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FURIOUS CUSTOMERS RESPOND To Home Depot Cashier’s “AMERICA WAS NEVER GREAT” Anti-Trump Hat [VIDEO] | The people who are angry about her wearing this hat should also be angry at the hate America indoctrination our children are getting at school, and from our Community Organizer In Chief who s made it cool to hate America and it s racist, homophobic, greedy citizens The decision by Home Depot cashier to wear a white baseball cap carrying the slogan America Was Never Great has caused a social media storm.A photo of Staten Island Home Depot employee Krystal Lake wearing the anti-Trump hat went viral Sunday. The reaction from Facebook and Twitter users skewed negative, with some promising to never shop at Home Depot again.According to this black @HomeDepot employee, "America was never great" pic.twitter.com/AO9p39TJCk Dr. White (@RealDoctorWhite) May 18, 2016Hey @HomeDepot you are OK with this? What an insult to #Vets and ALL Americans #Vets4Trump #Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/BjM835m4rH District fCriminals (@DistOfCriminals) May 18, 2016To be sure, Lake, 22, admits that wearing the America Was Never Great hat was her way of making a broader statement about U.S. history. The point of the hat was to say America needs changing and improvement, Lake told the Staten Island Advance. I don t think it s a positive message to say, Let s look to the past. The lifelong New Yorker said she was surprised when she awoke Wednesday morning to see a tsunami of calls and texts messages from friends and co-workers asking if she had noticed the firestorm her hat had created. Everyone kept asking me if I was on Facebook or Twitter, which I hadn t been, she said, and then I saw how many people were sharing [the picture] and that it was going viral. I was honestly shocked I didn t expect any of this to happen, Lake added.Interestingly, Republican presidential candidate and New York real estate mogul Donald Trump won the April 19 primary contest in a landslide, securing over 80% support in Staten Island.For its part, Home Depot didn t waste time responding to critics on Twitter and Facebook. The Atlanta Georgia-based home improvement retailer called Lake s hat inappropriate.It is against Home Depot policy for employees to wear apparel that reflects political statements, company spokesman Stephen Holmes said.Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
null | Generally Confusing Accounting Principles | 1real |
Vice Media to Begin Nightly HBO News Program on Sept. 26 - The New York Times | Vice Media announced on Tuesday that it will begin broadcasting its daily HBO newscast on Sept. 26. The show, called “Vice News Tonight,” will run weeknights for 48 weeks a year. Josh Tyrangiel, who was previously the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and chief content officer for Bloomberg Media, was hired by Vice last October to oversee the show. The daily show is part of Vice’s broader ambitions to make its programming available across the media spectrum. The company, which started as a free punk magazine in Montreal in 1994, introduced its own cable channel, called Viceland, this year. It is not clear what size audience the channel attracts, but Vice plans to release ratings for it next month. Vice recently announced an agreement with ESPN to produce and distribute films and other programs. In the last several years, the company has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in financing and signed deals with major media companies including Rogers Communications, a Canadian media conglomerate. It has also pushed to expand its presence internationally, announcing multiplatform deals with the Times of India Group and the Moby Group, a Middle Eastern media group. Vice already produces a weekly newsmagazine show for HBO, called “Vice,” which began in 2013. In a statement, Mr. Tyrangiel said he wanted to make broadcast news more appealing to young viewers. “We’re going to have to earn people’s time and attention with great reporting and original forms of storytelling,” he said. Plans for “Vice News Tonight’’ were first announced in March 2015. At the time, Richard Plepler, chief executive of HBO, said the show would debut that year. A spokesman for Vice Media said in an email that the show was “on schedule. ” Vice has been on an aggressive hiring push in the last year, snapping up dozens of journalists from news organizations including MSNBC, the BBC, The Guardian and The New York Times. Along with Mr. Tyrangiel, the company has hired Nellie Bowles, a technology reporter from The Guardian, and Madeleine Haeringer, an executive producer at MSNBC and veteran of NBC News. Vice promoted Mr. Tyrangiel in May to run all of the company’s news operations as part of a reorganization of the division. It also laid off roughly a dozen employees. | 0fake |
WikiLeaks: Podesta Had Disturbing ‘Beyond Discipline’ Plan For Leakers | Posted on October 30, 2016 by Baxter Dmitry in News , US // 0 Comments
A new WikiLeaks email from John Podesta’s account reveals the Clinton campaign manager was worried about internal leaks and plotted to “ make an example of a suspected leaker ” by punishing them with “ beyond internal discipline ”– whether or not there was “ any real basis for it. “
Responding to an email from John Benenson about a “ damaging ” leak, Podesta wrote, “ I generally agree with the point, but we need a strategy on this that goes beyond internal discipline. “
As well as exposing the Clinton camp as the kind of organization that punishes people based on suspicion alone, the question of what “ beyond internal discipline ” means is raised – and in light of recent events the answers may be grim. Recommended (2 weeks ago) WikiLeaks Dumps More Podesta Emails, Bringing Total To Over 11,000
Joel Benenson said, “ I think we have to make examples now of people who have violated the trust of HRC and the rest of the team .” Later in the email chain Robbie Mook replied to Podesta’s message, saying “ I would love an example being made.”
The revelation of Podesta’s plan to punish a suspected leaker with “ serious consequences ” takes on a chilling aspect considering the fate of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee employee widely suspected of blowing the whistle on his employers. Rich was murdered in July and the case remains unsolved.
Speaking on Nieuwsuur, a Dutch news channel, Julian Assange said that Rich’s murder was a cause of concern for WikiLeaks’ whistleblowers.
“There is a 27 year old who worked for the DNC who was shot in the back – murdered – just a few weeks ago, for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington .”
Asked by the host if Seth Rich was a WikiLeaks source, Assange said, “ I am suggesting that our sources take risks and they become concerned to see things occurring like that .”
They will be more concerned after learning the Clinton campaign is the kind of organization that “ makes examples ” of people they are suspicious about – with or without having “ any real basis for it .”
The full email chain can be read here . | 1real |
JUST IN: SUSPECTED LEAKER and “Close Confidant” of James Comey Has Been Reassigned From His Post As TOP FBI Lawyer [VIDEO] | On December 5, 2017, Circa s Sara Carter warned there would be a major shake-up at the FBI after the Inspector General s report was completed. So far, Sara Carter has been right on everything she s reported on, as it relates to the Mueller investigation. In the video below, Carter tells Sean Hannity why she believes the FBI will have a major shake-up soon there are 27 leakers that the IG is looking at! Yes, 27 leakers!Sara Carter: We re going to see parts of that report before December (end of the month). We re going to see other parts of his report coming out after January. And they re looking at Peter Strzok. They re looking at Comey. They re looking at 27 leakers. It would not surprise me if there was a shake-up at the FBI and a housecleaning.Watch:Is the FBI s former top attorney, James Baker, one of the first leaker casualties? James Baker, the FBI s leading lawyer who was a confidante of fired FBI Director James Comey, has been reassigned from his post, as the agency s top personnel are under high scrutiny.Baker told colleagues he will assume different duties for the bureau, the Washington Post reported.Baker oversees the bureau s Office of General Counsel and has received such awards as the George H.W. Bush Award for Excellence in counter-terrorism in 2006.He also was the subject of a leak investigation over the summer after Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered a crackdown on leakers.The FBI had no comment when asked why Baker was being reassigned and what he would be doing.His reassignment comes at a time of increased scrutiny and pressure on the agency, following the release of private text messages between agents working in the Hillary Clinton email probe. Daily Mail Three sources, with knowledge of the investigation, told Circa that Baker is the top suspect in an ongoing leak investigation, but Circa has not been able to confirm the details of what national security information or material was allegedly leaked.A federal law enforcement official with knowledge of ongoing internal investigations in the bureau told Circa, the bureau is scouring for leakers and there s been a lot of investigations. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has ramped up efforts to contain leaks both within the White House and within its own national security apparatus.Baker is a close confidant of former FBI Director James Comey, and recent media reports suggested he was reportedly advising the then-FBI director on legal matters following private meetings the former director had in February with President Trump in the Oval Office.Baker was appointed to the FBI s general counsel by Comey in 2014 and has had a long and distinguished history within the intelligence community. | 1real |
OBAMA’S GUN-RUNNING, Lying, Race-Baiting AG Is BACK…And You’ll Never Guess Whose Job He’s Reportedly Hoping To Take In 2020 [VIDEO] | Please please please let it be a 3-way race between Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Eric Holder!Former Attorney General Eric Holder spoke in Los Angeles on Monday to promote a bill that some observers say would make California a sanctuary state, an appearance that he says is the start of a new phase of his career in which he plans to reenter the world of politics. Up to now, I have been more behind-the-scenes, Holder told Yahoo News in a new interview published Tuesday, describing his plans. But that s about to change. Holder, who served as former President Barack Obama s first attorney general, indicated that his goal is to head the legal resistance to President Donald Trump s agenda. But that may just be the tip of the iceberg.Three sources who have spoken to Holder and are familiar with his thinking told Yahoo that he may consider challenging Trump in 2020 for the White House. Now is the time to be more visible, Holder said. Now is the time to be heard. I have a certain status as the former attorney general. A certain familiarity as the first African-American attorney general. There s a justified perception that I m close to President Obama, Holder added. So I want to use whatever skills I have, whatever notoriety I have, to be effective in opposing things that are, at the end of the day, just bad for the country. Holder was getting paid $25,000 per month to serve as outside counsel to the heavily-Democratic California state legislature to counter the Trump administration. The legislation he supported Monday would prevent state police from helping to enforce immigration law, and Holder traveled across the country to promote it. WFBEric Holder was one of the most controversial AG s in the history of the United States. He spent most of his first term under investigation while serving as Obama s Attorney General. He was the key figure in the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal with Mexico, and in 2012 Congress voted to hold him in contempt for not turning over documents on the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal. He was also involved in the IRS scandal that targeted conservatives and conservative leaning organizations.Holder also was instrumental in fanning the flames of the Trayvon Martin case in Sanford, Florida. While he was acting as our nation s Attorney General, he was caught by Judicial Watch spending our taxpayer dollars to deploy a little-known unit of the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Community Relations Service (CRS) to Sanford, FL, following the Trayvon Martin shooting to help organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman. Holder was also present in Ferguson where he did absolutely nothing to stop the rioting and chaos.Watch FOX News Sean Hannity expose Obama s lying AG when asked about Fast n Furious while under oath:Here s proof that Eric Holder was lying: | 1real |
Mike Pence doesn't share Donald Trump's worldview | Washington (CNN) Donald Trump's vice presidential pick , Mike Pence, has held wildly different views on trade, Russia, Iraq and Muslims than the billionaire businessman.
Throughout his 16-year political career, the 57-year-old Indiana governor has adhered to traditionally muscular Republican policies on foreign affairs.
Trump, however, has taken a more isolationist approach and placed less emphasis on foreign issues. The issues that he has put at the center of his campaign are largely the ones he and his running mate disagree on.
Trump made his opposition to the Iraq intervention a major theme, criticizing Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for her 2002 vote backing the war when she was in the Senate.
Pence, near the beginning of his 12-year tenure in the U.S. House, voted for the resolution authorizing the 2003 Iraq invasion as well.
Pence, who chaired the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East, was also a prominent backer of the 2007 "surge" strategy sending more U.S. troops to the faltering effort in Iraq, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer at the time that "the surge is working" while also defending the original decision to invade despite the absence of weapons of mass destruction.
Pence has also struck a harder line on Russia than Trump, whose authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has praised.
Trump asked an audience at a California rally in May, "Wouldn't it be nice if we could get along with Russia? Wouldn't that be nice?"
Pence has opted for stronger rhetoric, telling the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2015 that, "A new Iron Curtain is descending down the spine of Europe as modern Russia seeks to redraw the map of Europe by force."
He added, "Putin's Russia ignores talk of sanctions, claims land and supports rebels in Ukraine with impunity."
And Pence has previously taken issue with some of Trump's national security proposals, calling his proposal to ban Muslim foreigners from entering the U.S. "offensive and unconstitutional" in a December tweet.
Trump has since refined the proposal, saying it would only apply to citizens from countries with connections to terrorism.
Perhaps more than any other international issue, Trump has made global trade a defining aspect of his campaign -- yet Pence has taken a diametrically opposed position.
The real estate mogul has frequently called NAFTA, which regulates trade between U.S., Canada and Mexico, "a disaster." During a Republican primary debate in February, he declared, "We are killing ourselves with trade pacts that are no good for us and no good for our workers."
Pence, in contrast, praised the role of global trade and slammed protectionism in a 2010 speech to the Detroit Economic Club.
"Protectionism and closing our doors to other countries does not help us, or people in the rest of the world," he said. "We must support expanded free trade to renew American exceptionalism and create jobs."
Pence also backed free trade deals with Panama, Colombia and South Korea while in Congress.
Potentially most problematic for Trump, Pence has been a strong proponent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional trade deal involving 12 countries pushed by the Obama administration.
"The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country -- just a continuing rape of our country. It's a harsh word, but it's true," Trump said in a speech last month in Ohio.
But in a September 2014 tweet, Pence gave the deal a ringing endorsement and called for its "swift adoption."
However, the Indiana governor has found common ground with Trump on some national security issues -- especially when it comes to criticizing President Barack Obama.
Like Trump, Pence has slammed Obama for reductions in the size of the American military.
Shared stances on the size of the military
"This administration has reduced our Army, now its smallest size since 1940. The Navy has fewer ships than at any time since 1916, and our Air Force has its smallest tactical fighter force in history," Pence said at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
"Our active-duty armed forces have shrunk from 2 million in 1991 to about 1.3 million today. The Navy has shrunk from over 500 ships to 272 ships during this same period of time. The Air Force is about one-third smaller than 1991," Trump said.
The Indiana governor has also echoed Trump's critique of the President's preferred terminology for terrorist groups.
"Lecturing the American people about the crusades while refusing to call Islamic extremism by name is an abdication of leadership," Pence told CPAC.
They also largely agree on Israel -- nowadays.
Pence is an avid backer of the Middle Eastern ally, telling the CPAC audience, "Israel's cause is our cause" and voicing approval of the decision by then-House Speaker John Boehner to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress to lobby against the Iran nuclear deal the White House was then negotiating with Tehran.
Trump has also blasted the deal, and has recently staked out an aggressively pro-Israel stance.
"Israel is a very, very important ally of the United States and we are going to protect them 100%," he said last week, rebuffing an audience member's criticism of the country.
But last winter, Trump was castigated by many Republicans for declining to promise to keep Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. He also said peace would depend on whether Israel is willing to make sacrifices and that he would remain "neutral" in negotiations. | 0fake |
Trump Spoke With Putin About Election Interference, It’s Just As Bad As You’d Expect (VIDEO) | On Friday, Donald Trump finally got the chance to be in the same room as his favorite world leader, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Giddy with the chance to speak with a global leader whom he truly admired, Trump made Putin meet with him for over two hours, according to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.Tillerson also reported that Trump brought up the Russian interference in the election, opening the meeting by asking Putin if he d done any meddling. No one knows why the hell Trump would do this, but Putin responded exactly as we all expected him to by denying it.Reporters at the briefing also seemed stunned that Trump actually thought Putin would admit to such a thing, especially since Trump has defended Russia and denied the interference so extensively, even at the expense of America s intelligence agencies and free press. Apparently, Trump asked Putin about the election several times, each time getting a denial from Putin. And according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, that was all Trump needed to convince him or satisfy his need to prove his own innocence in the Russian scandal.In a report about the meeting, Tillerson said: What the two presidents I think rightly focused on is how to we move forward Because it s not clear to me that we will ever come to some agreed-upon resolution of that question between the two nations. You can listen to Tillerson s recap of what happened between Putin and Trump below:Putin and Trump s relationship is highly problematic, and their meeting was the focus of the G20 Summit this week. As Trump s Russia scandal continues to heat up, it was almost too predictable that America s corrupt POTUS would ask a question like this, which would of course be denied. Trump is, once again, trying to make fools out of us all and we re not buying it.Featured image via Handout / Getty Images | 1real |
A Cry for Help: Texas Homeschooled Children Continue to Suffer in State Custody and Public School | A Cry for Help: Texas Homeschooled Children Continue to Suffer in State Custody and Public School
by Health Impact News/Medical Kidnap.com Staff
Claire and William Rembis say they are heartbroken. They say their children are heartbroken also. Their 10 children are remaining in Texas State custody, even though there are no abuse or neglect findings, and even though the children are suffering and want to come home. The children remain in public school and State custody, despite Judge Hart’s previous ruling to allow the children to be homeschooled. See previous story: Texas Judge Allows Mother to Homeschool Her Own Children – Denies Request to Vaccinate Children While in State Custody
Judge Hart ruled on September 20th that the Rembis children should continue to homeschool while in State custody “for purposes of consistency – to keep the children in the same school setting they were in before entering state custody – since they will continue to be homeschooled once they go home,” and added that the children would be going home “quickly,” according to Claire.
When CPS defied Judge Hart’s ruling to allow the Rembis children to continue to homeschool, the Rembis’ were certain that Judge Hart would have no option but to send the children home on October 5th, and punish the social workers who defied his ruling. See previous story: Texas CPS Defies Judge’s Order to Homeschool, Keeps Rembis Children in Public School
But when they went to court on October 5th, the Rembis said it was like Judge Hart was a “completely different person” than he had been during the Adversary hearing in September, and rather than dealing with CPS’ refusal to homeschool the children, the hearing focused only on presenting a lengthy list of “services” the Rembis’ must complete before they can get their children home and out of public school and State custody. William Rembis with some of his children during a CPS supervised visit.
Claire and William maintain that their children should never have been taken into State custody in the first place, and that the list of “CPS services” they must now complete are a not only a waste of tax-payer money, but also a waste of time, since there never was any abuse or neglect, and CPS allegedly never even substantiated any of their allegations.
Although there were some “supervision concerns” since their 2-year old “escape artist” got into the front yard momentarily without their knowledge, the Rembis say that their daughter getting into the yard alone was an accident (and could happen to any family), and once they learned of it, locks were immediately added to the garage doors to prevent any further “escapes.”
The Rembis’ are outraged that their family’s lives have been turned upside down, their children abused and traumatized in state custody, their reputation slandered in the media, and the main “eye-witness” who called CPS and started this entire ordeal is not even a credible witness, according to Claire:
The caller that called CPS to begin with, ended up changing her story several times under oath & was discovered to be a meth manufacturer who sells it, is a felon with a 12-yr long criminal record that may have been on drugs when she made that CPS report that started this nightmare. Rembis Children Remain in Custody as Retaliation?
Claire recalled that at the close of the Adversary hearing on September 20th, Judge Hart declared that he saw “nothing to necessitate Terminating Parental Rights,” and that his only concerns were some “supervision issues that could be easily fixed.”
Yet, even though there was no substantiated “abuse or neglect,” Judge Hart ruled that the children had to remain in custody, saying “ his hands were tied ” because the Rembis family left Lubbock in August, before bringing the children in for CPS interviews, even though there was no court order preventing the family form leaving the state, and they allegedly did nothing illegal by doing so.
The Rembis’ explain that they left Texas to protect their children from the overzealous CPS worker Kris Stecklein who was harassing them at home and traumatizing the children. The Rembis’ also contend – and they have spoken with attorneys who agree – that the children were illegally extradited from Colorado back to Texas. According to the Rembis’, CPS has defied judges’ orders, broken laws, and committed perjury over and over, yet they suffer no consequences. The Rembis family, who claim their only wrongdoing was “making a mistake” and not noticing when their 2-year-old followed William Rembis outside, continue to suffer at the hands of a corrupt system.
Are the Rembis’ being “made an example of” because they left Texas and exposed corruption within Lubbock CPS? The Rembis family believes that Judge Hart’s ruling to keep the children in State care is retaliation because the they continue to expose the corruption of CPS and the Family Court system.
Studies have shown that children are worse off in foster homes than if they remained in a “troubled home,” and many argue that foster care itself is a form of “child abuse,” causing long-term emotional trauma for children.
In despair for her children, Claire cries:
I didn’t think my body could make this many tears. Their joy is gone. Their happy faces are sad now. Oh Lord, Heavenly Father, please Lord PLEASE don’t let anything happen to them!
Are they living with genuinely abused kids that are acting out towards them?
My husband & I are supposed to just sit back, hands tied & NOT HELP THEM? We’re to hang tight knowing that abused kids & possibly sicko adults are living amongst them in the heavily populated group home?
For more information on grim foster care statistics, see: The U.S. Foster Care System: Modern Day Slavery and Child Trafficking No Consequence for CPS Defying Homeschool Ruling?
It was shocking to the Rembis’ that CPS could get away with “defying” the Judges’ previous ruling about homeschooling their children. According to Claire:
CPS said that they tried to find a homeschool curriculum but were unsuccessful. They mentioned something about a schooling option to do at the foster homes but that each kid had to have a laptop in order to do it so it was not an option they say. They also said that they spoke to Texas Homeschooling Coalition & that they didn’t offer anything that would allow CPS to take the kids to for their schooling. They said that they couldn’t find a foster family willing to homeschool the children.
They said that the kids are doing really well in school. They said that they aren’t having any behavioral issues. They said that the schools have reported that the kids, “brighten up the school”& that they enjoy having them as students. They said that the kids are enjoying school, except for Sebastian.
Claire was heartbroken that Judge Hart would not even let her discuss any of the options she had written down to present in court as to how to make homeschooling work, and she was even more heartbroken that her children were remaining in State custody:
My heart hurts too bad. I feel like I’m slipping away. I don’t even know how to describe this. It feels like I’ve been thrown into a room with a crowd of people with dementia & Alzheimer’s. Then the room is locked from the outside so I can’t get out. Then I’m listening to these people discuss what to do to the kids, how to do it, when to do it, etc…
And then they point at me & talk about me as though I’m a strange, non-human, defected being that they must bind up & put into a strait jacket with duct tape on my mouth. All the while I can still see & they force me to watch our kids being hurt & crying out in pain, suffering & miserable. Their arms reaching out to me, them crying out to me but I can’t do anything but sit in a chair, unable to move & unable to talk. Can CPS Lie in Court without Consequence?
Claire says she was appalled at how CPS workers could lie in court on October 5th, without any repercussion:
Judge asks for case plan. He asks why we haven’t started it since CPS says we received it on 9/23.
I told him that we hadn’t received it & that we were told that it would be emailed to us on 9/27. CPS argued that I wasn’t told this. I told the judge that the meeting in which we were told this was recorded.
I also told him that the attorneys (my husbands & the standby one for me) hadn’t received it until the morning of the hearing. He didn’t have a response to this.
I pointed out that the CPS attorney & CPS workers lied about the case plan. I said to him, ‘I need to point out to you that these (pointed to the CPS, “team”) CPS workers just told you that we received the case plan on September 23rd.’ Then I said to him, ‘This case plan states on the front page that it was created on October 3rd.”
The CPS team were visibly annoyed, one tapping her foot, the other rolling her eyes. There was silence as he looked at the papers. He didn’t acknowledge what I had just said, just moved on & started asking someone else questions. Claire Claims Judge Hart Insulted Her in Court – Asking if She Knew How to Read and Write Meme supplied by Rembis family.
Claire was disheartened at the treatment she received from Judge Hart on October 5th:
After we had a recess of 15 minutes to look over the case plan, I told the judge that I needed more time to look at the case plan; he told me that I needed to put my concerns in written format to submit for another hearing – A hearing simply to go over the case plan.
Then he asked me if I could read & write!
I asked him to repeat it. He said the same thing, & I said, ‘Are you serious?!’ & sorta chuckled. He said that he was because he wanted to make sure that if I needed any, ‘special accommodations’ he wanted to provide me with them.
In hindsight, maybe he was being sarcastic. He is the judge that we had to file a complaint on for violating Williams’ disability rights. He laughed at Willie when he told him that he needed to get closer to the stand in order to hear the judge. Then the judge called him a liar when William explained that he was legally deaf. New Attorney Says Case Should Never Have Gotten This Far
Claire was reluctant to accept the court-appointed standby attorney Bill de Haas, but after talking to him, she and William are hopeful that de Haas will actually fight for them, and not just be a Family Court puppet-attorney. Claire reports that the attorney has told them that this case should have ended at the first hearing, and the children should never have been taken into custody.
William fired his other court-appointed attorney, and he and Claire have now accepted de Haas as their legal counsel. They say that de Haas has been very helpful, explaining that it was illegal for Texas to extradite the children from Colorado, and he has been advising them about how they can get the case moved to Colorado, where William has been offered a good-paying job. Alex’s Outcry for Help
At their October 17th visit, Claire’s 15-year-old son made an “outcry for help,” through a poem he wrote describing his group home, which he gave to his parents. “Dearest String,” a poem by Alex Rembis, given to Claire at a visit. Concerns Over Son Alex Escalate – Suffering in Group Home
The parents are very concerned about their son Alex:
Alex is at the end of his rope. He is in the darkest frame of mind that we have ever seen him in. We have asked Andrew to tell us what is happening. The last time I asked him he told me that he couldn’t say – he was staring at a CPS worker when he said this.
We have the impression that the kids are too afraid to say anything because all of our visitations are monitored by CPS workers. They listen to EVERYTHING we all say. About 5 visitations ago, Aurora was weeping the entire time. She kept stopping to whisper to us that she didn’t want to tell us why because the CPS workers were listening to her. Before we had to leave that day, she just curled up in a ball & screamed, while crying, “I want to go home!!!”
So, their ability to report & escape abuse is very much hindered. I’m also very concerned about them being manipulated & threatened into keeping quiet about the abuse. “Meet Alex Rembis in happier times. Alex was illegally kidnapped for Texas CPS on 8/24/16. He was taken from a Christian, homeschooling family on false allegations of neglect.” – Claire Rembis
On October 18th, Claire learned that Alex had a seizure at school:
Alex was in the hospital. He had a seizure at school this morning. The CPS worker was there but not us. They didn’t take care of him the way that his neurologist told us to if he had another seizure. Jennifer tried to say the seizure was mild and no big deal, but from what she described to me on the phone, it did not sound like a mild seizure. Tragically, the lack of adequate response by CPS/fostercare/school workers could’ve had devastating consequences on his health.
On October 26th, Alex had a follow-up neurology appointment, where she says she learned that the reason for Alex’s seizure the previous week was because the “group home” failed to give him his daily medication.
Claire says that during the appointment, she was informing Alex of his rights to talk to the Judge or his attorney, and wrote down some information for him on a note. Claire reports that Garlett wouldn’t let Alex have the note, and when he tried to record his mother’s advice “for his record,” Garlett allegedly put her hand over the recorder and called for security. Social Worker Jennifer Garlett. Photo taken at the recent neurology appointment for Alex Rembis. Boys Depressed and Abused – Want to Come Home
Claire says that the children have told her that “for some reason the people at the home are being really mean to the boys and that the boys are being abused.”
Claire and William are very worried for their children’s safety, saying that two of the boys, who live in a group home, confided in her at the October 24th visit that they are depressed and want to come home:
Holding back tears, Alex shared that he’s depressed because he can’t come home. His brother (14), in the same cottage as him, confided in me that he feels the same way & that he cried himself to sleep because he couldn’t go home.
This isn’t our son. Alex is a very sweet, joyful, intelligent young man who loves to make people laugh. I told Alex that everyone is praying for him. – I reminded Alex that Jesus’ price paid for healing also includes the healing of the mind. I encouraged him to pray for healing from the depression. I reminded him to seek Jesus who is w/him 24/7 & that Jesus will comfort him.
I told him how everyone loved his poem & that we ARE listening. Please pray for Alex & his siblings to be returned to their loving home where they belong, before Christmas. The children write and draw on a board during visits. Alex wrote on the board at the 10/24/16 visitation, “I wanna go back to my real home! – Alex” (Photo provided by family) Children Continue to Suffer in Foster Care
Claire continued to report to Health Impact News about how her children are suffering in state care:
The kids have been so sick ever since they were taken. The CPS worker says that she is their advocate & the one looking out for their healthcare needs. However, not only is she not getting them the medical care that they need, she is LYING TO US about their health.
We are POWERLESS over this. We have to sit back, hands tied, mouths shut, forced to watch them suffer but not being able to alleviate it. They need help! That is why God chose our family for them; He’s equipped us to care for them. THEY NEED US NOW.
At one visit, Aurora had a severe stomach ache and was crying. At the next visit, Aurora was so sick, she couldn’t talk during the visit. Claire writes:
When the CPS worker Jennifer was answering my questions, Aurora was writing down the answers & correcting her.
After I asked her why Aurora couldn’t talk, Jennifer said that Aurora wasn’t sick. She then said that Aurora wasn’t on any medication. To that Aurora wrote the response below.[I’m taking meds to make me better]
When I questioned Jennifer about Aurora not seeing a doctor after complaining about intense abdominal pain the week before at visitation, Aurora wrote down that she had thrown up a few days prior to the visitation.
During one visit, when Claire changed her toddler’s diaper, she was distressed when she discovered a rash on her daughter’s body from her chest to her feet. Even more troubling, was the fact that the social workers allegedly tried to dissuade Claire from even changing her child’s diaper, saying they would do it later. (Many families have reported that CPS would label parents with “abuse and neglect” had the child been in the family’s care, and wonder, “why is not abuse and neglect when it happens in State care?” ) Editorial: What is R eally Going On with Texas CPS and Foster Care?
Unfortunately, there are still many readers who read stories like this one incredulously, thinking, “there must be more to the story,” and “CPS would not take children away from good parents without just cause.” While it’s nice to believe that CPS only rescues truly abused and severely neglected children from awful parents, sadly, this just isn’t the case.
Over 75% of CPS cases nationwide are “neglect cases” due to poverty, simply based on the biased opinion of the caller or social worker that some “basic necessities are being denied.” Once children are moved into foster care, the State’s CPS system can start receiving federal funds for foster care, social workers, judges, medical doctors, attorneys, psychiatrists, therapist, counselors, etc. – for all those who derive a living from this industry. Are we punishing poverty at the expense of future generations, using children as a commodity to create job security for CPS and Family Courts?
See: Child Kidnapping and Trafficking: A Lucrative U.S. Business Funded by Taxpayers Called “Foster Care”
Have we allowed the State the dictate the standards for material possessions each member of a family must possess for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”?
The Rembis’ and their supporters agree that the removal of their children is not only a violation of their Civil and Constitutional Rights , but has caused unjustifiable trauma and abuse to their children and unnecessary stress and hardship to their family.
This is the type of CPS’ abuse that many families across the country who contact us face every day. Until CPS is exposed for what it truly is – a federally-funded multi-billion-dollar child-trafficking and adoption business – and until families across the world demand that those they elect defund CPS, no family is safe from the tyranny which CPS agents can unleash on them should their family ever come into CPS’ sights.
Claire shares:
So many things are uncertain right now. So much fear, so much scary & crazy stuff. We can’t understand how something so terrible can happen. We don’t understand how it can happen to so many families and continue without massive outcry. But what we DO know, is that God is a solid rock. We know that we can trust Him. We know that our time here on earth will be spent allowing Him to work through us. Our eternity will be in paradise, with our Savior, safe & tucked away for His glory. So, as always, we must obey God, rather than man.
The abuses in Texas CPS and Foster Care have been exposed repeatedly, even in the mainstream media in Texas. For more information see: | 1real |
Sen. Richard Burr: ‘I Don’t See a Comprehensive Health Care Plan This Year’ - Breitbart | Senator Richard Burr ( ) told WXII 12 News in North Carolina that he believes a health care deal will not pass through the Senate this year. [“It’s unlikely that we will get a deal,” Burr admitted. The North Carolina senator said that the GOP health plan was “dead on arrival,” and that “I don’t see a comprehensive health care plan this year. ” Burr’s statement arises amidst a complicated pathway for Republicans to pass a health care bill through the Senate. Republicans control 52 seats in the upper chamber and need at least 50 votes and potentially Vice President Mike Pence to break a tie in the Senate. Establishment senators such as Susan Collins ( ) Lisa Murkowski ( ) and Bill Cassidy ( ) remain opposed to the House’s American Health Care Act (AHCA) while conservative senators such as Rand Paul ( ) Ted Cruz ( ) and Mike Lee ( ) want to push for more conservative measures in the Senate bill. Crafting a bill that satisfies both the moderate and the conservative wings of the Senate has become increasingly complex. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ( ) does not know how to build a Republican consensus on health care reform in the Senate at the moment. McConnell ( ) told Reuters last week, “I don’t know how we get to 50 at the moment. ” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said, “The president in general finds it frustrating … how the Senate operates. ” President Trump tweeted this week that he hopes that the Senate can soon pass a health care overhaul bill. The president also believes that the Senate should switch to a 51 person majority to pass legislation. Switching to a 51 person majority might avoid the complications that arise from using budgetary reconciliation to pass health care and tax reform. Hopefully Republican Senators, good people all, can quickly get together and pass a new (repeal replace) HEALTHCARE bill. Add saved $’s. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017, The U. S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately, and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy. Dems would do it, no doubt! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2017, | 0fake |
Hillary’s inevitability lie: Why the media and party elites are rushing to nominate the weakest candidate | If Clinton and Trump win their conventions, it’ll be the first time both parties nominated their weakest candidate. Trump is the one Republican almost any Democrat can beat; Hillary the one Democrat Trump can beat. The response of the party establishments is instructive. Republicans engage in a mad scramble to stop Trump while Democrats do all they can to help Hillary seal the deal.
Fear of Trump unites Republican elites as nothing but hatred for Obama ever did; Senate leadership with House rank and file; libertarians with militarists and supply siders; the Kochs with Karl Rove. A few of the phonier evangelicals defected to Trump but most, like the pope, know a fake Christian when they see one. All the factions now join the RNC, Fox News and every corporate lobbyist in town in a late, frantic effort to turn the tide. On Tuesday, Trump routed them all.
Democratic elites are just as united in opposing Bernie Sanders: members of Congress, gay and abortion rights lobbies, African-American leaders, most of labor and many of the same corporate lobbyists battling Trump. Sanders is a reformer and an honest, decent man. Trump is a louche, lying fascist with the impulse control of a hyperactive four-year-old. Yet Trump, not Sanders, is laying waste his party. Are Democrats simply more skilled in the art of suppression? If so, who knew?
But things aren’t as they seem. Sanders is doing better and Trump worse than the media thinks. Each race will now shift; whether enough to stop Clinton or Trump depends on strategy, execution, luck and other things impossible to poll. Elites may hold on for one last round but these insurgencies threaten their long term survival. Since their survival threatens ours, that’s great news.
Clinton owes some of her early success to the frontloading of Southern states. Super Tuesday is a scheme hatched in the ’80s by a bunch of white, male, mostly Southern Democrats who thought a regional primary would help “centrists” like themselves get a leg up on liberals. But they forgot, not for the first or last time, about African-Americans, lots of whom live in the South and vote Democratic. In ’88, Jessie Jackson and Al Gore split the region, thus allowing Northern social liberal Mike Dukakis to slip through the net.
This year Super Tuesday finally worked as planned; hindering a progressive, aiding an insider. There was a twist: African-Americans who now dominate the party in the South made it work. I doubt they prefer Clinton’s neoliberalism to Sanders’ democratic socialism. The win owed more to loyalty to Obama and other trusted leaders, and to Hillary’s skills and connections. By Saturday, eight of the 11 states of the old Confederacy had voted. In them she won 68 percent of the vote. Ten of 39 states outside the South had voted. In those states Sanders took 57 percent of the vote. On March 15, the Confederacy will be all done voting. The race begins then.
Clinton owes even more of her success to a party establishment she says doesn’t exist. Democrats send 717 superdelegates to their convention; that’s a third of the number needed to nominate. She has most of them. (Republican superdelegates are bound by popular votes because their base rose up and demanded it.) DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz slashed debates from 26 to six just to deny Sanders the airtime. Sanders surely won the popular vote in Iowa and maybe Nevada, but their state parties won’t release results. Sanders undercut the Des Moines Register’s demand to see the raw vote, saying it didn’t matter given the close delegate count. Trump, who brags incessantly on polls, has a deeper insight into the power of the bandwagon effect.
