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World's stateless deserve nationality: UNHCR | GENEVA (Reuters) - An estimated 10 million people worldwide are stateless, including three million officially, a status that deprives them of an identity, rights, and often jobs, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. Muslim Rohingyas in Buddhist-majority Myanmar form the world s biggest stateless minority, with some 600,000 having fled violence and repression since late August and taken refuge in Bangladesh, it said. In a report, This is Our Home - Stateless Minorities and their Search for Citizenship , the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called on governments to end the discriminatory practice by 2024. If you live in this world without a nationality, you are without an identity, you are without documentation, without the rights and entitlements that we take for granted ... having a job, having education, knowing that your child belongs somewhere, Carol Batchelor, director of UNHCR s division of international protection, told a news briefing. UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said 3.2 million people in 75 countries were known to be stateless, having been registered or counted by governments. But the estimated total is 10 million, including large populations in countries including Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Lebanon and Democratic Republic of Congo, he said. Governments should give nationality to people born on their territory if they would otherwise be stateless, and facilitate naturalization for longtime stateless residents, UNHCR says. Other stateless groups many of whom have lived for generations in their homelands include many Syrian Kurds, the Karana of Madagascar, Roma in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the Pemba of Kenya, the report said. We need to ensure that there is not a deliberate, arbitrary exclusion or deprivation of nationality, Batchelor said. Asked whether Rohingya fell into the category of those deliberately excluded and deprived of nationality, Batchelor said: We can only look at the result ... Myanmar has a nationality law. It outlines categories of persons that are considered to be citizens of Myanmar. The Rohingya are not on that list. Some 30,000 stateless people in Thailand have acquired nationality since 2012 and the Makonde, a community of 4,000, became Kenya s 43rd officially recognized tribe last year, the report said. We are seeing reductions in Thailand, in central Asia, in Russia, in Western Africa. But the numbers are not nearly as substantial as they would need to be for us to end statelessness by 2024, said Melanie Khanna, head of UNHCR s statelessness section. | 0fake |
LOL! DEMOCRATS Express Concerns Over Possible Cheating By Democrats In DNC Chair Vote | A progressive group charged Saturday that the Democratic National Committee s reliance on paper ballots in the race for DNC chair raises questions of transparency, tainting the process.The DNC had planned on using both an electronic system, as well as paper ballots, but switched gears minutes before the vote when interim Chair Donna Brazille announced they would rely on the ballots in part because of concerns over spotty internet service.Now there s a party member you can trust the former interim chair Donna Brazille, who secretly passed CNN s debate questions to Hillary Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Committee, pointed to reports that said some DNC members are concerned over blowback they could receive from the Bernie Sanders-aligned forces that are supporting Rep. Keith Ellison if their support for former Labor Secretary Tom Perez became public. Paper ballots instead of visible and accountable voting is something that Debbie Wasserman Shultz would be proud of, Mr. Green said on Twitter, alluding to the former chair, who resigned after hacked emails showed DNC members were biased against Mr. Sanders in the 2016 primary race.The group also highlighted a DNC rule that said secret ballots are not permitted and the results should be shared with the candidate or their campaign in the case that the contest goes beyond the first ballot. Washington Times | 1real |
Trump's attacks could leave him friendless if impeachment comes | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks on Republican senators, an approach he may regret if he is someday impeached and the Senate has to weigh charges against him stemming from an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. More than half of the 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would be central to any proceeding to remove Trump from office, have tangled with the Republican president, including on Thursday when he fired off early-morning tweets. In one Twitter series, Trump called Senator Lindsey Graham “publicity seeking” and said he “just can’t forget his election trouncing” in the 2016 presidential race. Trump also assailed Senator Jeff Flake, another Republican critic, as “a non-factor in the Senate,” adding, “He’s toxic.” Flake and Graham are members of the Judiciary Committee, whose Chairman Chuck Grassley has urged Trump to tone it down. “He should be 100 percent sticking to ideas and forget about personalities,” Grassley said on Friday when pressed on whether Trump might find himself without the friends in Congress he would need to defend himself in an impeachment proceeding. For his part, Grassley said his views would not be colored by past presidential sniping. “Let’s say the House of Representatives impeached the president of the United States. Then I’m a juror,” Grassley said. “The Senate is the jury that decides whether he should be impeached. The jury is supposed to be impartial.” There is little serious talk being heard in Congress about removing Trump from office. Two House Democrats have introduced an article of impeachment alleging obstruction of justice by the president in connection with an ongoing investigation of possible ties between his 2016 campaign and Moscow. But Republicans control the House, as well as the Senate, and the article of impeachment has gained little traction. Under the U.S. Constitution, the House of Representatives can vote to approve an impeachment measure. If that happens, it goes to the Senate, which acts as a jury and weighs the charges in the House measure. A two-thirds Senate vote is needed for conviction. Approval leads to removal from office. Two presidents have been impeached by the House: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Neither was convicted by the Senate. President Richard Nixon, facing almost certain impeachment over the Watergate scandal, resigned in 1974. In the Clinton impeachment fight, the committee was a resource for the full Senate and could play a similar role in any future trial. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Having friends would help any president facing impeachment, said Charles Brain, a White House liaison to Congress during Clinton’s impeachment. Without such friendships, Brain said, lawmakers “can just be quiet,” refusing to share information with the White House and letting attacks on the president gain momentum. Besides Flake and Graham, Trump has had run-ins over various issues before and after his election with Republican Senator Ted Cruz, and other Judiciary Committee members, including Grassley, John Cornyn, Orrin Hatch, Thom Tillis and Ben Sasse. The president has also at times attacked Republican senators not on the committee, including Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to influence the election. Grassley’s committee also is looking into the matter, as are other congressional panels. The Kremlin denies any election interference. Trump has dismissed the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt” and denies any collusion. In the end, Mueller could end up clearing Trump and his aides of any wrongdoing. If not, at least two questions will loom large in a possible impeachment inquiry, said senior fellow Elaine Kamarck of the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution think tank. One would be about the severity of any possible charges. Another, she said, would be “do you have friends, do you have people who believe in you and want to save your presidency?” | 0fake |
Putin Says Election Hacking Accusations are Political Ploys | Putin Says Election Hacking Accusations are Political Ploys October 27, 2016 Putin Says Election Hacking Accusations are Political Ploys
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday American politicians were whipping up hysteria about a mythical Russian threat in the U.S. presidential campaign as a ploy to distract voters from their own failings.
Putin, addressing an audience of foreign policy experts gathered in southern Russia, said he found it hard to believe that anyone seriously thought Moscow was capable of influencing the Nov. 8 election.
The U.S. government has formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations, while Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has accused Republican rival Donald Trump of being a Putin "puppet". Article by Doc Burkhart , Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles Got a news tip? Email us at Help support the ministry of TRUNEWS with your one-time or monthly gift of financial support. DONATE NOW ! DOWNLOAD THE TRUNEWS MOBILE APP! CLICK HERE! Donate Today! Support TRUNEWS to help build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news
We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media Top Stories | 1real |
JUST RELEASED: Horrifying Cell Phone VIDEO From Inside Lavoy Finicum’s Vehicle Shows What REALLY Happened | The Deschutes County Sheriff s Office says the shooting of Lavoy Finicum was justified. Shocking cell phone footage captured from inside the truck of LaVoy Finicum, the 54-year-old leader in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation, shows the moments before and after his death last January. InfowarsAfter watching the video below, do you agree?Here s the video the FBI released following the shooting death of Lavoy Finicum:We learned yesterday that FBI agents involved in the traffic stop that led to the killing of one of the armed occupiers of an Oregon wildlife refuge are under investigation for not disclosing they fired shots that missed Robert LaVoy Finicum, authorities said Tuesday.Oregon State Police troopers fired the three rounds that killed the Arizona rancher during a confrontation on a remote road, law enforcement officials said at a news conference in Bend. | 1real |
WATCH RELATIVES SPEAK OUT After Teen Caught In Robbery Is Shot And Killed: “how he going to get his money to have clothes to go to school?” | The attitudes of the family members defending this thug who violated an innocent woman when he broke into her home is astounding. After eight long years of listening to a President justify why minorities should be able to break laws with no penalties, get in line in front of people who are white or have more income when it comes to college acceptance or employment opportunities, this is the result. Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton will only perpetuate this un-American, entitelment behavior. The family of a teenager who was shot and killed while committing an armed robbery is speaking out today.Seventeen year old Trevon Johnson was shot by a homeowner who came home to check on an alarm at her home. She saw Johnson leaving the home and altercation ensued. During the altercation, Johnson was shot once. He died of his wounds. I don t care if she have her gun license or any of that. That is way beyond the law way beyond, said Johnson s cousin Nautika Harris to local media outlet WFOR. You have to look at it from every child s point of view that was raised in the hood, she said. You have to understand how he going to get his money to have clothes to go to school? You have to look at it from his point-of-view. He was not supposed to die like this. He had a future ahead of him. Trevon had goals he was a funny guy, very big on education, loved learning. Via:Controversial Times | 1real |
Trump’s ICE Thugs Stop Ambulance Taking 10-Year-Old Girl With Cerebral Palsy To Surgery | Donald Trump s patriotic deportation force just saved America from another dangerous criminal rapist and/or drug dealer a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy.Rosamaria Hernandez s mother brought her across the border illegally when she was three months old because she could not afford treatments in Mexico.Obviously, this child represents a grave threat to America, so as she was being transferred from a medical center in Laredo, Texas to a hospital in Corpus Christi at around 2 a.m. Tuesday the ambulance taking her to surgery was stopped by Border Patrol agents.Trump s thugs allowed the ambulance to continue to Driscoll Children s Hospital, where they waited with guns at the ready outside her room until she was released just in case she tried to sell anyone drugs, rape someone, or go on a rampage.Wednesday, she was dumped into a facility for unaccompanied migrant children a rare move when a child already living in the United States is involved. What made this move particularly odd is that Rosamaria was not released to her cousin, a U.S. citizen who was riding in the ambulance with her. The fact that they spent so much time and resources to follow this girl, to treat her like she was the highest-priority criminal that ever walked on this earth the way they re treating her is just beyond what a 10-year-old special needs child should be treated, says Priscilla Martinez, an immigration advocate.But the fact that she has special needs might be why the Trump administration considers her such a high priority. Recently, Trump s education secretary Betsy DeVos rescinded more than 70 documents outlining rights for special needs students attacking those who need our help the most seems to be a hallmark of the Trump klan clan.Every single day, the Trump administration sinks lower and lower. Just when you think they have gone as low as possible, they unearth yet another sub-sub-sub-sub-basement.Featured image via NY Times/Getty Images(pool) | 1real |
Simone Biles Soars, Lifting Another Country With Her - The New York Times | BELIZE CITY, Belize — One o’clock arrived. Relatives gathered at a hotel bar to watch Olympic gymnastics on television. So did the first lady of Belize and 11 contestants in the coming Miss Belize pageant, wearing their sashes and carrying tiny flags. But where was Simone Biles? The women’s individual competition had begun 4, 000 miles away on Thursday afternoon at the Rio Games. Biles, 19, was the heavy American favorite, but there was also anticipation in an unlikely place, the tiny Central American country of Belize, where she holds dual citizenship. Phone calls were made. Television channels were changed. Beauty contestants were perplexed. Still no live gymnastics. Finally, after 30 minutes, the live feed began on Caribbean television. Biles had already performed her vault routine, but the delayed start did not mute the ecstatic cheering that greeted her second gold medal at the Rio Games. There are big stories unfolding in Belize, including a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed gay rights and the cleanup from Hurricane Earl, which churned through last week. But interest in Biles also has resonated here, in the country’s economic capital, as evidenced everywhere from the prime minister’s residence to the shade of a local plum tree, painted purple and gold, where tour guides talk politics and play dominoes. “We are taking all the gold medals she is going to win,” Kim Simplis Barrow, 44, the first lady of Belize, said with a smile. Biles’s connection to Belize is as complex and ultimately elevating as the flips, jumps and windmill spins that have made her the best gymnast of her generation, perhaps ever. She was born in 1997 in Columbus, Ohio, to a mother who struggled with addiction to drugs and alcohol, and to a father who was not part of her life. In 2002, Biles’s birth mother lost custody of her four children, who were placed in foster care and faced the possibility of being scattered by adoption. Instead, Simone, then 6, and her younger sister Adria, then 4, were adopted in 2003 by their maternal grandfather, Ron Biles, and his second wife, Nellie Cayetano Biles, who is from a prominent Belizean family of teachers and nurses and government officials. (Nellie is not Simone’s biological grandmother Simone’s other two biological siblings were adopted by Ron’s older sister.) Before, Ron and Nellie were known to Simone and Adria as Grandpa and Grandma. Now they are Mom and Dad. Nellie’s mother, Evarista Cayetano, was a teacher and an owner of a grocery store. Her father, Silas Cayetano, also began his career as a teacher, then became an official in Belize’s fishing and agricultural cooperatives, and, later, a senator. The original family home, at 118 Neal Penn Road, was made of wood. The family lived upstairs and the store was downstairs. It was a gathering place, where Silas Cayetano held court on weekends, settling neighborhood disputes, telling jokes, spinning stories. “It was community central, especially on Saturdays, when the chickens were fresh,” said Opal Enriquez, a cousin of Simone’s and the director of the Miss Belize pageant. The Cayetano home had opened its doors to the nine Enriquez children, whose family came to Belize City from the southern town of Punta Gorda. Silas Cayetano had skipped high school, worked at a seminary and passed his teacher’s exam at age 19, relatives said. He encouraged his nieces and nephews, as he had his own four children, telling them that education was the most reliable way to escape poverty. “Our uncle set the bar high,” Enriquez said. “Failure was never an option. He embedded in our brains that we were destined for greatness. Simone listened. We weren’t afraid to dream. ” When Ron and Nellie Biles adopted Simone and Adria, they had two sons of their own who were about to graduate from high school and leave for college. The couple wanted to travel. It would not be easy raising two young girls. But the girls needed parents, and adopting them was a “no brainer,” said Nellie, 61. “When you grow up, I firmly believe that you see what goes on in the family, what your father and mother do,” she said. “And you tend to mimic what you see. It’s innate. It wasn’t even a question. ” The extended Biles family is watching Simone compete at the Olympics across two continents and four time zones. Ron and Nellie and a dozen other relatives are in Rio. Others are in Spring, Tex. north of Houston, where the Bileses live and own a gymnastics center. Still more are scattered in Belize, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. “We’re trying to put Belize on the map as much as we can,” Nellie, a retired nurse, said. “Simone is competing for the U. S. and we’re not taking any credit away from that. But the fact that she has dual citizenship, I don’t see why we cannot celebrate her second country also. ” And Belize seems happy to celebrate Biles. Formerly known as British Honduras, it gained its independence only in 1981. Belize has never produced an Olympic champion since it began competing in the Summer Games in 1968. A small contingent of three athletes was sent to Rio to compete with modest ambitions in track and field and judo. During the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Belize did have a big moment, celebrating and claiming three gold medals won in sprinting by the American Marion Jones, whose mother was born here. After winning the 200 meters, Jones held up a Belizean flag. Its coat of arms features two woodcutters, one with light brown skin carrying an ax, the other darker skinned and holding an oar, who symbolize the country’s ethnic diversity, history of slavery and its mahogany industry. Jones’s gesture brought international attention to Belize and widely endeared her to its citizens. The country later named her a sports ambassador. Though Jones’s victories were nullified and her career disgraced by doping and a scheme, which brought a prison sentence of six months, she remains popular and appreciated here. Belize’s national stadium, long being refurbished, is called the Marion Jones Sports Complex. Belize’s relationship with Simone Biles is less entrenched so far, but also less complicated. She is a bubbly teenager who has traveled here regularly to visit and to go fishing and snorkeling on vacation. Last summer, she attended the wedding of her brother here, posed for a newspaper photographer, and was spotted doing back flips off a pier. Upon arriving in Rio, she traded Olympic pins with a Belizean athlete. “Simone said, when she gets married, it’s going to be in Belize,” Nellie Biles said. Ron Biles paused as he sat on a sofa at a hotel near Rio’s Olympic Park on Monday, his 67th birthday. “It’s going to be a while longer,” he said as a group of relatives broke into laughter. “Another 16 years. ” As the Olympics approached, Simone was acknowledged by Belize’s ministry of youth and sports, interviewed on the popular Love FM radio, featured in the country’s newspaper and followed widely on social media. “People are very excited, because she has Belizean parentage, she’s a great athlete and she acknowledges her Belizean roots,” Adele Ramos, the assistant editor of Amandala, Belize’s newspaper, said of Biles. “She is the next best thing for us after Marion Jones. ” Yet some feel conflicted, not about Biles, but about the way Belize, in their view, does not fully support its homegrown athletes. Karen Vernon, the theater director of Belize’s Institute of Creative Arts and the mother of two of the country’s top cyclists, said she was happy for Biles but did not “like the fact that Belize is waiting for her to win to claim her. ” “We need to support our own athletes and artists,” Vernon said. “We have talent here. ” The Cayetano family was not athletic, Nellie Biles said the other day with a laugh, though her father did claim ornately to have been a gymnast and the source of Simone’s versatile skills. “Everybody knows that Nellie’s father was a comedian,” said Florita Avila, 59, a cousin of Simone’s. As a girl, Nellie Biles said she played tennis and did the hop, skip and jump. Ron, her husband, shook his head. “You played hopscotch,” he said. His wife did not play sports but watched them on television, Ron added, before correcting himself and saying, “You didn’t have a television. ” It is a true story, Nellie said. In 1973, at 18, she left Belize to attend nursing school at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Until then, she said, she had never seen a television in person, used a phone or flown on a plane. “It was, needless to say, culture shock,” she said. In 1976, she met Ron, who was stationed at Randolph Air Force Base outside San Antonio. (He is retired from the military and from his career as an air traffic controller.) In 1977, they married, and they have the playful banter of a couple who has been together for 40 years. Was it love at first sight? “No, oh no,” Nellie Biles said. “It was his good luck. ” Ron replied, “She’s still here, isn’t she?” When the adoption of Simone and Adria, now 17, became official in November 2003, the Bileses returned home from meeting with a family judge outside Houston. Nellie told the girls that they could continue to call her and Ron Grandma and Grandpa, or they could call them Mom and Dad. Simone has said that she went upstairs, practiced in the mirror, then came down and said “Mom. ” Nellie remembers Simone running back upstairs, probably giggling because it seemed funny. It was Mom from then on. “I think these girls did more for us than we did for them,” Nellie Biles said. “Simone centralized us as a family. We come together and do things and go places because of Simone. ” While on a field trip, Simone became interested in gymnastics. Her relatives in Belize remember her from those days as “little Simone,” a tiny girl in perpetual motion, a “spring chicken” and “a firecracker. ” And they say she came to possess the same discipline, insistence, confidence and expectation as Nellie, the eldest sibling in her own family, who with three partners came to own 14 nursing homes in Texas before selling them last year and turning her attention to operating a gymnastics center. “She is Nellie’s child all over,” said Felix Enriquez, 47, Opal’s brother, who is scheduled to become the second in command in Belize’s ministry of defense. “A fair but stern personality. Always demanding that things be done in a proper way. A very big thinker. She doesn’t think small. ” Ron and Nellie Biles have lived in their current home in Spring, Tex. for six years. Ron, a native of Cleveland, said he had never been in the pool until he jumped in when the Cavaliers won the N. B. A. title in June, the city’s first major championship since 1964. Would he jump in the Atlantic in Rio if Simone won gold in the women’s individual all around? “I’ll probably just cry,” he said. Nellie said she would watch nervously in the arena, grabbing someone to hold onto. Here, at the hotel bar, there was little tension, only clapping and cheering except for during Simone’s wobble on the balance beam. “I was panicking at that one,” Felix Enriquez said. Not to worry. Biles had a huge lead, which she secured on the floor exercise with elegance, strength and the stunning ability to land like a dart. “Oh my God!” Simplis Barrow, Belize’s first lady, said, putting her hands to her face, pumping her fists, and photo bombing a family picture. “Woooh. ” “She has inspired us all,” Simplis Barrow said. “No matter where you come from, you can succeed. It is all right there in that small package. ” | 0fake |
Lebanon PM Hariri to supporters: 'I'm staying with you' | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri told his supporters on Wednesday he would stay with them, after suspending his resignation in a move that eased a major political crisis. I am staying with you and will continue with you...to be a line of defense for Lebanon, Lebanon s stability and Lebanon s Arabism, he said to hundreds of people gathered outside his house in central Beirut. | 0fake |
Pakistan court issues arrest warrant for finance minister | ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A Pakistani anti-corruption court on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for Finance Minister Ishaq Dar after the veteran politician failed to turn up for several court hearings. The warrant comes at an awkward time for Pakistan, which wants to raise in excess of $1 billion on international debt markets through a Sukuk and a Eurobond in coming months and has been trying to woo international investors. Dar, who has been charged with amassing wealth beyond his known sources of income, has missed three weeks of court hearings conducted by the anti-graft agency the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Judge Mohammad Bashir issued the warrant on the grounds of continued absence from the court, according to a court statement. Dar, who has pleaded not guilty, is receiving medical treatment in London and now faces arrest upon his return to Pakistan. The case has been adjourned until Nov. 21. The charges against Dar followed an investigation into the finances of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him for not declaring a small salary from his son s off-shore company. The finance minister is one of Sharif s closest political allies and Dar s son has married Sharif s daughter. Both men deny any wrongdoing. Dar has rejected growing calls to resign amid his legal woes and a worsening economic outlook for Pakistan, which is battling to stave off a balance of payments crisis due to dwindling foreign currency reserve and a widening current account deficit. Dar was initially lauded for steering Pakistan out of a balance of payments crisis in 2013 and returning the nuclear-armed country toward a higher growth trajectory. But over the past year he has faced criticism for his refusal to allow the rupee to weaken to ease macroeconomic pressures. He has also been accused of eroding the central bank s independence. | 0fake |
Why Fighting Is Good For Men And Boys | What would you do if you saw two boys of 6 years wrestling? Their shirts off, red and sweaty, they have a large group of peers around them, cheering, eyes wide and knuckles white. Would you stop them or give the young scraps some advice? Do you see a violent squabble or boys acting on natural impulses which will better equip them to defend their family and neighbours later in life? The answer you give is, in large part, dependent on your gender; so, the fact that this scenario would make an increasingly large number of men upset is a sign of a collapsing civilization. But, nil desperandum , Western civilization has the solution!
