the end, though Glass-Steagall was mentioned in passing in her op-ed, she chose not to endorse its return.
She explained her decision not to do so this way (and her advisers and media apostles have stuck with this explanation ever since): “Some have urged the return of a Depression-era rule called Glass-Steagall , which separated traditional banking from investment banking. But many of the firms that contributed to the crash in 2008, like A.I.G. and Lehman Brothers, weren’t traditional banks, so Glass-Steagall wouldn’t have limited their reckless behavior. Nor would restoring Glass-Steagall help contain other parts of the ‘shadow banking’ sector, including certain activities of hedge funds, investment banks, and other non-bank institutions.”
Her entire characterization of how the 2007-2008 banking crisis unfolded was — well — wrong. Here’s how traditional banks (like JPMorgan Chase) operated: they lent money to investment banks like Lehman Brothers so that they could buy more financial waste products stuffed with subprime mortgages that these traditional banks were, in turn, trying to sell. They then backed up those toxic financial products through insurance companies like AIG, which came close to collapse when what it was insuring became too toxically overwhelming to afford. AIG then got a $182 billion government bailout that also had the effect of bailing out those traditional banks (including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which became “traditional” during the crisis). In this way, the whole vicious cycle started with the traditional banks that hold your deposits and at the same time could produce and sell those waste products thanks to the repeal of Glass-Steagall. So yes, the loss of that act caused the crisis and, in its wake, every big traditional bank was fined for crisis-related crimes.
Hillary won’t push to bring back Glass-Steagall. Doing so would dismantle her husband’s legacy and that of the men he and she appointed to public office. Whatever cosmetic alterations may be in store, count on that act remaining an artifact of the past, since its resurrection would dismay the bankers who, over the past three decades, made the Clintons what they are.
No wonder many diehard Sanders supporters remain disillusioned and skeptical — not to speak of the fact that their candidate featured dead last ( 39th ) on a list of recommended vice presidential candidates in the Podesta emails. That’s unfortunately how much his agenda is likely to matter to her in the Oval Office.
Go Regulate Yourselves!
Before he resigned with his nine-figure golden parachute, Wells Fargo CEO and Chairman John Stumpf addressed Congress over disclosures that 5,300 of his employees had created two million fake accounts, scamming $2.4 million from existing customers. The bank was fined $ 185 million for that (out of a total $10 billion in fines for a range of other crimes committed before and during the financial crisis).
In response, Hillary wrote a letter to Wells Fargo’s customers. In it, she didn’t actually mention Stumpf by name, as she has not mentioned any Wall Street CEO by name in the context of criminal activity. Instead, she simply spoke of “he.” As she put it, “He owes all of you a clear explanation as to how this happened under his watch.” She added, “Executives should be held individually accountable when rampant illegal activity happens on their watch.”
She does have a plan to fine banks for being too big, but they’ve already been fined repeatedly for being crooked and it hasn’t made them any smaller or less threatening. As their top officials evidently view the matter, paying up for breaking the law is just another cost of doing business.
Hillary also wrote, “If any bank can’t be managed effectively, it should be broken up.” But the question is: Why doesn’t ongoing criminal activity that threatens the rest of us correlate with ineffective management — or put another way, when was the last time you saw a major bank broken up? And don’t hold your breath for that to happen in a new Clinton administration either.
In her public letter, she added , “I’ll appoint regulators who will stand with taxpayers and consumers, not with big banks and their friends in Congress.” On the other hand, at that same Goldman Sachs symposium , while in fundraising mode, she gave bankers a pass relative to regulators and commented: “Well, I represented all of you for eight years. I had great relations and worked so close together after 9/11 to rebuild downtown, and [I have] a lot of respect for the work you do and the people who do it.”
She has steadfastly worked to craft explanations for the financial crisis and the Great Recession that don’t endanger the banks as we presently know them. In addition, she has supported the idea of appointing insider regulators, insisting that “the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry.” (Let’s not forget that former Goldman Sachs CEO and Chairman Hank Paulson ran the Treasury Department while the crisis brewed.)
Among the emails sent to John Podesta that were posted by WikiLeaks is an article I wrote for TomDispatch on the Clintons’ relationships with bankers. “She will not point fingers at her friends,” I said in that piece in May 2015. She will not chastise the people who pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop to speak or the ones who have long shared the social circles in which she and her husband move.” I also suggested that she wouldn’t call out any CEO by name. To this day she hasn’t. I said that she would never be an advocate for Glass-Steagall. And she hasn’t been. What was true then will be no less true once she’s in the White House and no longer has to make gestures toward the platform on which Bernie ran and so can once again more openly embrace the bankers’ way of conducting business.
There’s a reason Wall Street has a crush on her and its monarchs like Goldman Sachs CEO and Chairman Lloyd Blankfein pay her such stunning sums to offer anodyne remarks to their employees and others. Blankfein has been coy about an official Clinton endorsement simply because he doesn’t want to rock her campaign boat, but make no mistake, this Wall Street kingpin’s silence is tantamount to an endorsement.
To date, $10 trillion worth of assets sits on the books of the Big Six banks. Since 2008, these same banks have copped to more than $ 150 billion in fines for pre-crisis behavior that ranged on the spectrum of criminality from manipulating multiple public markets to outright fraud. Hillary Clinton has arguably taken money that would not have been so available if it weren’t for the ill-gotten gains those banks secured. In her usual measured way, albeit with some light admonishments, she has told them what they want to hear: that if they behave — something that in her dictionary of definitions involves little in the way of personalized pain or punishment — so will she.
So let’s recap Hillary’s America, past, present, and future. It’s a land lacking in meaningful structural reform of the financial system, a place where the big banks have been, and will continue to be, coddled by the government. No CEO will be jailed, no matter how large the fines his bank is saddled with or how widespread the crimes it committed. Instead, he’s likely to be invited to the inaugural ball in January. Because its practices have not been adequately controlled or curtailed, the inherent risk that Wall Street poses for Main Street will only grow as bankers continue to use our money to make their bets. (The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to help on this score, but has yet to make the big banks any smaller.)
And here’s an obvious corollary to all this: the next bank-instigated economic catastrophe will not be dealt with until it has once again crushed the financial stability of millions of Americans.
The banks have voted with their dollars on all of this in multiple ways. Hillary won’t do anything to upset that applecart. We should have no illusions about what her presidency would mean from a Wall Street vs. Main Street perspective. Certainly, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon doesn’t. He effectively endorsed Hillary before a crowd of financial industry players, saying , “I hope the next president, she reaches across the aisle.”
For Wall Street, of course, that aisle is essentially illusory, since its players operate so easily and effectively on both sides of it. In Hillary’s America, Wall Street will still own Main Street. 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 1real |
GA POLICE Sergeant FIRED For Flying Confederate Flag At Her Home | The political correctness police are apparently more powerful than those who have been trained and dedicate their lives to defending citizens A Roswell police sergeant who was fired from her job this month for flying the Confederate battle flag in front of her house is appealing her termination and said Tuesday she had no idea the flag was controversial.In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, former police sergeant Silvia Cotriss said she had been flying the battle flag below the American flag in front of her Woodstock house for more than a year with no complaints from neighbors or passersby. So she was surprised the week of July 11, when detectives with the department s internal affairs division notified her that she was being investigated for conduct unbecoming an officer on or off duty. If I knew it offended someone, my friends, my family, I wouldn t do it, Cotriss told the AJC. Police officers have to adjust a lot of things in our lives, and for 20 years my whole life has been about making change and being held to a higher standard. We take an oath to help and protect people, so we can t have a private life that s really bad. A man who lives nearby her home was driving his daughter and son to pre-school and noticed a Confederate flag in Coteries yard. It is unclear whether he knew Cotriss, but the man said in an email to Grant that, It is very difficult to explain to my daughter that we should trust our police. But in the same sentiment if I were to ever be pulled over or some situation where my family needs the police to protect and serve, my first thought/fear is that it may be the officer proudly flying his/her Confederate flag. The man claimed Cotriss police vehicle was in the driveway, a charge Cotriss denies.Cotriss said she and her husband, who died recently, had gotten a battle flag in May 2015 during a vacation to Panama City, Fla., for Thunder Beach, a popular biker festival. The battle flag had a motorcycle in the center, and Cotriss flew it beneath the American flag on a towering pole in her front yard. Over time the Confederate emblem became tattered and she recently asked a friend to take it down, she said. A neighbor offered her a new one, without a motorcycle, and her friend accepted it for herThe day before the man had attended Eagle s Nest Church, a predominantly African-American congregation in Roswell, where Grant and the entire Roswell police force had been invited to worship in the aftermath of the Dallas police massacre. Pastor Lee Jenkins extended the invitation and Grant said, in a previous interview, that he accepted because, For me the takeaway from (the protests in) Ferguson was that a lot of African-Americans don t trust police officers and don t see them as I did when I was growing up. And since the unrest in Ferguson, after the shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer, Grant had been visiting several churches in the Roswell area to build bridges. Grant was the only police official to attend the Eagle s Nest service and Jenkins said after the chief addressed the congregation, they gave him a standing ovation.The man who lodged the complaint against Coteries referenced the service in his email to Grant and in an email to Jenkins. Via: AJC | 1real |
RADICAL DIRECTOR OF SIERRA CLUB: Abortion is the key to “sustainable population” [Video] | https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=139&v=Iil1Z8-A1GA | 1real |
The End Game Closes In On The Clintons As The Deep State Turns | Leave a reply
Mike Adams – My fellow Americans, we are watching history unfold before us with such sound and fury that we are likely to never witness comparable events again in our lifetime. As of today, I am now convinced that the deep state has turned on Hillary Clinton and will unveil damning in the next few days that will end the Clintons’ reign of terror over America and collapse her bid for the presidency.
The mainstream media, of course, will never report this news for the simple reason that they are the propaganda arm of the criminal Clinton cartel. As such, they will lie to the public to the bitter end, even as the Clinton Titanic sinks with all of them on board (in deep, frigid waters, no less, with no more lifeboats to be found).
The so-called “deep state”— the powerful insiders who really run the intelligence services and inner layers of untouchable bureaucracy — has decided Hillary Clinton is too damaged to defend any longer . Even if she were to win by stealing the election, she would be so mired in criminal investigations and political illegitimacy that she would rip the nation to shreds while fighting for her own political survival.
It has now been decided, I believe, that Hillary Clinton will be taken out of power by releasing criminally damaging emails which have long been held by the NSA and FBI. This will likely happen before the coming weekend. Once that is accomplished, the next goal will be to wait for President Trump to take office, then destroy the U.S. economy through a controlled, global debt collapse so that Trump can be blamed for the near collapse of western economies. (Remember: The deep state isn’t pro-Trump. They’re still all about defending the establishment. But Hillary is one bridge too far for even the statists to stomach…)
Instead of allowing Hillary Clinton to take power and destroy America from the top, in other words, deep state power brokers have reverted to “Plan B” which is to let Trump take the White House, then destroy America through the controlled demolition of its currency and economy. This is simpler than it sounds. Bringing down the debt pyramid of a nation carrying nearly $20 trillion in national debt isn’t exactly rocket science. All they have to do is stand back and stop manipulating the markets and stop printing new money for a few months while raising interest rates. Monetary gravity will do the rest…
In the mean time, Hillary Clinton and a long list of her co-conspirators are going to find themselves charged with obstruction of justice , lying under oath, destruction of evidence, conspiracy, corruption and other serious charges that will lead to serious prison time for many.
The criminal racket of the Clintons is about to implode. The participants will be charged under the RICO Act for “racketeering” activities, for which ample evidence already exists. A new video from Steve Pieczenik describes some of this
In this video, intelligence insider Steve Pieczenik lays out how high-level intelligence insiders are now working in concert to “reverse the Clinton coup” that’s attempting to take over America and destroy it from within.
Even if you don’t believe Pieczenik — and I fully realize he’s controversial in his own way — this short video is a very important “must watch” explanation to know what people in the intelligence community are doing…“we’ve initiated a counter-coup…”
The Clintons are going to go “full murder” in a last ditch, desperate effort to save themselves
Beware of what may yet unfold in the coming days. Like a cornered wild animal, the Clintons are extremely dangerous when they realize they have nothing to lose by going “full murder” in an attempt to save themselves.
I will not be surprised the least bit if bodies of people in high places start piling up over the next week. Watch for news reports of mysterious car crashes, swimming pool accidents or “natural” deaths involving people like James Comey, who’d better have armed security personnel around him at all times.
Look for desperate measures such as the Clintons attempting to blackmail Obama, Comey or anyone who they think might serve as leverage to save their own skins. We might also see desperate false flag attacks unfold in the next few days, although that’s increasingly unlikely since it seems the Clintons are now on their own (they would need the assistance of Obama to pull off another Sandy Hook, you see). A deal has already been struck with Obama
Most likely, deep state operatives have already struck a deal with Obama to avoid prosecuting him for his own serious crimes as long as he stays out of the way as Hillary Clinton’s head is served up on a platter. This likely explains why Obama is now publicly saying he trusts Comey (and refuses to go to bat for Hillary). There’s no love lost between Obama and the Clintons (remember 2008?).
As all this is going down, the propaganda ministry of the Clinton regime — CNN, NYT, Washington Post, etc. — is going to explode into an all-out “bat-s##t crazy” conspiracy theory phase where they blame the Russians, extraterrestrials, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster for everything that’s imploding around the Clintons. Mainstream media news reports are going to increasingly sound like sociopathic babble from crazy people grasping at whatever outlandish theories they can invoke. Maybe crop circles were created by the Russians as a secret code to Wikileaks and Donald Trump, eh?
Meanwhile, conspiratorial operatives like George Stephanopoulos fully realize they are probably going to jail for collusion and sedition , so they have nothing left to lose by desperately trying to put Hillary in the White House via any means at their disposal, including totally faking negative news against Donald Trump (which is, of course, the entire news mission of CNN at this point, a disgraced propaganda network run by anti-American traitors). If the vote is stolen for Hillary Clinton, all hell breaks loose
Should the globalist Soros operators manage to steal the vote, bribe the electoral voters or rig the black box voting machines sufficiently to place Hillary Clinton in the White House, all Hell breaks loose across America : • The FBI goes into full indictment mode to push criminal charges for the Clinton criminal regime. • Donald Trump launches a massive legal challenge to the election outcome, dispatching an army of lawyers to level a vast assortment of charges involving coordinated voter fraud, the rigging of voting machines, the attempted bribery of Electoral voters and so on. • The U.S. military revs up its plans for an armed military coup to depose Clinton and restore democracy. This one should be especially entertaining to watch unfold if it gets activated… (and yes, YOU will beg for a short-term military dictatorship as long as they promise to depose Clinton and restore open, fair and free elections). • Armed U.S. citizens prepare for a massive march on Washington to take back their democracy and restore a lawful society where the political elite don’t get away with corruption, fraud and murder. Expect this march to be joined by police officers and federal law enforcement officials of all kinds. • The NSA likely goes into “full dump” mode to unleash every scrap of damning criminal evidence against Hillary Clinton. This will likely be joined by CIA assets who already have the goods on the Clintons and their “Lolita Express” pedo joy rides. • Wikileaks, Anonymous and every former NSA analyst goes into “destroy the Clintons” mode and begins to hack and expose every last shred of email evidence ever possessed by the Clintons and anyone close to them. Anonymous alone has enough technical clout to accomplish this with little or no outside help. (I expect Kim Dotcom to be aiding this entire effort as well, as he rightly holds extreme hatred toward Hillary Clinton… as do we all, come to think of it.) • The establishment Republicans in the U.S. Congress will, as usual, meekly surrender to the democrats, pulls down their britches and bend over to prepare to take it in the rear because that’s what they do best when the going gets tough. Totally useless politicrats like John McCain can’t get their pants around their ankles quickly enough when democrats start accusing them of something. These useless heaps of human baggage will be tossed out of Washington as the revolution unfolds, replaced with individuals who actually honor the U.S. Constitution (like Rep. Louie Gohmert). I root for all groups working to save America and expose the criminal politicians
Bring out the marshmallows and weiners, folks: This is going to be the most bizarre campfire front row seat to U.S. history that anyone has witnessed in over 200 years. Try not to trip and “face plant” into the flames as all this unfolds. It might be a smart idea to have some preparedness supplies at the ready, since no one really knows just how nasty this is all going to get. (And thank God Hillary doesn’t have her fingers on the nuclear launch codes, or she’d probably launch them just to change the narrative…)
As for me, I’m with anybody who’s trying to save America , restore democracy and throw the establishment criminals in prison. Like almost everybody else, I’ve had enough of the lies, the corruption, the media deceptions and the incessant blood sucking parasites in Washington D.C. who are too arrogant and stupid to realize just how much they’re universally despised. The revolution is ON. Anonymous, Wikileaks, Project Veritas, the FBI and the NSA have all been activated. There’s no stopping them now, and all the details of all the crimes of the Clintons are about to spill onto the stage of history, dirty deeds and all.
Be warned, you are probably not psychologically prepared for the truth about what the Clintons really are. You will probably vomit. SF Source Natural News Nov. 2016 Share this: | 1real |
US Claims Four Arms Ships From Iran to Yemen Caught in Past 18 Months | Share This
Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan today claimed the US and other members of the Saudi-led naval blockade of Yemen had captured four ships with arms which they are claiming both came from Iran and were bound for Yemen, where they would’ve delivered the weapons to the Houthi movement.
The vice admiral claimed the US “knows” both where the ships came from and where they were going because they interviewed the crews of the captured ships. Only one of the four putative weapons ships was validated by the United Nations as being an actual smuggling attempt.
Donegan went on to claim that he believes Iran is “connected in some way” to recent incidents of missiles fired at a US ship off the Yemeni coast, though the Pentagon conceded one of those incidents likely never happened, and he offered no evidence of Iranian involvement in anything else.