The election’s best news thus far is the evidence it offers that a campaign funded by small donors that stays true to its principles can beat big money. But we don’t know how much dark and super PAC money Clinton commands, or its impact on the race. Here’s hoping the next time she says Wall Street is spending money to defeat her, Bernie points out that it probably spends as much to elect her and that the whole reason he’s running is to make it harder for Wall Street to cover its bets.
Clinton began the race for the nomination 40 points up. Yet all these advantages — money, superdelegates, calendar, shutting down debates and withholding election results — couldn’t save her. She needed yet more help and got it from liberal lobbies that are all that remains of the great grass-roots movements that once drove all our social progress. Most are led not by grass-roots leaders but by technicians who seek money, access and career advancement and rely on the same consultants advising Clinton, Obama and a long list of corporate clients.
It is no shock to see every GOP faction unite against Trump. He is plainly not a neoconservative, a libertarian, a free trader or even a Christian. Unencumbered by conscience or conviction, he is free to don any disguise he deems useful. Some in his party oppose him out of principle; others because they think he can’t win. But if he had the demeanor of an Anglican bishop and led every general election poll, many would still fight him, because his victory would mean their ultimate defeat.
Progressive groups who united against Bernie have a lot more explaining to do. There was a time when many progressives observed an unwritten law against wading into primaries against friends, even for a candidate who was better on their issues, let alone for one who was palpably worse. On choice Clinton may claim more personal involvement than Sanders but on every other progressive issue, including civil rights and gay rights, Bernie beats her by a mile.
On core labor issues like global trade and a living wage, he is steadfast while she is anything but. Still, unions representing 70percent of all members backed her, often without members’ consent. Nevada’s culinary union told its members it would stay out, but leaders worked casinos hard, enabling Clinton to eke out the appearance of victory. Given Massachusetts’ liberal reputation, big student population and proximity to Vermont, Sanders needed a win. But labor poured it on. Without its help, Clinton’s 1.3 percent margin of victory would have been impossible. Some who helped engineer Clinton endorsements did so for institutional access or personal gain. I like to think more did it because she looked like a winner. It would be good for all progressives if these leaders would reflect on where they get their political advice and how all their access really helps their causes. We once left tactical thinking to politicians. Then issue advocates began hiring pollsters. Now voters are getting into the act. The effect is to turn the marketplace of ideas into a casino. It’s hard enough figuring out if a candidate represents your values without having to speculate about his appeal to others. You don’t go to a store to buy what you think someone else wants, yet primary voters do. One reason for all the tactical thinking is the paralysis of government; if you think nothing will get done, you focus less on policy. Polarization’s another; if you hate their party more than you love yours, what matters is picking a winner. The biggest culprit is the media. Following politics on TV you learn nothing beyond the horse race. Pundits specialize in predicting the recent past. No poll can tell you what folks will say when they finally absorb the fact that one candidate is under criminal investigation or that 5,000 people are suing another for fraud, or that climate change will wipe out the east and west coasts of the United States within their children’s lifetimes. Networks bring on experts angling for political jobs to say we’re the only country on earth that can’t have universal health care but don’t bother to explain Hillary’s or Bernie’s actual plans. Donald Trump’s resume is a hoax, but to find out about Trump University or the Trump Shuttle you have to wait eight months for Marco Rubio to mention it in a debate. Imagine what Upton Sinclair or Ida Tarbell would say to see such a sorry spectacle as this. Clinton’s whole case is tactical. Sanders volunteers say every swing voter asks now about electability or if Congress would pass Bernie’s program. In the last CNN poll his favorability rating is higher than hers among Democrats. (She’s at 78% favorable to 19% unfavorable; he’s at 85% to 10%) Democrats prefer his policies to hers by wide margins, forcing her to pretend to adopt his. She benefits from kindly MSNBC anchors and apparatchiks posing as analysts on CNN — but what helps her most is every network’s obsession with tactics. The moment the race turns into a referendum on policy choices, she’s finished. For two years the media has swallowed and peddled the Clinton inevitability line. For two weeks it has said Trump’s nomination is inevitable; this after eight months of saying it was impossible. It is so clueless on both counts because it is so much a part of the system that is under attack and because it relies so heavily on its useless tools and discredited methods. It’s hard to predict the future, it being chock full of stuff that hasn’t happened yet. Even if they get it right, they add nothing of value. To see the race as it really is one must see the Democratic and Republicans parties as they really are. The story going round is that they’re far apart. It’s true of cultural issues: guns; same-sex marriage; abortion; immigration. But on matters of the distribution of political and economic power and opportunity they are as close as can be. By these I mean: global trade, fiscal austerity, deregulation, information technology; use of military force and most of all what they fight hardest to defend: pay to play politics. It is against this bipartisan consensus of pay to play politics and neoliberal economics that the country, including large chunks of each party’s base, now rises up. This is nearly as true of Trump’s fascist putsch as it is of Bernie’s progressive revolution. Voters want political reform and economic justice. They know that without reform they’ll never get justice. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who shares that opinion. The election is part of a broader revolt against a failed status quo. Clinton is an architect of that status quo; Trump, a big beneficiary. So she hides her transcripts and he hides his tax returns. Bernie is an open book. It’s why he has the highest favorability rating of any candidate in the race and Clinton has the lowest of any presidential candidate in the history of polling, except for Trump. Trump and Clinton struggle to co-opt Bernie’s message; Trump even adopts his positions. (A fascist can do what he likes so long as he is racist, xenophobic and authoritarian.) Trump hates pay-to-play politics; or as he frames it, the venality of his opponents. He hates the Iraq War, the Libya strike, the Syria no fly zone, NAFTA and the TPP. He hates Obama’s deals with insurers and drug companies and any cut in Social Security or Medicare. In a debate with Hillary he’d own these priceless treasures. Some would say he stole them, but he can’t steal what she gives away. It’s a debate we never have to see. Trump is a total fraud and a ticking time bomb. Clinton helped build the system voters want to tear down. Her candidacy rests on the rickety edifice of a dying political establishment that, like Trump, could blow at any time. This is Bernie’s revolution, not Clinton’s or Trump’s. If it’s anyone’s moment, it’s his not theirs. It ain’t over till it’s over. | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton Denounces the ‘Alt-Right,’ and the Alt-Right Is Thrilled - The New York Times | As Hillary Clinton assailed Donald J. Trump on Thursday for fanning the flames of racism embraced by the “” the community of activists that tends to lurk anonymously in the internet’s dark corners could hardly contain its glee. Mrs. Clinton’s speech was intended to link Mr. Trump to a fringe ideology of conspiracies and hate, but for the leaders of the the attention from the Democratic presidential nominee was a moment in the political spotlight that offered a new level of credibility. It also provided a valuable opportunity for and recruiting. Jared Taylor, editor of the white nationalist publication American Renaissance, Mrs. Clinton’s remarks, questioning her praise of establishment Republicans and eagerly anticipating her discussion of his community. “Come on, Hillary,” he wrote. “Talk about Alt Right. ” In an ode to Mr. Trump’s characterization of Jeb Bush, Mr. Taylor described her speech as “low energy. ” Other white nationalists mocked Mrs. Clinton, saying she sounded like a neoconservative and a “grandma,” while welcoming the publicity. Mr. Trump has publicly kept his distance from the but his critics have accused him of offering subtle cues to invite its support. His appointment of Stephen K. Bannon, the head of Breitbart News, to be chief executive of his campaign was cheered by members who are avid readers of the Breitbart website. The claims to support the preservation of white culture in the United States, and many of its members want to see an overhaul of the entire political system. However, its views are widely seen as white supremacist and . Many who align themselves with philosophies say that they do not subscribe to all of Mr. Trump’s policies, but that electing him would be a step in the right direction because of his “America First” worldview and his hard line on immigration. This week, some expressed disappointment that Mr. Trump appeared to be softening his tone on deporting people who are in the country illegally. Richard B. Spencer, the president of the National Policy Institute, who is credited with coming up with the name “” pushed back against claims that the group promotes violence and said in a statement that there was a double standard at play. “While Hillary Co. condemn the — nonviolent activists seeking social change, largely through a vibrant internet presence — she allows noted supporters of terror to attend her rallies and has never once disavowed the actions of domestic terrorists associated with Black Lives Matter,” Mr. Spencer said. Mrs. Clinton’s public criticism of the could turn out to be a boon for the movement, and its members did their best to capitalize on the moment. Some, in an effort to show a lighthearted side, circulated footage of Mr. Taylor playing the saxophone at the group’s most recent conference. The white nationalist website VDare published a “What Is the ?” video and blasted out a pitch warning, “Hillary wants to ignite a witch hunt against the because she knows we are finally starting to make an impact on the public’s thinking about immigration. ” And the Stormfront forum set up an online thread for potential new members. After Mrs. Clinton’s speech, one group of white nationalists convened a videoconference that was broadcast on YouTube. The consensus was that Mrs. Clinton was “toothless” and “lackluster,” and they expressed disappointment that she had not mentioned leaders by name. She made reference only to David Duke, the former Klansman whose support Mr. Trump was slow to disavow. Although the tried to put its best foot forward, there was plenty of venom directed at Mrs. Clinton, and the conspiracy theories ran wild. A popular attack was the continuing effort to raise questions about her health. By addressing the in such a prominent setting, Mrs. Clinton ran the risk of helping its cause. But Richard Cohen, the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, dismissed the idea that Mrs. Clinton was doing the public a disservice by drawing attention to the . “I think every public official ought to denounce racism, and that is what Secretary Clinton did,” Mr. Cohen said, noting that the ideology opposes the notion that all people are equal. Referring to the term “” which was trending on Twitter, he added, “It is a fancy, almost antiseptic term for white supremacy in the digital world. ” | 0fake |
Tonopah Test Range Google Earth imagery 7/22/2016 | Tonopah Test Range Google Earth imagery 7/22/2016 page: 1 37.785314° -116.765487° lots of cars 37.788909° -116.756991° buildings removed 37.761840° -116.760566° new building 37.723731° -116.730658° new radar berm Happy hunting. Note they cut this really close to the north edge of the runway, as if someone ordered this imagery and Google poached it. Tonopah is the Area 51 site. These look like the White Sand targets I've fired at. (above) edit on 26-10-2016 by thesungod because: (no reason given) edit on 26-10-2016 by thesungod because: (no reason given) The only things missing are the "commercial gravel pits." That is how the mining tailings are covered up. Posted a thread on this here Looks like something (maybe F-117 or something else) being moved into a hangar 37.798244, -116.774809 The only things missing are the "commercial gravel pits." That is how the mining tailings are covered up. I would presume since available imagery would show large amounts of "Muck" which is the technical term for the rock left over (Tailings are actually something else) they would eat the cost associated with trucking it elsewhere or using previously excavated areas on site. Rumors persist that the proposed underground, mobile, MX system was mocked up and extensive tunnels were dug in and around the NTS and Nellis etc. which could also be used for storing the muck. Otherwise a giant pile of the stuff would be a dead giveaway new topics | 1real |
In Pat Summitt, a Toughness Greater Than Invincibility - The New York Times | “Juliet?” said the voice on the other end of the line, in an unmistakable Tennessee accent. “This is Coach Pat Summitt. ” I nearly dropped the phone. Back then, in January 1997, I was a journalism school student, and I had called Summitt’s office at the University of Tennessee to request an interview. It was one of a dozen calls I made to top college coaches for my master’s project, which focused on the American Basketball League, a new women’s professional league. The only coach to return my call was Pat Summitt. Summitt wasn’t just any coach: She and her Lady Vols had just won their fourth national championship and were on their way to winning a fifth. We spoke for more than an hour. When I thanked her for calling, she said that she always had time for young women trying to make their way in sports. Summitt died Tuesday at 64 after years of struggling with Alzheimer’ dementia. In her 38 years as a head college coach, she won 1, 098 games, more than any other Division I coach, man or woman, and led Tennessee to eight national championships. You can talk about her toughness: She once dislocated her shoulder while chasing an aggressive raccoon off her porch, in an attempt to protect her Labrador retriever, and spent two hours trying to pop her shoulder back into place before calling for medical help. And you can talk about what a leader she was, for her players and for women’s sports. When she was offered a job coaching the men at Tennessee, she said, “Why is that considered a step up?” But it’s also important to remember how Summitt dealt with dementia, and what a perfect reflection it was of her personality. Like Muhammad Ali, in his long fight with Parkinson’s disease, Summitt faced a progressive malady for which there is no known cure — a disease that works to steal a person’s dignity and tempts those with it to retreat from the public eye. Everyone chooses to deal with those diseases in a different way, no one effort more courageous than another. Summitt and Ali’s way was to use their fame and bring the world along on their journey, as they became the public faces of diseases that were once taboo to even acknowledge. Their efforts to shed light on their vulnerabilities just added to their legacies, but in a totally different — and, arguably, more important — way. When Summitt learned she had dementia, in 2011, she was only 59. “There’s not going to be any pity party, and I’ll make sure of that,” she told The Knoxville News Sentinel. She told ABC, “What I want to do is to get people to understand that if you have dementia, don’t be afraid of it. ” If you know anything about dementia or Parkinson’s, you know that in fact, there is plenty to be afraid of. Dementia slowly robs you of your cognitive abilities, eats away at your brain. Parkinson’s is another cruel thief: It steals facial expressions, voices, movement, the ability to swallow and, eventually, to breathe. It can also cause dementia. When Ali was told he had Parkinson’s, it must have been a blow that stung him harder than any in his life. He cherished the sound of his own voice and loved the way his body moved. And, of course, he always talked about how pretty he looked. Yet he didn’t disappear from sight. He showed up — body stiff, face frozen and left hand shaking out of control — to light the caldron at the 1996 Atlanta Games. The once invincible man wasn’t shy about showing that he wasn’t invincible after all. I know how hard that must have been for him because my father, Zbigniew, was entering the final stage of Parkinson’s when he died in November. I always considered my father the toughest man I knew, but never more than when I saw him — razor blade in one hand, one Parkinson’s pill in another — as he sliced the pill into segments. My dad knew that over time, his body wouldn’t respond to the medicine, especially as the doses increased. So he had tried to take control of what was happening by limiting himself to what would barely get him through his rough days, even though it would make his current days much rougher. He never stopped fighting. For Summitt, having dementia could be embarrassing, especially for a woman whose sharp thinking helped her win games. But that didn’t seem to matter to her. She still looked for the spotlight, unafraid to describe what dementia had done to her and how she was coping with the changes. Summitt was in a battle she could never win, but she still could make a difference for others by educating them about the disease. She spoke about her dementia in interviews, and also in her 2013 book, “Sum It Up,” in which she also talked about another issue that is often taboo to speak about — the six miscarriages she had before giving birth to her son, Tyler. She accepted the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2012 ESPYs, where she gave a short speech, saying, “It’s time to fight. ” Soon after her diagnosis, she started the Pat Summitt Foundation, and its mission was to find a cure for Alzheimer’s. At the end of our telephone conversation nearly 20 years ago, Summitt spoke about the importance of women in sports. She told me she was glad I was training to be a sports reporter because there needed to be more women writing about sports. I wondered why she had taken the time for me. Now I know. Summitt wanted to make a difference in this world, both on and off the basketball court. That’s exactly what she did. | 0fake |
House Democrats question if Valeant is withholding records | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats on a powerful U.S. congressional panel are questioning whether Canada-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals may be wrongfully withholding documents in connection with its ongoing probe into sky-rocketing drug prices, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters on Tuesday. The memo, which was sent to Democratic members of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from the staff of its top Democrat Elijah Cummings, reveals that Valeant previously withheld readily available analyst reports prepared by banks such as Goldman Sachs, saying they were protected by attorney-client privilege. The memo says it also raises questions about other documents that are still being withheld, saying some of these “were not drafted by attorneys and do not include communications with attorneys.” A spokeswoman for Valeant denied that the company has done anything wrong, saying it has already provided more than 78,000 pages of documents and will continue cooperating. “We continue to discuss with the committee the issue of privileged documents, but any suggestion that we have withheld documents inappropriately is incorrect,” Laurie Little said in a statement. The April 26 memo comes just one day before three of Valeant’s top executives are slated to appear before a different U.S. Senate panel that is also investigating high drug prices. The company’s outgoing CEO Michael Pearson will be testifying before the Senate Special Committee on Aging late Wednesday afternoon, along with activist investor William Ackman, a majority shareholder and board member, and Howard Schiller, a director and former chief financial officer. Their appearance before Congress comes at an awkward and difficult time for the company, which is under fire from its shareholders and facing a number of ongoing government investigations into drug pricing and distribution, accounting and disclosures, and antitrust matters. Last month, the company announced that Pearson would be stepping down and that Ackman would be joining its board, after a board committee probe into the company’s dealings with specialty pharmacy Philidor RX Services uncovered accounting problems dating back to December 2014. The company said it would restate its earnings and delay filing its annual report, opening the door to a possible default on its $30 billion debt. The company has blamed some of the accounting problems on Schiller, and asked him to step down from his board seat. Schiller has refused to do so, and has denied any wrongdoing through his attorney. Valeant plans to file its annual report on April 29, two days after the hearing. Wednesday’s hearing will be primarily focused on Valeant’s drastic price increases for two of its heart drugs. The committee previously planned to vote to hold Pearson in contempt for failing to be deposed, but backed down after he agreed to be interviewed April 18. | 0fake |
Factbox: Proposals of main parties in Honduras presidential election | TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Hondurans vote on Sunday in a presidential election that many expect to result in a second term for the current U.S.-friendly leader, eight years after he supported a coup against a former president who also floated the idea of re-election. Polls suggest Juan Orlando Hernandez, of the center-right National Party, will clinch a divisive second term and see off television host Salvador Nasralla, who helms a broad left-right coalition called the Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship. Below are the candidates main proposals: Juan Orlando Hernandez - A former head of Congress who studied at the State University of New York and Honduras military academy, the 49-year-old Hernandez enjoys good rapport with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and is seen as a reliable U.S. ally in Central America. - Hernandez has managed to lower the murder rate and raise growth, while expanding his influence into the furthest reaches of the Honduran government. - Critics say that Hernandez, who was born in a humble, rural family of 17 siblings, has stifled dissent and is seeking to consolidate power. U.S. government officials say they want him to quickly revitalize stalled legislation to place a cap on presidential limits and assuage fears he will not cede power. - With his slogan that Change has begun, and should continue, Hernandez says he will keep up his militarized fight against the gangs that have turned the Central American nation into one of the world s most violent. - Hernandez says a so-called Honduras 20/20 plan will help lure investment in textiles, call centers and car manufacturing and lift growth. Hernandez wants to push ahead with special economic zones, a project that has so far yielded few concrete results. He says his policies will create 600,000 new jobs in the next four years. Salvador Nasralla - A colorful 64-year-old sports and talent TV show host descended from Lebanese immigrants, Nasralla promises to put an end to years of violence, poverty and graft. - Nasralla s Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship coalition includes the Liberty and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), which is controlled by ousted former President Manuel Zelaya, who many believe is the true force behind the coalition. - A non-traditional political figure who has benefited from his entertainment background to build support among those disenchanted by business-as-usual Honduran politics, Nasralla trailed Hernandez by 15 points in the last permitted poll before the election, which took place in September. - Nasralla says he will ask the United Nations to install an anti-graft body, similar to one operating in Guatemala, to probe and bring charges in corruption cases. Nasralla would maintain the Military Police, created by Hernandez, but wants to found a community police force to work in violent slums. He would also continue the purge of the national police, while hiring up to 25,000 new officers. - Plans for the economy are vague, but the coalition has proposed lowering sales tax and slashing a Hernandez-imposed corporate levy that has enraged the private sector. The Alliance has proposed a referendum on how the current Constitution should be rewritten, either by Congress or by a new national assembly. It also wants a referendum on stripping the powers of the Supreme Court, which it accuses of being pliant to Hernandez. | 0fake |
AUSTRIA’S NOT PLAYING GAMES: Bans Face-Concealing Islamic Dress…Mandates “Integration” Course…Or Else | Will Austria s new mandates help to save their nation or is it already too late? Have they already allowed political correctness to destroy their once unique culture and identity and replace it with radical Islam?Muslim students, according to new statistics, now outnumber Roman Catholic students at middle and secondary schools in Vienna, the capital and largest city of Austria.The data which show that Muslim students are also on the verge of overtaking Catholics in Viennese elementary schools reflect an established trend and provide empirical evidence of a massive demographic and religious shift underway in Austria, traditionally a Roman Catholic country.The Muslim population in Austria now exceeds 500,000 (or roughly 6% of the total population), up from an estimated 150,000 (or 2%) in 1990. The Muslim population is expected to reach 800,000 (or 9.5%) by 2030, according to recent estimates.A controversial integration law that will fine women for wearing face-concealing Islamic dress from October, and deprive of benefits migrants who fail to take language lessons has officially been enacted, after being rubber-stamped by the President. Those who are not prepared to accept Enlightenment values will have to leave our country and society, reads the text of the law that drew thousands of protesters to the streets earlier this year, before it was passed by a centrist coalition last month.Women who will wear Islamic veils either the burqa or the niqab in public places, will face a fine of 150 ($168).They will also be expressly forbidden from distributing incendiary radical materials, and are encouraged to volunteer before they can get their work permits, so that they are better prepared for life in the workplace.More than 90,000 people have arrived in the Central European country since the start of the migrant crisis in 2015, most of them from Muslim-majority countries outside of Europe.The law was opposed by the left-leaning Green Party, which said that it scapegoated refugees, and the nationalist Freedom Party, which called it a window-dressing for deeper integration issues and said it had been designed to stop its rise in the polls.The centrist coalition promised that the legislation would offer a holistic approach. It has since collapsed, triggering an early election in October. Work is one of the most important factors for successful integration, which is why we are not only breaking down language barriers with this policy we are also creating a continuous integration concept for the first time, said Social Democratic politician Alois Stoger back in May.France was the first EU state to introduce a similar ban in 2010, levying an identical 150 fine. It has since been copied in other countries, including Germany, which has also pushed through a prohibition of face coverings for state employees. RT | 1real |
U.S. VP-elect Pence to be sworn in by conservative Justice Thomas | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President-elect Mike Pence will be sworn into office on Jan. 20 by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative legal icon reviled by many liberals. Thomas’s role was included in the official program for Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration posted online by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. Trump will be sworn in by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. The nation’s chief justice usually swears in the president but an incoming vice president traditionally picks someone else to administer the oath of office. Vice President Joe Biden was sworn in by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens in 2009 and liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2013. Thomas, 68, is the second black justice to serve on the Supreme Court and is one of its most conservative members. Nominated by Republican President George H.W. Bush, Thomas joined the court in 1991 after contentious Senate confirmation hearings involving sexual harassment allegations against him made by a former federal government colleague, Anita Hill. In October, after controversy erupted over allegations Trump had fondled numerous women and boasted about it, a female corporate lawyer from Alaska accused Thomas of groping her in 1999, a charge Thomas called “preposterous” and untrue. After taking office, Trump will nominate a justice to serve alongside Thomas on the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the death of another conservative, Justice Antonin Scalia, in February 2016. Republicans who control the U.S. Senate declined to act on President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill the position, Merrick Garland. | 0fake |
Trump Gets Snippy After Being Asked To Dial Down His Violent Rhetoric (VIDEO) | Donald Trump lost his temper on CNN when Jake Tapper asked him to be a leader and tone down the violent rhetoric of his campaign.On Sunday, Trump appeared on CNN and was immediately confronted by Tapper about how the Republican front-runner has incited violence during his rallies that have led to his supporters carrying out vicious attacks against non-white protesters.Last week, an old white Trump supporter sucker-punched a young black man during a rally in North Carolina and suggested he and friends would kill him if he shows up to another rally.During the same rally, yet another white Trump supporter yelled obscenities at a black man and slapped him.Both incidents were caught on video and neither of the white men were arrested or kicked out of the rally at the time.And since then, Trump rallies have only gotten worse as rallies in St. Louis and Chicago nearly turned into race wars.But Trump refused to tone his rhetoric down on Sunday, insisting that he was the victim and that his supporters are peaceful people who love America. He also accused Bernie Sanders of sending his supporters to disrupt the rallies and claimed that he hasn t incited violence at all even though he has been caught on tape doing exactly that.When Tapper tried to convince Trump to be a real leader and stop inciting violence, Trump became snippy.TAPPER: People are getting hurt and people are actually concerned that somebody might get seriously, seriously injured. You are not taking down the temperature. You are, in the views of many of your fellow Republicans, making things worse, inciting, encouraging violence. And you re a leader, sir. You re the front-runner in the Republican Party. TRUMP: Excuse me, excuse me! My fellow Republicans are running against me, they are losing bigly. The Donald then proceeded to lose his temper by nastily attacking his opponents and accusing Tapper of not covering his campaign rallies truthfully, yelling over Tapper and interrupting him while bashing CNN and claiming that zero people have been injured at his rallies.When Tapper could actually get a word in, he once again asked Trump to dial back his rhetoric for the sake of the country. Trump responded that Tapper should be more accurate in his reporting.TAPPER: I would just ask as a fellow American if you could consider whether or not dialing down the temperature, might be a healthier thing, both for your campaign and for the nation the nation at large. TRUMP: Well, you should report it right because we ve had no injuries at my events. So, you know, do what you have to do. Here s the video via YouTube.Clearly, Trump is lying when he says nobody has been injured at his rallies. There are countless videos of protesters being roughed up or flat-out assaulted by his supporters as Trump eggs them on. As we get closer and closer to the nomination, Trump has become more and more dangerous as his rallies have basically become full-blown Klan and neo-Nazi rallies where white racists feel right at home. What once sounded like a joke campaign has now become America s worst nightmare and it isn t over yet.Featured image via screen capture | 1real |
Brexit Irish border deal possible within hours | BRUSSELS/DUBLIN (Reuters) - The United Kingdom and Ireland could reach agreement in hours on how to run their post-Brexit Irish land border, paving the way for a deal that would remove the last obstacle to opening free-trade talks with the European Union. A carefully choreographed attempt to showcase the progress of Brexit talks collapsed at the last minute on Dec. 4 when the Northern Irish party which props up Prime Minister Theresa May s government vetoed a draft deal already agreed with Ireland. Since then, May has been scrambling to clinch a deal on the new UK-EU land border in Ireland that is acceptable to the European Union, Dublin, her own lawmakers and Northern Ireland s Democratic Unionist Party, which keeps her government in power. May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker could meet early on Friday to seal a border deal, the European Commission s chief spokesman said. We are making progress but not yet fully there, Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said. Talks are continuing throughout the night. Early morning meeting possible. A spokesman for PM May said Brexit discussions were ongoing while a senior Irish official said talks were moving swiftly and that a deal was possible in hours. It is moving quite quickly at the moment, the Irish official told a British Irish Chamber of Commerce event in Brussels. I think we are going to work over the next couple of hours with the UK government to close this off. I say hours because I think we are very close. Later on Thursday, the political editor of the BBC said the leadership of the DUP in Belfast had not signed off on the border deal, meaning it could yet stumble, but May continued to plan to meet Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk early on Friday in Brussels to finalize the agreement. The political editor of Sky News, quoting a DUP source, said the party would continue to work on the border issue on Friday. Moving to talks about trade and a Brexit transition are crucial for the future of May s premiership, and to keep trade flowing between the world s biggest trading bloc and its sixth largest national economy after Britain leaves on March 29, 2019. But the EU will only move to trade talks if there is enough progress on three key issues: the money Britain must pay to the EU; rights for EU citizens in Britain and British citizens in the EU; and how to avoid a hard border with Ireland. As speculation swirled about whether London, Dublin and Brussels were about to clinch a border deal, European Council President Donald Tusk s office said he would brief reporters at 0650 GMT on Friday before departing for Hungary. The EU says May has an effective deadline of Sunday night if she wants to seal a deal and hope to have agreement on trade talks in time for the EU summit on Dec. 14-15. All sides say they want to avoid a return to a hard border between EU member Ireland and the British-ruled province of Northern Ireland, which might upset the peace established after decades of violence. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) insists that Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, must leave the EU in the same way as the rest of the United Kingdom. To clinch a deal, though, May must ensure she has the support of the DUP, whose leader told her bluntly on Monday that it would not support her minority government s legislation unless the Irish border draft deal was changed. She must also convince her divided Conservative Party that the deal she makes is acceptable. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a leader of the Brexit campaign, insisted the whole of the United Kingdom must take back control when it left the EU. Whatever way we devise for getting onto the body of the (Brexit) talks, it s got to be consistent with the whole of the United Kingdom taking back control of our laws, of our borders and of our cash, Johnson told reporters. | 0fake |
Mike Lee: GOP Health Care Bill Does Very Little to Bring Premiums Down - Breitbart | Tuesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” Sen. Mike Lee ( ) said the proposed House Republican health care legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare does “very little at all” that would bring premiums down. Lee said, “I think he’s wrong especially if what he’s suggesting is that we have conservative policies in this bill that will bring down the cost of health care. Look, one of the things that has caused the cost of health care to spike so significantly is the regulatory section of the Affordable Care Act, which has put insurance companies in a position where they’ve increased their premiums and the cost of health care across the board has gone up. ” “This bill does far too little about that,” he continued. “It does very little at all, that would bring premiums down. And that’s the concern I have with it, is what this would do to the cost of health care. We have to bring that under control. This bill doesn’t do that to a degree sufficient for me to vote for it. ” ( Grabien) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
Factbox: What do laws say about Catalan self-determination? | MADRID - Catalan regional leader Carles Puigdemont planned on Tuesday to address a session of the regional parliament that might adopt a unilateral declaration of independence from Spain. Below are the main points of the Catalan legal framework that permitted the Oct. 1 referendum on independence and would underpin a new state before a constitution is established. Spain s Constitutional Court has suspended the new laws. WHAT DOES LEGISLATION SAY ABOUT DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE? Legislation passed in the Catalan parliament on Sept. 6 states that the outcome of the referendum is binding, and if it produces more affirmative than negative votes, this implies the independence of Catalonia. Within two days of the official announcement of the result of the referendum, the Catalan parliament will formally declare independence, explain the effects of the decision and start the process of founding a republic. The legislation describes Catalonia as a social and democratic republic of law , in which the people of the region are sovereign. It says European Union and international law continue to apply, and defines the sovereign territory of Catalonia. The law says EU rules in force in Catalonia when independence is declared, whether enforced by national or regional institutions, will continue to apply under the same conditions established by the law of the bloc. It also says EU laws passed after an independent state is declared will be automatically integrated into Catalan law. Not clear. A break from Spain would leave Catalonia outside the EU, but it could aim to continue using the euro, as non-EU members Kosovo and Montenegro do. Exit from the bloc would mean Catalan lenders cease to be supervised by the European Central Bank, whose deposit insurance scheme protects bank customers. HOW WOULD CATALONIA MANAGE TRADE RELATIONS AND IMMIGRATION? The exact terms of future trade relationships have not been set out, but the legislation says the Catalan government acts in accordance with the customs and excise regime set out in EU law. International treaties signed by Spain are incorporated into Catalan law provided that they are considered compatible with application there. The Catalan government will decide within one year which treaties to authorize. Foreigners have the same rights and obligations as Catalan citizens, but citizenship is required for those holding positions of public power. Anyone born in Catalonia who does not have any other legal citizenship is considered Catalan. The current Supreme Court of Justice of Catalonia becomes the new Supreme Court of Catalonia. The current civil and criminal court is divided into separate civil and criminal chambers. A Superior Court of Guarantees is created to handle any appeals and conflicts of jurisdiction. This consists of the chairman of the Supreme Court, the chairmen of the other four chambers and two judges appointed by parliament. Spanish citizens resident in Catalonia since before Dec. 31 2016 are deemed citizens, while those who took up residency after Dec. 31, 2016 but before the self-determination law takes hold can apply for citizenship after two years. Those who were born in Catalonia, have Catalan parents or have lived in the region for at least five years in the past, but are not resident there, can also apply for citizenship. Babies born to or adopted by Catalan parents after independence is declared are considered citizens. Catalan citizenship can be acquired by legal and continuous residence in Catalonia for a period of five years immediately prior to the request. For foreigners, the legal residence time includes that which has elapsed before the law comes into force. An applicant to be a Catalan citizen does not have to give up their citizenship of Spain or any other country. | 0fake |