Mere horseplay!
As an early years professional, I saw education academics acknowledging the data—boys need ‘rough and tumble’ play for their mental and physical wellbeing! But they have no way of encouraging this in institutions where boys are immediately reprimanded for making finger-pistols at each other. Without saying it directly, they thought that the majority female teaching staff for younger age ranges were pushing our boys’ natural urge to fight like lion-cubs underground. What’s more, the boys were made to feel bad about themselves and their very nature.
Their solution? They suggested that more men be encouraged to teach younger children and engage in rough play with them. Until the late 1800’s, education was male dominated and boys spent a lot of time with male mentors. But, of course, there has been no effort to bring back that environment. Instead, a compromise between boys being boys and boys being fairy princesses was achieved—playing superheroes.
As though female teachers are going to tone down the disapproval as the boys shoot lasers and magic at each other. The treacherous political class present only feeble attempts to manage the symptoms of our societal masculinity problem; like sticking some tape over the burst pipe of our hemorrhaging testosterone as cultural marxism continues to swing the pick-axe of nth-wave feminism at it. So, it’s high time we took a few swings back.
But, first, we need to teach our lads how to fight. At the age of 6 or 7, Viking children were taught the martial art of Glima. This was not just father and son play-fighting; boys and occasionally girls already wrestle with friends and family up to that age. This was more systematic, a group activity.
The Greeks also taught their boys how to wrestle because our other ancestors could see the big picture. The Hoplites, for example, were individualistic free men of all ages who voluntarily came together to practise combat; this not only strengthened their communities but also allowed these farmers to fend off the Persian Empire. Yet, today, even isolated expressions of violence in computer games are questioned by SJW’s. Nevertheless, all the signs are there—our boys are yearning for the same activities practised by their forefathers.
At college, I started a unofficial fight club—men only. This based in large part on the book and movie of the same name, in which the narrator’s Nietzschean alter ego, Tyler Durden, describes the bubbling frustration inside the ever-increasing number of 30-somethings coming together for underground fights: ‘We’re a generation of men raised by women.’ Naturally, half the guys in my year were participating within a week. But, our young boys should be taught how to fight openly and without shame to avoid hidden expressions of violence and maybe even some mass-shootings by angry, loner teens. When they are young, it is the perfect time to teach them.
Young lads have no intention of seriously injurying their friends; it’s just good fun and produces healthier attitudes towards violence and confidence in self-defence and the defence of one’s community. Furthermore, a recent study has shown that fighting helps to strengthen peer relationships, meaning less bullying and segregation. It is interesting to compare the codes of honour of ancient Greek wrestling etc. with those we intuit as wrestling children.
No intentional hitting or kicking No gouging the eyes or biting No going for the balls! That’s precisely how I used to wrestle with my brothers and friends as a pup; it was just obvious. If someone took things ‘too far’, they were ostracised from the fun, at least until they calmed down and apologised. If someone got hurt, we stopped, checked whether they were just being a pussy or needed to get themselves mended; we kept calm and carried on.
‘We’re a generation of men raised by women.’ – Tyler Durden
The data are screaming that men haven’t changed, especially our need to practise fighting. We still have the same natural impulses but their suppression, no, their demonisation has made our men weak and submissive. So much so, many are self-deprecating betas who believe masculinity is toxic, full of white guilt and ashamed of Western civilization. We have everything to be proud of and need to encourage our boys’ fighting spirit so they grow some balls, some confidence in themselves and their kin. That’s the spirit which has kept our enemies, foreign and domestic at bay for thousands of years and will do the same to cultural Marxism, malevolent immigrants and anyone else who wants to have a go. If we want to turn scrapping boys into men first and gentlemen second, we need to organise some fights, not break them up.
Read More: A Short History On The Masculinity Of Fighting
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| 1real |
Prosecutors: Manafort needs to detail finances further in bail talks | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Special Counsel Robert Mueller pushed back on Sunday against Paul Manafort’s efforts to avoid house arrest, arguing that President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager needed to further detail the finances behind his proposed $12 million bail agreement. In a court memorandum, Mueller and his attorneys argued that the court should only agree to a bail agreement if Manafort fully explains his finances to the court. Prosecutors said his team had not been able to substantiate the value of one of the three properties, as well as several life insurance policies, Manafort wants to pledge for bail. Manafort, who ran Trump’s presidential campaign for several months last year, and associate Richard Gates pleaded not guilty last week to a 12-count indictment by a federal grand jury. They face charges including conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States and failing to register as foreign agents of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government. The two are currently under house arrest, and prosecutors have argued they could pose a flight risk. The charges are part of Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian efforts to tilt the 2016 election in Trump’s favor and potential collusion by Trump associates, allegations that Moscow and the Republican president deny. In a Saturday court filing, Manafort offered to limit his travel and pledged life insurance worth about $4.5 million as well as about $8 million in real estate assets, including a property on Fifth Avenue in New York that was identified by some media outlets as an apartment in Trump Tower. But prosecutors said they needed an independent appraisal of that Fifth Avenue property, since Manafort was claiming a fair-market value of the unit that appeared to exceed other outside estimates. Prosecutors also argued they needed time to talk to Manafort’s insurance company about his policies. The prosecutors noted that Manafort would be required to forfeit one of those policies, worth $2.6 million, should he be convicted, creating additional questions about its value in a potential bail agreement. In the document, Mueller said his team was in talks with Manafort’s counsel about striking a bail agreement but that Manafort had not provided enough detail yet on his finances. “Those discussions are best described as ongoing, and the government is not prepared to consent to a change in the current conditions of release at least until Manafort provides a full accounting of his net worth and the value of the assets that he proposes to pledge,” Mueller said in the court memorandum. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said on Thursday that initial bail terms would remain in place and set a bail hearing for Monday to consider changes. | 0fake |
HELL-BENT ON A CONVICTION: Is The Pentagon’s Third Attempt At Convicting A Marine For The Death Of An Iraqi Citizen Politically Motivated? | Which begs the question:How many Iraqi s have been placed on trial for similar circumstances? And do the rules of engagement only apply to the US Military? A retrial is set to begin Monday at Camp Pendleton for a Marine convicted in the 2006 killing of an Iraqi civilian one of the most high-profile and legally and politically complex court martials of the Iraq war.Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins was convicted in 2007 by a Marine jury of unpremeditated murder in the killing of a 52-year-old former Iraqi police officer in Hamandiya, west of Baghdad.The killing was meant as a warning to Iraqis to stop planting roadside bombs and cooperating with insurgent snipers attacking U.S. troops.Six other Marines and a Navy corpsman were also convicted in what was called the Pendleton 8 case. As the squad leader, Hutchins got the longest sentence, 15 years, later reduced to 11.Appeals courts twice have overturned Hutchins conviction: once on grounds that the NCIS illegally obtained a confession, once because his lawyer was allowed to retire on the eve of trial. The Marine Corps has opted for a retrial.Hutchins has spent more than six years behind bars, first at the federal prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., and then the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego. Since mid-2013, he has been free on appeal, restored to his rank of sergeant and assigned to Camp Pendleton, living with his wife and children.The legal case has provoked strong, contrasting opinions among Marines.Several of Hutchins co-defendants, all of whom are long since freed and returned to civilian life, believe the killing, while brutal, saved American lives because attacks on U.S. troops declined in the following months.Other Marines believe the Marine Corps must retry Hutchins to prove that it can hold its ranks accountable for the unauthorized use of deadly force. The Marine Corps is doing what justice demands, said Gary Solis, a retired Marine and now an adjunct law professor at Georgetown University. It is being neither unfair nor harsh, Solis said. An innocent Iraqi male was taken prisoner by Hutchins and his squad and, while he was bound, repeatedly shot in the face [and] murdered. Much of the evidence against Hutchins will come from squad members who were convicted in the case, Solis noted: Given the unusually strong case against Hutchins the Marine Corps would be derelict were it to walk away from the murder of a defenseless Iraqi. But Bing West, former Marine, former assistant secretary of Defense and author of books about combat Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that, given the chaos facing Marine grunts during the Iraq war, a retrial is unwarranted. In a savage war, Sgt. Hutchins, mistakenly believing he was protecting his squad, killed an innocent Iraqi, West said. He has spent several years in the brig. Further punishment would be unjust. It is time to allow him and all of us to move on. Marine prosecutors would not comment.Christopher Oprison, a former Marine and Hutchins defense attorney, has promised a vigorous defense in which he will assert that the Marine Corps is continuing to pursue his client for political purposes. The case, he said, is an indictment of the entire military justice system. The prosecution is basing its case on the information obtained by rogue NCIS agents who forced these young Marines to confess under threats and coercion. Oprison insists that comments made by Navy Secy. Ray Mabus in 2009 alleging guilt by the Pendleton 8 have tainted the case and prevented Hutchins from getting a fair trial. The political pressure to make an example out of Sgt. Hutchins is palpable, Oprison said. Enough is enough. The gloves are off. We hope to have Sgt. Hutchins home with his wife and children on Father s Day a free man. Under military rules, the jury will include officers and enlisted, most of whom, if not all, have served combat tours in Iraq, Afghanistan or both. The jury will decide guilt or innocence, and punishment.Via: LA Times | 1real |
Turkey’s Erdogan Introduces Death Penalty For Political Dissidents | Posted on October 30, 2016 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai in News , World // 0 Comments
Erdogan’s dream of reinstating Turkey’s death penalty is set to become reality after a new bill looks set to pass in Parliament.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan will make good on his promise of cleansing Turkey of “traitor citizens” and “political dissidents”– by sending them to their deaths. Recommended
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced plans to bring back the death penalty in Turkey following last months failed coup. (2 hours ago)
Yahoo News reports:
Addressing crowds in Ankara on Saturday, Erdogan said he would ratify such a bill once it passed despite any objections it might spark in the West.
Erdogan made the comments in response to public chants calling for the death penalty, which Turkey abolished in 2004 as part of its bid to join the European Union.
Erdogan said:
“Soon, our government will bring (the bill) to Parliament…It’s what the people say that matters, not what the West thinks.” Recommended
Turkish President Recep Taiyp Erdogan has been warned not to use the failed coup in Turkey as a “blank cheque” to bypass democratic principles. (2 hours ago)
The government has blamed the coup on the followers of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.
The cleric denies involvement. | 1real |
France appoints envoy to mediate between Qatar, Arab states | PARIS (Reuters) - France s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that it picked its former ambassador to Saudi Arabia as a special envoy to see how Paris could support mediation efforts in the rift between Qatar and several of its neighbors. Kuwait s Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber has led mediation efforts to resolve the row, which began in early June when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut political and trade ties with Qatar. France, which has close ties with Egypt and the United Arab Emirates while also being a major arms supplier to Qatar and a key ally of Saudi Arabia, has been relatively discreet on the crisis, largely sticking to calls for calm. I confirm that Bertrand Besancenot, diplomatic advisor to the government, will soon go to the region to evaluate the situation and the best ways to support the mediation and appease tensions between Qatar and its neighbors, Foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes Romatet-Espagne told reporters in a daily briefing. Qatar s neighbors accuse it of supporting regional foe Iran and Islamists across the region, a charge Doha denies. | 0fake |
DARPA Spending $62 Million to Create Military Cyborgs | 21st Century Wire says Science fiction is now science fact.Watch a video of this report here: DARPA s program director for the project says the implant is seeking to open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics. A statement from DARPA said it will enable data-transfer bandwidth between the human brain and the digital world, feeding digital auditory or visual information into the brain. The research agency claims the project is not intended for military purposes, yet experts believe it will have many military applications. While it could potentially restore senses to injured veterans, it could also be used to heighten the senses of perfectly healthy soldiers.Moreover, let us not forget that it is the Pentagon, the military s central command, whom controls the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.Either way, DARPA is seeking to perfect the cyborg an individual with both organic and mechanical body parts.If this device could be used to heighten the awareness of an individual s surroundings, could it also be manipulated to present a misleading perspective on what is happening around the implanted person?Could a soldier be manipulated into believing something was happening due to a certain message being transmitted to the implant, when in actual fact something entirely different was occurring in reality?Such devices present incredibly hard questions for accountability.However, Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist from Harvard, is sceptical that the device could ever work: We have little to no idea how exactly the brain codes complex information My guess is that it s a waste of taxpayer dollars. Despite these concerns, DARPA is pressing ahead with the project.Do you think we are now a step closer to cyborg super soldiers, or just wasting $62 million?LEARN ALL ABOUT MILITARY SPENDING: 21WIRE Military Industrial Complex Files | 1real |
I live in Iran. Here's how sanctions have shaped my life. | It is 2007, and I am an undergraduate at the University of Tehran. I'm very particular. I take notes with Staedtler Triplus Fineliner pens, in purple and green, and on this particular day I've run through the stash I keep in my desk at home. There is a small office supply store next to the university cafeteria, I've bought my pens there before. Before lunch I go to pick up some more Fineliners.
"We're out," says Farid, the young Kurdish boy who works in the store. "The supplier says there won't be anymore at all."
"Why not?" I ask.
"They say because of sanctions, but I'm not sure," he says.