The allegations were likely made by way of justifying US attacks on the Yemeni coast, as well as justifying Saudi Arabia’s ongoing naval blockade of Yemen, which Saudi Arabia recently denied is happening. | 1real |
Beloved NBA Coach Openly Calls Trump A Dangerous Liar (DETAILS) | San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is no fan of Donald Trump. He sharply criticized Trump in the run-up to the election, and now that Trump is officially in office, he seems to have no interest in giving the Orange One so much as an inch. In a recent interview, Popovich openly called Trump a liar, and specifically criticized his activities when he went to speak to the CIA especially Trump s speaking about the size of his crowds in front of a wall representing fallen operatives. He also said that the massive women s march was great. Popovich said: That message is important, and it could have been a whole lot of groups marching. And somebody said on TV, What s their message? Well, their message is obvious. That our president comes in with the lowest [approval] rating of anybody who ever came into the office. And there s a majority of people out there, since Hillary [Clinton] won the popular vote, that don t buy his act. Popovich then went on to criticize Trump s bigoted remarks against any number of groups of Americans during the campaign and since: He could talk to the groups that he disrespected and maligned during the primary and really make somebody believe it. But so far, we ve got [to] a point where you really can t believe anything that comes out of his mouth. You really can t. The coach then moved on Trump s speech at the CIA, and called him emotionally immature and a liar: That s worrisome. That s worrisome. I d just feel better if somebody was in that position that showed the maturity and psychological and emotional level of somebody that was his age. It does boggle the mind how somebody can be so thin-skinned. It s all obvious it s about him. If anything affects him, if it s Saturday Night Live or Hamilton or she got 3 more million votes than you. They re illegal.' It doesn t matter what it is, there s a pattern there. And that s dangerous. I d like to have someone with gravitas, but he got there through the Electoral College, which is part of our system, and I hope he does some good things. Hopefully, people with megaphones continue to speak out against Trump and his dishonest, autocratic administration. If we hold their feet to the fire, we just might survive the next four years.Featured image by Alex Wong via Getty Images | 1real |
Philippine police chief defends deadly drug war of the 'Davao Boys' | MANILA (Reuters) - The police chief of the Philippines on Wednesday stood by the head of a secretive unit behind dozens of killings in the country s war on drugs, saying officers fired only in self-defence and the death toll reflected the danger and the scale of the narcotics problem. National police chief Ronald dela Rosa was responding to a Reuters Special Report that spent four months examining killings by one group of policemen from or near Davao City, the hometown of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Dela Rosa said police district 6 in Quezon City had Metro Manila s most serious drug problem and he personally sent squad commander Lito Patay there because he was a very professional and very dedicated officer capable of dealing with it. Patay handpicked and headed a unit of 10 men who called themselves the Davao Boys , which racked up the highest number of kills in Quezon City, a violent frontline in Duterte s ferocious anti-narcotics campaign. Police station 6 officers killed 108 people in anti-drug operations from July 2016 through June 2017, the campaign s first year, accounting for 39 percent of Quezon City s body count, according to official crime reports analyzed by Reuters. A majority of the killings were carried out by the squad run by Patay, who was reassigned to Quezon City just a few weeks after Duterte unleashed his crackdown. He (Patay) was chosen because I have big trust in him, he has the balls to face the problems. He will fight, dela Rosa told reporters. He is not an officer who is after money, who will be assigned in an area only to collect money, he is not that kind of officer. He has focus. I assigned him there because I know he can deliver. Asked about the high rate of killings in areas under Patay, he said deaths were inevitable where the drugs trade was rampant. So what s the problem? The worst drug problem is there in station 6, so if you hit the problem head on, you face the problem head on then, there would always result in casualties, he said. Nearly 4,000 mostly urban poor Filipinos have been killed in anti-drug operations since July 2016. Police reject activists allegations they have executed drug users and peddlers and say they kill only when their lives are in danger. Dela Rosa said Patay has since been reassigned to another province to make him eligible for promotion, reflecting his success in convincing drug suspects in Quezon City to surrender to the authorities. He said Patay had been given a free hand at station 6 and had command responsibility over his operations. It is his own call whatever he does there, he has to solve the drug problem, dela Rosa said. The story of the Davao Boys also highlights a larger dynamic: Many of the drug war s key police officers - dela Rosa included - hail from or served in Duterte s hometown, where the campaign s brutal methods originated during his time as mayor. Duterte has repeatedly denied he ordered the killings of criminals and drug dealers during his 22 years as Davao mayor, or his 17 months as president. Dela Rosa appeared frustrated when asked by a reporter if he personally had ordered the deaths of drug suspects in Quezon City. He said Patay s men had no alternative but to kill armed criminals who refused to go quietly. He was placed there to address the drug problem, and not to kill those who deserved to be killed, he said of Patay. If they resist, why would you risk your life? You have to fight back. | 0fake |
Gold Star Mom SHAMES Trump In Devastating Video You Need To See | A new ad from a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC hits Donald Trump for his dishonorable attacks on the family of Captain Humayun Khan, who died serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq.The ad from Priorities USA features Michelle DeFord, the mother of David Johnson, a National Guardsman who died while operating as a gunner on a Humvee in Iraq.Speaking about Trump s attacks on the Khan family in the ad, Deford says, When I saw Donald Trump attack another Gold Star mother, I felt such a sense of outrage. I would like to tell Donald Trump, she continues, what it feels like. The sense of emptiness that only losing a child can bring. Those people should be honored and treated with kindness for the rest of their life. Trump s attacks on the Khan family have been widely condemned by both Democrats and Republicans. Recent polls have shown that the vast majority of Americans over 60 percent believe that Trump s smears, over multiple days, were far over the line of acceptable political behavior.The Washington Post recently reported that Trump suffers in the election from the perception that he lacks basic human decency about what should and should not be said in the course of a campaign.Several Gold Star families, who have lost their sons and daughters in war zones, have condemned Trump for his behavior and demanded an apology (he has not given one).On the other side, many of Trump s most ardent supporters not only support the attack on the Khan family but have furthered multiple conspiracy theories and rumors about them, while some have even attacked their dead son and called him either a traitor or a phony.Republicans have always enjoyed strong support among the military, it remains to be seen if the nominee attacking a Purple Heart winner and his family will do anything to erode that going forward.Featured image via YouTube | 1real |
MSNBC’s Nance: Trump Has ’Always Promised Autocracy,’ He’s ’Closest Thing We’ve Ever Had to King George III’ - Breitbart | Saturday on MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” MSNBC terrorism analyst Malcolm Nance argued that President Donald Trump “never promised democracy” in the election, and instead “always promised autocracy. ” “Vladimir Putin views Donald Trump as an ally because he intends to establish a series of global autocracies and link the world through autocracy, not through the old communism that he was brought up with,” Nance said to host Joy Reid. He added, “Donald Trump never promised democracy in this election. If you go back, he’s always promised autocracy. In fact, you could argue that … Donald Trump is the closest thing we’ve ever had to King George III and they’re very, very much alike. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 0fake |
Former CIA Director Reveals How Putin Recruited Trump To Be A Double Agent | Former CIA Director Michael J. Morell has written a devastating op-ed in the New York Times. In it, he makes it very clear that he believes the safety of America is at significant risk if the American people elect Donald Trump to the presidency.In the course of that essay, Morell also points out the far-too-cozy relationship Trump has with Russian president Vladimir Putin.The dangers that flow from Mr. Trump s character are not just risks that would emerge if he became president. It is already damaging our national security.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was a career intelligence officer, trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump s vulnerabilities by complimenting him. He responded just as Mr. Putin had calculated.[ ]In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.Morell also notes that Trump undermined security with his call for barring Muslims from entering the country and that his bigotry plays into the hands of the jihadist narrative that our fight against terrorism is a war between religions. The former official points out that Muslims have key roles in defending America, including the man who ran the C.I.A. s Counterterrorism Center for nearly a decade.He also heaps praise on Hillary Clinton, while making clear that he served under Presidents of both parties three Democrats and three Republicans. On Clinton Morell says: I found her to be prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument. The essay comes as Trump has begun to collapse in national polls and polls in swing states. They reflect a post-Convention surge in popularity for Clinton, but also reflect disgust over Trump s repeated attacks on the family of a fallen U.S. Army captain.Featured image via screen capture | 1real |
Trump may halt insurer payments to force Democrats to table on healthcare | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that he might consider withholding billions of dollars of Obamacare payments to health insurers to force Democrats back to the negotiating table on healthcare. Insurers and major medical groups have warned that not funding the payments, called cost-sharing reduction subsidies, which help cover out-of-pocket medical expenses for low-income Americans, could wreak havoc in the individual insurance markets. Trump told The Wall Street Journal that by withholding the payments, Democrats will call him to negotiate. Major medical and insurance groups penned a letter to Trump on Wednesday urging him to maintain funding for the subsidies, which amount to about $7 billion a year and are paid directly to insurers. They help cover premiums, deductibles and other medical expenses for about 7 million people who purchase health insurance on the individual health insurance market. House of Representatives Republicans sued the Obama administration for funding the subsidies, which they argue have to be appropriated by Congress. A federal judge in May 2016 ruled in favor of the Republicans, prompting an appeal by the Obama administration. The case is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Major insurers, including Humana Inc and Aetna, have left or announced their intention to leave the Obamacare exchanges, citing multi-million-dollar losses and patient populations that are far costlier and sicker than they expected. They warned that withholding the subsidies would destabilize the market further and leave millions of consumers with little or no choice in picking a health insurance plan. | 0fake |
After Bring Fans to Stands in Droves, Mets Considering Promoting Tim Tebow to AA Ball | After becoming one of the Columbia Fireflies best fan draws, former NFL quarterback and now baseball player Tim Tebow may be in line for a promotion, according to sources. [Tebow’s playing stats have been quite respectable, especially considers he is almost a decade older than many of his teammates. The former Denver Bronco was signed to a minor league contract by the New York Mets this year and has been playing in South Carolina, achieving a 849 OPS over his last 16 games. Tebow has a . . . 370 slash line with two homers and 11 RBIs in 28 games for Columbia, the New York Post reports. His work on the diamond puts him in a solid position and the Mets have taken notice. According to sources, there is talk of bumping the player up to the next level in AA ball. But, there is undoubtedly another reason for this consideration. After all, Tebow has become a major for the Fireflies. Tebow is helping the Fireflies break team attendance records this year as fans scramble to see their new favorite player. In fact, by some estimates, Tebow has booted attendance for the Fireflies by a whopping 92 percent. Tim Tebow is boosting attendance by 92% in Columbia Fireflies road games according to @BaseballAmerica. — Michael Mayer (@mikemayerMMO) May 12, 2017, And, Tebow hasn’t just helped the team he plays for bring fans to the stadium. He is a draw everywhere he goes. “We had 4, 500 people in the stands,” Hickory Crawdads season ticket holder Christopher Pack told the Associated Press this month, “and 4, 300 were there to see Tim Tebow. ” The AP continued, saying, “People show up in Tebow’s NFL jerseys, and Florida Gator outfits, lining up around the rails in this intimate ballparks trying to get autograph or a selfie with Tebow. ” Tebow has been such a draw, even for other teams, that the Augusta, Georgia, GreenJackets found themselves scrambling to find enough concession workers to handle the crowd when Tebow came to town. On that day, 5, 830 fans turned out to see Tebow play, well above the GreenJackets’ average of 3, 190 fans. Clearly the Mets want to bring that excitement to AA ball and thence to New York itself and the Majors if Tebow can continue playing at level. This is all a far cry from the doubters who insisted that Tebow’s ideas of becoming a pro baseball player were the silly dreams of a silly man. Now, it appears that the Mets feel his capabilities are sustainable and that he is bringing fans to the stands in droves is a plus. It’s a punch that can’t be denied. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 0fake |
Iceland's ruling Independence Party takes lead ahead of Saturday vote: poll | REYKJAVIK/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Iceland s centre-right Independence Party has pulled ahead in an opinion poll before Saturday s parliamentary vote, the second snap election in a year after a string of political scandals. The Independence Party, which was part of every government from 1980 to 2009 and has been in power since 2013, got 24 percent support in a poll published on Thursday by Frettabladid, Iceland s largest newspaper. The Left-Green party polled at 19 percent, while the Social Democrats stood to get 14.3 percent of votes as the third-biggest party. Just a week ago, the Independence Party and the Left-Greens stood neck and neck in polls at just under 20 percent each. A victory for the Independence Party would give Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson the right to try to form a new government. The Pirate Party, which rode a wave of anger against the establishment to become the third-biggest party in elections a year ago, stood to get 9 percent of votes, Thursday s poll showed. | 0fake |
‘Most wanted’ drug baron hands himself in, says life on the run ‘got too much’ | ‘Most wanted’ drug baron hands himself in, says life on the run... ‘Most wanted’ drug baron hands himself in, says life on the run ‘got too much’ By 0 157
A notorious British drug baron turned himself in to the cops because the “pressure” of life on the run became too much for him.
Robert Gerrard, of Liverpool, handed himself over to National Crime Agency (NCA) officers in Manchester after being named on a Most Wanted list of criminals.
The 53-year-old made the arrangements through his solicitor after complaining the “ pressure of being on the run had got too much for him .”
He was added to the UK’s Most Wanted list as part of Operation Return, a campaign to capture criminals on the lam.
He appeared in Manchester Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, where he was charged with conspiracy to import cocaine in a £60 million (US$75 million) plot.
Gerrard is believed to have used Café de Ketel, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, as a front for international drug trafficking.
NCA regional head of investigations Greg McKenna said: “ Robert Gerrard handing himself in shows the impact we are having with our Most Wanted campaigns. Three arrests in under a week is a tremendous result.
“ We don’t know at this stage how long Gerrard has been back in the UK for, but he told our officers that the pressure of being on the run had got too much for him .
“ The fugitives on our Most Wanted list really do have nowhere to hide. I would urge any of the remaining ones to take note – save yourself the trouble and hand yourself in because we will never stop hunting you and you will face justice, ” he added.
Crimestoppers director of operations Roger Critchell said: “ The fact Robert Gerrard handed himself in to police is again an indication that when the pressure mounts, hiding places become harder to find.
“ This is a great result as it follows two fugitive arrests in the last week from our sister campaign targeting those on the run in Spain. These campaigns really do work .”
His next hearing will be at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on November 23.
Via RT . This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license. | 1real |
Trump to target Obama's climate initiatives: White House website | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s administration is committed to eliminating Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan and other environmental initiatives to help boost the oil and gas industry, according to a statement posted on the White House website on Friday. The announcement echoed pledges Trump frequently made during his campaign to become U.S. president, but their appearance on the White House website makes them his official policy. (bit.ly/2iK2JQp) “President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule. Lifting these restrictions will greatly help American workers, increasing wages by more than $30 billion over the next 7 years,” the website said. All references to climate change appeared to have been removed from the White House website, a word search showed. Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on Friday. Former President Obama’s climate plan proposed cuts to U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, in part by preserving forests and encouraging increased use of cleaner renewable fuels. Trump has expressed skepticism about whether human activity drives climate change, and he has railed against Obama’s efforts to combat it by targeting carbon dioxide emissions. Trump has also suggested he could pull the United States out of a climate pact agreed by nearly 200 nations. The statement on the White House website said that Trump’s efforts to boost the U.S. oil and gas sector would help increase government revenues to “rebuild our roads, schools, bridges and public infrastructure,” and lower the price of energy. The statement said Trump’s administration would free the nation from dependence on foreign oil, and was “committed to clean coal technology, and to reviving America’s coal industry, which has been hurting for too long.” An overwhelming majority of scientists say the burning of coal, oil and gas is a driver of global climate change, causing sea level rise and more frequent violent storms. | 0fake |
Relieved Britain no longer biggest f**k-up of 2016 | Relieved Britain no longer biggest f**k-up of 2016 09-11-16
BRITAIN has woken up relieved to find its idiotic act of self-harm earlier this year is now a piffling historical footnote.
Across the UK, Britons are secretly delighted that when the great disasters of 2016 are remembered, Brexit will be completely overshadowed by America’s embrace of fascism.
Mary Fisher, from Croydon, said: “Wow. Like obviously bad for them, but what a total save for us.
“We’re the person who’s sick in the garden early on at the party, spends an hour thinking they’re an embarrassment, and then someone vomits explosively all over the leather couch and the new carpet.
“Brexit’s nothing now. All we’ve done is get out of the EU before their decade-long war with Russia.”
Historian Dr Helen Archer said: “For months we’ve been the world’s dumbest dickheads, and now we’re actually if anything a useful marker on the road to the total collapse of liberal democracy.
“I mean end of the world, obviously, but every cloud.”