Trump seen more moderate on criminal justice, law enforcement | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Criminal justice reform advocates said they expect Donald Trump will embrace moderate change once he is in the White House, toning down the punitive but undefined “law and order” image he projected on the campaign trail. In another instance of experts trying to pin down Trump on an issue he used on the stump without offering much detail, two groups that have met recently with his staff said they expect him to back mainstream sentencing and corrections reforms. A Trump spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. In a meeting a few weeks ago, Trump’s staff was “very receptive” to arguments that crime rates have dropped in states that have reduced prison populations through sentencing reform, said Holly Harris, executive director of the U.S. Justice Action Network, a bipartisan coalition that spearheads legislative efforts to lower sentences for nonviolent offenders. Democratic President Barack Obama, many Republicans in Congress and several of Trump’s conservative mentors have embraced changing sentencing standards and better prisons. During the campaign, Trump denounced Obama as being too soft on inner-city violence and for extremist plots against the United States and attacks on police officers. For instance, in the Oct. 19 presidential debate with Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, Trump said: “We need law and order, but we need justice, too. Our inner cities are a disaster. You get shot walking to the store. They have no education. They have no jobs.” But in the same month, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence, said he was proud that Indiana approved criminal justice reform during his tenure as governor. “We have got to do a better job recognizing and correcting the errors in the system that do reflect an institutional bias in criminal justice,” he said. Tim Head, executive director of the conservative Christian Faith and Freedom Coalition, said his group has held advisory talks with the president-elect’s staff in recent days. Head said Trump’s Justice Department is likely to emphasize greater “support for law enforcement, maybe deference for law enforcement” than Obama did. But Head and Harris also both noted that Republicans close to Trump, such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have advocated for reforms such as lowering sentences for some nonviolent crimes, improving prison conditions and helping former prisoners find jobs and housing. Christie and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani are reportedly on a short list of conservatives whom Trump is considering for U.S. attorney general. Inimai Chettiar, director of justice programs at the Brennan Center for Justice of New York University, said Trump made some “troubling” campaign-trail claims. One, she said, was arguing that rising crime justifies stop-and-frisk tactics and other police methods that critics say unfairly target minorities. However, she said, she also hoped the president-elect would fall in line with members of the Republican Party who support bipartisan criminal justice reform. | 0fake |
Muslims flee Indian village after singer killed in argument with Hindu priest - police | NEW DELHI (Reuters) - At least 200 Muslims have fled their village in the western Indian state of Rajasthan after a Hindu priest and his friends were alleged to have killed a Muslim folk singer late last month, police said on Wednesday. Trouble erupted in Dantal village near the India-Pakistan border on Sept. 27, when a Hindu priest accused folk singer Ahmad Khan of making mistakes while reciting hymns to evoke a Hindu goddess. Khan, 45, was a member of the Langa Manganiyar community that has been singing Hindu religious songs and spiritual verses in temples and at festivals for generations. The priest suggested changes to the hymn, leading to an argument. Police said the priest, Ramesh Suthar, and his friends then broke Khan s musical instruments and killed him. The news of the murder triggered unrest between Hindus and Muslims who have been living together for generations, said Gaurav Yadav, a senior police officer investigating the case. He did not say how Khan was killed, but said Suthar had been arrested. The priest s accomplices had fled, Yadav said. Two of Suthar s family members said he was in shock and refused to talk about the case. Government authorities had sent paramilitary forces to the area but the Muslims, fearing clashes, refused to return home. For one small mistake the Hindus killed my brother, said Rakha Khan, the dead singer s cousin. We can t live in the same village ever again. Rakha Khan said they had sought refuge in a school and that the state government office and other local authorities were providing them with food. The attack is the latest in a series of incidents targeting the minority Muslim community in states ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi s Hindu nationalist party. Since his Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014, hardline Hindu groups and cow protection vigilantes have carried out numerous attacks on Muslims accused of eating beef or killing cows. Many Hindus believe cows are sacred and killing them is banned in some states. | 0fake |
VIOLENT PROTEST Outside Trump Rally In Pittsburgh As Cops Come Down On Black Lives Matter Thugs [Video] | You can thank the racist Black Lives Matter PAID PROTESTERS for this mayhem. They re trying to make it appear as though the people who support Trump are violent racists. The police should use their full force to stop this now because it ll set an example for future attempts to rally. Law and order comes first! You can blame Obama s buddy George Soros for stirring up this chaos. BTW-Trump has done NOTHING racist! He wants our border closed to illegals for the safety of Americans. He also wants a moratorium on Muslim refugees which is exactly what our FBI and DHS would recommend because they ve said we CANNOT vet these refugees. So what s the beef? | 1real |
House Speaker Ryan says U.S. sanctions against Russia should stay | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Friday the United States should keep its sanctions against Russia, amid speculation that President Donald Trump may lift the punitive measures imposed under former President Barack Obama. “I think Obama was late in putting them in place, so I think they should stay,” Ryan said in an interview with Politico. Ryan, the top Republican in the U.S. Congress, was responding to a question about comments by Republican Senator John McCain that if Trump lifted the restrictions, he would work to “codify sanctions against Russia into law.” | 0fake |
U.S. House passes sanctions on Iran-backed Hezbollah | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday backed new sanctions on Lebanon s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, part of an effort to take a tough line against Tehran without immediately moving to undermine an international nuclear agreement. Three Hezbollah-related measures passed by voice vote, without opposition. The House will vote on Thursday on another bill, to impose additional sanctions on Iran related to its ballistic missiles program. President Donald Trump said on Oct. 13 he would not certify Iran is complying with an international agreement on its nuclear program, and threatened that he might ultimately terminate the accord. Trump s action opened a 60-day window for Congress to act to reimpose sanctions on Iran s nuclear program that were lifted under the agreement, but there has been no move to do so in the House or Senate. Aides said that, for now, House lawmakers are focusing on clamping down on Iran in other ways such as the Hezbollah and missile-related sanctions. The first of the Hezbollah-related measures passed on Wednesday would impose new sanctions on any entities found to support the group, such as by providing weapons to Hezbollah. The second imposes sanctions on Iran and Hezbollah for using civilians as human shields. The third was a resolution urging the European Union to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The United State named Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Earlier this month, Washington offered multimillion-dollar rewards for two of its officials as the Trump administration developed its strategy for countering Iran s growing regional influence. These critical measures will impose new sanctions to crack down on Hezbollah s financing, and hold it accountable for its acts of death and destruction, said Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. However, winning international support for an intensified campaign against Hezbollah could prove difficult. The powerful organization is part of Lebanon s fragile coalition government and commands enormous support for the social services it provides. | 0fake |
The Epicenter of the Moral Universe is Our Common Humanity, Not Religion | shorty BY REV. WILLIAM ALBERTS T he common humanity everyone shares should be the epicenter of the moral universe. Not religion. Our religious founders and saints have different beginnings and beliefs, but all of us share similar birth stories, and at the moment of birth we are most alike. We have different faith traditions, but the same universal need to be loved and to love. We speak different languages, but laugh alike. We don’t look alike, but our facial expressions tell the same story – of surprise and pleasure, frustration and anger, joy and sadness. We sing different anthems — with the same pride. We may regard each other as foreigners, yet we love and grieve the same. Anywhere in the world, when people are oppressed, their innate human response is to struggle for justice. Everyone bleeds human. Thus the common humanity all people share is the frame of reference for the moral universe. And our common humanity is powerfully expressed in most religions’ shared belief in The Golden Rule: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7: 12) But, to everyone’s endangerment, political and faith leaders alike are redefining and thus shrinking the moral universe to accommodate their self-interests. Their selective morality is especially seen in today’s presidential campaign. For many white evangelical Christians, morality takes a back seat to belief. Jesus is recorded as teaching, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25: 36), and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 39). Yet a high majority of evangelicals and their leaders have had no problem supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, despite his denigration of women, Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, black persons and even a disabled reporter. In fact, a number of evangelical Christian leaders have formed a Faith Advisory Council to help guide Trump’s presidential campaign, and evangelical ministers are repeatedly photographed surrounding him and laying their hands on him in prayer. It is about their religious beliefs, not his immoral behavior. Numerous white evangelical Christian leaders have an unwavering faith in Donald Trump. Recently, a video showed an “aroused” Trump boasting about being a compulsive sexual predator, who is “automatically attracted to beautiful . . . I just start kissing them . . . It’s like a magnet . . . I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star . . . you can do anything” to them, including, “grab them by the pussy.” (“US election: Full transcript of Donald Trump’s obscene videotape”, BBC News , Oct. 8, 2016) Ironically, in the second presidential debate, shortly before the video surfaced, Donald Trump told Hillary Clinton that, as president, he would have a special prosecutor investigate her misuse of emails when Secretary of State, and said to her, “You’d be in jail.” Actually, Trump’s self-reported sexual assaults on women indicate he should be prosecuted, and jailed if found guilty – and, when released, be registered as a sex offender – for the protection of unsuspecting women. While the leaked videotape has led some white evangelical Christian supporters to distance themselves from Donald Trump’s campaign, many others still support him, believing that he will “make America great again” — to their Biblical liking . Typical is Ralph Reed, leader of Trump’s religious advisory board and founder and chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. The father of two daughters, Reed was reported as being “disappointed by” Trump’s “ ‘Inappropriate’ comments.” But Reed said, “I think a 10-year-old tape of a private conversation with a TV talk show host ranks pretty low on their [evangelical voters] hierarchy of their concerns.” He stated that, “people of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defend religious freedom, grow the economy, appoint conservative judges and oppose the Iran nuclear deal.” (“ ‘Still the best candidate’: Some evangelicals still back Trump despite lewd video,” By Sarah Pulliam Bailey, The Washington Post , Oct. 8, 2016) For Ralph Reed and many other evangelical Christian leaders and their flocks, it is the authority of their selective Biblical beliefs. The Bible says, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1: 27) Therefore, these evangelical leaders believe that unborn American children are more worthy of protection than already born Muslim children and adults – who are protected, by “the Iran nuclear deal,” from another falsely-based, Iraqi-type, pre-emptive U.S. invasion. The aim of evangelical Christian leaders is not just to protect the unborn, but to proselytize those already born, especially Muslims. Thus a reported “87 percent of all white evangelical Christians in the United States supported” the George W. Bush Administration’s illegal pre-emptive invasion of defenseless Iraq — certain evangelical leaders even “claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims.” (“Wayward Christian Soldiers, By Charles Marsh, The New York Times , Jan. 20, 2006) In the wake of that devastating criminal war, certain evangelical groups, like Muslim-hating Rev. Franklin Graham and his Samaritan’s Purse organization, flocked to Iraq to join the “humanitarian effort,” with the motivation to harvest for Jesus the Muslims fortunate enough to survive the slaughter. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations said of this obscenely immoral reality: “Franklin Graham obviously thinks it is a war against Islam. . . . This is a guy who gave the invocation at President Bush’s inauguration and believes Islam is a wicked faith. And,“ Hooper questioned, “he’s going into Iraq in the wake of an invading army and convert people to Christianity? Nothing good is coming from that.” (“Group to Aid, Proselytize in Postwar Iraq,” By Deborah Caldwell, ABC News , March 27, 2003) Nothing good came out of that worst war crime of the 21 st century. It merely provided another tragic example of the fact that “American exceptionalism” and belief that Jesus is “the savior of the world” are two sides of the same imperialistic coin. For many evangelical Christians, it is about belief, not behavior. It is about Psalm 139: “For you created my innermost being: you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (verses 13, 14) It is about, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” (Leviticus 18: 25) And Jesus is reported as saying to Pharisees, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning made them male and female. . . . For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?” (Matthew 19: 4, 5) Abortion, homosexuality and same-sex marriage are all an “abomination.” It is one’s birth that counts, Not the circumstances surrounding pregnancy and birth. Nor the individual’s “innermost being” after birth. Especially not one’s “ innermost being” leading one to “leave father and mother and be joined” in love to one’s same-sex partner. Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence is a classic example of the Biblically-shrunken moral universe of many evangelical Christians. In his debate with Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Tim Kaine, Pence said, “For me the sanctity of life proceeds out of the belief . . . where God says before you were formed in the womb, I knew you and so . . . I sought to stand with great compassion for the sanctity of life.” (“The most important exchanges of the vice presidential debate, annotated,” LA Times , Oct. 4, 2016) “The sanctity of life” before a child is born. As governor of Indiana, Mike Pence signed a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” that, as reported, “would have allowed businesses to refuse service to LGBT customers, for example, by citing their religious beliefs.” That legislation cost Indiana dearly in lost revenue from the boycott of celebrities and conventions that cancelled their planned appearances and meetings in the state. Documented is Pence’s consistent opposition to “marriage equality,” his opposition to “protecting LGBT employees,” and his refusal to support “LGBT-inclusive hate-crimes legislation.” (”Donald Trump Clearly Didn’t ‘Ask the Gays’ About Mike Pence,” By Advocate.com Editors/Authors, advocate.com , July 15, 2016) For Pence, “the sanctity of life” ends at birth. It is about belief in the inerrancy of The Bible – which then becomes the epicenter of the moral universe for word-for-word- Bible -believing Christians. Here one finds certainty and authority, which allow one to seek to convert other persons to one’s true beliefs, rather than engage with them, and the truths they live by, as equals. Thus for such Bible -believing Christians, it is not about loving your neighbor as yourself as Jesus taught, but wanting your neighbor to be like yourself. The Bible allows them to act out their need to gain power over and control other persons – and allay their own innermost anxieties and doubts. The Bible is often used by people to avoid understanding why they behave as they do. Forgiveness covers a multitude of sins, and while liberating one from conscious guilt, may provide little self-insight into one’s behavior. Unquestioning belief in “the “Word of God” allows those with anti-introspective tendencies to dismiss scientifically-based psychological knowledge of human development and behavior that contradicts the Source of their authority. This belief allows them to dumb down their God to accommodate their cultural conditioning and rationalizations. Again, the words of Republican vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence are revealing. After Donald Trump gave a brief automatic apology for his sexually abusive behavior toward women in that videotape, Pence used words of faith to make Trump’s compulsive criminal behavior disappear. “ ‘We all fall short of the glory of God,’ “ Pence said, “and praised Trump for his ‘humility’ in asking forgiveness.” Pence continued, “It takes a big man to know when he is wrong and to admit it and to have the humility to apologize and be transparent and be vulnerable with people. . . . Donald Trump last night showed that he is a big man.” (“Pence: Trump showed ‘humility’ with apology,” By Jessie Hellmann, TheHill , Oct. 10, 2016) In a New Hampshire campaign speech, which was greatly lauded by mainstream media, Michelle Obama said entirely different words regarding Donald Trump’s lewd video boasts about sexually assaulting women. While effectively denouncing Trump’s self-professed criminal behavior toward women, she took the occasion to declare that the epicenter of the moral universe is America and that Hillary Clinton possesses the moral compass. “Shaken to my core” by Trump’s “lewd comments,” Mrs. Obama emphasized that, “the measure of any society is how it treats its women and girls.” Then, referring to Trump, she said, “We have a candidate for President of the United States who . . . last week . . . [was] actually bragging about sexually assaulting women. . . . The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman.” (“Read Michelle Obama’s Speech Condemning Donald Trump’s Comments About Women,” By Katie Reilly, motto.time.com , Oct. 13, 2016) Michelle Obama then pivoted to Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy, saying, “I believe with all my heart that Hillary Clinton will be that president . . . who truly cares about us and our children.“ Thus, she said, “If we let Hillary’s opponent win this election . . . we won’t be just setting a bad example for our kids, but for our entire world. Because, “she added, “ for so long America has been a model for countries across the globe, pushing them to educate their girls, insisting they give more rights to their women.” She called America “the greatest nation on earth,” and also stated, “We have the power to show our children that America’s greatness comes from recognizing the inherent dignity and worth of all our people.” ( Ibid ) “The measure of any society is how it treats its women and girls.” How about: the measure of any society is also how it treats the women and girls in other societies ? That measure goes to the heart of The Golden Rule and the epicenter of the moral universe. And with that inclusiveness as the measure, Hillary Clinton fails miserably. If “the measure of any society is how it treats its women and girls,” Iraq was measuring up comparably well. Under Saddam Hussein’s rule, Iraq’s education system was reported to be “top notch and female literacy rates were the highest in the region.” In fact, “education was a major priority for Saddam Hussein’s regime, so much so that in 1982 Iraq received . . . the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) award for eradicating illiteracy.” Furthermore, “Women were integral to Iraq’s economy and held high positions in both the private and public sectors, thanks in large part to labor and employment laws that guaranteed equal pay, six months fully paid maternity leave and protection from sexual harassment . . . conditions enjoyed by working women in Iraq rival[ing] those of working women in the United States.” (“Was Life for Iraqi Women Better Under Saddam?,” By Rania Khalek, muftah.org , March 19, 2013) Also reported, “Iraq had one of the best national health care systems in the Middle East. . . . and the Iraqi people enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East.” (“Living Conditions in Iraq: A Criminal Tragedy,” by Ghali Hassan, globalresearch.ca , June 3, 2005) Then came the devastating U.S.-controlled UN economic sanctions that resulted in the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children under five years of age. Following those murderous sanctions, the George W. Bush administration, with the support of then Senator Hillary Clinton, launched an illegal, falsely-based pre-emptive was against defenseless Iraq. That unnecessary criminal war killed over a million Iraqi civilians, left some two million Iraqi women widowed, and an estimated five million girls and boys orphaned. (“Was life for Iraqi Women Better Under Saddam?,” Ibid) And loved ones are grieving for almost 5,000 American troops killed and over 100,000 wounded in body and mind. In response to this carnage, Hillary Clinton said her vote for the invasion of Iraq was a “mistake” – as she announced her candidacy for president in the 2016 campaign. And with her candidacy, she cites her “lifelong commitment to fighting for children and families,” saying, “I’ve spent my life fighting for children, families and our country and I’m not stopping now.” (“Documentary Style Ad Features Hillary Clinton’s Lifelong Record Fighting for Children and Families, hillaryclinton.com ) With her presidential campaign supported by American Iraq war hawks, nothing may stop her from continuing to destroy “children and families” in other societies. (See, “Neocon War Hawks Want Hillary Clinton Over Donald Trump. No Surprise – They’ve Always Backed Her,” By Branko Marcetic, inthesetimes.com , March 23, 2016) It is the same story with Libya. If “the measure of a society is how it treats its women and girls,” Libya excelled. According to Harvard researcher Dr. Garikai Chengu, “Gaddafi’s Libya was Africa’s most prosperous democracy.” Concerning women, Chengu writes “The United Nations Human Rights Council praised Mr. Gaddafi profusely [for] women’s rights.” They included “the right to education, hold jobs, divorce, hold property” and “equal pay for equal work.” Plus, “Libyan working mothers enjoyed a range of benefits including cash bonuses for children, free day care, free health care centers and retirement at 55.” Education was a human right and it was free for all Libyans. And “health care was a human right.” (“Gaddafi’s Libya was Africa’s Most Prosperous Democracy,” Foreign Policy Journal , Jan. 12, 2013) Dr. Chengu states that “prior to Colonel Gaddafi, King Idris let Standard Oil essentially write Libya’s petroleum laws. Mr. Gaddafi put an end to all of that.” He deposited the “money from oil proceeds . . . directly into every Libyan citizen’s bank account.” Chengu muses: “One wonders if Exxon Mobil and British Petroleum will continue this practice under the new democratic Libya?” He also asks: “With regard to health care, education and economic justice, is America in any position to export democracy to Libya or should America have taken a leaf out of Libya’s book?” He then adds this commentary: “Therefore, isn’t it ironic that America supposedly bombarded Libya to spread democracy, but increasingly education in America is becoming a privilege, not a right, and ultimately a debt sentence.” ( Ibid ) Col. Gaddafi himself looked at the invasion and plunder of Iraq, and saw the handwriting on America’s imperialistic wall. He wrote, “They want to do to Libya what they did to Iraq and what they are itching to do to Iran. They want to take back the oil that was nationalized by these countries’ revolutions.” And, “They want to re-establish military bases that were shut down by the revolutions and to install client regimes that will subordinate the country’s wealth and labor to imperialistic corporate interests. All else is lies and deception.” (“Facts about Libya under Gaddafi that you probably did not know about!,” By mystory2323, ireport.cnn.com , Nov. 21, 2012) The rights and prosperity enjoyed by woman and girls – and everyone else – in Libya was enough to threaten any capitalistic society. Col. Gaddafi had to go. And, as reported, Hillary Clinton played a key role in his overthrow and death. In his article, “Benghazi Won’t Stick to Hillary Clinton, But the Disastrous Libyan Intervention Should,” foreign policy journalist Joel Gillin writes that, as Secretary of State, she helped to convince President Obama that a “humanitarian intervention” — in the form of military force was needed ”to stop the imminent slaughter of civilians in Benghazi” – the intervention opposed by Robert Gates, then Secretary of Defense, “and other top national security officials.” Gillin states that “no solid evidence existed to back up Clinton’s statements of the impending bloodbath in Benghazi.” ( New Republic, May 27, 2015) (See also, “Even Critics understate how catastrophically bad the Hillary Clinton-led NATO bombing of Libya was,” By Ben Norton, salon.com , Mar. 2, 2016) In his article, “Who said Gaddafi had to go?,” Hugh Roberts, professor of North African History, wrote that the decision “was to declare Gaddafi guilty in advance of a massacre of defenseless civilians and instigate a process of destroying his regime and him (and his family) by way of punishment of a crime he was yet to commit, and actually unlikely to commit, and to persist with this process despite his repeated offers to suspend military action.” Ironically, Roberts states, it was the U.S.-led NATO forces that committed a “blood bath” against the Libyan people, not Muammar Gaddafi. Possibly 25,000 Libyans were killed, “many thousands injured and hundreds of thousands . . . displaced.” ( London Review of Books , Nov. 17, 2011) How many of those victims were women and girls? Afterwards, Secretary of State Clinton appeared on television, and in response to the news of the toppling of Col. Gaddafi’s government and his brutal death, she laughed and chuckled, “We came, we saw, and he died!” (“See Flashback 2011: Hillary Clinton Laughs About Killing Muammar Gaddafi: ‘We Came, We Saw, He Died!’,” realclearpolitics.com , Posted June 19, 2015) That shocking television scene provides insight into her circumscribed morality. “The measure of a society is how it treats its women and girls.” Tell that to the Palestinian people. Hillary Clinton repeatedly says that “women’s rights are human rights.” But in her mind, that does not apply to Palestinian women and girls. In an article, “Hillary Clinton Is No Feminist: Just Look at Her Stance on Palestine,” Nadia Elia, Diaspora Palestinian writer and political commentator, quotes “a young Palestinian student, Layali Awwad,” who, in a letter to Clinton, wrote, “When you choose to speak about my homeland, not once do you mention Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinian women and children.” Elia continues, “In 2014, Clinton again expressed full support for Israel as it was engaging in a massive military assault on Gaza,” whereas “even the mainstream US media, while otherwise supportive of Israel, repeatedly commented on the disproportionate number of women and children killed by Israeli fire.” And when a journalist asked Clinton “about the bombing of a UN school where homeless civilians had taken shelter, she began with her formulaic ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ reply.” Elia states that, “fifteen people were killed in that bombing and more than 100 injured, but to her ‘women and children’ were merely a complication.” ( commondreams.com , Aug. 8, 2016) To Hillary Clinton, “the measure of how a society treats its women and children” does not apply to how the occupying Israeli power treats Palestinian women and children. Nada Elia sums up Clinton’s moral blind spot this way: “We can go back to every instance of Israel violating international law and the human rights of Palestinians and Clinton will invariably be on the side of the oppressor, the illegal occupier, the racist regime. This is not what feminism is about.” Elia then says, “Feminism is not only concerned with women and children, but also seeks to eliminate various systems of structural violence. And,” she states, “while the examples above are from Palestine, we can look elsewhere, around the globe to see how detrimental her hawkish political interventions have proven, from Pakistan to Libya, Honduras and beyond.” ( Ibid ) There is also the Clinton campaign’s demonizing of President Putin, and linking him as favoring Donald Trump’s candidacy. And the campaign’s attempt to deflect the revelation of Hillary Clinton’s dishonesty, revealed in her emails, leaked by WikiLeaks: by alleging, without documented proof, that the emails were hacked by the Russians to influence the U.S. election on behalf of Trump’s campaign. Echoes of McCarthyism and the “Communist scare?” Never mind that the emails reveal a two-faced Clinton, telling bankers in private, who paid her around $225,000 for a speech, that they can count on her, and saying to voters in public what she believes they want to hear. Donald Trump’s crime is his compulsion to sexually assault individual women. If he obtains the power of the presidency, his delusions of grandeur, paranoia, distortion of reality and impulsiveness would be boundlessly destructive. Hillary Clinton’s crime is her compulsion to militarily assault whole countries. As president, she would continue America’s imperialistic global war on terrorism, with countless more women and girls at risk. In 2005, the United Methodist News Service reported that a delegation of five United Methodist Bishops paid a “pastoral visit” to President George W. Bush at the White House. They “presented Bush, a fellow United Methodist, with a Bible signed by the Council of Bishops, and they shared a moment of prayer with him.” Their “pastoral visit” also included “telling the president . . . they shared his commitment to building a better world.” (“United Methodist bishops meet with president, open door to future,” by Tim Tanton, archives.gcah.org , May 3, 2005) Bush continued his devastating criminal war against Iraq. Later, United Methodist leaders built him a monument (The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum) on the campus of Southern Methodist University. If Hillary Clinton, a United Methodist, is elected president, beware of a delegation of proud United Methodist Bishops, with Bible in hand, visiting her at the White House. For many United Methodist leaders, the epicenter of the universe is power, not morality. The election is rigged, but not in the way Donald Trump repeatedly charges. It is rigged by the Democratic and Republican parties, and the corporate media, to limit our choices to their two immoral presidential candidates. Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton is worthy of one’s vote. The moral universe encircles all women and girls, and all men and boys – everywhere . NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS PLEASE COMMENT AND DEBATE DIRECTLY ON OUR FACEBOOK GROUP INSTALLATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. , a former hospital chaplain at Boston Medical Center, is both a Unitarian Universalist and United Methodist minister. His new book, The Counterpunching Minister (who couldn’t be “preyed” away) is now published and available on Amazon.com. The book’s Foreword, Drawing the Line, is written by Counterpunch editor, Jeffrey St. Clair. Alberts is also author of A Hospital Chaplain at the Crossroads of Humanity, which “demonstrates what top-notch pastoral care looks like, feels like, maybe even smells like,” states the review in the Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling. His e-mail address is wm.alberts@gmail.com . Note to Commenters Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com
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Activist Steyer expands agenda in bid to defeat 'dangerous' Trump | PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer is expanding his political agenda beyond climate change to embrace issues ranging from immigration to income inequality, which he expects will be critical to mustering votes for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November presidential election. Steyer, who four years ago left the hedge fund firm he co-founded in order to devote himself full-time to environmental activism, said he hoped the broader agenda for his NextGen Climate organization would help undermine Republican nominee Donald Trump. He derided the New York real estate magnate’s policies as “dangerous” and “delusional.” Steyer has directed NextGen, his main advocacy arm, to delve into immigration, racial justice, wealth inequality and education instead of just environmentalism to better drive youth and minority voter turnout for the Nov. 8 election. “We’re talking about a broader group of connected issues, and we don’t think any of them stand without the others,” Steyer told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, explaining the shift. NextGen has already produced ads in California attacking Trump on immigration and his temperament. In one, a group of young people are filmed listening to Trump describe Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers and promising to wall off the border. In another, women look into the camera as Trump’s voice is heard calling women fat, disgusting, and ugly. Steyer said he hoped the broader agenda for NextGen would help undermine Trump. “I show him no respect,” Steyer said. A Trump spokesperson was not immediately available to comment. NextGen’s shift into new issues began a few months ago, Steyer said, and was inspired by his work on California’s progressive Fair Shake commission, launched last year by a group of high-profile activists, academics and former politicians focused on wealth inequality in the state. “That was the genesis to some extent. It allowed us to look deeply at all the related issues,” he said. NextGen has spent about $20 million so far on the U.S. election, and is likely to spend at least another $55 million by election day. Steyer, who has earned a reputation as America’s most influential environmental advocate, has had mixed results in his crusade on climate change, despite the money he has poured into mobilizing voters around the issue. Steyer has battled large-scale oil industry infrastructure projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, which was rejected by the administration of President Barack Obama last year, and has sought to bolster climate-friendly politicians. In 2014, NextGen pumped around $75 million into efforts to support six climate-friendly Democratic candidates in mid-term elections, but only two of whom won their contests. In the current presidential contest, NextGen has fallen short of its aim make climate change a critical issue, eclipsed by voter rage over issues including immigration, the economy and national security. Reuters/Ipsos polling shows only about 25 percent of likely American voters will make a choice on the basis of a candidate’s views on climate change, although most agree that the United States should act to combat it. Steyer endorsed Clinton last month after she clinched the Democratic nomination following a heated battle against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Clinton has said she would seek to advance renewable energy use, boost regulation and reduce U.S. consumption of oil and coal if elected. “I can take them at their word that they are going to prioritize this,” Steyer said. Trump has called climate change a hoax and has vowed to cut U.S. environmental regulation to expand U.S. drilling and coal mining, part of his bid to win over blue collar voters. Steyer called that position dangerous. “It would be funny if it weren’t so serious,” he said. | 0fake |
Money Laundering Scheme Exposed: 14 Pro-Clinton Super PACs, Nonprofits Implicated |
There’s a reason David Brock, founder of the liberal group Media Matters for America, chooses to house an unregistered professional solicitor in his office to raise money for his conglomerate of super PACs and nonprofits.
Professional solicitors are required to disclose their active solicitation contracts. Brock wants his unregistered solicitor, the Bonner Group, to keep its client list hidden for a very specific reason.
David Brock is laundering money
Related Stories Consumers Need Protection From New Consumer Protection Bureau Rule Here’s What The Markets Are Telling Us… Exposed: Profiteers Of Governing – And These Are The Ones Who Got Caught! Brock has seven nonprofits, three super PACs, one 527 committee, one LLC, one joint fundraising committee and one unregistered solicitor crammed into his office in Washington .
Uncovered records expose a constant flow of money between these organizations.
The Bonner Group, his professional solicitor, works off a commission. Every time money gets passed around, Bonner receives a 12.5 percent cut.
Follow the money
Nonprofits are required to disclose to whom they give cash grants.
But they aren’t required to disclose who gives them cash grants.
This weak system of one-way verification is being abused by Brock. He’s been cycling money between his organizations for years, and the Bonner Group’s 12.5 percent commission gets triggered after every pass.
Trending Stories Frustrated With Media Bias, Trump Campaign Takes Its Case Directly To Voters With Nightly Show On Facebook RNC Official Takes CNN Host To Task For Claiming There Is No Media Bias Hannity Proposes A Sendoff For Obama In The Event Of A Trump Presidency In 2014, Media Matters for America raised more than $10 million.
The Bonner Group was credited for raising these funds. Media Matters paid it a $1.1 million commission.
That same year, Media Matters gave a $930,000 cash grant to Brock’s Franklin Education Forum , an organization that shares office space with Media Matters.
In 2014, the Franklin Education Forum reported $994,000 in total contributions, and 93.6 percent of that total came from Media Matters.
Surprisingly, though, the Franklin Education Forum gave full credit to Bonner for raising that money. It paid the fundraiser a $124,250 commission in 2014.
Notice what happened?
Brock’s Media Matters gave a $930,000 cash grant to Brock’s Franklin Education Forum. Brock’s Franklin Education Forum credited the Bonner Group for raising those funds, triggering the 12.5 percent commission. Brock paid the Bonner Group a $124,250 commission to solicit a cash grant … from himself! It doesn’t stop there
After the Franklin Education Forum retained $869,750, it sent a $816,224 cash grant to Brock’s Franklin Forum .
Note: The Franklin Education Forum is a 501(c)3, and The Franklin Forum is a 501(c)4. They are not the same company.
The Franklin Forum 501(c)4 paid Bonner a commission in 2013 , so it’s safe to assume the fundraiser received a $102,028 commission in 2014. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell for sure. It still hasn’t filed its taxes for 2014!
Let’s recap
Say, for example, you donate $1,062,857 to Media Matters for America. This is how David Brock would have used your charitable donation in 2014:
Media Matters would receive your $1,062,857 donation. The Bonner Group would earn a $132,857 commission. Media Matters would retain $930,000. Next, Media Matters would give what’s left of your entire donation , $930,000, to the Franklin Education Forum. The Bonner Group would “earn” a $116,250 commission. The Franklin Education Forum would retain $813,750. The Franklin Education Forum would then forward the remaining $813,750 to The Franklin Forum. The Bonner Group would “earn” a $101,718 commission. The Franklin Forum would retain $712,031. In the end, Brock’s solicitor would have pocketed $350,825, almost a third of your initial donation. That’s a far cry from the advertised 12.5 percent commission.
As bizarre as that scenario may sound, this is exactly what Brock did in 2014.
How can we be sure this is intentional?
Brock is the chairman for each of these organizations. How could he not know what’s going on?
He’s a hands-on chairman. According to their tax returns, Brock allocates time, weekly, to his organizations:
Media Matters: 31.50 hours per week Franklin Education Forum: three hours per week The Franklin Forum: one hour per week Furthermore, The New York Times reports that Brock shares a summer rental in the Hamptons with Mary Pat Bonner, the president of the Bonner Group.
Brock would have a hard time claiming ignorance on this. These transfers are intentional. He vacations with his solicitor. Case closed.
Still not convinced?
Brock didn’t even bother to give his organizations different phone numbers. They all share the same number.
What if …?
We even located the Bonner Group’s solicitation agreement with Media Matters on Florida’s Gift Givers’ Guide . Clarification on the commission can be found on page 2:
In English: Contractually, Brock has the option to exclude certain contributions from triggering the commission. In spite of this option, he intentionally chooses to trigger the 12.5 percent commission for money grants between his organizations.
Note: Yes, we are making the assumption that all of Brock’s organizations have the same solicitation agreement with the Bonner Group. Given that his organizations share the same address, board members and telephone number, we feel it’s safe to assume they also share the same solicitation agreement.
This barely scratches the surface
Utilizing public-facing tax returns, along with records submitted to the Federal Election Commission, we mapped out all the significant money transfers from 2014 that took place in Brock’s office:
Summary
This is all from just one year! No further commentary required.
We understand this may be hard to believe. We first came across this in July, and are still having a hard time wrapping our heads around it.
All of the data referenced in this article originated from publicly accessible sources. Check for yourself — we provided links to the source material in our article exposing the organizations operating in Brock’s office. These data have been sitting out in the open, gathering dust for years.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
We’ve spent months trying to find some sort of loophole to justify this activity. But there aren’t any loopholes. David Brock has something to hide. Just last month, The Daily Caller reported the following:
“Brock’s former long-time live-in boyfriend William Grey (whom Brock has thanked in several of his books) threatened to go to the IRS with damaging information about how Brock was running his Media Matters empire. What did Brock do? He paid Grey $850,000 to keep quiet. Brock reportedly had to sell his home in Rehoboth, Delaware, to come up with the money. This certainly seems to indicate that Brock was terrified about what the authorities would uncover.”
Adding to this, Fox News reported the following:
“Grey accused Brock of ‘financial malfeasance’ and threatened to undermine Brock’s fundraising efforts.
“‘Next step is I contact all your donors and the IRS,’ Grey wrote in an email dated May 19, 2010. ‘This is going to stink for you if you do not resolve this now.'”
We believe that the information presented in this article is what has Brock so terrified. We feel confident in saying, with close to absolute certainty, that David Brock is laundering money through his Media Matters conglomerate.
This article first appeared at The Citizens Audit .
The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.