"Sanctions? What the heck do pens have to do with sanctions?" I ask, surprised.
Eight years later, things are a little clearer. In 2007, we were just entering what would become a period of intense deprivation, brought on by ever-tightening UN Security Council sanctions. It would become the worst disruption of Iranian life since the Iran-Iraq War of my childhood.
Now, what seems like a lifetime later, a nuclear agreement has been signed between Iran and the P5+1. We have been promised an end to the chokehold; a brighter future for Iran. We'll see.
Those of us born after the revolution have lived our whole lives under sanctions. Following the November 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, the United States imposed its first round of sanctions against Iran. Except for a brief period from 1981 to 1984, they have never been lifted. In March 1995, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order significantly expanding the scale of the embargo, preventing US companies from doing business with Iran.
But as difficult as these restrictions made the '90s, life was still far easier than in the decade before — the Iran of my childhood.
When I was a child, long lines for basic goods were routine. Throughout the Iran-Iraq War (1980 to 1988), my parents bought everything, from bread to cheese to meat, using coupons. Even items like paper, erasers, or women's nylon socks were often difficult to come by. When my parents married and moved into their first home in the early 1980s, basic household appliances were virtually impossible to find, as the combination of sanctions and war had brought both imports and domestic production to a halt. To get a refrigerator, my parents submitted their marriage contract to the neighborhood mosque, which took these contracts and tried to find necessary household supplies for new couples living in the neighborhood. I was born a few years later.
I was 4 years old before we had a phone. When I was 5 we finally bought furniture — a table and two chairs. Throughout the war we heard news of young boys perishing on the front lines, entire families wiped out by bombs. For a while, street bombings became frequent in our neighborhood, and when my father left home in the morning, my mother remained fearful till nightfall, uncertain if he would return.
I was 4 years old before we had a phone. When I was 5 we finally bought furniture — a table and two chairs.
But by the time I was a university student, the war was long over. Though sanctions persisted, Iranians had found loopholes and alternative means of getting what they needed. The worst of the deprivation was past. My classmates and I knew the hard life, we remembered it, but it had become a story, a tale for nights when we gathered around a dinner table we didn't struggle to find.
I wouldn't realize it until years later, but 9/11 was the day that a decade-long Iranian upswing began to fall apart. Despite the absence of Iranian involvement in the attack, the West steadily ramped up our isolation. When a secret uranium enrichment plant was discovered in Natanz in 2002, the isolation intensified. We were placed on George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil," and then surrounded as the United States invaded Afghanistan to our east and Iraq to our west. In 2005, the conservative ex-mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, defeated reformers in a presidential election, and the world's disdain came even harder.
It was difficult enough to deal with the changes he wrought at home. The university security staff we had been accustomed to — many of them young boys from the provinces — were replaced by stern-looking guards we'd never met. The cafeteria, where we had always sat down together to eat, was gender-segregated by a long blue curtain. We heard of professors being forced into retirement, and unknowns close to the administration taking up positions they were not fit for academically.
As students, it never felt as if Ahmadinejad represented us, but neither did we feel any affinity for the United States. It was Ahmadinejad who had brought a new security staff to our university. But it was America that had placed us under siege. We knew our nation's shortcomings, but in many years of cafeteria debates, my peers and I could never justify how we'd been singled out, why the world seemed to simply not like us. We began to think of ourselves as "the unpeopled," never seen by the outside world but living as we always had.
If anything, it seemed to us at the time that Ahmadinejad and Bush were similar — both, in language and deed, seemed to damage the prestige of their people in the eyes of the world. Yet the American president's embarrassing behavior did not seal off his entire country from food and medicine. We paid Ahmadinejad no heed, but the international condemnation of Iran grew louder. At first we tried to focus on school, on grades, love, art, and life, but it was difficult. Some analysts claimed then and still claim now that the sanctions weakened Iranian support for the state, but that was never the whole story. It never felt true for my friends and me. If anything, we began to echo the state: Why the double standard for Iran?
Then our lives came to a halt. In 2006, our government refused to continue implementing parts of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, significantly reducing the inspection rights of International Atomic Energy Agency personnel in Iran. In December of that year — then again in March 2007, October 2007, and March 2008 — the United Nations Security Council retaliated by intensifying sanctions.
These new embargoes effectively closed the loopholes that had allowed Iranians to get by over the past 10 years. We were no longer able to purchase goods we could access easily before. Flights to Iran by international carriers were reduced or stopped entirely. Magazines that had survived against all odds were once again threatened by paper costs they could not afford. Iranian oil exports accounted for between 60 and 80 percent of the country's revenue — suddenly, both Europe and the United States refused to buy.
The university security staff we had been accustomed to — many of them young boys from the provinces — were replaced by stern-looking guards we'd never met
Within our borders, strange men with almost no credible administrative experience tightened their grip on all sectors: the economy, the cultural space, even the heritage organization, a government body responsible for preserving historical sites. The reactionary policies of the Ahmadinejad administration coupled with the new, severe sanctions began to cripple us.
The impact of the sanctions on academia alone has been devastating. All manner of vital technical equipment became scarce, while universities across the country were not permitted to renew their subscriptions to search repositories — even in the fields of medicine and the humanities. Coursera, a platform that offers free, open online courses, has become inaccessible within our borders. Our previous ability to conduct research and contribute to world scholarship was brought to a painful standstill.
While a portion of University of Tehran graduates typically remained in Iran to work, the new sanctions provoked a mass exodus: Almost no one chooses to stay after undergraduate studies. Doors seem to close all around us. Within months of my first disappointment in the stationery store, every writing and drawing tool I used disappeared off the market for good.
The impact of sanctions outside my academic bubble is far worse. Vitamins have become hard to find. My mother's supplements disappeared off the market, as did tampons and foreign-made baby formulas. We went to drugstore after drugstore across the city but were told the same thing everywhere: The item you want is no longer being imported due to sanctions. My grandfather's German-made eye drops vanished. The Iranian ones hurt his eyes.
More critically, vital cancer medication has become excessively difficult to get ahold of. Between 2011 and 2014, while visiting sick relatives, I met patient after patient in the hospital whose condition had become critical due to delayed treatment.
"What, they expect me to sell my house to buy medication? And then what will the family be left with if I die anyway?" asked a tall, silver-haired man I met one day. He had just started chemotherapy, months later than he should have. He died within weeks.
Almost like a joke, cancer rates appear to have climbed, as well. Some doctors blame new, low-quality domestic gasoline. While Tehran has always suffered from air pollution, we've begun to witness unprecedented levels — sometimes, looking over the gray-green haze that covers the city, it becomes impossible to breathe.
Iranian banks are cut off from SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Telecommunications), effectively cutting off financial communication between Iran and other countries. The private sector has been hit badly. The textile and automobile industries have been especially affected, with many plants completely shutting down entirely. Across industries, obtaining spare parts or requesting maintenance for machines has become extremely expensive, in some cases impossible. Two of Iran's main non-petroleum exports, handmade carpets and pistachios, have started piling up in basements.
All of this has sent the economy into free fall. The new sanctions led to unprecedented inflation, as high as 40 percent according to some estimates, which in turn caused a sudden spike in the price of basic commodities like milk and vegetable oil. Some crucial goods are available only on the black market, and there is no way — official or otherwise — to know how bad inflation has gotten there.
Perhaps you can imagine the 2008 American financial crisis to get a sense of what it was like — people's financial holdings falling apart within days, years of careful savings wiped out. My parents spent the first decade of their marriage in a war zone and the next 15 years trying to build on lost time, making up for all those years of deprivation. Within the span of months, almost nothing remained of that effort. My mother's clients went out of business; my father's academic and industrial research has been severely disrupted.
Perhaps you can imagine the 2008 American financial crisis to get a sense of what it was like — people's financial holdings falling apart within days
Over dinner, we talk about wartime. What it was like to live on rations. How life was lived with so little. We remember fondly our capacity for contentment, how we were all in it together.
This time it does not feel a group struggle. Under the sanctions, those who are savvy enough and amoral enough exploit others' deprivation for a profit. They function as middlemen and brokers, preying on the needs and envies of citizens. These men become wealthy, but at the cost of ordinary people turning against one another, moral and social life coming apart. During the war, I could never have told my father to get me the same doll my classmate had — each of us already had, or didn't have, the same things. But under sanctions, I have seen my uncles lambasted by their children because they didn't pay the brokers for some flashy new toy their classmate got.
In 2013, President Hassan Rouhani was elected with a mandate to stop this vicious cycle, to bring sanity and sustenance back to Iran. Despite monumental obstacles inside and outside of Iran, he has so far managed to deliver.
On July 14, 2015, a deal was announced between Iran and six world powers, including the United States. We were told that in exchange for a curtailment of our nuclear program and ongoing, rigorous inspections, the sanctions would finally be lifted.
I saw my grandfather that night. He lived through the occupation of his province during World War II, through the revolution, the war, and the sanctions years. When we discussed the news, he smiled, looking out into the distance. He read a poem: "We are but leaves dancing to a wind."
On the night of the agreement, I drive the streets of Tehran, trying to feel what the city felt. Valiasr is known as the longest street in the Middle East — it traverses the city from north to south. Long sycamore trees once ran the length of the road, but now they only grow in Northern Valiasr, one of Tehran's most affluent neighborhoods. This is where the crowds gather, the celebrations bringing traffic to a standstill. People are out of their cars, playing music, the sound of their whistles and applause rising above the trees in the dark.
We see luxury cars everywhere, more in one place than I've ever witnessed in Tehran before: Lexus, Mercedes, BMWs. But between them are the motorcycles of young boys who have come up from the working class neighborhoods of southern Tehran. They are easy to spot among the crowd. They wear stained T-shirts, probably smudged from a long day at work, and fake Nike shoes. As we drive south, the yelling, screaming, and happy crowds give way to the dead of night.
I have now lived three decades. I was born after a revolution, in the midst of a war. I have seen stability, I have seen chaos, I have seen bloodshed, I have seen calm, and all that lies between. Despite the agreement, we do not look forward to an uncomplicated era of plenty. Even if all goes according to plan, the legacy of sanctions cannot be erased. An economist I know from the University of Tehran put it this way: "Sanctioning a country like this is similar to permanently disabling a human being. You might stop inflicting harm, but the damage is there forever."
I wonder if this is true. All that we are promised by this deal — more stability, a financial recovery, more open political and social space — we have had and lost before. Who can guarantee it won't be lost again? Those of us who have seen the sinusoidal pains and recoveries of these past three decades know that much depends on the whims of a world far from our jurisdiction or oversight. We cannot make it bend, but it will bend us. For many Iranians, the end of sanctions is nothing more than the end of another chapter in a colossal, uncertain novel, still in production. You write as you live. You read as you go.
Pedestrian is a writer from Khuzestan, in southern Iran. Her work has appeared in Foreign Affairs and Roads and Kingdoms.
First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com. | 0fake |
Brothers ID'd as suicide bombers in Belgium | (CNN) Several bombers are dead. At least one alleged attacker is still on the loose.
And a key question looms as investigators race to piece together details about the attackers behind Tuesday's deadly bombings in Belgium's capital: Were these men acting alone, or were other members of a terror cell supporting them?
Raids, arrests and forensic analysis are some of the tools investigators are using to get to the bottom of who was behind the attacks in Brussels, which killed 31 people and wounded 270 others.
Two of the bombers were brothers. And one of the bombers at the airport appears to be a man authorities named as a suspect in the Paris terror attacks.
But the investigation is far from finished. With at least one suspect on the run, the stakes are high, Belgian counterterrorism official Paul Van Tigchelt said Wednesday.
"There are still a number of people, possibly involved in the attacks still in our country ... who still pose a threat," he said.
Here's a look at the latest developments in the investigation, and the questions they raise.
Belgian federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw identified Ibrahim El Bakraoui as one of two suicide bombers at the Brussels airport and his brother, Khalid El Bakraoui, as the man behind a deadly suicide blast about an hour later on a train near the Maelbeek metro station.
This isn't the first time they've come across authorities' radar.
Ibrahim El Bakraoui was deported by Turkey to the Netherlands last year, a senior Turkish official told CNN. The Turkish presidency's office said authorities there captured him in July 2015 and flagged him to Belgian authorities.
Belgian authorities, the Turkish official said, responded soon after saying he had a criminal record but no known ties to terrorism.
"These two deceased suicide bombers had lengthy criminal records," he said, "but (were) not linked to terrorism."
Ibrahim El Bakraoui had been sentenced in October 2010 by a Brussels criminal court to nine years behind bars for opening fire on police officers with a Kalashnikov during a robbery, according to Belgian public broadcaster RTBF and CNN affiliate RTL.
Interpol had issued a "red notice" for Khalid El Bakraoui, the subway bomber, that noted Belgian authorities wanted him in connection with terrorism. But it wasn't clear when that notice was issued or why Belgian authorities now say he had no ties to terrorism.
Question to consider: If they were already on authorities' radar, how did the brothers manage to slip through the cracks and carry out the deadly attacks?
Surveillance images showing three men pushing luggage carts through the airport have played an important role as authorities work to pinpoint the suspects.
Authorities say bomber Ibrahim El Bakraoui is the man in the middle. Najim Laachraoui, an ISIS bomb-maker, is the man on the left in the picture, a Belgian counterterrorism official told CNN's Paul Cruickshank.
Investigators believe both were killed in the airport blast. But authorities are looking for the third man in the photo, walking on the right and wearing light-colored clothing and a hat.
Belgium's interior minister said that man placed a bomb at the airport and left.
While two explosives went off within 37 seconds of each other shortly before 8 a.m., this third bomb -- described as the "heaviest" by Van Leeuw -- did not, instead being detonated by authorities later in a controlled explosion.
Questions to consider: Where did the man in light-colored clothing go? Is anyone helping him hide out from authorities, and could he be plotting another attack?
Two people were arrested in Brussels in connection with the attacks -- one in Schaerbeek and the other in Haren, Van Leeuw said.
One was released later that day, according to the prosecutor.
Another person was detained Wednesday, according to Belgian public broadcaster RTBF.
One raid, officials said, came after a tip from a taxi driver led them to the northeast Brussels area of Schaerbeek.
The driver recognized the men shown in surveillance footage and told authorities he'd driven the men to the airport before the attacks. Police raided the area where the driver told them he'd picked up the men.
On Wednesday, they made another significant find: Ibrahim El Bakraoui's will.
Police found the airport bomber's will on a computer in a trash can in Schaerbeek, Van Leeuw said.
The will indicated Bakraoui "needs to rush" and "no longer feels safe."
Questions to consider: Who are the people who were arrested, and what was their alleged role in the attacks?
The latest connection: Laachraoui, a suspect in the Paris attacks who authorities now say they believe was one of the Brussels airport bombers.
Investigators believe Abdeslam likely planned to be part of an attack orchestrated by the same ISIS cell that carried out Tuesday's attacks, a senior Belgian counterterrorism official told Cruickshank.
The Brussels attackers likely accelerated their plans when police discovered Abdeslam's hideout, investigators believe.
And one of the apartments where he hid before his capture, located in the southern Brussels district of Forest, allegedly has ties to one of the Bakraoui brothers.
Questions to consider: What role, if any, did Abeslam's arrest play in the Brussels attacks? Are there other links between the Paris and Brussels attacks?
Another piece of evidence authorities found during the Brussels raids could help in their investigation: unused explosives.
In the Schaerbeek residence, authorities found 15 kilograms of the explosive TATP and screws among the bomb-making materials there, Van Leeuw said.
"Such bombs have been a signature of jihadist terrorists in the West for more than a decade because the materials are so easy to acquire, unlike military-grade explosives, which are tightly controlled in much of the West," CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen said.
TATP-based bombs require technical know-how and bulk purchases of hydrogen peroxide or hair bleach. That helps authorities narrow down potential bomb-making suspects, because making the explosives can sometimes bleach hair. So authorities can identify bomb-makers in part by recognizing unusually bleached hair or asking sellers to report any suspiciously large purchases of hydrogen peroxide.
