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Daniel Greenfield: Why Obama Really Spied On Trump: ‘It’s not just ideology. It’s raw fear.’ | Daniel Greenfield s take on why Obama spied on Trump is the best yet. He takes you through the twists and turns to expose Obama and his cronies for the liars and cheats they are. We d love to know what you think about this take on why things happened the way they did:Last week, CNN revealed (and excused) one phase of the Obama spying operation on Trump. After lying about it on MSNBC, Susan Rice admitted unmasking the identities of Trump officials to Congress.ACKNOWLEDGED IN A LETTER FROM NUNES AND GOWDY:Rice was unmasking the names of Trump officials a month before leaving office. The targets may have included her own successor, General Flynn, who was forced out of office using leaked surveillance.SUSAN RICE LYING ABOUT THE UNMASKING IS ANYONE SURPRISED? I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today. What she says is a lie but who is surprised by this? We know that Susan Rice lied 5 times on 5 different morning shows the morning after Benghazi. Why wouldn t she try and cover this spying up to protect herself and others including Obama.Susan Rice is also giving conflicting stories on what she did so it might be a good idea for her to lawyer up right now. She claimed ignorance of the unmasking and spying but today she spoke about doing it. Yes, red flags are everywhere on this! The reality and truth is this was more of a political attack to destabilize the Trump presidency and embarrass him:Andrew McCarthy said it best: The national-security adviser is not an investigator. She is a White House staffer. The president s staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it. If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests; it was to fulfill a political desire based on Democratic-party interests. GREENFIELD: LAWS WERE BROKEN The bottom line is that laws were broken when the names were unmasked Someone s in BIG trouble! While Rice s targets weren t named, the CNN story listed a meeting with Flynn, Bannon and Kushner.Bannon was Trump s former campaign chief executive and a senior adviser. Kushner is a senior adviser. Those are exactly the people you spy on to get an insight into what your political opponents plan to do.Now the latest CNN spin piece informs us that secret FISA orders were used to spy on the conversations of Trump s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort (SEE CLAPPER VIDEO BELOW). The surveillance was discontinued for lack of evidence and then renewed under a new warrant. This is part of a pattern of FISA abuses by Obama Inc. which never allowed minor matters like lack of evidence to dissuade them from new FISA requests. Its possible President Trump s voice was picked up in a wiretap of Paul Manafort, says former spy chief Clapper https://t.co/2ELM48axAa CNN (@CNN) September 21, 2017Desperate Obama cronies had figured out that they could bypass many of the limitations on the conventional investigations of their political opponents by laundering them through national security.If any of Trump s people were talking to non-Americans, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) could be used to spy on them. And then the redacted names of the Americans could be unmasked by Susan Rice, Samantha Power and other Obama allies. It was a technically legal Watergate.If both CNN stories hold up, then Obama Inc. had spied on two Trump campaign leaders.Furthermore the Obama espionage operation closely tracked Trump s political progress. The first FISA request targeting Trump happened the month after he received the GOP nomination. The second one came through in October: the traditional month of political surprises meant to upend an election.The spying ramped up after Trump s win when the results could no longer be used to engineer a Hillary victory, but would instead have to be used to cripple and bring down President Trump. Headed out the door, Rice was still unmasking the names of Trump s people while Obama was making it easier to pass around raw eavesdropped data to other agencies.Obama had switched from spying on a political opponent to win an election, to spying on his successor to undo the results of the election.RICE AND POWER WERE USED TO UNMASK TRUMP ASSOCIATES ALL THE PRESIDENT S WOMEN? Notice how uncomfortable Brennan is when asked about the Ambassador Power:Abuse of power by a sitting government had become subversion of the government by an outgoing administration. Domestic spying on opponents had become a coup.The Democrat scandals of the past few administrations have hinged on gross violations of political norms, elementary ethics and the rule of law that, out of context, were not technically illegal.But it s the pattern that makes the crime. It s the context that shows the motive.Obama Inc. compartmentalized its espionage operation in individual acts of surveillance and unmasking, and general policies implemented to aid both, that may have been individually legal, in the purely technical sense, in order to commit the major crime of eavesdropping on the political opposition.When the individual acts of surveillance are described as legal, that s irrelevant. It s the collective pattern of surveillance of the political opposition that exposes the criminal motive for them.If Obama spied on two of Trump s campaign leaders, that s not a coincidence. It s a pattern.A criminal motive can be spotted by a consistent pattern of actions disguised by different pretexts. A dirty cop may lose two pieces of evidence from the same defendant while giving two different excuses. A shady accountant may explain two otherwise identical losses in two different ways. Both excuses are technically plausible. But it s the pattern that makes the crime.Manafort was spied on under the Russia pretext. Bannon may have been spied on over the UAE. That s two different countries, two different people and two different pretexts.But one single target. President Trump.It s the pattern that exposes the motive.When we learn the whole truth (if we ever do), we will likely discover that Obama Inc. assembled a motley collection of different technically legal pretexts to spy on Trump s team.Each individual pretext might be technically defensible. But together they add up to the crime of the century.Obama s gamble was that the illegal surveillance would justify itself. If you spy on a bunch of people long enough, especially people in politics and business, some sort of illegality, actual or technical, is bound to turn up. That s the same gamble anyone engaged in illegal surveillance makes.Businessmen illegally tape conversations with former partners hoping that they ll say something damning enough to justify the risk. That was what Obama and his allies were doing with Trump.It s a crime. And you can t justify committing a crime by discovering a crime.If everyone were being spied on all the time, many crimes could be exposed every second. But that s not how our system works. That s why we have a Fourth Amendment.Nor was Obama Inc. trying to expose crimes for their own sake, but to bring down the opposition.That s why it doesn t matter what results the Obama surveillance turned up. The surveillance was a crime. Anything turned up by it is the fruit of a poisonous tree. It s inherently illegitimate.The first and foremost agenda must be to assemble a list of Trump officials who were spied on and the pretexts under which they were spied upon. The pattern will show the crime. And that s what Obama and his allies are terrified of. It s why Flynn was forced out using illegal surveillance and leaks. It s why McMaster is protecting Susan Rice and the Obama holdovers while purging Trump loyalists at the NSC.The left s gamble was that the Mueller investigation or some other illegitimate spawn of the Obama eavesdropping would produce an indictment and then the procedural questions wouldn t matter.It s the dirty cop using illegal eavesdropping to generate leads for a clean case against his target while betting that no one will look too closely or care how the case was generated. If one of the Mueller targets is intimidated into making a deal, the question of how the case was generated won t matter.Mueller will have a cooperative witness. And the Democrats can begin their coup in earnest. It will eventually turn out that there is no there there. But by then, it ll be time for President Booker.There s just one problem.If the gamble fails, if no criminal case that amounts to anything more than the usual investigational gimmick charges like perjury (the Federal equivalent of resisting arrest for a beat cop) develops, then Obama and his allies are on the hook for the domestic surveillance of their political opponents.With nothing to show for it and no way to distract from it.That s the race against the clock that is happening right now. Either the investigation gets results. Or its perpetrators are left hanging in the wind. If McMaster is fired, which on purely statistical grounds he probably will be, and a Trump loyalist who wasn t targeted by the surveillance operation becomes the next National Security Adviser and brings in Trump loyalists, as Flynn tried to do, then it s over.And the Dems finally get their Watergate. Except the star won t be Trump, it will be Obama. Rice, Power, Lynch and the rest of the gang will be the new Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Mitchell.Once Obama and his allies launched their domestic surveillance operation, they crossed the Rubicon. And there was no way back. They had to destroy President Trump or risk going to jail.The more crimes they committed by spying on the opposition, the more urgently they needed to bring down Trump. The consequences of each crime that they had committed spurred them on to commit worse crimes to save themselves from going to jail. It s the same old story when it comes to criminals.Each act of illegal surveillance became more blatant. And when illegal surveillance couldn t stop Trump s victory, they had to double down on the illegal surveillance for a coup.The more Obama spied on Trump, the more he had to keep doing it. This time it was bound to pay off.Obama and his allies had violated the norms so often for their policy goals that they couldn t afford to be replaced by anyone but one of their own. The more Obama relied on the imperial presidency of executive orders, the less he could afford to be replaced by anyone who would undo them. The more his staffers lied and broke the law on everything from the government shutdown to the Iran nuke sellout, the more desperately they needed to pull out all the stops to keep Trump out of office. And the more they did it, the more they couldn t afford not to do it. Abuse of power locks you into the loop familiar to all dictators. You can t stop riding the tiger. Once you start, you can t afford to stop.If you want to understand why Samantha Power was unmasking names, that s why. The hysterical obsession with destroying Trump comes from the top down. It s not just ideology. It s wealthy and powerful men and women who ran the country and are terrified that their crimes will be exposed.It s why the media increasingly sounds like the propaganda organs of a Communist country. Why there are street riots and why the internet is being censored by Google and Facebook s fact checking allies.It s not just ideology. It s raw fear.The left is sitting on the biggest crime committed by a sitting president. The only way to cover it up is to destroy his Republican successor.A turning point in history is here.If Obama goes down, the left will go down with him. If his coup succeeds, then America ends.Read more from Daniel Greenfield | 1real |
JUDGE NAPOLITANO On Bombshell That Intel Isn’t Telling Trump Information: “There’s only one president” [Video] | The officials decision to keep information cite deep mistrust Judge Napolitano has a great solution QUIT! The people who re loyal to Barak Obama need to go! | 1real |
Former CIA/NSA Chief Says Trump’s Unlawful Orders Would NOT Be Followed By The Armed Forces (VIDEO) | Donald Trump has this tough guy syndrome that makes it impossible for him to resist doing and saying incredibly stupid things. It has garnered him a lot of attention from the low-hanging fruit he calls a base, who love his stance on discrimination and approval of brutish violence. Watching Trump rise is eerily similar to 1936 Germany in far too many ways.Included in the Donald Trump school of narcissism for the wealthy is a call to do whatever it takes to get rid of every terrorist on earth. Not only should we remove every Muslim from the country and deny re-entry to anyone wanting to come back just until we have things figured out, we should also engage in torture again and murder the families of known terrorists.It all sounds like a cool scene out of a mobster movie for the common idiot who thinks beating each other up until someone says uncle is the way society should run. In the real world, it s a violation of every international law and treaty we belong to, which as former General and CIA/NSA Director Michael Hayden explains to Bill Maher, is enough to cause the armed forces to refuse those orders, as they are required to do by law.You see, Donald, we can t have rich dudes playing reality TV with our lives, our country, our planet, or our future. It doesn t really suit anyone at any level. That s why our country has, along the way, put safeguards in place so megalomaniacs can t buy their way to power and just blow up the world because they can and they know they ll have a really cool bunker.What is truly scary is that the Republican party, in its desperation to stay relevent, decided to embrace the hate of the people who support Trump. They have no choice anymore but to accept that what started out as a really bad joke could turn into a reality pretty quickly, opening the door for such qualified future GOP candidates as James Woods, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood and the late Charlton Heston, appearing through the magic of Disney.At least their insanity won t go far. Watch the video below, courtesy of Real Time with Bill Maher:Featured image from screen capture | 1real |
Dr. Duke and Dr. MacDonald Call for Prosecution of Hillary for Treasonous Support of ISIS. | Dr. Duke and Dr. MacDonald Call for Prosecution of Hillary for Treasonous Support of ISIS. October 27, 2016 at 10:13 am
Dr. Duke and Dr. MacDonald Call for Prosecution of Hillary for Treasonous Support of ISIS.
Today Dr. Duke and Professor Kevin MacDonald talked about the tide turning in Donald Trump’s direction. In spite of the efforts by the Zio media to divert voter attention to Donald Trump’s alleged problems with women, Hillary’s treasonous crimes are increasingly difficult to hide.
The fact is that Hillary should be prosecuted, not inaugurated. She has supported ISIS in its war against Syria its terrorism against America. She has sent paid thugs to disrupt Trump’s political events. She has used her government positions to peddal influence. She really should be in prison.
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An Identity-Politicized Election and World Series Lakefront Liberals Can Love | An Identity-Politicized Election and World Series Lakefront Liberals Can Love An Identity-Politicized Election and World Series Lakefront Liberals Can Love By 0 9
It’s the perfect time to be an affluent white and politically correct North Side Lakefront – or other kind of – Liberal and sports fan in the Chicago area. Think about it. Your beloved Chicago Cubs are finally going to their first World Series since 1945 and they will be doing a battle against a team with the worst racist Native American logo in major U.S. professional sports: the Cleveland Indians – yes, the “Indians.” The Indians’ Chief Wahoo – a wild grinning caricature – is the single most offensive, politically incorrect image in sports today.
It’s enough to make folks forget that the Cubs are owned by a politically active right-wing Republican family, the Ricketts, one of whom recently contributed $1 million to the racist and sexist bigot Donald Trump. And that the Cubs’ storied ballpark Wrigley Field will be jammed with rich white people who can swallow up secondary market World Series tickets selling for as high as $18,000 . And that the Cubs owe no small part their ability to overcome their “ Billy Goat curse ” (proclaiming that they’d never go again to the final championship series) largely to massive infusions of big Ricketts money required to purchase free-agent veterans to go along with their younger stars.
Meanwhile, the liberals’ party has a presidential candidate Hillary Clinton who is about to become the national government’s first female chief executive after trouncing the aforementioned bigot Trump in the November 8 th … | 1real |
U.S. top court rejects challenge to political ad disclosure rules | (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld federal disclosure rules for political advertising, rejecting an appeal by a Denver-based libertarian think tank that wanted to run an ad without being forced to divulge its major donors. The Denver-based Independence Institute sued the Federal Election Commission, arguing the law requiring such disclosure violated its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. The Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling last year in favor of the commission. It was the latest in a decade-long series of cases brought by conservatives aiming to roll back federal campaign finance restrictions. The Independence Institute was supported in the case by influential Republican and conservative voices including Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Judicial Watch legal activist group as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce business group. The institute, ahead of the 2014 congressional elections, had sought to run a radio advertisement about increasing prison costs, telling listeners to urge their Colorado U.S. senators to support sentencing reform. Because the ad mentioned a senator by name in the lead up to an election, it triggered a provision in the 2002 campaign finance statute known as the McCain-Feingold law requiring the institute to file with the election commission and disclose any donors supporting the ad. The law was enacted to combat an explosion of what is known as “soft money” in campaigns through so-called sham issue advertisements, which cloaked partisan advocacy in discussions of public policy. Though the Supreme Court allowed unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions in its landmark 2010 decision in the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission case, the court also upheld disclosure requirements for campaign ads. The Federal Election Commission said that for more than a century federal law has required organizations that influence elections to disclose information about their funding sources, a principle upheld in the Citizens United ruling. The Independence Institute sued in federal court in Washington in a bid to keep the names of its donors secret, arguing that its proposed ad focused on the sentencing reforms that senators were considering, not any senator’s re-election campaign. Last October, a three-judge panel of the federal court ruled against the group, saying it would be impossible to distinguish genuine issue ads that reference candidates from campaign-style ads that openly promote or disparage a candidate. | 0fake |
Wedge issue: Texas golf range offers Clinton and Trump targets | LONGVIEW, Texas (Reuters) - Looking for a way to help relieve stress in a heated political season, a Texas golf course owner has given patrons the chance to whack their balls at large posters of the leading presidential candidates affixed to hay bales. In the Republican-stronghold of Longview, where Alpine Target Golf Center is located about 120 miles east of Dallas, Democrat Hillary Clinton has been the overwhelming target for patrons’ golf balls. “Hillary Clinton is taking it a lot on the chin,” owner Mike Williams said on Wednesday of the promotion that started about a week ago. The Trump poster has suffered little damage, Williams said, noting “he is still in great shape.” | 0fake |
ARRESTED: Cops Tell Shocking Story Of Domestic Abuse At Sarah Palin’s Home | Are the Palin s above the law in Alaska? Will there ever come a time when America is no longer obsessed by families who have done nothing to earn our fascination with them? The oldest son of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was arrested in a domestic violence case in which his girlfriend was afraid he would shoot himself with an AR-15 assault rifle, according to court documents filed Tuesday.Track Palin, 26, is charged with assault, interfering with the report of a domestic violence crime and possessing a weapon while intoxicated in connection with the incident Monday night at the Wasilla home of his parents, where he lives, according to an affidavit by police.The girlfriend told authorities she was punched in the face by Palin, who is the oldest child of Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and conservative icon.The charges were filed Tuesday, the same day Sarah Palin endorsed Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump before voting begins with the Iowa caucuses.There is no telephone listing for the girlfriend. The court documents say the woman, Track Palin s girlfriend of one year, had bruising and swelling around her left eye, and she said her right knee hurt after Palin kicked her there.Palin family attorney John Tiemessen declined to comment on the matter other than to say in an email that respect for the family s privacy is appreciated as Track receives the help that he and many of our returning veterans need. Palin s arraignment was held Tuesday, but Tiemessen was not sure if he entered a plea yet.According to the three-page affidavit, both Palin and his girlfriend called 911 that night. Police Officer Andrew Kappler wrote that he arrived at the Wasilla home and found Track Palin walking outside and talking on a phone. The officer said Palin had an injury to his right eye and surrounding area, smelled strongly of alcohol and acted with escalating hostility, prompting Kappler to put him in handcuffs.Police say a breath sample provided by Palin showed he had a blood alcohol level of 0.189.The affidavit says other officers found the girlfriend hiding under a bed inside the home and crying.The argument continued at the home, according to the affidavit, which says Palin struck the woman with his fist on the left side of her head near her eye. She curled up in the fetal position because she didn t know what else he would do, the woman told police. She said he then kicked her in the knee and threw her phone across the driveway, according to the court document. The woman said she went inside after getting her phone.Inside, Palin held the rifle, with the barrel just away from his face pointed to the side, the affidavit states. The affidavit adds that the woman told police Palin was yelling Do you think I won t do it? The girlfriend was concerned that he would shoot himself and ran outside and around the house, the affidavit says. She didn t see where Palin went, so she went inside and up the stairs, where she hid under a bed. It s not the first encounter with the law for Palin or other members of his family. In September 2014, he and other Palins were involved in a brawl that broke out at a party in Anchorage.No arrests were made in the melee, and no one wanted to press charges. But according to a police report, Palin had blood around his mouth and his hands. He was belligerent until his mother told him to talk to a police officer. Via: FOX News | 1real |
Steve Harvey Talks Housing With President-Elect Trump - The New York Times | Steve Harvey, the comedian and television host, became the latest celebrity to ascend Trump Tower on Friday to discuss federal policy with Donald Trump, in this case housing issues. But before Mr. Harvey was off the premises, he unexpectedly revived a recent controversy over his comments about Asian men. After the meeting, Mr. Trump and Mr. Harvey briefly appeared together in the lobby. When Mr. Trump left, Mr. Harvey said they had discussed ways he could work with Ben Carson, Mr. Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Mr. Harvey has spoken openly in the past of being homeless as an adult while struggling to start his comedy career, though he gave no reason on Friday for why he was consulted on housing affairs. Mr. Harvey said he was invited a week ago by “both transition teams,” referring to representatives of President Obama and Mr. Trump, and emphasized that the visit was informal. “Well, you know it’s not my jump into politics,” Mr. Harvey said. “I ain’t gonna pass a background check. It’s just me following orders from my friend President Obama who said, ‘Steve, you gotta,’ as he told everybody, ‘get out from behind your computer, stop tweeting and texting and get out there and sit down and talk. ’” The Trump team confirmed the invitation. The White House did not comment. Mr. Harvey announced his support for Mr. Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, last March in the presidential primaries. In September, during an interview with her on “The Steve Harvey Morning Show” on iHeartRadio, he said: “She’s a mother, she’s a grandmother, and we’re going to put her back in the White House, just flat out. Simply put. ” This was just the latest crossover for Mr. Trump during his transition. Last month the surprised reporters at Trump Tower by posing for photographs in the lobby with Kanye West. For Mr. Harvey’s part, he said that the incoming president was “a great guy” and “genuine. ” He deflected questions about Mr. Trump’s history of questionable comments regarding race from the campaign trail, and was diplomatic about his doubts about Mr. Trump. “You don’t kill it with one conversation, but you can start it with the conversation,” Mr. Harvey said. “So, you know, a lot about what people say, ‘Now, well, it’s time to see what you do.’ And he said he wanted to do something. ” Mr. Harvey also mentioned a controversy in which, during his television show last week, he mocked the dating skills of Asian men. At Trump Tower, Mr. Harvey said, unprompted, that he hadn’t laughed recently as a result of the controversy. “I ain’t been laughing that much over the past few days,” Mr. Harvey said. “They’re kinda beating me up on the internet right now for no reason. But, you know, that’s life, ain’t it?” After the meeting, Mr. Harvey put out a message on Twitter, saying that he found Mr. Trump “congenial and sincere” and that he would “sit with him anytime. ” Here are some edited excerpts from Mr. Harvey’s conversation with reporters in Trump Tower: REPORTER: There have been a lot of doubts about this administration about race. Jeff Sessions, his record in Alabama, some of the things the said during the campaign about the inner cities. Are your doubts fully gone or are you going to still try and work them out? STEVE HARVEY: Well, I mean, you know, look, you don’t kill it with one conversation, but you can start it with the conversation. So, you know, a lot about what people say, now, well, it’s time to see what you do. And he said he wanted to do something. You can’t beat better than that. You know, and so, we’re gonna see. I’ve been put in contact with Ben Carson, which was great, I spoke with him. And so, we’re gonna get some things started, and they have a plan for the inner cities but they need help. And so, that’s why they called me. So we’ll see what I can do. REPORTER: Do you have any lingering things you still want to talk further about, that you’re still concerned about, you haven’t heard quite what you wanted to hear yet? HARVEY: Well, I mean for this, we got off to a great start. I think it could be the beginning of something. For them to invite me here to talk about a specific problem and thought that I might be able to help — I know I got a big radio show, I got a lot of people listening every morning. So I’ve always been concerned about inner city problems because they’re huge. My mentoring problem, excuse me, my mentoring program has been a part of this type of — and that’s what I want to see happen. And they were spot on with it. And Ben Carson got on the phone. I met with him over the phone today, but I sat with Trump and we laughed a little bit. I ain’t been laughing that much over the past few days. They’re kinda beating me up on the internet right now for no reason. But, you know, that’s life, ain’t it? REPORTER: What did you laugh over? HARVEY: Well we talked about golf. We laughed about my score in golf, his score in golf, we talked about some of the friends that we have in common. Mark Burnett. Talked about TV shows. Things like that. He’s a fan. So he’s seen it. I met his daughter, she was very sweet. So I think we’re off to a good start. | 0fake |
French Jews urged to rally over UNESCO resolutions | October 28, 2016 French Jews urged to rally over UNESCO resolutions
The main Jewish groups in France urged members to rally in front of the headquarters of the country’s Foreign Ministry to protest its failure to oppose UN resolutions that ignore Jewish ties to Jerusalem, JTA reported on Thursday.
On Wednesday, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee passed a resolution denying the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
On October 13, the executive board of the UNESCO passed a similar resolution which refers to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount only by their Arabic-language names.
France was among 26 countries that abstained from voting during the first resolution.
CRIF, the political lobby group representing French Jewish communities, was joined in a rare move by the Consistoire, French Jewry’s organ responsible for religious services, in organizing a protest rally for Thursday opposite the Quai d’Orsay in Paris in reaction to the passing of the two resolutions on Jerusalem.