What do you think? | 1real |
Pakistan debates how to fill education gaps | ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Two young boys kneel over small white tables, intently studying the Koran at a madrassa in Pakistan. The Al-Nadwa Madrassa in the hill station of Murree, 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the capital, Islamabad, is part of an established alternative system of education in the South Asian nation. Private schools, charitable institutions and religious seminaries are stepping in to supplement government-run schools to help meet the education needs of an estimated 50 million school-age children. Despite 220,000 schools nationwide, more than 20 million children are not in school, the government said in a 2016 report. The government has pumped money into schooling, with the education budget swelling by 15 percent every year since 2010, according to education consultancy Alif Ailaan. The United Nations estimates Pakistan s current education budget at 2.65 percent of GDP, roughly $8 billion, or around $150 per student. Private educators say the country s education problems are not only due to a lack of funds but also inadequate teaching. It s not the number of schools, it s the quality, the attitude, said Zeba Hussain, founder of the Mashal Schools which teaches children displaced by war in the country s north. Hussain started the charitable Mashal Schools after she met a group of refugee children while visiting the hill areas surrounding Islamabad. Federal education director Tariq Masood said blaming teachers was unfair. He said population growth and funding were the biggest challenges faced by government schools. Masood said government schools adhered to a nationwide curriculum that was being constantly reworked and improved. No one who is underqualified can enter the government system. There are fewer checks in the private system, he said. The country s poor often send their children to one of the thousands of religious madrassas (the Arabic word for school) where students live and receive Islamic instruction. Most operate without government oversight and some madrassas have been criticized for their hardline teachings of Islam. The madrassas say they provide shelter, three full meals, and a good education to young people whose families are unable to make ends meet. In certain cases people send their kids because they can t even afford to feed them, said Irfan Sher from the Al-Nadwa Madrassa. He said Pakistan s future hinged on education for its youth. The overall policy should be changed...they should understand that if they want to change the country the only way is to spread quality education, he said. | 0fake |
Trump to ask China to cut financial links with North Korea: White House official | BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will ask China to cut its financial links with North Korea and to abide by U.N. sanctions when meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, a senior White House official said on Wednesday. Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday afternoon from South Korea for a two-night stop in the Chinese capital as part of his marathon Asia tour. The U.S. president was undecided on whether to declare North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism by the end of his trip, the official said, speaking to reporters on-board Air Force One. Trump believes any talks with the North would require reducing threats, ending provocations and movement toward denuclearization and that no deal can be achieved without denuclearisation, the official added. | 0fake |
MUSLIM MIGRANT Too Sick To Work, With Wife, 8 Kids On Government Dole, Wants To Import 2nd Wife + 12 More Kids | This is probably not an untypical Muslim taxpayer supported family. Once a government makes the decision to open its borders to anyone who cares to come in and to support them, regardless of the size of family, or age of the wife (or in many cases multiple wives), it s very hard to turn off the government spigot Politicians in Denmark have condemned the asylum seeker policy which will allow Daham Al Hasan to rake in thousands in benefits once his huge family is reunited.The 47-year-old fled war-torn Syria two years ago with a wife and eight children before arriving in Denmark.The unemployed migrant, who claims to be too sick to work, has now been granted family reunification for his remaining 12 children and two wives who are still in Syria.The migrant also said the pain was so overwhelming that he could not learn Danish yet.The approval will see the Danish taxpayer fork out 214,128 Danish Kroners ( 21,883) in child support for the family each year.Outraged officials have raised concerns about the policy and suggested the Syrian man is exploiting the country s welfare system.Integration spokesperson for the Conservatives, Naser Khader, said: It is highly problematic that a Syrian refugee can be allowed to call himself sick to avoid working and learning Danish, so he can support 20 children. The politician added it should not be possible for someone who does not intend to work to be given such vast sums and called for Denmark to implement an upper limit for the number of children a person can claim contributions for.Shader said: We need to save and it can t be right that a man, who has not contributed, is granted hundreds of thousands in child support. Via: Express UK | 1real |
PUTIN PUSHES His Own Reset Button With America In A Very Surprising Move | In this chess match of political wills, Putin is coin very well against Obama.Instead of expelling the diplomats, Putin invited the children of U.S. envoys to a New Year celebration for kids held at a concert hall on the grounds of the Kremlin. He said:The diplomats who are returning to Russia will spend the New Year s holidays with their families and friends. We will not create any problems for US diplomats. We will not expel anyone. We will not prevent their families and children from using their traditional leisure sites during the New Year s holidays. Moreover, I invite all children of US diplomats accredited in Russia to the New Year and Christmas children s parties in the Kremlin.It is regrettable that the Obama Administration is ending its term in this manner. Nevertheless, I offer my New Year greetings to President Obama and his family.As it proceeds from international practice, Russia has reasons to respond in kind. Although we have the right to retaliate, we will not resort to irresponsible kitchen diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore Russian-US relations based on the policies of the Trump Administration.President-elect Donald Trump even tweeted out a response after Putin s move to take the high ground:Read more: Legal Insurrection | 1real |
Republicans Are Already Planning For Their Health Care Bill To Fail, Here’s Proof (DETAILS) | After already having several massive failures under their belts as a result of Donald Trump s presidency, it sure doesn t seem like the Republican Party has much faith in the Senate s health care bill.So far, the GOP s attempt at repealing and replacing Obamacare has been one disaster after another, and the latest report from CNN shows that they might be preparing to fail one more time. It turns out, Republicans are currently trying to protect Trump from the health care bill s backlash if it fails by distancing Trump from the legislation. CNN reports:But White House top aides also see the distance as a way to inoculate Trump from considerable blame if the bill fails, a nod to the President s low approval rating and waning political capital. No one knows the Senate better than McConnell, one White House official said when asked about Trump s involvement, an acknowledgment that he is taking the lead. A Republican Senate aide agreed. This is a leadership bill, sink or swim. All credit and all blame stays in the Senate, the aide said, adding this political reality: This gives the President cover, in a sense, if it fails. Now, in all fairness, the GOP might have chosen to keep Trump far away from this health care bill because the more he s involved in something, the worse the outcome is. It s extremely likely that Republicans feel that Trump will either say or do something to mess everything up, and that s why they don t want him getting his little orange hands in it. However, from the White House s perspective, the Trump administration is more than okay with this bill s possible (and likely) failure falling on Mitch McConnell instead of Trump, whose approval rating continues to dwindle.The separation of Trump from the GOP health care bill is a telling one, and it s one that the Republicans have done on their own. They must be sensing that the bill is in trouble, and are taking precautions to safeguard Trump.Featured image via Mark Wilson / Getty Images | 1real |
Boston Globe: Donald Trump ’YouTube’s Biggest New Star’ - Breitbart | Donald Trump’s weekly presidential addresses have become YouTube hits. Unlike the addresses of past presidents — which attracted little attention — Trump’s videos have “become surprise online blockbusters — with record numbers of Internet viewers,” the Boston Globe’s Annie Linskey reports. [From the Boston Globe, “He loves doing them,” said Cliff Sims, a West Wing staffer who oversees the address and meets the president each week, often first thing in the morning, with a folder containing the script. “The most powerful weapon we have in our communications arsenal is President Trump speaking directly to the American people. ” The average audience for Trump’s first 15 weekly addresses was 1. 7 million views. That’s more than three times as big as the average viewership Obama received in the same time period last year, according to a Globe analysis of publicly available data. … Each week the Democrats faithfully offer a rebuttal of sorts with their own address. (Under Obama the Republicans did this, too.) The job of delivering an opposition message rotates between the Democrats in House of Representatives and the Senate. These are not as popular. For the rest of the article, click here. | 0fake |
Chelsea Clinton to Receive ’Lifetime Impact Award’ from Variety Magazine | Chelsea Clinton will receive a “Lifetime Impact Award” as one of Variety magazine’s Lifetime Impact Honorees for humanitarian work. [Variety magazine and the Lifetime television network will honor Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, along with five other women April 18 at its annual “Women in Power” luncheon at Cipriani in midtown Manhattan, the Hill reported. “At the heart of New York City is a vibrant community of strong women in entertainment, media, and politics whose commitment to philanthropy is inspirational,” said Michelle Sobrino Stearns, Group Revenue Officer of Variety, in a statement released Monday. “We are delighted to be celebrating these women along with the women profiled in our annual New York Women’s Impact List with our partners at Lifetime. ” The other women being recognized at the event include CBS This Morning’s Gayle King, actresses Jessica Chastain, Blake Lively, and Audra McDonald, as well as media executive Shari Redstone. Clinton will be honored “for her work with Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which empowers kids to develop lifelong healthy habits,” according to Variety. Event organizers say more than 400 “entertainment and media insiders” are expected to attend. Saturday Night Live cast member Vanessa Bayer will host the event. The luncheon will take place just days after the Clinton Global Initiative is expected to shut down. While Clinton has stoked speculation that she will run for public office for a House or Senate seat, she has not announced a run, and sources close to her say she is not running for office. | 0fake |
Turkey Was an Unlikely Victim of an Equally Unlikely Coup - The New York Times | If the attempted coup in Turkey came as a surprise, there was good reason: The event went against decades of research on how, when and why coups happen. Friday night’s uprising appeared to diverge wildly from the usual patterns. And political scientists who study coups say Turkey should have been at little risk. Secretary of State John Kerry, reiterating support for Turkey’s government, expressed the bafflement felt by many observers. “It surprised everybody, including the people in Turkey,” Mr. Kerry said, adding, “I must say it does not appear to be a very brilliantly planned or executed event. ” The gap between Turkey’s insurrection and other coups helps explain why the attempt failed. But it also underscores how many basic questions remain unanswered. Coups are usually driven not solely by individual plotters, but also by structural factors. Political scientists, by tracking factors like economic trends, political freedoms and public health, have identified several predictive patterns. Jay Ulfelder, who works in the area of political forecasting, has developed a mathematical model that synthesizes this data to predict a country’s level of risk. Turkey, said Mr. Ulfelder’s research, done in conjunction with the Early Warning Project, was a “very unlikely” candidate for a coup, he said in an email. It had only a 2. 5 percent probability of an attempted coup, based on 2016 data. That placed it 56th out of 160 countries, between Laos and Iran, and was within a range considered stable. countries tend to have high rates of infant mortality, a common measurement of poverty, and poorly performing economies. Turkey’s economy has been growing, and infant mortality has been rapidly declining. Mr. Ulfelder has also found that a country is less likely to face a coup when there is armed conflict in nearby states, perhaps because of a effect. While Turkey has a history of coups, the country has changed considerably since its last, in 1997, and Mr. Ulfelder stressed that what mattered more was its nearly 20 years without one. Another crucial factor is what experts call elite fragmentation. If divisions open up among powerful elites — elected officials, business leaders, generals, judges and so on — their competition for resources and control can culminate in a coup. There is, as yet, no sign of such a split in Turkey. The growing economy gives elites reason to maintain the status quo. And while state institutions are imperfect and rates of corruption could be better — both factors that can lead elites to compete for resources — neither is bad enough to cause a crisis. Turkey also does not have the kind of social polarization that disaffected elites often exploit to push forward a coup. While the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, can be a polarizing figure in electoral politics, we do not see the kind of deeper divisions, with civil society groups rallying against the state, we might expect in advance of a coup. Research suggests that carrying out a successful coup is a bit like baking a cake: There is a recipe, and if you skip steps or leave out ingredients, you’ll almost certainly fail. Turkey’s plotters didn’t follow the recipe. Successful coups tend to be waged as “coordination games,” Naunihal Singh, a professor at the Air War College, wrote in the book “Seizing Power,” which examines why coups succeed or fail. Coups work, according to this theory, when leaders convince other officers and soldiers that their success is already assured. That makes joining an act of perceived . Plotters usually accomplish this with a predictable set of steps. A huge show of force demonstrates that the weight of the military is behind the coup. A public statement by one or more public officials shows that there is elite support. And the plotters usually establish tight control over the media and the flow of public information, quashing any broadcasts that would undermine the sense of inevitable and unchallenged success. Successful coups in countries like Turkey, which have strong military and political institutions, typically follow an “institutional coup” model, according to Brian Klaas, a fellow at the London School of Economics. In an institutional coup, the military is unified behind the takeover and uses its full power to force control over the government — as senior Turkish military leaders did in 1980. In that scenario, the coordination game is fairly simple. All of the coordination by the military elite happens before the coup even begins — and then other elites have little choice but to fall in line. When the uprising represents only a faction of officers, Mr. Klaas said, the confidence game can also require quickly seizing top leaders and persuading or forcing a senior officer to publicly declare the coup’s victory, creating an appearance of success before anyone figures out what happened. This time, Turkey’s dissident officers tried to take only some of these steps, and succeeded in none of them. Rebels deployed tanks and air power in a show of force in Istanbul and Ankara, but this was not enough to intimidate the rest of the military, which eventually overcame them. Most notably, there was no public face of the coup to demonstrate elite support or issue a clear plan. The insurrectionists also tried but failed to control communication with the public. President Erdogan was able to use the FaceTime smartphone app to call a TV station, a bizarre scenario that risked the appearance of weakness but also sapped plotters’ momentum and allowed him to call for the public to flood the streets in opposition. Turkish internet and cellphone service remained in operation. This allowed the government to communicate on social media and helped news of protests spread, undermining the coup’s sense of inevitability. Those protests — and the absence of visible crowds — may have also been key to thwarting the plot. Successful coups will often exploit or even coordinate with movements, using this show of popular support to rally elites. Turkey’s 1997 coup leaders, for example, worked with civil society groups and others who opposed the government. Egypt’s 2013 military takeover came amid mass protests against the government. This weekend’s coup leaders appeared to lack any allies. No civil society groups or political parties issued statements in support of the insurrection, and no elites appeared to take action on its behalf. That hindsight makes the coup seem so doomed only underscores some questions. It is still unclear what prompted the attempt, who led it, and why they believed they had enough chance at success to risk their lives. If history is any guide, the most straightforward explanation is simply poor planning and ineptitude. | 0fake |
Leading Republicans, Democrats reject Trump's Obama wiretap assertion | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee issued a bipartisan statement on Thursday rejecting President Donald Trump’s assertion that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 presidential campaign. The top Republican in Congress, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, added his voice to a growing chorus of lawmakers saying there was no sign of a wiretap. In a testy briefing with reporters, White House spokesman Sean Spicer forcefully defended the president, citing news reports of intelligence collection on possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia in the presidential campaign. “There is no question that there were surveillance techniques used throughout this,” Spicer said. The Republican president, without providing evidence, has accused his predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, of wiretapping him near the end of the campaign. An Obama spokesman said that was “simply false.” “Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016,” Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Mark Warner, the committee’s Democratic vice chairman, said in a statement. Ryan also said there was no evidence of surveillance. “The point is, the intelligence committees in their continuing, widening, ongoing investigation of all things Russia, got to the bottom - at least so far - with respect to our intelligence community that - that no such wiretap existed,” the House speaker told reporters. Pressed at the White House briefing on whether Trump would back down from his wiretap accusations, Spicer said: “He stands by it.” Spicer also chastised the media for focusing so much attention on comments disparaging Trump’s claim about surveillance. He said reporters had not focused enough on comments from officials denying evidence of any collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The Russian government has rejected an accusation by U.S. intelligence agencies that it worked to influence the election in Trump’s favor by hacking computer systems, among other methods. Trump has been dogged by allegations that his associates had ties to Russian officials. Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, last month after he failed to disclose contacts with Russia’s ambassador before Trump took office on Jan. 20. An official familiar with the investigations by Congress and intelligence and law enforcement agencies said investigators had looked as aggressively and thoroughly as they could for evidence of any spying on Trump or his associates but had found none. On March 4, six weeks after he took over from Obama, Trump made the wiretap accusations in a Twitter post. “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!,” Trump wrote. At least four congressional committees included the startling accusation in their investigations of possible Russian meddling in the election campaign and Russian ties to Trump and his associates. On Wednesday, House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, a Republican, and top Democrat Adam Schiff told reporters they had seen no evidence that Trump Tower was tapped and said they would ask Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey about the issue during a public hearing on Monday. On March 9, Comey briefed Nunes, Schiff, Ryan, Burr, Warner and three other top congressional officials on the same intelligence. Trump appeared to back away from his accusation of wiretapping in a Fox News interview on Wednesday night. “But wiretap covers a lot of different things. I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks,” Trump said. | 0fake |
Momentum to bar Syrian refugees slows | Notable names include Ray Washburne (Commerce), a Dallas-based investor, is reported to be under consideration to lead the department. | 0fake |
Report on hiring, quits brightens labor market picture | Employers hired more workers in March even as the number of job openings fell slightly, the Labor Department said Tuesday.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey points to a stronger labor market two months ago than another government report suggested Friday.
Labor said last week that employers added a net 85,000 jobs in March, including hiring and layoffs, as payroll growth sputtered amid frigid weather and a pullback in drilling by oil producers, among other factors. That was the lowest total since June 2012. Job gains rebounded to 223,000 in April.
Tuesday's JOLTS report provides a more granular view of employee movements and shows a more encouraging picture. The number of hires, for example, increased by 56,000 to about 5.1 million.
Hiring increased in retail, professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality. It declined in construction, manufacturing and education and health services.
Part of the reason net job gains were weak is that layoffs and discharges also picked up, rising by 105,000, or 6.2%, to 1.8 million. At least some of those job cuts were in the oil industry, which continues to shed workers in response to low crude prices.
Meanwhile, about 2.8 million Americans quit their jobs — the most since April 2008 — up from 2.7 million in February. A large number of quits is a sign of a dynamic labor market in which workers feel confident enough to leave one job for another.
Overall, the report "helps ease concerns that the weak 85,000 (job gain total) for March was the start of a new trend," says Barclays Capital economist Jesse Hurwitz. "Confidence remains intact."
Less encouraging is that job openings fell by 150,000 to 5 million after hitting a 14-year high in February. But economist Daniel Silver of JPMorgan Chase notes that openings were still up about 18% from the year-ago period.
Another measure of the labor market's progress is that there were 1.7 unemployed workers for each job opening in March, down sharply from a high of 6.7 in 2009.
That shows the labor market is continuing to tighten, aiding job seekers, though at a slower pace than last year, Hurwitz says. He expects job gains to pick up to a solid monthly average of 200,000 to 225,000 for the rest of 2015. That would mark an uptick from the 184,000 monthly pace in the first quarter but a slowdown from last year's brisk clip of 260,000.
Last week, Labor said that employers added 223,000 jobs in April. | 0fake |
Comey’s Clinton Foundation Connection | Breitbart October 31, 2016
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A review of FBI Director James Comey’s professional history and relationships shows that the Obama cabinet leader — now under fire for his handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton — is deeply entrenched in the big-money cronyism culture of Washington, D.C. His personal and professional relationships — all undisclosed as he announced the Bureau would not prosecute Clinton — reinforce bipartisan concerns that he may have politicized the criminal probe.
These concerns focus on millions of dollars that Comey accepted from a Clinton Foundation defense contractor, Comey’s former membership on a Clinton Foundation corporate partner’s board, and his surprising financial relationship with his brother Peter Comey, who works at the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation’s taxes.
Lockheed Martin
When President Obama nominated Comey to become FBI director in 2013, Comey promised the United States Senate that he would recuse himself on all cases involving former employers.
But Comey earned $6 million in one year alone from Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin became a Clinton Foundation donor that very year.
Comey served as deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft for two years of the Bush administration. When he left the Bush administration, he went directly to Lockheed Martin and became vice president, acting as a general counsel .
How much money did James Comey make from Lockheed Martin in his last year with the company, which he left in 2010? More than $6 million in compensation .
Lockheed Martin is a Clinton Foundation donor . The company admitted to becoming a Clinton Global Initiative member in 2010.
According to records , Lockheed Martin is also a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, which paid Bill Clinton $250,000 to deliver a speech in 2010 .
In 2010 , Lockheed Martin won 17 approvals for private contracts from the Hillary Clinton State Department.
HSBC Holdings
In 2013, Comey became a board member, a director, and a Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee member of the London bank HSBC Holdings.
“Mr. Comey’s appointment will be for an initial three-year term which, subject to re-election by shareholders, will expire at the conclusion of the 2016 Annual General Meeting,” according to HSBC company records .
HSBC Holdings and its various philanthropic branches routinely partner with the Clinton Foundation . For instance, HSBC Holdings has partnered with Deutsche Bank through the Clinton Foundation to “retrofit 1,500 to 2,500 housing units, primarily in the low- to moderate-income sector” in “New York City.”
“Retrofitting” refers to a Green initiative to conserve energy in commercial housing units. Clinton Foundation records show that the Foundation projected “ $1 billion in financing ” for this Green initiative to conserve people’s energy in low-income housing units. | 1real |
BREAKING: HUGE LEGAL VICTORY FOR AMERICANS Who Were Told To Stop Speaking Out Against Obama [VIDEO] | A big slap in the face to an overreaching government who is more worried about protecting the reputations of our tyrannical president in public than our most basic right to free speech The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs in August 2014, challenging the enactment of the ordinance which restricted the plaintiffs right to demonstrate and display signs calling for the impeachment of President Obama and the end to illegal immigration on city overpasses over designated highways.U.S. District Judge David Godbey for the Northern District Court of Texas entered the consent judgment, marking the first time that the City of Dallas admitted its ordinance was an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.Erin Mersino, TMLC Senior Trial Counsel handling the case, commented, It is a good day for free speech. Overpasses for America and Valerie Villarreal may now resume their important demonstrations without fear of being fined or retaliated against by the City. We re asking our readers to consider making a donation (in any amount) to this amazing law firm who does so much to protect our freedoms from a tyrannical government: Donate to the Thomas More Law Center by clicking HEREIn November 2014, just three months after TMLC filed their initial lawsuit against the city, the Dallas City Council voted to repeal the ordinance. During the repeal process, however, the City refused to acknowledge that the ordinance unconstitutionally attacked Free Speech that criticized President Obama and the flood of illegal immigration encouraged by the Obama administration s complete disregard of federal immigration laws. The judgment entered by the District Court, however, specifically declares that the Dallas ordinance was a violation of Overpasses for America s First Amendment rights to free speech and free assembly. The judgment also awarded nominal damages as requested by the Plaintiffs in recognition of the City of Dallas violation of the Overpasses members Free Speech and Freedom of Assembly rights, and provided a settlement amount for attorneys fees and costs.Before the enactment of the City s ordinance, the North Dallas Chapter of Overpasses for America had held over 75 demonstrations on the pedestrian overpasses in Dallas, without a single traffic incident. Nevertheless, the City Council moved forward with the restrictive ordinance under the guise that it was necessary for public safety.Overpasses for America is a nonpartisan grassroots movement that calls for accountability among our nation s leaders.Overpasses for America demonstrators frequently use pedestrian overpasses to spread their messages and to reach a large and diverse audience. Several cities, however, have sought to silence these concerned citizens.Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of TMLC, stated: The concerns of a majority of Americans on crucial public issues have little impact on the Washington political establishment.That s why it s so important to defend the free speech rights of grassroots organizations like Overpasses for America, whose members feel it s their patriotic duty to get their message out and mobilize their fellow citizens. TMLC is currently representing two plaintiffs in a case challenging a similar ordinance in the Town of Campbell, Wisconsin that case is currently pending before the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.Here is the incident that took place in Campbell, WI:Here are members of the Overpasses For America group defending their free speech right in front of the Campbell, WI City Council:Via: Thomas More Law Center | 1real |
Trump Will Be President – How Alt-Market Predicted The Outcome Five Months In Advance | This article was originally published by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com and first appeared at Personal Liberty
Taking a hard-line position on the outcome of any world changing event is not an easy thing to do, especially when your position is contrary to about 99% of your peers. The chorus of voices telling you that you are wrong (or crazy) is enough to drive most people to simply parrot the majority view and avoid the incessant browbeating. The alternative media and the liberty movement suffer from this problem almost as much as the so-called mainstream does.
That said, you do what you have to do when you see a subversive play unfolding in the geopolitical game that the elites are playing.
During the first half of 2016, I made the “wild” prediction that the Brexit referendum vote would in fact be successful. Only a couple of other analysts in the world made the same prediction, but did so months beforehand and never reiterated their prediction again. I based my prediction, which I stood by to the very day of the vote, on the behavior and rhetoric I had observed among the global banking elites prior to the Brexit. The elites had adopted a steady narrative; the claim that “populists” (conservatives) were about to rise in political power, and that this would lead to the collapse of the financial world.
My theory – elites and globalists were about to open the door for conservatives to take control of a ship that was already sinking. And, once our financial ship sunk, they would blame conservative movements for the collapse that the ELITES had originally created. In other words, conservatives are being set up as scapegoats for a global fiscal crisis that has been decades in the making.
In my post-Brexit analysis article titled ‘Brexit Aftermath – Here’s What Happens Next’ , published in June, I stated:
“In light of the Brexit I’m going to have to call it here and now and predict that the most likely scenario for elections will be a Trump presidency. Trump has consistently warned of a recession during his campaign and with the Brexit dragging markets lower over the next few months, he will probably be proven “prophetic.”
….Even if Trump is a legitimate anti-establishment conservative, his entry into the Oval Office will seal the deal on the economic collapse, and will serve the globalists well. The international banks need only pull the plug on any remaining life support to the existing market system and allow it to fully implode, all while blaming Trump and his conservative supporters.
The mainstream media has been consistently comparing Trump supporters to Brexit supporters, and Trump himself has hitched his political wagon to the Brexit. This fits perfectly with the globalist narrative that populists and conservatives are killing the global economy and placing everyone at risk.”
In my article ‘2016 Will End With Economic Instability And A Trump Presidency’ I stated:
“I am consistently reminded of the Brexit surprise when I look today at the polling numbers on the U.S. election. The erratic and inconsistent polling shows Trump climbing, then suddenly sinking days later, then climbing again without any clear catalysts. Many polls contradict each other, just as the polls did before the Brexit, and, the same kind of circus atmosphere is present, if not more prevalent.
It may be possible, if not certain, that this is all a game. The Brexit outcome was predetermined, which is how elites like George Soros scored successful investment bets on the referendum passing, and the reason why the Bank for International Settlements gathered central bankers from around the world as the vote was taking place.
I believe that the U.S. presidential election has also been predetermined; with a Trump win.”
In my most recent article ‘Why The U.S. Presidential Election Has The Entire World Confused’ I stated:
“U.S. elections are indeed controlled, and have been for decades, primarily through the false left/right paradigm. However, as I have been pointing out since I correctly predicted the success of the Brexit referendum, I don’t think that Clinton is the choice of the elites.”
“To be clear, my position is that Trump is slated to take the White House and that this is by design. This has been my position since before Trump won the Republican Primaries, it was my position when the election cycle began, it has never changed, nor have my views on the reasons for this outcome ever changed…”
I have to say, I received more attacks on my Trump call than I did my Brexit call. The vast consensus was that a Hillary Clinton win was inevitable. It would seem that my position has once again been vindicated (and yes, I am congratulating myself).
The bottom line is, Trump is on the way to the White House because the elites WANT HIM THERE. Now, many liberty proponents, currently in a state of elation, will either ignore or dismiss the primary reason why I was able to predict the Brexit and a Trump win. These will probably be some of the same people that were arguing with me only weeks ago that the elites would NEVER allow Trump in office.
So, to clarify:
Trump may or may not be aware that he and his conservative followers have been positioned into a a trap. We will have to wait and see how he behaves in office (and he WILL be in office, despite the claims of some that the elites will try to “stop him” before January). My primary point is THAT IT DOES NOT MATTER, at least not at this stage. The elites will initiate a final collapse of the global economy under Trump’s watch (this will probably escalate over the course of the next six months), and they WILL blame him and conservatives in general. This IS going to happen. The elites play the long game, and so must we.
While millions of Americans are celebrating Trump’s win today, I will remain even more vigilant. The party is just getting started, folks. Don’t get too comfortable.
Stay tuned for my next article, in which I will predict the likely trends and changes that will take place through December into 2017. In the meantime, please continue to support Alt-Market so that I can keep bringing accurate analysis and predictions to the Liberty Movement.
Regards,
Brandon Smith, Founder of Alt-Market.com
If you would like to support the publishing of articles like the one you have just read, visit our donations page here . We greatly appreciate your patronage. You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com | 1real |
Hungary's Jobbik supports EU deepening with voters' blessing | BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary s main opposition Jobbik party could support deeper European integration, its chairman said on Friday, in a shift apparently aimed at bringing the far-right group closer to the political mainstream. Jobbik, which used to burn EU flags and was widely accused of racism and anti-Semitism, has tried over the past few years to convince voters it has become a more moderate conservative party that supports democratic institutions and civil rights. Chairman Gabor Vona told foreign journalists Jobbik does not want a two-speed EU, in which some member states would enjoy a lesser level of cooperation than others. Instead, it favored waiting until Europe s integration plans became clearer and then holding referendums across the EU to see which countries want to stay in. He also said Jobbik would be willing to join the euro zone as fast as economically sensible, which he called an economic issue, rather than a political one. Jobbik is a distant second behind the ruling Fidesz party in opinion polls ahead of elections due in April 2018, but it says poll results might be misleading with many voters hiding their preferences. Its policy proposals have often been echoed by Fidesz, which is also a right-wing party with strong anti-immigration views, but which has been seen as closer to the European conservative mainstream than more explicitly nationalist Jobbik. Vona said Europe was likely to transform in the next few years. Countries should wait for the bloc s trajectory to become clearer, and then all EU states should hold referendums on whether to remain members. A referendum about membership would be legitimate but not now, he said. What would we vote about? The Juncker plan? The Merkel plan? The Macron plan? We have no idea what the EU means at this moment. We should clarify this together first. Once we have that we should ask everywhere, not only in Hungary, whether people want whatever Brussels leaders cooked up or not. Hungarians have warmed considerably to the EU in recent months. According to Eurobarometer, 56 percent of them now say EU membership is a good thing , up 8 percentage points since March. That is the steepest rise in the EU. Vona said Hungary should join the euro currency as soon as possible, once public debt and competitiveness are appropriate. Ostracised in Brussels even by other far-right groups, Jobbik says it seeks to transcend traditional left-right political divisions and find new allies in the European Parliament after elections to the body in 2019. We would be happy to see... a regional alliance of central European politicians who can look past left and right and embody common Eastern issues, he said. | 0fake |
Firm behind Trump dossier declines to respond to House panel's subpoena | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. political research firm that commissioned a dossier on Donald Trump while he was running for president said on Monday it would not comply with subpoenas issued by the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee. Lawyers for Fusion GPS, which hired former British spy Christopher Steele to produce the Trump research, told the committee’s Republican chairman, U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, in a letter that the subpoenas were flawed and that nothing in the subpoenas indicated the intelligence committee had authorized him to issue them. The lawyers also questioned Nunes’ role in signing the subpoenas since he had recused himself from the committee’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. “This act is another example of how you, as chair, have run your own operation in parallel to the committee’s investigation,” they said. The lawyers noted the subpoenas, which have not been made public, ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to produce documents but pointed out that the Fusion GPS firm and its representatives who received subpoenas have no relationship with the CIA. The letter accuses the House committee of “bad faith interactions” with Fusion’s lawyers and says that “you have left us no choice but to advise our clients to assert their privileges in the face of these subpoenas.” It requests that the committee excuse the Fusion representatives from testifying before the committee and that if they are forced to appear, they “will invoke their constitutional privileges not to testify.” Representatives for Nunes did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment. In August, the Senate Judiciary committee, which also is investigating Steele’s dossier, met for more than 10 hours with Fusion founder Glenn Simpson. The committee has not released a transcript of Simpson’s testimony. The dossier assembled by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele outlined Russian financial and personal links to Trump’s campaign and associates. The Senate Intelligence Committee and special counsel Robert Mueller are looking into possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign and Mueller’s investigators have met with Steele. | 0fake |
German SPD says outcome uncertain for impending government talks | BERLIN (Reuters) - A senior member of Germany s Social Democrats (SPD) said her party would start talks next week with Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives on forming a governing coalition, a move that could end a political impasse in Europe s largest economy. The SPD voted on Thursday to open discussions with the conservatives despite having earlier pledged to go into opposition after suffering its worst election result in the post-war era in September. The consultations - between Merkel, her Bavarian ally Horst Seehofer and SPD leader Martin Schulz, as well as the parliamentary leaders of the three parties - will begin in Berlin on Wednesday evening. The result of the talks remains open and a grand coalition between the SPD and conservatives was no foregone conclusion, Andrea Nahles, the SPD s parliamentary leader, told Deutschlandfunk radio on Friday. It s no more and no less than having talks, Nahles said. It s not automatic that we ll end up in a grand coalition - rather tough discussions will be necessary, and I don t know what the conservatives are prepared to work with us on. Merkel, who has been at the helm in Germany for 12 years, hopes the SPD will agree to a re-run of the grand coalition that has governed Germany for the last four years. She was forced to turn to the SPD after talks with the environmentalist Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP) on a three-way alliance collapsed. Her conservative bloc has welcomed the SPD s decision to start initial talks. They would still need to decide later whether to proceed to full-blown coalition talks. The majority of Germans (70 percent) expect a grand coalition to form, a Forsa poll for broadcaster ZDF showed on Friday. It found almost half of Germans (47 percent) would be happy with such an alliance. Around a third (36 percent) disapproved of another conservative alliance, which would make the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) the biggest opposition party. The SPD gained two points in the Forsa poll to 23 percent; the conservatives shed a point to 32 percent. Merkel s conservatives and the SPD both saw their vote share shrink in September elections, complicating the coalition arithmetic. Their coalition remains in place as a caretaker government. Nahles said the SPD had not set any conditions for joining a coalition with the conservatives, adding: You don t go into negotiations with a huge backpack full of red lines. But she said the SPD had laid out key points, including getting rid of Germany s two-tier public and private health system - an idea the conservatives oppose. Seehofer, leader of Bavaria s arch-conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) - the sister party to Merkel s conservatives - said his party would not agree to that, telling magazine Der Spiegel he could not imagine how such a system could be implemented without causing profound injustices . Seehofer also rejected Schulz s idea to create a United States of Europe by 2025, saying that would certainly remain a utopia . On the issue of immigration - which was behind the collapse of the talks between the conservatives, Greens and FDP - Nahles said the SPD needed to take the bull by the horns . Speaking at the SPD party congress on Friday, she said Germany needed an immigration law but also a realistic recognition of the difficulties that some municipalities face in integrating refugees. | 0fake |
Life: 7 Sausages The National Park Service Has Hidden Somewhere In Yellowstone For People To Find | Email With over a thousand miles of trails, hundreds of lakes, and seven sausages hidden somewhere in there, Yellowstone should be high on your bucket list. 1. Yellowstone is home to countless species of birds, mammals, fish, and reptiles, as well as this delicious sausage, which has been carefully secreted somewhere within the confines of the park’s 3,468.4 square miles, and which is all yours if you find it. 2. Ever since the National Park Service announced that it was hiding this bratwurst somewhere in Yellowstone, annual attendance has skyrocketed 41 percent. And with this plump, tasty brat yet to be found, we can’t see that number going down anytime soon. 3. This sausage may be missing a bite, but rest assured, it will still be full of meaty flavor if you can find it hidden among Yellowstone’s many illustrious geysers and canyons. 4. Good luck finding this one before one of Yellowstone’s many wolves gobbles it up! 5. This kielbasa, hidden in a crack in the basalt of Tower Falls, can only be seen on the full moon closest to the winter solstice, so good luck getting your hands on any of its porky, smoked flavor. 6. The only hint the Park Service is giving for this one is that it’s near some rocks. 7 . The National Park Service is always looking for ways to make visiting Yellowstone more enjoyable, and by hiding this Middle Eastern sausage in a treasure chest located at the bottom of Shoshone Lake for divers to find, it’s certainly done just that. If you’ve got your eyes on this one, move fast, because there’s no telling how long this one will stick around before a daring visitor nabs it. | 1real |
German coalition impasse can be resolved, Merkel's top aide says | BERLIN (Reuters) - The chief of staff to German Chancellor Angela Merkel said he was optimistic that the parties exploring forming a government together would reach agreement despite failing to achieve a breakthrough in overnight talks. Interviewed on ARD television on Friday, Peter Altmaier said he was confident that Merkel s conservative camp, the pro-business Free Democrats and the Greens could overcome divisions on migration and climate change policy, but declined to say how long it would take. We negotiated the whole day yesterday, and that s not a bad sign - it shows that we take the task seriously and want to come together, he said. I don t want to say tomorrow or the day after, but I believe the problem is solveable. | 0fake |
Trump Gets His A** Handed To Him For Running Off Stage Because Some Guy Had A Sign | It s the fake assassination attempt heard around the world and everyone is laughing at Donald Trump.On Saturday night in Reno, Nevada the Secret Service rushed the stage and escorted Trump to his safe space after some of his paranoid supporters yelled gun because they thought a guy was gong to shoot the Republican nominee. Instead, it was just a Republican who was trying to unfurl an anti-Trump sign.Soon after, Trump returned to the stage and began talking tough like this was a real assassination attempt by thanking the Secret Service and telling the crowd that we will never be stopped. Trump s campaign has also been touting the falsehood that Trump survived an assassination attempt even though no gun was found and the man was only holding a Republicans Against Trump sign.Clearly, for all their talk of supporting gun rights, these Trump fans sure are scared of them. It sounds like these Trump supporters were just manufacturing a reason to pummel the man because he doesn t support their candidate.Trump even posted that nothing will stop us on Twitter in reference to the incident in Reno.Thank you Reno, Nevada. NOTHING will stop us in our quest to MAKE AMERICA SAFE AND GREAT AGAIN! #AmericaFirsthttps://t.co/N8EFAQDhnt pic.twitter.com/OoM3hsDWS1 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2016And then Twitter users pounded Trump for being a coward.@realDonaldTrump bro you ran away cause a dude tried to hold up a sign https://t.co/6QxXCTICBr koush (@koush) November 6, 2016@realDonaldTrump quick diaper change and back on stage I see koush (@koush) November 6, 2016@hindviswarajya @PonyboyMichaelC @sethsaler @koush @realDonaldTrump why he Russian off the stage so fast? hahahaha Becka Beck (@BeckaBeck70) November 6, 2016@realDonaldTrump There was no gun. And besides- I thought you loved guns. Why so scared, wuss? Dave Hill (@mrdavehill) November 6, 2016@Parker9_ @realDonaldTrump He s loving that Second Amendment about now, along with some clean undies! Mimi s Thoughts (@MimisThoughts1) November 6, 2016@theboxerdeli @AtheistWWonka @realDonaldTrump no gun paranoid right wingers once again Snausages (@jamesellisD) November 6, 2016@realDonaldTrump I hear the Secret Service grabbed a pussy tonight in Reno. Bad Hombre (@SPhilipGray) November 6, 2016Donald Trump and his campaign should be ashamed of themselves for touting this as an actual assassination attempt. The guy whom Trump supporters accused of having a gun did NOT have a gun and was released after speaking to Secret Service. Frankly, Trump deserved to get his ass handed to him on social media, and hopefully he will get his ass handed to him on Election Day.Featured Image: Brian Blanco/Getty Images | 1real |
Rights groups urge end to Poland's overhaul of judiciary | WARSAW (Reuters) - Plans to overhaul Poland s judiciary would end the country s status as a democratic state based on the rule of law and should be scrapped, more than two dozen rights groups and non-governmental organizations said in a petition on Wednesday. The petition, backed by Amnesty International and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights among others, came as parliament started debating amendments agreed by President Andrzej Duda and the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS). The proposals give the parliament a virtually free hand in deciding the composition of the Supreme Court and how judges are selected and are in gross conflict with the constitution, the signatories said in their petition. The introduction of these amendments will mean that Poland will definitely cease to be a democratic state of law, it said. We request the immediate stoppage of parliamentary work on (the bills) and demand the start of extensive public consultations on this. The nationalist, eurosceptic PiS, which has a parliamentary majority, says reform of the judicial system is needed because the courts are slow, inefficient and steeped in a communist-era mentality. Duda had raised hopes among critics of the plans that they could be halted when he vetoed the original PiS proposals in July, following nationwide protests and warnings from the European Union. The president, an ally of PiS, said then that the proposals gave too much power to one party and to the justice minister. But subsequent work on the amendments has been conducted in secrecy, spurring criticism from the United Nations and the European Commission that they could further damage Poland s judicial system. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of PiS and Poland s paramount politician, has met privately with Duda several times for talks. Details of those meetings have not been made public and it is not known what consensus has been reached. The president gave us some hope that the constitution would not be so continually abused, said Irena Kaminska, a judge and a member of the Themis association of judges. For a moment I had hoped there would be a breakthrough, but that has not happened. Stanislaw Piotrowicz, head of parliament s justice committee, told the PAP state news agency that lawmakers could complete work on the bills at the next session, planned for Dec. 6-8. If the bills pass they could potentially allow PiS to tighten its control of the political system, its critics said. Marcin Matczak of the Batory Foundation in Warsaw, one of the NGO signatories to the petition, said PiS would be able to change the electoral system to its own advantage because the judges would no longer challenge them. After the (court) laws are implemented the government will be able to rule eternally, he said. There will be no one to defend us. The EU is pressing a legal case against Poland over its judicial reform plans and has suggested the country could forfeit some development funds if it refuses to change course. PiS says it has a democratic mandate for its reforms. | 0fake |
Internet Erupts In Mockery After Sarah Palin Posts Something Monumentally Stupid Again (TWEETS) | on October 30, 2016 4:07 pm ·
For like the eleventy-billionth time, Sarah Palin posted a broken link to a Facebook post on Twitter Sunday. Now, at first glance her months of posting dead links and not figuring out how to fix the problem might seem moderately stupid — until you see the content of the actual post on the half-term, half-wit former Governor of Alaska’s Facebook timeline.