Questions to consider: Will the bomb-making materials lead investigators to any new suspects or help them dismantle a terror cell? | 0fake |
Border without doctors? South Koreans urge more funding for trauma care after defector drama | SEOUL (Reuters) - A defector s treatment for critical injuries suffered during a dramatic dash from North Korea has highlighted a shortage of South Korean trauma doctors and again underscored Seoul s lack of preparedness in the event of hostilities with Pyongyang. The defector, identified only by his family name of Oh, was shot at least four times by his former comrades during his daring escape into South Korea last week. American military helicopters flew the wounded soldier not to one of the many hospitals in Seoul, closer to the border, but to the Ajou University trauma center an hour south of the capital. The center, and its lead surgeon John Cook-Jong Lee, have been thrust into the spotlight amid a push for more trauma facilities and specialist doctors in a country still technically at war and where preventable trauma death rates are already amongst the highest in the OECD. An official at South Korea s Ministry of Health said more than 30 percent of people who suffered fatal trauma injuries last year could have survived if they had access to proper, timely treatment. That s far higher than the 10 to 15 percent in places such as the United States and Japan. Although 133 surgeons are currently entitled to perform trauma surgery, I highly doubt that all of them can actually perform, said Park Chan-yong, general affairs manager of the Korean Society of Traumatology. Many of them just gained the rights, but never had practiced this kind of surgery. By Friday, attention sparked by the defector s case had prompted nearly 200,000 South Koreans to join a petition asking the presidential Blue House to boost funding for Lee s trauma center, one of just nine in the country. During increased tensions this year with heavily armed North Korea, Seoul has faced criticism over a lack of preparation for major emergencies, with many bomb shelters, for example, laying forgotten and unstocked with food or water. The government has launched programs to raise awareness, but public emergency drills often fail to attract much response. Despite the apparent need for specialists, Lee said he has faced ignorance, including from some doctors who complained he was showing off with new techniques, since returning from training in the United States in 2003. I had to explain whenever I met new doctors here, what a trauma surgeon was. Every day, he said. Often, trauma medicine is not seen as attractive or lucrative as other fields, said Park. Residents and medical students avoid coming to traumatology, because there is no hope and no dream. The South Korean government says it recognizes the problem, and in 2014 set a goal of lowering its rate of preventable trauma fatalities to levels closer to those of other OECD countries by 2020. But with a shortage of funding, only half of a planned 17 regional trauma centers have been built so far, a health ministry official said. Germany, for example, has less than twice the population of South Korea, but 10 times as many operational trauma centers. South Korea s strict gun control laws also mean there are far fewer gunshot wounds like those suffered by the defector. Between January 2012 and August 2017, 31 people were killed and 51 wounded by guns, according to the police. In comparison, in the United States, where Lee trained, more than 33,000 people die from gunshot wounds every year, according to annual averages of government data. However, the kinds of industrial accidents and car crashes commonly seen in South Korea can cause equally bad injuries, Lee said. In South Korea, roughly speaking, more than 90 percent of trauma victims are brought to the hospital in less than an hour, Lee said. However, frequently, they are put in emergency rooms for a while, sometime for hours, to get proper care. Lee has made a name for himself and the Ajou trauma center, in part by cultivating a close relationship with the American and South Korean militaries, making it an obvious choice for the defector s treatment. Lee said his fascination with the American medical evacuation crews and the techniques he learned in the United States have led him to push for a series of new additions at the trauma center, including a recently completed roof-top helipad with flashing neon messages in English for American pilots. U.S. military air crews, however, have yet to obtain Pentagon permission to use the new helipad, Lee said. The arrival of the North Korean defector has brought Lee a new round of criticism for appearing to seek attention, including from one lawmaker, a charge he says is unfounded. But it has also highlighted the need for more funding for his center and more trauma facilities in South Korea. To those who get only 10, 20 minutes of sleep while working to save emergency room patients, to those who only get to go home once a week or not even that we should not be criticizing them but rather, discuss how to resolve problems within the system, the petition submitted to the Blue House said. | 0fake |
AS JIHADI’S TIES TO ISIS Are Exposed…Obama’s DOJ Tells Muslims: “We stand with you in this” | As one would expect the Obama regime is tripping all over the dead bodies of this tragedy to promote gun control. They only take a break from their embarrassing behavior to assure Muslim s they ve got their backs. Will this nightmare ever end?On Thursday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, speaking at the Muslim Advocate s 10th anniversary dinner, shockingly refused to focus on the Muslim community after the terrorist attacks committed by Muslims in San Bernardino and Paris, instead. She reassured her audience, We stand with you in this. In another astonishing moment, Lynch said that since the Paris attacks, her greatest concern has been the incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric that fear is my greatest fear. One humdred thirty people were massacred by Muslim terrorists in Paris last month, added to the 17 killed in the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket attacks in Paris, plus the 14 slaughtered in San Bernardino, the 13 soldiers murdered at Fort Hood, and the four Marines killed in Chattanooga. Lynch would not say how many Muslims have been killed in the United States because of backlash.Lynch pontificated, When we talk about the First Amendment we [must] make it clear that actions predicated on violent talk are not American. They are not who we are, they are not what we do, and they will be prosecuted My message not just to the Muslim community but to all Americans is We cannot give in to the fear that these backlashes are really based on. The Obama Administration has been loath to ascribe any religious motive to Muslim terrorists, with the Defense Department referring to the Fort Hood slaughter as workplace violence, Obama himself saying the murderers at the kosher Paris supermarket randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris, and Obama assiduously avoiding any reference to Islam or Muslims in his statement after the massive Paris terror assault.Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
VIDEO: Ex-Obama Staffer Who Urged Spying On Trump Predicted ‘Quick’ Impeachment Weeks Before Election | TEL AVIV — Speaking at a conference two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Evelyn Farkas, a former top Obama administration official, predicted that if Donald Trump won the presidency he would “be impeached pretty quickly or somebody else would have to take over government,” Breitbart News has found. [Farkas served as deputy assistant secretary of defense under the Obama administration. She has been in the spotlight since the news media last week highlighted comments she made on television that seemed to acknowledge efforts by members of the Obama administration to collect intelligence on Trump and members of his campaign. Now it has emerged that at on October 26, 2016, Farkas made remarks as a panelist at the annual Warsaw Security Forum predicting Trump’s removal from office “pretty quickly. ” Asked at the event to address the priorities of a future Hillary Clinton administration, Farkas stated: It’s not a done deal, as you said. And so, to the Americans in the audience please vote. And not only vote but get everybody to vote. Because I really believe we need a landslide. We need an absolute repudiation of everything. All of the policies that Donald Trump has put out there. I am not afraid to be political. I am not hiding who I am rooting for. And I think it’s very important that we continue to press forward until election day and through election day to make sure that we have the right results. I do agree however with General Breedlove that even if we have the wrong results from my perspective America is resilient. We have a lot of presidential historians who have put forward very coherent the argument — they have given us examples of all of our horrible presidents in the past and the fact that we have endured. And we do have a strong system of checks and balances. And actually, if Donald Trump were elected I believe he would be impeached pretty quickly or somebody else would have to take over government. And I am not even joking. Farkas was referring to General Philip Mark Breedlove, another panelist at the conference who served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) of NATO Allied Command Operations. The panel discussion was about what to expect following the Nov. 8 presidential election. Farkas has also been in the news after remarks she made as a contributor on MSNBC on March 2 resurfaced last week. In the comments, she said that she told former Obama administration colleagues to collect intelligence on Trump and campaign officials. “I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill, it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration,” stated Farkas. She continued: Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama] people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy … that the Trump folks — if they found out how we knew what we knew about their … the Trump staff dealing with Russians — that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence. The White House has utilized Farkas’s statements to bolster the charge that Trump was being illicitly surveilled during the campaign. White House Spokesman Sean Spicer last week stated: [I]f you look at Obama’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense that is out there, Evelyn Farkas, she made it clear that it was their goal to spread this information around, that they went around and did this. … They have admitted on the record that this was their goal — to leak stuff. And they literally — she said on the record “Trump’s team. ” There are serious questions out there about what happened and why and who did it. And I think that’s really where our focus is in making sure that that information gets out. Farkas, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia until she resigned in 2015. She told the Daily Caller last week that she had no access to any intelligence. “I had no intelligence whatsoever, I wasn’t in government anymore and didn’t have access to any,” she said. Speaking to the Washington Post, Farkas denied being a source of any leaks. The Post reported: Farkas, in an interview with The Post, said she “didn’t give anybody anything except advice,” was not a source for any stories and had nothing to leak. Noting that she left government in October 2015, she said, “I was just watching like anybody else, like a regular spectator” as initial reports of Russia contacts began to surface after the election. Farkas currently serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia and has released numerous reports and briefs about Russian aggression. The Council is funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. the U. S. State Department, and NATO ACT. Another Council funder is the Ploughshares Fund, which in turn has received financing from billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Farkas serves on the Atlantic Council alongside Dmitri Alperovitch, of CrowdStrike, the company utilized by the FBI to make its assessment about alleged Russian hacking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council. Last month, FBI Director James Comey confirmed that his agency never had direct access to the DNC’s servers to confirm the hacking. “Well, we never got direct access to the machines themselves,” he stated. “The DNC in the spring of 2016 hired a firm that ultimately shared with us their forensics from their review of the system. ” National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers also stated the NSA never asked for access to the DNC hardware: “The NSA didn’t ask for access. That’s not in our job. ” Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With research by Joshua Klein and Brenda J. Elliott. | 0fake |
Assad’s Lesson From Aleppo: Force Works, With Few Consequences - The New York Times | BEIRUT, Lebanon — For months, the bodies have been piling up in eastern Aleppo as the buildings have come down, pulverized by Syrian and Russian jets, burying residents who could not flee in avalanches of bricks and mortar. And now it is almost over, not because diplomats reached a deal in Geneva, but because President Bashar of Syria and his foreign allies have won the city. Cold, hungry and scarred by the deaths of loved ones, tens of thousands of civilians and fighters are awaiting buses to take them from their homes to uncertain futures. It is not the first victory that Mr. Assad has secured with overwhelming force in the Syrian conflict. But his subjugation of eastern Aleppo has echoed across the Middle East and beyond, rattling alliances, proving the effectiveness of violence and highlighting the reluctance of many countries, perhaps most notably the United States, to get involved. President Obama, on Friday at his final news conference of the year, acknowledged that the nearly war in Syria had been among the hardest issues he has faced, and that the world was “united in horror” at the butchery in Aleppo. But Mr. Obama — who came into office committed to reducing America’s military entanglements in the Middle East — also defended his decision not to intervene more forcefully. To do otherwise, he said, would have required the United States to be “all in and willing to take over Syria. ” The recent developments in the Syrian conflict send a message to autocratic leaders in the region and elsewhere that force works — and brings few consequences, said Maha Yahya, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. The lesson for the victims of that force is that they are on their own. “Everybody has been watching helplessly as this conflict unfolds,” Ms. Yahya said. “They are watching civilians being massacred mercilessly and all they can do is tweet about it and sign petitions. ” This is the Middle East that Donald J. Trump will face upon taking office next year, a region where jihadists have erased borders, Russia is ascendant, Iran has extended its reach through powerful militias and American allies are questioning how much they can rely on Washington. Mr. Trump has articulated no comprehensive policy for the region, other than underlining his support for Israel and suggesting he could work with Russia against the Islamic State, perhaps establishing “safe zones” in Syria — an apparent contradiction since Russian jets have bombed civilian areas. But the fallout from Aleppo highlights the dynamics that are likely to shape the region throughout his term. Analysts have begun to add Aleppo to the list of places where humans have failed to stop tragedies committed against other humans, as in Grozny, Rwanda and Srebrenica. The comparisons are not perfect, but can be instructive. Most estimates put the death toll in the Rwandan genocide much higher than that of the entire Syrian war, although the killing in Rwanda happened much faster, giving foreign powers less time to react. The siege and bombardment of Aleppo, on the other hand, came after years of conflict in which Mr. Assad’s forces attacked protesters, dropped exploding barrels on rebellious communities and used chemical weapons on their own people. What is more, because of smartphones and the internet, the Syrian conflict has arguably been better documented than any armed conflict in history. But that has still failed to bring about accountability. “Aleppo is now the symbol of how far we have retrenched,” said David M. Crane, a veteran international war crimes prosecutor and a professor at the Syracuse University College of Law. “It is part of a worldwide move away from a global village. Countries are turning back into themselves. ” While acknowledging the current weakness of international justice, Professor Crane has been working throughout the Syrian conflict to compile evidence of possible war crimes against different parties in hopes that they will one day be held to account. “I really do believe that over time we will be able to move forward,” he said. “International justice is not going away. ” By way of example, he mentioned Charles G. Taylor, the former president of Liberia, whom Mr. Crane helped put behind bars in an international trial many years after he had committed his crimes. The Syrian conflict did not begin as a civil war but as a popular uprising aimed at ousting Mr. Assad. He responded to protests with gunfire, detentions and torture. Many in the opposition took up arms to defend themselves and fight back, drawing support from Gulf countries, Turkey, the Syrian diaspora and the United States. The conflict escalated from there, as Mr. Assad sought help from Russia and Iran. As the state receded and chaos spread, jihadist movements established themselves, attracting recruits with religious fervor and ample funding, fueling accusations by Mr. Assad that his opponents were terrorists. Over time, as the space for civil activism narrowed, that claim became increasingly true, giving Western nations another reason not to intervene. Mr. Obama denounced Mr. Assad as an illegitimate leader but kept American forces out of the battle to oust him. He argued that the United States could not resolve the conflict and that Syria was not a core American interest. Even when Mr. Assad deployed chemical weapons, crossing a “red line,” Mr. Obama did not bomb Syria, angering the opposition and allies like Saudi Arabia, who felt he had further empowered Mr. Assad. Instead, Mr. Obama made a deal with Russia to rid Syria of chemical weapons. But the war metastasized, spawning new horrors that increasingly affected the United States and its allies. The Islamic State seized territory in Syria and Iraq, declaring a caliphate and inspiring attacks from Bangladesh to San Bernardino, Calif. And the violence sent waves of refugees into Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey and let loose a flow of migrants whose arrival in Europe has undermined its unity and stability. All those shocks contributed to the environment in which the siege and battering of eastern Aleppo could take place, changing the course of the conflict. Mr. Assad’s seizure of Aleppo will leave the opposition with no control in any of Syria’s major cities, possibly signaling its end as a political force that can pressure the government to negotiate. “The Assad regime has won the strategic war,” said Hassan Hassan, a resident fellow from Syria at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington. “Psychologically, the opposition is no longer seen as a force that can break Bashar . ” Other leaders have paid attention to how he did it. “The Assad playbook now is that you can crush your people you can destroy cities you can attack with chemical weapons you can enable extremists — and the international community will stand by and not do anything,” Mr. Hassan said. “That is a precedent for dictators who feel threatened by their populations. ” But Mr. Assad’s seizure of Aleppo does not mean the end of the war. Gulf states like Qatar have said they will continue to back the rebels, and many analysts predict that the movement will become a prolonged insurgency. Mr. Assad’s surprise loss of the ancient city of Palmyra last week to the Islamic State indicates that his fighters are stretched thin. Also converging in Aleppo is the region’s rising sectarian split. As the rebels have been adopted by Sunni powers such as Saudi Arabia, Mr. Assad has deepened his reliance on Shiite militias who receive support from Iran. Bolstering Mr. Assad’s troops in Aleppo were fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Shiite militiamen from Iraq and elsewhere who viewed the battle in religious terms. Many Syrians, including in parts of Aleppo, will be happy when Mr. Assad takes back the whole city because they see him as a symbol of a unified state or because they distrust the rebels for accepting support from foreign powers. Others will just be glad the fighting has stopped. For some, the war’s greatest casualty has been the ability of Syrians to live together. Samir Altaqi, a surgeon and former member of the Syrian Parliament who now directs the Orient Research Center in Dubai, said he now avoids images of Aleppo, where he grew up and began his career. “I don’t bear to look too much at this footage because it would mean a full moral collapse, and I would become too extremist,” he said. His interactions with younger Syrians who have lived through the war have scared him, he said. “My impression is that these people have no more distance from death,” said Mr. Altaqi, who is in his . “They are sorry to be alive because all their beloved people are dead. ” He recalled his youth in Aleppo decades ago, when his family had Jewish and Christian neighbors and a “mercantile attitude” pervaded the city. “I remember how we never asked about the religion of our neighbors and friends,” he said, even when a son or daughter brought home a potential mate. “What will happen to all of this history?” he asked. | 0fake |
Russia's Putin says Trump behaves extravagantly to get message across | KRASNAYA POLYANA (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump behaved extravagantly during his campaign because he represented ordinary voters and wanted to get his message across. “He has chosen a method to get through to voters’ hearts,” Putin told foreign policy experts in southern Russia. “He (Trump) behaves extravagantly of course, we see this, but I think there’s a reason for this.” | 0fake |
Death toll from fighting in South Sudan's Great Lakes rises to 170 | JUBA (Reuters) - The death toll from inter-clan fighting in South Sudan s Great Lakes region last week - a new source of violence in a country devastated by a four-year civil war - has reached at least 170, officials said on Tuesday. The clashes in the province s Malek county broke out after a group of young men from the Ruop ethnic group attacked rival youth from the Pakam group on Wednesday and Thursday. Revenge attacks have since taken place. Dharuai Mabor Teny, a member of parliament from the region, updated an earlier death toll of 45. Right now, from both sides, we have 170 plus people who lost their lives. 342 houses have been burnt and almost 1,800 people displaced, Teny told Reuters. The violence prompted the government to declare a three-month state of emergency in the region and surrounding areas on Monday. The military has also been ordered to deploy troops to quell the unrest. Shadrack Bol Maachok, the regional government s spokesman, said the widespread availability of arms complicated efforts to control the conflict. Those arms in the hands of the civilians are going to be taken away and heavy forces are going to be brought here, he told Reuters. The UN mission in South Sudan UNMISS said its troops were helping remove roadblocks mounted by the clashing groups in a bid to open up routes for movement and trade. South Sudan was plunged into war in 2013 after a political disagreement between President Salva Kiir and his former vice president Riek Machar escalated into a military confrontation. The fighting has killed tens of thousands, uprooted about a quarter of the population of 12 million people and left its small, oil-dependent economy moribund. Violence between rival communities is common in parts of South Sudan, often triggered by quarrels over scarce grazing land and cultural and political grievance | 0fake |