“We were shocked by the anti-Israeli obsession of UNESCO and are now revolted by its disavowal of its own values,” CRIF President Francis Kalifat wrote Wednesday in his call for French Jews to rally outside Quai d’Orsay. | 1real |
Trump to meet Wilbur Ross, possible choice for commerce secretary | BEDMINSTER, N.J. (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump will meet on Sunday with billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, a possible candidate for commerce secretary in the new administration, a spokesman for Trump’s transition team said on Saturday. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, will also meet with others on Sunday, including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and architect of anti-immigration efforts who says he is advising Trump on immigration issues. A Trump transition team official said a senior appointment could be announced soon. | 0fake |
The Rolling Stones Paint It Blue on Their New Album - The New York Times | Beverly Hills, Calif. — More than five decades after they started, the Rolling Stones are a rock institution still running on intuition, impulse and chemistry. “Blue Lonesome,” their new album, arrived as a happy accident — or, as Keith Richards said with his piratical cackle, “as if we’d been ordered to do it from some higher being. ” It started as a break from their own material, then suddenly turned into a throwback: the Stones returning to their days as a cover band, knocking out songs live in the studio and recording an entire album in three days. “Blue Lonesome” is the first studio album the Stones have made since “A Bigger Bang” in 2005 it’s due for release on Dec. 2. Talking about it put smiles on band members’ faces in an string of interviews last month at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, a few days after the band’s jubilant set at the first weekend of the Desert Trip festival in Indio, Calif. “This album,” said the drummer, Charlie Watts, “is what I’ve always wanted the Stones to do. It’s what we do best and what we did when we first got together. ” In conversation, they play roles: Mr. Watts as and supportive, the guitarist Ronnie Wood still treating himself as a new band member (he joined in 1975) Mr. Richards as the roots music fan and Mick Jagger as the extrovert and . “Blue Lonesome” is not the batch of new songs that the band has been laboring over intermittently for years between bursts of touring, like the Latin American tour that concluded with an unprecedented concert in Havana and that has been the subject of two documentaries: “Olé Olé Olé” and “Havana Moon. ” In recent years, the band has tried to follow up on touring momentum with recording sessions. But the new songs, Mr. Jagger said with a frown, currently add up to “half an album. ” Mr. Wood said new songs need time to settle in. “It’s like putting it on top of the strainer and seeing what soaks through by the time you come back to them again,” he explained. “The lumps that are left on top after time has gone by, that’s what you make your dough out of. ” He added, “It wouldn’t surprise me if we recut them all again. It’s one of those things. ” Instead, “Blue Lonesome” is a set of a dozen blues songs that were originally recorded, mostly in the by titans like Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter and Jimmy Reed. It was the breakthrough era of electric Chicago blues: a modernized, urbanized, amplified update of music from the Deep South. “These guys were basically inventing,” Mr. Richards said. “They had nothing to fall back on. They’d got these new guitars and amplifiers. They were all feeling their way through it. So there’s a feeling about that particular period of the blues which we could identify with, because you could hear the guys egging each other on and wondering where it’s going to go. ” The style was barely a decade old when it changed the lives of the English teenagers who would become the Rolling Stones, along with a generation of musicians worldwide. The rest is rock history, as the blues has been transplanted, revamped, venerated, repeatedly rediscovered and sometimes plundered, with its ideas ricocheting across cultural and geographical divides long before the more recent discussions about cultural appropriation. The blues became one of the foundations of rock, though its influence has been waning in recent decades. “Sounds have changed,” Mr. Jagger said. “What makes you excited now is not the same. In music, everything’s different. But the blues still have something about them that’s really good. I love all kinds of music, and I still listen to the blues. ” The songs for “Blue Lonesome” were all on his iPod. Half a century on, playing vintage blues songs is an act of preservation and reclamation — and for the Rolling Stones, who have always been careful to credit their sources, a matter of continuity. “We’ve known these songs for 50 years,” Mr. Jagger said. “It is a learned idiom. It’s like me singing in Italian. If I’d been doing that for 50 years, you wouldn’t ask me, ‘How do you feel about singing in Italian?’ I don’t feel anything about singing in Italian, I always sang in Italian.’ It works most of the time. It’s like, you just have to go with it and suspend disbelief. “To me it’s a homage to all those people that we’ve always loved since we were kids,” he added. “I can see why people might find it vaguely not correct, but we’ve always done it. And the artists themselves, they never objected. ” “Blue Lonesome” was recorded nearly a year ago, on the spur of the moment. While planning for recording sessions, Mr. Richards recalled, he emailed Mr. Wood, urging him to learn “Blue and Lonesome” by the singer and harmonica player Little Walter. “If Keith says something like that, there’s a reason for it,” said Don Was, the Stones’ longtime . “I don’t think he meant, ‘Go do this because we’re going to do a blues album.’ More like, ‘Let’s apply the principles of “Blue and Lonesome” to what we’re doing here. ’” The sessions took place in December at British Grove Studios, a West London complex owned by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. There, the Stones were recording together in a large open room with a setup generally used to record classical music: a tall, contraption called a Decca tree, which uses overhead microphones to capture what a conductor hears. (The tree was devised at Decca Records, the Stones’ first label British Grove also has a vintage Decca mixing console, Mr. Was said.) It was a deliberately configuration: not layering isolated instruments, but demanding an live approach. The band was “a little unsure of the studio and the sound of it,” Mr. Richards recalled. So it fell back on the blues. “I looked at Ronnie and said, ‘Let’s put a hold on this new stuff while we try and figure things out and get the room warmed up. O. K.: ‘Blue and Lonesome.’ “And it comes out that suddenly the room’s opened up and the sound is there,” Mr. Richards continued. “And then, ‘That was damned good, man!’ Mick turns around and says, ‘Let’s do Howlin’ Wolf’s “Commit a Crime”’ — and it really just led from there. No preplanning, no real instigation. Suddenly Mick just jumped on this train that he’s so good at. ” Mr. Richards recalled thinking: “Keep rolling, keep rolling! I don’t care how many you do — just catch it while the man’s in the mood. ” He laughed. “It just bloody happened. That was the amazing thing and the beauty of it,” he said. At the end of the first session, the Stones had recorded five songs. “No one said, ‘We should do a blues album,’” Mr. Was said. “It’s like, when a guy’s throwing a you don’t talk to him about it in the middle of the game. ” Still, Mr. Was suggested that Mr. Jagger choose more songs band members who didn’t know them learned them over a weekend. With further serendipity, Eric Clapton was also at British Grove, doing some mixing, and in the next session he ended up sitting in on two songs, joining the improvisational weave of guitars. Mr. Richards was happy to, as he said, “Just roll it, decide later what to do with it,” he said. “It was only at the end, when we’d got 12 tracks and Don Was and I were talking together, and Mick was there and he was saying, ‘This is an album. You can’t chop this up. ’” Mr. Wood recalled, “I got a text from Mick saying, ‘The blues tracks are really sounding good.’ And I thought, is this from the Jagger that I know? Because he never, never says that things are happening well. ” Mr. Jagger described the album as “an exercise in sprezzatura” — a term for hiding skillful effort behind seeming nonchalance. “You’ve got to concentrate, but it can’t sound like it’s difficult. And it doesn’t,” he said. The Stones tucked lifelong blues scholarship behind the kick and yowl of the music. As they delved into individual songs, the band praised the studio musicians who forged the Chicago sound: guitarists like Howlin’ Wolf’s sideman Hubert Sumlin (with whom Mr. Richards shared regular jam sessions) and drummers like Freddy Below and Earl Phillips. “When I was doing my song choices, I was thinking about tempos, moods, keys, different emotions,” Mr. Jagger said. But feel came first. “They’ve still got to blow you away a bit. They’ve still got to be exciting. ” The songs on “Blue Lonesome” are, deliberately, choices rather than war horses. The Jimmy Reed song, for instance, isn’t “Big Boss Man” but the spooky, echoey, melancholy “Little Rain. ” From Howlin’ Wolf, Mr. Jagger chose two tales of fierce, comic romantic strife and churning rhythm: “Just Like I Treat You” and “Commit a Crime. ” Little Walter’s songs — there are four on the album — fell naturally into Mr. Jagger’s vocal range and gave him a chance to play lots of harmonica. Many of the songs elude the regularity of blues they add or skip beats, start vocals in unexpected places, lurch and leap. have often flattened out those quirks, but the Stones maintain them. “It’s not like rock music or programmed drum music,” Mr. Jagger said. “It pulsates in a very weird way, where each bar is different. And that’s what’s interesting about this kind of music when it’s played properly. It has a swerve, and it has a dynamism about it. ” Mr. Jagger also noted that while the songs were recorded almost entirely in real time, the final mixes were painstaking. “I just looked back at the original records, and we wanted some of these moods,” he said. “Every track is different. We all thought it was going to be easy but it wasn’t. ” Still, after more than a decade between albums, “Blue Lonesome” may have loosened up the Stones for their own new songs. Sessions for the next studio album are still in progress. “We did things after we’d done this and I’d say, ‘O. K. just play it! It’s only got three chords, just play it, stop thinking about it,’” Mr. Jagger said. “‘Just imagine this is a blues. ’” | 0fake |
BREAKING: Federal Judge STOPS Obamacare Transgender, Abortion Related Protections | O Connor found that the plaintiffs had standing to bring the lawsuit because they have presented concrete evidence to support their fears that they will be subject to enforcement under the Rule. WASHINGTON A federal judge in Texas on Saturday issued a nationwide injunction halting enforcement of Obama administration protections for transgender and abortion-related healthcare services just one day before they were due to go into effect. The lawsuit brought by Texas, a handful of other states, and some religiously affiliated nonprofit medical groups challenges a regulation implementing the sex nondiscrimination requirement found in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation forbids discriminating on the basis of gender identity and termination of pregnancy under Obamacare, as US District Court Judge Reed O Connor wrote in his opinion halting enforcement of those provisions in the rule.Specifically, the ACA provision Section 1557 prohibits discrimination in federally-funded health benefits, including based on sex. Over the course of 2015 and this year, HHS proposed and finalized a regulation interpreting the definition of sex in that provisions to include gender identity defined as internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female as well as sex stereotyping and termination of pregnancy. Explaining the lawsuit, O Connor wrote, Plaintiffs claim the Rule s interpretation of sex discrimination pressures doctors to deliver healthcare in a manner that violates their religious freedom and thwarts their independent medical judgment and will require burdensome changes to their health insurance plans on January 1, 2017. The states and nonprofits in the healthcare lawsuit allege that the regulation violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) which sets the rules for federal government rule-making and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). O Connor found that the plaintiffs had standing to bring the lawsuit because they have presented concrete evidence to support their fears that they will be subject to enforcement under the Rule. The White House defended the administration s policies on Saturday night.Read more: Buzzfeed | 1real |
World War 3 Alert New World Order is Coming WARNING TO USA | November 3, 2016 at 10:08 am
Out of chaos will come the NWO/OWN your soul in hell NEW WORLD ORDER. Create the problem and offer Satan's solution. The NEW WORLD ORDER isn't near, it's already here! Eyes to the skies.Luke 21:26 King James Version (KJV)26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. | 1real |
BREAKING: CLINTON CLEARED…Was This A Coordinated Last Minute Trick To Energize Hillary’s Base? | 650,000 Emails 9 Days 72,222 A Day 3000 A Hour 50 A Minute About 1 A SecondThey Must Be Evelyn Wood StudentsUS Department of Justice says DOJ and FBI dedicated all necessary resources to finish review of newly found Hillary Clinton emails expeditiously Reuters And therein lies the problem. Her name is Loretta Lynch.Was this done to energize Hillary s base or it s interesting that Rush Limbaugh said the FBI rekindled the email investigation just to distract attention from Wikileaks:FBI Director James Comey is going to make everybody think for the next three or four days that there s really something to be forthcoming here, Limbaugh said.Limbaugh said that the revelations in the Wikileaks material were starting to hurt the Clintons and that the renewed interest in an FBI investigation into her private email server would be a fruitless distraction.In any case IT S TIME TO DRAIN THE SWAMP!FBI Director James Comey said Sunday that the agency has reviewed all of the Hillary Clinton emails recently discovered in an unrelated case and that his conclusion in July not to prosecute Clinton after the FBI s original investigation into her use of private email server still stands.Comey informed Congress on Oct. 28 that the agency would, in the unrelated case, review additional emails related to Clinton s time running the State Department from 2009 to 2013. Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails, Comey said Sunday in a follow-up letter to Congress. During that time we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hilary Clinton as secretary of state. Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusion. The new case is purportedly related to ex-New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner using a laptop he shared with estranged wife and top Clinton aide Huma Abedin for sexting an apparently underage female. VIA: FOX NEWS | 1real |
Justice Department to Track Use of Force by Police Across U.S. - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said Thursday that it would start collecting nationwide data early next year on police shootings and other violent encounters with the public, after a series of protests and investigations since 2014 spurred by a string of deadly episodes. The project, the most ambitious the federal government has undertaken in tracking the use of force by police officers, is meant to fill what officials say is a huge and frustrating void in publicly available data on the shootings that have roiled the country. Under the plan, the Justice Department will gather more data on the use of force by federal agents and help local departments report information on a wider range of police encounters. But a number of the reporting steps will rely on local police officials to voluntarily submit data, and some civil rights advocates said the Justice Department had not made clear how it would impose financial penalties set by Congress to encourage the reporting of police shootings. “I can’t believe two years into this crisis that we’re still having conversations about data,” said Kanya Bennett, a lawyer in Washington for the American Civil Liberties Union, which met with the Justice Department to discuss the plan. With President Obama leaving office in three months, Ms. Bennett said, “this is essentially being punted to the next administration. ” After a series of fatal encounters in places like Ferguson, Mo. Charlotte, N. C. Tulsa, Okla. Baton Rouge, La. Cleveland Milwaukee Baltimore and Staten Island — many involving unarmed black men and caught on video — officials have struggled to gather basic information about how often such episodes occur and what can be done. The most comprehensive records on police shootings have come from the news media, particularly The Washington Post and The Guardian, which have created running databases. James B. Comey, the director of the F. B. I. told lawmakers last year that it was “embarrassing” that the news media could produce better data than his own agency on such an important issue. “We can’t have an informed discussion because we don’t have data,” Mr. Comey told the House Judiciary Committee last October. “People have data about who went to a movie last weekend, or how many books were sold, or how many cases of the flu walked into the emergency room,” he said, “and I cannot tell you how many people were shot by police in the United States last month, last year, or anything about the demographic. And that’s a very bad place to be. ” According to the Post database, 991 people were fatally shot by the police last year, and 754 have been so far this year. Under the Justice Department plan, the F. B. I. is to begin a pilot program early next year to assemble data on the use of force by about 178, 000 agents at major federal law enforcement agencies including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the F. B. I. itself. In addition, the Justice Department plans to begin collecting data from local and state law enforcement departments on “in custody” deaths — not just in shootings, but in cases of suicide and natural death as well. A measure passed by Congress in 2014 called the Death in Custody Reporting Act required local departments to report only fatal encounters. Justice Department officials said they would rely on local police officials to voluntarily report nonlethal encounters as well. Under a third part of the plan, the Justice Department said it was authorizing $750, 000 for a “police data initiative” designed to help local departments collect and publicly release information on a wider range of actions, including stops of citizens, searches, the use of force, shootings and other encounters. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said in announcing the plan Thursday that comprehensive and accurate data on police encounters was essential in “increasing transparency and building trust between law enforcement and the communities we serve. ” Lacking better data has made it “very, very hard” to determine the causes of police shootings, or even whether there was an actual increase in such episodes or simply more publicity about them, Ms. Lynch said at an event Thursday night at Georgetown University. The law passed by Congress in 2014 for reporting deaths allows the attorney general to impose financial penalties on states that do not report data. But Ms. Bennett, the A. C. L. U. lawyer, faulted the Justice Department for failing to explain how that would happen under the new plan. In a letter to the Justice Department last week, the A. C. L. U. and 95 other groups pushing for greater accountability in police shootings wrote that imposing financial penalties was critical to the success of the program. In the past, the letter said, “voluntary reporting programs on encounters have failed. ” The steps announced by the Justice Department grew out of a presidential commission appointed by Mr. Obama in 2014 to study ways of reducing conflict and tensions between police departments and the communities they serve. Announcing a series of recommendations from the commission in March 2015, Mr. Obama said that the country needed to seize the opportunity to “transform” relations. “We have a great opportunity, coming out of some great conflict and tragedy, so that everybody feels safer and our law enforcement officers feel, rather than being embattled, feel fully supported,” he said, | 0fake |
Trump say appeals court decision on travel ban was 'political' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday called the appellate court ruling that upheld the suspension of his order restricting travel from seven Muslim-majority countries a “political decision,” and vowed his administration would ultimately prevail. “We’ll see them in court,” Trump told reporters who had gathered outside his press secretary’s office. “It’s a political decision.” Trump said he did not view the ruling as a major setback for his White House. “This is just a decision that came down, but we’re going to win the case,” he said. | 0fake |
95 YR OLD WWII VETERAN Writes Scathing Letter To Obama: “I can’t figure out what country you’re the president of” | When WWII veteran and Pearl Harbor resident, Harold Estes wrote this letter, he was a retired Master Chief Boatswains Mate. He died on May 7, 2011. This is the most amazing and honest letter to our Community Organizer In Chief that you will ever read. Although this letter was written in 2009, its content is surprisingly still very timely. He discusses Obama s disdain for our police, military and America in general and even addresses his warped views on race in America. Enjoy Dear President Obama,My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos n Mate. Now I live in a rest home located on the western end of Pearl Harbor allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.So here goes.I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.I can t figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like: We re no longer a Christian nation America is arrogant (Your wife even announced to the world, America is mean-spirited. Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.) I d say shame on the both of you but I don t think you like America nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.After 9/11 you said, America hasn t lived up to her ideals. Which ones did you mean?1. Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British ?2. Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War?3. I hope you didn t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellahs I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around because we stand for freedom.4. I don t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man. Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don t, I ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue. You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts who was putting up a fight? You don t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life but you re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you re thinking of.You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.You re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.Sincerely,Harold B. EstesHarold B. Estes and many of his peers are part of a generation that is known as The Greatest Generation. Estes, a World War II veteran credited with helping bring the USS Missouri and Bowfin museums to Hawaii, and who gained Internet fame with a letter written to President Barack Obama telling him to shape up and start acting like an American, died Tuesday May 17, 2011.Bringing the battleship Missouri to Pearl Harbor started as an idea tossed around in 1994 by Estes, retired Adm. Ron Hays and Navy veteran Edwin Carter, according to the museum.Estes served over 20 years in the Navy. He took to the Navy like the proverbial duck takes to the water. Estes loved the Navy and the Navy returned that love. His first ship was the battleship California, later sunk at Pearl Harbor.Estes was a true gentleman. He didn t have a political bone in his body, and he loved America and his fellow veterans.A letter critical of Obama penned by Estes several years ago went viral on the Internet and references to it are still numerous. | 1real |
[VIDEO] #BlackLivesMatter Terrorists Storm Dartmouth Library, Threaten Students: ‘F*ck You, You Filthy White F*cks!’ | They were probably just looking for a safe space to study Protesters at Dartmouth University disrupted students studying in the library, reportedly directing profanity towards white students and physically pushing others.In a critical editorial, the conservative Dartmouth Review listed some of the epithets hurled by the protesters: Fuck you, you filthy white fucks! F*ck you and your comfort! F*ck you, you racist shits! In addition, the Review reports that some of protesters became physically violent: Men and women alike were pushed and shoved by the group. If we can t have it, shut it down! they cried. Another woman was pinned to a wall by protesters who unleashed their insults, shouting filthy white bitch! in her face. Campus Reform managed to obtain video showing the protesters walking through the library shouting as others try to study. One of the protesters can be seen flipping off the cameraman. Another gets in the face of those who are studying demanding they say that black lives matter.One of the protesters posted online, saying they were ashamed of what the protest turned into. After making a girl cry, a protester screamed Fuck your white tears, he reports. I was startled by the aggression from a small minority of students towards students in the library, many of whom were supporters of the movement. Watch above, via Campus Reform. Via: Mediaite | 1real |
U.S. Congress tangles with Facebook, other social media firms over Russia probe | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite public promises of cooperation from Facebook and other social media companies, congressional investigators are battling over how much data the companies should hand over to them on Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Congressional sources said this week that Facebook Inc (FB.O) has been slow to cooperate. The company and others have said they are turning over information, but also that they are legally obligated to protect their users’ privacy. On visits to Capitol Hill on Wednesday and Thursday, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, met with leaders of the House Intelligence Committee and said the company wanted to help investigators and would turn over more information. “Things happened on our platform that shouldn’t have happened” in the lead-up to the election, Sandberg told the Axios website on Thursday. So far, however, the congressional sources said investigators have found it hard to extract all the relevant information from Silicon Valley about alleged Russian activity. But the committees have so far seen no need to issue subpoenas for the data, the sources added. Facebook and other major internet companies including Alphabet Inc’s Google (GOOGL.O) and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) have faced a stream of recent revelations about how Moscow sought to use their platforms to sow discord in the United States and influence the election in favor of the Republican White House candidate, Donald Trump. Facebook disclosed last month that it had found some 3,000 politically divisive advertisements believed to have been bought by Russia before and after the presidential campaign. The company has now shared with congressional investigators the ads, information on how they were paid for, and how they were targeted, a Facebook spokesman said. Sandberg told congressional investigators on Thursday that in addition to the ads, the company would provide the rest of the information from accounts linked to Russia, the spokesman said. The sources said investigators were also pressing Twitter, Google and other companies for similar data, and urging Twitter to conduct a more comprehensive search of its data banks. “We have a set of strict ads policies including limits on political ad targeting and prohibitions on targeting based on race and religion,” a Google spokeswoman said, asked about the issue. “We are taking a deeper look to investigate attempts to abuse our systems, working with researchers and other companies, and will provide assistance to ongoing inquiries.” A Twitter spokesperson did not respond to an email requesting comment. “Twitter has likely not released all potentially relevant data to congressional investigators in part because of their policy requiring a court order and their track record of defending user privacy by fighting such requests,” Adam Sharp, former head of news and government at Twitter, said in an interview. Twitter engineers are trying to regenerate some of the lost data, and may be able to retrieve some of it, said a person familiar with the company’s technology. The use of social media platforms was part of what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was a broader Russian effort to meddle in the election campaign, an allegation the Kremlin has denied. Several congressional committees, as well as special counsel Robert Mueller, are investigating Russian interference, including any potential collusion between Trump associates and Moscow. Trump has denied any such collusion. In September, Facebook disclosed that it had evidence that an operation based in Russia had spent $100,000 on thousands of sponsored posts promoting divisive social and political messages in a two-year period through May 2017. Facebook said it believed the messages were likely bought by people in Russia before and after the 2016 election. Sources familiar with Facebook’s contacts with Congress said that as recently as July this year, company officials were denying the existence of any paid Russian messaging, and only later acknowledged that the company had found $100,000 in sponsored traffic linked to 478 Facebook accounts. The sources said investigators think the paid messaging was generated by a group called the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg. U.S. officials have called it a “troll factory” that creates false identities or copies real ones to spread real, skewed, and fake information for the Kremlin. Congressional sources said some of the Facebook messaging went to groups with seemingly legitimate names such as Heart of Texas, Defend the Second, and United Muslims of America, which they said all had as many as 250,000 followers. These groups now appear to have been bogus, or set up to look like legitimate political organizations, and investigators want to learn more about the groups, their followers, and their origins, the sources said. They said Facebook lawyers have argued that turning over additional data could compromise its promise of privacy to its users. However, congressional investigators say that if Russian messengers used fake identities, they would have no legal claims to privacy. | 0fake |
CLUELESS REP MAXINE WATERS Joins Protesters: Trump thinks he’s a dictator! | Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.) joined protesters at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday opposing President Trump s executive order halting refugees from seven countries from coming to the United States.While at the airport, Waters spoke to TMZ about the president s recent executive action, which he signed on Friday. People are not gonna take this new president who thinks he s a dictator, Waters said. And doing these executive orders, and basically having a travel ban that is unconstitutional. Waters quickly shifted her tone, praising the protesters outside the airport. Let me tell you something: this is what democracy is all about, she said. Your government trying to take away your constitutional rights? Hit the streets, hit the streets, organize, protest, push em back and you ll win. Pointing at the protesters, Waters continued explaining her opposition to President Trump s plans for the country and what she believes needs to be done. This is what s going to create change. We can t wait on Donald Trump to do it. This is a man who thinks he is gonna take this country in a different direction, Waters said. If he doesn t like his own country, he s making up lies about em, go live with Putin in the Kremlin in Russia, okay? Alright? Get outta here. Via: WFB | 1real |
Kremlin frets U.S. sanctions may hurt European projects like Nord Stream 2 | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday it was worried that proposed new U.S. sanctions against Moscow could hurt major investment projects with European partners, but said it was premature to say if and how it would retaliate. The White House said on Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump was open to signing legislation toughening sanctions on Russia after Senate and House leaders reached agreement on a bill late last week. That has raised concerns in Germany which has already threatened to retaliate against the United States if the new sanctions end up penalising German firms, such as those involved with building Nord Stream 2, a project to build a pipeline carrying Russian gas across the Baltic. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Moscow was worried that U.S. sanctions could hit third countries, as well as Russia, hard. “We are working with our European partners on implementing a number of large-scale projects,” said Peskov, when asked about the possible impact of the new U.S. sanctions on projects like Nord Stream 2. “It goes without saying that we and our European partners attach great importance to finishing these projects and we will work towards this,” he said. “That is why discussions about ‘sanctions themes’ — which could potentially obstruct these projects — are a cause of concern for us.” Peskov said the Kremlin took “an extremely negative view” of the proposed new sanctions, calling the rhetoric surrounding them counter-productive and damaging to U.S.-Russia ties. But he said Moscow was for now ready to wait and see what the final shape of the sanctions might be. “As for the Washington administration’s stance on sanctions, we have seen some corrections to it,” said Peskov. “We will wait patiently ... until this position has been formulated unambiguously.” Separately, Peskov declined to comment on reports that the European Union might discuss new sanctions against Moscow over its delivery of Siemens turbines to sanctioned Crimea. Reuters on Monday quoted two diplomatic sources in Brussels as saying that Germany was urging the European Union to add up to four more Russian nationals and companies to the bloc’s sanctions blacklist over Siemens gas turbines delivered to Moscow-annexed Crimea. | 0fake |
Too Soon? Media Declares Clinton the Presumptive Nominee | The news media has preempted Tuesday's Democratic presidential primaries, declaring Hillary Clinton the winner.
According to The Associated Press, the former secretary of state has the 2,383 delegates needed to clinch her party's nomination, with superdelegates putting her over the top before today's primaries even begin.
"We have a really important election now," Clinton said.
Still, she urged voters to head to the polls in the six states set to vote Tuesday, including the biggest, California.
"We're going to come out of the primary even stronger to take on Donald Trump," she told supporters.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders' campaign is accusing the media of rushing to judgment.
"It is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer. Secretary Clinton does not have and will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination," Sanders' spokesperson Michael Briggs said in a statement.
The superdelegates will not actually vote until July 25, and Sanders promises to spend the time until then convincing them that he is the stronger candidate.
Although the Vermont senator may be on his way out whether he's ready to admit it or not, he's leaving a lasting impact, pushing the Democratic Party left on economic issues and trying to change the party's platform on Israel.
Sanders would like the platform to include explicit references to the alleged Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, recognizing a Palestinian state.
He's already named some pro-Palestinian representatives to the platform committee, including those who support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The movement aims to delegitimize the Jewish state. Pro-Israel Democrats say those changes in the party's platform would be dead on arrival.
But there are some indications the party's grassroots activists are already moving toward the Palestinian side and away from Israel.
A recent Pew Research Center analysis shows that for the first time in a decade the percentage of liberal Democrats sympathizing with Palestinians is greater than those aligning with Israel.
That division could ultimately lead to a fight at the Democratic National Convention to determine where the party's support lies.
But even if that doesn't happen, the split could be an indication that the Democrats may be moving toward more support for Palestinians and possibly less for Israel in the future. | 0fake |
Trump says immigration bill cannot include 'chain migration' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said so-called “chain migration,” a term often used to refer to citizens or permanent residents sponsoring relatives or the clustering of certain immigrants in the same areas, cannot be included in any immigration legislation. “CHAIN MIGRATION cannot be allowed to be part of any legislation on Immigration!” Trump wrote on Twitter. The statement comes after Trump stunned many fellow Republicans this week by negotiating with top congressional Democratic leaders over the DACA program protecting the children of undocumented immigrants. | 0fake |
Senate Democrat Feinstein calls for independent FBI director | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday said that the FBI director who would replace the fired James Comey, “must be strong and independent.” Feinstein said in a statement that President Donald Trump called her Tuesday afternoon to tell her that Comey was being removed from the top FBI job. When Trump announces a replacement, the nomination would be reviewed by the Judiciary Committee. | 0fake |
Turkey calls for Assad's ouster, says supports U.S. missile strike | ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s immediate ouster on Friday, voicing support for a U.S. missile strike on one of his air bases and saying the creation of safe zones to protect civilians was now more important than ever. Turkey, a NATO member and part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, has long argued there can be no peace in Syria under Assad. But following a rapprochement with Russia, it had appeared in recent months to accept the possibility of the Syrian leader staying on in a transitional role. “It is necessary to oust this regime as soon as possible from the leadership of Syria,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters on Friday, in a hardening of Turkey’s tone. “If he doesn’t want to go, if there is no transition government, and if he continues committing humanitarian crimes, the necessary steps to oust him should be taken.” His comments came after the United States fired cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase from which, it said, a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched this week. It was the first direct U.S. assault on Assad’s government in six years of war. President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the U.S. action marked “an important step to ensure that chemical and conventional attacks against the civilian population do not go unpunished” and said a no-fly zone should be enforced. Erdogan himself has yet to comment on the U.S. missile strike but was quoted late on Thursday, before the U.S. action, as saying Turkey would welcome U.S. military action in Syria and would be ready to assist if needed. The stance could complicate Turkish efforts to repair ties with Russia, damaged in November 2015 when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border. Relations have gradually been repaired since August, and Russia and Turkey jointly brokered a ceasefire in the Syrian city of Aleppo at the end of last year. “There is a struggle for power between Russia and the United States over the future of Syria and Turkey is stumbling back and forth between the two,” said Metin Gurcan, a former military officer and security analyst at the Istanbul Policy Center. “This is a period where Turkey shouldn’t make sharp U-turns ... sometimes we’re extremely pro-Washington and sometimes pro-Moscow. That could lead to Turkey being perceived as an inconsistent, unpredictable and therefore unreliable actor.” Cavusoglu said the coalition had been informed of the U.S. missile strike and that he had spoken by phone with the French and German foreign ministers, although he did not say when. He also said contacts had been initiated with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. | 0fake |
Highlights: The Trump presidency on April 26 at 9:12 P.M. EDT/0112 GMT on April 27 | (Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday: Trump proposes slashing tax rates for businesses and on overseas corporate profits returned to the country in a plan greeted as an opening gambit by his fellow Republicans in Congress. Trump’s plan could shift the U.S. economy into higher gear but could have one effect the White House would not welcome — interest rates ratcheted higher than expected by a wary central bank. The Trump tax cut will generate growth but not nearly enough to replace trillions of dollars in lost revenues, while rising deficits could even take back some of the economic gains, fiscal experts say. Congress inches toward a deal to fund the government through September but is preparing to possibly extend a midnight Friday deadline in order to wrap up negotiations and avoid an imminent government shutdown. Trump is considering issuing an executive order to pull the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement, an administration official says, a move that could unravel one of the world’s biggest trading blocs. Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discuss bilateral trade in their second conversation in as many days amid strains over softwood lumber and dairy. The Trump administration says it aims to push North Korea into dismantling its nuclear and missile programs through tougher international sanctions and diplomatic pressure, and remains open to negotiations to bring that about. Trump gives the military the authority to reset a confusing system of troop limits in Iraq and Syria that critics say allows the White House to micro-manage battlefield decisions and ultimately obscures the real number of U.S. forces. Trump signs an executive order to allow national monument designations to be rescinded or reduce the size of sites as the administration pushes to open more federal land to drilling, mining and other development. Trump orders Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to review the government role in school policy, which supporters cheer as a step in creating more local control in education and critics worry it could lead to lower quality schools in poorer neighborhoods. Israel’s intelligence minister says his country wants an “understanding” with the Trump administration that Iran must not be allowed to establish a permanent military foothold in Syria. | 0fake |
FLASHBACK: TWO MUSLIMS Living In US With Criminal Records ATTACK GAY Med Student In DC: If You Were “in my country…you’d be stoned to death…Just like Muhammad commanded” [VIDEO] | Virginia resident Ruddad Abdulgader, a 19-year-old Sudanese native and Muslim, responsible for an Oct. 3 bias-motivated assault of a Georgetown medical student was sentenced to 35 months in prison by D.C. Superior Court last Friday.On Oct. 3, the medical student, who has remained anonymous due to the nature of his assault, was attacked by two men as he walked along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal path in the early hours of the morning. The assailants shouted homophobic slurs at him and hit him in the face with a vodka bottle, rendering the victim unconscious.The Virginia resident Ruddad Abdulgader pleaded guilty on two felony counts on Nov. 12, 2008. According to a Department of Justice press release, he was sentenced Friday to 30 months of jail time for felony assault with a bias intent and five months for possession of a prohibited weapon. Due to immigration laws, Abdulgader may face deportation to Sudan.Under D.C. law, Abdulgader could have received a maximum four-and-a-half year sentence for felony assault with bias intent. In addition to being incarcerated, Abdulgader must compensate the victim for his out-of-pocket medical costs.Abdulgader s accomplice, Saad Elorch, a Moroccan native was also intially charged with the bias-assault, however the U.S. Attorney s office dropped the charge after Abdulgader admitted that he was the only one who physically assaulted the victim. Elorch pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of assaulting and threatening a police officer. The HoyaWe are unable to determine if either of these men were ever deported. We ll update this story if more information becomes available. | 1real |
New Podesta Email Reveals Strategy for Rigging Polls by ‘Oversampling’ | This past Sunday, the latest ABC/ Washington Post poll showed a 12-point national polling in favor of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. This poll, along with various other recent polls from the Washington Post , Reuters, and ABC, has shown a 9-percentage point sampling bias toward registered Democrats , causing an uproar of speculation.
Keep in mind, we are neither Trump supports nor Hillary Supporters.
The website Zero Hedge reported : “METHODOLOGY – This ABC News poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Oct. 20-22, 2016, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 874 likely voters. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 36-27-31 percent, Democrats – Republicans – Independents.”
These small sampling details shouldn’t be taken so lightly, as they can change the results of the poll immensely, as well as shift people’s perceptions of their candidate’s likelihood of winning. This in turn can deter people from voting altogether. There may be a few more registered Democrats, but they certainly don’t have a 9-point registration average, which the latest sampling polls have shown.
Furthermore, the media organizations involved are pulling a certain demographic sampling to get the results they have.
Zero Hedge put it into perspective by noting:
As a quick example, the ABC / WaPo poll found that Hillary enjoys a 79-point advantage over Trump with black voters. Therefore, even a small “oversample” of black voters of 5% could swing the overall poll by 3 full points . Moreover, the pollsters don’t provide data on the demographic mix of their polls which makes it impossible to “fact check” the bias…convenient.
The many recent WikiLeaks documents have exposed Hillary Clinton’s scandalous behaviour, including the release of the contents from her private e-mail server. One of them in particular revealed the close ties the Clinton campaign has had with polling organizations, creating speculation that the campaign is paying the organizations to push the polls in Clinton’s favor.
With media organizations using specific demographic sampling details to rig the results of polling, more dismay, confusion, and anger over the possible, if not absolute, corruption that occurs in the U.S. presidential election can be the only result.
And to really expose just how rigged the polls are, the latest Podesta emails, which were just released by WikiLeaks , show in disturbing detail just how to “manufacture” the hoped-for results from a certain poll. The email correspondence exposes the request for recommendations regarding “oversamples for polling” in order to “maximize what we get out of our media polling.”
One email said, “I also want to get your Atlas folks to recommend oversamples for our polling before we start in February. By market, regions, etc. I want to get this all compiled into one set of recommendations so we can maximize what we get out of our media polling.”
And among some of the most damaging materials was an attachment of a 37-page guide. One instance revealed that, in Arizona, the oversampling of Hispanics’ and Native Americans’ populations was highly recommended:
“Research, microtargeting & polling projects
– Over-sample Hispanics
– Use Spanish language interviewing. (Monolingual Spanish-speaking voters are among the lowest turnout Democratic targets)
– Over-sample the Native American population”
And in Florida, the report discusses “consistently monitoring” samples for ensuring they’re “not too old” and “has enough African American and Hispanic voters.” The report even acknowledges that national polls over sample “key districts/regions” and “ethnic” groups “as needed.”
“– General election benchmark, 800 sample, with potential over samples in key districts/regions
– Benchmark polling in targeted races, with ethnic over samples as needed
– Targeting tracking polls in key races, with ethnic over samples as needed”
Many of the Podesta emails give clear insight into why the mainstream media has refused to report on the most damning allegations against Clinton — with this latest revelation simply affirming the reality that the “consent of the governed” is, in reality, nothing more than manufactured consent by one group that holds total power.
Ultimately, these elections are a mere distraction, and as John F. Hylan, among others, told us:
The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation … The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties … [and] control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection. ( source )( source )
These are the ones we should be focusing our attention on.