Referencing Clinton’s recent, mundane campaign stop at a bar, Palin — who regularly appears to be heavily intoxicated whenever she has a camera in front of her and was involved in a drunken hillbilly brawl in 2014 — quipped, “she’s gonna drive us all to drink.”
Thinking she is clever, she then adds that Clinton should have been “thinking Sam Adams” rather than “drinking Sam Adams.”
Naturally, as Palin brought up drinking, the internet decided it couldn’t let this one go: @SarahPalinUSA I see you've already started
— Clodagh Smith (@Clodagh831) October 30, 2016 @SarahPalinUSA Any excuse to drink, eh Sarah? #Lush
— John Yuma (@JohnYuma) October 30, 2016 @SarahPalinUSA Have you been day drinking again?
— Mr. Wolfcastle (@tew156) October 30, 2016 @SarahPalinUSA oh Sarah, remember when you mattered?Me neither. Open another Box O' Wine. | 1real |
South Korea paying for THAAD 'impossible': presidential frontrunner's aide | SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Seoul pay for the THAAD advanced U.S. missile defense system would be an “impossible option,” a top foreign policy adviser to South Korean presidential frontrunner Moon Jae-in said on Friday. Trump told Reuters in an interview on Thursday he wants South Korea to pay for the $1 billion Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. “Even if we purchase THAAD, its main operation would be in the hands of the United States,” said Kim Ki-jung, a foreign policy adviser to Moon and professor at Seoul’s Yonsei University. “So purchasing it would be an impossible option. That was our topic when we were considering the options,” Kim said. Moon is leading polls by a wide margin ahead of a May 9 election to replace impeached former President Park Geun-hye, whose government agreed last year to deploy THAAD. Lee Ji-soo, a spokesman for Moon, said campaign officials were aware of the reported comments by Trump and deliberating his demand that South Korea pay for THAAD but added that there was no official comment from Moon’s camp yet. Trump, in the interview as he prepared to mark 100 days in office on Saturday, also accused another ally, Saudi Arabia, of not paying enough for the U.S. defense umbrella. Trump’s comments harked back to his populist campaign rhetoric and Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said they betrayed a lack of strategic thinking. “Trump’s remarks reflect his persistent desire for allies to pay more for their defense,” she said. “As far as their impact on South Korea’s election, they will likely boost support for Moon, and if he wins, it will make it harder for the U.S. to sustain a hardline policy against North Korea. So Trump’s remarks don’t seem very strategic to me.” Trump’s comments provoked some consternation among Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress. Congressional aides noted the THAAD deployment came after years of discussions, in which South Korea took a great deal of convincing and then suffered economic retaliation from China. “It just seems completely tone deaf ... That system isn’t just good for South Korea, it’s also good for us,” one aide said, adding that it would also defend U.S. troops in South Korea and deter North Korea from targeting U.S. territory. The U.S. military started THAAD deployment in early March, despite strong opposition from China, which says the system’s radar can be used to spy into its territory. The deployment has also prompted a North Korean warning of retaliation. South Korea said on Wednesday major elements of the system were moved into the planned site in Seonjgu in the south of the country and would be fully operational by the end of this year. That system will have initial operational capability “very soon,” a Pentagon spokesman told reporters on Friday. The Pentagon has called THAAD a “critical measure” to defend South Koreans and U.S. forces and the top U.S. commander in the Pacific, Admiral Harry Harris, said the system would be operational “in coming days.” Seonjgu residents have protested, citing safety fears and its potential to be a wartime target. The United States currently has six THAAD batteries worldwide and a former U.S. State Department official, who estimated the cost of each at about $1.2 billion, said Washington would not want to sell THAAD to Seoul. “We want to retain THAAD in our arsenal, consistent with all other U.S. weapons systems deployed on the Korean peninsula. We own them. We retain them. We have the right to redeploy them,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. | 0fake |
Breaking: The FBI Is Reviewing News Emails In Clinton Scandal Just 11 Days Before Election | Email
FBI Director James Comey said Friday that investigators had found new emails related to the bureau’s previously closed inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information, restarting a long-simmering debate over the Democratic nominee’s conduct as secretary of State in the closing days of a presidential campaign that Clinton appeared to be putting away.
Via USAToday SPONSORED LINKS
In a letter to senior lawmakers explaining his decision, Comey said “the FBI cannot yet assess” whether the information is “significant” nor could he offer a timetable for how long it will take investigators to make an assessment. Scroll Down For Video Below
But an official familiar with the matter said Friday that the new materials, perhaps thousands of emails, were discovered in the ongoing and separate investigation into sexually charged communications between former New York congressman Anthony Weiner and a 15-year-old girl. Comey was briefed on the findings in recent days, resulting in the director’s notification to Congress, said the official who is not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The emails were discovered in a search of a device or devices used by Weiner, who is separated from longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Abedin also had access to the same device or devices. The official said it was not likely that the FBI’s review of the additional emails could be completed by Election Day.
In a brief news conference in Iowa on Friday evening, Clinton said, “The American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately,” a position earlier outlined in a statement from her campaign chairman, John Podesta. The Democratic nominee called on the FBI “to release all the information that it has.”
“As you know I’ve had plenty of words about the FBI lately, but I give them great credit for having the courage to right this horrible wrong. Justice will prevail,” Donald Trump said at a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Thursday night. During a speech in New Hampshire earlier in the day, the Republican presidential nominee gleefully discussed the “breaking news announcement.”
“Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before,” Trump said, and her “criminal scheme” should not be allowed in the Oval Office. “Perhaps justice will be done,” the GOP nominee said of the development. In his statement, Podesta demanded that the FBI director “provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter” to lawmakers.
“Upon completing this investigation more than three months ago, FBI Director Comey declared no reasonable prosecutor would move forward with a case like this and added that it was not even a close call,” Podesta said. “In the months since, Donald Trump and his Republican allies have been baselessly second-guessing the FBI and, in both public and private, browbeating the career officials there to revisit their conclusion in a desperate attempt to harm Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
“It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election,” Podesta added. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One Friday, White House spokesman Eric Schultz said nothing had “surfaced to change the president’s opinion and views of Secretary Clinton.”
“He’s going to be proud to support her from now until Election Day,” Schultz said. In July, Comey announced that while Clinton and her aides during her tenure as secretary of State had been “extremely careless” in the way they’d handled classified information, he recommended that no criminal charges be filed.
In her press conference Friday, Clinton said she was “confident” whatever is included in the new messages under review “will not change the conclusion reached in July.” In July, Comey testified before skeptical Republican lawmakers to explain the bureau’s recommendation, which had been adopted by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
“We’re mystified and confused by the fact pattern you laid out and the conclusion you reached,” House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told Comey. Comey, however, was unequivocal in maintaining that the conclusion of investigators was not a close call.
“There is no way anybody would bring a case against John Doe or Hillary Clinton for the second time in 100 years based on those facts,” he told the House panel on July 7. Trump has cited the closed FBI probe as evidence that the election was “rigged” against him, and at a recent debate the GOP nominee said that, if he’s elected president, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton.
Following Comey’s announcement Friday, Republicans blasted the Democratic presidential nominee. “Hillary Clinton has nobody but herself to blame,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
“This decision, long overdue, is the result of her reckless use of a private email server, and her refusal to be forthcoming with federal investigators,” Ryan said in a statement, adding that he was again calling for Clinton to no longer receive classified briefings, a traditional courtesy afforded major-party presidential nominees.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the timing of the decision, so soon before the election, demonstrated “how serious this discovery must be.” Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, wrote on Twitter that “a great day in our campaign just got even better.” A great day in our campaign just got even better. FBI reviewing new emails in Clinton probe @CNNPolitics https://t.co/WBltG2lAK6
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) October 28, 2016
Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said in a statement that “without knowing how many emails are involved, who wrote them, when they were written or their subject matter, it’s impossible to make any informed judgment on this development.”
She added: ” The FBI has a history of extreme caution near Election Day so as not to influence the results. Today’s break from that tradition is appalling.”
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi accused Republicans of attempting to “misrepresent” the FBI’s work. “Sadly but predictably, Republicans are doing their best to … warp the FBI’s work to serve their partisan conspiracy-mongering against Hillary Clinton,” Pelosi said.
The uncertainty of what the new FBI review will yield, and when it will be completed, leaves open the question of how much of an impact it will have on the presidential campaign, as Trump looks to mount what would be a historic comeback, as polls show him trailing nationally and in key battleground states.
“Unless the FBI closes this new investigation one way or the other next week, the likely impact will be to cut into Clinton’s margin, with the bigger effect being on down-ballot races than on the outcome of the presidential election,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, in an emailed statement.
Whatever the long-term impact, the short-term jolt to Trump and his supporters, at least, seemed clear.
In his New Hampshire speech, the GOP nominee suggested the rest of his message for the day would no longer matter as much, given the FBI announcement. “The rest of my speech is going to be so boring,” he joked. | 1real |
WATCH: Protesters BEHEAD Effigy Of Donald Trump, Kick His Severed Head | Donald Trump continues to lead all others for the Republican nomination for the presidency. He has destroyed his opponents and if his momentum continues, he will most likely be the Republican nominee despite his racist, xenophobic, and often violent rhetoric. Yet, he has not been met without resistance from the rest of non-Republican America. In Chicago, his rally was shut down and these days it seems that wherever he goes, he s met with a barrage of protestors.This was the case in Utah as pro-Trump and anti-Trump sides clashed. Anti-Trump protestors hung a model of Trump by its neck on the steps of city hall and invited people to smash it like a pi ata. I hate Trump, shouted one man as he beheaded the figure in one quick motion. The man then took the head and kicked it to the approval and applause of the audience.The #DumpTrump pi atas are out outside City Hall in #SLC @KSL5TV pic.twitter.com/TLXuItY23h Nicole Vowell (@NicoleVowellKSL) March 19, 2016Another recording of the event shows a second man taking another swing at the figure of the Republican contender. He shouted to the crowd, how can Trump run a country when he can t even do his hair right? He then struck the Trump effigy to a cheering crowd.Here s the video:As the possibility of a Trump nomination is becoming more of a reality, people are coming out by the thousands to reject him all over the country. The best America can do is go to the polls in November to make sure that Trump or the other possible clowns for the Republican nomination do not win the presidency. Featured image via video screenshot. | 1real |
Trump Supporters Applaud Immigration Order as a ‘Welcome Change’ - The New York Times | While President Trump’s order banning immigration from several Muslim countries led to protests at several American airports, the news was often met with satisfaction and approval in those precincts that Mr. Trump carried in the November election. And the protests themselves were viewed with irritation by some, including conservatives who were otherwise critical of Mr. Trump’s order. “People at airports are on tight schedules and are henpecked enough as it is,” Jay Cost, a senior writer for the Weekly Standard, said on Twitter. ”It is uncivil and rude. ” Dan McLaughlin, a securities lawyer in New York, in an article for National Review, wrote that the anger over the new policy was “seriously misplaced,” and he argued that the policy was far less radical than critics had made it seem. “His policy may be terrible public relations for the United States,” Mr. McLaughlin wrote. “But it is fairly narrow and well within the recent tradition of immigration actions taken by the Obama administration. ” Others said that the policy, which went into effect on Friday night, had already been effective. Mark Kern, a video game designer turned conservative political pundit who has supported video surveillance of mosques, voiced his approval. He said that Mr. Trump’s decisive action was a welcome change. “If we sit and debate and prevaricate, remember Europe did this too, and now wishes it hadn’t,” he wrote in one Tweet. He added later, “Luckily we now have a POTUS who does not waver or hesitate to do what is needed. And despite hysteria to the contrary, lawfully. ” The conservative pundit Tomi Lahren, who supports Mr. Trump, wrote in an email that, “It’s not intolerant or unloving to put Americans and American safety first. Every nation has the right to protect its people first. ” “Somehow the left doesn’t seem to understand or agree with that right,” she said. The response on the right was far from monolithic. The Koch brothers condemned the order as the “wrong approach” and so did writers at their libertarian the Cato Institute. John Podhoretz, the conservative commentator, reaffirmed that he thought Islamic terrorism posed a threat, but he wrote that the policy was not “based in fact. ” In fact, Mr. Podhoretz wrote, the order resembled what he characterized as a liberal solution to major problems — a grand, gesture that the president was using to rally his base. “They are making horrible policy for naked political advantage based in disingenuousness,” he concluded. “And that’s no way to run a country. ” A Quinnipiac poll taken in before Mr. Trump issued the order, found that 48 percent of Americans were in favor of “suspending immigration from terror prone regions, even if it means turning away refugees. ” Mr. Trump’s order immediately closed the nation to refugees and to people from some predominantly Muslim countries including Iraq, Syria and Iran. In the same poll, 53 percent of respondents were in favor of requiring Muslim immigrants to register with the federal government. A member of Mr. Trump’s transition team, Kris Kobach, had suggested before the new president took office that a national registry for immigrants from countries plagued by terrorism might be reinstated. A spokesman for Mr. Trump at the time, Jason Miller, later clarified that the registry would not track individuals based on their religion. Reuters reported that while protests filled airports where travelers were being held, many other people around the country were nonchalant about the order and puzzled by the protests. Louise Ingram, 69, of Troy, Ala. told Reuters that while she was not opposed to immigrants, “I just want to make sure they are safe to come in. ” “A country is not a country if it doesn’t have borders,” said Steve Hirsch, 63, who was at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, where hundreds of people were protesting, to pick someone up this weekend. On Mr. Trump’s official Facebook page, his supporters thanked him for the action. One user, Jason Juno Lee, who identifies himself as a Marine, posted a comment comparing the United States after the order to a safely locked house. “I lock my doors every night,” he wrote. “I don’t lock them because I ‘hate’ the people outside. I lock them because I love the people inside!” Another user named Wes Schmaltz was more concise: “Thank you President Trump for doing exactly what you were elected to do. ” | 0fake |
3 Who Studied Unusual States of Matter Win Nobel Prize in Physics - The New York Times | Three physicists born in Britain but now working in the United States were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for research into the bizarre properties of matter in extreme states, including superconductors, superfluids and thin magnetic films. David J. Thouless of the University of Washington was awarded half of the prize of 8 million Swedish kronor, or about $930, 000, while F. Duncan M. Haldane of Princeton University and J. Michael Kosterlitz of Brown University shared the other half. The scientists relied on advanced mathematical models to study “theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter,” in the words of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Their studies may have major applications in electronics, materials science and computing. In an email, Michael S. Turner, a physicist at the University of Chicago, described the work as “truly transformational, with consequences both practical and fundamental. ” The three laureates sought to understand matter that is so cold or so thin that weird quantum effects overpower the random atomic jostling that dominates ordinary existence. Superconductivity, in which all electrical resistance vanishes in matter, is one example of such an effect. Dr. Thouless and Dr. Kosterlitz worked together at the University of Birmingham in the 1970s to investigate what happens when films of matter shift from one exotic phase, like superconductivity, to another. The key to their success was something called topology, a branch of mathematics focused on the fundamental shapes of things. At the Nobel news conference in Stockholm, Thors Hans Hansson, a member of the Nobel physics committee, tried to illustrate topology by holding up a cinnamon bun, a bagel and a pretzel. To a topologist, he said, the only difference between them is the number of holes, as opposed to the characteristics an average person might notice, like saltiness or sweetness. There is no such thing as half a hole, the topologist would note, and the number of holes only changes stepwise in integers. Likewise, the macroscopic properties of exotic matter change in stepwise “quantum leaps” if the materials involved are thin or small enough that their behavior is determined by the strange rules that govern the behavior of atoms. An example is the quantum Hall effect, in which the electrical resistance of a thin film changes in stepwise fashion. In 1983, Dr. Thouless was able to link these changes mathematically to the Chern numbers — after the mathematician Chern — that characterize topological shapes. Dr. Haldane used a similar technique to analyze the properties of chains of atoms so skinny that they could be considered threads. Someday, they may be the basis of a new kind of computer. In the last decade, this work has led to the development of materials called topological insulators, which conduct electricity on their surfaces but not inside. “They have ignited a firestorm of research, and although applications are still yet to come, I believe it’s only a matter of time before their research leads to advances as unimaginable to us now as lasers and computer chips were a hundred years ago,” said Laura H. Greene, of the American Physical Society. Dr. Thouless, 82, was born in Bearsden, Scotland, was an undergraduate at Cambridge University and received a Ph. D. in 1958 from Cornell. From 1965 to 1978, he taught mathematical physics at the University of Birmingham in England, where he collaborated with Dr. Kosterlitz. In 1980, he joined the University of Washington in Seattle, where he is now an emeritus professor. Dr. Haldane, 65, was born in London. He received his Ph. D. from Cambridge, where he was also an undergraduate, in 1978. He worked at the Institut in Grenoble, France the University of Southern California Bell Laboratories and the University of California, San Diego, before joining the Princeton faculty in 1990. Dr. Kosterlitz, 73, was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and received his doctorate in physics from Oxford University in 1969. He has worked at the University of Birmingham the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Turin, Italy and Cornell, Princeton, Bell Laboratories and Harvard. “I was very surprised and very gratified,” Dr. Haldane, whom the Nobel committee reached by phone Tuesday morning, told reporters at the news conference in Stockholm. “The work was a long time ago, but it’s only now that a lot of tremendous new discoveries are based on this original work and have extended it. ” Dr. Kosterlitz told The Associated Press that he had gotten the news while heading to lunch in Helsinki, Finland, where he is a visiting professor at Aalto University. “I’m a little bit dazzled,” he said. “I’m still trying to take it in. ” He said that he was in his 20s when he began studying materials and that his “complete ignorance” was an advantage in challenging the established science. “I didn’t have any preconceived ideas,” he said. “I was young and stupid enough to take it on. ” Yoshinori Ohsumi, a Japanese cell biologist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for his discoveries on how cells recycle their content, a process known as autophagy, a Greek term for “ . ” Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald were named last year for discovering that the enigmatic subatomic particles known as neutrinos have mass. Four more will be awarded in the coming days: ■ The Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be announced on Wednesday in Sweden. Read about last year’s winners, Tomas Lindahl, Paul L. Modrich and Aziz Sancar. ■ The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday in Norway. Read about last year’s winner, the National Dialogue Quartet of Tunisia. ■ The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science will be announced on Monday, Oct. 10, in Sweden. Read about last year’s winner, Angus Deaton. ■ The Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday, Oct. 13, in Sweden. Read about last year’s winner, Svetlana Alexievich. | 0fake |
House Speaker Ryan: lawmakers likely to come together on Puerto Rico | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday expressed confidence that lawmakers would ultimately be able to move on a legislative fix to address Puerto Rico’s debt crisis. “I think we are going to get there,” he told reporters at a weekly press briefing, adding that an oversight board would be the best possible way to prevent taxpayers from bailing out the U.S. commonwealth. | 0fake |
Bernie Sanders Compares Republicans To Children Having A Food Fight (VIDEO) | He s not wrong.Demonstrating that he is the only adult in a campaign season full of Republicans, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders ripped the remaining members of the GOP field for acting like children instead of adults who want to be the leader of the free world. What we are seeing in the Republican presidential process is like a sixth grade food fight that you see in a cafeteria, Sanders said during a stop in Michigan. I think that is not what the American people want. The American people know we have some serious problems and they want to hear some serious solutions to those problems, not vicious personal attacks, he continued.Sanders went on to shift his focus from the Republican toddlers to the real problems Americans face such as income inequality, corporate greed, and mass imprisonment.Later on, the Vermont Senator blasted Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio again for acting like little kids instead of responsible adults. They really do sound like sixth-grade food fights, where amazingly enough adults in their 50s and 60s are throwing food at each other and cursing at each other and making fun of each other and insulting each other, Sanders said.Here s the video:And Bernie s assessment of the GOP is absolutely spot on. During the last Republican debate, Trump, Rubio, and Cruz put on a circus as they insulted each other. Trump even went so far as to talk about how big his penis is.It s been even more embarrassing on the campaign trail as Rubio has suggested that Trump has a small penis because he has small hands and even suggested that Trump wet himself during the debate. Trump has hit Rubio by mocking his need to quench his thirst while delivering the Republican response to the State of the Union Address a few years ago.It s far from the civility one expects from people who are trying to convince American voters that they are the right person to lead the country and solve problems. But the Republicans are too busy trading insults and talking trash instead of focusing on issues that Americans truly care about.Meanwhile, Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are taking this election seriously, proving that either one of them would be a good President of the United States who will be respected by the world instead of being laughed at and treated like a joke.Featured image via Bernie Sanders Campaign Website | 1real |
5 Million Uncounted Sanders Ballots Found On Clinton's Email Server
| Hillary in hot water over her email server, again.
Sacramento, CA Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is in hot water again after nearly 5 million uncounted California electronic ballots were found on her email server by the F.B.I. The majority of those ballots cast were by Bernie Sanders supporters.
The election commission has an emergency meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning to discuss a possible vote recount which will include the newly-found ballots.
Ms. Clinton has already come under fire during this election cycle over using her private email server for personal use, including storing and sending classified information with it. There has been a formal investigation, but no charges have been filed in that case. Some of the charges are facing several charges.
Ms. Clintons public relations official released a brief statement saying, Hillary does not know how those ballots ended up on her server. We are conducting an internal investigation into the matter.
These ballots could change the fortune of Bernie Sanders in his bid for the presidency as all the ballots found on Hillarys server were cast votes cast for him, with the exception of the one write-in for Perot. | 1real |
Pence at Vandalized Jewish Cemetery: ’No Place’ for Hatred, Acts of Prejudice or Violence, or Anti-Semitism - Breitbart | “There is no place in America for hatred or acts of prejudice or violence or ” Pence says at vandalized Jewish cemetery pic. twitter. Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the Chesed Shel Emeth Society Cemetery in University Park, MO outside of St. Louis at least a hundred headstones were destroyed over the weekend. Pence, speaking on a megaphone, condemned the acts and declared there was no place for acts of hatred, prejudice, violence or . “I’m Mike Pence, and I’m the Vice President of the United States of America,” Pence said. “I spoke words earlier today in St. Louis that were from the heart. There is no place in America for hatred or acts of prejudice or violence or . I must tell you, the people of Missouri are inspiring the nation by your love and care for this place, for the Jewish community in Missouri, and I want to thank you for that inspiration, for showing the world what America’s really all about. ” “On behalf of the President of the United States, let me just say thank you to all of you for coming out and showing the heart of this state and the heart of this nation in this place,” he added. “You just make us all proud. God bless you all. ” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 0fake |
As Saudi Crown Prince Meets Trump, King Salman Arrives in Beijing for Economic Talks - Breitbart | King Salman of Saudi Arabia has departed Japan and arrived in Beijing where he and President Xi Jinping are expected to discuss expanding economic ties between their two nations, shortly after Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman completed his visit to the White House Tuesday. [King Salman will stay in Beijing for three days, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and meet with Xi as well as Premier Li Keqiang and National People’s Congress (NPC) Chairman Zhang Dejiang. “China attaches great importance to the friendship and cooperation with Saudi Arabia,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters on Tuesday. “We stand ready to take King Salman’s visit as an opportunity to take Arabia comprehensive strategic partnership to a higher level. ” While King Salman’s visit to Tokyo involved an honorific meeting with Emperor Akihito, the Chinese hope to use his presence to strengthen their foothold in the Middle East. Chinese state media outlets are heralding the visit as a chance for China to take over what was once considered America’s market to exploit. Xinhua calls the visit an attempt to silence voices around the world. “As some scapegoat globalization for their sluggish economy, others remain open and cooperative to explore business opportunities and reap fruits,” a Xinhua column on the visit reads, a clear reference to U. S. President Donald Trump’s opposition to globalist forces. Xinhua credits China for having “helped build 56 economic and trade cooperation zones in 20 countries along the routes with a combined investment surpassing 18. 5 billion U. S. dollars, generating nearly 1. 1 billion dollars in tax revenue and 180, 000 jobs in those countries. ” Saudi Arabia, the outlet concludes, is seeking to be a part of that development. The Global Times, often the more combative alternative to Xinhua, suggests Salman’s presence in Beijing means he “puts Beijing ahead of Washington in his diplomatic visits. ” “This reflects Riyadh’s tendency to ‘Look East,’” the Times suggests. “The country is willing to develop a friendly relationship with Beijing on the premise that its ties with Washington remain intact. Saudi Arabia wants China’s support in regional and international affairs. ” The king’s visit has some competition, however, as Saudi officials celebrate the deputy crown prince’s visit with President Trump on Tuesday. The Gulf news organization cites Saudi officials calling the Trump meeting “a historic turning point” for bilateral relations. cites Bloomberg, which quotes a senior adviser to Mohammed bin Salman claiming the meeting “put things on the right track, and marked a significant shift in relations, across all political, military, security and economic fields. ” Among the most prominent points of agreement is the mutual distrust of Iran, newly emboldened by the Obama administration’s concessions package to Tehran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) or the Iran nuclear deal. Trump had already discussed other Middle East hotspots, including Yemen and Syria, with King Salman in a phone conversation. Unlike relations with the White House, regional rival Iran is not a subject that Saudi Arabia and China appear to agree on. China has historically supported Russia in the UN Security Council, which has developed a particularly strong alliance with Iran in Syria. Neither China nor Saudi Arabia have entered the fray in Syria, though both have expressed concerns that the civil war appears nowhere near its conclusion. China will also have to overcome Saudi distrust as it ramps up an internal war on Islam. While Chinese Communist Party officials have been permissive of Islamic practices, particularly among its Hui minority, it has taken the opposite position in western Xinjiang, home to the nation’s Turkic Uighur minority. Uighurs are a people in their region, the Communist Party has banned Islamic garb on public transportation, forced shops to sell items like alcohol and cigarettes, and banned children from religious observance. This attitude appears to be trickling east into regions. This week, the Communist Party secretary in Ningxia province, Li Jianguo, warned that the Islamic State was attempting to recruit Chinese people to engage in “jihad, terror, violence,” urging more vigilance over Muslim populations. The result of the government’s warnings over Islam has been a growing popular distaste for the religion, according to a social media overview by the South China Morning Post. Such a policy is anathema to the Saudi government, which sees itself as the preeminent defender of Islam globally. “We confirm that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stands with all its might behind the Islamic causes in general and we are fully ready for assistance and cooperation with your sisterly country as regards any effort or movement that serves Muslims’ issues,” King Salman asserted in Malaysia last month. | 0fake |
Turkey says declaring Jerusalem Israel's capital will start 'fire with no end in sight' | ANKARA (Reuters) - The Turkish government s spokesman on Wednesday said that the United States decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel will plunge the region and the world into a fire with no end in sight . Declaring Jerusalem a capital is disregarding history and the truths in the region, it is a big injustice/cruelty, shortsightedness, foolishness/madness, it is plunging the region and the world into a fire with no end in sight, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Twitter. I call on everyone to act logically, respect the agreements they signed and behave reasonably, avoid risking world peace for domestic politics or other reasons, he said. U.S. officials have said President Donald Trump is likely to give a speech on Wednesday unilaterally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel s capital, a step that would break with decades of U.S. policy. | 0fake |
‘Harry Potter’ Star Compares Donald Trump To Voldemort And It’s PERFECT (VIDEO) | Donald Trump has frequently been compared to authoritarian leaders, but this recent comparison by Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe is just the thing we need to hear after Trump s horrendous performance on Monday night s presidential debate.Radcliffe happens to know a lot about evil leaders, having become an expert on them in Harry Potter. Especially after spending a lot of time with the film s own Lord Voldemort, the villain who is hellbent on putting non-magical humans in servitude forever. Hmm that sounds an awful lot like a horrible time period in American history that Donald Trump would like to return this country to In an interview with the U.K. s Sky News, Radcliffe actually compared Trump to Voldemort, stating that the Republican nominee has a lot in common with the Dark Lord however, there are also big differences. And as a matter of fact, that s actually a BAD thing for Trump. It turns out, Radcliffe thinks that Trump is worse than Voldemort. The actor said: I sort of think Donald Trump might not be as ideologically pure as Voldemort. My thing on Trump is that he feels like more of an opportunist, like I don t know how much of this stuff he s saying he actually really, really believes. Radcliffe also called out Trump s racism, stating that Trump is an opportunist that uses his divisive rhetoric to gain power. You can watch the interview below:Daniel Radcliffe has revealed why Donald Trump and Voldemort aren t so similar to @SkyCinema s Craig Dillon https://t.co/xiUe9BPc40 Sky News (@SkyNews) September 27, 2016Hilariously, this isn t the first time that Trump has been compared to a fictional villain. It turns out that Trump is almost a dead ringer for Immortan Joe from Mad Max: Fury Road! I mean, these two could really be the same guy:TwitterFeatured image via Joe Raedle and Harry Potter | 1real |
PRICELESS! TRUMP’S ANSWER About Putin Firing U.S. Embassy Employees Will Make Your Day! [Video] | This is priceless! President Trump just gave the best response ever to a reporter s question! He said he wanted to thank Russian President Vladimir Putin for reducing his payroll by firing U.S. embassy staff in Moscow. Hysterical and so quick! Watch how Trump doesn t skip a beat with his response:After Sanctions on Russia were put in place in July, Putin ordered 755 embassy personnel out of Russia.President Trump was asked today during a press conference what he thought of the firing. His response was quick and decisive. He said he wanted to thank Putin for the firing: No. I want to thank him, because we re trying to cut down on payroll. And as far as I m concerned, I m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll. He continued: There s no real reason for them to go back. So I greatly appreciate the fact that they have been able to cut our payroll for the United States. We ll save a lot of money. AWESOME! | 1real |
‘SEEMS LIKE A THREAT’: ABC’s Raddatz Tries to Get Trump Adviser to Badmouth President Over WWE Tweet [Video] | ABC political hack Martha Raddatz tried to bait Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert when she played the CNN WWE video and commented that it seems like a threat . Bossert didn t take the bait but praised President Trump for standing up to the media. Great job!NEW: Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert on Trump s CNN tweet: No one would perceive that as a threat. I hope they don t. #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/BfrWWt7buM This Week (@ThisWeekABC) July 2, 2017The DHS adviser responded: No one would perceive that as a threat. I hope they don t. I do think that he s beaten up in a way on cable platforms that he has a right to respond to.He went on to praise President Trump: the most genuine president and the most non-politician president we ve seen in my lifetime. There s a lot of cable new shows that reach directly into hundreds of thousands of viewers and they re really not all very fair to the president. So I m pretty proud of the president for developing a Twitter and a social media platform where he can talk directly to the American people. | 1real |
Call It What It Is: Rape - The New York Times | The state of Montana doesn’t often make the national news. But it did recently when a judge there sentenced a man to just 60 days in jail after he repeatedly raped his daughter. In the three weeks since the sentence was issued, over 80, 000 people have signed an initiative seeking to have the judge impeached. The New York Times’s Express desk caught up to the news on Friday, but it put a headline on its story that drew its own protests: “Montana Judge Criticized for Sentence for Man Who Has Sex With His Preteen Daughter. ” In the view of many Times readers, that was a poor attempt to sum up the story. Among them was Elizabeth DeHoff, who homed in on the problem with the headline: DeHoff, of Littleton, Colo. articulates well the concerns of many of the readers who emailed me on Friday. Editors were clearly struggling with the headline, changing it five times over the course of the day. About three hours after the initial headline went up, a new one was put on the story, getting a little closer to the mark, but clunky: “Montana Judge Criticized for Sentence for Man for Incest With Daughter, 12. ” Finally, after three more tries, the headline read: “Montana Judge Is Criticized for Incest Sentence. ” (Still later, the headline was changed again, to “Outrage Follows Sentence in Incest Case Against Father of Girl, 12. ”) Those were improvements but, in my view, they still fell short of the mark. To understand the thinking behind the headline changes, I spoke with Patrick LaForge, the editor who oversees the Express desk, which aims to get news from around the country up on the Times site quickly. “After the story was published early this morning, a number of editors and readers rightly objected to that language,” LaForge said. “After some discussion, the headline and lead paragraphs were revised to more clearly specify the charge. Please offer apologies and thanks to the readers who pointed this out. We’ve had a thorough conversation with the editors who were involved. ” I appreciate, and suspect readers appreciate, LaForge’s acknowledgment of a mistake in judgment and the effort to rectify it. But while the headline improved when it backed off the idea that this was simply “sex,” in my view the final headline still didn’t go far enough by merely referring to “incest. ” After all, the word incest to many readers might imply sex with a blood relative that is quite possibly consensual. Several other news sites didn’t hesitate to label this “rape” in their headline, among them CBS News, Time, The Washington Post and New York magazine. The challenge for headline writers in this case was that the man sentenced pleaded guilty to a charge of incest. So the safe thing to do is just stick to that word. But there should come a point in the process when common sense kicks in. People are enraged because by any reasonable reading of the news story, a man raped a preteen girl, repeatedly, and he’ll spend two months in jail for it. The prosecutor used the word “rape” in court. The Times should have, too. | 0fake |
North Carolina Hillary Supporter Brags on Facebook About Voting Multiple Times | Email
Hillary supporter Robert Dougherty from Jacksonville, North Carolina bragged on Facebook today about how he committed voter fraud.
Robert boasted on how he voted for some of his Facebook friends using their identities, and tells them not to worry about voting, because he’s already done it for them.
And he’s bragging about it on Facebook.
Robert boasts about how they give you a sticker every time you vote.
He says he will continue to vote all next week!
“Isn’t North Carolina nice they give you a sticker every time you vote… No ID required.”
“There isn’t a need for you to wait in line anymore. Took care of it for you. Gave you a straight Democratic ticket.”
“Amazing how many addresses you get from Google. Going again until Saturday and all next week.”
Robert either thinks voter fraud is a big joke or he’s one stupid Hillary-supporting criminal.
What do you think, will Voter Fraud play a key role in the election? | 1real |
Mormon Church Backs LGBT Protection | In a landmark move, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Tuesday that it is changing its posture toward gays. The church has decided to support anti-discrimination legislation for gays and lesbians in the realm of housing and employment. The church also announced that it it comes with the condition that no one can be forced to perform actions if he or she has religious objections. One example, a doctor who refuses to artificially inseminate a lesbian couple. Utah is facing two bills that protections for each group. Political watchers in the state have noted that both measures would be likely to pass if the LDS Church got behind it.
“When religious people are publicly intimidated, retaliated against, forced from employment or made to suffer personal loss because they have raised their voice in the public square, donated to a cause, or participated in an election, our democracy is the loser,” said Elder Dallin Oaks, a member of the church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles. “Such tactics are every bit as wrong as denying access to employment, housing, or public services because of race or gender.”
However, this month, the church was in hot water for planning to excommunicate a prominent critic of its same-sex marriage stance for the apostasy.
| 0fake |
Accord reached after Sanders sues the DNC over suspended access to critical voter list | The presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont filed a lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee on Friday, arguing that the party had unfairly suspended the campaign’s access to key voter information. After several tense hours, both sides announced a deal had been reached.