WATCH: Don Lemon And CNN Panel Laugh At Trump Supporter For Denying Everything He Has Done | One of Trump s minions just embarrassed herself on CNN and everyone laughed at her.During a discussion on Friday night, Trump supporter Gina Loudon had the gall to repeatedly claim that the Republican nominee is not a sexist or a racist and even denied much of the factual evidence presented by the other panelists as proof that she is wrong. Words matter, Symone Sanders told Loudon. Donald Trump is running for president of the United States, okay? So, his words are extremely important because as president, your words I mean we can talk about the fact he s discriminated against African-Americans, Latinos in this country, Muslims Loudon cut her off by demanding to know when Donald Trump ever discriminated against these groups of people even though there is video tape of Trump calling Mexicans rapists and calling for banning Muslims from entering the country just because of their religion.Bakari Sellers chimed in by citing Trump s discrimination against black people on housing applications. Trump even had to settle the lawsuit because he knew he would lose. Trump also called for the death penalty for the Central Park Five even though they were later found innocent. Gina was asking one simple questions about actions, Sellers began. And Donald Trump s actions, and when has he discriminated so I decided we can recite a few of his actions. We can go to his housing discrimination lawsuits, in which he had to settle not one, but two, because he literally marked C on applications for colored. We can go to the Central Park Five in which he took ads out for these five people But once again, Loudon denied that Trump ever did these things.LOUDON: Donald Trump had nothing do with that! LEMON: Wait, wait wait. You said Donald Trump had nothing to do with taking out ads on the Central Park Five? LOUDON: Donald Trump himself. It was not Donald Trump himself. Loudon also denied that Trump mocked a disabled New York Times reporter despite the fact that there is video of him doing it, which drew laughter from the panelists, Don Lemon, and even from people in the studio off camera. Stop. Stop it y alls, Lemon said in an effort to settle everyone down. People in the studio are even laughing. But Lemon had a hard time doing so because Loudon just droned on about how Donald Trump is a saint and how Hillary Clinton is guilty of everything. Lemon just smiled and rested his head on his hand.Here s the video via VidMe.Trump s supporters are so desperate that they are denying facts and evidence at every turn. They are trying to fool America into thinking that Trump has a clean slate. This is what we can expect from now until the election on November 8th.Featured Image: Screenshot | 1real |
WINNING! TRUMP STOPS Obama-Era DOJ “Slush Fund” Payouts to Radical Groups | Eric Holder was the king of extortion from big companies. He had it all figured out and was able to redistribute money from these settlements to the favorite radical group of the day. That this went on at our Justice Department is the height of hypocrisy.The Justice Department announced Wednesday it will no longer allow prosecutors to strike settlement agreements with big companies directing them to make payouts to outside groups, ending an Obama-era practice that Republicans decried as a slush fund that padded the accounts of liberal interest groups.In a memo sent to 94 U.S. attorneys offices early Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he would end the practice that allowed companies to meet settlement burdens by giving money to groups that were neither victims nor parties to the case.Sessions said the money should, instead, go to the Treasury Department or victims. When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power, Sessions said in a statement. This bill is oversight and action. Congress must not tolerate Justice Department political appointees using settlements to funnel money to their liberal friends, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who introduced the bill, said in a statement.HERE S OUR PAST REPORT ON THIS SLUSH FUND :If you needed one more reason to think our government is like the Mafia A slush fund scheme via the Department of Justice funneled billions of dollars to liberal activist organizations. The Department of Justice is the last place this should have happened but under Obama our government was turned into a radical fundraising apparatus for progressives. This has Eric Holder and Barack Obama s fingerprints all over it! Advocates for big government and progressive power are using the Justice Department to extort money from corporations. It s a shakedown. It s corrupt, pure and simple. Tom Fitton, Judicial WatchHere s how it works: Remember when big banks were sued by the feds for supposed mortgage abuse or discrimination? The government basically extorted money from the banks and then incentivized the banks to settle by giving the money to third-party organizations. How convenient, right? It was a way to redistribute billions to radical organizations like La Raza!So far, investigators have accounted for $3 billion paid to non-victim entities . The underlying problem with the slush funds is we don t know exactly where the money is going. Using enforcement authority to go after corporate defendants, DOJ bureaucrats are taking billions away from taxpayers to fund their pet projects overriding congressional preferences. Ted Frank, director of The Competitive Enterprise Institute Center for Class Action Fairness. READ MORE: FOX NEWSRead more: FOX News | 1real |
Latest North Korea earthquake a sign of instability at nuclear test site-experts | SEOUL (Reuters) - A series of tremors and landslides near North Korea s nuclear test base likely mean the country s sixth and largest blast has destabilized the region, and the Punggye-ri nuclear site may not be used for much longer to test nuclear weapons, experts say. A small quake was detected early on Friday near the North s nuclear test site, South Korea s weather agency said, but unlike quakes associated with nuclear tests, it did not appear to be manmade. The tremor was the latest in a string of at least three shocks to be observed since Pyongyang s Sept. 3 nuclear test, which caused a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. Friday s quake was a magnitude 2.7 with a depth of 3 km in North Hamgyong Province in North Korea, the Korea Meteorological Administration said. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured the quake at 2.9 magnitude at a depth of 5 km. The series of quakes has prompted experts and observers to suspect the last test - which the North claimed to be of a hydrogen bomb - may have damaged the mountainous location in the northwest tip of the country, where all of North Korea s six nuclear tests were conducted. The explosion from the Sept. 3 test had such power that the existing tunnels within the underground testing site might have caved in, said Kim So-gu, head researcher at the Korea Seismological Institute. I think the Punggye-ri region is now pretty saturated. If it goes ahead with another test in this area, it could risk radioactive pollution. According to 38 North, a Washington-based project which monitors North Korea, numerous landslides throughout the nuclear test site have been detected via satellite images after the sixth test. These disturbances are more numerous and widespread than seen after any of the North s previous tests, 38 North said. The explosion from the sixth test was large enough for residents of the Chinese border city of Yanji, 200 km (125 miles) north of North Korea s nuclear test site, to feel the ground shake beneath their feet. The reason why Punggye-ri has become North Korea s nuclear testing field is because this area was considered stable and rarely saw tremors in the past, said Hong Tae-kyung, a professor of earth system science at Yonsei University in Seoul. The recent small quakes suggest that the test might have triggered crust deformation. South Korea s spy agency said recently the North was readying possibly two more tunnels following its latest test, according to ruling Democratic Party lawmakers who had been briefed on the issue. The tunnel used for Pyongyang s first nuclear test had been shut down after that test, while a second tunnel had been used for the following five, the National Intelligence Service was cited as saying last month. This second tunnel may have caved in after the sixth test, the intelligence officials said. North Korea has hinted its next test could be above the ground. Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said last month the North could test an unprecedented scale hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump s threat to totally destroy the country. Arms experts say detonating a nuclear-tipped missile over the Pacific Ocean, while seen as the logical final step to prove the success of its weapons program, would be extremely provocative and carry huge risks. Another issue that could keep North Korea from using Punggye-ri for nuclear tests the nearby active volcano of Mt. Paektu, Yonsei University s Hong said. The 2,744 meter (9,003 ft) mountain, straddling the northwestern border between China and North Korea, last erupted in 1903. Since North Korea began testing its nuclear capabilities, experts have debated whether explosions at Punggye-ri could trigger another volcanic eruption. | 0fake |
Three-Year-Old Dies After Finding Loaded Gun, Shooting Herself (VIDEO) | A three-year-old South Carolina girl died on Saturday, after a days-long battle for her life. According to WACH, the toddler got her hands on a loaded gun, accidentally shooting herself on Monday. On Saturday, the Lexington County Sheriff s Department posted a public tweet, informing the public that the little girl had lost her battle for life.Police say they are conducting an investigation into how the toddler got the gun in the first place. The identity of the family has not yet been made public. At this time no one has been charged in connection with the toddler s death.The toddler s death follows the July 20th shooting death of seven-year-old Thomas William Paisie III. The first-grader accidentally shot himself while handling a loaded gun at the home of his grandfather in Jones County, Georgia. According to The Telegraph, two adults were in the home when the seven-year-old came across the unsecured gun. Neither of the adults was in the room with the child. They heard the sound of a shot and then came in and found the child injured and immediately called 911, Jones County Sheriff s Officer Kenny Gleaton said. Unfortunately, the victim had passed away at the scene. Gleaton went on to say: I would urge people, if they are going to choose to have firearms in their homes, I just encourage them to be responsible and store them safely and separately from ammunition. Keep them under lock and key at all times when not in use. While we hear a lot about responsible gun owners, from the NRA, it seems nearly every day in the U.S. we read about a child killed in an accidental shooting. These needless deaths happen because a parent or relative failed to keep a deadly weapon out of the hands of someone too young to understand what can happen.According to the Gun Violence Archive, an organization which tracks shootings across the United States, more than 2,000 children have been injured or killed by guns so far in 2016. Many of these deaths were accidental shootings, like those that killed two children this week. No matter what the NRA says, there s nothing responsible about a nation that allows its children to die needlessly, year after year, because some adult believes owning a gun is their God-given right. We can do better than this.Here s more on this story from WACH. Featured image via wikipedia cc 2.0 | 1real |
MITCH MCCONNELL: The Senate Will Not Take Up Nomination of Merrick Garland | Mitch McConnell just made a statement on the Senate floor that the Senate will follow the Biden rule and wait until a new administration comes in to consider a Supreme Court nominee. McConnell made the case that the Senate has the right to do this and that it s not against Judge Garland. Garland is a liberal judge but not as left leaning as some who were considered for the nomination on the Supreme Court. In fact, Orin Hatch of Utah was quoted as saying Garland would be a good choice. Obama must have called his bluff on this one. The Senate s not biting and will stick to its guns or risk even more criticism from Republicans.CSPAN VIDEO: MCCONNELL STATEMENT | 1real |
New Memoirs Show How the Other Half Lives - The New York Times | It might be said that the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump has something in common with Hurricane Katrina. In exposing how a major American city can share traits with the developing world, the storm broke apart one of America’s prevailing ideas about itself: the myth that for all our inequities and intractable social blights, this is still fundamentally a land of equal opportunity. Trump, through sheer dint of his own bluster, has conducted his own version of this exposé. By forcing liberal types to reckon with a demographic they had long dismissed as a punch line — uneducated whites in economically depleted regions — he awakened them to the fact that the groovy progressive social values they had assumed were a national fait accompli were actually only half the story. J. D. Vance, a son of Appalachian poverty who eventually graduated from Yale Law School and now works in Silicon Valley, has found himself lately in the position of both telling that story and translating its political nuances into terms easily understood by coastal elites more accustomed to caricatures. His HILLBILLY ELEGY: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis ( $27. 99) is an affectionate yet unflinching look at growing up in social and domestic chaos in southwestern Ohio. Since his people originally come from Kentucky coal country, Vance claims the right to call himself a hillbilly. He does so with pride, but his family dysfunction is baroque, to say the least. His mother nearly kills him, yet he refuses to testify against her in court in order to spare her jail time. His grandmother, who’s the most stable force in his life, is famous for having poured gasoline on his grandfather and dropping a lighted match on his chest. (Their put the fire out, and the grandfather survived with just mild burns.) Vance escapes by way of the Marines, then Ohio State University, then Yale Law School, where he discovers a provincialism opposite but nearly equal to the kind he grew up with. Many of his classmates have never spent time with a veteran of a recent war. One professor, apparently unaware that public universities are a lifeline for smart, kids, suggests that the law school “shouldn’t accept applicants from state schools. ” Too often, America’s longstanding discomfort with talking candidly about social class can make memoirs about hardscrabble upbringings sound like public service announcements. But if Vance is an adroit enough storyteller, he’s a fiercely astute social critic of the sort we desperately need right now. Instead of cleaving his narrative to a political or ideological agenda, he wrestles honestly with the messy contradictions inherent to any conversation about race or class. For all his affection and empathy for his hillbilly brethren, he’s not afraid to show the ways opportunities can be squandered not just by addiction or systemic failure but also out of laziness or stubbornness. “Our homes are a chaotic mess,” he writes. “We scream and yell at each other like we’re spectators at a football game. . ’u2008. ’u2008. A bad day is when the neighbors call the police to stop the drama. Our kids go to foster care but never stay for long. We apologize to our kids. The kids believe we’re really sorry, and we are. But then we act just as mean a few days later. ” A similar frankness animates Josephine Ensign’s CATCHING HOMELESSNESS: A Nurse’s Story of Falling Through the Safety Net (She Writes Press, paper, $16. 95). Ensign, who now teaches at the University of Washington, traces several years in the late 1980s when she headed up a medical clinic for the homeless in Richmond, Va. At 25, she has studied at Oberlin and Harvard but is still beholden to the legacy of her Bible Belt family, which is “riddled with Christian zealots, ministers and missionaries” and has put her in a “ marriage” to an aspiring preacher. As she cares for patients with AIDS, tuberculosis, scabies and wounds, Ensign has a child and lives with growing reluctance “within the clearly defined roles of Southern Christian white women: a sort of to those suffering from poverty and homelessness, a dutiful daughter, a wife and a mother. ” Though Ensign manages to avoid catching a communicable disease from her patients and even survives a needle stick that forces her to stop nursing her son until the patient could test negative for hepatitis and H. I. V. she finds she’s vulnerable to some of the same forces that ravage the lives of her patient population. Over the next several years, her marriage falls apart, she loses (or gives up it’s not entirely clear) custody of her toddler, is forced out of the clinic for thwarting Christian values and winds up effectively homeless. How and why exactly all this transpires is hard to say, mostly because Ensign never really says. As if under a gag order, she skates over the details of her divorce and parenting arrangement and takes the reader headlong into a phase where she is, by turns, suicidal, addicted to exercise and sexually promiscuous. If “Catching Homelessness” doesn’t quite work as a memoir, it succeeds rather heroically on the level of document. Ensign takes us back to a time when psychiatric facilities had only recently attempted to integrate patients back into the community and “street people” were a relative novelty in some cities. Moreover, she looks head on at the particularities of homelessness in the South, the complexities of the racial divide and the fraught legacy of whites as savior figures. Writing about attending the funeral of a patient so estranged from his relatives that he had made her his next of kin, she recalls seeing his family for the first time: “He had never mentioned them, never asked for them in his final days. He died alone. They were black, I was white and we were in the capital of the Confederacy, where it’s not easy to be . ” Some 400 miles to the southwest and some four decades earlier, Wilma Dykeman, then in her 20s, was writing her own story of grace and moral gravity in Appalachia. Though she would go on to publish 18 books, many dealing with issues around civil rights and environmental activism, Dykeman’s memoir, FAMILY OF EARTH: A Southern Mountain Childhood (University of North Carolina, paper, $18) wasn’t discovered until her death in 2006. In print for the first time, it’s a haunting and exquisite book, not to mention a rare exception to the rule that no one so young should write a memoir. Even without much life experience, Dykeman has a great deal to say about life. “Family of Earth” is ultimately a tribute to the author’s father, who was 60 when she was born and died when she was 14. Cleverly organizing her book into 14 chapters, each accounting for a year of her life with her father, Dykeman somehow manages to make even her infancy and toddlerhood worthy of reflection. “But what takes place in that first year?” she writes. “When does the fresh papyrus of memory begin to record the cuneiform symbols of what was said, or who dropped the white china plate and broke it to bits, or when the sun shone or the snow fell?” Later, with less romanticism if equal virtuosity, she describes the cruel cycle of afflictions endemic to poorer neighbors: “I can remember being repulsed and being held by the gaunt unhealthiness of their faces. . ’u2008. ’u2008. Nothing came beautiful and free alone there was some element of worry, of sickness, death, or ruined crops, in every season and every day. ” Vance and Ensign might see their figurative if not literal ancestors in this description, and readers may see the roots of Trumpism in those ruined crops and worried faces. But to read “Family of Earth” is to fall into the embrace of a Southern landscape that, in the hands of this author, is as cerebral as it is sensual, that gives us not just the bad news about the state of our union but grants a special wisdom to those willing to look beyond regionalism and actually understand something about a region. It shouldn’t take a storm — or a turbulent political season — to confer such lessons. | 0fake |
U.S. appeals court revives Clinton email suit | (This Dec. 27 story corrects to say 55,000 pages of emails instead of 55,000 emails in 3rd paragraph) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a new legal development on the controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails, an appeals court on Tuesday reversed a lower court ruling and said two U.S. government agencies should have done more to recover the emails. The ruling from Judge Stephen Williams, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, revives one of a number of legal challenges involving Clinton’s handling of government emails when she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, used a private email server housed at her New York home to handle State Department emails. She handed over 55,000 pages of emails to U.S. officials probing that system, but did not release about 30,000 she said were personal and not work related. The email case shadowed Clinton’s loss to Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 presidential election. Trump, who had repeatedly said during the bruising campaign that if elected he would prosecute Clinton, said after the election he had no interest in pursuing investigations into Clinton’s email use. While the State Department and National Archives took steps to recover the emails from Clinton’s tenure, they did not ask the U.S. attorney general to take enforcement action. Two conservative groups filed lawsuits to force their hand. A district judge in January ruled the suits brought by Judicial Watch and Cause of Action moot, saying State and the National Archives made a “sustained effort” to recover and preserve Clinton’s records. But Williams said the two agencies should have done more, according to the ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Since the agencies neither asked the attorney general for help nor showed such enforcement action could not uncover new emails, the case was not moot. “The Department has not explained why shaking the tree harder - e.g., by following the statutory mandate to seek action by the Attorney General - might not bear more still,” Williams wrote. “Absent a showing that the requested enforcement action could not shake loose a few more emails, the case is not moot.” The State Department does not comment on pending litigation, a spokesperson said. Williams noted that Clinton used two non-governmental email accounts at State and continued using the Blackberry account she had while a U.S. senator during her first weeks as the nation’s U.S. diplomat. She only switched to the email account hosted on her private server in March 2009, the ruling said. “Because the complaints sought recovery of emails from all of the former Secretary’s accounts, the FBI’s recovery of a server that hosted only one account does not moot the suits, the judge wrote. | 0fake |
Donald Trump’s statement on the Fox News debate has to be seen to be believed | Donald Trump announced Tuesday night that he would not participate in the Fox News debate set for Thursday -- after Fox head honcho Roger Ailes told The Fix's Cal Borchers that FNC personality (and Trump nemesis) Megyn Kelly would stay on as a moderator. Trump's campaign then released the statement below to further explain his decision. It is amazing -- even by Trump standards. I annotated it using Genius; sign up and annotate alongside me!
As someone who wrote one of the best-selling business books of all time, The Art of the Deal, who has built an incredible company, including some of the most valuable and iconic assets in the world, and as someone who has a personal net worth of many billions of dollars, Mr. Trump knows a bad deal when he sees one. FOX News is making tens of millions of dollars on debates, and setting ratings records (the highest in history), where as in previous years they were low-rated afterthoughts.