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Democratic lawmakers question Kushner on New York property: letter | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday wrote to Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, asking whether in his talks with foreign officials he had ever discussed financing for a deeply indebted Kushner Companies property in Manhattan. The property at 666 Fifth Avenue has a $1.15 billion mortgage due in less than two years, and has raised concerns among lawmakers that it could pose a conflict of interest for Kushner. Kushner headed Kushner Companies until he sold his interest to a family trust earlier this year. He is a senior adviser to the president and has been involved in Middle East policymaking. The 13 Democratic lawmakers, in their two-page letter to Kushner and seen by Reuters, said: “We are concerned that you may be leveraging your White House position to seek financial assistance for 666 Fifth Avenue, which according to various reports has at least $1.2 billion in debt, of which more than half is owned” by Kushner Companies. A White House spokesman declined comment on the letter and referred the matter to Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell. Lowell could not immediately be reached for comment. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has questioned Kushner. It is not known whether Mueller’s team is looking into issues involving 666 Fifth Avenue. Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and Moscow officials. The letter from the lawmakers, led by Rep. Ted Lieu of California, asked whether, since Trump’s election on Nov. 8, 2016, Kushner has discussed the property “with any foreign nationals or entities” in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, China, Israel, France or other countries. If so, they asked, “did you discuss anything related to helping finance, purchase, or assist with the debt on 666 Fifth Avenue?” The lawmakers asked Kushner to respond by Dec. 12. | 0fake |
SYRIAN REFUGEES Spreading Catastrophic Outbreak Of FLESH EATING DISEASE To Host Nations…Disease Is Difficult To Detect In Refugees Coming To U.S. | How many times have the press and the Left admonished Trump for saying we need to do a better job of vetting the refugees coming into America? Call me racist, but the threat of polio, measles, TB and this horrific flesh eating disease all seem like pretty good reasons to re-evaluated our open borders to Muslim refugees position The Syrian refugee crisis has precipitated a catastrophic outbreak of a flesh-eating disease that is spreading across the Middle East and North Africa, according to research published on Thursday in the scientific journal PLOS. Largely missing from news media coverage is that the same news-making scientific report warned the ongoing violence in Syria has created a setting in which we have seen the re-emergence of polio and measles, as well as tuberculosis, hepatitis A, and other infections in Syria and among displaced Syrian refugees. Indeed, in 2013 the World Health Organization documented new cases of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, reporting that year alone the number of confirmed measles cases in Syria reached 139, as compared to no documented cases in 2010 and 2011.The WHO reported that 2013 saw Syria s first outbreak of polio since 1999. According to an April 2015 WHO report, 35 children were subsequently paralysed by polio before the start of a new vaccine campaign.In November, 2014 PLOS documented the spread of measles from among the Syrian refugee population.Regarding the flesh-eating disease, leishmaniasis, PLOP warned in its latest report, We may be witnessing an epidemic of historic and unprecedented proportions, but it has largely been hidden due to lack of specific information. The PLOP journal reported leishmaniasis is now affecting hundreds of thousands of refugees and has spread to Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya and Yemen. In Yemen alone, 10,000 new cases have been reported annually, the journal reported. Additionally, the number of cases of CL (cutaneous leishmaniasis) has most likely been severely underreported due in part to constraints on collecting data from violence-torn regions, PLOP warned. Few countries have mandated reporting of CL and the resultant weak reporting system promotes a lack of disease awareness and public policies for treatment and prevention, the report added. Due to the violence, Syrians have been forced to flee from their homes and seek refuge across the Middle East, North Africa, and, more recently, Europe, the journal documented.Volcano-like ulcersLeishmaniasis, meanwhile, is a disease caused by protozoan parasites. It is spread almost entirely by sandflies, including those present in the U.S.There are three main types of the disease: cutaneous, mucocutaneous, and visceral leishmaniasis.Cutaneous is the most common form among Syrians. It manifests in skin sores that typically develop within a few weeks or months from a sand fly bite. The sores can initially appear as bumps or nodules and may evolve into volcano-like ulcers.Mucocutaneous leishmaniasis causes skin ulcers like the cutaneous form, as well as mucosal ulcers that usually damage the nose and mouth.Visceral leishmaniasis, which has also been found among Syrian refugees, is the most serious form and can be fatal. It damages internal organs, usually the spleen and liver, and also affects bone marrow.Threat to U.S.?Refugees who enter the U.S. must undergo medical screening according to protocols established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. Each refugee must submit to a physical examination, including a skin test and possibly a chest x-ray to check for tuberculosis,as well as a blood test for syphilis.The blood tests do not currently look for leishmaniasis. Clearly, an attending doctor could easily spot a patient with obvious skin ulcers. However, leishmaniasis cannot be detected upon physical examination if the patient is asymptomatic, as can be the case for years.In December, Dr. Heather Burke, an epidemiologist from the CDC s Immigrant, Refugee, and Migrant Health Branch, explained to Breitbart Jerusalem that there is generally a window of three to six months from the initial physical examination until a refugee departs for the U.S.She said a medical examination is valid for six months, and explained that patients undergo a second examination just prior to departure a quicker fitness to fly screening. While she conceded that this final examination is not thorough, she said it would pick up any visible skin lesions. Burke told Breitbart Jerusalem that she is not aware of a single case of leishmaniasis entering the U.S. via Syrian refugees.Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, warned that most doctors in the U.S. know nothing about leishmaniasis. We d all need to refer patients to tropical diseases specialists, she told Breitbart Jerusalem in December. The treatments are toxic and expensive, and some are not widely available. For Orient, the only sensible public health policy is for all refugees to pass through a quarantined place like Ellis Island. Officials need to know where they ve been and what diseases occur there. We need sophisticated, reliable screening methods and excellent vector control in any areas where refugees stay. For entire story: Breitbart News | 1real |
Exclusive: Billionaire green activist Steyer vows to battle Trump, says money not an issue | BOSTON (Reuters) - Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, who has spent more than $140 million on fighting climate change, said on Tuesday he will spend whatever it takes to fight President-elect Donald Trump’s pro-drilling and anti-regulation agenda. The former hedge fund manager from California is putting together a strategy that will “engage voters and citizens to fight back” once Trump takes the White House in January, he told Reuters in an interview. However, he stressed he was not planning to fight Trump through the courts. Instead, he would focus on “trying to present an opposite point of view and trying to get that point of view expressed, and communicated to citizens.” Steyer’s pledge to fight Trump suggests an intensifying battle for U.S. public opinion on global climate change, an issue that has already divided many Americans, lawmakers, and companies between those who consider it a major global threat and those who doubt its existence. Other U.S. environmental groups are also preparing to resist Trump’s agenda, with some vowing street protests and more established organizations that helped draft some of President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations preparing to defend them in court. “We have always been willing to do whatever is necessary,” Steyer said, when asked how much money he was willing to spend to oppose Trump’s agenda. Trump campaigned on a promise to drastically reduce environmental regulation and ease permitting for infrastructure, moves he said would breathe life into an oil and gas industry ailing from low prices, without harming U.S. air and water quality. He has also called climate change a hoax and has promised to “cancel” the Paris Climate Accord between nearly 200 nations to slow global warming, a deal he said would cost the U.S. economy trillions of dollars and put it at a disadvantage. While the approach has cheered the industry, it has sent shockwaves through the environmental movement, which is confronting the prospect of losing all progress it made during the Obama administration. Steyer, who had endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, called Trump’s policies dangerous. “Every single one of these things, whether it was getting rid of Paris or cutting back the EPA, we think are extremely dangerous to the security of every American,” Steyer said. “We think it is based on willful ignorance of the facts and flies in the face of the realities facing the world.” Steyer’s main political vehicle, NextGen Climate, on Tuesday called on the Obama administration to defy Trump’s pro-drilling agenda by issuing an order permanently blocking all new drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump has also promised to ask Canadian oil pipeline company, TransCanada Corp, to resubmit its application to build a pipeline into the United States that would link Alberta’s vast oil sands to American refineries and ports on the Gulf Coast. The project, Keystone XL, had been rejected by the Obama administration after years of mass protests and lobbying by environmental organizations. Steyer said the project may no longer make sense since a slump in oil prices has reduced the profitability of oil sands production. Steyer, who four years ago left the hedge fund firm he co-founded to devote himself full-time to environmental activism, said young voter turnout in areas where NextGen focused its mobilization efforts during the 2016 campaign was up more than 20 percent from the last presidential election in 2012. “Did we get the president we want, absolutely not. Did we get a majority of clean energy supporters in the senate, no,” Steyer said. “But in terms of what we did, and the strategy we took, we wouldn’t do anything differently.” NextGen poured nearly $69 million into its elections related programs during the presidential campaign, according to federal records compiled by OpenSecrets.org, slightly lower than the $74 million it spent during the mid-term congressional elections in 2014, when only two of the six candidates it supported won. | 0fake |
England players controversially allowed to wear three lions | England players controversially allowed to wear three lions 02-11-16 FIFA has turned down a request to stop the England team disrespecting the England crest by wearing it. Many fans believe the current team’s wearing of the three lions shows a lack of respect to those who had gone before them and managed to pass a ball ten yards. England supporter Wayne Hayes said: “Is this what Terry Butcher ran around with his head pissing blood for? Is this why Gazza cried? Is this why Geoff Thomas shanked that shot against France? “To see the crest besmirched by Wayne Rooney wearing it while wandering around the pitch like he’s in IKEA is a disgrace.” England manager Gareth Southgate said: “The decision whether to wear the three lions should be a personal one, unless you fuck up a vital penalty you’re inexplicably taking in a major tournament, in which case you should be allowed nowhere near them.” Funds raised by the sale of England shirts with the crest help to fund various causes, such as firing managers and staging doomed bids to host the world cup.
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Stephen Miller on 9th Circuit Ruling: ’There’s ’No Such Thing as Judicial Supremacy’’ - Breitbart | Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” reacted to the 9th Circuit Court ruling upholding the blocking of President Trump‘s executive order halting immigrants from seven countries from entering the United States senior advisor to President Donald Trump Stephen Miller said, there was no such thing as “judicial supremacy. ” Partial transcript as follows: TODD: Let me start with the decision by the 9th circuit and the president himself saying to reporters that a new order may be drafted. Is that what you and others are doing right now? Drafting a new order since essentially the 9th circuit seemed to give you a road map of how to draw up something slightly more narrow that would accomplish your goal? MILLER: We are considering all of our options right now, Chuck. That includes you can continue the appeal on the 9th and seek an emergency stay in the Supreme Court, and you can have a trial hearing on the merits at the district level or a hearing also at the 9th circuit and pursue additional executive actions. The bottom line is we are pursuing every single possible action to keep our country safe from terrorism. I want to be clear. We heard talk about how all of the branches of government are equal. That’s the point. They are equal. There’s no such thing as judicial supremacy. What the judges did is take power away that belongs squarely in the hands of the president of the United States. Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
Georgia Abandons Ukraine's Anti-Russian Obsession - Archil Sikharulidze | Your daily reality snack Georgia Abandons Ukraine's Anti-Russian Obsession
After a brief period in which both Ukraine and Georgia appeared to be united against Russia, it now appears that the two nations are moving along very different paths Originally appeared at Russia Direct
In October, Georgia didn’t support any of Ukraine’s resolutions denouncing the Kremlin’s foreign policy within the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). That is surprising, given how many analysts had by now assumed that Georgia and Ukraine were on the same page when it came to Russia.
The two resolutions deal with “the political implications of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine” and human rights abuses “on the occupied Ukrainian territories.” By supporting them, PACE recognized the military conflict in Ukraine as “Russian aggression” for the first time and called on the Kremlin to withdraw its forces from the eastern part of Ukraine. Moreover, it denounced the parliamentary elections , recently conducted by Russia in Crimea .
When the Georgian delegation in PACE didn’t support these resolutions, the nation’s pro-Western parties reacted strongly. For example, the United National Movement lambasted the Georgian government and accused the country’s former Prime Minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, of supporting Russia. Moreover, Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president and now the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine, described such a stance as a “disgraceful” move.
However, an immediate response came from one of the members of the Georgian delegation in PACE, Eka Beselia. She retorted that Tbilisi needed to defend its own national interests. Even though this statement seems to have alleviated the increasing conflict, the video of Russian-Ukrainian journalist Matwey Ganapolsky, who accuses Georgia of betraying Ukraine in favor of Russia, fuelled the tensions. In contrast, Russian pundits see the unwillingness of Georgia to vote for the PACE resolution as a sign of improvement in Tbilisi-Moscow relations.
In reality, the reluctance of the Georgian Dream, the ruling party in Georgia, to approve these resolutions is just the logical conclusion of complicated relations with Kiev. Since the start of the color revolutions in the post-Soviet space , Georgia and Ukraine were largely in the same boat.
After the success of the Rose Revolution in Tbilisi and the Orange Revolution in Kiev, the newly elected governments were closely connected with each other and teamed up against Russia. This resulted from friendly relations between Ukraine’s former prime minister Yulia Timoshenko and former president Viktor Yushchenko on the one hand, and Georgia’s Saakashvili on the other hand.
However, their relationship was rather pragmatic in its nature, although officially Tbilisi recognized Ukraine as one of its closest allies. Since 2007 the democratic processes in the two countries have started moving in a reverse direction. Saakashvili’s penchant for conducting an aggressive policy as well as his authoritarian inclinations was increasing, while Ukraine faced the corruption and the political rivalry between Timoshenko and Yushchenko.
The more impact this had on the countries’ stability and development, the more obvious became the fact that the ruling elites from both sides did not support democratic reforms, but only the regimes that were friendly to them. Thus, Georgian-Ukrainian relations could be seen as a form of cooperation between governments, not between the people.
And this trend became relevant until the 2010 presidential elections, when Georgia’s civil society and population called on the government to support democratic processes and regime change in its “brother” country. From then on, Georgia has been shying away from supporting the political regime in Ukraine and focusing more on the support of the country’s own population.
However, Ukraine refused to consider such tactics, with its official representatives criticizing the Georgian Dream coalition for supporting Russia during the 2012 parliamentary elections. Moreover, Kiev cooperated with Georgia’s United National Movement, which was openly accused of building an authoritarian regime and egregious human rights abuses.
Logically, the new Georgian government under Ivanishvili cannot help paying attention to this fact. But it was relatively reticent and didn’t respond, even when Georgian volunteers came to fight in Eastern Ukraine to support Kiev and accused Tbilisi of supporting Russia. That had some implications for the Georgian Dream: It was seen as a political force that is capable of defending the country’s national interests.
Moreover, Georgian voters also saw the fact that Saakashvili was appointed as the governor of the Odessa region as an unfriendly move from Ukraine, as a slap in the face, because the former Georgian president was legally prosecuted in his home country, which meant that Ivanishvili couldn’t fulfill his pledges and restore justice [During the election campaign he promised to put Saakashvili in jail for corruption and the abuse of power — Editor’s note]. The problem was exacerbated when Kiev granted Saakashvili Ukrainian citizenship, which made it impossible to imprison the former Georgian president.
Saakashvili crossed the red line during the latest parliamentary elections in Georgia during the campaign. First, his colleagues from the United National Movement visited Ukraine. Second, he openly called for a coup d’état against the Georgian government, which he sees as pro-Russian. In fact, he threatened to conduct a new revolution in Georgia. This was the last straw for the Georgian Dream.
It is safe to say that the current Georgian political elites started seeing Ukraine as a real headache and the shelter for dubious and controversial Georgian politicians from the United National Movement accused of different wrongdoings and legal violations.
However, with the victory of the Georgian Dream in the 2016 parliamentary elections, a lot has changed. Moreover, the odds of the party of winning the constitutional majority are really high. It means that the influence of the party is growing in the Georgian parliament and even more could change.
As a result, the government won’t necessarily have to take into account the views of other political forces to take decisions. It can be pretty outspoken now that it won’t put up with anti-government moves and initiatives like the ones promoted by Saakashvili. Moreover, the Georgian voters, who are seeking to have those involved in the violations during Saakashvili’s tenure prosecuted. So, in this regard, the electorate supports the Georgian Dream.
Thus, all this indicates that Georgian-Ukrainian relations have always been more complex and nuanced than they seemed to be at first glance. During Saakashvili’s tenure, there was cooperation between his government and the ones of Timoshenko and Yushchenko. However, eventually, Tbilisi shifted its priority from supporting top political officials to supporting society and people.