| 1real |
TRUMP ON TARGET: “We Don’t Need Jay Z To Fill Up Stadiums” [Video] | 1real | |
WATCH: Joy Behar And ‘The View’ PUMMEL Trump For Being Too Closely Tied To Russia And Putin | The recent CIA assessment concluding that Russia interfered with the election to help Donald Trump win caused the ladies of The View to sound the alarm.Seventeen intelligence agencies agree that Russia aided Trump in his effort to become president, and they are now poised to be greatly rewarded by their new puppet. Joy Behar pointed out that Russia hacked the RNC as well as the DNC but withheld RNC emails while leaking emails from the DNC.Sunny Hostin explained that what concerns her most is that Trump is defending Russia, despite 17 intelligence agencies agreeing that Russia hacked our election. Behar then played a clip of Trump asking Russia to hack the DNC and promised them that they would be rewarded mightily if they continued interfering.The hosts briefly slammed Kellyanne Conway for calling this story fake news, before Whoopi Goldberg chimed in that Kellyanne Conway is fake news. The crowd appreciated that quip. Goldberg went on to point out that if this were happening in another country that we would be all over it crying foul. And she s right. The United States has a long record of criticizing foreign interference in elections in other countries but Trump and his supporters are happy to accept Russia s assistance.Behar then called for Trump to step down because we are at risk when the President of the United States is fighting with the CIA. Hostin concluded that Trump is getting in bed with Russia because he is seeking personal wealth.Here s the video via YouTube:Then the ladies shifted to criticize Trump s pick for Secretary of State.As we all know, Trump has surrounded himself with pro-Russia advisers throughout the campaign. And now he is stocking his cabinet with them, too. For instance, Rex Tillerson is an Exxon CEO who has close ties to Russia and is a personal friend of Vladimir Putin, yet he is Trump s pick to be America s top diplomat. Tillerson also opposes the sanctions that were placed on Russia after they invaded Ukraine and seized the Crimea. In short, Tillerson will likely choose financial gain for himself and the oil industry over the safety and protection of the American people and the interests of our country.And that enraged Behar. Paul Manafort, who used to be his campaign director, he had to quit because of his ties to Russia, Behar said. I mean, do we have to wait until the hammer and sickle is on the American flag before we stand up to this guy? Here s the video via YouTube:Donald Trump is a direct threat to the security of our nation. Russia sees him as a puppet, something they have waited a long time to have in the White House. And the fact that Trump is pretending that Russia did nothing to help him win makes that very clear.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
CIA Operative Admits Deep State Globalist Control – The Game of Nations | Jay Dyer 21st Century WireIn the famous treatise by Miles Copeland, Game of Nations, the devious middle eastern CIA operative spills the beans in this infamous 1969 work on covert operations and regime changes. Not only does Copeland detail the various US puppets and stooges, but also how game theory played into the predictive computer models available even in the late 60s. The regime change models of the 50s and 60s would be studied as part of Rand Corporation and other think tank and NGO models for remodeling, not just the Middle East, but any nations that run afoul of the Western globalists. This is a partial talk the full is available by subscription at JaysAnalysis.com. Watch:Jay Dyer is the author of the best selling title, Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film from Trine Day. Focusing on film, philosophy, geopolitics and all things esoteric, JaysAnalysis and his podcast, Esoteric Hollywood, investigates the deeper meanings between the headlines, exploring the hidden aspects of our sinister synthetic mass media matrix.SUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Jerusalem Unity Day: Republicans, Democrats Join Forces To Celebrate Israel’s Eternal Capital - Breitbart | WASHINGTON, D. C. — Over 25 Jewish organizations and Republican and Democratic lawmakers convened at the U. S. Capitol Visitor’s Center on Wednesday to mark and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jerusalem Day and reaffirm that Jerusalem is Israel’s eternal capital. [Jerusalem Day is a national holiday in Israel that celebrates the country’s reunification of Jerusalem following the Six Day War of 1967. Jerusalem Day this year is officially celebrated on Tuesday, May 23, when President Donald Trump will be visiting the city. The Capital Hill event, dubbed Jerusalem Unity Day, was held six days before. Martin Oliner, of the Religious Zionists of America, organized Wednesday’s event. He told Breitbart News, “I’ve brought 25 Jewish organizations together from all over a full plurality of disparate Jewish organizations that often don’t agree, but we’ve come here for unity. ” He said, “We’re here to thank God and we’re here to thank Congress for the wonderful relationship that we have together. The U. S. relationship is stronger than ever. We want to keep it strong and we’re here to really celebrate this wonderful miracle that has occurred. ” He said he believes it’s “critical” that Trump moves the U. S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “This has been our home, our capital for 3, 300 years since King David founded it. We have been praying to come back to Jerusalem for over 2, 000 years our generation had the pleasure of having that happen during their lifetime. So I feel extraordinary and that’s what we are here to celebrate today. ” “As VP of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, one of the of the event with Martin Oliner, I came to join with other and over 25 senators and congressmen who came to show support,” Odeleya Jacobs told Breitbart News. “The event created an awareness of the great miracle that God did by reuniting Jerusalem to all of Israel and proclaiming Jerusalem the eternal capital of the Jewish people. ” Rep. Ron DeSantis ( ) who has already visited several location in Jerusalem for the potential embassy move, said, “And for me, what better time to finally follow through with our promise if we relocate the U. S. Embassy to Jerusalem” than next week when Trump is in the Holy Land. “I think there’s a lot of risk if we don’t follow through with our word to move the embassy to Jerusalem,” DeSantis said. He added that many of the Arab states respect “strength and decisiveness. ” He noted that some in the Arab world might not like that Trump follows through on his word, “but, man, they are going to respect it. ” “Look, I think at this point, not recognizing Jerusalem as the unified and indivisible capital of Israel actually hurts the peace process,” he continued, “because I think Palestinian Arabs still believe that somehow Israel is a transient country that will eventually be wiped off the map. So moving the embassy there is a great statement to say Israel is here to stay. And if you want to act destructively, fine. But we are not going to play these games and act like we don’t know where the Western Wall is located. ” However, DeSantis noted, “I’m not necessarily predicting that that’s going to happen, but I think if you’re ever going to do it, with all the celebrations that are going to be going on next week, just think of how much energy this would add to that not only in Israel, but here in the United States, for the millions and millions of Americans who would like to see this happen. ” A poll conducted by Smith Research found that in the absence of a solid vow to move the U. S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Trump’s approval rating among Jewish Israelis has dropped by 23 percentage points since he took office in January. Vice President and Dean of Touro College Dr. Robert Goldschmidt told Breitbart News he came from New York “to celebrate a milestone anniversary with the salute to the reunification of Jerusalem, which I think is a historic event for people of all faiths and all creeds. ” Rabbi Marc Volk, executive director of the National Council of Young Israel, told Breitbart News, “Jerusalem is the holy center of Eretz Israel, the State of Israel, and moreover the world. We know that so many individuals across the spectrum of religious life invariably go to the Kotel, the Western Wall, to offer prayer. ” Volk added, “The Kotel, the Western Wall, is a remnant of the Holy Temple that once stood in Jerusalem. We believe Jerusalem is part of Israel. ” Among lawmakers present at Wednesday’s event were Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Ed Royce ( ) Sen. Ben Cardin ( ) Sen. John Barrasso ( ) Rep. Steny Hoyer ( ) Rep. Ileana ( ) Sen. Joe Manchin ( ) Rep. Lee Zeldin ( ) Rep. Eliot Engel ( ) and Rep. Brad Schneider ( ). Sen. Ben Cardin said, “Israel is at great risk right now. We know that there are so many forces around the world that are trying to comprise the legitimacy of Israel. We see that in the effort of the Palestinians to take the negotiations with Israel to the United Nations rather than direct negotiations. We cannot let that happen. ” He added, “there is no separation between the United States and Israel. We are Israel’s only clear ally and friend and we must make sure that remains solid, bipartisan and that we will stand by Israel. ” Cardin also blasted the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against the State of Israel. He stated, “The support for Israel should be guaranteed in this year’s budget. Funding the memorandum of understanding, funding the Iron Dome, funding the technology that makes Israel safer and the United States safer. ” He said America must stand by the Jewish state to ensure support for Israel remains strong and bipartisan. Senator John Barrasso blasted the United Nations’ abuses against Israel. “We, as a Senate, say it is time to get rid of what you are doing at the United Nations. ” Rep. Brad Schneider began his speech by saying, “b’ruchim habayim,” which in Hebrew means “welcome” and “blessed are those who come. ” Schneider said the “permanent” unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel “depends on the bipartisan support in this body. ” He told those gathered that he came to Wednesday’s event “to make sure Jerusalem remains the undivided capital of Israel. ” Rep. Tom Suozzi ( ) told the crowd that he introduced House Resolution 328 on the House floor on Wednesday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem “and for other purposes. ” HR 328 was cosponsored by Rep. Francis Rooney ( ) who served as the former ambassador to the Vatican under President George W. Bush’s commission. “I want you to know that I’m 100 percent on the team,” Suozzi said. “I’ll do whatever I can do be a strong defender of Israel through thick and thin. ” Follow Adelle Nazarian on Facebook and Twitter. | 0fake |
Trump looks at retired general Flynn as possible running mate | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is giving consideration to retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as a potential vice presidential running mate, a Republican source familiar with the process said on Saturday. For weeks Trump has conducted a high-profile canvassing of Republican political stalwarts as part of his running mate search, but he has also made clear he is looking at what a military leader would bring to the ticket. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Flynn has emerged as a possibility, confirming reports in the New York Post and The Washington Post. The Trump campaign had no comment. The thinking is that Flynn, who has been a foreign policy adviser to Trump, would be able to help Trump in the area of national security at a time of challenges abroad like the threat from Islamic State militants. Trump is also considering a more conventional political choice for his running mate, such as former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, Indiana Governor Mike Pence or New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Flynn was chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama from 2012-2014. He has spoken in the past about wanting the United States to work more closely with Russia to resolve global security issues. Flynn told Russia Today in an interview published on Dec. 10 that the United States and Russia should work together to resolve the Syrian civil war and defeat Islamic State. Flynn has a book coming out next week, co-written with Michael Ledeen, titled: “The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies.” | 0fake |
Delingpole: And So It Begins, Trump’s Great Climate Purge... | Finally the Trump administration is starting to get serious about taking on the Green Blob. [EPA administrator Scott Pruitt — perhaps stung by criticisms that he was turning into a squish — today reaffirmed, in an interview with CNBC, that he is not a believer in catastrophic global warming. “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. So no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. But we don’t know that yet … ” This new boldness coincides with a purge of warmist scientific advisers at both the EPA and the Interior Department. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has chosen to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, while Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is “reviewing the charter and charge” of more than 200 advisory boards, committees, and other entities both within and outside of his department. EPA and Interior officials began informing outside advisers of the move on Friday, and notifications continued over the weekend. Pruitt’s move could significantly change the makeup of the Board of Scientific Counselors, which advises EPA’s key scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and integrity. All of the members being dismissed were at the end of serving at least one term, although these terms are often renewed instead of terminated. Among the tragic victims is Robert Richardson, a Michigan professor and “ecological economist” who tweeted movingly about his martyrdom. Today, I was Trumped. I have had the pleasure of serving on the EPA Board of Scientific Counselors, and my appointment was terminated today. — Robert Richardson (@ecotrope) May 5, 2017, A closer look at the man’s biog gives a few clues as to why his contract was not renewed: His research, teaching, and outreach program focuses primarily on sustainable development, and he uses a variety of methods from the behavioral and social sciences to study about the use of natural resources and the values of ecosystem services. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind. But the biggest sign of Trump’s commitment to slaying the Green Blob is expected tomorrow when we’ll finally hear whether or not the president means to keep his election promise to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement. If this happens it will be a disaster for the U. S. with the only beneficiary being White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. At least that’s what environmental journalist David Roberts claims in Vox. Given that Roberts is the guy who once called for trials for climate skeptics perhaps his views should be taken with a pinch of salt. Nonetheless, he is quite right when he argues that whether the U. S. stays in or out of Paris it will make little difference on the policy front. [The agreement] asks participants only to state what they are willing to do and to account for what they’ve done. It is, in a word, voluntary. Roberts suspects, as I do, that the legalistic reasons being advanced for pulling out of Paris have probably been overdone. But whatever works is fine by me. The important thing is for the U. S. to pull out of Paris not in order to facilitate exit from Obama’s Clean Power Plan or to avert legal action from politicized litigators like the Sierra Club but purely as an upward extension of the presidential middle finger to the bloated, corrupt and overmighty Climate Industrial Complex. If and when Trump pulls the U. S. out of Paris it won’t be the end for the Green Blob, nor even the beginning of the end. But it might, perhaps, be the end of the beginning. It will be arguably the first big signal by any major leader of the Western world that the tide on the Great Global Warming Scam is about to turn and that the Alarmists are about to be crushed by fortune’s wheel. | 0fake |
WIKILEAKS PROVES Hillary Gave Weapons To ISIS | Remember when Rand Paul drilled Hillary Clinton on whether she knew about arms being shipped to jihadists? That was a classic moment because her response was a well scripted look of attempted ignorance. If you know Hillary, you know in this moment she was lying her a@@ off. It s epic check it out: HILLARY LIES THROUGH HER TEETH WHILE UNDER OATH: You would think our Republican Congress would push harder on this but who knows if people like former congressman Mike Rodgers (MI) might have been involved in the arms shipments. It has been reported that he had involvement in this.The key thing in all this is that it reveals Hillary to be totally incompetent as Secretary of State. It would also be nice if she was prosecuted for perjury I m not holding my breath.Via: Gateway Pundit | 1real |
Hillary Wrote This Letter To Superdelegates In 2008 That Bernie Fans May Find Interesting | Bernie Sanders supporters have been in an uproar about the Democratic National Committee s rules for primaries, specifically the use of superdelegates. A superdelegate is someone chosen by the party to represent their interests in a given state. They are unpledged, meaning they are able to vote for whoever they choose at the convention. Bernie Sanders supporters, especially the Bernie or Bust crowd those who pledge to stay home or vote for Trump if Hillary gets the nomination have decided that the use of superdelegates circumvents the democratic process, making it impossible for anyone but an establishment Democratic candidate to win.Let s put that into perspective real quick: If the RNC had the same rules they wouldn t be forced to nominate Donald Trump.Superdelegates act in the best interest of the party. There was a candidate in 2008 who learned first-hand that superdelegates can make or break a candidacy. Her name was Hillary Clinton. The expected nominee from the start of the primary season, Clinton found herself face-to-face with the up and coming Barack Obama, whose candidacy didn t truly flourish until half of the state primaries were over. As he gained in popularity and it became clear that he was the right choice for America to succeed Dubya, those corrupt superdelegates, tasked with securing the best interest of the party, began switching their support to Obama, who was ultimately nominated by quorum call on the convention floor by none other than Hillary Clinton.That s the way these things work. Bernie or Bust may be upset that all those independent voters didn t get to just walk into a Democratic primary and vote, but it really isn t anyone s fault but their own that they don t know the party rules. Primaries aren t general elections; they re nominating processes controlled by the parties. Make no mistake: If Bernie Sanders were in the lead or it looked like he was going to pull ahead, those superdelegates would shift their support and make sure the nominee was someone the registered voters of the party want to support.When Clinton was faced with the exact same scenario in 2008, she wrote a letter to the superdelegates of the party with one last plea for support. Her arguments include things like who polled better against the GOP, who had spent more years arguing progressive causes and who was ultimately more qualified to execute the office of the president:Dear ___________,The stakes in this election are so high: with two wars abroad, our economy in crisis here at home, and so many families struggling across America, the need for new leadership has never been greater.At this point, we do not yet have a nominee and when the last votes are cast on June 3, neither Senator Obama nor I will have secured the nomination. It will be up to automatic delegates like you to help choose our party s nominee, and I would like to tell you why I believe I am the stronger candidate against Senator McCain and would be the best President and Commander in Chief.Voters in every state have made it clear that they want to be heard and counted as part of this historic race. And as we reach the end of the primary season, more than 17 million people have supported me in my effort to become the Democratic nominee more people than have ever voted for a potential nominee in the history of our party. In the past two weeks alone, record numbers of voters participated in the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries. And with 40 and 35 point margins of victory, it is clear that even when voters are repeatedly told this race is over, they re not giving up on me and I am not giving up on them either.After seven years of feeling invisible to the Bush administration, Americans are seeking a President who is strong, experienced, and ready to take on our toughest challenges, from serving as Commander in Chief and ending the war in Iraq to turning our economy around. They want a President who shares their core beliefs about our country and its future and gets what they go through every day to care for their families, pay the bills and try to put something away for the future.We simply cannot afford another four or eight years in the wilderness. That is why, everywhere I go, people come up to me, grip my hand or arm, and urge me to keep on running. That is why I continue in this race: because I believe I am best prepared to lead this country as President and best prepared to put together a broad coalition of voters to break the lock Republicans have had on the electoral map and beat Senator McCain in November.Recent polls and election results show a clear trend: I am ahead in states that have been critical to victory in the past two elections. From Ohio, to Pennsylvania, to West Virginia and beyond, the results of recent primaries in battleground states show that I have strong support from the regions and demographics Democrats need to take back the White House. I am also currently ahead of Senator McCain in Gallup national tracking polls, while Senator Obama is behind him. And nearly all independent analyses show that I am in a stronger position to win the Electoral College, primarily because I lead Senator McCain in Florida and Ohio. I ve enclosed a detailed analysis of recent electoral and polling information, and I hope you will take some time to review it carefully.In addition, when the primaries are finished, I expect to lead in the popular vote and in delegates earned through primaries. Ultimately, the point of our primary process is to pick our strongest nominee the one who would be the best President and Commander in Chief, who has the greatest support from members of our party, and who is most likely to win in November. So I hope you will consider not just the strength of the coalition backing me, but also that more people will have cast their votes for me.I am in this race for them for all the men and women I meet who wake up every day and work hard to make a difference for their families. People who deserve a shot at the American dream the chance to save for college, a home and retirement; to afford quality health care for their families; to fill the gas tank and buy the groceries with a little left over each month.I am in this race for all the women in their nineties who ve told me they were born before women could vote, and they want to live to see a woman in the White House. For all the women who are energized for the first time, and voting for the first time. For the little girls and little boys whose parents lift them onto their shoulders at our rallies, and whisper in their ears, See, you can be anything you want to be. As the first woman ever to be in this position, I believe I have a responsibility to them.Finally, I am in this race because I believe staying in this race will help unite the Democratic Party. I believe that if Senator Obama and I both make our case and all Democrats have the chance to make their voices heard everyone will be more likely to rally around the nominee.In the end, I am committed to unifying this party. What Senator Obama and I share is so much greater than our differences; and no matter who wins this nomination, I will do everything I can to bring us together and move us forward.But at this point, neither of us has crossed the finish line. I hope that in the time remaining, you will think hard about which candidate has the best chance to lead our party to victory in November. I hope you will consider the results of the recent primaries and what they tell us about the mindset of voters in the key battleground states. I hope you will think about the broad and winning coalition of voters I have built. And most important, I hope you will think about who is ready to stand on that stage with Senator McCain, fight for the deepest principles of our party, and lead our country forward into this new century.The letter was followed by 11 pages of statistics showing that even though she was behind, the race wasn t over. In the end it was the support of superdelegates that gave Obama the clear win.As a Bernie Sanders supporter, I would love to see the last melee of primaries go his way. A big win in California and a couple of other states and there s a chance Bernie becomes the best choice for the party, at which time he can realistically try to woo the superdelegates away from Clinton. If Hillary can hang on and secure the nomination, those of us who care about the future of our country will put our full support behind her.Featured image by NBC Newswire/Getty Images | 1real |
TREY GOWDY Rips DOJ For Giving Immunity To Guilty In Clinton E-mail Scandal: “It’s just 5 get out of jail free cards” | 1real | |
Protesters injured in Honduras clashes as electoral crisis rumbles on | TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Over two dozen people were injured in clashes on Friday between Honduran security forces and protesters demanding a vote recount for last month s contentious and still unresolved presidential election, according to the Red Cross. Supporters of the center-left Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, led by TV star Salvador Nasralla, set fire to tires across the country, blocking major thoroughfares in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and the second city of San Pedro Sula. Police and soldiers responded with tear gas to rock-throwing protesters who set fire to a vehicle for carrying soldiers in Tegucigalpa. Near San Pedro Sula, protesters blocked a road leading to the key Puerto Cortes port, before being moved on by security forces. The Honduran branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross said that 27 people had been injured in the clashes. At least five of those injured in the northern city of Villanueva, near San Pedro Sula, had been shot, it said. Honduras has been roiled by political instability in the wake of the Nov. 26 vote, which remains unresolved. Nasralla trails conservative President Juan Orlando Hernandez by 1.6 percentage points according to the official count, which has been questioned by the two main opposition parties and a wide swathe of the diplomatic corps. Honduras electoral tribunal said on Sunday that a partial recount of votes showed broadly the same result as previously, maintaining Hernandez s lead. It has until Dec. 26 to declare a winner. Last week, Honduras two main opposition parties presented formal requests to annul the results of the election. | 0fake |
Comment on Links 10/30/16 by allan | Democrats declare open season on Jim Comey Politico. Keeping the spotlight on Clinton…
Clinton campaign blames Putin. 10, 9, 8 counting , 7… Ironically Comey put himself on the same side as Putin.
— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) October 29, 2016
Such a shame what happened to HoHo . What’s he angling for? Secretary of Epistemic Closure ?
Clinton’s Attacking Strategy to Blunt Comey Damage Has Risks Bloomberg
Within 24 hours of being blindsided by Comey’s revelation to Congress that the FBI had come across new e-mails he believed could be pertinent to the Clinton probe, Clinton’s campaign sent a memo to dozens [!] of its surrogates. It detailed talking points and suggested wording for casting doubt on Comey’s decision and Republicans’ spin, and spreading the idea that the e-mails may simply be duplicates of those already reviewed or have nothing to do with the nominee.
Couldn’t we just get a copy of the memo and a list of the surrogates? Then we could skip reading the surrogates.
James Comey’s Letter and the Problem of Leaks The New Yorker. Staff insurrection, as Yves said.
Election Update: Four Ways Forward For Clinton After The FBI News FiveThirtyEight. “[0]ne way the campaign could end is with a whole crescendo of major stories dropping. That could make things complicated for pollsters and forecasters.” Release the dumpsters!
Clinton enjoys solid lead in early voting: Reuters/Ipsos poll Reuters. And now you know why the Clinton campaign — and those portions of the press that are operationally integrated with it — are pushing early voting. Why, it’s almost like they think there’s a “surprise” out there that might change people’s minds…. | 1real |
POLICE OFFICER Asks Daughter’s School To Remove Hateful Drawing From Display…School Has SHOCKING Response | What do you think about the school s response to this police officer s request?The painting Officer Dave Hamblin found offensive (Facebook)A police officer father in the United States has taken to social media to complain about a piece of artwork displayed at his daughter s school.Kentucky cop Dave Hamblin is outraged by the painting which depicts two black people with a gun pointed at their head.On one half of the painting, under the title 1930 , a Ku Klux Klan member is pointing the gun.On the other half, titled 2015 , a white police officer is shown pointing the gun at what looks like a African American child.The painting was from a school project inspired by racial violence depicted in Harper Lee s book, To Kill A Mockingbird.Police officer Dave Hamblin, who goes by the name Dave Kingmen on Facebook, says the picture is upsetting and creates future cop haters . We speak of tolerance, we speak of changing hostile environments, we speak of prejudice, and we speak of racial relations, yet, when it comes to hostility toward police, their families, and profiling them through bigotry we are expected to tolerate it, Kingmen wrote.. I will not, nor will my child. The cop has asked for the picture to be removed but the school has seemingly turned down his request. When discussing social injustice, people will likely be offended by some topic, said Tracy Green, a school spokesperson. The drawing is a student s artistic representation based on the lens through which the student viewed that issue and the student has a First Amendment right to share that opinion. Via: Yahoo | 1real |
Trump to give major North Korea speech, then press China to do more | SEOUL (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will wrap up his visit to Seoul on Wednesday with a major speech on North Korea and then shift focus to China, where he is expected to press a reluctant President Xi Jinping to tighten the screws further on Pyongyang, U.S. officials say. Trump s address to South Korea s National Assembly will come a day after he seemed to take a more balanced approach: threatening to use America s full military might against North Korea if needed, but also offering it a diplomatic opening to make a deal to end the nuclear standoff. While Trump presented no specific solution to his toughest global security challenge, his more conciliatory rhetoric toward North Korea could help lower tensions between Washington and Pyongyang that have put much of the east Asian region on edge over the prospects for military conflict. It contrasted markedly with Trump s earlier threats to totally destroy North Korea if it threatened the United States, and the personal insults he exchanged with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. It remains to be seen, however, whether the unpredictable Trump, in his final day on North Korea s doorstep, will build on this approach or return to the bellicose language that has characterized his handling of the North Korean issue. Trump s official talking points for his Asia tour show that he intends to use the speech in part to contrast South Korea s amazing rise with North Korea s sad, backward state and to urge resolve against Pyongyang, according to a confidential document reviewed by Reuters. He is also expected to condemn Pyongyang for its poor human rights record. Trump will then fly to Beijing where, according to senior administration officials, he will try to convince Xi to squeeze North Korea further with steps such as limits on oil exports, coal imports and financial transactions. Previewing his Beijing visit, Trump told a news conference in Seoul on Tuesday that China and North Korea s other giant neighbor, Russia, were among countries whose cooperation will be crucial in getting North Korea to rein in its nuclear and missile programs. President Xi has been very helpful. We ll find out how helpful soon, Trump said. But it is far from clear if Xi, who has just consolidated his power at a Communist Party congress, will agree to do more. China says its leverage over Pyongyang is exaggerated by the West, and points to its support in the U.N. Security Council for recent sanctions on North Korea as evidence that it is doing all it can to curtail the isolated nation s nuclear and missile tests. On this issue, China s position and stance is already very clear and staunch, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday. Everyone can see clearly that we don t need anybody to tell us what we should be doing. But with Trump appearing to crack open the door to diplomacy with North Korea something that China has long urged he may have a better chance of securing further promises to intensify economic pressure on North Korea, which relies on Beijing for more than 90 percent of its trade. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, however, has seemed willing to risk snubbing China when he deems it useful as he pursues development of a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. At the same time, Xi may be mindful that Trump has held off on trade actions against China that he loudly threatened during the 2016 presidential campaign to give Beijing more time to make progress on North Korea. For his part, Xi will also be looking to maintain the good personal chemistry the two leaders developed when Trump hosted him at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in April. The bromance is set to continue when Xi returns the favor by laying on a lavish welcome for Trump s visit starting on Wednesday. Trump is expected to go to the Forbidden City, possibly guided by Xi, and participate in an inspection of Chinese troops, though China has released few other details. | 0fake |
Illinois governor's office warns of crippling pension payment hike | CHICAGO (Reuters) - Potential action this week by Illinois’ biggest public pension fund could put a big dent in the state’s already fragile finances, Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration warned. A Monday memo from a top Rauner aide said the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) board could decide at its meeting this week to lower the assumed investment return rate, a move that would automatically boost Illinois’ annual pension payment. “If the (TRS) board were to approve a lower assumed rate of return taxpayers will be automatically and immediately on the hook for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in higher taxes or reduced services,” Michael Mahoney, Rauner’s senior advisor for revenue and pensions, wrote to the governor’s chief of staff, Richard Goldberg. When TRS lowered the investment return rate to 7.5 percent from 8 percent in 2014 the state’s pension payment increased by more than $200 million, according to the memo. Illinois’ fiscal 2017 pension payment to its five retirement systems was estimated at $7.9 billion, up from $7.617 billion in fiscal 2016 and $6.9 billion in fiscal 2015, according to a March report by a bipartisan legislative commission. The country’s fifth-largest state’s unfunded pension liability stood at $111 billion at the end of fiscal 2015, with TRS accounting for more than 55 percent of that gap. The funded ratio was a weak 41.9 percent. An impasse between the Republican governor and Democrats who control the legislature left Illinois as the only state without a complete 2016 budget. A six-month fiscal 2017 spending plan was passed in June. Mahoney cautioned that “unforeseen and unknown automatic cost increases would have a devastating impact” on Illinois’ ability to fund social services and education. One of Rauner’s top Republican legislative allies, Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, urged the TRS board to delay a vote Friday to give the public time to weigh in on its possible actions. “This issue is important enough at the very least to put the TRS board on notice we don’t want them taking any action that could cost taxpayers $200 to $300 million without appropriate scrutiny,” she said. TRS spokesman Dave Urbanek said the pension system was not aware of Mahoney’s memo until Tuesday and that Rauner’s office had requested “information about the scenarios under consideration.” He added TRS did not offer “potential scenarios” either to the governor’s office or legislative leaders and noted the TRS board has not yet discussed the matter. | 0fake |
Hospital stocks fall after Republican health bill seen leaving 24 million uninsured | (Reuters) - Shares of hospitals and health insurers fell on Tuesday after the U.S. Congressional Budget Office forecast that 14 million Americans would lose medical insurance by next year under a Republican plan to dismantle Obamacare. Among the hospitals, HCA Holdings slipped 1.6 percent, Tenet Healthcare fell 4.2 percent, Community Health Systems shed 1.5 percent and LifePoint Health was down 1.3 percent. The S&P 500 healthcare sector was off 0.4 percent, while the benchmark S&P 500 index slipped 0.5 percent. “The Street is reacting to the uncertainty around (the bill), and the possibility of” more challenges ahead, said Ana Gupte, an analyst with Leerink Partners in New York. “There’s uncertainty about the potential downside,” and whether the plan will become tougher for hospitals before it gets passed, she said. The Affordable Care Act of 2010, often dubbed Obamacare, expanded medical coverage, aiding hospitals by reducing the number of uninsured patients who could not pay bills. Hospital stocks fell after the Nov. 8 presidential election of Donald Trump, who vowed to repeal the ACA, former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy legislation. The CBO forecast that 24 million people would be uninsured in 2026 if the plan being considered by the House of Representatives were adopted. Some health policy experts and Wall Street analysts said the report was more draconian than expected, with the uninsured rate declining more quickly than foreseen. “While the CBO’s estimate... is a negative headline for hospitals, we believe that in its current form, the bill’s chances of passing are slim,” Jefferies analyst Brian Tanquilut said in a research note. Tanquilut said he believed legislators “will eventually draft a more palatable, diluted version of ‘repeal and replace’ that would have a smaller impact on the number of uninsured.” Health insurer stocks also fell. UnitedHealth Group Inc was down 0.8 percent, Aetna Inc also shed 0.8 percent and Humana Inc fell 0.7 percent. “What that means basically is lower volume for the health insurers. It looks like it’s going to be the dismantling of the individual insurance market, which again means lower revenues and the loss of the individual market for the most part for the insurers,” said Vishnu Lekraj, an equity analyst at Morningstar. The Republican proposal would end Obamacare expansion of the Medicaid insurance program for the poor and would replace Obamacare’s income-based subsidies with fixed tax credits for the purchase of private insurance. Medicaid-focused insurers were particularly hard hit. Centene fell 2.2 percent, Molina Healthcare was down 2.5 percent and WellCare Health Plans was 2 percent lower. | 0fake |
German court rules public should have free access to beaches | FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The public should not be forced to pay to walk on Germany s beaches or swim in the sea, a federal court ruled, calling into question private beaches along the North and Baltic Sea coasts. The coastal town of Wangerland, 170 km (100 miles) west of Hamburg, was sued by two residents of neighboring towns who demanded it provide free access to its two North Sea beaches. Wangerland s tourist office has largely fenced in the beaches, added facilities, playgrounds and lifeguards, and has been charging visitors a 3-euro ($3.57) entry fee during the summer season, with the exception of residents and tourists of the town itself. Under German law, anyone is allowed to enter unused tracts of land, a provision meant to give the public access to the country s natural beauty and create opportunities for fresh-air recreation free of charge. But a court in the state of Lower Saxony last year ruled in favor of Wangerland, saying the beaches in question were not unused but had been leased by the town for commercial purposes. The federal administrative court said in its ruling published on Thursday the town could not charge visitors to go for walks on the beach or to swim in the sea, but could for using the facilities set up there. Claims to nearly the entire beach, and not only the areas needed to operate the business, put excessive limits on general liberty, the court said in a statement, partly overturning the lower court s ruling. | 0fake |
Won, Now What? | 18 Shares
17 0 0 1 (Donald Trump speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Credit: Gage Skidmore / flickr)
Trump's victory was a shock to most, especially given the broad support Hillary Clinton received from the forces of Wall Street. Although Trump is a billionaire himself, his criticism of free trade agreements and US policy toward Russia angered a broad section of the ruling class. It is the ruling class in control of the banks, military institutions, and corporate boardrooms that usually determine elections in the United States. Trump's victory is a product of the ruling system's decline and crisis more than anything else. The question is, now what?
What is urgently needed is a deep investigation of all aspects and contradictions of the Trump moment. First, Trump won because the capitalist system is in crisis. The laws of the system have inevitably led to such a level of concentration that profit accumulation has turned into its opposite. Technological innovation has permanently replaced a large section of labor in the US, creating the deindustrialized terrain Trump spoke so much about in his campaign. At the end of the day, the profits that Wall Street speculated into the ground ultimately came from the compulsion to increase buying power with large debt schemes that could never be paid back by a working class whose wages have been in decline for over three decades .
So when Hillary Clinton decided to campaign as some sort of united front against fascism, few listened. Many people in the US saw Clinton as an extension of the ruling establishment that had pummeled working class people into the ground. The Black Lives Matter movement exposed her complicity in the crime legislation that led to the vast expansion of the Black prisoner population during her husband's rule. Hillary Clinton then made the mistake of coalescing with the ruling establishments of both parties in hopes of isolating Trump when in fact she merely exposed her role as a loyal servant of power.
Some have claimed that since Clinton won the popular vote, she was the rightful winner regardless of her flaws. Others have argued that the Republican Party right-wing elites rigged the election . However true, there will be no recall this time around. Why? The DNC and the Clinton campaign rigged the primaries in order to defeat Sanders. In a stunning shift of political legitimacy, the Democratic Party has eviscerated all difference between itself and its Republican Party counterparts.
Numerous pieces have been written about the dangers of the cabinet Trump will select. Indeed, Trump’s possibilities do not deviate from the standard Republican Party makeup. His potential choices for top positions include "tough on crime" Rudy Giuliani, austerity magnate Chris Christie, and privatization enthusiast Newt Gingrich. However, for the first time in a long time, the President of the United States is accountable to something other than the ruling class. In the past, Republican Party and Democratic Party Presidents dutifully served its paymasters while using manipulation to ensure that their respective bases were effectively neutralized.
MORE... Defeating White Liberalism in the Age of Trump Brian Cloughley: “The Greatest Achievement of Mr. Trump would be Engage in Positive Discussions with Russia and China” Arise President Trump (or Why it's not the End of the World as We Know it) This is not the case with Trump. Just a month ago, Trump was the least desired choice of the ruling class . It was Trump's petty bourgeois and working class base of white America that propelled him to victory. It is clear that the need to politically survive in hostile waters will compel Trump to choose a neo-con Administration. But a neo-con agenda is exactly what his supporters voted against. Even those who directly or indirectly ascribe to white American nationalism are sick of endless war and austerity. However, nothing less can be expected from the likes of Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich.
The contradictions of the Trump era will breed a social confrontation between classes not seen since the Great Depression. White liberals and white nationalists will battle for the soul of the two-party system. The neo-con establishment will have to confront Trump's foreign and economic policy campaign rhetoric, much of which is in direct antagonism with the GOP's record. And the Democratic Party will attempt to use the age of Trump as a time to regroup and steer the forces of resistance back into its camp.
How should the forces of resistance position themselves under this new set of conditions? First, the anti-war left needs to confront Trump's foreign policy head on and place pressure on him to make good on his promises to scale back NATO and its escalation toward Russia. The left needs to resist any and all attempts by Trump to make good on some of his less savory proposals, such as a the deportation of the million immigrants and the expansion of the US nuclear arsenal. Of course, Trump’s rhetoric must be placed in its proper context. It was the Obama Administration that signed a one trillion dollar agreement to "modernize" the US nuclear arsenal and deported nearly three million immigrants in eight years, a number unseen in US history. This means resistance to the Trump Administration's use of the apparatus that Obama and the Democrats built should be directed at the entire ruling class, not just one of the two parties that represent it.
The vast majority of people simply cannot afford the resurrection of the two-party system. As Don Debar of CPR News has made clear, the check of white supremacy simply doesn't pay the same dividends anymore. While the wealth gap between White America and Black American would take over two centuries to even out , it is also true that merely ten percent White America owns almost all wealth in the US . Capitalism's crisis has forced a large segment of the population to live under working class conditions. A unique opportunity exists to build and strengthen a radical left agenda in the US and a start a discussion of what it will take to implement it.