Unlike the very stupid, highly incompetent people running our country into the ground, Mr. Trump knows when to walk away. Roger Ailes and FOX News think they can toy with him, but Mr. Trump doesn’t play games. There have already been six debates, and according to all online debate polls including Drudge, Slate, Time Magazine, and many others, Mr. Trump has won all of them, in particular the last one. Whereas he has always been a job creator and not a debater, he nevertheless truly enjoys the debating process - and it has been very good for him, both in polls and popularity.
He will not be participating in the FOX News debate and will instead host an event in Iowa to raise money for the Veterans and Wounded Warriors, who have been treated so horribly by our all talk, no action politicians. Like running for office as an extremely successful person, this takes guts and it is the kind mentality our country needs in order to Make America Great Again. | 0fake |
Melania Trump Wins Libel Suit for Calling Her ’High-End Escort’ | First Lady Melania Trump has won the first round in a $150 million lawsuit she filed against a blogger who called her a “ escort” and the British Daily Mail newspaper that repeated the false story. [Melania filed the suit in September in a Montgomery County, Maryland court alleging that author Webster G. Tarpley libeled her when he called her a prostitute. The Daily Mail was also named in the suit for repeating the slanderous accusation. “These defendants made several statements about Mrs. Trump that are 100 percent false and tremendously damaging to her personal and professional reputation,” attorney Charles Harder said as he filed the suit last year. Lawyers for Tarpley and The Daily Mail had asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed, but this week Judge Sharon Burrell rejected arguments to summarily dismiss the lawsuit for failing to meet the “actual malice” standard for libel against public figures, Politico reported. Judge Burrell said that it seemed pretty clear that “ escort” can be construed to mean “prostitute,” and by that understanding there was enough to justify a charge of libel. “The court believes most people, when they hear the words ‘ escort’ that describes a prostitute. There could be no more defamatory statement than to call a woman a prostitute,” Burrell wrote in her decision. The judge did not make it clear, though, if the inclusion of the British Daily Mail was going to be sustained. Since the paper is a foreign corporation, it is still unclear if the Mail would be dismissed from the suit, and Burrell did not rule on that aspect of the case. But for the claims by Tarpley’s attorney, Burrell was dismissive. She said Tarpley’s claim that the suit should be dismissed because it was brought in bad faith was clearly untrue (dismissing his SLAAP claim) and also proclaimed her skepticism that Tarpley’s disgusting accusations were of the sort that should be protected under First Amendment rules — most especially because Melania was just the wife of a candidate and not a candidate herself. “The interests affected are arguably not that important because the plaintiff wasn’t the one running for office,” the judge said. Burrell also didn’t buy Tarpley’s claim that his assertions were just “rhetorical hyperbole” meant to enliven his text. She called his court claims “word games” meant to absolve him of blame. One claim made by Trump’s legal team was tossed out. Harder claimed that Tarpley’s accusations damaged Melania’s current and prospective business deals, but Judge Burrell said the claims were too vague. The judge did promise to revisit the claims if Melania’s lawyers could make them more specific. Trump’s attorney is himself a bit of a celebrity, having helped former wrestler Hulk Hogan win his$140 million lawsuit against Gawker Media. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 0fake |
These Foods Aren’t Genetically Modified but They Are ‘Edited’ - The New York Times | In a few years, you could be eating the next generation of genetically altered foods — potatoes that do not turn brown or soybeans with a healthier mix of fatty acids. And you may have no idea that something is different, because there may be no mention on the labeling even after a law passed by Congress last year to disclose genetically modified ingredients takes effect. A new generation of crops known as rather than genetically modified is coming to the market. Created through new tools that snip and tweak DNA at precise locations, they, at least for now, largely fall outside of current regulations. Unlike older methods of engineering genes, these techniques, like Crispr, so far have generally not been used to add genes from other organisms into the plants. The federal Agriculture Department has asked companies to advise it of their plans. But once the companies submit data to show the agency that the gene edits do not introduce foreign genes from plant pests into the crops, the agency is giving businesses the green light. Hundreds of acres of crops have already been grown in several states, unencumbered by oversight or regulations. And a few people have eaten them already. “This is not Frankenfood,” said André Choulika, chief executive of Cellectis, one of the companies developing crops. In October, Cellectis hosted a dinner at Benoit New York, the Alain Ducasse Manhattan restaurant, and served dishes made from its soybeans and potatoes. Guests included professors, journalists and celebrities like Neil Patrick Harris, the actor. “I don’t even know what gene editing is,” Mr. Harris said. “I thought we were supposed to wear jeans. ” Calyxt, a subsidiary of Cellectis doing the food, is also developing new versions of wheat including one with greater resistance to fungal diseases, another lower in carbohydrates and higher in dietary fibers. Other companies also developing crops including DuPont Pioneer, which has used the technology for a new variety of waxy corn, used most commonly not for food but for starch in adhesives. Scientists at Pennsylvania State University have used Crispr to create mushrooms that do not turn brown as quickly. The current regulations were written for the earlier generation of genetically modified organisms, where scientists used bacteria and viruses — typically from plant pests — to drop a payload of new genes into the nuclei of the plant cells where they merge with the plant’s DNA. That worked, but scientists could not control where the new genes would be inserted, and that led to worries of potentially dangerous genetic disruptions or crossbreeding with . M. O. crops. Companies like Calyxt have portrayed gene editing more like moving the cursor in a word processor to a particular location and making a small change to the text. Federal agencies have not yet said how they intend to regulate foods, and the incoming Trump administration, while criticizing overregulation in general, has not weighed in. Other parts of the world are also considering whether to regulate foods and how to do so. In Europe, where many countries have banned the cultivation of G. M. O. s, the European Commission has created a scientific panel to study the issue, with debate resuming this year. Dr. Choulika said the inspiration for the October gathering was a dinner more than two centuries earlier, by Parmentier, a French scientist who was enthralled with potatoes brought to Europe from South America. But many Europeans scorned the potato. France even outlawed the growing of potatoes in 1748. Largely because of Parmentier’s work, potatoes were declared to be safely edible in 1772, and the ban was lifted. Still, few wanted to eat them. In 1778, Parmentier organized the first in a series of lavish dinners for the high society of Paris, serving dishes all made with potatoes. Potatoes became a fixture in French cuisine. With farmers harvesting the first substantial plantings of the Cellectis potatoes and soybeans last year, Dr. Choulika thought of throwing a modern version of Parmentier’s gathering. “This is the first dinner on Earth with foods,” Dr. Choulika said to the diners. “Things that you eat today, millions of people are going to eat during the 21st century, and this will not stop. ” Food is a side business for Cellectis, which focuses on pharmaceuticals. After some collaborations with big companies like Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer, Cellectis started Calyxt, to explore opportunities for using gene editing for foods. Dr. Choulika said he considered G. M. O.s safe, but that the techniques like those used by Calyxt would be more acceptable to consumers. Often in G. M. O. s, the inserted genes came from unrelated species, like the bacterial genes that were added to cotton so that it would exude a toxin to repel bollworms, a mixing of species known as transgenesis. “There’s not this blockage of transgenesis that freaks out people for no reason,” he said. “I think it is a question of perception. ” Instead of using bacteria and viruses to burrow into a cell, techniques — Calyxt uses one called Talen — create molecules that act as a template to match a specific segment of DNA and then make a cut there. For the Calyxt soybeans, for example, the only change was to turn off two genes. “There is nothing taken out or added to the plant,” Dr. Choulika said. “It’s what nature would have produced. ” Those edits change the mix of fatty acids and perhaps make for a better cooking oil. “Better than olive oil,” Dr. Choulika said. At the dinner, the soybeans were transformed into a several dishes including soy blinis, mini tofu and soy burgers, and soybean hummus. Carole Pourchet, director of the Lab, the research and development arm of Mr. Ducasse’s food enterprise, said the soy cooked like normal soy, but that the potatoes were a little drier, leading to the idea to confit them to retain moisture. The potatoes showed up in mashed potatoes, potato pie and blinis. “The dinner was maybe potatoes cooked 10 ways,” said Richard C. Mulligan, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School who was one of the guests. Dr. Choulika worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Mulligan’s laboratory two decades ago. Federico Tripodi, chief executive of the Calyxt subsidiary, said the company hoped the soybeans would be used in cooking oil for commercial and industrial use by 2018. The potatoes, edited to remain fresher longer and not produce carcinogens when fried, could be grown and sold in 2019. A second potato that is slower to turn brown just got word from the U. S. D. A. that it, too, is not subject to regulation. Gene editing is not being used only with plants. A Minnesota company, Recombinetics, is editing the genes of farm animals — for example, creating cattle without horns. Critics warned that the industry was repeating the same mistakes of G. M. O. s. “We’ve never been against any of this technology,” said Michael K. Hansen, a senior staff scientist at Consumers Union. “We don’t say it’s inherently bad or these crops are inherently dangers. It’s just they raise safety issues, and there should be required safety assessments. ” While the templates match a specific sequence, it is possible that the same sequence occurs elsewhere in the genome or they will match similar sequences, and the DNA will be sliced in those places, too, with unknown consequences. “They make it sound very exact,” Dr. Hansen said. “It will have effects. ” Dr. Hansen said unregulated crops could also create trade havoc if traces of them accidentally mixed into exports to countries that prohibited them. Daniel Voytas, chief science officer of Calyxt who was one of the inventors of the Talen technology, said the company had not checked the entire genomes of their plants, but did look for unintended changes within sections that were similar to the parts they were editing. “We didn’t find any,” he said. Dr. Voytas said it would not be “a huge amount of work” to sequence the entire genome and that all of the data they presented was available on the U. S. D. A.’s website. A U. S. D. A. advisory board in November unanimously recommended that standards for organic foods exclude crops even if they were grown without chemical fertilizers and abided by the other strictures of organic farming. Dr. Mulligan of Harvard said he was not sure that people would see much difference between and genetically modified. “The objection that people have is a more visceral and vague objection to messing with DNA,” he said. “It’s hard to see that the public would see the difference. ” He admitted that he was more excited by the chef. “The good thing with this is Ducasse is such a culinary artist,” Dr. Mulligan said. “He is really well known for being able to take anything and make it taste good. ” For Mr. Harris, the dinner provided a whirlwind introduction to biotechnology — “realities that I thought were theoreticals,” he said. | 0fake |
Shocking Ad Shows How Trump’s Racist Campaign Is RUINING Children’s Lives (VIDEO) | We know without a doubt that Trump s blatantly racist campaign has had a massive effect on adults in this country. Suddenly, the bigots that were too afraid to voice their opinions aloud have found the courage to spew their hate speech openly and Trump has only encouraged more division and violence throughout America. But if you think that adults are the only ones being affected by this, you re wrong.Thanks to a new ad from progressive group Move On, we re able to see that Trump s campaign is taking a devastating toll on non-white and Muslim children, who are getting bullied in school. The ad, titled Our Kids, runs through several powerful news clips where minority children have been threatened or harassed by their white, racist peers who have undoubtedly latched onto Trump s messaging after learning it from their parents or from the media.In one news bit, white students were chanting Trump s name at black and Latino players during a high school basketball game in Chicago. In another, Latino students were humiliated when vandals in Oregon hung a banner that said, Build a wall. One student who was interviewed in the clip said that Students don t feel safe. Students don t want to go to school anymore. Another said, Lately, it s just been getting worse. This ad is less than 90 seconds long, but it perfectly sums up that the biggest motivating force behind Trump s campaign and its voters is racism, regardless of what Trump s surrogates try to say. Move On s ad gave viewers a brutal reality check when it said: Donald Trump is endangering our kids. Perhaps the next most powerful message in the ad was the call to action for adults to do something to protect all the children in the country. The ad said: Protect our kids from Trump s hate speech. Vote November 8th. You can watch the ad below:Featured image via United Nations Photo / Flickr | 1real |
BOILER ROOM – EP #45 – Horror Hotel, Trump Gatecrash & Cynical Ploys | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blogspot, Jay Dyer of Jays Analysis & ACR contributor Randy J and Boiler Room Presidential Candidate select: Stewart Howe. In this broadcast listeners will be hearing us go around the BOILER ROOM on a veritable feast of topics including Donald Trump steamrolling the GOP and gatecrashing Glenn Beck s Cruz Caucus event, some esoteric analysis with Jay Dyer in the realms of serial killers, Dune and more, the Clinton Epstein connections and the usual conversational holes the Boiler crew somehow seems to dig themselves in and out of. If you want to participate, bring something interesting to throw into the boiler Join us in the ALTERNATE CURRENT RADIO chat room.BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! | 1real |
#MemeOfTheWeek: That Article From The Onion About Mass Shootings | #MemeOfTheWeek: That Article From The Onion About Mass Shootings
You might have seen the article by now: " 'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens." The Onion, a satirical news site that runs fake news stories, has published a story with that headline three times over the last year and a half: this week after a shooter killed nine people at an Oregon community college; in June of this year after a violent rampage in a black Charleston church that also killed nine people; and last May, after a shooting at the University of California Santa Barbara that killed seven.
The facts and dates surrounding the particular shooting change each time the story is republished, but key lines remain:
The article's been shared thousands of times on social media, and some on Twitter have taken notice of the piece's repackaging:
The Onion, in its satire, has done something most of the "mainstream media" has refused to do: say how they really feel about mass shootings in America, said Dave Cullen, a journalist who has covered mass shootings for years and wrote the New York Times bestseller Columbine. "I think what [the Onion article's popularity] says is we look for the people who tell us the truth — kind of the emperor's new clothes — who see through the stuff, and don't just print the same old stuff, or do the same old stuff, or do the safe stuff — the people who call us on our s - - -."
Cullen agreed that The Onion article is #MemeOfTheWeek-worthy, explaining, "The Onion completely nails it. That [the article] resonates because they totally got it."
Cullen said another type of news satire has been doing the same thing — saying what journalists are afraid to say — for years. "I think it's the same reason that a lot of the media, about 10 years ago, were shocked and kind of disgusted and horrified that a lot of young people were getting their daily news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."
Not all of The Onion's satirical coverage of mass shootings in America have gone over as well. After a shooting that killed 12 at Washington Navy Yard in 2013, the website published a story with the headline: "Location of Newest Mass Shooting Revealed. It's A Navy Yard, Authorities Confirm." One person tweeted, "This isn't funny." Another called it "gross stupidity."
Of course, sometimes, there's no satire to praise or ridicule at all. Some tragedies leave even the satirists are at a loss for words. After the Charleston church massacre, Jon Stewart, instead of delivering a biting, satirical monologue on The Daily Show, started his comments after the shooting with the words, "I've got nothing." And The Onion, after the Sandy Hook massacre, wrote an article with the headline, "F - - - Everything, Nation Reports." | 0fake |
Remember This When You Talk About Standing Rock | Donate Remember This When You Talk About Standing Rock Dan Nanamkin during the treaty camp’s confrontation with militarized police force on Thursday afternoon. Photo by Adam Alexander Johansson. By Kelly Hayes / yesmagazine.org
This piece is very personal because, as an Indigenous woman, my analysis is very personal, as is the analysis that my friends on the frontlines have shared with me. We obviously can’t speak for everyone involved, as Native beliefs and perspectives are as diverse as the convictions of any people. But as my friends hold strong on the frontlines of Standing Rock, and I watch transfixed with both pride and worry, we feel the need to say a few things.
I’ve been in and out of communication with my friends at Standing Rock all day. As you might imagine, as much as they don’t want me to worry, it’s pretty hard for them to stay in touch. I asked if there was anything they wanted me to convey on social media, as most of them are maintaining a very limited presence on such platforms. The following is my best effort to summarize what they had to say, and to chime in with a few corresponding thoughts of my own.
It is crucial that people recognize that Standing Rock is part of an ongoing struggle against colonial violence. #NoDAPL is a front of struggle in a long-erased war against Native peoples — a war that has been active since first contact, and waged without interruption. Our efforts to survive the conditions of this anti-Native society have gone largely unnoticed because white supremacy is the law of the land, and because we, as Native people, have been pushed beyond the limits of public consciousness.
The fact that we are more likely to be killed by law enforcement than any other group speaks to the fact that Native erasure is ubiquitous, both culturally and literally, but pushed from public view. Our struggles intersect with numerous others, but are perpetrated with different motives and intentions. Anti-Blackness, for example, is a performative enforcement of structural power, whereas the violence against us is a matter of pragmatism. The struggle at Standing Rock is an effort to prevent the construction of a deadly, destructive mechanism, created by greed-driven people with no regard for our lives. It has always been this way. We die, and have died, for the sake of expansion and white wealth, and for the maintenance of both.
The harms committed against us have long been relegated to the history books. This erasure has occurred for the sake of both white supremacy and US mythology, such as American exceptionalism. It has also been perpetuated to sustain the comfort of those who benefit from harms committed against us. Our struggles have been kept both out of sight and out of mind — easily forgotten by those who aren’t directly impacted.
It should be clear to everyone that we are not simply here in those rare moments when others bear witness.
To reiterate (what should be obvious): We are not simply here when you see us.
We have always been here, fighting for our lives, surviving colonization, and that reality is rarely acknowledged. Even people who believe in freedom frequently overlook our issues, as well as the intersections of their issues with our own. It matters that more of the world is bearing witness in this historic moment, but we feel the need to point out that the dialogue around #NoDAPL has become extremely climate oriented. Yes, there is an undeniable connectivity between this front of struggle and the larger fight to combat climate change. We fully recognize that all of humanity is at risk of extinction, whether they realize it or not. But intersectionality does not mean focusing exclusively on the intersections of our respective work.
It sometimes means taking a journey well outside the bounds of those intersections.