Ukrainian politicians should keep in mind that the Russian factor is not the only one that determines the Ukrainian-Georgian agenda. Providing shelter to Saakashvili also does matter. So, to improve the relations with Tbilisi, Kiev should take into account its national interest and support the Georgian people instead of the country’s politicians. | 1real |
ANTI-GUN Zealot KATIE COURIC Hit With $12 MILLION Defamation Lawsuit By 2nd Amendment Group [VIDEO] | Little Miss Sunshine has fooled a lot of people over the years into believing her she was just some innocuous, peppy little host with everyone s best intentions as her primary concern. Unfortunately, Katie Couric may have just ironically shot herself in the foot when she and her director Stephanie Soechtig edited their anti-gun documentary Under the Gun in order to make a gun rights group in Virginia look as if they couldn t answer a simple question.Here s Rush Limbaugh explaining how Katie Couric deceived her viewers with her anti-gun documentary : They re now facing a $12 million defamation lawsuit, according to documents provided to Bearing Arms.Second Amendment rights advocacy organization the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), along with two of its members, today filed a $12 million defamation lawsuit against Katie Couric, director Stephanie Soechtig, Atlas Films, and Studio 3 Partners LLC d/b/a Epix for false and defamatory footage featured in the 2016 documentary film Under the Gun. The film portrays a fictional exchange in which members of the VCDL appear silent, stumped, and avoiding eye contact for nearly nine seconds after Katie Couric asks a question about background checks. An unedited audio recording of the interview reveals that contrary to the portrayal in the film the VCDL members had immediately begun responding to Couric s question.In the filing, the VCDL, Daniel L. Hawes, Esq., and Patricia Webb allege that the filmmakers knowingly and maliciously manufactured the fictional exchange by splicing in footage that the filmmakers took surreptitiously after telling the interviewees to be silent for ten seconds so that recording equipment could be calibrated. The filing also contains side-by-side screenshots of the film s footage of the VCDL members and anti-gun advocates, alleging that the filmmakers manipulated lighting to cast shadows on the VCDL members and to make them appear sinister and untrustworthy. We were horrified to see how Couric and her team manipulated us and the video footage to make us look like fools who didn t stand up for the Second Amendment, said Mr. Philip Van Cleave, President of the VCDL. We want to set the record straight and hold them accountable for what they ve done. You shouldn t intentionally misrepresent someone s views just because you disagree with them. The lawsuit, filed in federal court (United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Richmond Division), seeks $12 million in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages. The VCDL, Mr. Hawes, and Ms. Webb are represented by Tom Clare, Libby Locke, and Megan Meier of Clare Locke LLP, a boutique law firm specializing in defamation litigation. The fraud committed by Couric and Soechtig should be a career ender for both women, who have been unashamed of their behavior.What is not yet known is if Couric, Soetchtig, and one of their producers will face federal gun crimes criminal charges for obvious felonies they committed in Arizona while making the anti-gun film. Soechtig has now twice confessed (on video and in writing) to committing federal felony crimes that should lead to criminal charges against at least her and the Colorado producer (believed to be Kanau), along with any other Under the Gun staff/producers who took part in the conspiracy to make these clearly illegal interstate sales.ATF Phoenix Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Thomas Atteberry and Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) Mickey D. Leadingham have little recourse other than to start an investigation into the confessed crimes.You can read the defamation case against Couric here (PDF).Among other things, the complaint alleges that, The Defendants manipulated the footage in service of an agenda: they wanted to establish that there is no basis for opposing universal background checks by fooling viewers into believing that even a panel of pro-Second Amendment advocates could not provide one. The Defendants intentionally disregarded the truth of the actual exchange that had taken place and took at least six intentional steps to manufacture a fictional exchange to support their agenda. In addition to editing footage of VCDL members, the suit alleges that Soechtig s film crew used lighting tricks to make VCDL members look shadowed and sinister, while favoring gun control supporters with much more flattering lighting.For entire story: Bearing ArmsHere is a clip showing how Katie Couric edited Under the Gun to make gun owners look like they don t have an answer to what she has framed as an unanswerable question: | 1real |
Serena Williams Announces Engagement to Alexis Ohanian, Reddit’s Co-Founder - The New York Times | “Who the Heck Is Alexis Ohanian, and Why Would Serena Williams Want to Date Him?” Slate magazine asked in a headline last year. Mr. Ohanian is a of Reddit, and, as of Thursday, Ms. Williams not only wants to date him, but plans to marry him. Ms. Williams, the tennis superstar, announced her engagement to Mr. Ohanian on Reddit, the website that claims the label “the front page of the internet. ” The Reddit post featured a drawing of Snoo, the site’s mascot, dressed as Mr. Ohanian and kneeling with a diamond in its hand. A female Snoo, styled after Ms. Williams and wearing a tennis skirt, Nike top and headband, floated above him with a smile on her face. Above the picture was the headline, “Future Mrs. Kn0thing. ” It was a nod to the site and its community: Mr. Ohanian has long gone by the handle Kn0thing. In free verse, Ms. Williams, whose account is verified on the site, described the proposal on the “isaidyes” subreddit, which is dedicated to engagement stories. Mr. Ohanian chimed in in the comments: “And you made me the happiest man on the planet. ” A spokeswoman for Ms. Williams, Kelly Bush Novak, said that a wedding date has not been set. Ms. Williams and Mr. Ohanian had known each other for some time before they started dating last fall, she said. Ms. Williams, 35, is one of the greatest American athletes active today, and is the female athlete in the world. She won her first Grand Slam singles title at 17 in 1999, and this year won her 22nd. She has spent more than 300 weeks at No. 1 a recent run of 186 consecutive weeks in the top spot ended in September. Ms. Williams has not played a match on tour since losing in the semifinals of the United States Open in September. She plans to open her tennis season next week in Auckland, New Zealand. Though Mr. Ohanian, 33, is significantly less by the general population, he too has risen to the top of his field since starting the site that would become Reddit with his college roommate, Steve Huffman, 11 years ago. The site was pitched to the incubator Y Combinator and was acquired by Condé Nast just 16 months after it began. In 2010, Mr. Ohanian joined Mr. Huffman at another company, Hipmunk. In 2013, he wrote a book about the power of the internet called “Without Their Permission. ” Mr. Ohanian also posted the news on his Facebook page. In an interview with Vogue in July, Ms. Williams was asked to identify the most romantic thing a man had ever done for her. “It hasn’t happened yet,” she replied. On Twitter, Mr. Ohanian had called the interview “pretty great. ” A user replied to him, and to Ms. Williams: “Alexis, I think you need to get on that most romantic thing. ” | 0fake |
The Pope Gets VISIBLY Angry And Scolds Man, But For All The Right Reasons (VIDEO) | One of the most beloved public figures in the entire world is Pope Francis. He has seemingly restored grace and dignity back to the Vatican, where most people were losing hope and feared that corruption and deceit had taken too much of a stronghold. Pope Francis humble nature and openness to the world has the world humming with gratitude for a return to solemnity within the Vatican walls, so wherever he goes, massive crowds follow who want to meet him, or if anything, merely catch a glimpse.However, it looks as though one person became too eager and failed to recognize others around them in their own selfish desire to come into contact with the Pontiff.According to Inside Edition: In a rare sight of public agitation, Pope Francis lost his composure as he greeted a crowd of worshippers in Morella, Mexico. When a devotee grabbed him by his cassock and wouldn t let go, it caused the Pontiff to fall into a wheelchair-bound man. The Pope sternly told the man in Spanish don t be selfish. Pope Francis recovered and kissed the man on the head following the incident. He waved to people in the open-air gathering for a few more minutes after the incident before leaving. Pope Francis was exactly right to get mad at what this person was doing to him and made him do to another. They were being selfish and needed to be told that what they were doing was unacceptable. And as far as the Pope showing he was upset, that s more than okay, too. Heck, even Jesus tossed a few tables in anger back in his day.This is more than just a soundbite for a story, but a lesson in life. You may want something for yourself, but always respect and think of others who may get hurt if your quest for selfish glory. Featured image via YouTube | 1real |
Energy Department Tells Trump To Go F*ck Himself In Response To His Climate Change Witch Hunt | Donald Trump thought he could bully the Department of Energy. He was humiliatingly wrong.Last week, Trump and his team sent a letter to the DOE demanding a list a department employees and labs working on climate change. You know, because Trump and his supporters deny that climate change is real and would like nothing more than to purge those studying it from the government.Trump specifically wants to know who worked with President Obama to fight climate change, which is a threat to the planet that is already having devastating effects on our country. Temperatures have risen every year, resulting in every year becoming the hottest on record. Hurricanes have become more frequent and more destructive. And flooding is now a constant worry along the coast.Well, the Department of Energy fielded feedback from their workforce about Trump s demand and the response was overwhelming. Trump can go f*ck himself.The Washington Post reports, The Department of Energy received significant feedback from our workforce throughout the department, including the National Labs, following the release of the transition team s questions. Some of the questions asked left many in our workforce unsettled, said Eben Burnham-Snyder, a department spokesman. Our career workforce, including our contractors and employees at our labs, comprise the backbone of DOE (Department of Energy) and the important work our department does to benefit the American people. We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department. We will be forthcoming with all publically-available information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team. Burnham-Snyder s email had the last sentence in boldface for emphasis.So lets just recap. Donald Trump has already pissed off the CIA and most of the intelligence community, angered China, and now he has infuriated the Energy Department.Seriously, how is Trump supposed to run the government if he can t even get along with the people who make our government work?The good people at the Energy Department are doing this country a service by researching climate change. We desperately need to address it or many of our coastal cities, including our nation s capital, could be under water in a matter of decades. And it would kill our economy and leave millions of people homeless regardless of their political affiliations.Trump is targeting the Department of Energy and is demanding names he should never receive. Federal employees should not be persecuted for doing their jobs and they certainly should not be persecuted for understanding science. And even when Trump takes office and puts Rick Perry in charge of the department, it should still deny Trump the names he seeks. In fact, it should refuse to work with Rick Perry until Trump drops his witch hunt entirely.Featured Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
George Zimmerman Launches Despicable Attack On Trayvon Martin’s Parents | In the wake of his failed efforts to sell the gun he used to murder Trayvon Martin, racist George Zimmerman talked to the Daily Beast and said some pretty horrendous things about the slain teen s parents. They didn t raise their son right, Zimmerman said. He attacked a complete stranger and attempted to kill him. Zimmerman pursued and initiated an encounter with the unarmed 17-year-old on February 26, 2012 as Martin was crossing through the gated Sanford, Florida community on his way home to his father s house.Despite being told not to pursue Martin, Zimmerman wanted to play cop and did so anyway despite having no reason to do so. He shot and killed Martin with a Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm semi-automatic pistol and claimed self defense and got away with the murder because of Florida s controversial Stand Your Ground law.Zimmerman has been in and out of trouble with the law ever since, and has avoided punishment each time.Further, in a scheme to make money and use the profits to allegedly fight the Black Lives Matter movement, Zimmerman set up an auction seeking buyers for the gun he used to take Trayvon Martin away from his parents forever, parents whom Zimmerman continued to attack during the interview. Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin did everything they could to capitalize on her son s death, Zimmerman despicably claimed. She was never a mother figure to him. Tracy Martin couldn t have cared less about their son. He treated him like a dog without a leash. Zimmerman should have stopped talking at that point but he continued to give Martin s parents advice even though he doesn t have any children of his own. Sure, I m sorry for any parent that has lost a child. That being said, I also believe it s their duty to have an internal dialogue to see what they should have done better and what they should have done appropriately. If he succeeds in selling the infamous firearm, Zimmerman claims he will use the money to fight Black Lives Matter, get revenge on the prosecutor who prosecuted him during his murder trial, and fight against Hillary Clinton. The purchaser is guaranteed validity and authenticity of the firearm. A portion of the proceeds will be used to: fight BLM violence against Law Enforcement officers, ensure the demise of Angela Corey s persecution career and Hillary Clinton s anti-firearm rhetoric. It s not the first time Zimmerman has tried to make money off the murder of Trayvon Martin. He once sold a painting of an American flag for $100,000 on eBay, and conservatives donated thousands of dollars to Zimmerman to help pay his legal expenses.Clearly, this monster has no intention of staying in the shadows of society where he belongs.Featured image via ABC/Wikipedia | 1real |
Michelle Obama - next president after Donald Trump | AP photo Many social networkers urge Michelle Obama to run for president in 2020."They want the Obamas back. After Donald Trump's shock win over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 on Tuesday, November 8, some people are already urging Michelle Obama to run for president in 2020," US Magazine wrote. A new hashtag has emerged in social media #Michelle2020. Some believe that it is already time to start a campaign for Michelle Obama. Some others say that in case of victory, Michelle Obama will be able to shatter two glass ceilings, as she would be able to become the first-ever black woman president. At the same time, Michelle Obama has repeatedly stated before that she would never run for president. Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru Which business Putin and Trump contrive | 1real |
Proven Link Between Soros And The Voting Machines Used In America | Survival | (Before It's News)
NUKE PRO: Exposing Truth Anti-Nuclear Information and Resources, and Disaster Preparation Planning: http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/ Malloch-Brown and Soros are buddies at the Soros led NWO “Open Society Institute”
Malloch Brown became chairman of the board of directors of SGO Corporation Limited, a holding company whose primary asset is the election technology and voting machine manufacturer Smartmatic, in 2014.[37][38]
Malloch Brown has been closely associated with billionaire speculator George Soros. Working for Refugees International, he was part of the Soros Advisory Committee on Bosnia in 1993–94, formed by George Soros.
He has since kept cordial relations with Soros, and rented an apartment owned by Soros while working in New York on UN assignments.[43] In May 2007, Soros' Quantum Fund announced the appointment of Sir Mark as vice-president.[44] In September 2007, The
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In amazing Orwellian fashion, this buddy of Soros, his name is very similar to Moloch, aka Satan. And in emails to Clinton people speak of “sacrificing to Moloch”. H
I think I see the resemblance | 1real |
Obama's brother plans to vote for Trump | NAIROBI (Reuters) - President Barack Obama’s half-brother, Malik Obama, says he will vote for Republican nominee Donald Trump in the U.S. election in November because he likes the candidate and he is unhappy with his brother’s leadership. Malik, who is in his 50s, told Reuters by phone from Obama’s ancestral home of Kogelo in western Kenya that he supports Trump’s policies, especially his focus on security. “He appeals to me and also I think that he is down to earth and he speaks from the heart and he is not trying to be politically correct. He’s just straight-forward,” he said. MORE ELECTION COVERAGE* Divisions plague Democrats as they open convention to anoint Clinton* Wider Image: Women workers on the Clinton campaign * Kaine makes campaign-trail debut Malik, a U.S. citizen, has lived in Washington since 1985 where he worked with various firms before becoming an independent financial consultant. Trump’s stance against Muslims coming in to the United States was understandable even to Muslims like himself, Malik said. “I’m a Muslim, of course, but you can’t have people going around just shooting people and killing people just in the name of Islam,” he said. He criticized President Obama’s record in the White House saying he had not done much for the American people and his extended family despite the high expectations that accompanied his election in 2008, both in the United States and Kenya. The two men appear to have drifted apart but were previously close. Malik has visited the president in the Oval office and was also best man at Barack’s wedding. Obama’s election created much excitement in Kenya especially in Kogelo village where their father was born before going to study at the University of Hawaii. Obama visited Nairobi, in the first ever trip by a sitting U.S. president to the East African nation last July, and promised to visit more often when he leaves office. Malik defended his right to criticize his brother, citing freedom of expression. “To each his own. I speak my mind and I’m not going to be put in a box just because my brother is the President of the United States,” Malik said. | 0fake |
U.S. general sets two-year goal for driving back Afghan Taliban | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said on Monday he believes he could help Afghan forces drive back the Taliban enough to control at least 80 percent of the country within two years, compared with about two-thirds today. General John Nicholson, citing counter-insurgency doctrine, said gaining 80 percent control of the country would represent a turning point in the 16-year-old conflict, which has become the longest U.S war. This we believe is the critical mass necessary to drive the enemy to irrelevance, meaning they re living in these remote outlying areas, or they reconcile, or they die, Nicholson told a Pentagon news briefing via video conference from Afghanistan. His remarks carried echoes of a U.S.-led strategy that began in 2009 and was accompanied by a massive surge in U.S. forces, which peaked in 2011 at more than 100,000 troops. Many areas that were regained during U.S.-led operations eventually reverted to Taliban control when Western forces turned them over to the Afghans. The U.S. military presence is just a fraction of its peak levels today. President Donald Trump sent an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan in recent weeks, bringing the total number of U.S. troops to about 14,000. The Pentagon is also directing more and more intelligence assets and firepower to the country as gains against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria free up resources for Afghanistan. That has allowed for a major increase in U.S. air strikes, which Nicholson said reached their highest level this year since 2012. Still, Taliban control of the country remains roughly steady against last year, Nicholson acknowledged. As of August, 13 percent of the 407 districts in Afghanistan were under Taliban control or influence, compared with 11 percent in February, according to a report released last month by the U.S. government watchdog, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). Many analysts, as well as current and former U.S. officials, believe that Afghanistan s war cannot be won militarily, particularly when the Taliban benefit from safe-havens in Pakistan. Trump has articulated a harder policy toward Pakistan in recent months, but U.S. officials say they have not yet seen a meaningful shift by Islamabad against insurgents using Pakistan as a hub for attacks in Afghanistan. The Afghan army also suffers from deep structural problems, including high casualty rates, rampant illiteracy, corruption and a frequent lack of tribal ties to areas where they are sent to fight. Still, in Nicholson s view, getting Afghan forces to hold 80 percent of the country s population would leave the Taliban with less than 10 percent control. Maybe the rest is contested, he said. One way that Nicholson hopes to increase pressure on the Taliban is to curb their financing, and he showed videos to Pentagon reporters of U.S. strikes in recent days against Taliban opium factories. He cited estimates of between 400 and 500 opium factories in Afghanistan. Afghan opium production reached record highs this year, up 87 percent from last year, the United Nations said last week. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said output of opium made from poppies in Afghanistan, the world s main source of heroin, stands at around 9,000 metric tons this year. | 0fake |
Lesbians4Hillary? Wait…What About Her Unyielding Support For Traditional Marriage In This Video? | Yep Hillary s now a champion of lesbians and gay marriage. Or is she? It s hard to tell exactly what Hillary stands for. She seemed pretty adamant in the videos below that she was committed to preserving the sanctity of marriage between a man and woman. Hillary Clinton has garnered one of her first major endorsements in run bid for the White House: The nation s largest lesbian political action committee.The group, LPAC, launched Lesbians4Hillary on Monday to support the former First Lady s bid to become the nation s first female president.Lesbians4Hillary, co-chaired by pioneering tennis great Billie Jean King, said: Hillary Clinton is a proven leader and she has a strong track record when it comes to inclusion specifically for women and the LGBTQ community. Her entire career has been a road map to get her to this moment and she has earned my respect and my vote to become the next President of the United States of America. I am honored to join LPAC and help lead our effort to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016. King, who was outed as a lesbian in 1981, was a leader of the group Women for Hillary in 2008, as well.But wait what about this video showing Hillary s unyielding support for traditional marriage?In the video released yesterday announcing Clinton s candidacy for president, two gay couples were included. Among them, two lesbians who look lovingly into each other s eyes.However, in her 2008 campaign, Clinton did not support gay marriage. It took her five years to publicly say that she supported gay marriage. President Barack Obama publicly announced his support for gay marriage nearly a year earlier in March 2012.Via: UK Daily Mail | 1real |
K.T. McFarland, Deputy National Security Adviser, Is Expected to Leave Post - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — K. T. McFarland, the former Fox News commentator appointed by President Trump as deputy national security adviser, is expected to leave that position soon and may be nominated to be the United States ambassador to Singapore, according to officials briefed on the matter. Ms. McFarland’s departure had been seen as likely since the forced resignation of Michael T. Flynn, the retired general who was Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser. Mr. Flynn’s successor, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, has been moving to put a more traditionally professional stamp on the operations of the National Security Council. Last week, Mr. Trump signed an order restructuring the council’s “principals committee” along more traditional lines than the version he had initially put in place. It removed Stephen K. Bannon, the White House’s chief strategist and a former chairman of the conservative website Breitbart, while adding several officials Mr. Trump’s original order had left off, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the directors of national intelligence and the C. I. A. Administration officials briefed on the matter confirmed Ms. McFarland was stepping down, but said her departure would not be immediate. The officials also said her possible nomination for the ambassadorship to Singapore, while likely, had not been finalized. CNN reported on April 1 that Ms. McFarland was being offered the diplomatic post in Singapore, and Bloomberg News reported on Sunday that she had been asked to step down. Ms. McFarland’s style had grated against some of the professional staff members on the National Security Council, which sees itself as apolitical. For example, while addressing the staff at a meeting after Mr. Flynn’s ouster, Ms. McFarland noted that she was wearing shoes from Ivanka Trump’s brand, according to an official who was present. At an earlier meeting about two weeks into the administration, Ms. McFarland invoked Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan, telling the assembled group of career staff members, most of whom had been in the same roles during the Obama administration, that they needed to “make America great again. ” It was not clear whether Dina Powell, whom General McMaster brought in as deputy national security adviser for strategy, would succeed Ms. McFarland as the principal deputy. The official in that role leads interagency “deputies committee” meetings in the Situation Room involving the No. 2 officials from national security agencies and government departments. Ms. Powell, an assistant secretary of state for education and cultural affairs in the Bush administration, is fluent in Arabic and was previously the president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation. She was the only woman in the widely distributed photograph of Mr. Trump and his aides receiving a briefing about the recent airstrike on Syria at his resort in Florida. Ms. McFarland, 65, worked as an aide on the National Security Council in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and served as a Pentagon speechwriter and spokeswoman in the Reagan administration. In more recent years, she was known for her criticism on Fox News of President Barack Obama’s handling of national security policy. In September 2014, after the Islamic State swept out of Syria to conquer swaths of Iraq and killing two kidnapped Americans, she said on Fox News that Mr. Obama was guilty of “dereliction of duty” because he “was playing a lot of golf this summer, but he was clearly not attending to the defense of the United States. ” At the same meeting where Ms. McFarland told staff members to “make America great again,” Mr. Flynn talked to them about using their time at the council to gain experience to help them in other parts of the government. He then asked for a show of hands to see how many expected to be working at the White House in a year. Mr. Flynn, according to people present, then turned to Ms. McFarland and, in an apparent joke, said, “I wonder if we’ll be here a year from now?” | 0fake |
Voting Machine Shocker: Video Proof Election Is Rigged! | The Clinton campaign have found a way to rig voting machines in order to commit election fraud, and America is completely clueless.
Via YourNewsWire
Dominion Voting Systems, the biggest voting machine owner in the United States, has been Exposed donating to the Clinton Foundation, and has close ties to George Soros.
In 2010 Dominion Voting Machines bought out the right to own the machines in 600 jurisdictions across 22 different states, according to Wikipedia.