The suit came shortly after campaign manager Jeff Weaver acknowledged at a Washington news conference that Sanders staffers had improperly reviewed information gathered by rival Hillary Clinton earlier in the week. But he accused the DNC of overreacting to the breach by suspending the Sanders campaign’s ability to access the computer system containing information about Democratic-leaning voters, including data the campaign has gathered about its own supporters.
After midnight, Sanders and the DNC put out statements that both indicated the impasse had been resolved but that put remarkably different spins on the outcome. Sanders’s campaign said the DNC had “capitulated” and that Sanders would soon regain access to the data. The DNC said what happened was “completely unacceptable” and that it would continue to investigate the circumstances even as Sanders regained access to the valuable information.
Without a quick resolution, the messy public brawl threatened to overshadow Saturday’s third Democratic presidential debate and cast doubt on the DNC’s ability to manage the sophisticated data tools necessary for the party to win the White House next year. And it sparked significant suspicions among Sanders supporters that the party was conspiring to give a boost to Clinton.
DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz rejected that allegation Friday, alleging that Sanders staffers had exploited a software error to essentially “steal” data from Clinton’s campaign. Wasserman Schultz said the party would not allow Sanders access to the critical database again until his campaign agreed to an independent audit of what happened.
The suit, filed in federal court in Washington, argued that under a contract between the DNC and the campaign governing the data system’s use, formal notice in writing is required if either side believes the other has violated the deal. In addition, each side is supposed to be allowed 10 days to address any concerns, the suit said.
“The DNC may not suspend the Campaign’s access to critical Voter Data out of haste or desperation to clean up after the DNC’s own mistakes,” the suit says.
The voter data is heavily used to raise money, and the Sanders campaign estimated that it is losing $600,000 a day in “critical fundraising and publicity opportunities” without access to the files.
The incident strained the relationship between the campaign of an upstart Vermont senator who until this year has run as an independent and a national party his supporters have long accused of favoring Clinton.
Weaver accused the party of purposely sabotaging Sanders by refusing to restore access to the voter information.
“By their action, the leadership of the Democratic National Committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign,” Weaver said. “I think if you look at the pattern of conduct . . . it looks like in this case they’re trying to help the Clinton campaign.”
NGP-VAN, the computer vendor that provides Democrats with detailed information about voters, has said that a computer error on Wednesday briefly allowed the campaigns to review information that had been gathered by their rivals.
The company maintains a master voter list for the DNC and rents it to national and state campaigns, which then add their own, proprietary information gathered by field workers and volunteers. Firewalls are supposed to prevent campaigns from viewing data gathered by rival campaigns.
The Sanders campaign has acknowledged that several of its staffers probed the system during the time of the error cited by NGP-VAN. One operative, data director Josh Uretsky, was fired as a result of the incident. Weaver said the actions of several others are being reviewed.
Landing at the airport in Manchester, N.H., ahead of Saturday’s debate, Wasserman Schultz said that Sanders himself was unaware of the breach until she called to discuss it 24 hours after it took place. “He was stunned,” she said. “I know that Sen. Sanders had absolutely nothing to do with this. . . . Unfortunately, he has staff who acted inappropriately, and they need to be held accountable.”
The severity of the data breach itself remained an issue of serious dispute Friday.
Audit data from NGP-VAN and provided to The Washington Post by the Clinton campaign showed that four Sanders staffers conducted 24 separate searches of Clinton data during a 40-minute window Wednesday, targeting early voting states and searching for lists of voters most and least likely to support Clinton. The logs show that in some cases, the staffers saved the search results in new folders created within the system.
“This was a very egregious breach and our data was stolen. This was not an inadvertent glimpse into our data,” Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, told reporters.
On CNN, Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon accused the Sanders staffers of acting “like kids in the candy store.”
“They went hog wild, downloading as much data as they could,” he said.
Later Friday, the Clinton camp struck a more conciliatory tone, issuing a statement in which Fallon said that his campaign was hopeful the matter would be resolved Friday night and that the Sanders team would get access to its voter files “right away.”
Uretsky told The Post that he and the others conducted the searches of Clinton data after they discovered the software glitch only in an effort to discover the extent of their own data exposure. “We intentionally did it in a way that was trackable and traceable so that when they did an audit they would be able to see exactly what we did,” he said.
Uretsky said there was no attempt to take Clinton information out of the software system.
Weaver blamed the software vendor for the breach, which allowed all campaigns to access one another’s data for a time, insisting that the Sanders campaign had actually quietly alerted the DNC to problems with another vendor system in October.
In the lawsuit, the campaign argued that a “similar security incident” during the 2008 presidential campaign resulted in “unintentional transmission of confidential information” to Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential campaign against Barack Obama.
Weaver said a tick-tock provided to the Sanders campaign by the computer vendor confirmed that staffers were not attempting to remove significant Clinton data from the system.
“We are running a clean campaign,” he said. “We don’t need dirty tricks.”
Even before this week, Sanders backers had accused the DNC of trying to protect Clinton by limiting the number and prominence of debates — a narrative that plays into his anti-establishment appeal.
“They’ve been sabotaging Bernie’s campaign all along,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, an 185,000-member union that is backing Sanders.
News of the data breach broke just as Sanders was enjoying a fresh burst of momentum after months in which his campaign appeared to have stalled.
On Thursday, Sanders received his biggest union endorsement to date, from the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America. He also was endorsed by Democracy for America, a progressive group that claims 1 million members nationwide. That group, founded by former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who is backing Clinton, said it had surveyed its membership and found 88 percent favored endorsing Sanders.
Sanders, who has raised most of his money from small donors over the Internet, also this week celebrated a fundraising milestone: more than 2 million contributions to his campaign. That figure made him competitive with the effort of President Obama’s 2012 re-election effort during the same stretch. | 0fake |
Former Equifax chief apologizes to Congress over hack | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The former head of Equifax Inc (EFX.N) apologized repeatedly on Tuesday at a congressional hearing for the theft of millions of people’s personal data in a hacking breach, saying it took weeks for the credit bureau to understand the extent of the intrusion. Richard Smith retired last week but the 57-year-old executive led the company over the time of the hack, which Equifax acknowledged in early September. Late on Monday, Equifax said an independent review had increased the estimate of potentially affected U.S. consumers by 2.5 million to 145.5 million. In March, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security alerted Equifax to an online gap in security but the company did nothing, said Smith. “The vulnerability remained in an Equifax web application much longer than it should have,” Smith said. “I am here today to apologize to the American people myself.” Equifax keeps a trove of consumer data for banks and other creditors who want to know whether a customer is likely to default. Smith said both technology and human error opened the company’s system to the cyber hack, which has been a calamity for Equifax, costing it about a quarter of its stock market value and leading several top executives to depart. A company employee failed to tell the information team a software vulnerability that hackers could exploit should be fixed, Smith said. Then, a later system scan did not uncover the weak point. Smith said he was notified on July 31 that “suspicious activity had occurred,” after security personnel had already disabled the web application and shut down the hacking. He said he only learned in the middle of August the scope of the stolen data. On Aug. 2, the company alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and retained a law firm and consulting firm to provide advice. Smith notified the board’s lead director on Aug. 22. That timing could help lift suspicions that three executives who sold stock on the first two days of August illegally used insider knowledge of the hack. Smith said the three “honorable men” did not know about the breach at that time. Smith deferred to the FBI on questions of whether the hack had been sponsored by a nation-state. “It’s possible,” he said when asked if the hackers were from another country. | 0fake |
BREAKING DALLAS: DPD Chief Confirms 10 Officers SHOT, 3 DEAD, Two In Surgery, 3 In CRITICAL CONDITION…SHOT By “2 SNIPERS” Reportedly Wearing Body Armor During Dallas Black Lives Matter Protest [VIDEOS]…Shooter On Loose | UPDATE 12:09: 1 Suspect in custody. 1 suspect pinned down.Dallas Update! 1suspect in custody & 1suspect pinned down!!Both suspects wearing masks !! #KelyFile #BlueLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/KiIox2YAqd STOCK MONSTER (@StockMonsterUSA) July 8, 2016Dallas Police Department Chief confirms 10 officers have been shot. Three officers were KILLED, three are in critical condition and two are in surgery.Reports are now stating that two snipers were involved and that the shooting occurred from a rooftop/s above the scene. Shots can be heard being fired in this video:https://twitter.com/allisongriz/status/751234755882995713UPDATE 11:46:.@DPDChief states 2 snipers responsible for shooting 10 Dallas officers tonight, three of whom are deceased. No suspects in custody. FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) July 8, 2016A cameraman covering the protest in #Dallas came upon this horrific site. [Warning: Graphic Content] pic.twitter.com/06xGEt9ilu CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) July 8, 2016UPDATE 11:35 pm:NEW: @DPDChief confirms 10 officers shot, three dead, two in surgery, three in critical condition. No suspects in custody. FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) July 8, 2016From @shaunrabbfox4 "There are several officers gravely injured. This is going to be an horrific night for the Dallas Police Department." Mike Doocy (@MikeDoocyFox4) July 8, 2016A Facebook post by Michael Kevin Bautista shows the horrendous situation cops were faced with tonight in Dallas during a Black Lives Matter protest:WATCH HERE:BREAKING UPDATE:BREAKING: Multiple sources say about 3 6 officers were shot during tonight's protest.https://t.co/pBdHa8nFqM pic.twitter.com/sDRV7PiiNy FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) July 8, 2016Here are some of the comments on Michael Kevin Bautista s page under the video above: #breaking Crowd on the run downtown Dallas. Reports of an officer shot at the protest march. pic.twitter.com/zstZnDIRlm Doug Dunbar (@cbs11doug) July 8, 2016People can be seen running from the scene here:Video shows police responding after shots fired in Dallas during protest of recent killings https://t.co/00c6j7cAPUhttps://t.co/P2K9Z0vziF ABC News (@ABC) July 8, 2016https://twitter.com/Nero/status/751247603455647744Black conservative Melissa tweets a little reminder for the Black Lives Matter rioters:https://twitter.com/Sweetatertot/status/751246223991013377#BREAKING: Our cameras captured several shots ring out during a protest in Downtown Dallas pic.twitter.com/OWOBOOI8Jg FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) July 8, 2016DALLAS BE CAREFUL. Reports of a sniper and 2 officers down 30 mins ago at Dallas protest pic.twitter.com/Zk3jvPUfMk Chocolate Metaphor (@ChocoMetaphor) July 8, 2016Shots have subsided. Shooter is reportedly still on the loose https://twitter.com/DianaZogaFox4/status/751244944136892416Crime scene tape up at Baylor, multiple police units here @FOX4 pic.twitter.com/zV6NgUDbDb Lynnanne Nguyen (@LynnanneFOX4) July 8, 2016 | 1real |
THE HIGHEST TAXED PLACES TO LIVE Also Happen To Be Democrat Controlled Cesspools Of Corruption | The difference between taxes in one place versus another comes down to city and state taxes. That s right, in some high taxed places, you get taxed not only by the state but by the city government as well. Here are some cities that have the highest amount of taxes in the county.Highest Taxed City ChicagoThe tax burden in Chicago, Illinois is impressive, impressively devastating to a citizen s wallet. According to smartasset.com, a family making $75,000 will have to pay $2,732 to Illinois state income taxes. On top of that, Illinois has the highest property taxes in the nation, at roughly 2.7%. According to a recent study though, the sales and auto taxes are not quite as bad as some. At the end of the day, there are a few worse places to live for your pocket book. Highest Taxed City BridgeportWhat is one of those worse places to live? Bridgeport, Connecticut. A resident of this city would pay a whopping 17.70% of their income just in State/City sales, property, auto and income tax. Add the standard federal taxes on top of that and you are in for a serious shakedown come tax time.Highest Taxed City NewarkWhat city is almost as bad as Bridgeport? Newark, New Jersey. Residents of Newark pay roughly 14.50% of their income. Similar to Bridgeport, this is mostly due to an extremely high property tax.Via: BusinessBend | 1real |
Netherlands to hold referendum on new surveillance law | AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Netherlands will hold a referendum on legislation giving law enforcement authorities far-reaching surveillance powers, the Dutch Voting Commission said on Wednesday. A range of activists, politicians and media groups want to overturn the tapping law , which was passed by parliament in July and allows agencies to gather data covertly from large groups of people at once. Dutch law obliges the government to hold a non-binding referendum if a petition with at least 300,000 signatures is submitted to the Voting Commission. The agency said it had received more than 384,000 valid signatures and that the referendum would be held on March 21 together with municipal elections. Opponents argue that innocent civilians will be dragged into the sights of intelligence agencies, while the government says the powers are needed to counter national security threats. The referendum law is itself controversial and may be repealed by the newly appointed right-of-centre government under Prime Minister Mark Rutte. After it was passed in 2015, a referendum was used to block the Dutch government from ratifying an economic treaty it and other European Union countries had negotiated with Ukraine. A large no vote on the referendum embarrassed The Hague and forced Rutte to seek minor amendments to the treaty with the other EU states, eventually leading to the Dutch ratifying it. It later emerged that the signatures to hold the Ukraine referendum were gathered via the internet and never vetted. | 0fake |
Report: George Soros Tied to More Than 50 ‘Partners’ of Anti-Trump Women’s March | Billionaire George Soros has provided financing to or has close relationships with at least 56 “partners” of Saturday’s “Women’s March on Washington,” according to a report at a website affiliated with the New York Times. [Writing the website for Women in the World, a summit in a joint venture with The New York Times, former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Q. Nomani relates her findings on the Soros ties to the march. The Women in the World site is hosted by the Times. By my draft research, which I’m opening up for on GoogleDocs, Soros has funded, or has close relationships with, at least 56 of the march’s “partners,” including “key partners” Planned Parenthood, which opposes Trump’s policy, and the National Resource Defense Council, which opposes Trump’s environmental policies. The other Soros ties with “Women’s March” organizations include the partisan MoveOn. org (which was fiercely ) the National Action Network (which has a former executive director lauded by Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett as “a leader of tomorrow” as a march and another official as “the head of logistics”). Other Soros grantees who are “partners” in the march are the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. March organizers and the organizations identified here haven’t yet returned queries for comment. In response to the report, a spokeswoman for Soros’s Open Society Foundations released a statement — included in an update to Nomani’s article — denying the group was “funding protests” in the wake of the presidential election. Nomani, however, did not charge that Soros was funding protests she documented the numerous groups that were “partners” to the protest march. The Open Society statement reads: “There have been many false reports about George Soros and the Open Society Foundations funding protests in the wake of the U. S. presidential elections. There is no truth to these reports. We support a wide range of organizations — including those that support women and minorities who have historically been denied equal rights. Many of whom are concerned about what policy changes may lie ahead. We are proud of their work. We of course support the right of all Americans to peaceably assemble and petition their government — a vital, and constitutionally safeguarded, pillar of a functioning democracy. ” Last week, Breitbart News reported the march is backed by a who’s who of organizations, including scores of groups financed by Soros. Activists Gloria Steinem and Harry Belafonte are serving as honorary . In 2005, Belafonte founded the Gathering for Justice group, which has since been the recipient of numerous grants from Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Open Society also supported the New York production of a play starring Belafonte titled “The Exonerated” about wrongly convicted death row inmates. Soros’ foundation sponsored a series of “talk back” conversions after the play “where justice advocates and death penalty experts from across the country will speak and field questions from the theater audience. ” Belafonte serves on the board of the Advancement Project, which was one of four primary recipients of money from a group created in 2008 called the Election Administration Fund. The Fund reportedly raised between $5. 1 million — $1 million from Soros’ Open Society Institute. Meanwhile, the official partner’s list for the Women’s March on Washington reads like a who’s who of the including groups such as CODEPINK, the Southern Poverty Law Center and 350. org. Many of the march “partners” are financed by Soros, including: Sierra Club, Amnesty International, MoveOn. org, NAACP, Green For All, Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, MoveOn. org, NARAL People for the American Way and Planned Parenthood. The march is led by the following four : Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. | 0fake |
FLASHBACK [VIDEO]: Libertarian Gary Johnson Discusses Solutions To Syrian Conflict…TODAY On MSNBC: Gives EMBARRASSING Answer To Basic Question About Syrian War | Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson was asked by MSNBC host Mike Barnacle, What would you do if you were elected about Aleppo? To the horror of viewers and hosts on the MSNBC panel, Gary Johnson responded, What is Aleppo? Watch the Libertarian presidential candidate 7% of Americans say they plan to vote for in November:Gary Johnson was interviewed by Joe Rogan on CSPAN about his thoughts on the Syrian conflict. Watch him fudge his way through a discussion about a country where he doesn t even know the name of the city at the epicenter of that conflict: GARY JOHNSON: I think we bear a responsibility for the refugee crisis and we should be taking on our fair share. What is the mathematics of having disrupted 11 million Syrians, half the population? When it comes to the U.S., I think we can deal with this effectively. Should it be carte blanche? No, but we can have a system in place to accept refugees right off the bat. Other refugees might be questionable, backgrounds or whatever. We ve directed enough of our resources on the military side to deal with the refugee side of it humanely and in a way that reflects what America is all about.JOE ROGAN: When I ve talked to military operatives though, they believe a proactive attack, or proactive action, is much more likely to stop ISIS or any-GARY JOHNSON: Well and that, that s been our tact to date. And I m gonna say that, without exception, that every one of those military interventions have had an unintended consequence of at best. You know, we, we, we go, we re, we always deal with atrocity. There atrocities going on. We go in to deal with that atrocity, and at the end of the day, the new dictator, the new despot that we put into place to replace the bad despot, at the end of the day, is just as bad or in many cases worse. We cut off the head of the hydra, and lo and behold, there are more heads.ROGAN: So how does one stop that? I mean, have you ever tried to come up with some sort of a solution or look at some sort of a long-term plan that would somehow or another calm the world, or at least, allow the United States to make peace?JOHNSON: One of the reasons that I m seeking to become President of the United States is I think I d do a really good job of presiding over, over all the intelligence that we do have regarding all of this. I don t want, I don t want to present myself as having the answers, as much as, you know what, give me, give me the intel, let me be part of this discussion, and um, but I m gonna enter in to this discussion, as a real skeptic, um, on what we ve done to this point, and a real skeptic on what appears to be what we re gonna do in the future regarding all this. Isn t there a more effective way of dealing with this?I wouldn t be seeking this job if um, if I didn t think I could make a difference in it. And I, I do not want to misstate. I don t, I don t wanna play cards. Obama draws lines in the sand. I m not gonna draw lines in the sand. If you draw any lines in the sand, you d better be prepared to back up what you said with action. And that s also been an issue with Obama.ROGAN: What was your take when Obama went on television, and was talking about how we needed to invade Syria? And Syria was a huge issue, and the American public was up in arms, both the right and the left. People were like, What are you talking about? This is craziness. And then the administration backed off. I mean, was it, in my opinion, it was one of the first [ ] it was one of the first examples of the United States, sort of collectively, the will of the people, like being openly expressed, that the idea of erring Syria was outrageous. Nobody wanted to do it. They didn t make any sense to people, this gas attack. How was this anymore horrible than a lot of shit that s been going on over the world all the time? What is, what is it about Syria that all of a sudden we have to go invade Syria? One more intervention in another country, and the administration backed off?JOHNSON: Great example. People are fed up with this, and in fact, you know, 22 million people in Syria, and 11 million of them have been displaced. Don t we, don t we have a share in, share in that consequence?ROGAN: What was the motivation? What s the motivation for the United States to want to invade there in the first place?JOHNSON: Well, wasn t it the, McCain going over there, beating his chess, and uh, along with Lindsey Graham, and uh, and let s go over there and support the good guys? Well, the good guys are the minority, and the good guys, at the end of the day, are um Look, this is somehow we re gonna determine the outcomes of, in other countries? I am, I mean, that s just, it s preposterous. That uh, as individuals we can do that.The funny thing about Gary Johnson is that he pretends to have a strong grasp on foreign policy as it relates to Syria in the video below, but when asked how the US became involved in the conflict, the best answer he can give is to blame it on John McCain and Lindsey Graham? How did this guy ever even make it onto the ballot? And even more frightening, is how he managed to convince 7% of Americans he s a legitimate candidate Watch: | 1real |
U.S. Interior Department rescinds coal valuation rule | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of the Interior said on Monday it has rescinded an Obama-era rule that reformed how energy companies value sales of oil, gas and coal extracted from federal and tribal land to protect taxpayers because it caused “confusion and uncertainty” for energy companies. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said the department’s newly formed royalty policy committee would propose alternatives to the rule and “remain committed to collecting every dollar due.” “Repealing the valuation rule provides a clean slate to create workable valuation regulations,” Zinke said in a statement. The valuation rule was proposed by former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell last year to close a loophole that enabled companies to dodge royalty payments when mining on taxpayer-owned public land. It required energy companies to pay royalties on sales to the first unaffiliated customer, known as an arm’s-length sale, as the fuel moves to market. A Reuters investigation found in 2012 that coal companies were using affiliated brokers to settle royalty payments on exports to Asia at much lower domestic prices. Zinke said the valuation rule had increased costs for coal, oil and gas companies, which hampered production on federal lands, “making us rely more and more on foreign imports of oil and gas.” Industry stakeholders and trade associations filed three lawsuits challenging the Obama-era rule. Meanwhile, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a taxpayer watchdog group, found that taxpayers missed out on nearly $30 billion in revenues over three decades because of the loophole. The repeal of the valuation Rule was published in the Federal Register on Aug. 7 and will become effective on Sept. 6. | 0fake |
Trump, Sessions, Pompeo, Flynn: Your Friday Evening Briefing - The New York Times | (Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Donald Trump has chosen three hawkish loyalists for key posts. They are Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general, Representative Mike Pompeo as C. I. A. director and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser. All three are regarded as outliers from conventional Republican thinking, shunned in various ways for viewpoints that were seen as unacceptable or overly partisan. Mr. Sessions, an Alabama conservative, was denied a federal judgeship by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986 because of racially charged comments. Mr. Pompeo, above, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, would become one of the most overtly partisan figures to take over the C. I. A. — a spy agency that, at least publicly, is supposed to operate above politics and avoid a direct role in policymaking. General Flynn was the angry voice of the national security establishment on the campaign trail. He describes Islam as a political ideology, not a religion, and has even called it a cancer. ____ 2. Mr. Trump agreed to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits stemming from his defunct education venture, Trump University. Fraud allegations by former students had dogged him for years and hampered his presidential campaign. Above, Mr. Trump announced the establishment of the university in 2005. ____ 3. The World Health Organization declared an end to its global health emergency over the spread of the Zika virus. Zika should now be treated as a continuing problem rather than an exceptional situation, the agency said. The move prompted dismay from some public health experts, especially because Zika is seasonal and summer is just starting in the Southern Hemisphere. Above, a baby born with microcephaly in Brazil. ____ 4. Confederate flags are being displayed across the country, often as a kind of rejoinder to protesters. Those who have publicly embraced the flag are a small minority of the more than 60 million Americans who voted for Mr. Trump. But displays of the flag — and reports of threats and attacks directed at minorities — are forcing Americans to confront vexing questions about race relations. ____ 5. A windowless, fortified ATT building in downtown Manhattan has been identified as an N. S. A. listening post. Neither ATT nor the National Security Agency would confirm this, but that’s the conclusion of a short film debuting this weekend, based on material provided by Edward Snowden. The film, “Project X,” says the building was Titanpointe and used to collect communications from international entities with operations in New York. ____ 6. In a new study, scientists using genetic engineering techniques were able to alter photosynthesis, the chemical reaction powering nearly all life on Earth. They increased the productivity of a test plant by 20 percent, raising hopes that they could do the same with food crops. Above, rice seedlings that are part of the experiment in a lab at the University of Illinois. ____ 7. Mr. Trump’s election has upended French politics and given new momentum to the far right. But it could also propel an aging, generally unpopular politician into the presidency. Alain Juppé is the heading into a party primary this Sunday. He’s seen as a bulwark against rising populism. ____ 8. Pope Francis’ third set of cardinals will receive their “red hats” at a ceremony on Saturday. Most of the current cardinals were appointed by his more conservative predecessors. The pontiff is in a race against time to appoint enough cardinals to ensure that his vision of the church endures after he dies. ___ 9. Pirates are sowing terror along the Amazon River in Brazil. Robberies and boat hijackings have surged as local drug gangs grow stronger. The police are struggling to respond. “There’s no law on the Amazon River,” said one woman whose son was robbed. ____ 10. Here are eight new books we recommend this week. From Wesley Lowery’s reportage on police shootings to Zadie Smith’s new novel, they elucidate and offer escape from the noisy politics of our times. ____ 11. Finally, we built an interactive meal planner for Thanksgiving. Tell us how many guests are coming, their dietary needs and your culinary dreams. In return, we’ll offer recipe ideas and tips for an extraordinary Thanksgiving meal. (And if it’s your first time making Thanksgiving, you may want to head straight to a specially selected batch of simple recipes.) Have a great weekend. ____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 0fake |
WHAT WAS HE THINKING? DISHEVELED OBAMA YELLS From Air Force One At Bill Clinton: “Bill, Let’s Go!” | 1real | |
BIKERS FOR TRUMP Bring Important Message and Help to Republican Candidate #KarenHandel in HUGE Political Battle | Millions and millions of dollars from outside the state of Georgia have made their way to the campaign of Democrat challenger Jon Ossoff. The Georgia election has become a referendum on President Trump and could mean a symbolic gotcha moment for Democrats. This is a big deal for both parties! This is kind of like a crown jewel of the Republican Party right now holding on to this thing. Chris Cox, Founder of Bikers for TrumpWhile the Dems throw money at their candidate, the Republicans are bringing in the Bikers for Trump to go door to door in Georgia for Republican candidate Karen Handel.This race has gotten pretty ugly with vulgar letters containing white powder sent to Handel s neighbors. The left is really counting on this win but the vitriol only wins votes for Handel.Here s the note put in mailboxes in Handel s neighborhood LANGUAGE ALERT!Much has been made of the fact that Handel s challenger doesn t even live in the district he s running in!FEAR MONGERING TO GET VOTES:Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) stood in front of 50 Jon Ossoff volunteers at a campaign barbecue and fear mongered to get the message out: The vote is precious and sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have, he said. There are some in this country who still seek to deny some of us our right to vote. We can fight back by exercising that right. NOTE TO JOHN LEWIS: NO ONE IS TRYING TO DENY ANYONE S VOTE! MARIETTA, Ga. This neighborhood might have gotten quite a jolt when Bikers for Trump sporting tattoos galore, black vests and a massive flag with the group s insignia showed up in this Atlanta suburb to politely ask people to vote for the Republican candidate in this week s special congressional election.At one stop, Chris Hummel and his wife, Karen, assured Chris Cox, founder of Bikers for Trump, and the six other men and women who were going door to door that they had voted early for the Republican, Karen Handel, over Democrat Jon Ossoff. Mrs. Hummel even shed some tears after learning that three of the bikers had served in the military. Her father served as a battalion leader in the Vietnam War and returned a different man. Years later, when Mrs. Hummel was a baby, he took his own life. We have heard about them, Mrs. Hummel said about the group. I just think it is cool that it is just kind of grass-roots door-to-door, just common folks. Because that is really what America is. Mr. Cox and his crew of volunteers had visited this well-groomed neighborhood before and returned Tuesday to make certain that its heavily Republican voters planned to or already had voted for Mrs. Handel. The bikers are hoping to punch a hole in the Democrat-driven storyline that President Trump s supporters are turning their backs on him. For us, it is more about Support Donald Trump, and by supporting Karen Handel we are supporting Donald Trump, said Mr. Cox, standing in a cul-de-sac next to his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and steps away from a miniature soccer goal. This is kind of like a crown jewel of the Republican Party right now holding on to this thing. Via: WT | 1real |
The Right’s Stupidity Forces Snopes To Debunk An Article By The Onion (SCREENSHOTS) | Last week, President Obama made a historic trip to Cuba and the right-wing went absolutely insane. Republicans were outraged that our president had the audacity to reestablish a relationship with the country more than fifty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis. After the trip to Cuba, The Onion, a satire website, decided to post a fictional article about his trip home; but, in a hilarious turn of events, paranoid conservatives didn t get the joke and Snopes actually had to debunk the article.On March 23, The Onion shared a doctored picture of Air Force One flying low with a bunch of people on its wings and the photo was captioned, Hundreds Of Cuban Refugees Clinging To Air Force One On Flight Back To U.S. :The comment section under the article soon filled with people who thought it was real: I ve chosen not to blur out their names because the comments were all made in a public forum.You ll notice that a lot of them blame Obama for bringing more illegals into the country. Well, apparently, the outrage didn t extend only to The Onion s Facebook page, people actually emailed Snopes en masse asking the fact-checker website if the picture was real.This flood of emails forced Snopes to actually debunk an article by the well-known satire site. Snopes gave an example of one of the emails the received:There is a posting of a photograph with people on the wings of a plane and falling from the sky. Hundreds of Cubans clinging to Wings of Air Force One on the way to the US Reference Onion.com I find this very hard to believe. I believe it was photoshopped.We shall call them Captain Obvious.When you read the comment section of the original article, you realize that Donald Trump s rise in the Republican Party makes a whole lot of sense. The people who thought Cubans were actually clinging to the wings of Air Force One are probably the same people who think Drumpf is a real smart man who is going to turn this country around. They suffer so greatly from Obama Derangement Syndrome that they are falling for obvious satire. And as hilarious as it is, it s also really, really sad that our country is filled with this many stupid people.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
Débat Primaire de la Droite : les Français pas à l’abri que des sujets de fonds soient accidentellement abordés >> Le Gorafi | null | 1real |
New Russia probe leaks threaten to derail Trump's foreign trip | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump was hit on Friday by embarrassing leaks that a senior adviser was a “person of interest” in a probe of possible collusion with Russia during last year’s election campaign and that Trump had boasted to Russian officials of firing the man heading the investigation. The reports, emerging just as Trump jetted off to Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip as president, were likely to extend the turmoil engulfing his administration since the May 9 firing of former FBI Director James Comey. The Washington Post, citing sources familiar with the matter, did not identify the senior Trump adviser except to say that the person of interest was close to Trump, a Republican who entered the White House four months ago. U.S. law enforcement uses the term “a person of interest” to mean someone who is part of a criminal investigation but not arrested or formally accused of a crime. The person may be cooperating or have information of use to investigators. Separately the New York Times reported that Trump boasted to Russian officials at a White House meeting last week that firing Comey relieved “great pressure” the president faced from a law-enforcement probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Trump said, according to the Times, which cited a document summarizing the meeting and read to it by an unnamed U.S. official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” Trump met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russia’s ambassador to Washington in the Oval Office the day after Trump fired Comey, who was in charge of the Russia election probe. The Times said the document was based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the accuracy of that account. Comey, who has not spoken publicly in the 10 days since he was fired, will testify in an open session of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Committee leaders said on Friday he would appear sometime after the U.S. Memorial Day holiday on May 29. “I am hopeful that he will clarify for the American people recent events that have been broadly reported in the media,” the committee chairman, Republican Richard Burr, said in a statement announcing the appearance. Public approval of Trump has dropped to its lowest level since his inauguration, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday. The May 14-18 opinion poll found that 38 percent of adults approved of Trump while 56 percent disapproved. The remaining 6 percent had “mixed feelings.” U.S. stocks immediately pared gains after the reports but still closed higher for a second straight day. Earlier this week, investors dumped stocks in response to reports that Trump in February had asked Comey to stop investigating his former national security adviser, prompting accusations the president may have tried to hamper the probe. “As the president has stated before - a thorough investigation will confirm that there was no collusion between the campaign and any foreign entity,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in a statement in response to the Post report. After days of political tumult in Washington, the Justice Department announced the appointment on Thursday of a special counsel to look into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign. The Times report added to the impression given by Trump himself in a television interview last week in which he said the Russia issue was a factor in firing Comey. The White House has given different versions of the reasons for the dismissal. Asked about the Times report, Spicer said of the former FBI chief, “by grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia.” “The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it,” Spicer said, adding that the real story was the leaks of “private and highly classified conversations.” Democrats, who have compared the widening scandal to the Watergate break-in and cover-up that brought down Republican former President Richard Nixon in 1974, were quick to pounce on the latest reports. Democratic Senator Edward Markey called them “seismic revelations” and questioned whether the United States might be heading into a constitutional crisis. “This is an inflection point in the entire Russia collusion investigation,” he told MSNBC. “It makes it very clear that what Donald Trump was trying to do was to end the Russian investigation.” “This is what OBSTRUCTION looks like: ‘I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off,’” Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said on Twitter. Republican Representative Scott Taylor told CNN there was “no question” that Trump had “some stumbles this week.” But he added: “I haven’t lost my confidence in the president to be our president, I just haven’t.” Before the latest reports, the White House had hoped to shift attention away from the political firestorm in Washington to foreign policy as well as the president’s ambitious pro-business economic agenda in Congress. Trump’s trip, which also includes stops in Israel, Italy and Belgium next week, has been billed by the administration as a chance to visit places sacred to three of the world’s major religions while giving him time to meet with Arab, Israeli and European leaders. Trump, who has embraced what he describes as an “America First” approach to U.S. foreign policy and international trade, is expected to be welcomed warmly by leaders in Saudi Arabia and Israel. Lingering questions over his views on the Iran nuclear deal, commitment to NATO security and skepticism of the Paris climate agreement, however, could generate tension at meetings with European counterparts in Brussels and Sicily. | 0fake |
Cory Booker: Senate bill is "in my lifetime the first reversal of mass incarceration" | Sen. Cory Booker acknowledges that the Senate's criminal justice bill is not perfect. But he doesn't hesitate to point out that "it's in my lifetime the first reversal of mass incarceration in the federal level."
The legislation contains some big compromises: It keeps many mandatory minimum sentences, does not shorten sentences for violent offenders, and adds a new mandatory sentencing enhancement for fentanyl, a powerful opioid, when it's present in trafficked heroin. Booker said that if it were only up to him, the legislation would have gone much further in rolling back punishments, and it wouldn't have added the mandatory enhancement for fentanyl.
But he argued that at the end of the day, the bill would be progress, leading to fewer people in federal prisons. It would reduce some mandatory minimum sentences — retroactively for nonviolent offenders. It would give judges the power to downgrade 10-year mandatory minimum sentences for first-time drug offenders. And it would let people currently in prison take steps to reduce the length of their sentences through special programs, as long they demonstrate they no longer pose a threat to society.
Booker argued this is enough to make the law a net good. And as a progressive senator, he said people should get on board.
Here's my conversation with Booker, edited for length and clarity.
German Lopez: Since we last talked, the criminal justice reform bill was introduced and changed, and it's now definitely safe to say it's a compromise. How do you view the legislation now that it's closer to final form?
Cory Booker: It's never been the totality of what I wanted. It's never been as bold as I wanted it to be. But it is a significant bill in the sense that it is stopping this drift that we've seen over the last 20, 30 years toward massive hyper-incarceration. And in fact, it's the first major [federal] bill that's going to begin to unwind or move the pendulum back toward the sanity that we as a nation should be so urgently demanding.
So the compromises at the end of the day — and some people are making them out to be far worse than they actually are — don't undermine the truth of the bill. This is going to take our serious problem of over-incarceration and begin to reduce it, give judges more discretion, give people with these long, unnecessary sentences avenues to earn their time down and get more early release, and affect people as they come out of prison in a way that will empower them to be more successful. All those things are good things.
GL: In terms of the bill's specifics, one of the compromises that stuck out to me, as someone who covers drug policy, is the addition of the fentanyl mandatory penalty. It just seems kind of strange to me — and I've heard this from readers, too — that a bill that's supposed to reform and move away from mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenses would add this kind of penalty. What's your view on it?
CB: Well, first of all, I obviously wouldn't want that in there.
But it's important for your readers to understand that it is not a mandatory minimum. There's a big difference between telling a judge that you have to give this person five years in prison or more versus what this is, which is a sentencing enhancement, which says to the judge, "You got to give this person some kind of enhancement," but the full discretion is to you. You could literally give 12 hours, one day, or more time if you want to.