In discussing #NoDAPL, too few people have started from a place of naming that we have a right to defend our water and our lives, simply because we have a natural right to defend ourselves and our communities. When “climate justice”, in a very broad sense, becomes the center of conversation, our fronts of struggle are often reduced to a staging ground for the messaging of NGOs.
This is happening far too frequently in public discussion of #NoDAPL.
Yes, everyone should be talking about climate change, but you should also be talking about the fact that Native communities deserve to survive, because our lives are worth defending in their own right — not simply because “this affects us all.”
So when you talk about Standing Rock, please begin by acknowledging that this pipeline was redirected from an area where it was most likely to impact white people. And please remind people that our people are struggling to survive the violence of colonization on many fronts, and that people shouldn’t simply engage with or retweet such stories when they see a concrete connection to their own issues — or a jumping off point to discuss their own issues. Our friends, allies and accomplices should be fighting alongside us because they value our humanity and right to live, in addition to whatever else they believe in.
Every Native at Standing Rock — every Native on this continent — has survived the genocide of a hundred million of our people. That means that every Indigenous child born is a victory against colonialism, but we are all born into a fight for our very existence. We need that to be named and centered, which is a courtesy we are rarely afforded.
This message is not a condemnation. It’s an ask.
We are asking that you help ensure that dialogue around this issue begins with and centers a discussion of anti-Native violence and policies, no matter what other connections you might ultimately make, because those discussions simply don’t happen in this country. There obviously aren’t enough people talking about climate change, but there are even fewer people — and let’s be real, far fewer people — discussing the various forms of violence we are up against, and acting in solidarity with us. And while such discussions have always been deserved, we are living in a moment when Native water protectors and water warriors have more than earned both acknowledgement and solidarity.
So if you have been with us in this fight, we appreciate you. But we are reaching out, right now, in these brave days for our people, and asking that you keep the aforementioned truths front and center as you discuss this effort. This moment is, first and foremost, about Native liberation, self determination and Native survival. That needs to be centered and celebrated.
Thanks,
K and friends
Kelly Hayes is a direct action trainer and a co-founder of The Chicago Light Brigade and the direct action collective Lifted Voices. She blogs at TransformativeSpaces.org , where this article originally appeared, about U.S. movements and her work as an organizer against state violence. 4.0 · | 1real |
Trump’s Immigration Speech After Mexico Visit FILLED With Lies, Deceit, And Racism | After meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto (and lying about what was discussed), Donald Trump flew back to Phoenix, Arizona to deliver a 10-point plan on how to fix America s broken immigration system.As pointed out by the Hillary Clinton campaign, the speech was overwhelmingly applauded by the alt-right, including white nationalists David Duke and Richard Spencer, and closeted white nationalist Ann Coulter (who is apparently back on the Trump train).In typical Trump fashion, the immigration proposal was laced with lies, deceit, and rank xenophobia, with outright lies regarding President Obama and Hillary Clinton s determination to tackle the issue of illegal immigration.Once again, Donald Trump claimed that illegal immigration is as high as 30 million, saying, honestly we ve been hearing that number for years. It s always 11 million. Our government has no idea. It could be 3 million. It could be 30 million. They have no idea what the number is. Considering Trump has been fact checked on this claim multiple times with Politifact rating it as Pants on Fire one would think the Republican nominee would have the sense to stick to what is fact. But then again, it is Donald Trump. The Department of Homeland Security, along with several independent groups, put the number anywhere between 11 to 12 million, give or take. Not one serious organization, meaning one with credibility, has published a report showing the number to be anywhere near the bloated 30 million Trump and his surrogates are pushing.It s much easier to convince people there s a bigger problem than there really is when you conflate the statistics to suit your political purpose, and no one understands this better than Trump he conflates the statistics on America s tax rates, crime rate, terrorism rate, and unemployment rate.If there s one thing Trump is better at than inflating statistics, it s letting his supporters know that he, and only he, cares and can fix it. At the Phoenix rally, Trump used the opportunity to slam his opponents, saying President Obama and Hillary Clinton have engaged in gross dereliction of duty by surrendering the safety of the American people to open borders Ah, yes, the Obama doesn t care about America shtick. A popular and sometimes effective rallying call of the right, Trump and his surrogates certainly know how to play into the hands of their rabid base, and they certainly knows how to play into the hands of their latent racial hatred of the President.If only it were true though.See, if the Obama Administration (which included Hillary Clinton his first term) really had a gross dereliction of duty of the kind Trump speaks of, it wouldn t have overseen the largest deportation force in decades, while simultaneously seeing illegal immigration numbers fall, very dramatically.Perhaps Trump should answer for the illegal immigrants he s hired to work here in the United States before he accuses anyone of dereliction. In a speech that was really rhetoric and not all that much fact, Trump managed to get even that wrong when Trump claimed President Obama said climate change was a bigger threat than ISIS, China, Russia (which is ironic), and the 11 million illegal immigrants.First off, it was Senator Bernie Sanders who said climate change is the biggest threat to American security. Second, while President Obama has said that tackling climate change was an urgent threat to the United States, fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe was the top priority.In fact, President Obama said, verbatim, I ve got a lot of things of my plate, but my top priority is to defeat ISIL. What say you, Donald?Wednesday s speech in Phoenix was classic Trump fluff, lies and fear mongering. A trip to Mexico that ended up being an embarrassment turned into a speech that fell on deaf ears (except for the white nationalists). This is the man Coulter compared to Churchill.Republicans have themselves a real winner.Featured image John Freso/Getty Images | 1real |
France says pressure needed to stop North Korea crossing next nuclear hurdle | PARIS (Reuters) - France said on Wednesday it was imperative the United Nations Security Council apply more pressure on North Korea to prevent it jumping another hurdle toward an effective nuclear weapons capacity that could lead to a dangerous military escalation. Amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula, North Korea has escalated a war of words with the United States, warning of full-out nuclear war if Washington takes military action against it over its nuclear and missile ambitions. “We have to avoid all military escalation,” Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told LCP television. “This threatens nuclear proliferation in the region, but also directly threatens North America. It’s a major danger.” Ayrault, who was in China last week and whose country has no diplomatic representation in North Korea, said it appeared that Beijing was increasingly worried by the behavior of its neighbor. “China is scared of chaos and destabilization of the regime that would result in millions of refugees in the region so we can make progress through international pressure ... sanctions and discussions between the Security Council members to take measures,” he said. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday that Washington would work with its allies and China to put economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea but added that America would defeat any attack with an “overwhelming response”. “There is no time to lose because all of the money North Korea has is being used for nuclear investment and research which would enable the country to jump another hurdle,” he said. | 0fake |
No Longer a Fantasy: Could Hillary Clinton Actually Drop Out of the Race? | 21st Century Wire says US Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton is reported to have fainted during a major 9/11 Memorial service in New York City this past Sunday. She was promptly removed from the event by her campaign staff, but video footage later emerged showing Clinton being carried into her custom transport van.Now the media is buzzing with the question: is Hillary Clinton fit enough for the Oval Office? More importantly, can she stay on the campaign trail?As expected, the Clinton campaign is vehemently downplaying any health concerns, insisting that the former Secretary of State is absolutely fine. The following is a video mix of this bizarre campaign scene, where Mrs. Clinton is lifted by multiple staffers and security into her van, and also notice at the 48 second mark where a small item drops from her right pant leg onto the pavement below. Watch:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCx0x0rigeQ . What would happen if she bowed out? Who would replace her? Is this a real possibility, or is this simply the latest in a long line of sensational rightwing media reports designed to further distract and divert the American public away from important key issues facing America?Here is former Huffington Post journalist David Seaman, who was recently fired and his work censored (and scrubbed from the internet) by the Huff Post for reporting on Clinton s health issues. Watch as he reveals Wikileaks Clinton Email Archive, which reveal additional information Clinton s health problems:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ren0vHuq-1A . Probing further into the possibility of Hillary Clinton actually dropping from the US Presidential race is award-winning health journalist and media analyst Jon Rappoport Jon Rappoport No More Fake NewsI ve written about her health problems before, including the blood-thinning Coumadin she s taking. And the blood clots. And the advisory against flying, because new life-threatening blood clots can occur.I wrote and I still say Democrat power players would go along with electing her even if she was dragged into the Oval Office dead on arrival. They don t care.After Hillary s fainting spell at the 9/11 memorial, the Washington Post, that organ of unquestioned truth, grants that it s now acceptable to ask polite questions about her health. Well done, boys. You re really going out on a limb. Thanks so much.I think it s time for major media to take an overt stand about Hillary: She may be very sick, dangerously so, but it s still a crime to emphasize that because it s sexist, and besides, untoward publicity could allow Trump to slip into the White House, and besides, our news organization has donated to the Clinton Foundation, and besides, she s Hillary and we all know and love her and we don t want to think about something bad happening to her because then we would cry. I would accept that statement. Hillary s public coughing fits. The physical instability. The fainting. The handler, Todd Madison, walking out on stage, putting his hand on her, telling her to keep talking, as if she s forgotten what s going on. You have to conclude her doctors have tried everything they can to keep her upright and functioning, and if this is best they can do, she s in bad shape.Hillary dropping out of the race for the Oval Office is no longer a fantasy. It could happen. If it does, the media will swing into gear and try to demand a delay in the election.There is no basis for such a demand, because both major Parties can pick their candidate on their own terms. The Democrats, for example, as we ve seen, can rig the vote and secretly back Hillary from the beginning and cook up propaganda to defeat Bernie Sanders. They can choose a slew of so-called super-delegates who owe nothing to the voters and, instead, support whoever they want to (Hillary). So if she drops out, the Democrat leaders can simply decide, again, without consulting voters, who the substitute is. Kaine? Biden? Sanders? Elizabeth Warren? Michelle Obama? Rachel Maddow? Karl Marx?No doubt, some progressive pundit will suggest Obama should stay in office for a while, because he has the experience, he s Presidential, he s done such a magnificent job in his two terms, his mission is unfinished (he must get the TPP treaty ratified), we need him to continue the dialogue on race in the post-racial society, he knows how to bypass Congress with a blizzard of executive orders, he can figure out a way to admit millions more illegal immigrants to these shores, he backs Black Lives Matter, and he knows how to talk about fake employment numbers and pretend they re real.The Democrats and their supporters will go on a victim binge: woe is us, Hillary our leader has fallen, we re crippled (differently abled), we need time to regroup, we can t be expected to make a snap judgment, who cares about constitutional rules governing elections, this is really serious, we have to decide what s best for The People and we have to find a way to pay off Bernie Sanders so he stays in hiding and keeps his big mouth shut.I, for one, would like to see Trump vs. Bernie. Socialist vs. Capitalist. They could do three debates on Globalism and its horrendous effects on America, at which point the public would realize they both claim to perceive the gargantuan threat, albeit from different angles.Hillary was the unabashed queen bee of Globalism.At any rate, you can bet that, as we speak, media giants are taking private briefings on how the election season would proceed if she drops out. They re preparing their talking points and tall stories and outright lies. All somehow culminating in a Democrat Party victory this November, come hell or high water. After Congressional leaders begged President Obama to stay on for several months, he reluctantly agreed, saying: Well, I do have sixty or seventy executive orders drawn up and ready to go, so perhaps I could bring the country a little closer to the future we envision. We re all in this together. The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails atNoMoreFakeNews.com or OutsideTheRealityMachine.READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | 1real |
Trump to nominate Elaine Chao for transportation post: source | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to head the Transportation Department, a source with knowledge of the decision said on Tuesday. The source, who requested anonymity, confirmed the pick to Reuters. Chao, the wife of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, served as labor secretary under President George W. Bush and was the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position. The formal announcement was expected Tuesday afternoon. Although Trump spoke on the campaign trail about wanting to “drain the swamp” in Washington, more than half of Trump’s nine key appointments so far have been accomplished Washington insiders, such as Chao. Chao will face a number of big decisions at the agency that regulates the nation’s vehicles, airplanes, railroads, pipelines, ports and highways - including how to proceed on self-driving cars on U.S. roads, the use of small unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, over people and whether U.S. fuel efficiency standards should be revised. There are dozens of other pending regulatory issues the next administration will face, including railroad safety and staffing rules, requiring event data recorders in all U.S. vehicles and whether to set rules for airlines requiring they give more passengers with disabilities seats with extra leg room and whether to ban or restrict phone calls made on personal phones on U.S. flights. She may also take a leading role in Trump’s plans to rebuild U.S. infrastructure. Trump has called for $1 trillion in infrastructure spending over 10 years to rebuild airports, bridges and other projects, but it is unclear how much of the funding would come from the federal budget. Mitch Bainwol, chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group that has urged the Trump administration to conduct a sweeping review of auto regulations, praised Chao as a “superb choice.” He said the next administration will make important decisions on self-driving cars and how to maximize “the rate of innovation in the technologies that save lives, avoid crashes and improve fuel economy.” Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich praised Chao’s expected nomination. She will be a “great Secretary of Transportation. She really understands the federal government-can lead rebuilding our infrastructure,” he wrote on Twitter. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats want to work with Chao on fixing infrastructure but “will not allow Republicans to use an infrastructure bill as a Trojan horse for undermining workers’ wages and handing massive tax breaks to big corporations.” Chao is a former deputy transportation secretary and sits on the boards of Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), Ingersoll-Rand Co [IRCOM.UL], News Corp (NWSA.O) and Vulcan Materials Co (VMC.N). A Chinese immigrant, Chao arrived in the United States at age 8. Her father, James S.C. Chao, is founder of the Foremost Group, an international shipping company. | 0fake |
Trump Received Unsubstantiated Report That Russia Had Damaging Information About Him - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The chiefs of America’s intelligence agencies last week presented President Obama and Donald J. Trump with a summary of unsubstantiated reports that Russia had collected compromising and salacious personal information about Mr. Trump, two officials with knowledge of the briefing said. The summary is based on memos generated by political operatives seeking to derail Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Details of the reports began circulating in the fall and were widely known among journalists and politicians in Washington. The summary, first reported by CNN, was presented as an appendix to the intelligence agencies’ report on Russian hacking efforts during the election, the officials said. The material was not corroborated, and The New York Times has not been able to confirm the claims. But intelligence agencies considered it so potentially explosive that they decided Mr. Obama, Mr. Trump and congressional leaders needed to be told about it and informed that the agencies were actively investigating it. Intelligence officials were concerned that the information would leak before they informed Mr. Trump of its existence, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly. The author of the memos is Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with who once served in Moscow. After Mr. Steele retired in 2009, he founded a private firm called Orbis Business Intelligence in London. Former C. I. A. officials described him as an expert on Russia who is well respected in the spy world. On Tuesday night, Mr. Trump responded to the memos on Twitter: In an appearance recorded for NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman, Kellyanne Conway, said of the claims in the opposition research memos, “He has said he is not aware of that. ” On Wednesday, a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia dismissed the allegations. “The Kremlin has no compromising dossier on Trump, such information isn’t consistent with reality and is nothing but an absolute fantasy,” the spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said at a news conference. Since the intelligence agencies’ report on Friday that Mr. Putin of Russia had ordered the hacking and leaks of Democratic emails in order to hurt his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and help Mr. Trump, the and his aides have said that Democrats are trying to mar his election victory. The decision of top intelligence officials to give the president, the and the Gang of Eight — Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress and the intelligence committees — what they know to be unverified, defamatory material was extremely unusual. The appendix summarized opposition research memos prepared mainly by a retired British intelligence operative for a Washington political and corporate research firm. The firm was paid for its work first by Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals and later by supporters of Mrs. Clinton. The Times has checked on a number of the details included in the memos but has been unable to substantiate them. The memos suggest that for many years, the Russian government of Mr. Putin has looked for ways to influence Mr. Trump, who has traveled repeatedly to Moscow to investigate real estate deals or to oversee the Miss Universe competition, which he owned for several years. Mr. Trump never completed any major deals in Russia, though he discussed them for years. Mr. Steele, who gathered the material about Mr. Trump, is considered a competent and reliable operative with extensive experience in Russia, American officials said. But he passed on what he heard from Russian informants and others, and what they told him has not yet been vetted by American intelligence. The memos describe sex videos involving prostitutes with Mr. Trump in a 2013 visit to a Moscow hotel. The videos were supposedly prepared as “kompromat,” or compromising material, with the possible goal of blackmailing Mr. Trump in the future. The memos also suggest that Russian officials proposed various lucrative deals, essentially as disguised bribes in order to win influence over Mr. Trump. The memos describe several purported meetings during the 2016 presidential campaign between Trump representatives and Russian officials to discuss matters of mutual interest, including the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta. If some of the unproven claims in the memos are merely titillating, others would amount to extremely serious, potentially treasonous acts. One of the opposition research memos quotes an unidentified Russian source as claiming that the hacking and leaking of Democratic emails was carried out “with the full knowledge and support of TRUMP and senior members of his campaign team. ” In return, the memo said, “the TRUMP team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue” because Mr. Putin “needed to cauterize the subject. ” Michael Cohen, a lawyer and adviser to Mr. Trump, also went to Twitter to deny a specific claim in the opposition research involving him. One of the memos claims that Mr. Cohen went to Prague in August or September to meet with Kremlin representatives and to talk about Russian hacking of Democrats. Mr. Cohen tweeted on Tuesday night: In addition, in a recent interview with The Times, one of the Russian officials named in the memo as having met with Mr. Cohen, Oleg Solodukhin, denied that he had met with Mr. Cohen or any other Trump representative. “I don’t know where that rumor came from,” Mr. Solodukhin, of the Russian organization Rossotrudnichestvo, which promotes Russian culture and interests abroad, said in a telephone interview. The Times reported before the election that the F. B. I. was looking into possible evidence of links between the Trump campaign and Russia. But the investigation surfaced again at a Senate hearing on Tuesday in a series of questions from Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, to the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey. Mr. Wyden, trying to draw Mr. Comey out on information he may have heard during a classified briefing, asked if the F. B. I. had investigated the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia. Mr. Comey demurred, saying he could not discuss any investigations that might or might not be underway. Mr. Wyden kept pressing, asking Mr. Comey to provide a written answer to the question before Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 because he feared there would be no declassification of the information once Mr. Trump took office. After the hearing, Mr. Wyden posted on Twitter: The F. B. I. obtained the material long before the election, and some of the memos in the opposition research dossier are dated as early as June. But agents have struggled to confirm it, according to federal officials familiar with the investigation. Allies of Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader from Nevada who retired at the end of the year, said the disclosures validated his call last summer for an investigation by the F. B. I. into Mr. Trump’s links to Russia. Democrats on Tuesday night pressed for a thorough investigation of the claims in the memos. Representative Eric Swalwell of California, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, called for law enforcement to find out whether the Russian government had had any contact with Mr. Trump or his campaign. “The has spoken a number of times, including after being presented with this evidence, in flattering ways about Russia and its dictator,” Mr. Swalwell said. “Considering the evidence of Russia hacking our democracy to his benefit, the would do a service to his presidency and our country by releasing his personal and business income taxes, as well as information on any global financial holdings. ” | 0fake |