The same company, Dominion Voting, has also been exposed donating enough money to the Clinton Foundation to make it to their online donor list. Is it any wonder voters have already started reporting that some machines are flipping their votes?
How blatant is that! Just take a look at the Clinton Foundation’s website itself.
Wow. That is just such a strange coincidence, don’t you think? Right around the same time Hillary Clinton was deciding to retire as Secretary of State and focus on her campaign, this company bought out half the voting machines in the country. And if that is not bad enough, one of the top owners of Dominion Voting is none other than the king of corruption himself, George Soros.
But it gets even worse.
Dominion Voting Systems and The Clinton Foundation did a 2.25 million dollar charity initiative in developing nations together called the DELIAN Project.
“In 2014, Dominion Voting committed to providing emerging and post-conflict democracies with access to voting technology through its philanthropic support to the DELIAN Project, as many emerging democracies suffer from post-electoral violence due to the delay in the publishing of election results. Over the next three years, Dominion Voting will support election technology pilots with donated Automated Voting Machines (AVM), providing an improved electoral process, and therefore safer elections.”
This presents a very troubling conflict of interest. Most Americans would certainly agree that voting machines should have zero connection to presidential candidates and their foundations.
As we previously reported , the Democratic primaries were essentially rigged. So why wouldn’t the general U.S. election potentially be manipulated in favor of the elite’s preferred candidate? If you think this is as important of information as I do, then share this out immediately. Time is of the essence.
| 1real |
MSNBC “Equal Rights” Lawyer: Trump Women “Have Smaller Minds than his Small Hands” [Video] | Tamara Holder was a guest on Joy Reid s MSNBC show this morning and mocked the women in President Trump s life. Ironically, Holder was billed as an equal rights attorney and advocate . Here she is mocking the women in Donald Trump s life BUT she claims to be an advocate for equal rights .Holder was peeved that women surrounding Trump had failed to condemn him over his tweets directed at Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough: I think the women in Donald Trump s life probably have smaller minds than his small hands . . . he has continued to surround himself, Donald Trump, with very, very, weak-minded women, who are afraid of him. Holder had mentioned Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kellyanne Conway, and First Lady Melania Trump in her earlier comments.Small minds? Weak-minded? Afraid? Holder s comments are laughable at best but only prove the nastiness and double standard of the left. Has Tamara Holder ever been in a toe-to-toe conversation or debate with any of these women? Nope!We would love, love, love to see Holder go toe-to-toe with any of these strong women! | 1real |
Dozens of unidentified bodies found near Libyan city of Benghazi | BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - The bodies of 37 unidentified people have been found near the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, security sources said on Friday. The bodies were found on Thursday night in Al-Abyar, about 70 km (44 miles) east of Benghazi. The security sources gave no information about their possible identity. Smaller numbers of bodies have been found in and around Benghazi on several occasions in recent months. The area is controlled by the Libyan National Army (LNA), a force headed by eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar. He declared victory in a campaign for Benghazi in July, though some fighting has continued in one district of the city. | 0fake |
India using chilli sprays, stun grenades to dissuade Rohingya influx | NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has stepped up security along its largely porous eastern border with Bangladesh and is using chilli and stun grenades to block the entry of Rohingya Muslims fleeing from violence in their homeland of Myanmar, officials said on Friday. Border forces in Hindu-majority India, which wants to deport around 40,000 Rohingya already living in the country, citing security risks, have been authorized to use rude and crude methods to stop any infiltration attempts. We don t want to cause any serious injury or arrest them, but we won t tolerate Rohingya on Indian soil, said a senior official with the Border Security Force (BSF) in New Delhi. We re using grenades containing chilli spray to stop hundreds of Rohingyas trying to enter India ... the situation is tense, added the official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to media. More than 420,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when a coordinated attack by Rohingya insurgents on Myanmar security forces triggered a counteroffensive, killing at least 400 people, mainly militants. The United Nations has called the assault a textbook example of ethnic cleansing . Densely populated Bangladesh is struggling to shelter all the refugees desperate for space to set up shacks, sparking worries in India that the influx could spill into its territory. R.P.S. Jaswal, a deputy inspector general of the BSF patrolling a large part of the border in India s eastern state of West Bengal, said his troops were told to use both chilli grenades and stun grenades to push back the Rohingya. A chilli grenade makes use of a naturally-occurring compound in chilli powder to cause severe irritation and temporarily immobilize its target. Prime Minister Narendra Modi s Hindu nationalist government is growing increasingly hostile towards the Rohingya in India, with Home Minister Rajnath Singh calling on Thursday for their deportation as illegal migrants. Seeking to get legal clearance for the deportation plan, the home ministry told the Supreme Court this week it would confidentially provide it with intelligence information showing Rohingya links with Pakistan-based militants. Most of the peaceloving refugees had no link to criminal activity, two Rohingya men protesting against the deportation move told India s top court on Friday. An official of India s federal investigations agency said it was seeking help from Muslim religious leaders to step up surveillance of the Rohingya. Police have arrested a suspected al Qaeda member they believe was trying to recruit Rohingya in the country to fight security forces in Myanmar. More than 270 Rohingya have been in Indian jails since 2014. Our investigations have revealed that Al Qaeda wants to use India and Bangladesh as their base to start a religious war against Myanmar, said New Delhi police official Pramod Singh Khuswah. Clearly they are a threat to our security. | 0fake |
Why Witches, Occultists And Satanists Celebrate Halloween, And Why You Should Not | Why Witches, Occultists And Satanists Celebrate Halloween, And Why You Should Not Posted on Tweet Home » Headlines » World News » Why Witches, Occultists And Satanists Celebrate Halloween, And Why You Should Not
Halloween night is one of the biggest nights of the year for witches, occultists and Satanists. All over America, those that are deep into the dark arts will be contacting the dead, casting spells and conducting blood sacrifices. On October 31st, most people will simply ignore the dark side of Halloween. We can assure you however, that the Creator does NOT…
From Michael Snyder, End of the American Dream :
The vast majority of the population will dress up in costumes, go to parties and eat candy without ever even considering where the holiday came from or what certain people are doing behind closed doors. But the truth is that Halloween night is one of the biggest nights of the year for witches, occultists and Satanists. All over America, those that are deep into the dark arts will be contacting the dead, casting spells and conducting blood sacrifices. As you will see below, there is a reason why animal shelters across the country ban the adoption of black cats this time of the year. But even our “innocent” Halloween traditions such as dressing up in costumes, “trick or treating” and carving jack-o’-lanterns all have their roots in ancient pagan practices. And every year the costumes for our young girls become even more sexually suggestive, the horror movies become even more demonic, and the public’s fascination with the occult just continues to grow. It truly is a festival of death, but most people don’t seem to care. In fact, experts are telling us that Halloween has now become America’s second biggest holiday.
According to the National Retail Federation, nearly 70 percent of all Americans plan to celebrate Halloween this year, and spending is expected to shatter the all-time record…
According to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, total spending for Halloween is expected to reach $8.4 billion, an all-time high in the survey’s 11-year history.
U.S. consumers are expected to spend an average of $82.93, up from last year’s $74.34, with more than 171 million Americans planning to partake in Halloween festivities this year.
To give you some context, total Halloween spending for 2009 came in at just 4.7 billion dollars. So to say that the celebration of Halloween is growing would be a tremendous understatement.
Sadly, most people have no idea where this holiday originally came from. The truth is that a long time ago Catholicism attempted to “Christianize” an ancient pagan holiday known as Samhain…
The origins of Halloween are Celtic in tradition and have to do with observing the end of summer sacrifices to gods in Druidic tradition. In what is now Britain and France, it was the beginning of the Celtic year, and they believed Samhain, the lord of death, sent evil spirits abroad to attack humans, who could escape only by assuming disguises and looking like evil spirits themselves. The waning of the sun and the approach of dark winter made the evil spirits rejoice and play nasty tricks. Believe it or not, most of our Halloween practices can be traced back to these old pagan rites and superstitions .
On the Wiccan calendar, Samhain is one of the most important points on “the wheel of the year”. Wiccans believe that it is the day when “the god dies”, and subsequently they celebrate his rebirth at Yule.
It is also a time when they believe that the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest, and so it is an opportune time for them to contact the dead. The following is much more on what Wiccans believe about Samhain from wicca.com…
Samhain, (pronounced SOW-in, SAH-vin, or SAM-hayne) means “End of Summer”, and is the third and final Harvest. The dark winter half of the year commences on this Sabbat.
It is generally celebrated on October 31st, but some traditions prefer November 1st. It is one of the two “spirit-nights” each year, the other being Beltane. It is a magical interval when the mundane laws of time and space are temporarily suspended, and the Thin Veil between the worlds is lifted. Communicating with ancestors and departed loved ones is easy at this time, for they journey through this world on their way to the Summerlands. It is a time to study the Dark Mysteries and honor the Dark Mother and the Dark Father, symbolized by the Crone and her aged Consort.
Originally the “Feast of the Dead” was celebrated in Celtic countries by leaving food offerings on altars and doorsteps for the “wandering dead”. Today a lot of practitioners still carry out that tradition. Single candles were lit and left in a window to help guide the spirits of ancestors and loved ones home. Extra chairs were set to the table and around the hearth for the unseen guest. Apples were buried along roadsides and paths for spirits who were lost or had no descendants to provide for them. Turnips were hollowed out and carved to look like protective spirits, for this was a night of magic and chaos. The Wee Folke became very active, pulling pranks on unsuspecting humans. Traveling after dark was was not advised. People dressed in white (like ghosts), wore disguises made of straw, or dressed as the opposite gender in order to fool the Nature spirits.
The ancient practices described in those paragraphs sound very similar to what we do today in many ways, but without a doubt some of the traditions have evolved. For example, instead of carving turnips, those that celebrate Halloween carve pumpkins today.
You may not realize this, but Wicca is actually one of the fastest growing religions in America. And on October 31st, Wiccans all over the nation will get together to conduct rituals and cast spells. Here is a blurb from Wikipedia about the Wiccan belief in “magic”…
During ritual practices, which are often staged in a sacred circle, Wiccans cast spells or “workings” intended to bring about real changes in the physical world. Common Wiccan spells include those used for healing, for protection, fertility, or to banish negative influences. [63] Many early Wiccans, such asAlex Sanders, Sybil Leek and Alex Winfield, referred to their own magic as “white magic“, which contrasted with “black magic“, which they associated with evil and Satanism. Sanders also used the similar terminology of “left hand path” to describe malevolent magic, and “right hand path” to describe magic performed with good intentions; [64] terminology that had originated with the occultist Helena Blavatsky in the 19th century. Some modern Wiccans however have stopped using the white-black magic and left-right hand path dichotomies, arguing for instance that the colour black should not necessarily have any associations with evil. [65]
If you are not familiar with these things, you may scoff at such practices. But the cold, hard reality of the matter is that they are very real. The dark side has power too, and those that have come out of witchcraft can tell you some stories that will stand your hair on end.
Wiccans think of themselves as “good”, and so they tend to reject blood sacrifices and things of that nature.
But for those that are deeper into the occult, blood sacrifice is an essential part of Halloween. As I mentioned above, many animal shelters all over the nation ban the adoption of black cats this time of the year… It’s the week of Halloween, and maybe you don’t know this, but if you suddenly wanted to adopt a black cat, you would probably have a hard time. That’s because thanks to their association with witchcraft, accepted wisdom holds that Halloween is a time when people ritualistically mutilate black cats.
To test if this really was still accepted wisdom, I contacted some animal shelters near to our Los Angeles office, and they all told me they wouldn’t let me adopt a black cat. One, The Lange Foundation—the type of animal rescue that takes in cats from city shelters before they can be euthanized—was willing to talk to me on the phone and explain: If someone were to call and ask specifically for a black cat, that would trigger the policy. “I would say ‘not today!’” said one of the foundation’s board members, Diana Nelson.
You may not want to believe it, but animals will be killed and little children will be abused on Halloween night. The following is what one ex-witch has sharedregarding her experiences…
My parents told me before we went around the neighborhood we were going to go by the church (Mormon Church) to get some candy there. The church was very close to my grandmother’s house, and I knew so from going often.
We went to the church and what happened next made my blood curdle. I was given candy, but that was just a preclude to the sexual abuse that would happen in a satanic ritual. On Halloween Satanists use young children, such as myself, as sexual idols to worship. Other children receive a far worse fate. Death. I know for some this is more than you can even think to believe, but it is true. I can barely write these words because the pain of the truth is almost more than I can bear. If it wasn’t for the grace and love of Jesus Christ, I would not even be here writing this at all.
You may say “it doesn’t mean that to me”, but you are just fooling yourself.
Could you take a Satanic Black Mass and turn it into a celebration of Jesus?
Of course not.
And yet so many Christians fully embrace Halloween and pretend that there is nothing wrong with it.
For the record, Satanists absolutely love Halloween. The following comes from the official Church of Satan website…
Satanists embrace what this holiday has become, and do not feel the need to be tied to ancient practices. This night, we smile at the amateur explorers of their own inner darkness, for we know that they enjoy their brief dip into the pool of the “shadow world.” We encourage their tenebrous fantasies, the candied indulgence, and the wide-ranging evocation of our aesthetics (while tolerating some of the chintzy versions), even if it is but once a year. For the rest of the time, when those not of our meta-tribe shake their heads in wonder at us, we can point out that they may find some understanding by examining their own All Hallows Eve doings, but we generally find it simpler to just say: “Think of the Addams Family and you’ll begin to see what we’re about.”
Satanists consider Halloween to be one of the most important “holidays” of the year. On page 96 of the Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey wrote the following…
“After one’s own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht (May 1st) and Halloween.”
Isn’t that lovely?
Despite all of this, most Christians in America will happily celebrate Halloween on October 31st. In fact, one recent survey found that just 8 percent of all Christian pastors want their congregations to skip the holiday altogether. Instead, most of them want their members to invite people to a “Christian version of Halloween” at their churches. The following comes from Charisma…
Two-thirds (67 percent) encourage church members to invite friends and neighbors to a fall festival, trunk-or-treat or judgment house. Pastors at bigger churches (those with 250 or more in attendance) are most likely to ask church members to invite their neighbors (86 percent) to an event at the church. Those from small churches (50 or less in attendance) are least likely (48 percent).
If the gospel is preached, I am all for people going to church on October 31st. But all too often these “alternative celebrations” are nothing more than repackaged versions of the same Satanic holiday that the world is celebrating. I like how Pastor Jamie Morgan described what our approach to this day should be…
Setting aside a day to celebrate evil, darkness, witchcraft, fear, death and the demonic brings disdain to God. Period. A Christian celebrating Halloween would be like a Satan worshiper putting up a nativity scene at Christmas while singing, “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” The two just don’t go together. Jesus has nothing in common with Satan (2 Cor. 6:14), and neither should we.
And the truth is that God has wanted us to have nothing to do with occult practices from the very beginning. The following is what Deuteronomy 18:9-13 says in the Modern English version…
9 When you enter into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you must not learn to practice the abominations of those nations . 10 There must not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or who uses divination , or uses witchcraft , or an interpreter of omens, or a sorcerer , 11 or one who casts spells , or a spiritualist , or an occultist , or a necromancer . 12 For all that do these things are an abomination to the Lord , and because of these abominations the Lord your God will drive them out from before you. 13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God.
There will be many people that will read this article and will continue to celebrate Halloween just as they normally do. If that is you, then you need to understand that engaging in dark practices can open up doors to spiritual darkness for yourself and your entire family.