What is meant by “opportunity” is that a narrow outlook on this moment will breed narrow results. It should be imperative that the left force Trump's hand on foreign policy. It should demand that Trump use his executive powers to force through a 21st century Glass-Steagall Act and create a federal jobs program to rebuild infrastructure in the US. The left should not hesitate to condemn and protest whatever white supremacist and repressive policies come out of his Administration, with full recognition that it was Democratic and Republican Party consensus that got us here. As emotions run high and fear captures a number of people completely disenchanted with the current political climate in the United States, the time has come to spend the time and effort necessary to prepare the people for the war that existed long before Trump: class war. | 1real |
Venezuelan leader blasts Rajoy, mocks Trump | CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela s President Nicolas Maduro railed at two of his main international critics on Wednesday, chiding Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy for meddling and mocking U.S. President Donald Trump for geographical ignorance. The United States has recently imposed sanctions on Venezuelan officials and Spain is pressing for the European Union to follow suit as international pressure grows on Maduro over his record on human rights and democracy. Why is the global right wing so obsessed with our homeland? leftist Maduro responded in an address on state TV. Lampooning little Mariano for mispronouncing his name Madero , Maduro said the conservative leader should focus instead on Spain s internal problems, Catalonia s independence push, and Europe s problematic relations with Washington. Forget talking about Venezuela, which is a homeland of dignity, Maduro said. I reject and repudiate Mariano Rajoy s meddling, rude, absurd comments against Venezuela. Maduro faces global criticism that he has turned Venezuela into a dictatorship with the creation of an all-powerful Constituent Assembly, jailing of political opponents and quashing of protests this year in which 125 people died. The United States has issued several rounds of sanctions against Venezuela and Spain is pushing the European Union to adopt restrictive measures against members of Maduro s government. Having in recent days labeled Trump a Hitler and imperial emperor supporting violent coup-plotters in Venezuela, Maduro took aim this time at the Republican s intellect. Donald Trump doesn t even know where Venezuela is. Give him a map, and he can t find Venezuela, the Venezuelan leader said of Trump, widely ridiculed last week for referring to a non-existent African country Nambia . Maduro s comments were a response to remarks by Trump and Rajoy after a White House meeting on Tuesday. The Venezuelan president has not yet commented on the opposition s decision to boycott talks scheduled for Wednesday with the government in the Dominican Republic in hope of resolving the OPEC nation s deep political crisis. The government had eagerly promoted the talks, while the opposition was reluctant from the outset, saying there was no sign of possible concessions. The moment came to say we want concrete steps, not good intentions , Luis Florido, spokesman for the opposition negotiating team, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. We can t go to the Dominican Republic and just talk about anything ... We have learnt from the errors of past processes, he added, referring to failed Vatican-led talks in 2016. The opposition wants a date for the next presidential election, due by the end of 2018, with guarantees it will be free and fair. It is also calling for freedom for hundreds of jailed activists, a foreign humanitarian aid corridor and respect for the opposition-led congress. Maduro repeatedly calls opposition leaders pawns of the United States intent on toppling him by force. He says the Constituent Assembly, elected in August in a vote boycotted by the opposition and condemned by various foreign powers, has brought peace to the nation of 30 million. | 0fake |
Trump Just F*cked Up His Spelling So Badly The DICTIONARY Mocked Him On Twitter (TWEETS) | At this point, Donald Trump is known for his spelling errors on Twitter and, well, in general. Not a day goes by that The Donald isn t forced to delete a tweet that looks more like a kindergartener wrote it than normal, tweets in which he calls Hillary Clinton a loose cannon with bad instincts and bad judgement. But on Saturday, he made an unpresidented error and literally got smacked down by the dictionary.Tweeting about China s seizure of a U.S. underwater drone a brash action taken shortly after The Donald created an international incident by chatting with the President of Taiwan and Twitter-trolling China. Since that call, Chinese state-run media has been calling for their nation to recover Taiwan by force an obvious consequence of Trump s extremely lackluster foreign policy skills. The Wall Street Journal reports:The incident on Thursday occurred days after President-elect Donald J. Trump raised China s ire by suggesting his administration could abandon a bedrock agreement on Taiwan s status that has kept peace in the area for decades. Mr. Trump s suggestion that the U.S. would maintain its position on Taiwan only if China makes concessions to American interests came after he broke decades of diplomatic protocol by accepting a phone call from Taiwan s president, hitting one of Beijing s most sensitive issues. Trump, of course, jumped on the opportunity to further provoke China. Unfortunately, he made a rather serious error and was forced to delete and retweet it. Fortunately, George Takei was nice enough to save a copy:Trump deleted it, but not before I saved it. Freudian slip? We can all hope he, too, soon will be "unpresidented." #LearnToSpell pic.twitter.com/tRjYEYVMJl George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) December 17, 2016The rest of the internet joined in mocking Trump s unpresidented remark:It took Trump and his team 87 minutes to fix the word "unpresidented." pic.twitter.com/Bz7NxSqwlo Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 17, 2016.@realDonaldTrump Thankfully the Internet is forever and your #unpresidented tweet is too. pic.twitter.com/VitBfHvzhF Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) December 17, 2016Apparently @realDonaldTrump just tweeted something that shows him to be an uneducated buffoon. In other news, water is wet #unpresidented fatalberton (@fatalberton) December 17, 2016If he hadn't been born rich he'd be the guy who talks to the pigeons in the park. #unpresidented A anda (@GrnEyedMandy) December 17, 2016Little Johnnie, make a sentence with #unpresidented The Electoral College unpresidented Trump in accordance with their Constitutional duty RiotWomenn (@riotwomennn) December 17, 2016I bet 'unprecedented' is spelled correctly in those daily briefings. #unpresidented Stephanie (@KnitingPolitics) December 17, 2016#Unpresidented [uhn-pres-i-den-tid] lacking presidential skills and exhibiting disregard for autocorrect Maciej Kuziemski (@kuziemsky) December 17, 2016Trump says he has the best words, but apparently unpresidented is not one of them. The true heroes of the day are the folks behind the Merriam-Webster Dictionary s Twitter account. Good morning! The #WordOfTheDay is not unpresidented . We don t enter that word, the Dictionary tweeted. That s a new one. Good morning! The #WordOfTheDay is not 'unpresidented'. We don't enter that word. That's a new one. https://t.co/BJ45AtMNu4 Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) December 17, 2016The word of the day is actually lave, which is something his supporters should consider once in a while.The #WordOfTheDay is lave.? https://t.co/Yw6ALyA2U4 Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) December 17, 2016You know Donald Trump isn t having a good day when we both get to see real-world consequences of his actions and he gets humiliated by the dictionary in the most literal sense.Featured image via screengrab/Getty Images (Joe Raedle) | 1real |
Exposed: The US is an Oligarchy Ruled by Billionaires and Dictators | Eric Zuesse Off GuardianEven for the post of U.S. President, the preferences of the American people have only a marginal, if any, impact upon the selection of the person to occupy that post.In Colorado s Republican race to win delegates to the Republican National Convention for selecting the Republican Presidential nominee, there was no primary, and there was no caucus.As the Republican magazine National Review headlined on April 11th, attempting to justify what a Republican wag had just headlined as Cruz Celebrates Voterless Win : Donald Trump Laid a Colorado Goose Egg because He Was Disorganized and Amateurish. Their argument (since they campaign for any Republican but Trump) was: he lost because he was disorganized and amateurish not because he had been cheated by the Party-hierarchy.National Review explained that in the process which had been set up by the Colorado Republican Party (it s set up by each individual state s Republican Party, not by the National Republican Party), delegates to the national convention would be selected at congressional-district conventions and the Republican s [sic] state convention , and this was done in order to give Colorado s delegates more flexibility, not done in order to require delegates to reflect the Republican (or any other) electorate in Colorado (since NR doesn t like even its own Party s electorate).This was the explanation that was provided by that magazine, which backs Cruz, and which has been campaigning ferociously against Trump. Their article was built upon, and extensively quoted, the justifications put forth by one particular Cruz delegate, who said, The grassroots made the decision that Ted Cruz was the best candidate for us, and the grassroots made the decision to come out for Cruz and absolutely swept the table. He called it our caucus system. Whatever it was, it shut out all rank-and-file Republican voters, and left everything to people like himself, who could afford to do this: You have to put in the work, you have to put in the effort, and you have to do it months ahead of time. In other words: only Republican Party activists in Colorado could participate in selecting the delegates who would participate in selecting the Republican nominee. No one else was allowed to. Their conception of the Colorado Republican Party is that it s only the Party s activists; and, if you re not a Republican activist, you have no say.It s as if to say:Only people who work in the government can have a say in how the government is to be run. It s for insiders only and, of course, indirectly it s for whomever pays those insiders and so enables them to put in the work to participate.National Public Radio had a different take on this matter. Steve Inskeep headlined there GOP Delegate: Trump Primary Wins Absolutely Irrelevant At Convention. He interviewed Curly Haughland, a member of the Republican National Committee who lives in North Dakota, and who said: No matter what the popular belief might be, there is no connection between primaries and the actual convention. Well, that s putting it rather bluntly. Haughland also said: Cited the GOP s convention Rules 37 and 38. He interprets these convoluted rules to mean that delegates may vote their conscience. The rules do not explicitly say this. Rule 37 is a detailed explanation of the procedure for roll-call votes. However, Rule 38 does say that no delegate may be bound by the unit rule, meaning that delegates from a state can t all be forced to vote the same way. Another of Haughland s points is indisputable: When the convention convenes, he said, the delegates adopt their own rules, which haven t been adopted yet. There is a standard template for conventions, but delegates could tweak the template, changing the game in any way that they want. In other words: the National Republican Committee says that all of the delegates to the Republican National Convention are allowed to tweak the template, changing the game in any way that they want. So: the delegates at that Convention won t actually be representing anyone but themselves there. They are entirely free to push for anyone whom they personally want to win the Republican U.S. Presidential nomination.They re not bound, not even on the first ballot. They might pretend to be, if they feel a need to put on a show that looks democratic , but any who don t feel the need to make such a pretense, can do whatever they want on the first ballot, just like on any successive ballot. They are free; all of them are free. It s only the electorate who aren t they re not represented, at all.What about on the Democratic side? Wyoming had held its Democratic Party caucuses on April 9, and there really were caucuses. Two days later, CNN headlined Wyoming Democratic Caucuses: Bernie Sanders Picks Up Another Win , and reported: Bernie Sanders won the Wyoming Democratic caucuses Saturday, providing his campaign with one more jolt of momentum before the race against Hillary Clinton heads east. Even so, he made no gains in Clinton s delegate lead, as each earned seven delegates as a result. On April 12th a youtube video was posted, MSNBC Morning Host Admits The Whole Voting System Is Rigged After Bernie Get s Cheated! Here the co-hosts had a conversation about the results: Sanders beat Hillary Clinton by twelve points, 56 to 44, He wins by twelve points. The accompanying image showed the delegate-count, in this contest that Sanders had won by 56% to 44%: 18 total. Hillary Clinton 11, Bernie Sanders 7. It wasn t 7 to 7, after all.Though Sanders had outscored Clinton by 12%, it was worse than even-steven for him; he had actually lost by 11 delegates to 7 delegates. This system is so rigged! said one host. There s absolutely no reason any of those people voted, said the other.A Hillary Clinton supporter was the expert on the panel, and he said, It s not rigged. These are the rules. He wasn t given time to explain that fine point or how the rules were necessarily not rigged. Also on April 12th, Public Radio International s Todd Zwillich headlined (falsely), Six Reasons Bernie Sanders Won Wyoming, But Still Tied in the Delegate Race , and Zwillig failed to explain that word Tied. He opened: How, many of you ask, could Bernie have won Wyoming 56 percent to Hillary s 44 percent, but still split the delegates with her 50-50? Then, he repeated that there had supposedly been The 7-7 split, but he also said Wyoming has a total of 18 delegates (which obviously isn tthe sum of 7+7) and he was also likewise incoherent, all the way through.Maybe the rules in the Wyoming Democratic Party are like that; but, whatever they are, is so convoluted, America s news-media couldn t explain what they were, much less were they able to argue persuasively that this was somehow a democracy.The only thing that s clear is that the electoral system in the United States is so convoluted, so complex and so different from state to state and party to party, that whatever the intent of the writers of America s Constitution might have been, the system as it is today, can be successfully gamed and won only by interests who can afford to spend whatever billions of dollars are necessary in order to win. It s certainly anything but democratic.Right now, according to RealClear Politics, there are only two Presidential candidates who are shown repeatedly, and almost consistently, to be preferred by the majority of the U.S. electorate: the Democrat Bernie Sanders is strongly preferred over the Republicans Trump and Cruz, and he is barely preferred over the Republican Kasich; and the Republican Kasich is strongly preferred over the Democrat Clinton. (Clinton loses strongly to Kasich and barely beats Cruz, while Trump is the weakest general-election candidate of all.)The strongest general-election candidates are, clearly, Sanders in the Democratic Party, and Kasich in the Republican Party. In a democracy, those would be the candidates. Throughout the contest thus far, neither of these two has been favored likely to win his respective Party s nomination, much less the Presidency.Whatever America is, it isn t a democracy a one-person-one-vote majority-rule republic. In fact, the only scientific study that has ever been done of the U.S. political system, finds that it s no democracy at all, but instead an oligarchy, a nation ruled by its aristocracy, its billionaires.It represents them, not the citizenry. That might not be the theory, but empirically it is the fact. An oligarchy is the commonest type of dictatorship, and it certainly is never a benevolent dictatorship, even if that phrase is not an oxymoron in itself.To sum up: the U.S. is ruled by and for the corrupters. It has been like that since at least 1980.***Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.READ MORE US ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Election Files | 1real |
Ученые сделали аккумулятор нового поколения похожим на кишечник | 0 комментариев 0 поделились Фото: АР
В журнале Advanced Functional Materials, сотрудники Кембриджского университета и Пекинского технологического института рассказали, что принцип работы аккумулятора напоминает функционирование тонкого кишечника человека.
Разработка заключается в том, что серосодержащий катод отделен от электролита специальной мембраной, которая по структуре напоминает волокна, находящиеся в тонкой кишке. Этот слой из волокон оксида цинка способен захватывать фрагменты активного вещества и присоединять их к проводящей решетке. Что и позволяет использовать повторно материалы аккумулятора, которые ранее были подвергнуты разрушению.
"Удельная энергия литий-серной батареи превосходит в пять раз удельную энергию литий-ионной, которая используется в большинстве портативных устройств", - рассказал автор исследования Дэн Чжао.
Однако, по его словам, новая разработка пока не способна пройти через большое количество циклов зарядки-разрядки.
Напомним, первые телефоны использовали никель-кадмиевые (Ni-Cd) аккумуляторы. Но несмотря на свои плюсы вроде большого ресурса и высокой токоотдачи, они обладали низкой удельной емкостью (45-65 Втч/кг).
Эти причины заставили отказаться от Ni-Cd-аккумуляторов в пользу никель-металл-гидридных (Ni-MH) батарей. Они меньше подвержены эффекту памяти и имеют большую удельную емкость (60-72 Втч/кг). Однако срок хранения таких аккумуляторов примерно 200-500 циклов.
Далее изобрели литий-ионный аккумулятор (Li-Ion), который остается остается одними из самых распространенных. Он имеет удельную емкость до 240 Втч/кг, что в несколько раз больше, чем у предшественников. Срок службы составляет более 600 циклов. Популярностью также обладают литий-полимерный аккумулятор (Li-Po). Эти аккумуляторы появились более 20 лет назад и до сих пор используются в смартфонах.
Одной из самых последних разработок стали литий-серные (Li-S) аккумуляторы. Их энергоемкость вдвое превышает литий-ионных, также они выдерживают хороший срок службы (1,5 тыс. циклов заряда). Однако необходимость доработки и тестов в условиях влажности и температуры пока не дают выйти Li-S-аккумуляторам на рынок.
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Trump Gets Trashed For Justifying Don Jr’s Collusion With Russia: ‘That’s Politics!’ | For someone that ran on the Drain the Swamp platform, the current occupant of the White House has a funny way of showing it. Donald Trump Jr. has found himself in the middle of an email scandal (the irony is palpable, isn t it?) in which he included Trump s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former campaign manager Paul Manafort in the messages. Junior wanted to gather damaging information in 2016 against his Dad s opponent, Hillary Clinton. The problem is that he sought to collude with a hostile foreign government to get that info in order to get his father elected. It s unethical and possibly illegal. But, to Donald Trump that s politics! Which brings us full circle back to that drain the swamp campaign vow the former reality show star made. Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent. That s politics! It tweeted.Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent. That's politics! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 17, 2017No, Amateur, most people would not have met with Russians to obtain information. Most of them would call the FBI after a Russian made contact in order to arrange a meeting.One Twitter user wrote, Many people supported you because you weren t the stereotypical politician . And now, look! You ve become that stereotype. Many people supported you because you weren't the "stereotypical politician". And now, look! You've become that stereotype Luke Waltham (@lukewaltham) July 17, 2017We ve been lied to repeatedly about that meeting.If the meeting Don Jr. went to was normal, why did he lie about it over and over? Why did Kushner lie about it on his security application? Adam Best (@adamcbest) July 17, 2017Most politicians would NOT have gone to a meeting like the one Don jr attended in order to get info on an opponent. That's TREASON! Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) July 17, 2017The FBI should have been called in. That s a no-brainer.No! Most people would have reported the proposition to the FBI.Only the Trumps would be fool enough to take the meeting. #NiceTryTrump val broeksmit (@BikiniRobotArmy) July 17, 2017lol no they wouldn't, this must be your team right about now. pic.twitter.com/XWA7unH0rL Brandon Keating (@BrandonTalks) July 17, 2017Meeting with Russian spies is not opposition research. Robert Caruso (@robertcaruso) July 17, 2017No, not really. True, most politicians are scumbags, but your kind is on a whole other level. You're swine, pal. pic.twitter.com/ipixj00r4Q Michael Roffman (@michaelroffman) July 17, 2017You really are off your rocker. The whole lot of you is guilty as hell and I hope you burn for it. You and your dumb son. cx (@cxcope) July 17, 2017So, is it still a witch hunt? pic.twitter.com/Uthscbr5Fm Vic Berger IV (@VicBergerIV) July 17, 20177 in 10 americans think the fbi should arrest his cel phone first because he's just making this worse the entire world is laughing at don anton newcombe (@antonnewcombe) July 17, 2017So much for draining the swamp Charles Capel (@CharlieCapel) July 17, 2017Team Trump can t even come up with a defense over Junior s scandal. When Trump was on the campaign trail, he called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton s emails. Donald is so defensive and the signs are there that he possibly knew about the meeting before it even took place in his own building. Junior was well aware, according to the emails he released on Twitter, that the information was coming from the Russian government that the Kremlin-connected lawyer was offering him. Again, this is a no-brainer but we re dealing with the Trump administration here, and they do not understand that attempting to collude with Russia is as bad as colluding with Russia. Welcome to Amateur Hour at the White House.Photo by Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images. | 1real |
Everytown gun safety group backs Clinton for president: statement | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A gun control advocacy group founded by billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential race. In a statement, Everytown for Gun Safety praised Clinton for siding with the public rather than gun industry lobbyists. | 0fake |
Pope says foes make reforming Vatican as hard as cleaning Sphinx with toothbrush | VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis issued a stinging new critique of the Vatican s top administration on Thursday, saying traitors stood in the way of his reforms and made any change as hard as cleaning Egypt s Sphinx with a toothbrush . For the fourth year running, Francis used his annual Christmas greetings to the Roman Catholic Church s central bureaucracy, or Curia, to lecture the assembled cardinals, bishops and other department heads on the need for change. Reforming Rome is like cleaning the Sphinx of Egypt with a toothbrush, he said, quoting a 19th-century Belgian churchman. The phrase did not evoke much laughter when the pope read it in the frescoed Clementina Hall of the Vatican s Apostolic Palace. Since his election as the first Latin American pope in 2013, Francis has been trying to reform the Italian-dominated Curia to bring the Church s hierarchy closer to its members, to enact financial reforms and guide it out of scandals that marked the pontificate of his predecessor, former Pope Benedict. But he has encountered resistance, particularly as some departments have been closed, merged or streamlined. Francis said some in the bureaucracy - the nerve center of the 1.2-billion-member Church and whose members are entrusted with carrying out the pope s decisions - were part of cliques and plots . Francis called this unbalanced and degenerate and a cancer that leads to a self-referential attitude . In his address on Thursday, he spoke of those traitors of trust who had been entrusted with carrying out reforms but let themselves be corrupted by ambition and vainglory. When they are quietly let go, he said, they erroneously declare themselves to be martyrs of the system ... instead of reciting a mea culpa (Latin for my fault ). Francis did not cite any specific examples. Last June the Vatican s first auditor general resigned suddenly. He later said he was forced to step down because he had discovered irregularities but the Vatican said he had been spying on his superiors. Earlier this month, the Vatican bank s deputy director was fired under circumstances that have not been explained. In July, in a major shake-up of the Vatican administration, Francis replaced Catholicism s top theologian, a conservative German cardinal who has been at odds with the pontiff s vision of a more inclusive Church. Francis said the overwhelming majority of Curia members were faithful, competent and some saintly. Later, in a separate meeting with lay Vatican employees and their families, Francis asked forgiveness for the failings of some Church officials. He spoke hours before the funeral of Cardinal Bernard Law, the ex-Archbishop of Boston who resigned in disgrace after covering up years of sexual abuse of children by priests and whose name became a byword for scandal in the Catholic Church. | 0fake |
This Anti-Semitic Trump Supporter Wants You To Know He’s Actually Just Racist (VIDEO) | Video quickly went viral of Trump supporter George Lindell, a resident of Phoenix, Arizona. Lindell could be seen and heard chanting to the media pen Jew-S-A Jew-S-A which is clearly an anti-Semitic slur.Watch Lindell do his chant here:However, that s not the end of the story. After Lindell was called out on his clear anti-Semitism, he tried to clear things up and explain what he was actually saying.According to The Arizona Republic: The Phoenix man spent Monday trying to explain why his chanting what sounded like Jew-S-A at the Saturday rally was not meant as a slur. I want to talk to everybody, Lindell said Monday. He s a painter for hire and had a job scheduled, but he put it off so he could respond. Local television stations were calling, so were national websites. He said CNN was trying to arrange something.Lindell needed to do the interviews, he said, to counter what people are saying about him. They re calling me racist, calling me all kinds of names. He s now saying that he wasn t going after Jewish people or the religion, but rather just saying USA in a heavy Spanish accent.The Arizona Republican reports: Lindell said he has a rational explanation for his chant. What sounded like Jew, was in fact, he said, a chance to show allegiance with Spanish speakers who chant the country s initials with a heavy accent. So, really, Lindell would like everyone to know that he s not anti-Semitic, but rather just a good old fashioned racist.And while Trump campaign manager KellyAnne Conway says Lindell s speech does not reflect the campaign s values, a visit to any Trump rally with show you otherwise.Donald Trump has built his entire campaign around racism, Islamophobia, misogyny and xenophobic demagoguery. It s not really surprising to hear this sort of speech coming from the crowd. Not surprising in the least.Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Enthralled by Sicily, Again - The New York Times | On the subject of travel, my father used to say: “You can’t go back. Avoid the places you loved when you were young, because they’ll have changed, and you’ll be disappointed. ” Occasionally my husband agrees, “That’s right, you can’t go back. ” But does that mean that the cities and countries where we were happiest and most enchanted must forever be crossed off the list of destinations? Can’t some places remain unspoiled (or possibly even improve)? And, at the very least, isn’t it interesting to see how different a place looks to us at various points in our lives? This spring, I decided to find the answer to some of these questions by revisiting Sicily, one of my favorite places on earth. I’d first been there in 1992, with my mother, my husband and our two sons (then aged 10 and 14) and written — for this newspaper — about watching Mount Etna erupt. I’d returned for six weeks in early 2002 to write a brief book that was partly about how an immersion in Sicilian history, with its appalling violence and inspiriting record of recovery and resilience, had provided some comfort in the recent aftermath of Sept. 11. Now, almost a quarter century after my first visit, I was returning with my husband, Howie our younger son, Leon our Jenny and our two granddaughters, Emilia and Malena. One advantage of returning to a region you know reasonably well — and, I suppose, of getting older — is that you lose the greedy compulsion to go everywhere and see everything. Were this a first visit, or were I alone with Howie, I couldn’t have resisted Palermo: the glorious mosaics in the cathedral of Monreale, the exuberant Baroque statuary of the Quattro Canti, the vibrant markets and delicious street food. But vivid memories of yanking my sons out of the way of speeding cars and rogue motorini convinced me that it might be more relaxing to begin our vacation in Cefalù, a seaside town about 40 minutes from Palermo, to which we flew from Rome. We rented a car at the airport (a more efficient process than in years before) and drove to Cefalù. The first sign of serious improvement was that the traffic seemed less maniacal than I remembered, making the trip more like an ordinary (that is, vaguely harrowing) autostrada drive, and less like a ferocious scramble for survival. We spent three nights in Cefalù, a beautiful town on the sea. Hugging a curve of the coastline, Cefalù has a picturesque, mazelike old city and a magnificent cathedral that you can see from far away. In the Duomo is a remarkably mosaic of Christ Pantocrator in the central apse, just above the Madonna and surrounded by the Twelve Apostles. The village is like a much smaller, more intimate version of Monreale — without the crowds. During our last stay in Cefalù, Howie and I returned to the church every few hours to watch the changing light play on the mosaics, but we knew that these obsessive pilgrimages were unlikely to appeal to the girls, who much preferred playing on the beach and in the gentle waves. (One necessity of traveling with family, it became clear, was figuring out — in advance or on the spot — the many minor but essential compromises and adjustments that needed to be made.) I’d very much wanted to revisit the lovely inn and restaurant, Gangivecchio, in an ancient, aristocratic villa in the Madonie mountains above Cefalù, but I wasn’t sure how well the children would like the twisty drive. Instead we took a much shorter (less than a ) trip to the handsome town of Castelbuono, where we had an extraordinary lunch at Nangalarruni, a restaurant that specializes in dishes prepared with local mushrooms. The menu includes a marvelous sort of gratin made with potatoes and mushrooms, a medallion of pork encrusted with honey, pistachios and almonds, and pastas with a variety of delectable mushroom sauces. Easily navigable and unpretentious, Castelbuono is also an art town, with frescoes in the crypt of the church Matrice Vecchia in the castle is a chapel encrusted with the giddily Baroque decorations of the sculptor Giacomo Serpotta. But by the time we finished lunch, late on a Palm Sunday afternoon, the town seemed to have slipped into a peaceful postprandial sleep, and (in lieu of seeing its art treasures) we settled for buying honey and olive oil in a shop selling produce from a nearby organic cooperative. If you like to cook, as we do, the great frustration of tourism is the inability to shop at local markets and make dinner. One thing that’s greatly changed travel over the last decade has been the advent of Airbnb and its online gallery of rentable apartments and houses. For us, the fantasy was irresistible: the smell of olive oil and garlic, the family gathered around platters of steaming pasta and seafood bought that very day. We could be like Italians! The reality was somewhat different. The amiable hosts who showed us to our rental cottage in Cefalù had forgotten to mention the high chance of burning out the clutch as we climbed the driveway, which rounded precipitous curves (without guardrails) along the edge of a cliff, nor did we know (from the online photos) that the only access to the bedrooms was via a ladder, a problem for two little granddaughters, my and, to be honest, for me. In Syracuse, where we went next, our elegant, spacious, comfortable apartment, also an Airbnb, had another sort of glitch: The electricity had been turned off in a country where, we well knew, it could be weeks for it to be turned back on. Perhaps my father should have said: You can’t go back and rent an apartment. Ultimately, these issues, which featured moments evoking “National Lampoon’s Vacation” films, hardly mattered. Our little family fled both Airbnbs and checked into local hotels, the gracious and comfortable La Plumeria in Cefalù, and in Syracuse, after our genuinely kindly, regretful landlady refunded our money, (though our Cefalù “host” refused) the elegant Algilà. When the travelers who had come for Easter filled its rooms, we moved again to the seafront Hotel des Étrangers. In Syracuse, we stayed on Ortigia, the lovely island across a small bridge from the mainland. Though there were far more restaurants and souvenir shops than I recalled from my previous visits, Ortigia’s architecture, the atmospheric cobbled streets, the dramatic waterfront and especially the Piazza del Duomo (particularly beautiful when illuminated at night) were no less thrilling than I remembered. Nor was it any less fascinating to observe the layers of history so visible everywhere throughout the city. On one side of the Duomo, you can see the columns that upheld the structure during its original iteration as a Greek temple consecrated as a Christian church in the seventh century, the Norman cathedral was rebuilt, in its current Baroque splendor, after the earthquake of 1693. Among Syracuse’s wonders is one of Caravaggio’s major — and most beautiful — paintings, “The Burial of St. Lucia,” which was done in 1608 when the artist briefly took refuge in Sicily, on the run from a murder charge in Rome. The painting, temporarily housed in the church Santa Lucia alla Badia, on one side of the Piazza Duomo, depicts the interment of the city’s patron saint, her delicate frame stretched out near the bottom of the canvas, surrounded by mourners and half blocked from our sight by the broad, powerful back of the gravedigger all this — the action of the painting, as it were — transpires in a narrow band, beneath a vast expanse of empty dark space that has been restored since I last saw it (then in Syracuse’s art museum) to reveal a brick niche, dimly visible in the sepulchral gloom. On the mainland, a short cab or bus ride (or longer walk) from Ortigia, is Syracuse’s archaeological zone, a sort of classical entertainment center featuring one of the largest and most impressive Greek theaters in existence, as well as an elliptical Roman arena that often served as the stage (and could be flooded) for simulated naval battles. In the same park are a series of caverns, or latomie. Now surrounded by a pleasant garden planted with lemon and orange trees and heavily populated by songbirds, are the caves that were used as prisons by the region’s despotical rulers. Perhaps the most of these caves, the Ear of Dionysius, was (at least supposedly) given its name by Caravaggio, who observed the way in which the cave’s entrance resembles an enormous ear. Our granddaughters loved running in and out of these dark, slightly daunting natural wonders, and were suitably impressed by the unusual acoustics, where the slightest whisper can be heard throughout the cavern. Legend has it that this feature was used by the rulers to eavesdrop on the conversations of the unsuspecting prisoners, though it seems more probable that this natural amplification was ingeniously employed to increase the audibility of the plays performed in the Greek theater. As in much of Sicily, the food in Syracuse is — to put it simply — great. One of the best meals we had on our trip was at Burgio, a sort of upscale grocery store and restaurant in one corner of Ortigia’s appealing market. Burgio focuses on local produce — cheeses, sausages and salamis. They serve sandwiches made to order, artisanal beers, local wines and elaborate platters on which are arranged small dishes of sliced meats, fish, cheese and marinated vegetables, each selection paired with perfectly complementary relishes. Eating at Burgio was our consolation for not being able to shop in, and cook from, the market, but it was by no means the only excellent restaurant in Ortigia. Walking around, checking out menus, it’s not hard to find someplace where the food is superb and not terribly expensive. We especially liked Sicilia in Tavola, which has a terrific selection of seafood dishes — and pasta Bolognese for the girls! — and where I had pasta with sea urchin, pasta ai ricci, a dish with which I am obsessed and order every chance I get. We also liked a place called DiVino Mare, which is near the market and serves grilled, wonderfully fresh fish at unusually reasonable prices. We spent much of our time (four days) in Syracuse just walking around and eating. I would have liked to spend more time traveling up and down the Ionian Sea coast, and to the inland mountain towns of Ragusa and Modica. I’d hoped to take the family to the fish market in Catania, where once, eating pasta with sea urchin in a little trattoria at the edge of the pescheria, I watched the restaurant and the market stalls empty as everyone gathered to marvel at a gargantuan tuna that one of the fishermen had brought in. I would have liked to have lunch at the coastal beauty spots Aci Trezza and Aci Castello, and to visit Noto, the wildly Baroque town where every cornice and window sill appears to vie for the greatest complexity of decoration, and where a balcony might be upheld by mermaids, griffins or galloping horses carved from stone. I would have liked to make a side trip to the Villa Romana del Casale, near Piazza Armerina, a restored Roman villa with famously spectacular mosaics depicting a chariot race, an epic hunting scene, a parade of women in what appear to be bikinis. But of the three generations traveling together, each one had their own reasons for wanting to relax, to take things slow and easy. Ultimately, some of the most pleasurable moments were the most unexpected, and the ones that most fully disproved my father’s warning against returning to the familiar. I had an experience of pure bliss, riding through the gently rolling, unusually green Sicilian countryside between Cefalù and Syracuse, looking at ruins of ancient farmhouses and flocks of grazing sheep, and hearing my granddaughters sing at the top of their lungs along with Adele’s “Hello. ” Perhaps my favorite moment of the entire trip occurred at Segesta, where there is an unfinished but nonetheless grand Doric temple and an amphitheater (dating from the third century B. C.) on a hill above the temple. The structures are themselves magnificent, but their beauty is greatly enhanced by the setting: a semideserted, (about 40 minutes from Palermo) and wholly rural mountaintop from which you can see far across the bucolic countryside and, beyond it, the sea. Of Sicily’s three major Greek temples — at Agrigento, Selinunte and Segesta — Segesta was the one I wanted my family to see, the one I wanted to revisit myself. When we reached Segesta, after getting lost in search of a nearby lunch spot, it was midafternoon. The busloads of tourists and Italian schoolchildren had mostly departed. We took the shuttle bus up to the amphitheater, where a strong wind was blowing, and where — as their parents and grandparents sat on the stone benches encircling the theater and took in the view — the girls ran up and down the levels like graceful little mountain goats and treated the ancient theater as their personal terraced playground. From the shuttle bus, going back downhill, you suddenly see the temple, solitary and majestic, exerting a kind of presence you can feel even from afar. The bus driver stopped so his passengers could take a picture, and I had the sense that even he — navigating this road, day after day — had never reached the point of taking the temple’s beauty for granted, and was still awed by its magnificence. The hike from the parking area to the temple is slightly steep and long. Leon and Howie and the girls ran up ahead, while I walked more slowly to keep my company. By the time we reached the temple, the girls had made it their own. Malena, who never walks when she can run, was scrambling over the rocks that surrounded the structure, inspecting every inch of the hilly area around the monumental columns. Emilia was having quite a different reaction. In the open space, with the temple behind her, she seemed to have become intoxicated by the gorgeousness of the place. With her arms outstretched she twirled and twirled around, the afternoon sunlight shining through her pale skirt and picking out the highlights in her long reddish brown hair. Graceful and free, powered by the sheer joy of being a child, by the happiness of finding herself in such an astonishing spot, she turned and turned and turned. Watching her, I thought: You can go back. This is better. Returning can be better than seeing a place for the first time. The temple at Segesta had never before seemed to me so striking, so timeless, so precious. I thought: This — right here, right now — is the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen. The budget airline, Meridiana, has direct flights from New York to Palermo, Sicily, but there are also flights from a number of European capitals to Palermo and Catania. We flew Alitalia from Rome to Palermo, and rented a car at the airport. La Plumeria Hotel, Corso Ruggero 185, Cefalù . it double rooms from $182. Algilà Ortigia Charme Hotel, Via Vittorio Veneto 93, Syracuse . it double rooms from $364. Hotel des Étrangers, Passeggio Adorno, Syracuse . com double rooms from $244. Nangalarruni, Via delle Confraternite, 5, Castelbuono . it lunch for two with wine: $100. Fratelli Burgio, Piazza Cesare Battisti 4, Syracuse . com lunch for two with wine: $80. Sicilia in Tavola, Via Cavour 28, Syracuse siciliaintavola. eu dinner for two with wine: $90. | 0fake |