So for me, what I reject is three strikes you're out, 10-year mandatory minimums that take all the discretion out of the judge's hands and put it all in the legislature's hands. That's one of the ways we've gone awry.
The last thing that's really important is that in fiscal year 2014, the US Department of Justice only prosecuted 12 [heroin cases involving fentanyl] nationwide. So this means 12 cases the judge would have the ability to add more on but would have the discretion not to do that.
So, number one, this provision affects a small amount of people. Number two, it's not a mandatory minimum. Number three, if this is one of the compromises we had to make to get the other major pulldowns of mandatory minimums that could affect thousands of people, that is a small, small compromise for the big, big gains we're going to be getting in reducing mass incarceration through the bill.
GL: What are some of the things the bill does that you don't like?
CB: I'll tell you, I fought hard to get the end of juvenile solitary confinement, and I'm upset — though I understood I had to take what we got — that it's only for juveniles that have been tried as juveniles, as opposed to a 16-year-old who's been tried as an adult. He's still eligible for that solitary confinement. That's problematic to me. It's a 16-year-old child — and, again, it's a small number, but they're still in the system. We want the ban on solitary confinement for them.
That a 16-year-old, whose brain is still under development, when they're so vulnerable, [can still be placed in solitary confinement], that's something I don't like in the bill.
We worked hard to get the expungement for juveniles, and I'm worried that that's not in the House provision right now. So that's a provision that's vulnerable.
"As soon as this one passes, I'm back to negotiating and fighting for the next bill that can go further than this"
We were able to get 10-year [mandatory minimums] and above into the judge's discretion, but we were not able to get the five-year mandatory minimums. In other words, with a 10-year, the judge can actually disregard the mandatory minimum according to the bill. That's a massive redirecting of power back toward judges. We won that for 10-year, but we did not win it for five-year mandatory minimums.
If you want more, I could obviously give you a small dissertation on the bill Cory Booker would have wanted versus that one [we got]. In my opinion, I would have liked to just have gotten rid of the mandatory minimums altogether and made our judicial system about judges, juries, prosecutors, and defendants again and not legislators who know nothing about the particular circumstances of a case. So there's a lot of things that are in the bill that aren't the things that I really want, but it is a result of a compromise.
Look, as a result of this compromise, we've gotten Sen. [Mark] Kirk, Sen. [Thad] Cochran, Sen. [Steve] Daines, and Sen. [Dan] Sullivan onto the bill, which gives us all the more chances of it getting passed.
Again, it's not my dream bill. And as soon as this one passes, I'm back to negotiating and fighting for the next bill that can go further than this. And the more guys like you, frankly, and others are awakening the public [to] what I think is one of the greatest cancers in our country, on the soul of our democracy, the more people will be pressing for other and further reforms.
GL: The reason I asked that is to gauge the cost-benefit analysis that you're doing in your head in terms of what makes this bill good and what would make it too bad to pass. It seems like you're saying that this pushes the ball forward a bit and reduces incarceration overall, and that makes it worth passing. But how do you gauge that?
CB: The Sentencing Commission numbers are clear: This is going to have a significant benefit to reducing incarceration. Elements of this bill will have a significant benefit.
There's some benefits that I know are huge that we can't measure, like giving judges that discretion back. We can't measure that. But I know federal judges who've spoken to the fact that they feel like their hands are tied, literally grieving that they have to put down sentences that they know are inappropriate. Well, now, for those 10-year mandatory minimums, those judges have that discretion, and I think it's going to be used a lot. Those are the things we can't measure.
But we have some good numbers on the sentencing reform.
This will move the ball on the field a good number away, and will affect thousands upon thousands of Americans who are unnecessarily, potentially even unjustly, forced to serve very, very long terms. This bill will do good.
It won't do as much good as I would want, but there's no cost-benefit analysis. The choice is this or nothing in this Congress. Nothing leaves a lot of people wallowing in prison, facing harsh judgments that are not necessary. My thinking is let's put these points on the board and commit ourselves to understanding the game's not over yet.
GL: Are you worried that passing this bill would make it harder to get more reform, since people would feel like they at least did something? Or do you think there's so much movement for reform that it will still happen?
CB: I'm a new legislator, so that question you asked me, I've asked so many veterans around this place on both sides of the Capitol. That was a common question I asked for a while — until I heard the same answer from enough senior Democrats that I stopped asking it.
So what everyone who has experience legislating has told me — Dick Durbin was the first person to spell it out for me — is that if you have a chance to pass a bill that does a lot of good, do it, because you never know what's going to happen next year, or what the sentiment is going to be next political cycle. Take what you can off the table. You may not get the whole loaf, but take the loaf that you can get — and then go back to fighting again.
I've been convinced by that argument from enough senior senators. I'll take as much as I can.
And then, by the way, the coalition that we've helped foster around this issue, it isn't going away either. Conversations with Mark Holden, with the Koch brothers, with Newt Gingrich, with others — everybody knows that there's more work to do. So I don't think you're going to get any diminution in commitment from a lot of these interest groups, advocacy groups, and justice groups.
But, again, you never know what can happen — who's going to win the presidential election, who's going to win the Senate, who will be elected in the House. So I think the right thing to do is to get a bill that may not go as far as we want to. But it's in my lifetime the first reversal of mass incarceration in the federal level.
GL: So the bill received some big changes recently, after it was released last year, due to fears about some of the measures benefiting violent offenders. But I know that a lot of reformers and experts actually liked those portions; they think it's important to acknowledge that sentences are too long not just for drug offenders but for everyone in general. Where do you stand on that, and is it something you intend to work on moving forward?
CB: I've spoken about this publicly a lot. And I don't have unanimity in my own caucus about this. But we have an issue with violent crime in the sense that everybody makes a stark difference between violent offenders and nonviolent offenders.
But for people in the criminal justice working world, that is a gray line at best. You could have someone who's in a car, driving a boyfriend, and the boyfriend decides to jump out, pull a gun out, rob somebody, jumps back in the car, and she keeps driving — and now she's a violent criminal.
So we need to start having a better conversation about the many people who are languishing in prison for very long terms when their crime was not showing the right sense and stopping the car and exiting the car as a driver or what have you.
I still think we have disproportionate punishments for people who are so-called violent criminals but don't necessarily involve any direct actions of violence.
In addition to that, the circumstances to violent crime. I'll give you an example on an assault charge. If you and I got into a bar fight, and you punched me, and I fell backward and I hit my head, and I died, that's a horrible crime — but there are circumstances within that. Does that person deserve life imprisonment?
I just think there's a fear to have a candid conversation about proportionality when it comes to things that are labeled as violent crimes.
GL: Even for people who have done truly violent or horrible things, there are also some questions about whether they truly deserve the long sentences they're getting, especially if they can prove that they've rehabilitated or have aged out of crime. In those kinds of cases, what do you think should be done?
CB: Let's look at the statistical reality. When people are in prison, maybe they commit a crime in their 20s, and now they're in their 50s, 60s, and 70s and we're still holding them in prison; there is so much data that shows that you hit a point in your age that your chances of committing another crime have gone down dramatically.
There comes a point where you really have to ask yourself if we have achieved the societal end in keeping these people in prison for so long. Is the societal cost and expenditure worth it to keep somebody who's older — higher medical costs and the like — in prison? This is a conversation this country really needs to have.
By the way, I think what you're getting at also is that we are different than most places on the planet Earth in terms of the lengths of our sentences even for violent crimes.
GL: One example that comes to mind is Norway's system, where prison terms are capped at 21 years but perhaps a judge can add a few years at the end of the term. It seems like something the US could move to.
CB: Even with our bill, what a lot of people don't understand is that people who are earning time out in our bill, they're not just getting it and then it's like, "Hey, it's time to get out." They have to go for reviews before the prosecutor, before the judge. So we're not just opening doors for people to leave without any checks whatsoever. In fact, the checks are, in my opinion, very justifiably burdensome for someone to exit prison.
So a system in which someone who serves 40 years on a sentence and is now a senior citizen, a system that says they should now be able to go through a process and the victims are notified, where prosecutors are there, where the chance for redemption is open to them, not given to them, I think we should have a system that allows a chance for redemption for people who are well past the point in their lives where they're any statistical threat to this country.
GL: If this bill passes, are there any particular ideas you're thinking about specifically in terms of criminal justice reform?
CB: I don't know my communications director will want me to say this, but: Hell yes!
Let's start with the great bill to "ban the box." That's a no-brainer, in my opinion. And it has wide bipartisan support. And it would deal with this other problem that you and I haven't talked about yet: Folks who get out of prison — maybe they only serve a year, maybe they only serve a month — now they can't get a job.
There is, across the board, so much more work to be done in this area. Should this bill get done and sent to the president's office, before the ink is dry I'm going to start talking about the many more things that we have to do to bring justice back to our justice system.
GL: That's one thing the bill leaves out: addressing all these collateral consequences. You mentioned "ban the box," but it also applies to other stuff, like voting rights and welfare benefits. I know some of this is done at the state level, but still.
CB: I'm on a bill about voting rights. States may be able to do what they want on the state level, but on federal offices, heck yes that's our jurisdiction. And it's outrageous that African Americans are four times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes, even though they have no difference in committing drug crimes. And guess what, as a result of that? Black Americans are about four times more likely to lose their voting rights.
I'm already involved on legislation on a whole bunch of these issues — really good bills that I'm not giving up on fighting for. And when this sentencing bill is done, I'm going to be part of introducing new sentencing bills around mandatory minimums, because I think the momentum and history is on our side. And we can continue to chip away at this problem. | 0fake |
ROMNEY CRITICIZES TEA PARTY CANDIDATE TED CRUZ ABOUT TOUGH RHETORIC ON IRAN AND CRUZ COMES OUT SWINGING: “You got clobbered [by Obama] because you didn’t have the guts to keep going.” | A transcript from the Friday, July 31, 2015 Rush Limbaugh show. Rush is truly one of the most brilliant political analysts of our time. He proves it with this commentary on Mitt Romney and Ted Cruz:RUSH: Mitt Romney is out there ripping into Ted Cruz, and I made the observation that I can t recall a presidential candidate losing presidential candidate ripping presidential candidates in his own party in the next election cycle. I was trying to think, in the modern era, if there was an example of it. I couldn t think of one. It wasn t so much trying to think of Reagan s 11th commandment as I was thinking more about establishment Republican versus upstart Tea Party conservative.By the way, here s another thing: I ve been doing In the course of show prep, I ve been doing just a voluminous amount of reading about the divide here between the establishment in Washington, both parties, and the Republican Party, what s happening with Trump and so forth. Now, I knew! I knew that the Democrats had elevated the Tea Party into being something horrible and giant and bad, negative. I had no idea Eh, that s not quite true. I didn t fully appreciate the extent to which the Republican Party has enmity for the Tea Party. The Washington establishment treats the Tea Party They re genuinely afraid of it. Let me put it this way: They re genuinely afraid of it because of its size and its power, and the amazing thing about that is the Tea Party is not something about which is organized around an individual. I think this is why they fear it. It is genuinely bottom-up.It s an effervescent movement of average, ordinary people fed up with Washington, just totally fed up with government, totally fed up with what government is doing. Peggy Noonan has a piece today, and she says that the Tea Party and others, it s not hatred for government they have, it s contempt for government. But the Tea Party is genuinely feared, and it s genuinely feared because it is thought to be huge, and it s put the whole Republican establishment on defense.So, anyway, Ted Cruz isn t backing off the tough rhetoric he s used to describe the Iran nuclear deal, despite criticism leveled by Mitt Romney yesterday. Cruz fired back at Romney in a Thursday radio interview So Mitt Romney s tweet today said, Gosh, this rhetoric is not helpful, Cruz said. John Adams famously said, Facts are stubborn things. Describing the actual facts is not using rhetoric; it is called speaking the truth.' Cruz then fired another fact. Part of the reason that Mitt Romney got clobbered by Barack Obama is because we all remember that third debate where Barack Obama turned to Mitt and said, I said the Benghazi attack was terrorism and no one is more upset by Benghazi than I am! And Mitt, I guess listening to his own advice, said, Well gosh, I don t want to use any rhetoric. So OK, never mind. I ll just kind of rearrange the pencil on the podium here, Cruz said. And he s right! We do remember that debate.I mean, Romney must have had three, different, slow-pitch curveballs, softballs, just tailor made for grand-slam home runs, and he just didn t even take a swing at them. Remember that? After the first debate, when Romney just cleaned Obama s clock, do you remember that? The Democrats and the media were all asking, What happened to Obama? Oh my God, does he even want to be reelected? They were scared to death because Romney just made mincemeat.After that one, it was like it never happened, almost like Romney felt guilty for doing it. Because he went into a defensive mode and did not do anything else that might offend or upset or irritate anybody. And it was clear that the consultants had gotten hold of him. Maybe they didn t have to. Maybe he believed it himself. But the consultants had gotten a hold of him and said, Look, you can t keep criticizing the president. The independents don t like that! We re never going to win. We have to show we can cooperate. We have to show we can work with the Democrats! So Romney shut up. But what Cruz s point is very simple (summarized): What are you beating up on me for? I m not the enemy. I m not the Democrat Party. Why don t you start talking about them this way? They re the ones actually doing a deal that s going to put this country at risk. Why don t you say that? Effectively what Cruz is saying is, I m not the problem here, Mitt! And this isn t rhetoric. I m simply citing facts. So now people are starting to ask: Is Cruz following in the Trump mold? Is Trump serving to show the way for other Republicans how to respond? Well, maybe Trump is, but Cruz doesn t need to be shown. This is standard operating procedure for Cruz. I mean, it was just two weeks ago that he went to the floor of the Senate and accused the majority leader of lying to him face to face. Now he s firing back at Romney. But try this headline. Well, it s not a headline. It s a paragraph subhead. Both Obama and Romney have called Cruz s remarks inappropriate. What has Cruz done? He s maintained that [Obama] would become a leading state-sponsor of terror if the agreement it struck with Iran makes it past Congress. He and others have argued that Iran would use a windfall from sanctions relief to finance terror abroad. He has said on that basis alone this deal ought not get done! And then Romney piped up and said in a tweet (paraphrased): Gosh, this rhetoric isn t helpful. Gosh, this rhetoric isn t helpful! Cruz fired back: You re telling me what s not helpful? You got clobbered by Obama for a reason! You got clobbered because you backed off. You got clobbered because you didn t have the guts to keep going. So this is I like this, folks. Whatever Trump s responsible for it or not.END TRANSCRIPTVia: RushLimbaugh.com | 1real |
WATCH: Anderson Cooper Throws MAJOR Shade At White House Aide Over ‘Fake News’ | An interview with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and Sebastian Gorka Wednesday night went off the rails when the White House deputy assistant started lecturing the host on fake news. It s remarkable really because Gorka is fake. Even his PhD is fake and yet, he used to insist that everyone call him Doctor. Still yet, the fake doctor couldn t help himself and launched into a rant against fake news. It s laughable. Your chryon talked about a crisis, Gorka told Cooper in response to a suggestion that the White House was in turmoil. I actually work in the West Wing, I work in the White House, it is absolutely nothing of the kind. The president is a steam locomotive that can t be stopped. It s just fake news. I m sad to see CNN fall to this, Gorka said. I know you want salacious and sensational coverage for your ratings so your corporate sponsors and owners will have more money, but that s not media, that s not reportage. It s just fake news. Okay, I m just going to ignore the insults because I don t think it really gets us anywhere, Cooper shot back.Cooper pressed Gorka over a tweet which Trump posted on Twitter saying the media often makes up its sources, despite the fact that Trump Jr. released the email chain which confirms The New York Times reporting.Remember, when you hear the words "sources say" from the Fake Media, often times those sources are made up and do not exist. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2017 I m giving you an opportunity right now to correct what the president said this morning. Because what he s alleging is that the reporting is fake and in fact, his son s own email chain shows that it s accurate. Do you deny that? Cooper asked. No, I deny the fact that there is anything here that is untoward. Again this is an obsessive nine-month campaign, Gorka said.An exhausted Gorka eventually said, I thought we were going to talk about real issues, like what we re doing with our allies in France, defeating ISIS. I am going to ask you but you re not being honest, you re not being upfront, Cooper responded. How many minutes are we in? Gorka said. Are you a TV producer now? Cooper fired back. You re concerned about how many minutes we ve been talking? Do you have somewhere else to go? If you gotta go, you gotta go. You re falling into the fake news trap again, said Gorka. And it s sad, Anderson. You re shaking shiny objects to try to divert people, but I don t think viewers are really that easily diverted, Cooper said. Do you know why the president s description of a witch hunt is accurate, Gorka asked. Because there never were witches. And there never was any collusion. It s bogus Anderson, you re like a broken record. No, because I m not getting any answers from you, replied Cooper. I m answering it. Every time, said Gorka. No, you re responding, said Cooper. You re not actually answering because you re not actually being up front. Let s let the viewers judge, Gorka said, who then mocked CNN s ratings. You used that line on Monday, and you know, it was sort of mildly amusing, Cooper said. But I think it s funny that you have enough time in the White House, which is apparently you re so busy, you re able to sit around [and] read Nielsen numbers. No, I had really good prep from my team, because the White House press team is superb, Gorka said. I don t deal with this stuff because I do have a day job. Watch a clip from the interview:.@andersoncooper fires back at @SebGorka: I m just going to ignore the insults, I don t think it gets us anywhere https://t.co/CbyGcCWsLd Anderson Cooper 360 (@AC360) July 13, 2017Cooper brought up that CNN apologized for an inaccurate story but Trump has never corrected his errors. Later in his show, Cooper described Gorka as the Hungarian Don Rickles. While the Trump administration would love for everyone to think that everything is fine, the White House is in crisis.Image via screen capture. | 1real |
‘No Vacancies’ for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias - The New York Times | She seemed like the model tenant. A nurse who was living at the Y. W. C. A. in Harlem, she had come to rent a at the Wilshire Apartments in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens. She filled out what the rental agent remembers as a “beautiful application. ” She did not even want to look at the unit. There was just one hitch: Maxine Brown was black. Stanley Leibowitz, the rental agent, talked to his boss, Fred C. Trump. “I asked him what to do and he says, ‘Take the application and put it in a drawer and leave it there,’” Mr. Leibowitz, now 88, recalled in an interview. It was late 1963 — just months before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act — and the tall, mustachioed Fred Trump was approaching the apex of his building career. He was about to complete the jewel in the crown of his housing empire: seven towers, called Trump Village, spread across nearly 40 acres in Coney Island. He was also grooming his heir. His son Donald, 17, would soon enroll at Fordham University in the Bronx, living at his parents’ home in Queens and spending much of his free time touring construction sites in his father’s Cadillac, driven by a black chauffeur. “His father was his idol,” Mr. Leibowitz recalled. “Anytime he would come into the building, Donald would be by his side. ” Over the next decade, as Donald J. Trump assumed an increasingly prominent role in the business, the company’s practice of turning away potential black tenants was painstakingly documented by activists and organizations that viewed equal housing as the next frontier in the civil rights struggle. The Justice Department undertook its own investigation and, in 1973, sued Trump Management for discriminating against blacks. Both Fred Trump, the company’s chairman, and Donald Trump, its president, were named as defendants. It was news, and for Donald, amounted to his debut in the public eye. “Absolutely ridiculous,” he was quoted as saying of the government’s allegations. Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle — as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier — he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation. When it was over, Mr. Trump declared victory, emphasizing that the consent decree he ultimately signed did not include an admission of guilt. But an investigation by The New York Times — drawing on files from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, internal Justice Department records, court documents and interviews with tenants, civil rights activists and prosecutors — uncovered a long history of racial bias at his family’s properties, in New York and beyond. That history has taken on fresh relevance with Mr. Trump arguing that black voters should support him over Hillary Clinton, whom he has called a bigot. While there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties, he was on hand while they were in place, working out of a cubicle in Trump Management’s Brooklyn offices as early as the summer of 1968. Then and now, Mr. Trump has steadfastly denied any awareness of any discrimination at Trump properties. While Mr. Trump declined to be interviewed for this article, his general counsel, Alan Garten, said in a statement that there was “no merit to the allegations. ” And there has been no suggestion of racial bias toward prospective residents in the luxury housing that Mr. Trump focused on as his career took off in Manhattan in the 1980s. In the past, Mr. Trump has treated the case as a footnote in the narrative of his career. In his memoir “The Art of the Deal,” he dispensed with it in five paragraphs. And while stumping in Ohio, he even singled out his work at one of his father’s properties in Cincinnati, omitting that, at the time, the development was the subject of a separate discrimination lawsuit — one that included claims of racial slurs uttered by a manager whom Mr. Trump had personally praised. As eager as he was to leave behind the precincts of New York City where Fred Trump had made his fortune, Donald Trump often speaks admiringly of him, recalling what he learned at his father’s side when the Trump name was synonymous with utilitarian housing, not yet with luxury, celebrity, or a polarizing brand of politics. “My legacy has its roots in my father’s legacy,” he said last year. Fred Trump got into the housing business when he was in his early 20s, building a home for a neighbor in Queens. During World War II, he constructed housing for shipyard workers and Navy personnel in Norfolk, Va. After the war, he returned to New York, setting his sights on bigger, more ambitious projects, realized with the help of federal government loans. His establishment as one of the city’s biggest developers was hardly free of controversy: The Senate Banking Committee subpoenaed him in 1954 during an investigation into profiteering off federal housing loans. Under oath, he acknowledged that he had wildly overstated the costs of a development to obtain a larger mortgage from the government. In 1966, as the investigative journalist Wayne Barrett detailed in “Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth,” a New York legislative committee accused Fred Trump of using state money earmarked for housing to build a shopping center instead. One lawmaker called Mr. Trump “greedy and grasping. ” By this point, the Trump organization’s business practices were beginning to come under scrutiny from civil rights groups that had received complaints from prospective tenants. People like Maxine Brown. Mr. Leibowitz, the rental agent at the Wilshire, remembered Ms. Brown repeatedly inquiring about the apartment. “Finally, she realized what it was all about,” he said. Ms. Brown’s first instinct was to let the matter go she was happy enough at the Y. W. C. A. “I had a big room and two meals a day for five dollars a week,” she said in an interview. But a friend, Mae Wiggins, who had also been denied an apartment at the Wilshire, told her that she ought to have her own place, with a private bathroom and a kitchen. She encouraged Ms. Brown to file a complaint with the New York City Commission on Human Rights, as she was doing. “We knew there was prejudice in renting,” Ms. Wiggins recalled. “It was rampant in New York. It made me feel really bad, and I wanted to do something to right the wrong. ” Mr. Leibowitz was called to testify at the commission’s hearing on Ms. Brown’s case. Asked to estimate how many blacks lived in Mr. Trump’s various properties, he remembered replying: “To the best of my knowledge, none. ” After the hearing, Ms. Brown was offered an apartment in the Wilshire, and in the spring of 1964, she moved in. For 10 years, she said, she was the only in the building. Complaints about the Trump organization’s rental policies continued to mount: By 1967, state investigators found that out of some 3, 700 apartments in Trump Village, seven were occupied by families. Like Ms. Brown, the few minorities who did live in buildings often had to force their way in. A black woman named Agnes Bunn recalled hearing in early 1970 about a vacant Trump apartment in another part of Queens, from a white friend who lived in the building. But when she went by, she was told there were no vacancies. “The super came out and stood there until I left the property,” Ms. Bunn said. Ms. Bunn testified about the experience at a meeting with the New York City Commission on Human Rights in 1970. According to a summary, recovered from the New York City Municipal Archives, she told a Trump lawyer that it was known that no “colored” people were wanted as tenants in the building. The lawyer concluded that the episode was “all a misunderstanding. ” Ms. Bunn and her husband, a Manhattan accountant, soon became the building’s first black tenants. Unlike the public schools, the housing market could not be desegregated simply by court order. Even after passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited racial discrimination in housing, developments in white neighborhoods continued to rebuff blacks. For years, it fell largely to local civil rights groups to highlight the problem by sending white “testers” into apartment complexes after blacks had been turned away. “Everything was sort of whispers and innuendo and you wanted to try to bring it out into the open,” recalled Phyllis Kirschenbaum, who volunteered for Operation Open City, a housing rights advocacy organization. “I’d walk in with my freckles and red hair and Jewish name and get an apartment immediately. ” The complaints of discrimination were not limited to New York. In 1969, a young black couple, Haywood and Rennell Cash, sued after being denied a home in Cincinnati at one of the first projects in which Donald Trump, fresh out of college, played an active role. Mr. Cash was repeatedly rejected by the Trumps’ rental agent, according to court records and notes kept by Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Cincinnati, which sent in white testers posing as a young couple while Mr. Cash waited in the car. After the agent, Irving Wolper, offered the testers an apartment, they brought in Mr. Cash. Mr. Wolper grew furious, shoving them out of the office and calling the young female tester, Maggie Durham, a “” according to court records. “To this day I have not forgotten the fury in his voice and in his face,” Ms. Durham recalled recently, adding that she also remembered him calling her a “traitor to the race. ” The Cashes were ultimately offered an apartment. At a campaign stop in Ohio recently, Mr. Trump shared warm memories of his time in Cincinnati, calling it one of the early successes of his career. And in “The Art of the Deal,” he praised Mr. Wolper, without using his surname, calling him a “fabulous man” and “an amazing manager. ” “Irving was a classic,” Mr. Trump wrote. The young Mr. Trump also spent time in Norfolk, helping manage the housing complexes his father built there in the 1940s. Similar complaints of discrimination surfaced at those properties beginning in the and were documented by Ellis James, an equal housing activist. “The managers on site were usually not very sophisticated,” Mr. James, now 78, recalled. “Some were dedicated segregationists, but most of them were more concerned with following the policies they were directed to keep. ” Donald Trump said he had first heard about the lawsuit, which was filed in the fall of 1973, on his car radio. The government had charged him, his father and their company, Trump Management Inc. with violating the Fair Housing Act. Another major New York developer, the LeFrak Organization, had been hit with a similar suit a few years earlier. Its founder, Samuel LeFrak, had appeared at a news conference alongside the United States attorney, trumpeting a consent agreement to prohibit discrimination in his buildings by saying it would “make open housing in our cities a reality. ” The LeFrak company even offered the equivalent of one month’s rent to help 50 black families move into predominantly white buildings. Donald Trump took a different approach. He retained Senator Joseph McCarthy’s counsel, Roy Cohn, to defend him. Mr. Trump soon called his own news conference — to announce his countersuit against the government. The government’s lawyers took as their starting point the years of research conducted by civil rights groups at Trump properties. “We did our own investigation and enlarged the case,” said Elyse Goldweber, who as a young assistant United States attorney worked on the lawsuit, U. S. A. v. Trump. A former Trump superintendent named Thomas Miranda testified that multiple Trump Management employees had instructed him to attach a separate piece of paper with a big letter “C” on it — for “colored” — to any application filed by a black . The Trumps went on the offensive, filing a charge against one of the prosecutors, accusing her of turning the investigation into a “ interrogation. ” The Trumps derided the lawsuit as a pressure tactic to get them to sign a consent decree like the one agreed to by Mr. LeFrak. The judge dismissed both the countersuit and the charge. After nearly two years of legal wrangling, the Trumps gave up and signed a consent decree. As is customary, it did not include an admission of guilt. But it did include pages of stipulations intended to ensure the desegregation of Trump properties. Equal housing activists celebrated the agreement as more robust than the one signed by Mr. LeFrak. It required that Trump Management provide the New York Urban League with a weekly list of all its vacancies. This did not stop Mr. Trump from declaring victory. “In the end the government couldn’t prove its case, and we ended up making a minor settlement without admitting any guilt,” he wrote in “The Art of the Deal. ” Only this was not quite the end. A few years later, the government accused the Trumps of violating the consent decree. “We believe that an underlying pattern of discrimination continues to exist in the Trump Management organization,” a Justice Department lawyer wrote to Mr. Cohn in 1978. Once again, the government marshaled numerous examples of blacks being denied Trump apartments. But this time, it also identified a pattern of racial steering. While more black families were now renting in buildings, the government said, many had been confined to a small number of complexes. And tenants in some of these buildings had complained about the conditions, from falling plaster to rusty light fixtures to bloodstained floors. The Trumps effectively wore the government down. The original consent decree expired before the Justice Department had accumulated enough evidence to press its new case. The issue was becoming academic, anyway. New York’s white population was shrinking. Shifting demographics would soon make it impractical to turn away black tenants. By the spring of 1982, when the case was officially closed, Donald Trump’s prized project, Trump Tower, was just months from completion. The rebranding of the Trump name was well underway. As for Ms. Brown, she still lives in the same apartment in the Wilshire. Over the years, she has watched the building’s complexion begin to change — along with some of her neighbors’ attitudes toward her. During the 1990s, one man who used to step off the elevator whenever she stepped on suddenly started greeting her warmly. On a recent afternoon, she reminisced about the unlikely role she played in breaking the color barrier of the Trump real estate empire. “I just wanted a decent place to live,” she said. | 0fake |
Hillary Planning Her Escape After a Trump Win With a $1.8 BILLION Money Transfer to QATAR | Email
It appears Bill and Hillary Clinton are making plans to flee the country in the event Donald Trump wins this election. Reports are circulating that the Clinton’s have transferred 1.8 Billion dollars from the Clinton Foundation to the Qatar Central Bank via a facilitation/abatement of JP Morgan Chase & Company for reasons not revealed.
This move of such a large sum of money to the country of Qatar says in itself Hillary Clinton knows she is going to lose the election, and she doesn’t plan to allow her or Bill to be prosecuted for various high crimes and treason under a Trump Administration.
The country of Qatar happens to be one of a handful of countries that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, thus would be a perfect place for her to run to in escaping justice.
Donald Trump has said many times during his campaign and at the Presidential debates that once he gets into office he intends to prosecute her on various high crimes from her latest crimes of sending classified material via a personal e-mail server to gun-running to terrorist groups in Syria resulting in the deaths of 4 Americans in Benghazi.
Apparently, Hillary is not the only person in Washington who has made plans to escape justice under a Trump Administration, John Kerry has quietly been selling his property in the US for millions of dollars of late, with an announcement of the sale of his $25 million Nantucket mansion in June 2016 as well as the sale of his yacht for $3.9 million in July 2016.
President Barack H Obama has also apparently been making exit plans with his purchase of a $4.9 million seaside mansion in Dubai in January 2016, another non extradition country.
Snopes and other supposed fact checking sites have debunked both the story of Obama’s purchase of the mansion and the firing of Rear Admiral Rick Williams, however over the last several months these sites have been busted for lying in trying to debunk such information as the before mentioned, when in fact the information is true. Snopes and other sites try their best to keep incriminating information from being believed, but the truth has a way of coming out on its own, as it always has.
The Bush family has been quietly buying property as well with the purchase of 100,000 acres in Paraguay in 2006, yet another country good for the Bush family, since it does not allow extradition to any country if the death penalty is a possibility for the crime. If the corruption is found to go as far back as both of the Bush Administrations with any connections to them being the perpetrators of the events on 9-11, the death penalty would surely be a stipulation of any extradition request. Apparently, if things get going with prosecuting the corrupt and treasonous, the Bush’s plan on getting out of the country as well.
Interestingly, the Bush family’s Nazi connections dating back to WWII seem to have played a part in the Paraguay purchase since most Nazis fled to South America after WWII. Since George H. W. Bush’s father Senator Prescott Bush was director and shareholder in companies that were connected with institutions financially backing the Nazis, the Bush family has a long history of being associated with Nazis.
With the movement of huge amounts of funds, selling millions of dollars in real estate, and the purchase of millions in real estate overseas, we are seeing the plans of the corrupt in Washington who have been ripping of our country in the trillions, murdering US citizens in the thousands, and citizens in foreign countries by the millions since 9-11 finally realizing their crimes against humanity is about to be exposed.
We are also witnessing the change from what amounts to nothing more than a Nazi Dictatorship in Washington to an actual Presidential Administration who not only will look to the Constitution as the basis of all laws, but one who is going to prosecute the criminals in our government and return it to being a government by the people, for the people, and of the people of the USA. Not the Dictatorship over the people, to the people and who disregards the people as we now have in power. | 1real |
Trump Embarrasses Himself By Calling Accurate New York Times Story ‘Fake News’ | Donald Trump posted his most embarrassing attack on the New York Times yet on Friday.Proving once again that he really should think before he tweets, Trump reacted to a New York Times article that accurately reported that he hadn t spoken to Chinese President Xi Jingping since November 14th.Ever since Trump took a phone call from Taiwan, and basically treated Taiwan like a legitimate nation, China has not been happy. It has been American policy for decades that the president does not communicate with Taiwan because China considers Taiwan part of the real China.The One China Policy has been a crucial agreement between China and the United States, but Trump blew that all to hell with a single phone call and has been escalating confrontation with China ever since.The New York Times published a story on Thursday before Trump spoke with China s president to end the silence between them.Again, let s be absolutely clear. The new York Times published this story BEFORE Trump talked to Jingping. Once the Times learned of Trump s phone call, the story was updated to reflect the new information. However, it does not change the fact that up to that point, Trump had, indeed, not spoken with Jingping since November.But Donald Trump is not much of a reader, so instead of reading the updated version, he caught the older version of the story and promptly lost his shit on Twitter over it.The failing @nytimes does major FAKE NEWS China story saying Mr.Xi has not spoken to Mr. Trump since Nov.14. We spoke at length yesterday! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2017Yeah, this is pretty damn embarrassing and the Internet let Trump know it.@realDonaldTrump Subscriptions to the New York Times have doubled since you announced your candidacy. Stock is up 20%. Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) February 10, 2017@realDonaldTrump Anyway what are u talking about? There s a story about the phone call on the front page right now.https://t.co/LgUkEgwUcK Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) February 10, 2017.@realDonaldTrump also, they re not failing. no matter how many times you say it: pic.twitter.com/4tv6FGzm8Q Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) February 10, 2017.@realDonaldTrump OK, I m actually not sure if this is a blatant lie or reading comprehension issue. pic.twitter.com/BFPrwQq7Mv Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) February 10, 2017@realDonaldTrump @nytimes That you misread the Times story & then immediately tweet-raged shows lack of emotion regulation & self control Andrea Kuszewski (@AndreaKuszewski) February 10, 2017@realDonaldTrump @nytimes Conversations that took place after the story was written doesn t make them false. Kelly Scaletta (@KellyScaletta) February 10, 2017@realDonaldTrump @nytimes the only thing that s failing is your presidency. Ben Rachinger (@BenSRachinger) February 10, 2017Seriously, Trump could done a simple search to find the updated version of the story but he is so petty and thin-skinned that he immediately lashed out instead of getting all the facts.And the fact is that prior to their conversation yesterday, Trump had not spoken to Jinping since November 14th, meaning the New York Times article was accurate and they continued to be accurate when they updated the story.Trump owes the New York Times a public apology.Featured image via Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
Nancy Pelosi Slams ‘Trumpian Stupidity’ And His ‘Verbal Poo Poo’ | Donald Trump has been facing a furious backlash as a result of his most recent comments. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) weighed in on Thursday, slamming his never-ending stream of verbal poo poo. Pelosi blasted Trump s assertion that President Obama and Hillary Clinton are responsible for the creation of ISIS. This ridiculous claim, she explained, is just another attempt to keep the attention of the media. [It] is so bizarre, Pelosi said. It s reminiscent of demagogues who want to be in the press no matter what they have to say.They make their verbal poo-poo anyplace to get attention.Pelosi didn t hold back and called out Trump s desperation for attention. According to her, the only thing Trump cares about is keeping all eyes on him. his is not an accident. This is a tactic, she said, and here we are talking about it. Pelosi went on to explain that the blame for the creation of the Islamic State rests squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration. The fact is, the invasion of Iraq under misrepresentations to the American people, has done more to inflame the terrorists than any action you can name, Pelosi said.Pelosi then lit into Trump for his suggestion that Second Amendment people are the only ones who can keep Clinton from becoming President and appointing Supreme Court justices who would do away with the right to bear arms altogether. It was clear that he didn t understand that the words of a presidential candidate, a nominee, weigh a ton, she said.She said that Trump could have chosen any voter base to make his point. He could have chosen the anti-choice pro-lifers or those against immigration. But he didn t. He chose to call out the Second Amendment gun nuts, which Pelosi said was very problematic given the manner which he did. The double meaning that it had, wittingly or not, is very, very problematic very problematic and scary, Pelosi said. We don t know whether he intended it or not. But even if he didn t, words weigh a ton. Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), head of the Democrats campaign messaging arm, joined Pelosi in her scathing criticisms of the Republican nominee. He added that Trump s assertion that he would only support our NATO allies if they pay up jeopardizes our efforts to fight ISIS effectively. That is typical Trumpian stupidity, Israel said. I don t mind his absurd statements. What concerns me are his dangerous policies. Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1real |
This Republican Just Gave The Most Honest Response EVER To A Letter From One Of His Constituents | Mississippi Republican Karl Oliver just gave the most honest, and most accurately Republican response that may have ever been given in the history of the modern Republican party, to a resident of his state.Becky Guidry sent Rep. Oliver an email over her concerns about Mississippi s planned tax breaks that their Republican-controlled legislature is considering. The legislature plans to underfund the state s revenue to catastrophic levels by removing income and corporate franchise taxes. It s not a silly concern since Kansas Republicans have had what can only be considered a post-apocalyptic budget and economy ever since they pulled these same shenanigans there.Guidry s letter is as follows: It is irresponsible of our leadership to suggest eliminating income and corporate franchise taxeswhen: revenue projections are already down, budgets for various services are being cut across the board, funding for public education and other critical services such as child care, foster care and roads/bridges are underfunded. If and when this bill reaches the full House for a vote, again, I urge you to vote No. Source: Clarion LedgerGuidry has a well thought out and practical opinion. Republicans, however, do not care.Rep. Oliver s spiteful and ignorant response is below:Mrs. Guidry,I normally don t return emails that do not request a response, but I found yours so intriguing I simply felt led to respond.I see you are not a native to the Great State of Mississippi nor do you and I have similar political views. The people of our Great State overwhelmingly share my same or similar views on Government responsibility. I appreciate you going to the trouble to share yours with me, but quite frankly, and with all due respect, I could care less. I would, however, recommend that there are a rather large number of like minded citizens in Illinois that would love to see you return.With warmest personal regards,Karl OliverSource: Clarion Ledger I could care less. He probably meant he could not care less, but as the colloquial expression is often said this way, his intent was obvious. As sickening as a response like this is, it is really the most correct one that could possibly be given by a Republican. He s right. They really could care less what s good for the people in a town, state, or the entire nation. Taking all the poor people s money and giving it to the rich is exactly what Jesus would do, right?Guidry was absolutely shocked and appalled by the response: My interpretation was since I was not born here that my opinion just doesn t count. My husband s family is here I work and pay taxes, my son goes to public schools in the Gulfport School District. We re involved in our community. Source: Clarion LedgerThis is the new level of contempt that Republicans have for America. A Trump trickle-down seems to be beginning, where authoritarianism and unaccountability are the new freedom. Featured image via WJTV | 1real |
Does The U.S. Government Really Know Who Hacked Democrats Emails? | Does The U.S. Government Really Know Who Hacked Democrats Emails? By Kassia Halcli
" PBS" - The hacking and public release of Democratic campaign and committee emails made the news and a presidential debate, with more leaks expected to come.