If you do that, then that is your choice, but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. | 1real |
UK minister says U.S. will drive hard bargain in post-Brexit trade talks | LONDON (Reuters) - Foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday Britain should expect the United States to drive a very hard bargain in talks to secure a post-Brexit trade deal. | 0fake |
CAUGHT ON VIDEO! Violent Anti-Trump Thugs Pelt Eggs At Trump Supporters | When will the media report on this nice group of illegal aliens and racist American thugs | 1real |
HYPOCRISY: DEMOCRAT SENATOR Criticizes President Trump For Moving U.S. Embassy To Jerusalem After She Voted To Move U.S. Embassy To Jerusalem | You just can t make up stories like these Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) on Tuesday castigated the idea of moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, saying it would be a terrible decision despite previously voting for the embassy move to take place. Reports indicate the president will move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the California senator tweeted. I wrote him last week to explain why that would be a terrible decision. In an attached letter to Trump dated Dec. 1, Feinstein wrote that moving the embassy would spark violence and embolden extremists on both sides of this debate. Here is the tweet:Reports indicate the president will move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I wrote him last week to explain why that would be a terrible decision. pic.twitter.com/MV1o73nyDk Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) December 5, 2017The California Democrat stressed that the U.S. must remain neutral in the debate over Jerusalem s status, and that moving the U.S. embassy there or recognizing the city as the capital of Israel would undermine any remaining hope for a two-state solution. Feinstein s tweet came on the same day that President Donald Trump told Israeli and Arab leaders that he plans to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital and move the embassy there. Trump is expected to announce his decision on Wednesday.Moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would be in line with a law that Congress passed in 1995 requiring the relocation of the United States embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The measure, which also called for the U.S. to recognize the city as the undivided capital of Israel, passed the Senate by an overwhelming 93-5 margin.Among the senators who voted for the initial Jerusalem Embassy Act was one Dianne Feinstein.Feinstein actually played a key role in getting the bill passed by inserting a provision that would allow the president to issue a waiver to delay the embassy move six months at a time, if the president determined it was in the U.S. national security interest.Feinstein s move led 10 additional Democratic members to support the bill, giving it a veto-proof majority.Via: WFB | 1real |
This North Carolina High School Just Made It So Trans Students Can Be Pepper Sprayed For Peeing | It s hard to believe that so many people are so remarkably stupid and bigoted in North Carolina, but alas, they really seem to be. Of course, not the entire state, but there does seem to be a rather large group of the population that believes transgender individuals are out to cause harm. When in reality, those who are transgender are actually just living their truth and should be treated with dignity and respect for doing so.With the passage and signing of HB2, better known as the now infamous bathroom bill, it s basically given citizens of the state permission to be the bathroom police. To be clear, HB2 has nothing to do with bathroom safety, and everything to do with being discriminatory bigots to the transgender community.Now, because of this legislated discrimination, the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education is now allowing students to bring pepper spray into school bathrooms. You know, to protect themselves, which in all honesty just gave permission to every bigoted child in that state to use this allowance as a get out of jail free card to those they want to physically abuse by means of pepper spray. Think about it, you can already hear the I thought they were going to attack me excuses piling up, and administrators being like, well, in that case Board member Chuck Hughes, who is in favor of the pepper spray and referenced HB2 in his argument, said: Depending on how the courts rule on the bathroom issues, it may be a pretty valuable tool to have on the female students if they go to the bathroom, not knowing who may come in. Keep in mind, this also means that students will seemingly be able to have pepper spray on their person at all times while in school. Surely there will be no complications with such a thing (sarcasm).This school board just made it perfectly fine for students to openly harm transgender individuals. Individuals who just need to use the restroom like everybody else. It s outrageous and should be illegal, but instead, it s openly condoned by even the highest office in the state. Chances are, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory would approve. Disgusting.Featured image via THV11 | 1real |
After year of 'repression' in Bahrain, West remains silent, Amnesty says | DUBAI (Reuters) - Bahrain s government has crushed dissent and violently cracked down on protests in the past year, Amnesty International said on Thursday, and it accused Britain and the United States in particular of turning a blind eye to its abuses. Amnesty said in a report on Thursday that it had documented how the Bahraini government, from June 2016 to June 2017, arrested, tortured, threatened or banned from travel at least 169 activists and opponents or their relatives. Bahraini authorities could not immediately be reached for comment. Bahrain has repeatedly denied systematic rights abuses. Entitled No one can protect you: Bahrain s year of crushing dissent , the report said that at least six people were killed, including a child, in the crackdowns. The report also accused Western governments, notably the United States and Britain of remaining silent. The two countries have a particularly high level of influence in Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based and where Britain s Royal Navy has a major facility. Amnesty said U.S. President Donald Trump s policy has shifted from that of his predecessor, Barack Obama, who had publicly criticized the authorities of the tiny Gulf state. In March 2017, President Trump told Bahrain s King Hamad there won t be strain with this administration : Bahrain appears to have interpreted this statement as a green light to pursue its repression, the report said. Bahrain has stepped up a crackdown on critics, shutting down two main political groups, revoking the citizenship of the spiritual leader of the Shi ite Muslim community and jailing rights campaigners. It denounced attempts by previous U.S. and UK governments to intervene in its campaign. In July, a Bahraini court sentenced rights campaigner and prominent activist Nabeel Rajab to two years in jail for allegedly making false or malicious statements about Bahraini authorities. Rajab is facing another trial and risks a further 15 years in prison for tweeting. Using an array of tools of repression, including harassment, arbitrary detention and torture, the government of Bahrain has managed to crush a formerly thriving civil society, Philip Luther, Amnesty International s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement. Amnesty said it had received reports of nine cases of government critics being tortured in detention, eight of them in May 2017 alone. Bahrain has been a flashpoint since the Sunni-led government put down Arab Spring protests in 2011. The kingdom, most of whose population is Shi ite, says it faces a threat from neighboring Shi ite theocracy Iran. It accuses the Islamic Republic of radicalizing and arming some members of its majority Shi ite population in an effort to bring about the downfall of the ruling Al Khalifa family. Tehran denies any meddling in Bahrain. | 0fake |
RUBIO DOUBLES DOWN ON Putting Illegal Aliens Before Americans | If Rubio isn t smart enough to see that Trump s catapult to the top of the GOP contenders happened the moment he took a strong stand against politicians putting illegal aliens before Americans, then is he really smart enough to run our nation? And maybe even more importantly, if Rubio does recognize the majority of voters across the board want to elect a President who will stop the invasion of illegal aliens into our country, who is he planning to represent if he were to get the nomination?Sen. [score]Marco Rubio[/score] (R-FL) is doubling down on his support for in-state tuition for illegal aliens.On ABC, George Stephanopoulos asked Rubio about his work in the Florida statehouse in which he co-sponsored legislation to provide in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. Stephanopolous asked Rubio directly: Do you stand behind that position now? Rubio said that he absolutely stands behind that legislation:RUBIO: It was a very narrowly drafted bill. You had to have a certain GPA, you had to live in the U.S. a long time, you had to graduate from a Florida high school. It was very narrowly tailored to high-performing students who found themselves in a situation where they were brought here by their parents when they were 5, didn t even speak another language except English and therefore couldn t attend college because they were being charged like they were from out of state. They still had to pay for college but they paid for what people paid when they lived in Florida. They had to be high school graduates of Florida.STEPHANOPOULOS: So you stand behind that?RUBIO: Yes, of a narrowly tailored bill like that, absolutely.In theory, this legislation means that an American student wishing to attend a Florida state university, who is from the neighboring state of Georgia, would have to pay higher tuition costs than an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, who has been living unlawfully in Florida and attending American public schools for the past thirteen years on the taxpayer dime. Illegal aliens are also eligible for generous child tax credits, a benefit protected in the Gang of Eight bill. Indeed, the taxes requirement in the Gang of Eight bill would have meant illegal aliens could receive tax payments in the form of free cash from the IRS, since poor illegal aliens have no tax liability.Rubio s plan to discount college tuition for illegal aliens will serve as a further magnet to new illegal immigration, and will also increase competition for college slots and post-college jobs for American youth who are already struggling. Moreover, due to affirmative action policies, these illegal aliens will not have their tuition discounted but their applications given preferential treatment as well.By contrast, front-runner Donald Trump told NBC s Chuck Todd that same day that he opposes Rubio s legislation to give illegal aliens taxpayer-funded tuition discounts.TODD: Senator Rubio sponsored a bill back in Florida (back when he was in the State House) to give in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. There s a lot of states that allow in-state tuition for the children of undocumented immigrants. I ve not heard your position on that.TRUMP: I m opposed to it.TODD: Totally opposed?TRUMP: They re here. They re not here legally. I m opposed to itTODD: Even kids born to illegal immigrants?It is perhaps interesting to note that Chuck Todd seems a bit confused about U.S. immigration policy illegal alien tuition discounts are for foreign-born youth who are themselves illegal immigrants. Under current policy, the US-born children are automatic birthright citizens, meaning no legislation is required to make them eligible for all the benefits enjoyed by Americans. Indeed, illegal immigrants primarily access welfare programs through their U.S.-born children. As a September 2015 report from the Center for Immigration Studies noted, analysis shows that legal immigrant households make extensive use of most welfare programs, while illegal immigrant households primarily benefit from food programs and Medicaid through their U.S.-born children. Regardless, Trump made clear in the interview he would ensure that neither illegal alien youth (DREAMers) or birthright citizenship children, would be eligible for such benefits. Trump made clear he would move to eliminate birthright citizenship so that the US-born children of illegal aliens would no longer made automatic citizens. Again, by contrast, Rubio supports birthright citizenship a position which is supported by only 20% of Republicans according to the most recent Rasmussen Reports immigration survey issued on December 27, 2015.Rubio s Sunday endorsement of discount college tuition for the foreign-born illegal alien youth is in keeping with his longstanding support for DREAM amnesty proposals, which have been a passion of Gang of Eight co-member [score]Dick Durbin[/score].While Rubio briefly distanced himself of his support for DREAMer amnesty in 2010 in order to get elected to the U.S. Senate and indeed attacked attacked his opponent [score]Charlie Crist[/score] specifically for his support of the DREAM Act upon arriving in the U.S. Senate, Rubio quickly used his new position of power to begin working on a plan to legalize so-called DREAMers. In 2012, Rubio wrote: They re not in compliance with immigration law, and, thus, not American citizens. But they are culturally as American as anyone else s children Rubio s statement might be news to Laura Wilkerson whose 18-year-old son, Joshua, was gruesomely murdered by his DREAMer classmate. In her Congressional testimony last summer, Wilkerson told lawmakers how her son was, beaten, strangled, tortured until he died. He was tied up, thrown in a field, and set on fire [During his trial], we had to hear this kid on the stand muttering about, In my country In my country never to finish that sentence. We listened to him tell us repeatedly that his killing skills took over . Wilkerson told lawmakers, You cannot you cannot stand by and ignore our families our American families. You re elected by Americans, not any other country. You should be for Americans. Yet Rubio remains so committed to amnesty for illegal immigrants who allegedly entered as minors that he has said he will not immediately revoke President Obama s lawless 2012 executive amnesty for DREAMers. In a Spanish-language interview with Jorge Ramos, Rubio said: Well, DACA is going to have to end at some point. I wouldn t undo it immediately. The reason is that there are already people who have that permission, who are working, who are studying, and I don t think it would be fair to cancel it suddenly. But I do think it is going to have to end. And, God willing, it s going to end because immigration reform is going to pass. Rejected-Majority Leader [score]Eric Cantor[/score] similarly supported Rubio s efforts to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. Cantor declared, One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents. This prompted Cantor s then-primary challenger Rep. [score]Dave Brat[/score] (R-VA) to describe Cantor s declaration as one of the most radical pro-amnesty statements ever delivered by a sitting representative. Brat wrote, In what was billed as a new agenda for the Republican Party, Cantor declared that citizenship for illegals was required by the great founding principles of our country. With this remark, Cantor declared his support not only for amnesty now, but amnesty forever. Ken Palinkas, the former head of the nation s immigration caseworkers Citizenship and Immigration Services has similarly explained how the DREAM Act would represents a promise of perpetual amnesty :If it is improper to apply immigration law to one specific group of illegal aliens, then why should we expect future illegal aliens in this group to be treated any differently?Indeed, government reports have documented how the 2014 illegal alien minor surge on our southern border was caused, in large part, by the promise of amnesty for alien youth.As Senator [score]Jeff Session[/score] has written, It cannot be the policy of the United States that any of the 2 billion people in the world who have yet turn to turn 18 have a right to illegally enter the United States and claim residency. Polling data suggests that in the event Rubio s position on this controversial DREAMer amnesty begins to receive large-scale media coverage something that has not happened yet it could pose problems for him in New Hamspshire, where he is currently in second place. As The Hill reported in 2014, More people in New England oppose illegal immigration compared to the rest of the country Nearly 80 percent of people in that region said illegal immigrants threaten U.S. beliefs and customs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.New Hampshire also voted for Pat Buchanan in 1996 who, like Trump, is opposed to both the cheaper foreign labor and cheap foreign imports Senator Rubio has sought to import.Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Santiago Calatrava diseña una lápida gigantesca, blanca y con pinchos para Rita Barberá | El Mundo Today | Santiago Calatrava diseña una lápida gigantesca, blanca y con pinchos para Rita Barberá LA POLÍTICA MANTENDRÁ SU PUESTO EN EL SENADO Valencia
Sólo unas horas después de anunciarse la muerte de Rita Barberá, el arquitecto valenciano Santiago Calatrava ha informado de que ha diseñado una lápida de proporciones gigantescas, blanca y con pinchos para la que fuera alcaldesa de Valencia. “Son unas pirámides a la valenciana, con pinchos y que se caen, un gran monumento”, ha explicado el arquitecto por teléfono.
La lápida está situada sobre un pequeño edificio horizontal y se compone de una enorme pared adornada con tubos de aluminio pintados en blanco, de 100 metros de altura por 250 de longitud, a cinco metros del suelo y con movimiento oscilante. “Dispone de diversos pasillos interiores, con trampas y cámaras para enterrar pruebas de la trama Gürtel”, ha explicado Calatrava sin detallar los planos ni los costes.
“En algún momento se derrumbará, por lo que se convertirá en un homenaje aún más sentido”, ha insistido. El arquitecto espera que el monumento funerario se financie ilegalmente “porque es lo que ella habría querido”.
“Rita Barberá murió haciendo lo que más le gustaba, evadir la justicia, porque siempre fue una persona coherente con sus principios y con los de este partido”, ha declarado Mariano Rajoy.
Aunque se lleve adelante la construcción de la lápida de 100 metros de altura, la política valenciana no será enterrada para evitar malversación de fondos, “que es algo a lo que ella se opondría”, sino que mantendrá su puesto en el Senado indefinidamente. | 1real |
Republican senator recorded criticizing Trump | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins on Tuesday was recorded making critical comments about the Trump administration’s understanding of the legislative process during a Senate subcommittee hearing. Collins discussed Republican President Donald Trump and the federal budget with Democratic Senator Jack Reed at the end of a Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies subcommittee hearing, according to a tape obtained by the Washington Post. On the recording, Collins suggests the Office of Management and Budget is being capricious in its approach to reducing spending. “No thinking about it, no metrics, no nothing. It’s just incredibly irresponsible,” Collins said, according to a Post report and accompanying audio. “I think — I think he’s crazy,” Reed replied in an apparent reference to Trump. “I don’t think he knows there is a BCA (Budget Control Act) or anything,” Collins later said, apparently referring to the president and a 2011 budget law. Collins spokeswoman Annie Clark told Reuters that Collins is worried about the elimination of funding for transportation and housing programs in Trump’s budget. Reed spokesman Chip Unruh said the senator was “letting Senator Collins know he’s in her corner.” “He has said it publicly and privately: The Trump Administration is behaving erratically and irresponsibly,” Unruh said in an email to Reuters. Later in the recording, Collins also responds to a Republican representative, Blake Farenthold, who said recently that he wished he could to challenge her to a duel over her healthcare bill opposition. Collins was one of just two Senate Republicans on Tuesday who voted against beginning debate on a bill to replace Obamacare. “Did you see the picture of him in his pajamas next to this Playboy bunny?” Collins asked Reed, saying that Farenthold was “huge,” and referencing a 2010 picture of Farenthold that made the rounds on Twitter. Collins said in a statement that “neither weapons nor inappropriate words” were the right way to resolve legislative disputes. “I received a handwritten apology from Rep. Farenthold late this morning. I accept his apology, and I offer him mine,” she said. | 0fake |
High Schools Start Caving To Trump – Will Punish Athletes Who Won’t Stand For National Anthem | As if Trump calling for a private organization to fire people who refuse to stand for the national anthem wasn t bad enough, it now seems that some high schools have decided to follow his dangerous lead. Parkway High School, in Bossier, Louisiana, will start punishing football players who won t stand for the national anthem. They could face less playing time or getting kicked off the team entirely.Waylon Bates, Parkway s principal, says that they require students to stand in a respectful manner throughout the National Anthem during any sporting event in which their team is participating. Failure to comply will result in loss of playing time and/or participation as directed by the head coach and principal. Continued failure to comply will result in removal from the team. Parkway High School is committed to creating a positive environment for sporting events that is free of disruption to the athletic contest or game. And it has begun.High schools are now following Trump s order.Will kick off any players who don t stand during the National Anthem. pic.twitter.com/lfNWyW7z5f Shaun King (@ShaunKing) September 28, 2017CBS News says that Bates is trying to keep politics out of his schools athletics. He accomplished the exact opposite with this letter, though. In fact, there s a chance now that this will only spur black athletes and their allies to do exactly what Bates does not want them doing.Evidently, the Louisiana High School Athletic Association allows schools to set their own rules about this kind of thing, so other high schools may or may not follow suit here. But the school doesn t seem to care about anything except forcing students to worship the flag. This is one of the replies to Shaun King s tweet:Called them- said constitution doesn t apply to extracurricular activities. Seriously- they said that. td_port (@td_port) September 28, 2017Too bad for the school that case law seems to be on the side of any students who wish protest, well, anything by not standing for the national anthem. Almost 75 years ago, in the midst of WWII, the Supreme Court delivered a 6-3 decision stating that public school systems cannot require students to salute the flag in West Virginia State Board of Education et al v. Barnette et al. This decision reversed an earlier SCOTUS decision upholding the ability of schools and districts to do that exact thing.This case is generally seen in the context that requiring students to salute the flag can be a violation of religious principles since the plaintiffs were Jehovah s Witnesses. Their religion prohibits them from saluting symbols. The majority opinion, however, barely even mentions religious freedom. Justice Jackson, writing for the majority in West Virginia Board of Ed v. Barnette, tied this to other freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights, rather than making it about religious expression. He held that freedoms of speech and of press, of assembly, and of worship may not be infringed [on] slender grounds, and wrote: Censorship or suppression of expression of opinion is tolerated by our Constitution only when the expression presents a clear and present danger of action of a kind the State is empowered to prevent and publish. It would seem that involuntary affirmation could be commanded only on even more immediate and urgent grounds than silence. In this case, Jackson believed that silence didn t create a clear and present danger that would justify an effort even to muffle expression, and said: To sustain the compulsory flag salute we are required to say that a Bill of Rights which guards the individual s right to speak his own mind left it open to public authorities to compel him to utter what is not in his mind. Justice Jackson essentially turned the case into one where the government tries to establish its own religion and tries to force its own views onto people; in that case, children. And it could be seen this way in Parkway s case, too, since standing for the national anthem can be considered saluting the flag. The school has delivered an ultimatum to its student athletes: Stand during the national anthem or else.Trump set off a firestorm by calling for NFL owners to fire players who sit or kneel (or stay in the locker room) during the national anthem. Despite the backlash, he s doubled down, and tripled down, and quadrupled down on it, spending a lot of time on Twitter slamming the NFL and completely ignoring the reasons behind the protests (to say nothing of his continued slights to Puerto Rico, which is now in the midst of a humanitarian crisis thanks to back-to-back powerful hurricanes).And now, high schools are starting to weigh in, and it may well be illegal for them to do so. Despite sports being extra-curricular, this is still a school official forcing his students to worship a symbol. And Parkway High School s principal has dragged politics into his athletic program with an ill-advised letter violating the First Amendment rights of students.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
How to Rig an Election: James O’Keefe Expose’- Follow the Money |
N.Morgan ) Project Veritas, the brain child of James O’Keefe, has released its fourth installment of the “ Rigging The Election †series, an exposĂŠ that is described as a “ multi-part series which exposes the dark secrets at the highest levels of the DNC and Clinton presidential campaign .â€
In this latest installment, O’Keefe and Project Veritas  confirm the power money has amongst the network of questionable non-profits and consulting firms supporting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
To help grease the wheels for the Project Veritas undercover reporters to gain access, a well placed donation of $20,000 “opened the door to their smoke filled rooms of illegal and dirty campaign dealings†, as O’Keefe puts it.
The previous 3 installments of this series have forced the termination or resignation of two prominent democratic operatives: Robert Creamer and Scott Foval.
In the video below, you have a front seat as the Project Veritas reporters infiltrate the seedy world of campaign contributions.
( Video has adult language )
To view the video, click here .