Joe Biden: I’m Not Part Of The Party That Says ‘Well We Can’t Do It’ | On April 23 Vice President Joe Biden cast his vote in the Democratic presidential primary, in his home state of Delaware, but declined to say which candidate he voted for.Neither the president or Vice President has publicly endorsed a candidate in the 2016 race, but during an interview with The New York Times, published on Wednesday, might provide some insight into which way the vice president was leaning on Friday.The New York Times reported:He remains neutral in the battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, but not between their campaign styles. He ll take Mr. Sanders s aspirational approach over Mrs. Clinton s caution any day.During the interview Vice President Biden told The New York Times reporter John Harwood: I like the idea of saying, We can do much more, because we can. He went on to compare the candidate s very different approaches to their campaigns, saying: I don t think any Democrats ever won saying, We can t think that big we ought to really downsize here because it s not realistic. C mon man, this is the Democratic Party! I m not part of the party that says, Well, we can t do it. The New York Times also reported that the Vice President likes the idea that Mr. Sanders is aiming high, regardless of whether the large steps he envisions to narrow income inequality and broaden economic opportunity become realized in the next presidential term. According to the interview:The philosophy Mr. Biden has advocated within the Obama White House: Push for a lot, and persevere over the long run.Vice President Biden stressed the point, saying: Presidents have always been told by really smart people: Don t push something that you can t succeed in it diminishes your power. I completely disagree with that proposition. Indeed, the race between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and VT Senator Bernie Sanders is strikingly similar to the Clinton-Obama race of 2008.Then Senator Obama ran on a platform of hope and change, telling his energetic followers Yes We Can. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton sought to portray herself as level-headed and realistic, warning that there is no magic wand to fix the problems in Washington.After eight years of George W. Bush, 2008 voters preferred Obama s message of bold change to Clinton s ideas for incremental change.This time around though, the 2016 electorate is leaning more toward Clinton s pragmatic approach, likely as a response to eight years of Republican obstructionism and even outright sabotage in Washington.While voters are certainly tired of budget showdowns and government shutdowns, the fact remains that as long as Republicans control Congress, both candidates will face the same right-wing extremism that President Obama has faced once they reach the White House.No democratic president is going to make Republicans in the House and Senate reasonable or even sane.Regardless of whether voters choose Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, there s no question that both Democratic candidates would be hated and vilified by the GOP.While all eyes are on the race for the presidential nomination, changing the dynamics of Congress should also be a top priority to anyone who wants to see the country continue to move forward, not back.Image credit: Wikipedia Public Domain | 1real |
U.S. embassy to Russia to resume some visa services after diplomatic row | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The U.S. Embassy to Russia said on Monday it would restart some visa services in U.S. consulates which it had previously canceled due to diplomatic expulsions that had left it short-staffed. The United States began to scale back its visa services in Russia in August, drawing an angry reaction from Moscow three weeks after President Vladimir Putin ordered Washington to more than halve its embassy and consular staff. The U.S. step meant Russian citizens wanting to visit the United States for business, tourism or educational reasons were no longer able to apply via U.S. consulates outside Moscow and had to travel to the Russian capital instead. The embassy said in a statement on Monday some visa services would resume on Dec. 11. “On December 11, the U.S. consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and Vladivostok will begin to offer limited interviews for non-immigrant visas,” it said. | 0fake |
MEDIA OBSESSES OVER Ted Cruz’s Alleged Infidelities, While Ignoring HILLARY’S LESBIAN AFFAIRS Revealed By Same Publication | Why is there so much secrecy when it comes to the mainstream media and the alleged lesbian relationship between Hillary and her aide of 20 years, Huma Abedin? ABC News admits that the allegations against Ted Cruz have not been confirmed by them. But what the hell, why not do a story on it anyhow and see if they can make the sleazy image of a cheating Ted Cruz stick ABC News At a news conference while campaigning in Wisconsin today, Ted Cruz denied a recently released National Enquirer report that claims political operatives are looking into rumors that Cruz had multiple marital infidelities.Cruz blamed the report on Donald Trump and his henchmen and gave Trump a new nickname of Sleazy Donald. Let me be clear this National Enquirer story is garbage, Cruz said today. It is complete and utter lies. It is a tabloid smear and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen. Cruz has been in a war of words with Trump over tweets Trump had been sending. Trump tweeted Tuesday he would spill the beans about Cruz s wife without providing further information and retweeted Wednesday a split photo of Heidi and his wife Melania Trump, with the text: No need to spill the beans. The images are worth a thousand words. The National Enquirer allegations have not been confirmed by ABC News.Meanwhile, we can t find any reports from the same outlets who eagerly reported on Ted Cruz s alleged affairs that also picked up the National Enquirer story about the lesbian affair between Hillary Clinton and her aide of 20 years, Huma Abedin:Hillary Clinton isn t just caught in a political scandal over her missing emails from her stint as secretary of state she s also terrified of personal revelations about a secret lesbian lifestyle!Now a world-exclusive investigation by The National ENQUIRER reveals that some of the presidential candidate s famously deleted emails are packed full of lesbian references and her lovers names. I don t think she s so concerned about emails referring to her as secretly gay, said a Clinton insider. That s been out for years her real fear is that the names of some of her lovers would be made public! The ENQUIRER learned the list of Hillary s lesbian lovers includes a beauty in her early 30s who has often traveled with Hillary; a popular TV and movie star; the daughter of a top government official; and a stunning model who got a career boost after allegedly sleeping with Hillary. Hillary made the huge mistake of mixing public and private messages while using her personalized email server before risking a massive scandal by refusing to make the documents public. That s clearly why she went to the extraordinary step of deleting everything, the high-ranking source told The ENQUIRER.[quote_box_center]Ronald Kessler, who wrote The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents, writes in The Daily Mail that Abedin was at times dismissive of reasonable orders from agents and at other times treated them like her personal servants.While agents are not supposed to carry luggage, they will do so as a courtesy if they like a female protectee, such as Lynne Cheney or Rosalynn Carter.But with Abedin, the agents were just like, Hey, you re going to be like that? Well, you get your own luggage to the car. Oh, and by the way, you can carry the first lady s luggage to the car, too. She d have four bags, and we d stand there and watch her and say, Oh, can we hold the door open for you? . . .. . . There s not an agent in the service who wants to be in Hillary s detail, a current agent says. If agents get the nod to go to her detail, that s considered a form of punishment among the agents. She s hard to work around, she s known to snap at agents and yell at agents and dress them down to their faces, and they just have to be humble and say, Yes ma am, and walk away. [/quote_box_center]Hillary is particularly concerned about intimate emails to longtime aide Huma Abedin who married U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner in a ceremony that many ridiculed as a political arrangement. Anthony later resigned over extramarital sexting scandals, after porn star Sydney Leathers said that she believed he was in an open marriage. I think a lot of the time when we were speaking, Huma was probably with Hillary, she charged, at the time.One exchange between the women had Hillary mistakenly responding to political correspondence with an email that seemed to be about decorating.Added the insider: That makes you wonder if any sensitive information was sent to her romantic partners! The scandal unraveled in March, when Hillary revealed she deleted over 30,000 emails, insisting the messages were just things you typically find in inboxes. Via: National Enquirer | 1real |
TRUMP REVEALS: “I thought I was going to lose on election night” [Video] | 1real | |
EU executive steps up action against Hungary over NGO law | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission on Wednesday stepped up legal action against Hungary over restrictions on foreign funding likely to affect civil society groups funded by the billionaire investor George Soros. The EU executive believes the law, passed in June, violates the right to freedom of association and to protection of private life and personal data enshrined in the EU s Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as breaching the principle of free movement of capital. Hungary s right-wing prime minister, Viktor Orban, has long criticized organizations funded by the Hungarian-born Soros, accusing them of working as paid activists advocating Soros s political goals, notably by opposing Orban s tough immigration policy. When Soros in June praised the courageous way Hungarians have resisted the deception and corruption of the mafia state Orban has established , Orban called it a declaration of war , and accused Soros of running a mafia-like network. The Commission expressed its concerns over the law on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to Budapest in July, the latest in a long line of grievances about what Brussels and many member states see as a track record of flouting fundamental EU values. Having carefully analyzed the explanations put forward by Hungary, the European Commission concludes that its serious concerns have not been addressed, it said in Wednesday s statement. The Commission s next step in the infringement procedure is to issue a so-called reasoned opinion, giving Hungary one month to take the requested measures. If Hungary fails to reply satisfactorily to the reasoned opinion, then the Commission may refer the case to the Court of Justice of the EU, the statement said. The Commission has already issued a similar ultimatum to Hungary over an education law that Brussels says infringes academic freedom and could result in the closure of a Budapest university founded by Soros. Since coming to power in 2010, Orban has eliminated checks on his power by taking control of much of Hungary s media, curbing the powers of the constitutional court and placing loyalists in top positions at public institutions. While Brussels can open cases against EU states violating common rules, they are lengthy and often have little impact. That means the EU executive has little leverage over Orban, who has been in office since 2010 and faces an election next year. | 0fake |
Here’s What Happens in Your Brain When You Lie | posted by Eddie A new study revealed that consistent small lies could alter the way on how a certain part of the brain associated to negative emotions respond to lie, desensitizing our brain in the process and encourages bigger lies in the future. The study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience , is the first to provide empirical evidence that telling small lies could gradually lead to larger lies. Additionally, the study is also the first to have a deeper look on the brain’s responses to repeated and increasing acts of dishonesty. “When we lie for personal gain, our amygdala produces a negative feeling that limits the extent to which we are prepared to lie,” explained senior author Dr Tali Sharot, from University College London Experimental Psychology, in a statement . “However, this response fades as we continue to lie, and the more it falls the bigger our lies become. This may lead to a ‘slippery slope’ where small acts of dishonesty escalate into more significant lies.” For the study, the researchers recruited 80 volunteers. The participants took part in a team estimation task that involved guessing the number of pennies in the jar and sending their estimates to unseen partners using computers. The researchers introduced the participants in different scenarios that may affect their estimation. As the baseline scenario, the participants were told that aiming for the most accurate estimate would benefit them and their partners. Other scenarios include over- or under-estimating the amount of pennies would either benefit them both, benefit them at their partner’s expense, benefit their partners at their expense and benefit one of them without any effect on the other one. The researchers observed that participants started exaggerating their estimates in the scenario in which over-estimating would benefit them at the expense of their partner. The exaggeration of the estimates elicited a strong response from the amygdala. However, as the Due exaggerations of the estimate continue to escalate throughout the study, the response from the amygdala declined. These findings show that the amygdala signals aversion to acts that considered to wrong or immoral. However, repeated acts of dishonesty can solicit a blunt response from the brain, reducing the emotional response to dishonest acts. Source: | 1real |
Aide tries to refocus tax debate after Trump's corporate rate remark | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s weekend remark about a scaled-back tax cut for corporations sparked behind-the-scenes debate in the U.S. Congress, with a White House aide trying on Thursday to minimize the impact of the president’s comment. Two rival tax bills, passed separately by the Senate and the House of Representatives, propose cutting the U.S. corporate tax rate to 20 percent, but they differ in other areas that Republicans are trying to merge into final legislation. Speaking to reporters after the Senate approved its tax bill on Saturday, Trump said the corporate tax rate in the final legislation, expected soon from lawmakers, “could be 22 (percent) ... it could also be 20 (percent).” The remark whetted the interest of some Republicans who see a slight upward bump in the proposed corporate tax rate as capturing needed federal revenue that would help solve other problems with the legislation, according to lobbyists. “The 20 percent rate ought to be our goal,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, who is expected to head a bicameral House-Senate negotiating committee. “My view is the president is giving us flexibility in that area if it’s needed. No decision’s been made on if that’s needed,” the Texas Republican told reporters. But White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told Reuters on Thursday that Trump was not voicing support for a higher proposed corporate rate. Instead, he may have been only expressing views conveyed to him by Republican senators. “I think he was just reflecting what conversations he had heard from them, but that ... wasn’t intended to signal: this is an endorsement of raising the corporate rate,” Short said. “We believe that 20 percent is the right number ... 20 percent is about as high as we feel comfortable going,” he said in an interview. Trump and his Republican allies have plenty riding on what happens over the next few weeks. A sweeping U.S. tax overhaul, which has not been achieved since 1986, would give Republicans their first major legislative victory of 2017, after their failure to overturn former President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. Without a win, Republicans fear they could lose their control of the House and Senate in the 2018 congressional elections. But it may be too late to avoid confusion over priorities as the tax debate moves forward in Congress. Lobbyists said many perceive that Trump and his advisers would accept a corporate rate higher than 20 percent. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Thursday that a 22 percent corporate rate would not undermine the economic boost that Republicans say tax cuts will create. Analysts say the corporate income tax rate could be a ready source of revenue for lawmakers, as they move toward a final bill that can lose no more than $1.5 trillion in revenue over the next decade under Senate rules. Republicans are considering a more costly deduction for state and local taxes than the $10,000 property tax deduction contained in the House and Senate bills. One version would allow taxpayers to choose a $10,000 deduction for either property or income taxes. House lawmakers also want to adopt the House bill’s repeal of the corporate alternative minimum tax, which would cost about $40 billion in revenue over a decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. Senate retained the tax. A House limit on the amount of debt interest payments that businesses can deduct from their income would also cost about $136 billion more than the Senate version, the JCT said. Analysts say a one percentage point change in the corporate rate equals about $100 billion in revenues over a decade. | 0fake |
Legend Says Bears Attacking Gold & Silver Markets May Get Torched Here | 53 Views November 06, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News
Today a legend who was asked by the Chinese government to give a speech to government officials in China, spoke with King World News about the bear raid taking place in the gold and silver markets.
Eric King: “John, we are seeing another raid in the gold and silver markets, which are getting hit in early trading — your thoughts.”
John Ing: “It’s important, Eric, to make the distinction between physical gold and paper gold. Just like we are seeing now, from time-to-time the paper gold market swamps the physical gold market, but amazingly the physical gold market seems to keep edging up and helping the longer-term upward trend of the gold price… IMPORTANT: To hear which legend just spoke with KWN about $8,000 gold and the coming mania in the gold, silver, and mining shares markets CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
John Ing continues: “Sure we get these high-frequency trades to the downside every now and then, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to push the price of gold lower.
Russia Adding To Its Gold Hoard What we are seeing is steady accumulation of physical gold. For example, recently Russia added 13 tonnes of gold to their growing hoard in the month of September. In fact, the Russians have now been purchasing gold for 20 months in a row.
China’s Relentless Gold Demand Continues We also have China, who continues to be a large buyer. In fact, imports of gold were up 9 percent in the month of September. Eric, the problem is that everybody tends to look at the numbers out of China but they really don’t know how to interpret them. As an example, the most important thing in the recently released figures is the fact that the banks in China across the board continue to be buyers of physical gold. This data is supported by the Shanghai Gold Exchange, which is now the largest physical gold market in the world.
India’s Gold Demand Soars A Staggering 25 Percent! But despite the shenanigans in the paper gold market, the bears are pushing against the seasonal strength of India and Diwali. In fact, India’s physical gold demand was up a staggering 25 percent! So yes, there has been steady, steady physical gold demand.
Against this very strong physical gold backdrop there have been a lot fewer physical supplies of gold. We have just seen in the last quarter that there were mixed results for the producers. We have seen many companies encountering production problems. That tells me that even at the higher price of gold, some of these mining companies are still having difficulty. This negatively affects the total annual gold production. In fact, next year I am looking for lower production from a lot of these producers. So that will further tighten an already strained physical market.
Gold Bears May Get Torched Here In closing, keep in mind what I said in my latest piece (on KWN), that we will see an overnight $100 spike in the price of gold if Donald Trump wins the election. In the event that the bears are caught on the wrong side of that trade, they will experience tremendous pain.”
***KWN has now released the extraordinary audio interview with Egon von Greyerz, where he gives KWN listeners a look what is really happening behind the scenes globally and in the gold market, and you can listen to it by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
***ALSO RELEASED: The Destiny Of The World CLICK HERE.
© 2015 by King World News®. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. However, linking directly to the articles is permitted and encouraged. About author | 1real |
[VIDEO] MEDIA OBSESSED With Painting Trump As “Islamaphobic”…Here’s How He Responds: “It Wasn’t The Swedes Who Blew Up The World Trade Center” | Could you imagine if the mainstream media spent 1/100th of the amount of time defending the persecution of Christians as they do defending the Muslim faith?https://youtu.be/AlMYELVK4Xk | 1real |
BREAKING: STARBUCKS CEO To Step Down After Pledge To Hire 10,000 Refugees BACKFIRES | The arrogance of a CEO of a major company like Starbucks, that would put his radical political opinions above the health of the company and the stockholders is astounding. The idea that Howard Schultz believed he could say Starbucks would make hiring 10,000 refugees a priority, while so many Americans are out of work, and it wouldn t harm the Starbucks brand is beyond foolish Howard Schultz, the current CEO of Starbucks, will step down from his role at the giant coffee chain next month.The move comes after his vow to hire thousands refugees in response to President Donald Trump s first travel ban appeared to hurt customer sentiment and dent their sales.Trump supporters have called for a boycott of the chain since January 29, when Schultz vowed to hire 10,000 refugees over five years.Schultz in a letter to employees said the promise of the American Dream was being called into question and that the civility and human rights we have all taken for granted for so long are under attack. He was also a public Clinton supporter and prominent democrat, and even considered as a running mate for the Democratic nominee at one point.Almost immediately consumer perception levels took a hit as measured by YouGov BrandIndex s Buzz score, falling by two-thirds between January 29 and February 13.At the time, analysts at Credit Suisse said the coffee giant s move had a negative impact on recent sales, and could continue to hurt them in the near future.Schultz, with an estimated net worth of $3.1billion, will remain at Starbucks as executive chairman and will focus on strengthening the company s high-end coffee shops.Schultz will be replaced as CEO by Kevin Johnson, Starbucks chief operating officer, on April 3, 2017, The Seattle Times reported. Daily Mail | 1real |
81-Year-Old Cuban Run Over By Racist A$$hole | Florida continues to lead the nation in head shaking insanity after 81-year-old Luis Angel Dominguez, affectionately known to his neighbors as Papi, was deliberately run and killed over by a 26-year-old after an argument.As reported by the Washington Post:According to Broward County police, Dominguez and a younger man got into an argument at Everglades Holiday Park on Wednesday night. The younger man, whom police have identified as 26-year-old Kyle Christopher Hannover, was at the park fishing when he allegedly started yelling racial slurs at Dominguez and threw a rock at Dominguez s car.Hannover then allegedly got into his Ford Ranger truck and drove directly toward Dominguez, striking him. He was completely rolled over from the suspect s car and trailer, a witness told ABC. When I called 911 it was, No ambulance. It was, Get a trauma chopper out here as quickly as possible. Unsurprisingly, Hannover has a history of violence. In 2015, he was arrested and for allegedly threatening his girlfriend with a shotgun. Considering how disturbed he is, it s amazing that she survived long enough for him to be arrested. As a result of his threats, his guns were confiscated as part of his plea deal this past March. I can only assume that s why Hannover didn t simply shoot Dominguez instead of sadistically running him over.The cause of the fight is unclear and, honestly, is irrelevant. There is literally no justification for a 26-year-old to run over a senior citizen in a rage. The only upshot to this entire incident is that Hannover will probably be about the same age when he gets out of prison.His step-granddaughter Damaris Riveron expressed her gratitude to the police: We re extremely happy there has been an arrest, Thank you to the police department for all of their hard work and for everyone who contributed. Domiguez is survived by his wife, his children and his grandchildren.Featured courtesy of Vivian Sanchez | 1real |
The Amazon Reviews Of The Trump Christmas Ornament Are The Best Thing About The Election | 2016 has been a gawdawful year. We lost David Bowie, Prince, Gene Wilder, Elie Wiesel and more than I d care to mention. We re also losing perhaps the best president in any of our lifetimes, although hopefully he ll be on this earth for a long while to come. One of the most lasting legacies of 2016 will be the fact that Donald Trump prevailed and we are now facing a white supremacist (or at least someone who won t denounce white supremacy) as our next president.We can take small solace in the fact that the vast majority of Americans did not vote for Trump. Only 25 percent did. He lost the popular vote by a significant margin but because of the antiquated voter suppression tool called the Electoral College, Trump won.For those who voted for Trump, and those who didn t, there is one prevailing image, and that was Trump s Make America Great Again red trucker cap. In case you haven t seen enough of that cap, you can order a Christmas ornament of it from Amazon.com for the low, low price of just $209.99 (plus free shipping). The cap is made of brass, and like everything Trump, it s finished in 14 karat gold. Or is it 24 karat? The Amazon page doesn t seem to be sure.While I have no idea how many people actually bought this overpriced Christmas ornament, the Amazon comments were, as usual, the best part.Here are just a few:Even the sellers aren t fans of the Great Orange One. Here s how they re answering some of the questions: Well, the nation is in grief. The best thing we can do (outside of crossing all 10 fingers and all 10 toes that Jill Stein s recount will work) is choose to laugh instead of cry. That s what the people on Amazon are doing, anyway.Buy one, while it s still available.Featured image via eBay | 1real |
State Department says it can't find emails from Clinton IT specialist | The State Department told the Republican National Committee that it could not find any emails to or from Hillary Clinton's former IT specialist, who managed her private email server during her tenure as secretary of state before going on to work for the agency, according to a court filing made public Monday.
The government's revelation in U.S. District Court in Washington came in answer to a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee. The RNC had sued over its public records request for all work-related emails sent to or received by Clinton's former aide, Bryan Pagliano, between 2009 and 2013, the years of Clinton's tenure as America's top diplomat. The lawsuit also pressed for other State Department records from the Clinton era.
The RNC's filing said lawyers for the agency had informed them in discussions that "the State Department has represented that no responsive records exist" for any Pagliano emails. Pagliano was hired at the agency after reportedly setting up Clinton's server in 2009, but the lack of any official State Department emails raises the question whether he limited his email traffic using a private account, much like Clinton did during her four years as secretary, or whether his government emails were deleted.
A State Department official said Monday that the agency possessed emails from Pagliano from the period after Clinton's term had ended, when he continued to work as a technology contractor.
Agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau then added Monday evening that some Pagliano emails dating from Clinton's tenure had been recovered from agency officials' files and turned over to other organizations, including Senate investigators.
"We have previously produced through FOIA and to Congress emails sent and received by Mr. Pagliano during Secretary Clinton's tenure," Trudeau said in a public statement. At least one email, which was sent in November 2012 to Clinton from Pagliano -- but possibly from his private email address -- was released as part of 30,000 Clinton emails made public by the agency over the past year.
A spokesman for the RNC said the organization stood by its description of the discussions with lawyers for the State Department. The group said in its filing that "the State Department has represented that no responsive records exist."
Raj Shah, the RNC spokesman, added, "It's hard to believe that an IT staffer who set up Hillary Clinton's reckless email server never sent or received a single work-related email in the four years he worked at the State Department." Clinton's campaign officials declined to comment in response to questions from The Associated Press.
Trudeau said the State Department is working with Congress and several public records requesters to provide relevant material. She also said agency officials continue to search for "Mr. Pagliano's emails, which the department may have otherwise retained." Trudeau also said the department would respond further to the RNC in court.
State Department officials told Senate investigators last year they could not find a file containing Pagliano's work emails during Clinton's tenure, an assertion first reported by Politico.
Fox News reported in March that Pagliano has revealed several details about Clinton's personal email system to investigators, including who had access to it– as well as when and what devices were used. An intelligence source close to the case told Fox News that Pagliano has been a "devastating witness" to Clinton.
The one email sent by Pagliano that surfaced among Clinton's 30,000 emails was sent to Clinton was a November 2012 birthday greeting. He wished her "Happy Birthday Madam Secretary. To many more!"
Pagliano's email address was censored, unlike numerous official State Department addresses that are listed in Clinton's emails -- suggesting he may have sent the message from a private address.
Clinton did not reply directly to Pagliano. Instead, she sent a copy of an email to an aide with the instruction "Pls respond."
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 0fake |
How you can create space in a tiny home - The New York Times | This article is part of a series aimed at helping you navigate life’s opportunities and challenges. What else should we write about? Contact us: smarterliving@nytimes. com. Let go of that you’ve had since middle school, the cracked mirror that you haven’t had time to replace and the lamp that works only when you kick it on the third try. When you’re trying to maximize a small space, every inch counts, from under the bed to unclaimed wall space over your head. While moving is considered one of life’s great stressors, living in a small space doesn’t have to be. All it takes is some thoughtful planning and smart storage options. For Julia Haney Montanez, an interior designer living alone for the first time in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, purging is the first step to making the most of what you have. “You have to stop being a hoarder,” Ms. Montanez, 30, said this week in her studio apartment. “The secret to living is trying to avoid owning too much stuff that’s a good practice for life. You don’t have to be a minimalist, but you have to get really creative where you store your things and maybe think twice about buying something new. ” (Related: A beginner’s guide to home décor) Once you’ve winnowed down your belongings, it’s time to consider how to use your limited space. Ms. Montanez, a producer for the Architectural Digest show and a freelance designer, lives in a studio. When she first moved in, Ms. Montanez spent hours looking at the floor plan and figuring out the ideal configuration for her furniture. By living in the space for a while before making any major purchases, Ms. Montanez said, you get an idea of how to make your home as functional as possible. “As you live in the apartment you’ll know and understand what you need,” she said. “Do you have your freeloader friends crashing all the time? Then get a longer sofa. If not, get a smaller sofa because they take up so much space. Get to know your own space before you start throwing money at those things. ” If you have the opportunity to splurge, Ms. Montanez recommends creating a custom piece. For her it was a California Closet and a table that doubles as her office desk. “It was the best decision,” she said of the custom closet. “Everything goes in there. ” Shoes, cleaning supplies and home office material like fabric swatches all live in her closet, neatly tucked away in designated cubbies alongside double hanging clothes racks. “Take your dinner money for the next month and put it toward something that will fit perfectly,” she said. “It’s like Tetris, and it’s that one thing you need. ” Making a tight spot work can require bending the rules on traditional uses of space. Consider using a medicine cabinet for storing glassware or kitchen cabinets for sweater storage if cooking isn’t a priority. Every space has to serve a purpose, said Susan Winberg, an interior designer based in New York City. “It has to have more than one function,” she said. Ms. Winberg typically takes on larger residential projects, she said, but with two children in their 20s, she began designing projects with much more limited space. Her daughter’s San Francisco apartment, for example, had a Murphy bed alcove with no bed in it, she said. They put her bed elsewhere in the apartment and converted the alcove into a closet. If you have limited closet space, prioritize where you store your things, Ms. Winberg advised. The Murphy bed closet is tucked away, so Ms. Winberg’s daughter uses that area to store winter clothes and boots, saving her more accessible closet for things that she uses more regularly. If you’re working with a dresser, add another piece or shelf above the dresser for extra storage, she said. Madeline Fraser, one of the founders of a new app called Homee, which offers personal design services and a virtual showroom, summed up a similar approach to coping with small spaces in two words: up and out. “The use of the wall space is where you’re going to maximize your overall space,” she said. Ms. Fraser recommended putting storage on walls with open floating shelving, an affordable option, she said, especially for renters who can easily Spackle the wall when it’s time to move out. And shelving can go beyond the living room and bedroom, too. Open shelving in kitchens, especially in a galley or small kitchen, can make the room feel more open. “When you have cabinets, it can appear closed off like there’s a wall there,” she said. Everyone thinks, ‘Oh, I have to have cabinets,’ but you can easily do open shelving and arrange your kitchen stuff to look cool. It will feel more like a restaurant. ” To keep things looking tidy, Ms. Fraser suggested bringing symmetry to open shelves by displaying dishes, cutting boards and kitchen accessories stacked in clusters or leaning against the wall. Books and bookends offer a way to ground shelving, too, she said. And for miscellaneous items, wire baskets can help contain odds and ends that may be without a home. At a bare minimum, get the mattress and box spring off the floor, Ms. Fraser said. Every big piece of furniture should have legs if possible, to provide storage space underneath. “You can get an bed frame that gives you more storage under your bed,” she said. “You can do a bed skirt and put a lot under your bed. Your mom will not be happy with you if she comes over and sees the bed on the floor. ” Want more? You might also like: • These are the only kitchen tools you need • How to form healthy habits in your 20s • Tips on finding the perfect throw pillow | 0fake |
Fake News: HuffPo Invents a Steve Bannon ‘War’ on Pope Francis | The Huffington Post stooped to innuendo, slurs, and outright fabrication to manufacture out of whole cloth a dark conspiracy by Donald Trump’s chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon against Pope Francis. [Piggybacking on a baseless New York Times article by Jason Horowitz that imagined close ties between Bannon and “traditionalists in the Vatican,” Huffington Post writer Michele Somerville goes still further, alleging that Bannon is aligning himself “with the fringe of Roman Catholicism” in order to wage a war on Pope Francis. In her breathtaking ignorance, Somerville bases her entire thesis on an outright error. She mistakes Steve Bannon’s 2014 reference to the “Church militant” — a common Catholic expression referring to Christians on earth as opposed to those who have already died — for a traditionalist website by the same name. Although Bannon has no connection whatsoever with the website or its theories about Catholic doctrine, Somerville concocts a nefarious link between the two, attributing the website’s ideas to Bannon himself. Throughout the rambling piece, Somerville lays out in great detail some of the more absurd ideas advocated by the Church Militant website, and by association suggests that Bannon must hold to the same theories. She seems ignorant of the fact that Bannon is unaware of the existence of the website and furthermore couldn’t care less about its doctrinal nitpicking. Somerville’s first mistake was giving credence to Horowitz’s New York Times piece, which alleged that Bannon visited the Vatican in 2014 “to cultivate strategic alliances with those in Rome who share his interpretation of a ‘church militant’ theology. ” If Somerville had employed even a minimum of journalistic she would have quickly found that the Horowitz piece on the connection was built on air. Although Horowitz alleges close ties between Bannon and “traditionalists in the Vatican,” he doesn’t cite a single Vatican official in the entire piece and instead relies on his fertile imagination to construct a web of alliances that do not exist. In fact, when Horowitz floated his theory to Breitbart’s Rome bureau chief, Dr. Thomas Williams, Williams assured him that it had no basis in fact and that Bannon had never pursued alliances in the Vatican and had no interest in influencing church affairs. Despite this advice, Horowitz chose to publish the story anyway. In point of fact, when Bannon visited Rome in April 2014, he only met with one Vatican official: Cardinal Raymond Burke, who at the time was head of the Vatican’s supreme court. As the highest ranking American in the Vatican and a conservative besides, Burke was sought out by Bannon not for a meeting but for an interview as part of Breitbart’s media outreach. This was their sole meeting. Moreover, despite Horowitz’s statement to the contrary, at the time of their meeting there had been no conflict between Cardinal Burke and Pope Francis, and Bannon was not attempting to stoke “divisions” within the Church. Bannon pursued the idea of a Rome bureau for Breitbart News in 2014 because of his belief that politics is downstream of culture and that the moral voice of the Catholic Church has a powerful impact on the rest of the world. In hiring Breitbart’s Rome bureau chief, Bannon chose not a or an but Dr. Thomas Williams, a theologian and former Catholic priest who has since written literally hundreds of articles on Pope Francis and the Vatican, nearly all of which have been sympathetic to the Pope. Unable to mount an argument, Somerville instead descends to insults and baseless slurs, calling Bannon an “ Catholic” who only collaborates with Jews in order to achieve the greater good of defeating Islam. She similarly attempts to tar him as a proponent of “ ” or “ Roman Catholicism,” whatever that means. “Bannon wants a war and he will use Jesus to get one,” Somerville ominously warns. Fake news at its finest. | 0fake |
Why Flu Shots Are the Greatest Medical Fraud in History | Humans Are Free As one of the very few independent voices willing to stand up against the scientific dogma of our modern medical regime, I’ve long felt a need to communicate the dangers of flu shots to the public so that people can have better information to prevent vaccine injuries and save lives.