This week, WikiLeaks published more emails from Hillary Clintons campaign chairman, John Podesta. Nearly 20 batches of campaign emails were released over the last month, in addition to Democratic National Committee emails released earlier this year.
In the final presidential debate on Oct. 19, Clinton said documents released by WikiLeaks were part of Russian espionage on the U.S. She called on Republican candidate Donald Trump to acknowledge the Russia connection and condemn such actions.
She has no idea whether its Russia, China, or anybody else. She has no idea, said Trump.
I am not quoting myself. I am quoting 17, 17 intelligence agencies. Do you doubt 17 military and civilian agencies? Clinton asked.
Our country has no idea, Trump responded.
Clinton was citing the Oct. 7 statement from the U.S. intelligence community saying it was confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions.
Analysts say, however, that the ability to determine who cyber attackers are, where theyre located and sometimes who ordered their operations is rarely definitive and comes in degrees of confidence.
Beyond the governments headline assertion that Russia is to blame, its important to parse the public statement pretty closely, said Susan Hennessey, a national security fellow at the Brookings Institution. Theyre being really careful in their word choice.
The Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security said in a statement earlier this month that only Russias senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.
But that statement does not mean that the U.S. has direct evidence of senior official-level involvement, Hennessey said.
Without more definitive statements, its difficult for some technical experts to take the governments word on faith, she and others have said.
Theres no evidence that this was done by the state itself, only evidence it was done by non-state actors that might be Russian-speaking, said Jeffrey Carr, CEO of the cyber security consultancy firm Taia Global, referring to the evidence available to the public.
That evidence, which was released by private threat assessment companies rather than official channels, indicates hackers used Cyrillic keyboards and operated during Moscow working hours.
But indicators of identity like timestamps, language preferences and IP addresses can be manipulated or faked rather easily, said Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab.
Trump has a point when he says we cant know for sure, said Cris Thomas, an information security professional known online as Space Rogue.
I dont know what [evidence] they have that couldnt have been faked, Thomas said.
Sophisticated attackers have learned how to tamper with the technical indicators to mask their identity, or at least send analysts in the wrong direction.
Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of CrowdStrike, hired by the Democratic National Committee to assess its breach, wrote a blog post attributing the hack to two separate Russian-intelligence affiliated groups, Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear.
Alperovitch classed both as sophisticated actors, writing on CrowdStrikes blog that their tradecraft is superb, operational security second to none.
Fancy Bear is very, very good at deception campaigns, said Brian Bartholomew, who co-authored a report about the deception tactics that complicate attribution.
But, he added, the group has recently seemed a little more lax about getting caught.
Carr asked, if these hacks are a ploy by Russian President Vladimir Putin to install what Clinton has called a puppet at the helm of a Western democracy, why leave such obvious technical indicators in their wake?
Thats not even sloppy, Carr said. Thats just ignorant.
Perhaps [Russia] wanted it traced back to them to show that theyre flexing their geopolitical muscle, Schwartz said.
Deception, however, is exceptionally difficult to pull off at the level that is going to withstand the amount of scrutiny the government will put on it, said Jason Healey, senior fellow at the Atlantic Councils Cyber Statecraft Initiative.
Another complicating factor is that the first intrusions into the DNC go back more than a year, well before Trump, purported to be Putins favorite candidate, was perceived as having a reasonable chance of winning the Republican Partys nomination.
To think these hacks were in service of a farsighted, cunning plan designed by the Kremlin is imputing a level of insight and ability to understand and predict the U.S. electoral system that certainly no one in the United States has demonstrated, Hennessey said.
A more likely explanation, she said, is that the hackers were conducting low-threshold espionage but ending up finding information that could be opportunistically released.
The U.S. government has swaths of intelligence and the ability to operate beyond laws that constrain private sector threat assessment companies, said Guerrero-Saade.
As the public, we should really understand that theres a lot more at play behind the scenes, Bartholomew said.
Judging by the practice established by its three previous attribution claims, the government is unlikely to release substantiating evidence, in order to guard U.S. sources and methods.
The world of cyber crime feels like the Wild West, but its not to say that nothing can be known, Guerrero-Saade said. | 1real |
New Zealand's ruling party ahead after poll but kingmaker in no rush to decide | WELLINGTON (Reuters) - The leaders of New Zealand s main parties prepared on Sunday to start talks with Winston Peters, the leader of a nationalist party who emerged as kingmaker after an inconclusive general election, but Peters indicated he was in no rush to pick a side. Prime Minister Bill English s National Party won the largest number of votes in Saturday s general election, securing a comfortable margin over the Labour opposition after what had shaped as one of the closest votes in recent history. But it was Peters and his often controversial New Zealand First Party who emerged in a position of power, with both National and Labour needing his support to form a government under New Zealand s proportional representation system. The National Party, which has been in power for a decade, secured 46 percent of the vote, while Labour had 35.8 percent and New Zealand First 7.5 percent. A final tally, including overseas votes, will be released on Oct. 7. The results so far secured 58 seats for National in the 120-seat parliament and 45 for Labour. New Zealand First has nine seats and the Green Party has seven. Labour and the Greens already have a working agreement, with Labour leader Jacinda Ardern potentially in a position to form a coalition government with 61 seats if she wins Peters support - the bare minimum needed. Peters, who has served in previous Labour and National governments, appeared to be in no hurry. He told reporters on Sunday he had not yet received any calls from National or Labour, and had not contacted them. The colourful populist, a rugby-loving former foreign minister, has in the past backed the party that won the most votes but said he was discussing options with members of his own party first. I m doing it one-by-one by phone, said Peters, a lawyer of indigenous Maori and Scottish descent. Asked how long it might be before he made a decision, Peters said: How long before I pick you up and throw you into the water over there? Ardern, a charismatic 37-year-old, revived her party s flagging fortunes after only taking over as leader in August but fell far short of what early opinion polls suggested could have been a stunning turnaround. She said it would be hard to complete coalition talks until all votes were tallied. Speaking outside her home in Auckland on Sunday, she said her centre-left party would not concede until we are sure that a stable government has been formed . English said he would proceed with negotiations with New Zealand First. The shortest path to stable government is a two-party coalition between National and New Zealand First, English told a news conference. Analysts saw English and his National Party as the clear favorites. I think it s fairly obvious that it will be a National-New Zealand First government, said Grant Duncan, associate professor at Massey University. National and Labour were both expected to maintain a policy of fiscal prudence if they form the next government, although they differ on monetary policy, trade and immigration. That would likely have implications for the New Zealand dollar, the world s 11th most-traded currency. The currency had tended to rise when National rose in the pre-election polls. Clearly when we open on Monday morning we re at the moment no better off it s either going to be Labour or National leading the country, Stuart Ive, a Wellington-based dealer at OM Financial, said on Sunday. Peters has been in parliament since 1978 and was a member of the National Party until he formed New Zealand First in 1993. He was first cast as kingmaker in 1996, when he famously put off coalition talks the day after the election to go fishing. He has often expressed views, such as opposing Chinese migration, that have been criticized as xenophobic. His policies consistently center around tight immigration controls and reduced taxation. (Click tmsnrt.rs/2joJZGV for a graphic on 'New Zealand parliamentary elections') (Click tmsnrt.rs/2faMawe for a graphic on 'New Zealand markets react to opinion polls') | 0fake |
NASA Prepares for Asteroid Impact Within the Next 2 Decades: “It’s Going To Happen” |
NASA is preparing for the big one, as many astronomists have found several major rocks that will be headed straight for earth in the next 10-15 years and beyond.
The threat of a destructive asteroid event encroaching upon our life has become an increasing concern, and it is gaining serious attention. In the long run, it is an inevitability.
Though major asteroids big enough to wipe out life across the entire planet are rare, scientists believe they have taken place and reset entire epochs. Moreover, smaller asteroids, comets or meteors can all do major damage, even if they aren’t record breaking hunks of space rock.
via the UK Metro :
When American government representatives asked NASA head Charles Boden what the best response to a large asteroid headed for New York City would be, his answer was simple: ‘Pray.’
But what would happen if a smaller asteroid hit Los Angeles?
Describing the scenario as a ‘not if – but when,’ NASA recently simulated what would happen if a 300 to 800ft asteroid approached Los Angeles with an 100% chance of impact.
‘It’s not a matter of if – but when – we will deal with such a situation,’ said Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
‘But unlike any other time in our history, we now have the ability to respond to an impact threat through continued observations, predictions, response planning and mitigation.’
What will it mean for civilization as we know it? There is a definite threat of an existential crisis that would change the planet over night – though the chances are extremely low, there is still a chance.
How much warning would we have? We could have as little as three days warning of an asteroid which would blast London with the power of a hydrogen bomb.
And it’s possible that we might have no warning at all – at least with a smaller asteroid capable of shattering windows across the city.
[…]
Bigger asteroids could cause nearly unimaginable damage – wiping out many species and plunging Earth into a bleak winter lasting for years – although the larger an asteroid is, the more warning we would have of its approach.
‘The high degree of initial uncertainty coupled with the relatively long impact warning time made this scenario unique and especially challenging for emergency managers,’ said FEMA National Response Coordination Branch Chief Leviticus A. Lewis.
On the other hand, really big asteroid are routinely monitored and there are several known ‘big ones’ that will approach in the next decade or so… and while they might be headed for the planet, space agencies aren’t planning to take it lying down, instead, they have a plan to exploit it as a major opportunity, born perhaps, out of an unavoidable risk they hope to mitigate.
Now that researchers are getting good at spotting these objects and tracking their path, scientists are beginning to formulate workable strategies for knocking any incoming asteroids off their trajectories and even ‘catching’ them in Earth’s orbit to mine and exploit.
This man on stage at a Ted Talk explains what is at stake:
Phil Plait: How to defend Earth from asteroids
Yes, asteroid defense is now a major enterprise, and somewhere in the shadows a team is gearing up to outdo the casts of Armageddon and Deep Impact combined.
When asteroids do hit, the damage they can do is unimaginably catastrophic – and can easily dwarf the power of a nuclear detonation, depending upon the size of the incoming rock.
But what is perhaps worse than a rock that could pack the punch of “3 billion nukes” is one that is just big enough to destroy a major area, but too small for NASA or other groups to track effectively. In fact, the latter scenario happens all the time – not long ago, a big enough meteor hit and NASA had no idea until it was too late.
Will they catch the one that counts? And will anyone be ready if they don’t?
Read more:
NASA Plan to Protect Planet Hopes “Nuclear Blast Could Nudge Large Asteroid Off Course”
Impact? Asteroid With Destructive “Power of 3 Billion Nukes” Narrowly Misses Earth
Why Has NASA Announced That A Meteor Is NOT Going To Hit The Earth In September?
Shadow Government Bunkers: Security Heightened at Underground Storage Facilities
NASA Missed The Huge Meteor That Just Hit Earth: “Definitely Not Something You See Every Day” | 1real |
WOW! SENATOR GRASSLEY OUTS Schumer And Schiff…LIED To Media Even Though They KNEW Trump Wasn’t Under Investigation For Collusion With Russians [VIDEO] | A top Republican took to the Senate floor Thursday to blame fired FBI Director James B. Comey for fanning conspiracy theories about the U.S. election that played right into Russia s hands. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has oversight of the FBI, also accused Mr. Comey of working to shade the truth by agreeing to the Obama administration s attempt to soft-pedal the criminal probe of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Despite rampant public speculation, Mr. Comey kept hidden the fact that the president wasn t under investigation allowing conspiracy theories and speculation to run wild, Mr. Grassley said.But Mr. Comey refused, saying later that he had feared saying something he d later have to correct. None of this fiasco had to happen if Mr. Comey had just been transparent with the public, as I urged him to, Mr. Grassley said. They played right into Russia s hands, he added.The senator s remarks were striking. A fiercely independent lawmaker, Mr. Grassley has used his office to probe both Democrats and Republicans.He s now in charge of one of the probes on Capitol Hill looking into Mr. Comey s firing and other aspects of the 2016 election brouhaha. We re going to go where the facts take us, Mr. Grassley said.He said Democrats ended up fostering the very Russian meddling in American democracy that they decried and he specifically fingered Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, saying the New York Democrat knew from Mr. Comey that Mr. Trump wasn t under investigation but told the public differently.Mr. Grassley said that as a member of the Gang of Eight the four high-ranking lawmakers in each party who get the most thorough intelligence briefing Mr. Schumer knew Mr. Trump wasn t being probed. But Mr. Schumer told the media that the president was under investigation. And, of course, that further helped feed media hysteria, Mr. Grassley said. The minority leader even tried to say the Senate shouldn t vote on the Supreme Court nomination because the president was under investigation. And the whole time he knew it wasn t true, Mr. Grassley said.He said Mr. Comey told him and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on his committee, about Mr. Trump being in the clear in March.Watch Grassley expose Democrat lawmakers and their lies to the American public:That s the same time Mr. Schumer was demanding a vote on Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch be delayed, saying the president was under investigation. Washington Times | 1real |
ACADEMY AWARD WINNING ACTOR In Harvey Weinstein’s New Batman Movie Once Denounced Pedophilia Hysteria…Claimed: “Children UNDER 16 [yrs old] Are Immensely Attractive” | Batman fans who have been looking forward to the upcoming Batman sequel, Justice League , a Harvey Weinstein movie, that is set to be released before Christmas of 2017, have taken to social media, demanding that the studio replace the Batman actor Ben Affleck. A close friend of the now disgraced Hollywood kingpin producer and sexual predator, Harvey Weinstein, Ben Affleck, has received quite a bit of criticism after women in the industry came forward to accuse him of being complicit in Weinstein s behavior, and have even accused him of disgusting and inappropriate sexual behavior toward women in the industry.A close friend of the now disgraced Hollywood kingpin producer and sexual predator, Harvey Weinstein, Ben Affleck, has received quite a bit of criticism after women in the industry have come forward and accused him of being complicit in Weinstein s behavior and have even accused him of disgusting and inappropriate sexual behavior toward women in the industry. The video below showing Affleck treating an MTV host like a sexual object during the taping of her show quickly went viral on Twitter:[VIDEO] Ben Affleck objectifies female reporter, comments on her breasts, then makes fun of "retarded" people with cerebral palsy. #cringe pic.twitter.com/5OiBtYkkVB Austen Fletcher (@fleccas) October 12, 2017The lone female superhero, Gal Gadot, who plays Wonder Woman in the upcoming movie, recently came out with a statement of support for fellow actresses who have been victims of sexual abuse and condemnation for their sexual harassers: Ben Affleck, who stars as Batman in the Harvey Weinstein Batman Vs. Superman movie is not the only actor who should be shunned by moviegoers and fellow actors in the accepting, liberal, Hollywood crowd. It s time for the spotlight to be shined on a few of the other actors in the Weinstein movie, including Justice League actor Jeremy Irons.Actor Jeremy Irons, who won a Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Reversal of Fortune , is set to play the role of Batman s butler, Alfred J. Pennyworthy in Weinstein s Batman sequel Justice League . Given the pass Hollywood has clearly been giving sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, and Ben Affleck, it s not too surprising that Jeremy Irons has somehow managed to escape scrutiny by the media and by his fellow Hollywood actors after disgusting remarks he made following his role as a pedophile in the controversial Lolita movie.In 1998, Jeremy Irons starred as a pedophile in the movie Lolita, that was based on a 1955 novel written by Russian American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator a middle-aged literature professor called Humbert Humbert is obsessed with the 12-year-old Dolores Haze, with whom he becomes sexually involved after he becomes her stepfather. Lolita is his private nickname for Dolores.Telegraph The actor Jeremy Irons, who starred in the film Lolita, says the hysteria sweeping the country over pedophilia is damaging relations between adults and children.Irons, who has two sons with his wife Sinead Cusack, says it is important to uphold a rigid social morality but also vital that adults are allowed to show affection to children.Pedophilia should be treated as a disease, he says in a BBC interview to be screened next week. But it must also be recognized that children are attractive and that parental love has a sexual element. It is very difficult because children under 16 are immensely attractive, he says. Any father will tell you. I think our children have to be protected. But I don t think we need to have hysteria. In the interview, Irons says his character was not a pedophile in the strict sense, as he knew that what he was doing was wrong . Referring to his family, he describes the difficulties of judging the line between natural affection and pedophilia. I remember when my son was 12 and he was like a god. He just went through that sort of golden time for about 18 months. I don t have a daughter but they do the same. Parental love is sexual. Children practice on their parents. Girls will flirt outrageously with their fathers because they are practicing. But we should know that that is practice. Boys will flirt outrageously with their mothers in a different way. His comments were seized on by child protection charities. The NSPCC said: Such comments are ambiguous and could be interpreted by sex offenders as a justification for their behavior. Esther Rantzen, the chairman of ChildLine, said: The words immensely attractive are not the best thing to say about children under 16. Appealing or charming are more appropriate. Irons, 56, made the remarks when asked about his portrayal of Humbert Humbert, the lecturer who falls for a young girl in the film of Vladimir Nabokov s novel Lolita. When the film came out in 1998, he suggested that child abuse did not always ruin the life of the victim.In the video below, Jeremy Irons arrogantly discusses his own brilliance as he portrays a pedophile in Lolita . Go to the 7:50 mark to hear Irons tell the interviewers how devastatingly attractive many 15-year-old girls are. The greatness of the performance that Dominique Swain gives, is that she is all of our daughters. Funny, wacky, silly, attractive, because many girls of 15 are devastatingly attractive. WATCH:Irons also once posed the question about whether or not a son should be able to marry his father:NYDN -Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons said Wednesday that while he doesn t have much of a strong opinion either way on same-sex marriage, he believes it poses interesting questions, including whether allowing same-sex marriage would open the door for interfamilial relationships. Could a father not marry his son? Irons asked HuffPost Live host Josh Zepps. Irons argued that it s not incest between men because incest is there to protect us from inbreeding, but men don t breed, and wondered whether same-sex marriage might allow fathers to pass on their estates to their sons without being taxed.Jason Momoa who plays Aquaman in in Weinstein s Justice League movie was recently attacked on social media after a video was being circulated of him making a disgusting joke during a public forum, where he bragged about the benefit of being able to play Khal Drogo on the Game of Thrones series, and how he is able to rape beautiful women and get away with it . Weinstein s Justice Leauge movie, surfaced on Twitter, where he was seen discussing as far as sci-fi and fantasy, I love that there s so many things you can do like rip someone s tongue out of their throat and get away with it and rape beautiful women. Watch video below:tw: rapea horrific clip of jason momoa saying he loved working on #gameofthrones bc he "got to rape beautiful women." men are trash. pic.twitter.com/K2RBmsWEt6 bella goth (@peeanofreek) October 12, 2017After the video of the Game of Thrones actor went viral, he apologized for his truly tasteless comment on Instagram. | 1real |
Daily Shooter Academy: Florida Woman Shot Dead by Police During ‘Roleplay’ Drill | 21st Century Wire says This is something which 21WIRE has been warning about for years, ever since the regional police confabs and DHS fusion centers began the new national obsession with Active Shooter drills. In this latest episode of the Daily Shooter, local law enforcement in Punta Gorda, Florida, accidentally use live rounds and fatally shoot an innocent woman participating in a so-called shoot/don t shoot scenario where a police officer plays the role of the bad guy and the unsuspecting woman the victim. Punta Gorda Police Department (Facebook)Mary Knowlton, 73, was shot by at least one live round, possibly more, during the exercise. She later died at the local hospital.Fatal Fusion DrillAccording to the City of Punta Gorda s website, the decedent and 34 other people were attending a free, eight session course of interactive classes designed to provide insight into City government and to develop future leaders through well informed and civically engaged residents. The program is officially called Citizens Academy and gives citizens an up-close and personal look at how City government functions and helps shape our community. Woman killed in Punta Gorda PD gun demonstration https://t.co/jZR6f8eYtv #winknews pic.twitter.com/UQqPchucZb WINK News (@winknews) August 10, 2016At press time, no media outlets are questioning why Punta Gorda s citizens are being subjected to this level of simulated violence during a government funded civics class. What have we learned? Nothing.READ MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Daily Shooter Files | 1real |
Russia is Hoarding Gold at an Alarming Rate — The Next World War Will Be Fought with Currencies | By Jay Syrmopoulos
Moscow, Russia – With all eyes on Russia’s unveiling their latest nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which NATO has dubbed the “SATAN” missile , as tensions with the U.S. increase, Moscow’s most potent “weapon” may be something drastically different.
The rapidly evolving geopolitical “weapon” brandished by Russia is an ever increasing stockpile of gold, as well as Russia’s native currency, the ruble.
Take a look at the symbol below, as it could soon come to change the entire hierarchy of the international order – potentially ushering in a complete international paradigm shift – and much sooner than you might think.
The symbol is the new designation of the Russian ruble, Russia’s national currency.
Similar to how the U.S. uses the dollar sign ($), the U.K. uses the pound sign (£), and the European Union uses the euro symbol (€), Russia is about to begin exporting its symbol internationally.
After the failed “reset” in U.S./Russian relations by the Obama administration, and the continued deterioration of the countries relationship, Washington began targeting entire sectors of the Russian economy, as well as specific individuals, meant to impose an economic burden so severe that it would force Moscow into compliance.
Instead of decimating Russia, what it precipitated was a Russian response of gradually weaning themselves off of the hegemony of the U.S. petrodollar, and working with China to create an alternative to the SWIFT payment system that isn’t solely controlled by Western interests (see Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank , New Development Bank).
According to the Corbett Report :
New reports indicate that China is ready to launch its SWIFT alternative, and for those who have their ear to the ground this is the most significant move yet in the unfolding process of de-dollarization that is seeing the BRICS-led “resistance bloc” breaking away from the financial stranglehold of the US-led “Washington Consensus.”
For those who don’t know, SWIFT stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication and is shorthand for the SWIFTNet Network that is used by over 10,500 financial institutions in 215 countries and territories to transmit financial transaction data around the world. SWIFT does not do any of the clearing or processing for these transactions itself, but instead sends the payment orders that are then settled by correspondent banks of the member institutions. Still, given the system’s near universality in the financial system, it means that virtually every international transaction between banking institutions goes through the SWIFT network.
This is why de-listing from the SWIFT network remains one of the primary financial weapons wielded by the US and its allies in their increasingly important financial warfare campaigns.
Recently, financial guru Jim Rickards, author of the book “Currency Wars,” wrote that “Russia is poised for a major comeback in its economy. Russian bonds and stocks and the Russian currency, the ruble, will all benefit.” Rickards believes a “strong turnaround” is coming within Russia, and that this comeback will benefit the ruble.
While still suffering from the economic warfare being waged by the U.S., Russia has realized that as long they are subservient to the petrodollar, there remains a clear and present danger of the Russian economy being devastated by the whims of Washington.
The Bank of Russia, that nation’s central bank, is extremely clear about its mission, and monetary policy declaring on its website:
Monetary policy constitutes an integral part of the state policy and is aimed at enhancing well-being of Russian citizens. The Bank of Russia implements monetary policy in the framework of inflation-targeting regime, and sees price stability, albeit sustainably low inflation, as its priority. Given structural peculiarities of the Russian economy, the target is to reduce inflation to 4% by 2017 and maintain it within that range in the medium run.
In layman’s terms, that means that monetary policy, similar to nuclear weapons and the military, are “an integral part of the state policy” in Russia. While many analysts have noted the increased build-up in Russia’s military arsenal, seemingly few have highlighted the massive build-up of Russian gold reserves over the past decade.
Below is a chart showing Russian gold reserves between 1994 and last year, 2015:
Since 2006, there has been a year-on-year increase that reveals a significant upward trend. The chart clearly reveals that Russia’s state policy of increasing state monetary assets, in the form of gold. Additionally, the Russian government has been converting state rubles into gold assets. From 2006 to 2015, Russia’s state holdings of gold tripled.
Within just the past year Russia has substantially increased its gold holdings
According to the Business Insider :
In July of this year, the central bank of Russia added 200,000 ounces of gold to its reserves. The one-month uptick in Russian gold reserves — 200,000 ounces — is approximately equal to the entire annual output of Barrick Gold’s Turquoise Ridge gold mine in Nevada.
At that same rate — 200,000 ounces per month — in a mere five months, Russia would add to state gold reserves the equivalent of the entire annual output of Barrick’s massive Goldstrike mine in Nevada.
Currently, Russian gold reserves rank seventh in the world. It’s clear that there is a concerted effort by Russian authorities to build up the country’s gold reserves as part of a national strategy to negate the effects of economic warfare waged by the United States.
Rickards, in his 2011 book “Currency Wars,” theorized that Russia and China could combine their gold reserves to form a global gold-backed currency to compete against the U.S. dollar. Currently, Russian reserves stand at roughly 1,500 tonnes, with Chinese reserves totaling over 1,800 tonnes (according to China — it’s likely more), which would amount to a combined total of roughly 3,300 tonnes of gold.
The U.S. is about to lose overarching control of policymaking within the International Monetary Fund (IMF), thus the U.S. lockup on global gold is about to vanish, according to Business Insider.
Imagine for a moment the distinctly real possibility that Russian-Chinese alliance could exercise indirect (or even direct) control over the IMF’s gold reserve of over 2,800 tonnes. Russian, Chinese and IMF gold combined would equal roughly 6,100 tonnes, and would allow for direct competition with the U.S. gold reserves, estimated at 8,100 tonnes.
Russia and China have realized that the petrodollar is wielded by Washington as it’s weapon of choice when opposing a well-armed state, and clearly see the writing on the wall – thus working together to create a new global financial paradigm.
The reality is that the United States is $20 trillion dollars in debt, and eventually the time will come when the U.S. economy begins to implode — and all the fiat currency people are stuck holding will essentially be worth nothing more than the paper it’s printed on. Hard assets, such as gold and silver, should be bought and taken custody of while there is still an opportunity to do so, as a means of hedging against the potentially disastrous results of the U.S. using the petrodollar as a “weapon.”
Ultimately, the United States, Russia and China are all controlled by centralized power-hungry tyrants attempting to command powerful global bureaucracies like the IMF, the World Bank, SWIFT, New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
It’s not Russian nuclear weapons that people should fear, as the policy of mutually assured destruction essentially voids any benefit of a state launching a first-strike nuclear attack. The true threat to America is our economic house of cards, built upon the back of a neoliberal trade policy that puts the “rights” of corporations over that of people .
Source: The Free Thought Project
Related: Russia to buy 200 tons of gold in 2016 Russia becomes world’s largest gold buyer Russia Adds 300,000 oz to Gold Reserves in February China, Russia and Iran planning gold backed currency Russia Bought More Than 200 Tonnes of Gold in 2015 Away From Dollar: Russia, China to Create Entirely Different Gold Market Gold Bullion Is “100% Guarantee from Legal and Political Risks” – Russia Germany joins China and Russia’s flight to gold Russian Ruble: Soon to Be Backed by Gold? Is Russia Planning A Gold-Based Currency? END GAME: Putin May End Ruble Crisis by Taking Russia onto the GOLD STANDARD! Checkmate: Is Russia Selling Oil For Gold? China & Russia to Accuse U.S. of Not Having the Gold Russia is stockpiling gold bullion Currency Wars: Russia Not Declaring All Gold Reserves To IMF? Russia admits it’s dumping USD and Euro for gold Russia Buys 900,000 Ounces Of Gold Worth $1.17 Billion In April Russia Raises Gold Holdings By 7.247 Tonnes To Over 1,040 Tonnes In February | 1real |
Street Artist Mocks Kim Jong-Un with ’Trump North Korean BBQ’ Posters (Photos) | Los street artist provocateur Sabo is back again, this time to skewer North Korean leader Kim with a series of mock posters promoting a fictional line of “Trump’s North Korean BBQ. ”[The mock posters — which have popped up around the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles — feature the North Korean dictator’s head superimposed onto a roasted pig’s body, and with an apple placed in his mouth. Alongside the image is an insert of a smiling Trump. The taglines for the mock include “The finest in ” “The world’s greatest really,” and “Cooked up by five star chef James Mattis. ” A telephone number displayed on one of the billboards apparently connects to an art gallery in Beverly Hills. The posters’ appearance in Los Angeles comes as hostilities between the United States and North Korea have hit renewed heights in recent weeks. NBC News reported that the National Security Council presented military options to President Trump — including the possible assassination of the North Korean dictator — to deal with the country’s increasingly defiant nuclear program ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week. Sabo has previously featured images of Trump in his street art. In November, just after Trump’s victory in the presidential election, the street artist peppered Los bus benches with fake for Sotheby’s real estate sales, in a campaign lampooning numerous celebrities’ pledges to move out of the country if Trump were elected. Most recently, the artist trolled the Academy Awards by erecting posters outside the Dolby Theater in Hollywood that blasted the film industry’s “unwatchable movies. ” Sabo has also skewered Hillary Clinton, at one time placing an image of the former Democratic presidential candidate inside a washing machine as part of a “money laundering” series, alongside an image of actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton Can’t Run for President | Thousands have run for president, but only one candidate has ever unrun for the office: Hillary Clinton. Ever since she finally announced her entry into the contest a couple of weeks ago, she has been unrunning with ferocity. First she road-tripped a minivan 1,000 miles from New York to Iowa to … listen.
Listening tours (or sessions) are supposed to add a little fabric softener to a politician’s starchy image, buffing their scaly reptilian exteriors down to kid-leather smoothness. The technique worked for Clinton in New York, where booking upstate listening stops helped her win a Senate seat in 2000. Listening is the epitome of unrunning, allowing a candidate to do nothing at all but remain operational. Today, Clinton is listening in New Hampshire, and a full-time physician has been assigned to her care, lest the pure calm of bland political chitchat turn her life signs negative and she unruns herself to death.
Why is Clinton unrunning? If the race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination were a Little League baseball game, the party would have already recognized Clinton’s insurmountable lead and invoked the mercy rule to give the victory to her. By unrunning, she avoids the intense political debate that would only call attention to her underfunded, unannounced and relatively unknown rivals, Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee and Joe Biden, all of whom are un-unrunning at various paces.
With nine months until the first presidential primary, Clinton can’t afford to actively run for president. Indeed, if she had her druthers, she probably wouldn’t even be unrunning now. She was pressured by the constant press attention about when she was going to announce and the email controversy. That sort of press attention was positive media attention she couldn’t control, and only by announcing could she dial it down. The email controversy was negative media attention she couldn’t control without the attention-deflecting machinery of a campaign. Indeed, she may be the first politician to announce for the presidency in order to decrease attention in her candidacy.
She’s succeeded wildly. Her coffees, roundtables, discussions and “spontaneous” meetings with voters have immersed her campaign into a box of dry ice and slowed it to the lowest metabolic levels. Suspended animation would look vigorous compared to what Clinton is now doing. This is smart. Steady coverage on the inside of newspapers is exactly what she wants. I buy what Team Clinton stalwart Donna Brazile recently told BuzzFeed’s Ruby Cramer about the campaign’s pacing (“There’s a rhythm. She’s starting off like Beethoven, with melodies and chords that people understand. But she’s got to end up like Beyoncé”) except to my ears early Clinton sounds more like a hobbled version of the Beatles’ “Within You Without You” than Beethoven.
Actively running for president at this point would be too politically damaging for Clinton. By actively running, she would have to declare herself for or against the current administration, something she doesn’t want to do until it presents some advantage. By unrunning, she can blend passively into the background, where she can be there but not here. Depending on how suggestible the audience that is listening with her, Clinton unrunning looks like a continuation of the Clinton and Obama legacy without explicitly saying so.
Having gotten what they wished for, an official Clinton candidacy, the press must now cover the Clinton 2016 slow lane the best they can. The press already knows almost everything about her, and she’s not going to voluntarily serve any fresh meat, so reporters and editors will have to go to the freezer and the landfills where her past is stored. That’s one reason behind the press excitement over Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. Even if there’s nothing damning in the book, reporters can grind out hundreds of column inches on the subject and make it relevant to the campaign. The only alternative until the campaign awakens from dormancy will be profiles of the 24-year-old staff wizards (I’m sure they exist) who are vitalizing the Clinton campaign. I shudder.
What should ordinarily follow unrunning would be running, but that won’t be possible for Clinton. Until the 2016 campaign boiler room fires up with an identity of its own, she’ll be rerunning her 2008 campaign, necessitating yet another transition in her candidacy. According to POLITICO’s Glenn Thrush, the Clinton campaign plans to spend more time generating calm and less time fighting the press than it did in 2008. We’ve got plenty of time to come up with a snazzy phrase to describe the new, yet-to-be-released Clinton method, but until we come up with a winner, how about “un-rerunning”?
Double-unrunning would mean taking an unrunning campaign several gears lower than a silent John Cage composition. Dash to your keyboard and send me emails with definitions of these variations: “triple-unrunning,” “reverse-unrunning,” “bellyfeel running,” and “duckspeak running” ( Shafer.Politico@gmail.com ). Subscribe to my email alerts before I declare my list full. My Twitter feed is like a multiverse. And, am I the last writer on the planet who promotes his RSS feed? | 0fake |
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