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JOHN KERRY’S STATE DEPT Reportedly Funneled Over $9 MILLION To His Daughter’s Foundation | So much for the most transparent administration in history Because the step-daughter of Theresa Heinz-Kerry, a woman who is reportedly worth a cool billion, needs her daddy to steal from US taxpayers to help fund her non-profit? It looks like John Kerry is using his position as Secretary of State to enrich his family, just like his predecessor Hillary Clinton did.More than $9 million of Department of State money has been funneled through the Peace Corps to a nonprofit foundation started and run by Secretary of State John Kerry s daughter, documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation show.The Department of State funded a Peace Corps program created by Dr. Vanessa Kerry and officials from both agencies, records show. The Peace Corps then awarded the money without competition to a nonprofit Kerry created for the program.Initially, the Peace Corps awarded Kerry s group now called Seed Global Health with a three-year contract worth $2 million of State Department money on Sept. 10, 2012, documents show. Her father was then the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which oversees both the Department of State and the Peace Corps.Seed secured a four-year extension in September 2015, again without competition. This time, the Peace Corps gave the nonprofit $6.4 million provided by the Department of State while John Kerry was secretary of state.Seed also received almost $1 million from a modification to the first award, as well as from Department of State funds the group secured outside the Peace Corps.The Peace Corps program called the Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP) sends volunteer physicians and nurses to medical and nursing schools in Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Liberia, according to Seed s website. More than 40 clinical educators worked at 13 sites in the 2014-2015 program.Kerry and government officials colluded to launch the program and ensure that Seed would get the contract.Is there anyone in this administration who s not using their power and influence to enrich themselves?Rich, liberal elitists pretend they re all about helping people while engorging themselves at the troth on the taxpayer s dime.Time for them to go. American LookoutVia:Daily Caller | 1real |
Trump to meet with Chicago mayor, North Carolina governor, others | (This version of the story corrects date in last paragraph to Dec. 14, not Dec. 4) (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump was scheduled to hold additional meetings on Wednesday as he forms his administration before taking over from Democratic President Barack Obama on Jan. 20. The Republican president-elect has held more than 80 meetings so far, according to his transition team. This week, Trump was to meet with the following people: * Democratic Chicago mayor, former White House chief of staff for U.S. President Barack Obama and political director under former Democratic President Bill Clinton * Republican governor of North Carolina who on Monday conceded the state’s gubernatorial race to his Democratic challenger * Oklahoma attorney general, whose name has been mentioned as possible Environmental Protection Agency administrator * Was also scheduled to meet with Trump on Nov. 28 * Chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants whose name has been mentioned as possible labor secretary * Second meeting with Trump * Retired U.S. Navy Admiral, former supreme allied commander of NATO, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University * U.S. Senator from West Virginia, a Democrat Trump has also invited technology industry leaders for a meeting on Dec. 14, according to media reports citing transition officials. Reuters could not immediately confirm the reports. | 0fake |
Turnout high as Iraqi Kurds defy threats to hold independence vote | ERBIL/SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurds voted in large numbers in an independence referendum in northern Iraq on Monday, ignoring pressure from Baghdad, threats from Turkey and Iran, and international warnings that the vote may ignite yet more regional conflict. The vote organized by Kurdish authorities is expected to deliver a comfortable yes for independence, but is not binding. However, it is designed to give Masoud Barzani, who heads the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), a mandate to negotiate the secession of the oil-producing region. Turnout among 5.2 million eligible voters was 78 percent, the Kurdish Rudaw TV station said, and vote counting had started. Final results are expected within 72 hours. Voters were asked to say yes or no to the question: Do you want the Kurdistan Region and Kurdistani areas outside the (Kurdistan) Region to become an independent country? For Iraqi Kurds - part of the largest ethnic group left stateless when the Ottoman empire collapsed a century ago - the referendum offered a historic opportunity despite intense international pressure to call it off. We have seen worse, we have seen injustice, killings and blockades, said Talat, waiting to vote in the regional capital of Erbil, as a group of smiling women, in colorful Kurdish dress, emerged from the school showing their fingers stained with ink, a sign that they cast their ballot. At Sheikh Amir village, near the Peshmerga front lines west of Erbil, long lines of Kurdish fighters waited to vote at a former school. Most emerged smiling, holding up ink-marked fingers. In the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, Kurds sang and danced as they flocked to polling stations. Opposition to the vote simmered among the Arabs and Turkmen who live alongside the Kurds in the northern Iraqi city and there were rumors that the vote would not take place in mixed areas. Officials later ordered an overnight curfew. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered security services to protect citizens being threatened and coerced in the Kurdish region, after unconfirmed reports that Arabs in a small town in eastern Iraq were compelled to vote yes. Kurdish officials say no such coercion happened. The Kurds also say the vote acknowledges their contribution in confronting Islamic State after it overwhelmed the Iraqi army in 2014 and seized control of a third of Iraq. But with 30 million ethnic Kurds scattered across the region - mainly in Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria - Tehran and Ankara fear the spread of separatism to their own Kurdish populations. President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey could cut off the pipeline that carries oil from northern Iraq to the outside world, piling more pressure on the Kurds. After this, let s see through which channels the northern Iraqi regional government will send its oil, or where it will sell it, Erdogan said in Istanbul. We have the tap. The moment we close the tap, then it s done. The Iraqi army started major manoeuvres with the Turkish army at the border, the Iraqi defense ministry said, outlining coordinated measures by the two countries against the Kurds in retaliation for the referendum. Turkey later took the Rudaw TV channel off its satellite service TurkSat, a Turkish broadcasting official told Reuters. The U.S. State Department warned the Kurds last week that holding the referendum in disputed areas is particularly provocative and destabilizing . Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters on Monday: We hope that it does not become a distraction and take away the focus on destroying ISIS (Islamic State) and beyond that obviously this (is) an issue for Iraq, you know, they are going to have to sort that out. The referendum was held not only in the Kurdish autonomous region of Iraq, but also in areas in the north of the country where Kurdish forces have advanced against Islamic State. These areas also have large non-Kurdish populations. Turkey said it did not recognize the referendum and would view its outcome as null and void, adding that the Iraqi Kurdish government was threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and the whole region. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said his government was evaluating possible punitive steps regarding its border with northern Iraq and air space in response to the vote. Erdogan said traffic was only being allowed to cross from the Turkish side of the border into Kurdish areas of Iraq. Ankara s forces are again fighting a Kurdish insurgency in Turkey following the collapse of a peace process. Iran announced a ban on direct flights to and from Kurdistan on Sunday, while Baghdad asked foreign countries to stop direct oil trading with the Kurdish region and demanded that the KRG hand over control of its international airports and border posts with Iran, Turkey and Syria. Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a top military adviser to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, said Iran regarded the referendum as treason against the Iraqi Kurds. Iran has blocked air traffic to this region but we are hopeful that the four neighboring countries will block the land borders with Iraq too, he was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA. Tehran supports Shi ite Muslim groups who have been ruling or holding security and government positions in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Syria, embroiled in a devastating civil war and whose Kurds are pressing ahead with their own self-determination, rejected the referendum. Iraqi Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barxani said he hoped to maintain good relations with Turkey and the referendum was not a threat to Ankara. The referendum does not mean independence will happen tomorrow, nor are we redrawing borders, he said in Erbil. If the Yes vote wins, we will resolve our issues with Baghdad peacefully. Opposition to the vote emerged among non-Kurdish populations in areas disputed by the KRG and Baghdad, mainly the oil-rich region of Kirkuk. Iraq is against the Kurds, so are the Turks, the Iranians, the whole Arab region and Europe. They are going to live in a cage, said Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayati, a Shi ite Turkmen and a local leader of the Iranian-backed Badr Organization paramilitary group in Tuz Khurmato, south of Kirkuk. In Sulaimaniya, a center for political groups opposed to Barzani, queues at polling stations were shorter than in Erbil. There were fewer billboards celebrating the referendum, reflecting resentment that a yes vote could be seen as a plebiscite for the Kurdish leader. I will not vote, the referendum is not good, and it could be dangerous because of the threat from Turkey and Iran, said a shop owner in Sulaimaniya, Ali Ahmed. | 0fake |
Anti-Semitism has no place in Germany, minister says after Israeli flags burned | BERLIN (Reuters) - German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said there was no place for anti-Semitism in Germany after demonstrators angered by U.S. President Donald Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel burned Israeli flags in Berlin. On Sunday, about 2,500 people demonstrated in Berlin against Trump s decision and one Israeli flag was burned, police said, adding that investigations into 11 people had been launched, with one of those related to the flag burning. On Friday, hundreds of people gathered outside the U.S. embassy in the German capital for Day of Rage protests. Police said later on Twitter that they had detained 10 people during the protest and that 12 criminal charges had been brought - including for burning Israeli flags. Maas told Bild newspaper s Monday edition: Any kind of anti-Semitism is an attack on everyone. Anti-Semitism must never be allowed to have a place (in society) again. Anti-Semitism remains a very sensitive issue in Germany more than 70 years after the end of the Nazi-era Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed. Germany regards itself as one of Israel s closest allies. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told Bild that while criticism of Trump s decision was understandable, people had no right or reason to burn the Israeli flag, stir up hatred against Jews or question Israel s right to exist. He said whoever did that was taking a stand not only against Israel but also against the German constitution and Germany would not tolerate that. Gabriel said Germany only permitted peaceful demonstrations and would not allow conflicts in which people were prepared to use violence to be brought to Germany from other countries. | 0fake |
Obama’s Party With #BlackLivesMatter Organizer In White House On Eve Of FBI’s Terror Attack Confirmation [VIDEO] | The Obama s are classless we knew that. The Obama s guest list for their Holiday party apparently now includes Black Live Matter terror organizers not surprised. Barack Hussein Obama is not capable of saying Merry Christmas without listing 20 other holidays that might fall within a 6 month period of Christmas. He s just not capable of acknowledging Christmas without finding some way to marginalize it. Kinda like when he talks about America and yes, we all knew that.Behold your Narcissist in Chief and his unbelievably classless wife (video courtesy of Black Lives Matter organizer, Deray McKesson:.@POTUS & @FLOTUS, White House Reception tonight. pic.twitter.com/b8XQ058nbg deray mckesson (@deray) December 5, 2015h/t Weasel Zippers | 1real |
LOL! DEM Senator Dick Durbin Voted To Confirm Circuit Judge Gorsuch In 2006…Tells CNN Host “He Can’t Remember” How He Voted [VIDEO] | Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) announced Tuesday that he will join fellow Democrats in filibustering Neil Gorsuch s nomination to the Supreme Court, despite in 2006 supporting Gorsuch to become a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.Durbin, the Senate s second-ranking Democrat, took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to voice his opposition to Gorsuch s nomination. He did not earn my vote, Durbin reportedly said. I ll vote no when his nomination comes before the committee next week. I will vote no on cloture, and I ll oppose his nomination on the Senate on the Senate floor. At least 21 other Senate Democrats have pledged to vote against Gorsuch as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) rallies support to filibuster the judge s nomination.Gorsuch, President Donald Trump s nominee to the high court, spent last week going through severals hours of testimony during his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee as they asked him questions about previous rulings and his judicial philosophy.Durbin, a member of the Judiciary Committee, appeared to be impressed by Gorsuch s performance, calling the judge very gifted last week.Watch Senator Durbin explain how Democrats are dumbfounded after not being able to pin anything on Judge Gorsuch during his lengthy hearings. Durbin appears to be flabbergasted by the idea that Judge Gorsuch would actually rely on our US Constitution to make decisions as a possible future Supreme Court Justice.Durbin also previously voted to confirm Gorsuch to be a federal Circuit Court judge. The Illinois Democrat appeared on MSNBC s Morning Joe last month, when he was asked by co-host Willie Geist whether he supported Gorsuch in 2006. Do I have it right that you voted aye on the voice vote in 2006 when Gorsuch was up for the federal appeals court, Geist asked. Good question, Willie. I just don t remember, to be honest with you, Durbin responded. On voice votes, you don t make much of a note of it and it s possible I don t believe there was a lot of controversy surrounding it, but let me tell you he s moving from triple-A ball to the big leagues here. Geist cited the congressional record to point out that Durbin did support Gorsuch. The congressional record shows you did vote in favor it was a unanimous vote, but has something changed in your view of Gorsuch since 2006 when you did vote aye for him? Geist asked No, Durbin said.Not a single Senate Democrat voiced an objection to Gorsuch in 2006, when then-President George W. Bush nominated him to the Colorado-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.For entire story: WFB | 1real |
Dubious Reports of Advertisements Seeking Trump Protesters: “Get Paid Fighting Against Trump” | 21st Century Wire says Earlier this week the media lit up with reports of a political activist group that was advertising across the nation to pay protesters to come out and demonstrate against the inauguration of Donald Trump.It would come as no surprise to 21WIRE if there were cases of protestors being rallied and potentially compensated by George Soros related foundations. It would easily fall under the heading of professional activists and it is very real. Whether its the Revolution Business deployed for the Arab Spring, or Ad Busters marketing for Occupy Wall Street, left-wing activism has become a bona fide global business.UPDATE: But is that what we are witnessing here with this Washington Times article that Zero Hedge analyzed? It appears NOT! What we have here, exposed by Tucker Carlson, seems to be yet another example of the Washington Times being involved in posting what seems to be a report about a political entity that was not well vetted or even worse, possibly planted.Watch Tucker Carlson dismantle the actor behind this ruse in the video below.Zero Hedge has reported on the ads that are running in multiple cities on backpage.com Tyler Durden Zero HedgePresident-elect Donald Trump has complained about paid activists both before and after the 2016 presidential campaign, and as The Washington Times reports, he may have a point.Job ads running in more than 20 cities offer $2,500 per month for agitators to demonstrate at this week s presidential inauguration events.Demand Protest, a San Francisco company that bills itself as the largest private grassroots support organization in the United States, posted identical ads Jan. 12 in multiple cities on Backpage.com seeking operatives. Get paid fighting against Trump! says the ad. We pay people already politically motivated to fight for the things they believe. You were going to take action anyways, why not do so with us! the ad continues. We are currently seeking operatives to help send a strong message at upcoming inauguration protests. The job offers a monthly retainer of $2,500 plus our standard per-event pay of $50/hr, as long as you participate in at least 6 events a year, as well as health, vision and dental insurance for full-time operatives.An example of one of the ads Source: Tulsa.backpage.comWhile there have been fake ads in the past, as The Washington Times notes, if the Demand Protest ads are ruses, however, someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to sell the scam.The classifieds are running in at least two dozen cities, including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Dallas and Houston, and the company operates a slick website that includes contact information.A San Francisco phone number listed on the website was answered with a voice-mail message identifying the company by name. A request for comment left Monday evening was not immediately returned.The website, which says that the company has provided 1,817 operatives for 48 campaigns, promises deniability, assuring clients that we can ensure that all actions will appear genuine to media and public observers. We are strategists mobilizing millennials across the globe with seeded audiences and desirable messages, says the website. With absolute discretion a top priority, our operatives create convincing scenes that become the building blocks of massive movements. When you need the appearance of outrage, we are able to deliver it at scale while keeping your reputation intact Continue this report at Zero HedgeRead More Election News at: 21st Century Wire Election CoverageSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER@ 21WIRE.TV | 1real |
2,700-year-old Hebrew mention of Jerusalem found | 2,700-year-old Hebrew mention of Jerusalem found Rare papyrus from 7th century B.C. refers to consignment of wineskins Published: 39 mins ago
(Times of Israel) A rare, ancient papyrus dating to the First Temple Period — 2,700 years ago — has been found to bear the oldest known mention of Jerusalem in Hebrew.
The fragile text, believed plundered from a cave in the Judean Desert cave, was apparently acquired by the Israel Antiquities Authority during a sting in 2012 when thieves attempted to sell it to a dealer. Radiocarbon dating has determined it is from the 7th century BCE, making it one of just three extant Hebrew papyri from that period, and predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by centuries.
The IAA’s Eitan Klein said the dating of the papyrus had been confirmed by comparing the text’s orthography with other texts from the period. | 1real |
Ugandan MPs get $8,000 each for work on extending president's rule: spokesman | KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan legislators have each pocketed 29 million Ugandan shillings ($8,000) as a payout for consultations on legislation to extend the president s rule, a parliamentary spokesman said on Tuesday, a move opponents denounced as a bribe. The bill would scrap a constitutional age cap preventing President Yoweri Museveni, 73 and in power for 31 years, from standing in the next election. It is likely to pass, given the ruling party s majority, when it is voted on later this year. A staunch ally of Western powers, Museveni is widely seen as an anchor of stability in the often volatile Great Lakes region after decades of violent Ugandan dictators. Critics say he has evolved into just another African strongman using corrupt and ruthless tactics to retain power for life. Parliamentary spokesman Chris Obore said the one-off payment had been released to the legislators bank accounts this week. It s to help them to consult with their constituents on this bill, he told Reuters. MPs are among Uganda s best-paid public servants; their monthly remuneration of about $5,900 already includes expenses for regular travel to their constituencies to consult with voters. But low-paid public employees like teachers, police and health workers often do not see their salaries paid on time - typical delays can run to three months. Public hospitals are often missing important drugs. Public anger over waste and corruption is growing, and protests have erupted in different parts of Uganda gainst the bill. Security forces have responded by using tear gas and live bullets to suppress the demonstrations. Dozens of people have been arrested and two have died in the protests. At the moment, Museveni cannot run for re-election in 2021 because the existing constitution bars candidates aged above 75 years of age. He backs the private member s bill, introduced in parliament last month, that seeks to scrap the age cap. The amendment, which critics say will clear the way for Museveni to rule for the rest of his life, has met broad resistance from some ruling party supporters, opposition, religious leaders and rights activists. This is an outright bribe, John Baptist Nambeshe, one of the MPs opposed to the bill, told Reuters. To claim that it s a normal parliamentary facilitation - it defeats logic. In total, the East African country is spending about 13 billion shillings ($3.55 million) to facilitate consultations on the bill by 445 legislators, Obore said. In 2005, MPs were also offered a one-off payment of five million shillings to consult on a draft bill that removed a two-term cap on incumbency from the constitution, allowing Museveni to stand again. Each term is five years. That was the only other occasion MPs have been paid to consult on a specific bill, and it also attracted wide criticism as a thinly-disguised bribe. The bill was passed. | 0fake |
Thanksgiving lessons for the Syrian refugee debate | After the Paris attacks, Americans are divided on Obama’s plan to let in 10,000 Syrian refugees. The timing is good: Thanksgiving can shed light on how much the nation’s tradition of hospitality should influence this decision.