This doesn’t mean I’m opposed to the theory of vaccination, by the way. In fact, I’m the author of A Blueprint for Safer Vaccines , an audio guide to saving lives and preventing vaccine injuries and deaths.
To my knowledge, I’m the only independent journalist in the world who is scientifically trained to run an atomic mass spectrometry laboratory, which I’ve been running for nearly a year now and testing the heavy metals content of organic superfoods like cacao , common vaccines as well as the ability of water filers to remove toxic heavy metals .
I’m the creator of the Low Heavy Metals Verified standard and I’m the inventor of patent-pending nutritional formulas for capturing heavy metals during digestion and binding with the radioactive isotopes of cesium (such as Cesium-137) to eliminate them from the digestive tract.
Both of these patents are on file with the U.S. patent office awaiting a decision.
My independent atomic elemental analysis of flu vaccines, published in the summer of 2014, proved that flu vaccines contain over 50 ppm mercury, an extremely toxic heavy metal linked to kidney failure, birth defects, spontaneous abortions and neurological damage.
This finding has never been refuted by anyone.
In fact, it was affirmed by vaccine proponents who insisted that it is perfectly safe to inject pregnant women, young children and senior citizens with mercury even though the flu vaccine insert itself readily admits there is no scientific evidence whatsoever to support the safety and efficacy of the vaccine in such groups.
Believe it or not, there are still millions of people, doctors, pharmacists and even journalists who do not yet realize there is a very high concentration of mercury in influenza vaccines given to pregnant women, children and senior citizens.
Most people, you see, have been lied to by the media which has stated over and over again that mercury was removed from all vaccines.
That’s simply not true.
It’s still there. And toxic mercury is present in influenza vaccines at a level that’s literally 25,000 times higher than the EPA limit of mercury in drinking water. [7] It’s 100 times higher than the highest level of mercury contamination I’ve ever tested in ocean fish.
See the evidence for yourself
To prove the presence of mercury in influenza vaccines, I’m going to show you four irrefutable pieces of evidence:
1) Photographs of a 2013 / 2014 influenza vaccine box admitting, in very small print, to the addition of mercury to the vaccine as a preservative.
2) Photographs of the influenza vaccine insert once again repeating the admission that the vaccine contains mercury.
3) A screen shot from the Centers for Disease Control website which admits that vaccines still contain the following ingredients: Aluminum, Antibiotics, Egg Protein, Formaldehyde, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) and Thimerosal, a mercury-containing chemical compound.
4) Lab results from the Natural News Forensic Food Lab which confirmed almost precisely the same level of mercury claimed by the manufacturer (GlaxoSmithKline).
Before I show you the irrefutable evidence, there is some good news in all this testing.
As part of this Natural News investigation, I tested several different vaccines, including an HPV vaccine.
Mercury levels were extremely low in these other vaccines. Only the flu shot contained extremely high mercury levels.
Influenza vaccine box admits safety never established for pregnant women As you can see below, the box for this Flulaval Influenza Virus Vaccine readily admits the use of thimerosal which contains mercury.
(Of course, you have to use a magnifying glass to see this.)
In microscopic text on the package insert, it says straight out, “Register women who receive Flulaval while pregnant in the pregnancy registry by calling 1-888-452-9622.”
Yet, at the same time, the insert also admits that “safety and efficacy have not been established in pregnant women.”
In other words, this vaccine containing mercury is being promoted for use in pregnant women even when no safety in pregnant women has ever been established.
It’s also important to note that when people are being given flu shots, they are never handed the package or the insert, so they have no opportunity to read any of this information unless they specifically ask for it.
It’s not like a food item with a “Nutrition Facts” label. Vaccines are sold in “stealth” mode where patients have no idea what’s in them and no opportunity to read possible warnings.
As further proof of this point, consider the fact that this flu vaccine comes with only one insert, yet it’s a 10-dose vial intended to be injected into 10 different people.
Clearly, if there’s only one insert but 10 people, then 9 out of 10 people can’t possibly be handed the insert.
Unethical medicine administered without informed consent (a violation of medical ethics)
In fact, from a legal perspective, vaccines are routinely injected into people without informed consent.
Virtually no one administering vaccines ever explains the risks vs. benefits of vaccines as is required under medical ethics and state medical law.
In nearly all cases, patients are simply hoodwinked and told there are no risks at all.
The second piece of evidence to reveal here is the package insert for the influenza vaccine, a document printed in microscopic text that’s almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass.
Of course, the intention is that no one ever read this document, because it contains shocking admissions of the total quackery and marketing deception behind flu shots.
As you can see from this snapshot, the package insert readily admits that each vaccine dose “contains 50 mcg thimerosal (<25 mcg=”” mercury=”” p=””><25 br=”” mcg=”” mercury=””> In case you’re wondering, “mcg” means micrograms. A microgram is 1/1000th of a milligram.
Mercury is toxic at any dose when injected into the body, even in micrograms. There is no such thing as a “safe” form of mercury when injected.
In fact, the ethyl form of mercury used in vaccines is many times more toxic than methyl form once it enters human cells.
Click here for a fascinating interview with mercury toxicity expert Dr. Chris Shade who explains this extremely important concept.
The same paragraph shown above also admits the vaccine contains formaldehyde, a potent neurotoxic chemical.
Vaccine insert admits safety and effectiveness have never been established<25 br=”” mcg=”” mercury=””> What’s even more astonishing about this insert is that it openly admits the flu shot is a complete medical hoax, backed by nothing but voodoo woo woo faith-based dogma (and clever marketing).
Here are actual words from the insert (which is much more lengthy than the snapshot shown above):
“There have been no controlled trials adequately demonstrating a decrease in influenza disease after vaccination with Flulaval.”
“Safety and effectiveness of Flulaval have not been established in pregnant women, nursing mothers or children.”
“Safety and effectiveness of Flulaval in pediatric patients have not been established.”
“Flulaval has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential, or for impairment of fertility.”
“Do not administer Flulaval to anyone… following previous administration of any influenza vaccine.”
CDC admits use of mercury, MSG, formaldehyde
For those “mercury denialists” who still can’t believe flu shots given to pregnant women contain high concentrations of toxic mercury, even the CDC reluctantly admits this fact on its own website.
Here’s a screen shot from the CDC’s vaccine additives page , which miraculously hasn’t yet been removed from their site:
<25 br=”” mcg=”” mercury=””> Laboratory results from the Natural News Forensic Food Lab
The final piece of irrefutable evidence on all this comes from my own scientific laboratory , where I run ICP-MS instrumentation to test foods, beverages, dietary supplements and other items for heavy metals contamination.
I was the first food researcher to document high levels of tungsten in brown rice protein , and I’ve exposed alarming levels of lead in pet treats . I’ve also exposed high lead in ginkgo biloba herbal supplements imported from China .
When I finally got around to testing vaccines, I was shocked to find over 51,000 ppb mercury in the Influenza Virus Vaccine.
Why was I shocked? Because I don’t recall ever seeing anything run through my ICP-MS instrument with that high a concentration of mercury.
The mercury in this flu vaccine was the HIGHEST concentration of mercury I’ve ever seen in anything, period!
And this is a product that’s injected directly into the bodies of pregnant women, where mercury goes right into the developing fetus.
What’s even more interesting is that this finding once again confirms the accuracy of my lab instrumentation because it’s almost in perfect agreement with the level of mercury detailed on the vaccine package insert.
Let’s do the math:
* Each dose of an influenza vaccine is 0.5 mL in volume * My lab found just over 50 ppm of mercury in the vaccine liquid. * 50 ppm (concentration) x 0.5 mL (volume) equals 25 mcg of mercury.
Guess what the package insert says? (Up to) 25 mcg of mercury per dose. Near-perfect agreement, in other words.
My finding of 51 ppm rather than 50 ppm either means my own tests were off by about 2% (which is still considered very accurate for ICP-MS testing) or that GSK put 2% extra mercury into the vaccine.
And just so you know I actually did the tests, here’s what else we found with other analytes:
Aluminum: 0.4 ppm Cadmium: zero Lead: zero
So, I can confidently say that the flu vaccine won’t poison you with lead, cadmium or arsenic because it contains none of those things.
Even the aluminum level is quite low and not a concern at this very low level. The real problem is just the mercury, at least as far as elements go.
Why won’t vaccine makers remove the mercury?
Good question. Everybody knows mercury is toxic to inject into the human body. That’s not debated except by irrational anti-science denialists who refuse to acknowledge the Table of Elements.
You have to wonder: why choose mercury as a preservative? And why do both the CDC and FDA continue to look the other way as an entire branch of modern medicine poisons our women and children with a neurotoxic heavy metal?
And if vaccine promoters, propagandists and patent holders want the world to accept all their vaccines, why don’t they just remove the mercury and be done with it?
If they take out all the toxic elements, resistance to vaccines would all but evaporate.
Why vaccines are the “anti-science” medical voodoo of the modern world Ever wonder why they don’t conduct legitimate clinical trials on flu vaccine efficacy?
Probably because they know the results would have to be faked to show any efficacy at all.
That’s what Merck did with its mumps vaccines, according to two former virologists who worked there.
They spiked human blood samples with animal antibodies to fabricate positive results.
Yep, vaccines work so poorly that even the manufacturers have to fake their own results to show any efficacy.
Vaccines are the one medicine where no scientific evidence of safety or efficacy is required by anyone: not the FDA, not the CDC and not the media.
Congress even passed a law protecting the vaccine industry with absolute legal immunity, even when they manufacture and sell defective products that injure and kill people .
How’s that for medicine we can all trust?
Think about it: this is a product that contains multiple neurotoxins in very high concentrations; a product backed by no safety trials or efficacy data; a product linked to numerous serious adverse reactions; and yet a product that enjoys absolute legal immunity thanks to the U.S. government.
If that’s not outright medical quackery, I don’t know what is.
For the record, I’m not an opponent of all vaccines. But I do believe — as do a rapidly increasing number of other clear-thinking people — that medicine should not poison our women and children .
It’s time for mercury to be removed from all vaccines, once and for all. Anything less is medical negligence.
New video interview about flu shot failures
Ultimately, We the People will be victorious in the removal of mercury from all vaccines — an idea that’s already well accepted across much of Europe.
And when that day comes, it will be yet another victory for the Natural News fan base, an amazing community of millions of remarkable people working together for the protection of our children, our health and our world.
See my recent video interview with Next News Network’s Gary Franchi on why flu shots are failures: | 1real |
(VIDEO) MORE LIES: HILLARY USED MULTIPLE E-MAILS WHILE SERVING AS SECRETARY OF STATE | Emails published by the New York Times Monday indicate that Hillary Clinton used more than one private email address during her time as secretary of state, contradicting previous claims from the Democratic presidential contender s office.Multiple emails show Clinton used account hrod17@clintonemail.com while serving in the Obama administration as secretary of state.Clinton s attorney, David Kendall, had previously told Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) that that particular address had not existed during Secretary Clinton s tenure as Secretary of State. Another statement from Clinton s office said she only used one address during her time as secretary of state. Secretary Clinton used one email account during her tenure at State (with the exception of her first weeks in office while transitioning from an email account she had previously used), it said. In March 2013, Gawker published the email address she used while Secretary, and so she had to change the address on her account. Clinton served as secretary of state from Jan. 2009 to Feb. 2013. The emails she sent with the hrod17@clintonemail.com were sent in 2011 and 2012, according to the documents released by the Times:According To Emails Released By The New York Times, Hillary Clinton Used The Account hrod17@clintonemail.com While Secretary Of State. ( Selected Libya-Related Messages From Hillary Clinton s Personal Email Account, The New York Times , 5/18/15)NOTE: On April 8, 2011, Clinton Messaged Jake Sullivan Using The Account hrod17@clintonemail.com. ( Selected Libya-Related Messages From Hillary Clinton s Personal Email Account, The New York Times , 5/18/15) NOTE: On January 5, 2012, Clinton Messaged Jake Sullivan Using The Account hrod17@clintonemail.com. ( Selected Libya-Related Messages From Hillary Clinton s Personal Email Account, The New York Times , 5/18/15) NOTE: On August 28, 2012, Clinton Messaged Jake Sullivan Using The Account hrod17@clintonemail.com. ( Selected Libya-Related Messages From Hillary Clinton s Personal Email Account, The New York Times , 5/18/15) NOTE: Hillary Clinton Served As Secretary Of State From January 21, 2009 To February 1, 2013. (U.S. Department Of State Website, Accessed 5/18/15)A representative for Clinton s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TheBlaze.Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus tweeted Monday evening that the news proved Clinton misled public about the use of only one secret email address. Earlier this year, it was reported Clinton may have violated federal rules by exclusively using a personal email address to conduct all official government business while serving as secretary of state. | 1real |
New York prison escape: Worker questioned, source says | (CNN) An employee at the prison where two convicted killers escaped over the weekend is being questioned as a possible accomplice, a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation told CNN.
Investigators on Monday questioned the employee, a woman who worked with escaped convicts Richard Matt and David Sweat, tailoring clothing at the Clinton Correctional Facility in New York.
The woman knows the two escapees "very well," the source said, though she has not been charged or arrested.
The development comes after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said inmates Matt and Sweat must have had help in carrying out the intricate plot. The pair, who were in side-by-side cells, used power tools to cut through the cells' steel walls and clambered through a maze of underground pipes, according to authorities.
"They wouldn't have had the equipment on their own, that's for sure," Cuomo told CNN of the convicted killers, who escaped sometime after they were last seen at bed check Friday night.
The two prisoners were in the "honor block" of the prison, meaning they were given certain liberties for good behavior, the law enforcement source said.
For the most part they have a clean disciplinary record, according to records provided by a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections.
Despite a $100,000 reward and a manhunt involving some 250 law enforcement officials, Matt and Sweat -- both serving lengthy sentences -- were still on the loose Monday.
"They could be literally anywhere," said Maj. Charles E. Guess of the New York State Police, which is leading the search.
Cuomo said residents of Dannemora, where the prison is located, should feel safe because of the presence of hundreds of law enforcement officers there.
Still, students returned to schools Monday amid heightened security after police thoroughly searched every building and bus, Saranac Central School District Superintendent Jonathan Parks said in an email to parents. Police officers were scheduled to be at every school throughout the day, he said.
That's in part because of its remote location -- in the sparsely populated northeast corner of New York, about 25 miles from the Canadian border.
And also because it's in a region where wintry weather can persist more than half the year.
The facility has 2,689 inmates, and two of its most notorious inhabitants were Matt, 49, and Sweat, 35.
They apparently were last seen at 10:30 p.m. Friday during a standing count -- head counts that are performed every two hours throughout the night when guards visually check to see whether inmates are in their bunks.
The pair tricked the guards by arranging things in the bunks to look "like people were sleeping ... with these sweatshirt hoodies on," Cuomo said.
Once they were out of their cells, they then followed a catwalk down an elaborate maze of pipes until they emerged from a manhole outside the prison walls.
They evaded detection for some seven hours, until the inmate count at 5:30 a.m. Saturday.
Along with the taunting sticky note, the pair also left a host of unanswered, and uncomfortable, questions for law enforcement.
How did they get the power tools? How could they have known the layout of the bowels of the old prison? Did they have help from the inside?
Cuomo, who toured the escape route and announced the $100,000 reward Sunday, said it was possible the tools came from contractors working on the 170-year-old prison. Authorities are also looking at civilian prison employees, he said. But he seemed to rule out the involvement of the prison's certified employees.
"I'd be shocked if a guard was involved, and that's putting it mildly," he said.
The danger the two men pose can't be overstated, officials said.
Sweat was serving a life sentence without parole in the killing of Kevin Tarsia, a sheriff's deputy, in 2002.
Matt was convicted on three counts of murder, three counts of kidnapping and two counts of robbery after he kidnapped a man and beat him to death in December 1997, state police said. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
"He has a history," said Gabriel DiBernardo, who led the investigation into the murder for which Matt was convicted. "He broke out of jail before. He is a cunning individual, no question about it, and a vicious individual."
Sweat is white, 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighs 165 pounds. He has brown hair, green eyes and tattoos on his left bicep and his right fingers.
Matt is white, 6 feet tall and weighs 210 pounds. He has black hair, hazel eyes and several tattoos: "Mexico Forever" on his back, a heart on his chest and left shoulder, and a Marine Corps insignia on his right shoulder.
"These are dangerous people," Cuomo said. "And they're nothing to be trifled with."
Matt is also well-known to Mexican authorities. In 2007, he was extradited from Mexico back to New York on a decade-old murder charge, documents show.
With the facility's proximity to Canada, and with Matt's ties to Mexico, authorities on both international borders have been alerted.
Officers used roadblocks and bloodhounds and went door to door in their search for the men. They scoured the woods and sifted through the dozens and dozens of tips that came in.
But so far, no luck.
They don't know if the pair is still together, had help on the outside, or if the men had access to a vehicle.
Jonathan Gilliam, a former Navy SEAL, FBI agent, air marshal and police officer, told CNN's "New Day" on Monday that the inmates might have been able to pull off part of the escape by themselves. But he said the presence of power tools and the complicated escape route suggest that they weren't working alone.
"The combination of all those things is very worrisome for me because that spells help," he said.
On Sunday, the U.S. Marshals Service issued federal arrest warrants for the escapees. The warrants clear the way for the federal government to involve its considerable resources in the manhunt.
"Every resource available to us will be used in bringing these two men to justice," said William O'Toole, a U.S. Marshals Service spokesman.
"We're leaving no stone unturned," Guess of the New York State Police said Sunday. | 0fake |
Why long shots and also-rans run for president: It’s the media, stupid | In the television age, running for president is automatically assumed to be a good thing—even as a long shot.
You boost your profile. You’re on stage for the big debates. Cable bookers keep calling. Your how-to-save-America book sells better. Profile writers track down your elementary school teacher. And even if you wash out early, there are consolation prizes: A Cabinet post. A running mate selection. A college presidency. A cable gig.
This is true even for those who don’t have a prayer of winning the White House. Without running, Hillary Clinton never would have been secretary of State. Joe Biden, Al Gore and George H.W. Bush would never have been VP. Mike Huckabee wouldn’t have had a Fox show and Al Sharpton wouldn’t be on MSNBC.
In all honesty, what else have they got to do?
This is a challenge for the media, who have trouble covering campaigns as packed as a Manhattan subway train. Especially this year, when the Republican field could actually top 20—far too many candidates to fit on a debate stage, or to include in a two-minute evening news report.
But maybe my working thesis that presidential publicity is, on balance, a good thing misses an important point. As conservative columnist Matt Lewis writes in the Daily Beast:
“I suspect we tend to underestimate the downside of running for president. Let’s consider the 2012 GOP field, which included Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, and of course Mitt Romney. And to recap: Perry said ‘oops,’ Huntsman’s campaign never took off and he lost his ambassadorship to China, Bachmann isn’t even in Congress today, Santorum hard-won second place finish hasn’t set him up well for 2016, Cain was ripped apart after a sex scandal, Paul (and Bachmann!) had serious issues with the FEC, and Newt lost his think tank.
“You tell me—are they better off now than they were four years ago?”
Well, it’s true that if you self-destruct like Herman Cain under the weight of sexual harassment allegations, there are negative consequences. On the other hand, everyone has now heard of Herman Cain and he landed a big radio show. Better than being an obscure former pizza executive, no?
Rick Santorum won respect for winning 11 states (and is running again). Newt Gingrich sort of redeemed himself years after being toppled as House speaker (and got a CNN contract). Rick Perry isn’t so damaged that he’s not running again. Mitt Romney is such an elder statesman that many in the party begged him to run a third time (and thought better of it once he began seriously considering it).
Even Jon Huntsman became a national figure and charmed the media elite (and his daughter landed a spot on MSNBC).
But Lewis insists on accentuating the negative, especially “people who have to give up a job to run—like, say, a Fox News gig. And if you have a positive—or possibly inflated—reputation, you’ll likely watch that evaporate as well. Even if the opposition researchers and the media don’t get you (see Herman Cain), there’s a chance that you’ll slip up, amid the sleep deprivation and the glare of cameras and bright lights. There’s always the potential you could be exposed as someone who isn’t as charismatic or knowledgeable as everyone suspected. In fact, it’s pretty easy to leave the impression that you’re kind of dumb.”
But in America, it’s more important to be famous.
Let’s take the trio that jumped into the GOP race this week.
Ben Carson was a world-renowned surgeon (and Fox News contributor) before gearing up for his presidential bid. He has made some comments (equating ObamaCare with slavery, saying straight men come out of prison gay) that have not exactly enhanced his reputation. But as a serious African-American contender for the Republican nomination, he will greatly benefit from the exposure in any future endeavor.
Carly Fiorina was previously known mainly for getting fired as Hewlett-Packard’s CEO and losing a Senate race to Barbara Boxer. She has won plaudits for her fledgling presidential campaign, especially her pointed attacks on Hillary, and now has the first-name recognition that most corporate executives never achieve.
Mike Huckabee was living the good life, hosting a Saturday night Fox show and doing national radio commentaries after his 2008 run. But the former Arkansas governor wants to prove that his success in winning the Iowa caucuses last time wasn’t a fluke. Now he’ll have his chance.
None of them are going to be lacking for employment if this presidential thing doesn’t work out.
But there’s one more aspect that gets overlooked. Most people who run for president have a set of ideas they want to push into the national square. Bernie Sanders knows he’ll never be president, but his ultra-liberal views will get far more attention than if he had passed up the race against Hillary. These candidates want to influence the debate, and there’s nothing like a presidential forum for accomplishing that.
They won’t all get much media oxygen once the field is complete. But it’s better than gasping for air on the sidelines.
Click for more from Media Buzz.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. | 0fake |
Obama Promises Huge Action In Hacking Scandal, Trump And Putin Are TERRIFIED (VIDEO) | At this point, it s no secret that Russia in a campaign directly spearheaded by Vladimir Putin himself hacked Donald Trump s political opponents for him (at Trump s request) and helped him use that information to secure victory against a clearly superior opponent. While it seems likely that Trump inexplicably will get away with his role, Putin and Russia may not get off so easy if President Obama has anything to say about it. I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action and we will at a time and place of our own choosing, Obama told NPR on Thursday, adding that some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be. The President (the last legitimate one if Trump has anything to say about it) did not go into more detail, but he seems to be ready to take action before he leaves office on January 20. Obama s options vary, ranging from sanctions to giving Russia a taste of their own medicine with a star-spangled cyber attack of their own. There are still a whole range of assessments taking place among the agencies. And so when I receive a final report, you know, we ll be able to, I think, give us a comprehensive and best guess as to those motivations, Obama told NPR. But that does not in any way, I think, detract from the basic point that everyone during the election perceived accurately that in fact what the Russian hack had done was create more problems for the Clinton campaign than it had for the Trump campaign. Obama says that he has directly confronted Putin about the attack. Mr. Putin is well aware of my feelings about this, because I spoke to him directly about it, he told NPR. Officials confirm that the President made Putin well aware of the many, many possible U.S. responses.An increase in sanctions or a cyberattack against Russia could be very, very big (potentially crippling, if done right) and incredibly uncomfortable for both Putin and his friend Trump.But here s the kicker even though the White House acknowledges that The Donald obviously was aware of and eager to take advantage of the hacks, unless something is done to stop Trump from assuming office any action we take is for naught. Trump, who once tweeted that he hopes Putin will be his new best friend, will be in a position to undo any sanctions or to stop any other U.S. reaction on day one.At this point, we as a nation need to turn to our electors whose one job at the moment is to ensure that a tyrant installed by a foreign power does not take office. If they fail us, may the various gods help us all.Watch the interview below:Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Pope urges respect for human rights in Myanmar, avoids 'Rohingya' row | NAYPYITAW (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Tuesday urged the leaders of majority-Buddhist Myanmar, mired in a crisis over the fate of Muslim Rohingya people, to commit themselves to justice, human rights and respect for each ethnic group and its identity . The pope avoided a diplomatic backlash by not using the highly charged term Rohingya in his addresses to officials, including leader Aung San Suu Kyi. However, his words were applicable to members of the beleaguered minority, who Myanmar does not recognize as citizens or as members of a distinct ethnic group. More than 620,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh - where the pope heads on Thursday - since the end of August, escaping from a military crackdown that Washington has said included horrendous atrocities aimed at ethnic cleansing . Francis made his comments in Naypyitaw, the country s capital, where he was received by Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate and champion of democracy who has faced international criticism for expressing doubts about the reports of rights abuses against the Rohingya and failing to condemn the military. The future of Myanmar must be peace, a peace based on respect for the dignity and rights of each member of society, respect for each ethnic group and its identity, respect for the rule of law, and respect for a democratic order that enables each individual and every group none excluded to offer its legitimate contribution to the common good, he said. Myanmar rejects the term Rohingya and its use, with most people instead referring to the Muslim minority in Rakhine state as illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh. The pope had used the word Rohingya in two appeals from the Vatican this year. But before the diplomatically risky trip, the pope s own advisers recommended that he not use it in Myanmar, lest he set off a diplomatic incident that could turn the country s military and government against minority Christians. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International, which has accused the army of crimes against humanity , had urged him to utter it. A hardline group of Buddhist monks warned on Monday - without elaborating - that there would be a response if he spoke openly about the Rohingya. Richard Horsey, a former U.N. official and analyst based in Yangon, said the pope s speech was very cautiously worded and crafted to avoid antagonizing local audiences . He has clearly taken the advice of his cardinals to avoid weighing in too heavily on the Rohingya crisis, but he certainly alludes to it with a message in his speech on some of the specific points that he makes, Horsey said. Vatican sources say some in the Holy See believe the trip was decided too hastily after full diplomatic ties were established in May during a visit by Suu Kyi. The pope met privately with Suu Kyi at the presidential palace in this sparsely populated town that became the capital in 2006, and then they both made public addresses at a conference center. Suu Kyi said in her speech that there had been an erosion of trust and understanding between communities of Rakhine state, but did not refer to the Rohingya. Francis, speaking in Italian, said that as it emerged from nearly 50 years of military rule, Myanmar needed to heal the wounds of the past. He called for a just, reconciled and inclusive social order , adding that the arduous process of peacebuilding and national reconciliation can only advance through a commitment to justice and respect for human rights . Myanmar s army, whose leaders the pope met on Monday, has been battling various autonomy-seeking ethnic minority guerrillas for decades. The military has denied the accusations of murder, rape, torture and forced displacement of the Rohingya that have been made against it. The Rohingya exodus from Rakhine state began after Aug. 25, when Rohingya militants attacked security posts and the Myanmar army launched a counter-offensive. Referring to the country s communal tensions, Francis said religious differences need not be a source of division and distrust, but rather a force for unity, forgiveness, tolerance and wise nation-building . He made the same point at an earlier meeting with leaders of the Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu, Jewish and Christian faiths in Yangon, where he called for unity in diversity . Aye Lwin, a prominent Muslim leader who was at the interfaith meeting, told Reuters he had asked the pope to appeal to Myanmar s political leaders to rescue the religion that we cherish, which could be hijacked by a hidden agenda . Only about 700,000 of Myanmar s 51 million people are Roman Catholic. Thousands of them have traveled from far and wide to see him and more than 150,000 people have registered for a mass that Francis will say in Yangon on Wednesday. Francis is expected to meet a group of Rohingya refugees in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, on the second leg of his trip. | 0fake |
Spicer: Sessions Should Not Recuse Himself Over ‘False Narrative for Political Purposes’ - Breitbart | Thursday in preview clips of an interview with “‘Fox Friends,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Attorney General Jeff Sessions should not recuse himself over allegations that he met with Russian officials from a Washington Post story published late Wednesday night. He added Democrats were “continuing to push a false narrative for political purposes. ” Spicer said, “I think Senator Sessions did his job. He was asked very pointedly if there had been any contact with the Trump campaign in the capacity of him being a surrogate. There was not. He was 100 percent straight with the committee. He did he acknowledge that he met in his capacity as a United States senator on the Armed Services committee with the ambassador on a couple occasions, one being after he had given a speech and someone approached him. As you have seen, senators like Ted Cruz have come out and said this is a perfectly normal course of business. I think this is Democrats continuing to push a false narrative for political purposes. ” He added, “There is nothing to recuse himself. He was 100 percent straight with the committee. And I think that people who are choosing to play partisan politics with this should be ashamed of themselves. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
Economist Jack Rasmus: Eurozone Benefits The Strongest Economies At The Expense Of The Weakest | Videos Economist Jack Rasmus: Eurozone Benefits The Strongest Economies At The Expense Of The Weakest ‘Greece has tied its tail to the eurozone, dominated by Germany, and it can never get out of this situation as long as Germany dominates the institutions, which it does, because the whole arrangement is great for Germany,’ the writer and economist tells MintPress News. | October 31, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Bystanders wait to be handed bags of oranges during a free distribution of fruit and vegetables as a protest by farmers and vendors over proposed pension reforms, in Athens on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Greece’s leftwing government is facing an escalating wave of protests over its proposed pension overhaul that has been demanded by bailout creditors. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
ATHENS — This has been another eventful year in Greece. Almost one year after it turned its back on the July 2015 referendum result which rejected further austerity, the Syriza-led government has pushed forward a program of even harsher austerity, spending cuts, and privatizations .
Following the British vote to proceed with “Brexit,” or a departure from the European Union, fears that Greece might follow suit led Greece’s lenders to demand even more austerity measures from a country already mired in an economic depression.
In this interview, Dr. Jack Rasmus , a professor of economics and politics at St. Mary’s College of California, analyzes these issues and the many challenges facing the Greek and European economies today.
The author of such books as “ Looting Greece ” and “ Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy ,” Dr. Rasmus shares his insights into the consequences of austerity for Greece and other peripheral European economies, and presents his proposed solutions for an end to the crisis and austerity.
MintPress News (MPN): In September, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras gave his annual “state of the nation” address, where he boasted that the Greek economy has turned the corner, that unemployment is going down, that salaries will be increased, and that the country is returning to growth. Is this what Greece’s economic indicators actually show? Protesters march to the Greek Parliament in Athens on Tuesday Nov. 6, 2012. Greece’s unions are holding their third general strike in six weeks to press dissenters in the country’s troubled coalition government not to back a major new austerity program that will doom Greeks to further hardship in a sixth year of recession. Two days of demonstrations are planned to start Tuesday, continuing until lawmakers vote late Wednesday on the bill to slash euro13.5 billion ($17.3 billion) from budget spending over two years. (AP Photo/Dimitri Messinis)
Dr. Jack Rasmus (JR): No, not quite. Greece’s debt is still the same as it was in 2011, roughly 180 percent of GDP. Unemployment has come down by only 3 to 4 percent, so instead of 27 percent, it’s about 23 to 24 percent. That’s depression-level unemployment. All the other indicators in the economy are flat or declining, so I don’t see anywhere that Greece is really “recovering,” and neither, really, is the entire eurozone economy. It’s been bouncing along the bottom.
As I said in my book “Systemic Fragility,” it’s a case of chronic stagnation. [The eurozone] might grow a little, 0.5 percent or 1 percent above GDP, mostly as a result of Germany’s growth, then it flattens out or goes below. Most of the periphery economies in Europe are stagnant or in a recession, as they have been for quite some time.
As far as raising wages, Greece cannot raise, at least in the public sector, any wages without the approval of the troika [Greece’s three major lenders: the European Commission, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund]. It’s a real stretch to say that Greece is recovering. It’s kind of moving sideways, in the condition of still chronic economic depression.
MPN: One of the perceptions that has been prevalent in global public opinion with regard to the economic crisis in Greece is that the country has been “bailed out” with billions upon billions of euros in free money. Is this really the case, and where has the so-called “bailout” money to Greece actually gone?
JR: Countries don’t get bailed out. Governments, banks, businesses, and sometimes, though not so frequently, households get bailed out. So the question is, who got bailed out here, in the debt restructuring deals of 2010, 2012, 2015, and this past spring? The banks got bailed out several times. Foreign investors and speculators in Greek bonds and other securities clearly got bailed out in 2012. If you look at where the money has gone, there’s $400 billion in debt in Greece still, that they have to pay off, with an economy that is less than half that size, so it’s impossible.
Where has all this money gone? Recent studies by the European School of Management and Technology documenting the 2010 and 2012 bailouts indicate that 95 percent of all the loans to “bail out” the Greek government, which then bailed out the Greek banks — 95 percent of that went back to Northern Europe, mostly to the German and Northern European banks that had loaned so much money to Greece. [Bailout funds also went] to the troika, particularly the European Commission, that then distributed it to the banking system and investors in turn. The EC is the big player here, and to some extent the European Central Bank, and to a minor extent now the International Monetary Fund. So, 95 percent of all the money loaned to Greece went right back to [Europe] and less than 5 percent of that went back into the Greek economy. Greece has been subsidizing the financial system elsewhere in Europe. A supporter of the communist-affiliated union PAME takes part in an anti-austerity rally in front of the parliament in Athens, Monday, Oct. 17, 2016.
MPN: What do you believe needs to be done about the Greek debt?
JR: You might ask what needs to be done about debt throughout the eurozone, because it’s not just Greece. Greece is perhaps the most serious case, but other places in the periphery of Europe are still heavily indebted. You cannot sustain, with austerity measures designed to pay the interest and principal on debt, a $400-plus billion debt based on an economy that’s less than $200 billion. Even the IMF has come to that conclusion and is maneuvering with the other troika members on that particular point.
Is [the debt] legitimate? Well, you have to understand the origins of this debt. It was originally private sector debt that was created as a result of the formation of the eurozone in 1999, the ECB as part of that creation, and other elements of the eurozone agreements, particularly the Lisbon Strategy that Germany adopted. Germany and other Northern European businesses and bankers pumped money and capital into the periphery, including Greece, from 2005 onward. Germany had a strong competitive advantage in exports, so a lot of the money and capital was pumped into the periphery, including Greece, in order to purchase German and other exports. So the money went in and circulated around, leaving a pile of private sector debt in Greece, Italy, and other places.
Then we had the crash of 2008-2009 and the debt could not be repaid, and the troika stepped in to [offer] the governments of Greece and other countries money in order to continue to bail out the private sector and enable the repayment of the private debt. So it starts out as private debt, because of this great imbalance in exports within the eurozone, and then that gets converted to government debt, and then the big crash of 2008-2009 adds even more debt, and then you have the recession of 2011-2013 in the eurozone and the 2012 bailout, which piled on more debt in order to pay the old debt, and then in 2015 the same thing. So the troika’s piling more debt on Greece in order for Greece to pay the previous debt, and that’s totally unsustainable. They’re going to have to expunge some of that debt.
Of course, the Germans, Wolfgang Schauble [the German finance minister] and the coalition in the north, does not want to allow that. And they don’t really want to change the eurozone, because the eurozone, while very imbalanced for the periphery, has benefited Germany significantly. [The Germans] dominate the finance ministers’ council in the EC and they dominate the ECB, and they’re just keeping the situation the way it is because it’s profitable for them. Demonstrators hold a poster against the austerity policy of Germany prior to a special session of the parliament Bundestag on negotiations with Greece for a new bailout in Berlin, Germany, Friday, July 17, 2015. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
MPN: Why must Greek banks be nationalized, in your view?
JR: Look at the debt negotiations of 2010, 2012, and 2015. What happened was the ECB, which pretty much controls the Greek central bank — the ECB is just a council of central banks dominated by the Bundesbank [the German central bank] and its allies, so they have control — and what you saw in the negotiations is that in 2015, the ECB put the screws to the Greek economy, and Syriza collapsed and agreed each time the screws were tightened, bringing the economy to a halt. They couldn’t deal with the squeeze on the economy by the ECB. This brought the economy to a halt, squeezing it and of course not releasing loans that [the troika] had agreed to provide Greece under previous agreements. There was an economic squeeze that Syriza did not have a strategy to deal with, and eventually it capitulated.
You’ve got to nationalize, make the Greek central bank and the banking systems independent of the ECB. Gain control over your economy once again, and that is one of several key steps to prevent the squeeze every time you attempt to renegotiate the debt or restructure the debt. Without an independent, Greek, people-controlled banking system, the eurozone and the troika will squeeze and bring Greece to its knees every time. We’ve seen that three times. You’ve got to nationalize the banking system, including the central bank, or if you want to just leave the central bank as part of the ECB structure, go ahead, but create an independent central bank authority elsewhere in the Greek government.
In the U.S. during the Great Depression, the U.S. central bank had screwed up badly, and [President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt took over and had his Treasury Department take over and run the economy. Greece would have to set up a parallel central bank in its finance sector, and isolate and bypass the influence of the ECB through the Greek central bank. You would have to create a parallel currency as part of this and impose serious controls on bank withdrawals and capital flows outside the country, which Syriza did not really do, because the ECB and the troika opposed it. When you have all the capital, bank withdrawals and capital flight is another way of squeezing the country economically. FILE – In this Sunday, Oct. 18, 2015 file photo, a man walks past street art depicting Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Athens, Greece. Tsipras’ decision to sign off on a bailout led to many in his left-wing Syriza party to quit in protest.
MPN: The current government in Greece has been continuing a policy of massive privatizations of Greek public assets, with profitable airports and harbors having been privatized in the past year, in addition to the recent selloff of the Greek national railroad for a total of €45 million ($49 million). What are the short- and long-term impacts of the privatization of such public assets?
JR: The short-term is that when you privatize them, under the aegis of the troika, if you sell below market prices, which a lot of these assets are being sold at, that’s profit on the sale for the investors who are buying up these assets. But once the assets are in private hands, where does the revenue go? Does it go back into Greece or does it go back into the pockets of the investors and the corporations and the banks outside Greece that are buying it up? Well, it goes out. It’s a form of capital flight. Money that is needed in Greece flows out of Greece.
This is a new form of financial imperialism, wealth extraction in other words, that is being structured and managed on a state-to-state basis. It’s not 19th century British imperialism where they set up a factory in India, paid them low wages, and brought the textiles back to London to re-sell at a higher price. It’s not that kind of production imperialism. This is financial imperialism imposed on Greece, and it’s a new form that’s emerging everywhere, where you indebt the country and then you force the country to engage in austerity in order to pay the principal and interest on the debt, and you extract the income from the country. Privatizations are another form of that.
You privatize public goods, you get them at fire-sale prices, and then the income flows from those assets flow back to the coffers of the private companies or the banks, outside of Greece.
The other consequence is when you privatize, they come in and they cut costs, which means they lay off people in mass numbers, they put a hold on wages, they get rid of benefits, and they do everything else to maximize their revenue.
Finally, longer term, it means that Greece has less control over its own economy if it can’t control its infrastructure and everything is owned by foreigners. Then you can’t influence it as much, and if you’re part of the eurozone, you’re legally prohibited from what you can do to make sure that these foreign-owned infrastructure companies are behaving in terms of the benefit for the public sector, for the rest of Greece.
MPN: You have argued in your book, “Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy,” that there are nine major trends which account for the economic troubles that are seen on a global scale. What are some of these trends?
JR: Everywhere, and particularly since 2008, we see central banks and monetary policy to be ascendant, and that means creating money, pumping it into the economy to bail out the financial systems, the financial institutions, the banks and the shadow banks, meaning speculators, hedge funds, private equity firms, asset management companies, and so forth. We’ve seen bailouts of tens of trillions of dollars since 2008. All of that liquidity injection into the economy has driven interest rates down to zero or even, in Europe and Japan and elsewhere, negative rates, and that fuels debt. With rates that cheap, corporations and businesses float new corporate bonds, and they use the money not to invest necessarily, they use it to buy back the stock and drive up the stock prices and pay out dividends, or they sit on it, they hoard it, or they send it to emerging markets. That’s a problem everywhere, and that’s the result of massive liquidity injections, which have really been escalating since the 1980s, when controls on international capital flows were eliminated everywhere.
After the 1970s, when the Bretton Woods system collapsed and central banks took over, the combination of those has led to the financialization of the global economy in the 21st century, where profits are far greater for investing and speculating in financial securities than they are in investing in real assets and real things that create real jobs and real income and real consumption. We’re becoming dependent on debt more and more. The economy is increasingly credit- and debt-driven, and that’s the result of this massive liquidity injection, and it also leads to a shift from real asset investment — investing in real things that create jobs that people need — toward financial asset investment. That means that real investment collapses over time and productivity collapses over time as well, and we see that happening everywhere.
That’s a major point that I argued about in my book, “Systemic Fragility,” this financialization of the global economy based on liquidity and debt and squeezing out. It’s diverting money and capital from real investment into financial speculation. What’s going on in Greece is a concrete expression of this, the reliance on financial means and financial manipulation. The periphery in the eurozone is at a great disadvantage to Germany and others, and they’re being manipulated financially. All the payments on interest and the debt flow back to the north. This is all flowing through the EC to the private sector, and it’s a nice constant money capital flow from interest payments and privatization and speculation on government bonds and securities and stocks in these countries as the volatility occurs.
It’s a reflection, in Greece, of what’s happening on a broader scale elsewhere in the global economy, and that’s why we haven’t seen much of a recovery in the global economy. Global trade is stagnant and real investment everywhere is drifting toward zero, productivity is negative almost everywhere, even in the U.S., and we’re seeing growth rates of barely 1 percent, 1.5 percent, at best, when it should be double that. We see these growing, non-performing bank loans, almost $2 trillion in Europe, the worst in Italy with about $400 billion. We see the same thing in Japan and in China. We’re becoming more systemically fragile financially because of this shift to financial speculation. In this July 5, 2012 file photo President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi speaks during a news conference in Frankfurt, central Germany. (AP Photo/dapd, Mario Vedder, File)
MintPress: What is your outlook for the eurozone economy and the difficulties that it is currently facing?
JR: The European banking system has never fully recovered from the 2008-2009 crash. The ECB is pumping money into the banking system in various ways, long-term refinancing options and all the bailout funds and qualitative easing and negative interest rates and so forth. They’re desperately pumping money into the banking system, but the banks aren’t really lending, at least to those businesses that would reinvest in real assets to create jobs. It’s far more profitable to make money now. Investors make more money from financial speculation than they do from investing long-term and expecting to get a return over 10 to 20 years for investment in a real company that creates real things.
We can see the strains now with the non-performing loans, in particular in Italy. Of course, we know the situation with the non-performing bank loans in Greece. Portugal is in bad shape as well in terms of non-performing loans, and now we see even institutions like [Germany’s] Deutsche Bank and others beginning to feel this strain, and the further impact on the European banking system of the “Brexit” [the departure of Great Britain from the European Union].
The problem is that the private banks are either hoarding the cash, they won’t invest in real growth, or they’re sending their money offshore to emerging markets, or they’re using it, as in the U.S., to buy back stock and pay out dividends and loaning money to companies to do just that. The global economy has changed dramatically in ways that make it much more fragile than ever before. A lot of debt has been building up everywhere: Over $50 trillion in additional debt has occurred since 2009, and when the next recession comes, how are they going to pay that debt?
When times are stable or growing, you can add debt without a great crisis emerging, but when you have a recession or a downturn that’s significant, where are you going to get the money capital to pay the principal and interest on the debt? Then you start seeing defaults and you start seeing financial asset price collapses going on, and now you’re back in 2008-2009. That’s the picture of the global economy. A farmer tries to protect himself as he clashes with a riot policeman during an anti-government protest at central Syntagma square in Athens, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2015. Greek farmers protesting over planned tax and pension reforms demanded by the country’s bailout creditors have clashed outside parliament with police, who used tear gas to disperse them. (AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis)
MPN: What would be the steps for Greece to follow, in your view, in order to escape the spiral of economic depression and austerity?
JR: Syriza made it clear, when it came into power, that it was not in favor of “Grexit” [a Greek departure from the eurozone], and it has always maintained that position. An unprepared, “we’re leaving the eurozone and the euro” kind of decision would cause a collapse of values, particularly among those who have investments in some savings in Greece. To some extent, Syriza was caught between a rock and a hard place here. They couldn’t or didn’t want to advocate an exit, and at least those who had investments didn’t want it because of the potential effect on their investments. The broader Greek populace thinks, still, that to be European you have to be in the eurozone. That’s a big mistake.
I think what Greece and Syriza should have done is to create a parallel currency and to take over its banking system. In other words, make the banking system truly independent, including the Greek central bank, and if that was not possible, bypass the Greek central bank and set up a central banking function in the finance ministry, as the U.S. has done at different times. Create a parallel currency, and policies and programs to get people to convert their euros into the parallel currency. Maybe declare that henceforth all taxes to the Greek government will be paid with the parallel currency, and that means that people would then trade in their euros for the parallel currency to pay their taxes.
Then tell the troika [the EC, the ECB, and the IMF — collectively, Greece’s lenders] that we’re going to pay you in your euros, but if we run out of euros here as a result of the conversion, well, tough luck, we don’t have a way of paying you, let’s negotiate a final deal where you expunge some of it and we pay you off and we go our separate ways. Of course, you would have to create significant capital flow controls, which has always been a problem every time there’s been a crisis; the money flows out of Greece. Take the economy out of the control of the troika without a formal exit.
That could have been done, but for some reason Syriza and its finance advisers either didn’t want to do that or didn’t know how to do that.
MPN: Arguments that have been heard against a parallel currency include the claim that the existence of two currencies would create a situation where there would be “haves” and “have nots” — between those who would hold a stronger, hard currency, compared to those holding a weaker, devalued currency. How do you respond to this?
JR: There are policies and approaches you can take that entice and require people to convert their euros into the new currency. That would raise the demand and therefore the value, the price of the new currency. If you just had the currency and you didn’t have this forced trade-in, then of course you would have “haves” and “have nots,” the new currency would collapse, and pretty soon no one would want to use it. But, for example, saying that taxes could only be paid with the new currency, would force people who had corporations and businesses and so forth to purchase the new currency with the euro. It would undermine the value of the euro in Greece and it would raise the value of the new currency in Greece as well. That might set off a parallel elsewhere in the eurozone with other countries thinking the same thing, which would undermine the value of the euro and put the squeeze on the troika for once. Greece never put the squeeze on the troika, it was just the opposite in all of these negotiations that occurred, they never really hurt the troika in negotiations, and that’s the only way you prevail in negotiations. You’ve got to make it unpleasant for the opposition. Syriza never did that, they played along and made concession after concession.
Syriza thought that their example would strike a spark elsewhere in Europe of other social democratic forces and governments. They thought that they would get the rest of the social democracies behind them and together they would reform the eurozone. That was a fiction, a fantasy thought on the part of Alexis Tsipras and others, but that was the core of their whole strategy. European social democracy is a dying force, and that’s why you see the growth on the fringes, both to the right and the left.
Tsipras and [former Greek finance minister] Yanis Varoufakis’ problem was that they thought they could get all these elements behind them and that together they would have enough weight to force Schauble and other finance ministers to make concessions. Well, Schauble and the other ministers, the “German faction,” as I call it, within the finance ministers’ council in the EC, remained dominant. At every step along the way, whenever Syriza and its few allies tried to make a compromise where some concessions were made to them, the German faction squelched it. We saw that, for example, at the very end, when [Greece held] the referendum in July 2015. Greece held the vote, and the vote said “go back and negotiate a better deal for us,” and what did Tsipras do? He totally caved in to the Schauble faction, and then the Schauble faction said, “The offer we made last week is now off the table, you’re going to have to accept an even worse one.” So they put the screws to Syriza, and Syriza looked to its allies in the EC, and they totally caved in as well. Things just got worse and worse until you had the final [austerity] agreement on August 20, 2015.
It was a step-by-step retreat from [Syriza’s election in] January 2015, because Syriza had the wrong strategy and was not engaged in certain necessary tactics. Of course, the troika itself had a lot of cards to play. It would have been an uphill fight for Syriza. The time where they might have been able to strike some concessions from the troika was 2012, but New Democracy [the center-right party in power at the time in Greece] was totally in the pocket of the troika, so that was impossible.
[This past spring], the IMF and the troika were worried about “Brexit” and what impact that might have on renewing “Grexit.” So they put the screws to Greece again, raised the debt even more, austerity even more, and I think another round of that is coming, because the IMF wants out of the troika deal. We’ll see what happens at the IMF meeting, but they haven’t endorsed even the 2015 agreement because they know it’s unsustainable. I think the IMF is maneuvering to have the EC to buy its portion of the debt, and once that happens, the EC will demand even more austerity from Greece. President of France Francois Hollande, U.S. President Barack Obama, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel attend the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) meeting at the G20 the G-20 leaders summit in Brisbane, Australia, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014.
MPN: In the event that a parallel currency is implemented and steps are taken to maintain or strengthen its value, could that be a prelude to a switch to a national, domestic currency?
JR: Yes. At some point, one currency will become dominant. You can’t have two equal currencies like that. Another advantage of the new currency is that it will start out at less value than the euro, and that will be used as the trading currency. That will stimulate Greek exports to elsewhere, outside the eurozone.
Part of the problem is that the periphery in Europe is so dependent on exports and imports to Germany and the north, that it can’t really engage in its own independent export strategy without cutting wages. Throughout Europe, you have what’s called “internal devaluation,” when you are stuck with a currency and someone else’s central bank, the ECB and the euro. You can’t really engage in independent monetary policy to stimulate your economy and you can’t engage in lowering your currency in order to gain some advantage in exports. You’re stuck, and only the most powerful country that’s most efficient and has the lowest costs is able to take advantage of global exports, and that’s Germany. The weaker economies of the periphery will always be at a disadvantage to Germany when it comes to trying to push their exports anywhere else outside the eurozone.
That’s the lesson. The lesson is that you’ve got a 1999 agreement in which you have this quasi-central bank, the ECB, and you have [the euro], and that arrangement significantly benefits the most efficient, low-cost producer, which is Germany, at the expense of the periphery. Until you have a true central bank and fiscal union to some extent, that will pump the money into the periphery to help it grow when it doesn’t, you will always have the situation you have in Europe right now.
Compare that to the U.S., where there’s a fiscal union, so that if certain states have economic problems … the federal government can pump money into those specific locations. If you don’t have a true federal government and fiscal union, you can’t do that, and if your central bank is dominated by the largest economy — Germany — even the monetary policy has no effect. And if it’s a single currency, it’s to the advantage of the stronger economy at the disadvantage of the weaker.
The eurozone economy is structured to emphasize the growth of the strongest economies at the expense of the weaker, and that’s not going to change. It’s built into the eurozone. You cannot create a currency union and a customs union without a true banking union and fiscal union. More and more countries in the eurozone are beginning to come to that conclusion, but it was foreordained. Economists knew this from the beginning, and that’s the tragedy. Greece has tied its tail to the eurozone, dominated by Germany, and it can never get out of this situation as long as Germany dominates the institutions, which it does, because the whole arrangement is great for Germany. A protesters carries a protest sign during a rally prior to the opening of the new European Central Bank (ECB) headquarter in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, March 18, 2015. At least four police cars were set alight and two officers injured Wednesday as authorities confronted violent anti-austerity protesters ahead of the inauguration ceremony for the European Central Bank’s new headquarters (AP Photo/dpa, Arne Dedert)
MPN: Tell us about your most recent book, “Looting Greece.”
JR: It’s really a case study of the consequences of financialization and globalization and integration. I argue that there is this phenomenon of the smaller economies being tied into the larger economies through free trade agreements, which lead to currency unions, which lead to banking unions, and then you’ve got a situation like Greece and the euro periphery and the problems associated with that.
The book also takes a historical look at the origins of the Greek debt, that starts in 1999 with the [creation of the] eurozone, the adoption of the euro by Greece in 2002 and the consequences of that, how the debt developed, first in the private sector because of German export domination and then conversion of the private debt in 2008-2009 to the public debt, and then the collapse of 2008-2009, which added to the government debt. Then you had the 2012 agreement where the private sector was bailed out, and that added more debt, and then 2015 and so forth. All this is described in detail in the early chapters, and then most of the book is a step-by-step look at the negotiations between Syriza and the troika, from [Syriza’s January 2015 election] through the spring of 2016, and what were the strategic and tactical errors of Syriza and the strategic and tactical moves by the troika which enabled it to prevail.
At the end, [the book discusses] how this is a form of a new emerging financial and wealth extraction from smaller economies by the larger economies, because of the globalization and integration arrangement that exists, the emergence of financial extraction and financial exploitation, and how central banks are feeding that all. This will lead to my next book, which is about global central banks and the problems they’ve created as we move to another crisis, which I think is coming in the next five years. Demonstrators dressed as clowns pass by a burning police car Wednesday, March 18, 2015 in Frankfurt, Germany. Blockupy activists try to blockade the new headquarters of the ECB to protest against government austerity and capitalism. (AP Photo/Michael Probst) Be Sociable, Share! | 1real |
Top First Amendment Lawyer Makes MIND-BLOWING Suggestion To Media: Sue Trump (TWEET) | The election of reality television star Donald Trump has people all over the world responding in various ways. Some of us are in total shock, despair and disbelief, and some of us are finding creative ways to resist this presidency. First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams is amongst those raising eyebrows with an unprecedented suggestion for Americans.On Wednesday night, during a dinner hosted by the Media Law Resource Center, the top lawyer made a suggestion that shocked everyone. First, he called Trump the greatest threat to the First Amendment since the passage of the Sedition Act of 1798. And then he surprised everyone again when he suggested that reporters should think about suing Trump.When Abrams, who is the most well-known First Amendment lawyer in the country, was asked for clarification, he said: It s seems to be that in light of the attacks made by then-Candidate Trump against the press on a continuing basis his preventing certain journalists from even attending his rallies as part of the press corps because he disapproved for their writing, and his public comments about wanting to loosen American libel law the press ought to be thinking broadly about how to defend itself if his Administration turns out to be as antagonistic to the press as may be the case. Abrams also cited libel law, and suggested that Trump be sued by the media for defamation. Abrams warned the press that it should be trying to protect itself, as Trump has threatened several times to prevent the media from speaking negatively about him. It may well be necessary to think outside the box in response to a deliberately repressive administration. It s because the level of hostility to the press, and perhaps the willingness to limit or punish press criticism may reach a new height in this administration. Although Abrams mentioned that this would be a first for American journalists, maybe it s time that changed. The press is used to defending libel cases. That s a good part to what I ve done in my career. So as to protect free speech and free expression as much as possible. I m not seeking to move away from that. My plea is to bear in mind that one of the potential weapons is that when anyone president or shoemaker defames an entity, and speaks falsely and maliciously, one of the possible responses is to bring a libel suit. Trump has spent days on Twitter bashing the media and condemning journalists for speaking the truth about him. Even after the election, Trump has continued to criticize the media for doing its job. Just days after winning the election, Trump was back at it again: TwitterFeatured image via Joe Raedle / Getty Images | 1real |
DANIEL HANNAN Tells “The Generation Of The Safe Spaces” To Get Over Themselves [Video] | 1real | |
KATHY GRIFFIN Lawyers Up with Ridiculous Claim Against the Trump Family | Kathy Griffin is now digging herself a deeper hole. She s hired a high profile attorney because she s now claiming to be the victim after she pulled a horrific stunt that shocked people on both sides of the aisle. The word is that Griffin is saying the Trump family bullied her! If you ever wondered how low victimhood can go this could be it. This woman did something that traumatized the Trump family but is now claiming SHE S THE VICTIM???Lisa Bloom s twitter feed is full of extreme left tweets and claims about Barron Trump that are outrageous! She s a total lefty who s in this for the same reason Griffin is flailing around like she was just bullied LIBERALISM REALLY IS A MENTAL DISORDER!Proud to announce that I represent Kathy Griffin. We will be holding a press conference tomorrow morning. Here s the details. pic.twitter.com/1FejPNGzoV Lisa Bloom (@LisaBloom) June 2, 2017Lisa Bloom is Gloria Alred s daughter! | 1real |
Ireland Doesn’t Want Apple’s Back Taxes, but the Irish Aren’t So Sure - The New York Times | CORK, Ireland — When European officials ordered Ireland to collect a record $14. 5 billion in back taxes from Apple, Kieran O’Connell drew up a wish list for spending the money. A public social worker who deals with youth, Mr. O’Connell has faced drastic cuts since the Irish government imposed austerity measures six years ago during a financial crisis. His salary was frozen and his pension taxed. With his agency’s budget shrunk 30 percent, he hasn’t been able to replace staff, keep up with the demand for addiction and retraining programs or accommodate all the homeless teenagers looking for shelter. “You could invest it in treatment centers, detox beds and community care,” said Mr. O’Connell, 50, who works in this southern Irish city, where Apple has had its European headquarters for more than 35 years. But Ireland doesn’t want Apple’s billions. Instead, the Irish government is appealing Europe’s tax ruling, a move that is exposing a rift in a country still feeling the aftershocks from years of harsh cutbacks. The Irish government’s defense is a mixture of financial realpolitik, national pride and damage limitation. The European Union’s decision takes direct aim at some of the country’s generous tax policies, calling them illegal incentives in Apple’s case. Local lawmakers, in part, worry that taking the tech giant’s billions could scare off other multinationals from investing in Ireland just as other countries vie to entice them. Many people across the country are also upset that European officials are meddling with the country’s tax policies. Apple, which is also appealing, is taking the same stand, calling the case “politically motivated. ” But it is a big payday to forgo, prompting criticism from lawmakers, government workers and even some local fans of Apple. European officials calculate that Apple’s tax bill may rise to $21. 3 billion when interest is included. The money would go a long way toward funding hospitals, schools and other social programs. At the height of austerity, Ireland cut government salaries by percentages, halted investment in public works and introduced a series of new taxes. In Cork, unemployment still hovers around 8 percent, or roughly the national average, after reaching highs of about 15 percent. Many young people still must emigrate in search of jobs. “That money could create at least 100, 000 jobs,” said Mick Barry, a Cork lawmaker from the Alliance, a small political party. “It would have a transformative effect. ” This tug of war over Apple’s money is part of a broader identity crisis in Ireland since the downturn. Much of the country’s economic growth has been tied to attracting international companies through low taxes and flexible working conditions. Almost 200, 000 Irish workers, or roughly 10 percent of the total work force, are now employed by overseas companies, according to government statistics. And Ireland is hoping to entice even more. Countries around the region are lining up to woo companies thinking about leaving Britain after it voted in June to leave the European Union. While the Irish are eager for the jobs offered by international companies, years of are highlighting the yawning inequalities of policies that allow the world’s richest companies to sidestep billions in taxes. The improving economy only adds to the debate. Ireland has roared back from recession, but much of the recent growth is related to financial maneuvering and not longstanding improvements in the domestic economy. “A lot of people don’t have a problem with government’s appeal, but where were they during the financial crisis when Irish workers could have done with the same help?” said Declan Connolly, 39, an information technology worker for Cork’s local government. Almost a third of his colleagues have either been let go or not been replaced when they retired. Extra taxes on his income and pension have left him with roughly 10 percent less cash in his pocket. “The Irish government never did do as much for us as they are now doing for Apple,” Mr. Connolly added. Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, has been quick to defend the company’s tax practices. “When you’re accused of doing something that is so foreign to your values, it brings out outrage in you,” he said in an interview with the Irish broadcaster RTE. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the case. Cork, with a population of about 125, 000, is a contradictory blend of Silicon Valley chic and austerity. A Starbucks in a refurbished building on the banks of the River Lee, which meanders though the city center, attracts a techie crowd of millennials, speaking languages as varied as Chinese and Czech. stores like Tommy Hilfiger line the main thoroughfare, and luxury sedans carry tech and pharmaceutical executives to meetings. Yet only a few blocks away, where street stall vendors once sold fruit and vegetables, pawnshops and mostly empty casinos dot the streets. Posters at a government agency offer tips on how to deal with spiraling personal debt. A longtime port town, Cork in recent decades has made itself an attractive hub for multinationals. Companies can tap into a steady stream of graduates from the local university, along with lucrative tax breaks on any research and development carried out in the city. Rents are roughly half those in Dublin. Apple was at the leading edge of this movement, putting down roots in the early 1980s, when the company was a mere minnow in the tech world. Three decades on, Cork’s suburbs are littered with newly built office parks, where buildings are emblazoned with logos from some of the world’s largest companies, like Dell Technologies, Intel and Eli Lilly and Company. Apple, with its fortresslike compound, is one of the area’s largest employers. Its army of over 5, 000 workers has been a boon for the local economy, pumping in millions of dollars through income tax, rents and spending at fashionable restaurants and luxury stores. When Apple arrived, its workers mostly assembled computers and other devices. But as labor costs sent production to Asia, the company’s Cork offices have now switched gears, mostly providing global customer and sales support. “Cork and Apple have stuck together through thick and thin,” said Des Cahill, the city’s mayor, who will meet company executives in San Francisco this week as part of an annual trade visit to drum up new investment. “We’re like an old married couple. ” Just a few minutes’ walk from Apple’s main campus, Cork shows a different side. Austere concrete government housing stands crumbling in the sun. And social workers say many local residents stand little chance of landing jobs at Apple, mostly because of a lack of skills. In Cork’s poorest neighborhoods, austerity has meant layoffs, economic uncertainty and often little support. The number of people living on the streets jumped to 345 last year compared with just 38 in 2011, according to Cork Simon, a local homeless charity. The city’s annual budget has been cut by 20 percent, to $170 million, over the same period. For Charlie Harrington, a paramedic, the Apple tax standoff comes down to fairness. Like most people in Cork, Mr. Harrington, 53, said international companies — and the jobs they created — were more than welcome in the city. But he doesn’t think tax rules are equally applied. When he recently refused to pay a new property tax, authorities took the money directly from his paycheck. If the government was so quick to penalize his tax avoidance, Mr. Harrington asked, then how could it protect Apple? “If the big guys don’t pay and the government helps them, then everyone else will ask why we are paying too,” he said over a cup of tea in a living room decorated with family photos. “They owe the money, so they should just pay it. ” | 0fake |