Syria refugee Nedal Al-Hayk works as a fabricator in Warren, Mich. Several U.S. governors are threatening to halt efforts to allow Syrian refugees into their states in the aftermath of the coordinated attacks in Paris, though an immigration expert says they have no legal authority to do so.
Just as Americans prepare to express their hospitality toward others during Thanksgiving, a national debate has erupted over another kind of hospitality: President Obama’s plan to welcome 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States. After the Paris attacks, the plan has been widely challenged, not least by nearly half the US governors. They fear Islamic State terrorists might slip in as “sleepers” among the refugees. Others argue back that the US already rigorously vets all asylum seekers – for as long as two years.
Might Thanksgiving, with all its traditions and meaning, shed some light on this debate?
The practice of welcoming strangers into one’s home or community long precedes the first American thanksgiving, that autumn feast of 1621 when Pilgrims and native Americans expressed gratitude for either the harvest, each other, or God’s mercy (or all of the above). Hospitality is an ancient Middle East virtue, rooted in the traditions of desert tribes and deeply encoded in the three Abrahamic religions. In the scriptural book of Hebrews, we read: “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
Hospitality, like Thanksgiving, is a type of giving that treats others – rich or poor, stranger or family – as equals. In ancient days, this egalitarian focus was symbolized by the washing of a guest’s feet. Today it serves as a cornerstone for democracy. It is also the basis for the United Nations Refugee Convention, in which a majority of the world’s states have agreed to grant asylum to people deemed to be refugees.
In the US, a thanksgiving day was not an official holiday until Lincoln made it one during the Civil War. The woman who championed it, Sarah Hale, wrote in 1864: “Let us each see to it that on this one day there shall be no family or individual, within the compass of our means to help, who shall not have some portion prepared, and some reason to join in the general Thanksgiving.”
Granting permanent asylum in the US to a refugee, of course, is not the same as sharing a turkey dinner with a stranger. Today’s modern nation-states are careful about who crosses their borders, either to prevent problems or to enhance their society. But with 1 in every 122 people now either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum, the need for hospitality is great. And in hospitality a nation can find its greatness. | 0fake |
6 Places Voter Fraud Has Already Happened…But Don’t Worry | Remember the last debate when the internet blew up because Donald Trump said he wouldn’t necessarily accept the results of the election ? People were bemoaning him as a fascist and no one in the mainstream wanted to admit that our election process is entirely rigged. The trouble is, voter fraud on a grand scale can be tough to prove . As it turns out, voter fraud on a smaller scale has been detected in 6 locations already, according to today’s Drudge Report . But don’t worry. These are just “glitches” or “too few to make a difference.” 1) Chicago In the Windy City, the dead have been voting for decades. Two investigators have admitted finding proof of this, but they refuse to say that there is fraud. Relatives of the Voting Dead feel differently. They say that they’ve reported the deaths of their loved ones repeatedly, but that the names have not been removed from the rolls. But that isn’t the worst of it – not only are these people on the rolls – they’ve repeatedly voted since their deaths. Don’t worry, though. It’s just a few hundred dead voters that they’ve been able to confirm. No biggie. ( source ) 2) Philadelphia Chicago is not alone with the dead folks voting.There are also reports from Philadelphia that people are making their voices heard from beyond the grave. *cough* Local station Action News 6 investigated and found that a stunning number of people have been deemed “active voters” for many years since their deaths. Don’t worry, though. The local voting board says these mistakes are simply “human error” and that there aren’t enough dead voters to actually sway the election. ( source ) 3) Hollywood, Maryland A woman in Maryland has reported another incidence of “vote flipping.” She voted a straight Republican ticket, then checked after it was submitted. Her vote for Trump had been switched to a vote for Clinton. Don’t worry, though. The election officials there told her to just vote again. Of course, this would “undo” the vote for Clinton, but would it really count as a vote for Trump? I’m sure it’s fine. The election officials would want to be scrupulous about something like that. ( source ) 4) Miami-Dade County, Florida Two women have been charged with felony counts of tampering with the election. One, a temporary election worker, was caught marking ballots by her co-workers. The other was caught filling out voter registration paperwork for people who did not exist. Don’t worry, though. These were isolated incidents that have been dealt with. In the words of State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle, a Democrat, “Anyone who attempts to undermine the democratic process should recognize that there is an enforcement partnership between the elections department and our prosecution task force in place to thwart such efforts and arrest those involved. Now we need to move forward with the election.” ( source ) 5) Alexandria, Virginia A guy in Virginia who was formerly employed by the New Virginia Majority, an advocacy group aligned with the Democratic party, was caught using fake names to fill out voter registration applications. But don’t worry. Commonwealth Attorney Bryan Porter said, “Since the fraudulent applications involved fictitious people, had the fraud not been uncovered the risk of actual fraudulent votes being cast was low.” ( source ) 6) Lots of places in Texas Much like the report in Maryland, voters in various locations in Texas have reported that when they chose a straight Republican ticket, the voting machines opted for Clinton/Kaine instead of Trump/Pence. Voters in Amarillo, Arlington, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Cypress, Mesquite, and El Paso have all reported vote flipping from Trump to Clinton. But don’t worry. Election officials in the state say it’s not a problem with the equipment. It’s just those silly voters who don’t know how to use it. ““Typically, we’ve found it’s voter error with the equipment. Sometimes they vote straight party and then click on other candidates … or do something with the wheel….There is not an issue with the equipment.” ( source ) If you’re worried about election fraud… You can add a smartphone app by True the Vote called VoteStand to report incidents of fraud. Don’t let anything slide. If you are voting, make sure your choice is accurately recorded. Article first posted at DaisyLuther.com Submit your review | 1real |
A boss often can fire you while you're hospitalized | SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Five days — that's how many sick days Tom McLaughlin took to lose his job at a carton manufacturer.
McLaughlin was in the hospital for three of those days, being treated for a potentially life-threatening flare-up of an infection in two sores on his right leg.
His doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., pleaded last week with Bell Inc. to keep McLaughlin, saying his medical care was necessary. He had ignored her advice and returned to work once already in April, even as his daughter pleaded with him to stay in the hospital.
It was no use. The 49-year-old was two months shy of his one-year anniversary with the company — too green to qualify for Family and Medical Leave Act benefits. Bell told him he had to go, that he didn't quality for medical leave.
"Our world fell apart in a week," said his wife, Kristi McLaughlin, who works part-time as a pastor at a small Mitchell, S.D., congregation about an hour west of here. "He was the primary income. He was the primary breadwinner. He provided the insurance. We're looking now at food stamps. We're looking at moving."
The McLaughlins' situation is not rare.
Under state and federal law, few legal protections are ironclad for employees who miss work for illness. If attendance is deemed essential, employers have little obligation to extend leave to employees on the job less than a year.
Bell's chief executive, Ben Arndt, would confirm only that Tom McLaughlin had been a night supervisor for the Sioux Falls-based folding packaging manufacturer.
"We respect our employee's privacy, and our policy is to not discuss employee's personal matters with anyone other than the employee," Arndt wrote in email. "We would encourage anyone who can meet the requirements of an open position to apply or to re-apply."
Those who work for companies with 50 or more employees can apply for unpaid time off under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, but they qualify only after a year on the job. Hospital stays count, but not every sort of illness does.
If an illness qualifies, a covered employee is eligible for job-protected unpaid leave of up to 12 weeks.
Even with a doctor's note — or call, in this case — employers are fully within their rights to terminate an ill worker go if that person hasn't been on the job a year. An employer in South Dakota doesn't need a specific reason to fire an employee, a legal concept called termination at will.
South Dakota has had a constitutional amendment that prohibits joining a union as a condition of employment, what supporters call a right-to-work law, since 1946, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Union contracts often provide additional protections for ill workers; 6% of the state's workers are represented by unions and 5% are members.
Only Connecticut, California, the District of Columbia and Massachusetts have state- and districtwide paid sick leave laws, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families, a Washington-based nonprofit. At least 18 cities also have such ordinances, and California's and Massachusetts' laws aren't effective until July.
It's unclear which, if any other, states require employers to provide unpaid time off for illness. So how a worker who's sick is treated largely depends on where the person works.
Those who believe they've been discriminated against because of a disability, as Tom McLaughlin does, can file a complaint with the state, i.e. the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation.
Even then, the hurdles to overcome for an outcome in a worker's favor are significant, said James Marsh, the department's labor and management division director. Claims about job loss because of illness or disability make up about a fifth of the claims each year.
"We get calls about that every day," he said.
Only a fifth of all claims are substantiated. Employers can terminate someone who is disabled because of poor attendance if attendance is considered an essential job function.
Marsh gave an example of a police officer who has to be on the beat.
"If they're not showing up, they're not fulfilling an essential job requirement," Marsh said.
If South Dakota's lone claims investigator finds discrimination, which takes about six months, the resulting document can be used to file a civil lawsuit or a claim with the state's Human Rights Commission.
"It's the difference between a cop pulling you over for speeding and a judge deciding you've committed a crime," he said. "We're the cops. … You're not going to be guilty of discrimination by virtue of the fact that we've found probable cause."
The state isn't the only avenue for claims of discrimination, of course. Federal discrimination claims about sex, race, age and disability go through the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.
If the federal agency finds that a company has not made reasonable accommodations, the EEOC can take action itself, fining employers for a violation regardless of potential lawsuits. Mediation is possible through the EEOC, as well.
Tom McLaughlin believes that he was discriminated against but realizes that proving it could be an uphill slog.
The company told Tom McLaughlin that he needed to be there on the floor as a supervisor, he said. But Tom McLaughlin knew that Bell had been without a night supervisor for years before he started in June.
Operations at the packaging-materials plant had been re-worked with him in the night supervisor's role, McLaughlin said. But the work had been done without one.
"They said, 'Our hands are tied. We don't have any choice,' " Tom McLaughlin said. "I said, 'Bell has a choice.' They didn't have much to say about that."
Even if he had a job, he could not return to work tomorrow. Even with the hospital care, the infection is nowhere near gone.
He wears a wound vacuum over his shoulder that pulls fluid at a steady drip through a tube connected to the black-bandaged, plastic-wrapped divots in his leg.
A nurse comes to empty the bag three times a week. Antibiotics are pumped into his arm daily.
He can't work on light duty for at least a few more weeks, and full healing is at least three months and thousands of dollars away.
He wants to work. He just can't, not yet.
"I can't remember the last time I haven't been able to work," Tom McLaughlin said. | 0fake |
Trump greets Egyptian-American freed from Egyptian detention | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday welcomed back to the United States Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American charity worker whose release from jail in Egypt was sought by Trump when he met Egypt’s president early this month. Trump and his aides had engaged in behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts to gain her freedom after attempts by the previous Obama administration failed. She was released from jail on Tuesday after nearly three years of detention on human trafficking charges. Aides said Trump had personally requested her release in a meeting April 3 with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi but had done so privately and made no public mention of her case. Hijazi, 30, sat next to Trump in the Oval Office for a meeting that also included Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, her husband, Jared Kushner, and Dina Powell, the top White House aide who accompanied her home on a U.S. military jet on Thursday. Ivanka Trump and Kushner are top advisers to the president. “We are very happy to have Aya back home and it’s a great honor to have her in the Oval Office, with her brother,” Trump said, declining to answer questions about her case. Hijazi was accompanied by her brother, Basel. Hijazi, an Egyptian who holds U.S. citizenship, was acquitted by a Cairo court on Sunday along with seven others who had worked with street children. Hijazi, 30, was flown to Joint Base Andrews, the U.S. military airfield near Washington. She founded Belady, a non-governmental organization that promotes a better life for street children. She had been in custody for 33 months in violation of Egyptian law, which states that the maximum period for pretrial detention is 24 months. U.S. officials had raised Hijazi’s case with Egypt soon after Trump took office on Jan. 20, aides said. Pressed on how Trump managed to gain her release when President Barack Obama had not, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said he would leave it to others “to look at the different strategies to see why the president was successful” and Obama was not. Critics had accused the Obama administration of indifference to her case. Since toppling President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013, Sisi’s government has cracked down on the opposition, killing hundreds of Brotherhood supporters and jailing thousands. The net has widened to include liberal and secular activists. Two Republican U.S. senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, called on the Egyptian government to take more steps to improve human rights. “We urge the Government of Egypt to build on this important first step by releasing all those who have been wrongly imprisoned, upholding its international human rights obligations, and respecting the Egyptian people’s right to freedom of expression and rule of law,” they said in a statement. | 0fake |
WW3 – Britain sends hundreds of soldiers and tanks to Russian border in biggest military deployment since Cold War | WW3 – Britain sends hundreds of soldiers and tanks to Russian border in biggest military deployment since Cold War Tweet
A total of 800 troops, drones and tanks are moving to Estonia as part of the biggest military build up on Russia’s borders since the Cold War
“Although we are leaving the European Union, we will be doing more to help secure the eastern and southern flanks of NATO,” Mr Fallon said.
London is also sending Typhoon fighter aircraft to Romania to patrol around the Black Sea, partly in support of Turkey. | 1real |
A Toddler, a Loose Gun in a Car, and a Mother Dies - The New York Times | No one can know for sure what was in the mind of the person who fired the shot that killed a woman as she drove through Milwaukee on Tuesday. The shooter was 2 years old. The woman who died on State Highway 175 was Patrice Price, 26, the Milwaukee County sheriff’s office said Wednesday, and the gun was in the hands of her own toddler. The weapon, which investigators found on the floor of the back seat, was a . pistol used by Ms. Price’s boyfriend, a security guard. His gun belt and tactical vest were also in the car, the sheriff’s office said. The local news media reported that the blue Dodge sedan Ms. Price was driving belonged to the boyfriend. The sheriff’s office, which would not name the boyfriend, said in a statement that the who was not in a car seat, “retrieved a firearm that slid out from under the driver’s seat and shot through the seat, striking the driver. ” Ms. Price managed to stop the car, but by the time rescue personnel reached her, she was not breathing. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The sheriff’s office did not say whether anyone would face criminal charges. In tales of gun violence, accidents involving curious children and weapons seem especially tragic, but they are not especially unusual. Most often, they involve guns left unsecured by the child’s parents. In the seven days that ended Tuesday, in addition to the death of Ms. Price, a in Georgia, a in Louisiana, a in Missouri and a in Indiana fatally shot themselves a in Texas shot and wounded a family member a in California killed a friend in a shooting that officials called accidental a in Texas accidentally shot and wounded a friend and a in Indiana accidentally shot and wounded herself. In an episode with striking parallels to the Milwaukee shooting, last month a mother driving in Florida was shot and wounded by her son, who was in the back seat law enforcement officials said that in that case, too, the gun had been stashed under the driver’s seat, and then slid backward. The woman, Jamie Gilt, had operated a Facebook page on which she said her children knew how to shoot, and “even my gets jacked up to target shoot the . 22. ” Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control group, says that since the start of 2015, at least 342 people in the United States have been accidentally shot by people under age 18. When Ms. Price, a mother of three, was fatally shot in Milwaukee, her mother and her child were also in the car. “Now I don’t have her no more,” her father, Andre Price, told WISN, a local television station. “I got a knot in my chest. ” | 0fake |
Watch: Israel Loving Hollywood Actor Just Issued Major Plea To America In 3 Minutes That’ll Rock The Election | November 2015 Ads Watch: Israel Loving Hollywood Actor Just Issued Major Plea To America In 3 Minutes That’ll Rock The Election Oct 27, 2016 Previous post
In an impassioned reminder that the freedoms and safety enjoyed by millions of Americans are at risk, actor John Voight has issued a clarion call for voters to save their nation by preventing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton from being elected.
“We were once a country of freedom, and now we are becoming a country of tyranny. We are witness to our own people burning down and looting our own cities: Ferguson, Milwaukee, Orlando, Baltimore,” said Voight in a new video. “We are all witness to our own people killing our police.”
Voight has said in the past that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump stirs fear in his opponents because he “represents a form of freedom none of them ever saw before, and they are bewildered about it, and frightened about it.”
Voight said terrorism has come to America’s shores under the policies of leading Democrats.
“Islamic terrorists have killed thousands of people all over our country, and Hillary and Obama want to be politically correct and
FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK | 1real |
BREAKING…Internal Memo From OBAMA’S Corrupt EPA: FLINT NOT WORTH “Going Out On A Limb For” | Wow! Bernie and Hillary have been making hay over the Flint water crisis for months now, using the crisis to secure votes from the black community. Leftists have been converging on the city like rats in search of the last peice of cheese on earth and now we have proof that Obama s EPA knew about the crisis, but didn t think the people of Flint were worthy of protecting.An internal Environmental Protection Agency memo showed officials didn t think Flint is the community we want to go out on a limb for while residents of the Michigan town drank lead-contaminated water.House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz presented an internal memo between the EPA official who oversees Michigan, a branch manager in the EPA s Region 5, the associate director of the water division for Region 5 and an EPA environmental engineer about the water crisis in Flint.In the memo, one of the officials it wasn t clear who based on the screen shown by Chaffetz said Flint wasn t worth helping. Perhaps she already knows all this, but I m not so sure Flint is the community we want to go out on a limb for, the memo stated.Chaffetz was incredulous at the memo. Are you kidding me? he said, looking at Susan Hedman, the former director of EPA s Region 5, which oversees much of the Midwest including Michigan. Why isn t Flint the community they go to? Of all the communities, the community having trouble is the one you go all out for, Chaffetz said. Via: Washington Examiner | 1real |
WATCH: BEST DESCRIPTION OF UK BREXIT YET…Conservatives Will Stand Up And Cheer! | Take note America | 1real |
State Department to conduct internal probe of Clinton email case | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Thursday it will conduct an internal review of whether Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her aides mishandled classified information, after the Justice Department declined to bring criminal charges. The State Department said in April it had suspended plans for an internal review at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which conducted a yearlong probe of Clinton’s use of private email servers while she was secretary of state. “Given the Department of Justice has now made its announcement, the State Department intends to conduct its internal review,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. “I cannot provide specific information about the Department’s review, including what information we are evaluating. We will aim to be as expeditious as possible, but we will not put artificial deadlines on the process,” he said. On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said she would accept the recommendations of the FBI not to bring criminal charges against Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for the Nov. 8 election. FBI Director James Comey said on Tuesday Clinton had been “extremely careless” in the handling of classified information, and Republicans have criticized the decision not to prosecute. Comey told a congressional hearing on Thursday that FBI employees who mishandled classified material in the way Clinton did as secretary of state could be subject to dismissal or loss of security clearance. | 0fake |
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