Trump Asks O’Reilly, ‘Do you think our country is so innocent?’ After Pundit calls Putin ‘a killer’ | 21st Century Wire says Regardless of what one thinks of Donald Trump, it must be tempting for most people to admit that it is refreshing to see a US President admit that the US isn t as innocent as some pundits and consumers of mainstream news might think.In an interview aired before the Super Bowl, FOX News host Bill O Reilly challenged President Trump s comments about working with Russia in the fight against ISIS. In doing so O Reilly called Putin a killer. Trump shrugged off the comment by saying, There are a lot of killers. We ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country is so innocent? RT reports further on the interview below RTSeemingly surprised, O Reilly goes on to ask him why. He is the leader of his country. I say it s better to get along with Russia than not, and if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS which is a major fight and the Islamic terrorism all over the world, that s a good thing, Trump answered. Will I get along with him? I have no idea. O Reilly then challenged Trump, calling the Russian president a killer. Trump shrugged the comment off, saying: There are a lot of killers. We ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country is so innocent? It is not the first time that Trump has made such comments when journalists question his stance regarding the Russian leader.At the end of 2015, the host of MSNBC s Morning Joe told Trump that Putin kills journalists, to which the unfazed then-presidential candidate replied, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe. I ve always felt fine about Putin. He s a strong leader. He s a powerful leader, Trump added.At the end of January, Putin and Trump held their first official phone call, which, according to the Kremlin, was good and constructive. Over the past years, the lack of mutual respect became the main reason for the deterioration of relations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added.Another important thing is that Washington is prepared for dialogue, the spokesman concluded. This is what President Putin called for rather consistently but where unfortunately he did not see reciprocity over the past years, Peskov said.Earlier in January, however, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized that the first meeting between Putin and Trump may happen in months to come, not in a matter of weeks. Peskov also said, it is maybe the biggest mistake on the part of Western analysts to think that Trump is our man. He is an American man. Former Deputy Speaker of the Belgian Parliament Lode Vanoost told RT that it is way too early to be overly optimistic about Trump. To me, he remains as unpredictable and unreliable as he was before. We didn t see the full interview yet, and the follow-up questions that came after this very astonishing remark. Basically, what Trump is doing is he is applying the same moral principles to the US as he applies to other countries. That is indeed without precedent in US political culture. Also, he expressed concern over forces that could interfere with Trump s mending ties with Russia Continue this report at RTREAD MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Kerry’s Lunacy: ‘US Would Be Justified Shooting Down Unarmed Russian Jets’ | 21st Century Wire says As 21WIRE reported yesterday, imperial bureaucrats in Washington and their court scribes in the mainstream media propaganda industry continue the charade of the Roman mindset, believing that the US has eminent domain over the entire planet and all must kneel in the presence of old glory.It s statements like this that indicate how with each passing day, NATO is fast becoming a defunct organization.As he hopelessly clings to his outdated Cold War script, Bonesman and US Secretary of State John Kerry continues to be completely detached from reality Jason Ditz Antiwar.comUS officials are still on about yesterday s incident, in which a pair of unarmed Russian jets flew within 30 feet of a US destroyer in the Baltic Sea, something US officials described as a simulated attack that proved Russia s unprofessional nature.Today, Secretary of State John Kerry declared the flights provocative and insisted the USS Donald Cook would ve been well within its rights to shoot down the planes under the rules of engagement they are placed under.Which is a stunning claim, since the USS Donald Cook is deployed in the peaceful Baltic, off the coast of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, and the US and Russia are not at war. That they have rules of engagement allowing them to unilaterally attack Russian aircraft at all seems unwise.Russian Major General Igor Konashenkov says he is baffled by the US reaction, saying the Russian jets were operating well within their safety guidelines, and that the US freedom of navigation near a Russian naval base does not at all cancel the principle of freedom of flight for Russian aircraft. READ MORE NATO NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire NATO Files | 1real |
Unhinged Ann Coulter Blames ‘Fat Girls’ For Trump Protests | While this election was undeniably (from one side) meaner and more divisive than perhaps ever before, most elections do become mean and divisive, but the winning party usually calls for unity while the losing party licks its wounds.Non-Trump voting Americans are licking their wounds in their constitutionally (for now) protected way, by protesting. The media, of course, generally only reports on the worst of the protesters, while less attention has been paid to the rising violence and hate crimes from Trump supporters.Trump had this to say about the protests:Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2016One Trump supporter (and perhaps the worst person in the entire f*cking world) has strong opinions about the protests. Instead of blaming them on the usual suspects, like those who have darker skin, Ann Coulter is blaming the protests on fat girls. Yes, really.Without fat girls, there would be no protests. pic.twitter.com/Qmd7XE0CJC Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) November 10, 2016I guess marching around waving signs is some exercise, but they also need Atkins. pic.twitter.com/ZmQ62nh44n Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) November 10, 2016Fortunately, sanity prevailed, even on Coulter s Twitter feed:. @AnnCoulter My jaw is dropped. HOW ARE YOU THAT EVIL/MEAN/RUDE? May you never have a daughter or even be around children. alison becker (@thealisonbecker) November 11, 2016@Kengine @AnnCoulter I don t support attacking her looks either, just so know evil as she may be. AND SHE IS EVIL. alison becker (@thealisonbecker) November 11, 2016@AnnCoulter WOW this tweet. It must be misery living inside your skin. mariannegarvey (@garveyshuffle) November 11, 2016@MELANIATRUMP looks like your cyber bullying campaign needs to begin NOW @AnnCoulter Sarah Solemani (@Solemani) November 11, 2016@AnnCoulter are you kidding me? What kind of hateful woman are you? Fat shaming people for voicing their opinions. Shame on you. Plastic Martyr (@plasticmartyr) November 11, 2016Trump s basket of deplorable supporters came out in full force to defend their evil queen:@AnnCoulter pic.twitter.com/2VKNYZsNVp ((( )))ZEALOT (@duchess1201) November 10, 2016@AnnCoulter @AlbionAwakes fearful of a trump presidency we may have to grow up & get jobs ? Mr. Big (@gaptooth28) November 10, 2016@gaptooth28 @AlbionAwakes @AnnCoulter JOBS is a four letter word to these people. The Rust Belt wants them but these yahoos forget it UN-Deplorable AB (@on_the_gulf_2) November 10, 2016Trump supporters, listen up, you won. We admit it. We (for the most part) aren t claiming the election was rigged (unless you count the FBI and WikiLeaks), but win in grace you a**holes, not that Trump supporters and especially Coulter have any idea what grace is.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
Families fleeing Syria's Raqqa say air strikes bring heavy toll | RAQQA, Syria (Reuters) - Air raids by U.S. coalition warplanes have intensified in recent days as Kurdish and Arab militias seek to drive surrounded Islamic State militants from their last strongholds in Syria s Raqqa but the toll on civilians has been severe. Hundreds of civilians fled the city on Thursday, many wounded and malnourished after being trapped for months by fighting between Islamic State and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Those who fled said the sheer intensity of the bombardment appeared to have made militants shift their positions, retreat or hide underground, giving civilians a window in which to escape. Abdullah Ali s burns were still raw from an air strike that brought down his building and killed his entire family a week ago in central Raqqa. My wife, mum, dad, all 14 people in my family were killed. Their bodies are trapped under rubble, the 24-year-old said, sitting outside a mosque on Raqqa s outskirts. Ali s neighbor Abdo Hussein said more than 50 people were in the building when the air strike hit. Just a handful survived and 13 bodies had been pulled out, he said. The offensive to drive Islamic State out of Raqqa, its de facto Syrian capital which it seized in 2014, has long outlasted initial predictions by SDF officials who said ahead of a final assault in June that it could take just weeks. The SDF said last week the city could be declared captured in the coming days. There are still several hundred militants in the city and thousands of residents, the coalition says, many of them believed to be held hostage by IS in a hospital and nearby stadium. People had tried to escape before but were shot at by Daesh (Islamic State). I even saw them kill a two-year-old child, Um Moussa, 38, said, sitting inside the mosque. This morning they didn t seem to be around, or weren t firing. My son saw hordes of people leaving so we decided to go for it. I d been sleeping fully dressed we were ready to flee at the first chance, she said, wearing black robes and a face veil required under Islamic State s strict laws. But weakening the militants with air power has come at a high cost in civilian lives, she and others said. Yesterday four entire families were killed in our area. It s strike after strike. All those who escaped on Thursday came from a district near the stadium. They said many buildings had been hit as Islamic State fighters fired from them. Each building has dozens of civilians in it, so of course many have died, said Hussein. Air strikes were precise, often taking out a single building without damaging those next door, but militants often managed to leave before the missiles hit, he said. The coalition says it takes great pains to avoid causing civilian casualties and investigates all reports that it has done so. Residents described miserable living conditions and lack of food, water and medical aid with the remaining areas Islamic State controls completely cut off. Daesh have clinics but it s to treat their fighters, not us, Hussein said. Umm Mousa said she, her husband and eight children had slept in their cellar by night to hide from the bombardment and the militants, but that Islamic State was now deliberately avoiding interaction with residents. They re suspicious, scared, in case any of the civilian population are informers they re keeping their distance a bit now, she said. Local Islamic State fighters have been surrendering in recent weeks, the U.S. coalition and residents say. Outside the mosque, several blindfolded men were brought into an SDF headquarters for questioning. Islamic State foreign fighters are expected to fight to the death, however. The foreigners, those are the hard core, said one escaped resident, Ahmed Faraj. They won t give up. | 0fake |
How the FBI Creates ‘Domestic Terror’ in the United States | 21st Century Wire says This is a bit of an oddity as far as TED talks go Investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson actually delivers a TED presentation which calls out the FBI for being the party responsible for creating the majority of so-called domestic terror and Islamic terror busts in the US since 9/11.Just this week, the FBI are boasting of a high level domestic extremist terror bust of a militia group in Kansas, but when you read the fine print of the case, it features several FBI confidential informants, no doubt helping to egg-on and steer their prey into a preconceived trap.21WIRE has been saying this for years, and it s refreshing to see what is normally a bland, mainstream talking shop like TED actually allow a speaker to present a real anti-establishment subject like this one.In truth, the FBI s shady record in this area stretched back well before 9/11, when FBI informants (under FBI supervision) helped to organize the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. Despite this, idiotic mainstream media and politicians in the US still claim that the 1993 WTC event was linked to al Qaeda. NOTE: The following speaker Trevor Aaronson claims that both the Boston Bombing and the attempted Times Square car bombing. This statement is very likely to be incorrect. It has already been confirmed that the FBI s lead suspect in Boston, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was being active recruited by the FBI for at least two years prior to the event in question, as well as being associated with a CIA front org called the Jamestown Foundation. Similarly, the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, appeared to have fled to Pakistan with a handler who has connections to the CIA and MI6. Otherwise, we welcome this topic raised by journalist Aaronson.Brasscheck TVGuess who is behind more terrorist incidents in the US than al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and ISIS combined?The FBI and when given the change to set the record straight, they don t dispute it.As law enforcement scams go, this is one of the most reprehensible. The FBI finds mentally ill people, puts ideas into their heads, works up plans for them and then gives them the money to carry them out an then arrests them for terrorist plots.They then declare victory in the war on terror. Domestic anti-terrorism efforts cost $100 billion a year or $1 trillion per decade.And you, your kids and grand kids pay for all this in the form of a reduced standard of living to make sure this useless anti-American scum get nice big paychecks and bloated tax-payer guaranteed pensions for their years of service. Watch:. READ MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Daily Shooter Files | 1real |
CNN Misspells ’Chief’ on Chyron During Segment Ripping Trump for ’Covfefe’ - Breitbart | Wednesday on “Anderson Cooper 360” on CNN during a discussion about President Donald Trump’s apparent errant tweet that had “covfefe” instead of the word coverage. However, during that segment in which network chief political analyst Gloria Borger was critical of Trump, CNN’s chyron had Borger identified as “CNN cheif political analyst. ” Partial transcript as follows: COOPER: Gloria, I mean a lot of people have been enjoying certainly all day on this year. You were reporting yesterday it was interesting though that Pres. Trump based on sources you talked to people who talked to the president say that he’s just kind of angry, not trusting people around him, not happy with much of anyone around him. Does this tweet figure into that the? GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it kind of does, Anderson. I mean imagine him home alone at the White House, it’s a midnight, and he’s tweeting about his negative press coverage. And, clearly, he’s something that he is obsessing about constantly, and even at midnight, and he is — and then, I don’t know why he ended the tweet with covfefe, but he gave up essentially. But you can imagine him being alone and mad and feeling as nobody to talk to when he has to do his own press. And so he started but then he stopped in the middle of it. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 0fake |
Ann Coulter: Establishment Targets Stephen Miller, the ‘Brilliant and Patriotic Genius’ Behind Trump | On Friday’s Breitbart News Daily, author Ann Coulter praised the cadre of sharp advisers and feisty defenders assembled around President Donald Trump and said, “We need more of them. ”[“I mean, there are a hundred thousand on the other side,” she noted. She predicted President Trump would not get any pushback — and probably not the credit he will deserve — for bringing jobs back. “When he calls these companies and harangues them and makes them build their plants in America, makes them invest in America, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, they’re not going to come out and denounce Trump. They’ll say, ‘Oh, it was just a hundred thousand jobs. It was just three thousand jobs.’ Okay, if that’s your best argument, no problem. ” But when it comes to issues like immigration, Coulter predicted “every single entity” would strike out at Trump, and he’ll need stalwart political fighters to man the battlements. “The media and the Democrats most of all because, like I say, this is life or death for them, and idiot Republicans who seem to think that we owe Somalis, Guatemalans, and Mexicans for the legacy of slavery, it’s the damndest thing,” she remarked, surveying the forces that will line up against Trump on immigration reform. As an example of furious pushback, SiriusXM host Alex Marlow described MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, speaking as the voice of the centrist establishment, “going on a tear” against Marlow’s longtime friend Stephen Miller, who now serves as one of President Trump’s advisers. He characterized the attack on Miller as “dirty and dishonest. ” “I will give our opposition credit: they have figured out the most powerful nerve center, besides Trump himself, within the Trump White House,” Coulter said. “Yeah, it would be great for them to take out Trump. This is when we ought to be throwing a party for Stephen Miller and saying, ‘Congratulations! They can’t call you dumb they realize you’re a very important component. ’” “He’s brilliant,” she said of Miller. “You know, what I would like to do is go back to when you and he were growing up in L. A. and I don’t know, get ahold of the soil conditions or the water or something. The two of you — oh, my gosh! So patriotic, so smart. You love your country. ” “I was describing Steve Miller to some reporter recently. I was on a plane at the time, so I was writing out adjectives, and at the end of the sentence, I said, ‘I’m not just listing adjectives I’m actually pausing and thinking about each one. But the main ones are brilliant and patriotic,’” she recalled. “The same with you,” she told Marlow. “And to have that in these young kids, out of all places, Los Angeles! And then a few years later — well, I won’t even say her name, otherwise, she’ll just start being attacked, the opposition will figure out the other person they need to take out of the Trump White House. ” “But oh, my gosh. Thank God — not taking the Lord’s name in vain I mean it literally — that Stephen Miller is on our side,” Coulter said. Marlow proposed that Miller’s effectiveness at moving the “ Trumpian agenda” as the reason he has been taking so much fire, even when his critics cannot pinpoint anything he did wrong. “Yes, he’s very, very bright,” Coulter agreed. “It always struck me, especially kids from Los Angeles, the very epitome of coastal elites, how seriously and genuinely Stephen Miller cared about Americans. He’s such a perfect fit for Trump. It would just casually come up in conversation. It was driving him crazy that they were being screwed over. ” She said she did not see the Joe Scarborough rant against Miller herself but had received many emails about it. “I didn’t even know what it was about at first because they were just blistering, Tourette’ emails about how they were never going to watch Morning Joe again,” she said. “I don’t really understand it, other than I gather the opposition has figured out, ‘Danger, danger, person who loves America! ’” “I probably don’t need to worry because every time I do worry about something on Donald Trump’s behalf, it turns out I didn’t need to worry it’s Trump,” Coulter said. “But you know, there is the White House bubble. I was just thinking, I travel a lot, I know a lot of people, and a lot of people from different walks of life. Just this week, I’ve talked to a Hollywood producer, and a union executive, and lots of cab drivers in New York City, Los Angeles, and so on, an actress, a Broadway actress and singer — okay, I don’t need to list them all. But it’s been amazing to me how popular the the ban is, and how popular Donald Trump is, and in particular with — I’m not a liberal I don’t think immigrants’ opinions are more important than American opinions, but it’s interesting because it’s contrary to the media narrative. Lots of immigrants in this country [are] wild about Trump, wild about the Muslim ban. ” “I mean, out there in the middle of the country, he is more beloved than he was the day he was inaugurated. And, by the way, got a larger crowd than Obama. I don’t know if you’ve written much about that, but I have the briefing book. It was a much bigger crowd, and we should probably spend the rest of the radio interview allowing me to prove that. But I kind of think he needs a rally in Washington or someplace. Go out to America,” she advised. Ann Coulter is the author of numerous books, most recently In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 0fake |
Trans-Atlantic data talks targeted by U.S. Republicans at 11th hour | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. Senate Republican took a swipe on Wednesday at an effort to forge a new deal on the movement of electronic data between the United States and Europe, such as Facebook user information, but it was unclear if he had jeopardized the unfinished pact. Seen as crucial to preserving the free flow of data across the Atlantic, an issue for thousands of companies, the Safe Harbor data-transfer agreement being negotiated in Brussels is days away from an important deadline. Amid growing concerns in Europe about spying by U.S. authorities on Internet data, a previous agreement was invalidated in October 2015 by an EU court. The new agreement would replace that pact. The U.S. Senate is debating related legislation, the Judicial Redress Act, and Senator John Cornyn of Texas told Reuters in an interview he would try to amend that legislation. “I’m for doing what’s in America’s best interests, not necessarily the interests of the European Union,” said Cornyn, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican. “I’m going to make sure ... that we don’t just try to do something to help them out and we don’t protect our interests.” The Act would allow citizens of U.S. allies in Europe to sue over data privacy in the United States. It will be considered on Thursday in a Senate committee, an aide said. It not seen as crucial to securing a new Safe Harbor deal, but its passage would send a signal of good faith to negotiators in Brussels as they scramble to meet a deadline, European officials and technology trade groups said. That message could be upended by amendments from Cornyn and Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah. One would limit the ability to sue in U.S. courts to citizens of countries already in an international data deal with the United States, such as Safe Harbor, sources familiar with the language said. Another possible amendment would require the U.S. attorney general to certify that participating countries do not have policies that impede U.S. national security. Thousands of firms, such as Google and Microsoft, relied on the 15-year-old Safe Harbor for freely transferring trans-Atlantic data. EU data protection authorities gave negotiators until the end of January to strike a new deal before potentially moving forward with lawsuits. “Time is not on our side,” Justin Antonipillai, a Commerce Department official, said at a conference in Washington this week. | 0fake |
Radio Derb transcript for October 29th is up: The arrogance of power, Etc | 1real | |
Macri ally gains ground in Argentina Senate election against Fernandez | BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine President Mauricio Macri s favored candidate is gaining ground against former populist leader Cristina Fernandez in a closely watched Senate race in the country s largest province of Buenos Aires, sources from both parties and two analysts said. Macri s former Education Minister Esteban Bullrich of his Let s Change coalition appears to have reversed the trend since last month when Fernandez narrowly beat him by 0.08 percentage points in a nonbinding primary vote. While a second-place finish would still guarantee Fernandez a Senate seat, the number of votes she gets is being closely watched by investors who see the Oct. 22 vote as a gauge of her potential to stage a comeback in the 2019 presidential election. Analyst Ricardo Rouvier has not finished his latest poll but estimated that Bullrich was leading Fernandez by about 3 percentage points in Buenos Aires province, home to nearly 40 percent of Argentine voters. Cristina has a large number of votes, but she is stuck there, she has a ceiling, he said in an interview. Fernandez s 2007 to 2015 presidency saw Latin America s No. 3 economy cut off from international capital markets and several companies nationalized. Fernandez was indicted for corruption last year, though she dismisses the charges as politically motivated. A seat in Congress would give her immunity from arrest though not from trial. We have registered our growth in the polls, said a high-level government source who asked not to be identified. Citizen s Unity, the party Fernandez founded before launching her candidacy in June, confirmed the trend but said Bullrich had a smaller lead. What we have is an advantage of half a percentage point (for Bullrich); we have a tied election again, said a campaign spokesman who declined to be named. A representative for another Argentine pollster, who asked not to be identified because the firm is currently only surveying for private clients, said Bullrich has a four percentage point lead over Fernandez. The polarized show-down between Fernandez, who says Macri s economic austerity has hurt the provincial poor, and Bullrich has largely left out other parties and moderate candidates. Fernandez broke with Peronism, Argentina best-known political movement, for the election and her former Transportation Minister Florencio Randazzo attracted few votes in the primary. Sergio Massa, a presidential candidate in the 2015 election against Macri, finished a distant third behind Fernandez. Seeking to unify the opposition against Bullrich, Fernandez on Monday published a letter on Facebook asking for the support of those who did not vote for her. We hope that the Peronist voters who accompanied proposals such as Randazzo or Massa join this majority, said Jorge Taiana, Fernandez s former foreign minister and senate candidate, in an interview. The Citizen s Unity spokesman said the party is in talks with Peronist mayors who support Randazzo to try to convince them to back Fernandez. Four have switched over and the party has high hopes for three more, he said. No matter how many seats his coalition picks up in October - when Argentines elect one-third of the Senate and half the lower house of Congress - Macri will still lack a majority and will need to negotiate tax and other reforms he hopes to pass in the second half of his term. | 0fake |
In The War Against ISIS, Trump Is Already Responsible For More Civilian Deaths Than Obama | I will confess: I belong to a faction of the left that hates war in any context. I turned 15 during the brief skirmish known as Operation Desert Shield, and even then, I wasn t skipping school to go to the mall. I was spray painting anti-war slogans on every concrete surface in my little town I could get away with.Okay, I was going to the mall too.That last part is important because what I mean to convey is that while I have always opposed war in every way, I was also a pretty realistic kid. Even then, I understood that my complaints lodged in Krylon on the side of a bridge were mostly meaningless. In that context, I approach The Left who are even further to the left than me: Yes, we are embroiled in the longest war in the history of the United States in Afghanistan. Yes, we are fighting an invisible War On Terror. Yes, I hate those things. I also understand that the complaints I now lodge in Facebook posts, tweets, and these articles are like colored mists on the bridges and walls of war.In the end, the fury of war can only be mitigated by absolutely minimizing the innocent victims of it. But how can that be accomplished in a war against ISIS, an enemy that recruits civilians, uses them as human shields and otherwise disregards humanity in the name of jihad?There are those on the left that condemn President Barack Obama for increasing the number of drone strikes initiated by the United States in the Middle East and South Asia. And those on the right simply condemn him for existing. So I will stand with whoever has identified with me so far here and give credit to our 44th President for mitigating the level of civilian deaths in those ongoing wars using tactical precision.I like to think that Barack Obama opposes war in the way that I do: Absolutely, but if it is happening, it must be done in a way that keeps the most civilians safe.By contrast, Donald Trump does not understand war. He certainly does not oppose it. I believe that he sees it only in the abstract: An ongoing effort to win at all costs, like everything in his life. Almost like war is a jacket and hat you put on for the cameras.The numbers bear this theory out. According to Airwars, a UK-based transparency project that has tracked the number of civilians killed since the US-led coalition formed in October 2014 to combat ISIS, there is a disparity between Obama s direction and Trump s that cannot be reconciled any other way:Our minimum estimate of civilians likely killed by Coalition since 2014 is now 5,117 with 55% of deaths occuring under Trump's leadership pic.twitter.com/H8S5Ihwuzb Airwars (@airwars) August 22, 2017During @BarackObama's 29 months at helm of ISIS war we tracked 855 alleged civilian casualty events which likely killed 2298-3398 civilians pic.twitter.com/RUVvcy5zX9 Airwars (@airwars) August 22, 2017In @realDonaldTrump's first 7 months as President, we tracked 1,196 alleged incidents in which we assess at least 2,819-4,529 civilians died pic.twitter.com/pnCzVR5ggb Airwars (@airwars) August 22, 2017Civilian deaths in war cannot be avoided. That is a simple fact. But even if you go back to the New York Times link I provided above ( the number of drone strikes ), you can see that precision can mitigate them. Bush ordered 50 drone strikes which killed 296 terrorists and 195 civilians a 40% civilian casualty rate. Under Obama, the strikes went up, but the casualty rate went down: Ten times as many strikes, more than ten times as many dead terrorists, but less than twice as many civilian casualties. Just over 11%, at the time of that report.Like his presidency, Trump s war is messy. More than half of all civilian deaths in the war against ISIS have occurred in the 7 months since Donald Trump was inaugurated.That s not opposition. That is an embrace of war.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
WATCH: Tucker Carlson Just Heaped Praise On Trump For Looking Directly At The Eclipse | Cult 45 is a name given to former reality show star Donald Trump s devotees who will justify anything he does, even if it s a really dumb thing like staring directly at the eclipse without using protective eyewear. Sean Hannity is part of that cult as is Tucker Carlson. Fox News, with the exception of Shep Smith, has had a collective hard on for our country s amateur president. The world was given a couple of minutes to see the event, helping the masses forget about the chaos Trump has created. The former reality show star also took in the sight.For years, we ve been told that looking directly at an eclipse can blind you. Donald Trump was given that warning yesterday when an aide shouted, Don t look at it! so of course the current occupant of the White House looked directly at the eclipse. Perhaps Trump thought it was a fake eclipse and took it to task. I ll show that obstructionist moon a thing or two! Trump didn t look directly at the eclipse just once, but at least three times.Tucker Carlson, bless his little heart, said he was impressed with Trump for staring directly at the eclipse and potentially damaging his eyes. He looked directly at the sun without any glasses, perhaps the most impressive thing a president has ever done, Carlson said.Watch: He looked directly at the sun without any glasses, perhaps the most impressive thing a president has ever done. ?pic.twitter.com/uv6wYWIlvR Ally Maynard (@missmayn) August 22, 2017Solar retinopathy can be caused by staring at the sun and during a solar eclipse, more people are at risk.Melania and Donald s 11-year-old son, Barron, knew not to look directly at the eclipse without protective eyewear on, but his 71-year-old father did not understand that it could harm his eyesight. 48-year-old Tucker Carlson apparently doesn t get it either.Last week, Carlson blasted the removal of Confederate monuments by launching into a slavery-apologist rant comparing white American slaveholders to native Americans and Plato.Yeaahhh, he s that kind of a guy.Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
13 YR OLD BLACK CONSERVATIVE Hammers #BlackLivesMatter College Activists:”Grow Up!” [Video] | The spoiled brats protesting on colleges campuses across America could benefit from a little common sense advice from 13 year old conservative, CJ Pearson Cj Pearson is running for Chairman of the Georgia Teen Republicans. If you live in Georgia, you might consider supporting him.You can also donate to his #StandwittCJ campaign here: https://rally.org/CJPearson | 1real |
Department of Homeland Security suspends flagging travelers under executive order | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Department of Homeland Security will stop flagging travelers from certain countries targeted by an executive order from President Donald Trump, a spokeswoman said on Saturday, in order to comply with a federal court ruling. The Justice Department intends to file an emergency stay of the order at the earliest possible time, the Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said. | 0fake |
null | I’m glad that I deleted all of my information and profile off of Fakebook and closed my account with them over three months ago !!! They aren’t what they appear to be or promote themselves to be and their censorship is totalitarian ! | 1real |
BREAKING: VP Candidate Mike Pence’s Plane Skids Off Runway, Tears Up Tarmac at NYC Airport… | Share on Twitter
A plane carrying Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence skidded off the runway and tore up the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport in New York City on Thursday night.
The Boeing 737 reportedly “overshot” the runway. There were no reported injuries.
Pence took to Twitter to ensure the nation that he was unharmed. So thankful everyone on our plane is safe. Grateful for our first responders & the concern & prayers of so many. Back on the trail tomorrow! — Mike Pence (@mike_pence) October 28, 2016
The videos and photos of the scene were pretty striking. Clearly, the situation could have turned out much worse. This was the Tarmac when we landed on the @mike_pence plane- torn up concrete pic.twitter.com/hEYodMkord — Elizabeth Landers (@ElizLanders) October 28, 2016 Photo shows Mike Pence's plane after it skidded off the runway at NYC's LaGuardia Airport; no injuries reported. https://t.co/1o6QoRkewr pic.twitter.com/xx02LAm9sg — ABC News (@ABC) October 28, 2016 #BREAKING : VP candidate @mike_pence 's campaign plane slides off rainy runway at LGA in NYC; no one injured https://t.co/ApiI0IFS5x pic.twitter.com/LjlgASGNWA | 1real |
Chernobyl’s Silent Exclusion Zone (Except for the Logging) - The New York Times | PRIPYAT, Ukraine — The road through the forest, abandoned, is at times barely discernible, covered with the debris of fallen tree limbs, vines, leaves and moss pushing up through cracks in the crumbling asphalt. The moss is best avoided, says our guide, Artur N. Kalmykov, a young Ukrainian who has made a hobby of coming here to the exclusion zone surrounding the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, set aside in perpetuity after the catastrophe in 1986. It can be radioactive, having carried buried radiation to the surface as it grew. Above all, he says, watch out for windblown dust, which could well be laced with deadly plutonium. Despite the dangers — which are actually minimal these days, except when the wind is howling — and the risk of arrest, Mr. Kalmykov is at home here. “In Kiev my head is full,” he said. “Here I can relax. I could hang out in Kiev. But this is more interesting. ” What Mr. Kalmykov and fellow unofficial explorers of the Chernobyl zone, members of a peculiar subculture who are in their 20s and call themselves “the stalkers,” have found is more interesting still: vast tracts of in the ostensibly protected forest. Mr. Kalmykov, a computer programmer who discovered the areas while exploring the zone on his weekends, took his findings to Stop Corruption, one of the civil society groups that popped up in Ukraine after the Maidan revolution two years ago, events supposed to usher in a new era of clean government in Ukraine. And yet on Ukraine’s dirtiest patch of land, Stop Corruption says, based on the stalkers’ evidence, the dealings of the bureaucrats who manage the area are flourishing as always. Distracted by the 30th anniversary of the catastrophe on April 26 and the general turmoil in Ukraine, the group says, the Exclusion Zone Management Agency has turned a blind eye to the Chernobyl logging. The Zone of Alienation, as it is also known, is a rough circle with an radius, fenced off with barbed wire. Access is strictly controlled, so that delegations and guided tours typically travel a few fixed routes. Outside those areas frequented by tourists, Stop Corruption said, under the guise of salvage logging of trees killed in wildfires, healthy pines are being felled in great numbers for sale in Ukraine and Romania, from where the timber may be resold throughout Europe. “We thought these incidents were isolated and unimportant, but when we started to investigate, it turned out the problem was gigantic and systemic,” said Vadim V. Vnukov, the group’s head lawyer. Lumber from Chernobyl, while not exactly glowing in the dark, would pose risks to anybody living in a house made from it, Mr. Vnukov said. “There is a clear health risk here,” he said. “We ran into a system worked out over the decades, and under any government, this system of corruption was preserved. ” Today, scientists say, the average radiation level in the zone is about a quarter as harmful to human health as it was in the immediate aftermath of the explosion and fire. A typical reading in the zone is about 100 microsieverts per hour, or comparable to the exposure that an airplane passenger might receive on a flight. But harmful risks lurk. Placed near the moss, for example, a Geiger counter hummed like an electric shaver. “It’s not as dangerous as it seems,” Mr. Kalmykov said with a shrug. “Some people are just radiophobic. ” In an interview in his offices in Kiev, Vitalii V. Petruk, the head of the Exclusion Zone Management Agency, denied that any illegal logging had taken place since he assumed the job in September. But since the revolution, he is the fifth director of the zone, which like the rest of Ukraine has been in a state of flux. Loggers fell burned trees after forest fires, to avoid pest outbreaks, and cut firebreaks and routes for electrical wires, he said. Since 2004, it has been legal in Ukraine to sell timber from the zone if it passes radiological controls. Mr. Petruk is an unabashed advocate of increased commercial activity in the zone, including logging. “How do we turn our shame into our advantage?” he said. His answer is “Zone of Change,” a proposal by his agency for increased logging to feed a steam power plant at the site that he noted would reduce dependence on Russian natural gas. Into this landscape recently, one careful step after another, Mr. Kalmykov pushed deeper into a thicket of vines and fallen branches. (To show reporters sites where he suspected illegal logging activity, Mr. Kalmykov and all in his party obtained permits to visit the zone, in contrast to his usual practice of slipping in to explore surreptitiously.) At an abandoned house on the roadside, with the rhythmic chirp of a Geiger counter in the background and moldy children’s clothes lying about, an eerie sense arose of a sneak preview of the end of the world. The concept of the exclusion zone, an important experiment for the nuclear industry, was to limit, through isolation, the lethality of an accident at the nuclear plant. (Fewer than 200 people stayed here after the evacuation of more than 100, 000.) Radioactive elements degrade at predictable intervals, called that can vary enormously. Particles left in the soil while their tick past harm nobody the average particle at Chernobyl is about 30 years. But logging in a postapocalyptic forest would pose a number of health concerns. Trees, like moss, absorb radiation from the subsoil. Also, churns up soil, stirring radioactive dust and accelerating erosion. At one point along the road, the forest opens to a area of several acres, sliced into healthy pine groves, though near a burned patch. “Look, they didn’t touch the dead trees,” Mr. Kalmykov said, pointing to the still standing, blackened pines. “During the change in government, nobody was paying attention, and people didn’t miss this moment” to make some money, he said of the loggers. “Everybody knows. The necessary people get the necessary money. ” A logger, his sweaty face flecked with dust and sawdust, said he simply cut the trees marked by his bosses at the exclusion zone administration. “I don’t decide,” said the man, who declined to give his name. “They say we don’t need the burned logs. ” Asked if he worried about radiation, he said he did not, as by now the radiation had settled deep into the soil. “We stamp it down so it does not come out,” he said, patting the ground with his boot. “Want to buy some wood?” | 0fake |
State to Block Removal of Migrant Victims of ‘Right Wing’ Crime | A German federal state is considering forbidding the deportation of all migrants who happen to witness, or are victims of, “right wing” crimes when in Germany. [Brandenburg’s state parliament became the first in Germany to offer migrant victims of crime extra rights last year, after a rise in recorded “right wing” attacks. The new measure is being pushed by the Ministry of the Interior. “In addition to consistently preventing and prosecuting criminal offences, special protection of the victims and special care are necessary if the victims are people of foreign origin” proclaimed a decree of the Ministry of the Interior, issued in December 2016. It is argued that new arrivals are uniquely vulnerable, without support networks in Germany, and deportation could make their lives harder. The regional parliament also “decided, among other things, to ask the regional government to make sure that victims of right [wing] violent crimes are offered the possibility of being issued with residence permits and tolerances … ” It is believed this measure could help deter xenophobia and “far right” attacks on migrants, as such activity will only result in more migrants being allowed to stay in Germany. Migrants who commit a crime, or share responsibility for a violent incident when in Germany, will be exempt from the new rule. A resolution issued by the parliament in April 2016, in response to rising numbers of reported “right wing” crime, said “the victims of racist violent acts are migrant women as well as refugees” and argued that “such offences would be particularly difficult if their stay in the Federal Republic is unsecured”. According to the decree, crimes linked to the “right wing” in Brandenburg increased by 23 per cent in 2015 — the year the Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s borders to more than 1 million irregular migrants. According to Die Welt, the populist, migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been critical of the new proposed policy. | 0fake |
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