Rosie O’Donnell Just CRUSHED What Was Left Of ‘Sh*tstain’ Donald Trump’s Pride (VIDEO) | Rosie O Donnell and Donald Trump have been engaged in a years-long feud, mostly because he leveled pathetic jabs at her over minor issues. But since Trump began his run for President, watching her smack him around has gone from entertaining to downright epic. On Wednesday, O Donnell made an appearance at a Boy George and Cyndi Lauper gig in New York. Speaking to the crowd, she launched into another attack on Trump that is likely eating away at him this very moment.In a video posted by the Daily Mail, O Donnell joked that she is depressed because I f*cking hate that orange piece of sh*t. She says he talked to her therapist about The Donald, and was told not to focus on the 2016 Republican frontrunner. Well I would rather give birth to a flaming iguana while taking a sh*t, she recalls saying, apparently about his presidential prospects. I hate him. I hate him. O Donnell noted that someone who was her enemy for years is friends with the sh*tstain with a tinge of orange a fact that worries her.All through her brief set, the audience cheered and laughed, but the man who recorded the video says that a few people were upset with O Donnell. Rosie s routine was just jaw-dropping, he told the Daily Mail, noting that he began recording after the comedienne called Trump a sh*tstain. She sounds like she is obsessed with Donald Trump and it was what she spent most of her very short act talking about. He says that not everyone was impressed, tossing out an unverifiable claim that people around him were shaking their heads in disagreement. One man near me turned to his wife turned and said, I really hope Donald gets elected so she keeps her promise and moves to Canada , the man claims, apparently able to overhear someone s conversation with his wife over both O Donnell and the very enthusiastic crowd. He says that Another lady was shouting, Get off and let Cyndi sing' something that is oddly missing from his video.Recently, O Donnell made headlines with a rather hilarious observation about Trump s mouth specifically that it looks almost exactly like a puckered anus.Watch O Donnell s latest Trump smackdown below:Featured image via Getty Images (Dimitrios Kambouris)/Getty Images (Spencer Platt) | 1real |
John Bolton: Trump Needs ‘Long-Term Strategy to Keep Russia in Check in Europe and Middle East’ | Former U. N. ambassador John Bolton discussed the Trump administration’s top foreign policy objectives with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily. [Curt Schilling, who was from CPAC on Thursday morning, asked Bolton what he thought the top foreign policy concern for the Trump administration was at the moment. “I think there are two immediate concerns, and then there are two strategic concerns that may sound but require corrective action by the Trump administration just as soon as they can get to it, to overcome the mistakes of the last eight years,” Bolton replied. “The two immediate threats are the proliferation of nuclear, chemical weapons. We see Iran and North Korea as the sort of two threats in that regard. And then, second, the continuing threat of radical Islamic terrorism, with ISIS, the Taliban in Afghanistan, all really threatening us in palpable ways today. ” “The two threats — although again, we see them in the news — are China and Russia,” he continued. “We need to have a strategy to keep Russia in check in both Eastern and Central Europe and in the Middle East. ” “The relationship with China, I think, will be the dominant international issue for the United States for the rest of this century, and we’re not doing well right now,” he warned. “They’re creating their own new province in the South China Sea. They’re taking a huge chunk of territory and sea lanes out of international status and making them Chinese national territory, and Obama just watched it happen. ” “There’s a lot on the administration’s plate, an awful lot to do. We obviously focus in the media on terrorism, and Americans are rightly concerned about it, but this is not just a Middle East issue, and it’s not just the threat of terrorism that, I think, the president in his perspective has to deal with,” he said. Turning to quick hits on a few other topics, Bolton praised the current U. N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, for doing “an excellent job,” in particular applauding her assault on the U. N. security council’s bias last week. “I’m glad she said what she did. It was right on target. I hope she continues,” he said. Marlow mentioned the news about Senator John McCain making a “secret trip to Syria” and wondered if he was trying to establish a “shadow presidency. ” “Well, look, McCain has been involved in the conflict in Syria for a long time, and we’re at a very important moment here because if Iran is able to keep the Assad regime in power and we continue to follow the Obama policy of opposing ISIS in a way that magnifies the positive effects for Iran, for its surrogate regime in Iraq, for Assad, for Hezbollah, we may eliminate ISIS — which I think Trump is determined to do, unlike Obama. But we don’t want to do it in a way that maximizes the benefit for Iran. So I think this is something that, really, it’s an kind of problem. How are we going to go after ISIS more effectively than Obama did without advantaging Iran?” Bolton asked. Bolton looked at President Trump’s immigration reforms and Mexico’s hostile reaction to them, observing that “the rules, to me, look like saying we’re actually going to enforce American law that’s already on the books. ” “How’s that for a revolution?” he asked sardonically. “Where you put the people you’re deporting — I mean, ultimately, they’ve got to go back to their country of origin. Mexico’s objecting that a lot of them aren’t Mexican. On the other hand, they got into the United States through Mexico. Maybe it should be Mexico’s problem,” Bolton mused. “We’ll see how discussions went last night. We don’t have reporting on it. They see the Mexican president today, and we’ll know from there. ” John Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and presides over his own political action committee, BoltonPAC. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 0fake |
The Best Hillary Clinton Gaffe Ever Just Happened And It’s A Whopper [Video] | Hillary was speaking to the NAACP on 10/30/15 and was promoting the Obama program to Ban the Box . The program bans federal employers from asking if a potential employee has a criminal record. This is supposed to give criminals a fair shot at employment. So Hillary is jumping on this because it plays to her base, right? She is all for criminal justice reform ESPECIALLY for Former Presidents? Get ready for the biggest Freudian slip ever! Earlier today I announced that as president I will take steps to ban the box, so former presidents won t have to declare their criminal history at the very start of the hiring process. DID YOU CATCH THAT SLIP OF THE TONGUE? WELL, SHE DIDN T, AND SHE DIDN T CORRECT HERSELF! | 1real |
U.S. judge approves court, police accord for Ferguson, Missouri | (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday approved an agreement between the U.S. Justice Department and Ferguson, Missouri, to reform the city’s police department, a pact prompted by the 2014 shooting of an unarmed black teenager that sparked violent protests. U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry of Missouri’s Eastern District approved the 129-page accord, which also outlines the revamping of the St. Louis suburb’s municipal law code. The Justice Department and Ferguson recognize “that the ability of a police department to protect the community it serves is only as strong as the relationship it has with that community,” the consent decree signed by Perry said. The agreement requires Ferguson police officers to undergo bias-awareness training and the department must implement an accountability system. The city also agreed that police must ensure that stop, search and arrest practices do not discriminate on the basis of race or other factors protected under law. The largely black community of Ferguson erupted into violent protests in 2014 after a grand jury chose not to indict white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of unarmed 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown. The city council in Ferguson approved the agreement in March after receiving assurances from the Justice Department that it would work with Ferguson to ensure it would not cripple city finances. A number of U.S. cities have entered into police reform pacts, including Seattle, Washington and Albuquerque, New Mexico. The decree came the day that a white St. Louis police officer shot and killed a black carjacking suspect about 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Ferguson. St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson told reporters the suspect pointed a gun at officers and one opened fire. No officers were injured and there was no dash camera in the police cruiser, he said. | 0fake |
DEFIANT NATIONAL PARK SERVICE STAFF GOES ROGUE: Mounts Anti-Trump Twitter Campaign | The employees went on twitter to speak about global warming and immigration The Twitter accounts themselves went beyond the official National Park Service accounts. The @AltUSNatParkService account, which calls itself an Unofficial Resistance team of the U.S. National Park Service, has garnered over half a million followers.Climate-related tweets sent out by the official Badlands park account were deleted after they went viral on Twitter, sparking debate over whether the park was defying the Trump administration.YES! THIS IS DEFIANT AND SINCE THE FEDS ARE THEIR EMPLOYER, THEY SHOULD BE FIRED! | 1real |
With C.I.A. Hacking Revelations, How to Protect Your Devices - The New York Times | WikiLeaks this week published a trove of documents that appears to detail how the Central Intelligence Agency successfully hacked a wide variety of tech products, including iPhones, Android devices, routers and Samsung televisions. That’s just about every major category of consumer electronics. So what does that mean for you if you own one — or several — of these gadgets? For many people, it may mean nothing at all. The thousands of pages of documents refer to programs that attacked outdated versions of the software systems running on devices, and many security vulnerabilities have since been patched. On the other hand, many people may still use outdated software on their devices. And although the C. I. A. designed these tools to spy on terrorists in the interest of national security, the hacking tools may have ended up in the hands of a whole range of entities. The fallout may also end up being broader. WikiLeaks, which released documents covering 2013 to 2016, has said its initial publication was just the first installment in a bigger cache of secret C. I. A. material. So even if you aren’t worried about what WikiLeaks revealed about the C. I. A. right now for yourself, here are some tips for protecting your cellphones, televisions and internet routers. What you can do if you’re on Android Hundreds of millions of Android users still use devices based on older versions of the mobile operating system. The WikiLeaks document collection, which includes 7, 818 web pages and 943 attachments, showed that the Android devices targeted by the hacking programs were mostly running a version of Android 4. 0. Today, about 30 percent of Android users, or at least 420 million people, are on a variant of Android 4. 0, according to Google. The company said it was investigating reports of the security issues described in the WikiLeaks documents. With the limited information we have now, the best thing people can do is to stop procrastinating on updating their software. “The one thing that people can and should be doing is keeping their apps and phones as as possible,” said Kurt Opsahl, deputy executive director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit. For owners of older devices, getting the latest software updates may not be easy. Many older Android handsets, like the Samsung Galaxy S3, are unable to download the latest version of the Android software. If you are in that boat, it’s a good time to purchase a new smartphone — such as the Google Pixel — which is running the latest Android software. Other than ensuring that you have the latest operating system, Google recommends that Android users protect their devices with lock screens and PIN codes, and to enable a setting called Verify Apps, which scans apps downloaded from outside of Google’s app store for malware. What you can do on an iPhone Many iPhone owners are far more with their mobile software than Android device owners. So only a minority of iPhone users have devices with the versions of the Apple iOS operating system that the WikiLeaks documents mention. Specifically, the WikiLeaks documents referred to exploits working on versions of iOS up to 8. 2. About 79 percent of Apple users are running iOS 10, the latest version of the system, and only 5 percent are running a version older than iOS 9, according to Apple. In raw numbers, with more than one billion iOS devices sold worldwide, that amounts to at least 50 million people running the outdated software. For those worried about their iPhone security, the advice is generally the same here as for Android owners: iPhone and iPad users should make sure to be running the latest operating system, iOS 10. Apple said on Tuesday that many of the security issues described in the WikiLeaks documents had already been patched in the latest version of its software and that it was working to address remaining vulnerabilities. Not all Apple devices can get the latest operating system. Apple’s iOS 10 is compatible with iPhones as far back as the iPhone 5 released in 2012, and with iPads as old as the iPad Air and iPad Mini 2 released in 2013. If you are using anything older than those, it’s a good time to buy a new device for the stronger security. What you can do with your Samsung TV With Samsung televisions, the situation is less clear. The documents mentioned programs attacking smart TVs in Samsung’s F8000 series, which include microphones for voice controls. Samsung said it was looking into the WikiLeaks reports, and noted that software updates with the latest security enhancements are automatically downloaded on its televisions. The company did not immediately comment on whether any vulnerabilities had been patched. The documents published by WikiLeaks disclosed that a tool called Weeping Angel puts the target TV in a “fake off” mode. Then, with the owner believing the TV is turned off, the set secretly records conversations in the room and sends them over the internet to a C. I. A. server computer. Smart TVs are part of a proliferating category of “internet of things” devices that have raised security concerns because many of the companies that make them do not have strong backgrounds in information security. In a recent column I wrote about defending a smart home from cyberattacks, experts recommended strengthening settings and regularly auditing smart home devices for software updates, among other tips. That advice might not be sufficient for addressing privacy concerns around Samsung’s smart TVs, because the Weeping Angel hack continues to control the television even when it appears to be turned off. Craig Spiezle, executive director of the Online Trust Alliance, a nonprofit privacy group, said the WikiLeaks revelations could spur action that he sees as lacking from makers of connected devices. “I see this as a call for the industry to build better security and for consumers of these devices to rethink what they have and, in some cases, disconnect their connectivity,” Mr. Spiezle said. What to do with your router The WikiLeaks documents also described methods of injecting malware into routers offered by Asian manufacturers like Huawei, ZTE and Mercury. In general, it is wise for everyone to regularly check routers for firmware updates to make sure they get the latest security enhancements. Depending on which router you own, downloading the latest firmware update isn’t very intuitive because it usually requires logging into the router. More modern routers like Eero and Google Wifi include mobile apps that help you download the latest updates automatically, so consider one of those if you are worried. What to do with your computer The WikiLeaks documents mentioned attacks on Linux, Windows and Apple computers. Personal computers have always been the most vulnerable devices we own, so this tip is fairly obvious: Make sure to install the latest operating system updates and use antivirus software. And as always, stay on guard for suspicious websites that may be serving malware. | 0fake |
Republicans forge tax deal, final votes seen next week | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Republicans reached a deal on final tax legislation on Wednesday, clearing the way for final votes next week on a package that would slash the U.S. corporate tax rate to 21 percent and cut taxes for wealthy Americans. Under an agreement between the House of Representatives and the Senate, the corporate tax would be 1 percentage point higher than the 20 percent rate earlier proposed, but still far below the current headline rate of 35 percent, a deep tax reduction that corporations have sought for years. As they finalized the biggest tax overhaul in 30 years, Republicans wavered for weeks on whether to slash the top income tax rate for the wealthy. In the end, they agreed to cut it to 37 percent from the current 39.6 percent. That was despite criticism from Democrats that the Republican plan tilts toward the rich and corporations, offering little to the middle class. “I think we’ve got a pretty good deal,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch told reporters. The emerging agreement would repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax, set up to ensure profitable companies pay some federal tax, and expand a proposed $10,000 cap for state and local property tax deductions to include income tax, lawmakers and sources familiar with the negotiations said. It was also expected to limit the popular mortgage interest deduction to home loans of no more than $750,000 and provide the owners of pass-through businesses, such as sole proprietorships and partnerships, with a 20 percent business income deduction. The deal would gut part of the Obamacare health law by repealing a federal fine on individuals who fail to obtain health insurance, while authorizing oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Both add-on measures were part of nailing down sufficient votes for passage. Moving the corporate tax target rate to 21 percent from 20 percent gave tax writers enough revenue to make the tax cuts immediate, Republican Senator Ron Johnson told reporters. News of the deal began circulating just before a formal House-Senate conference committee began debating it in public, leading Democrats to decry the gathering as a sham. A final bill could be formally unveiled on Friday, with decisive votes expected next week in both chambers. Despite expressions of confidence about passage from party leaders, the path to a final vote in the Senate could still be perilous. Republicans, who hold a 52-48 majority in the 100-seat Senate, can lose no more than two votes on the tax bill. Republican Senator John McCain, who has brain cancer, was in a military hospital to undergo treatment for the side effects of cancer therapy. At least three other Senate Republicans still seemed to be undecided, including Arizona’s Jeff Flake, who was not specific about his hesitation in brief hallway remarks to reporters. Bob Corker, a fiscal hawk, said he was undecided on whether to support the bill. He told reporters: “My deficit concerns have not been alleviated.” Susan Collins, who helped sink her fellow Republicans’ efforts to dismantle former Democratic President Barack Obama’s healthcare law earlier this year, said she would not make a final decision on which way to vote “until I see the bill.” In a White House speech, Trump said the Internal Revenue Service had advised that if he signs the bill into law before Christmas, the tax cuts would take effect in February. The IRS had no immediate comment. But a Trump administration official said the IRS would have to readjust its paycheck tax withholding tables for employers and that new withholding levels would take effect in February. Under the bill, tax returns being filed next year for 2017 would not be affected, but returns filed in 2019 for 2018 would. Trump appeared in the White House with several middle-class families he said would benefit from the tax bill. The Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office, both nonpartisan research units of Congress, have forecast that wealthy taxpayers and businesses would gain disproportionately from the debt-financed Republican proposals. As drafted, the Republican plan was expected to add as much as $1.5 trillion to the $20 trillion national debt in 10 years. With that in view, Republicans have been urgently trying to finalize details of their package without increasing its estimated impact on the federal deficit and the debt. At a tax event held by Democrats, Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said the Republican bill, if enacted, would cause interest rates to rise, meaning the benefits of a lower corporate tax rate would be “completely washed out.” Stock markets have rallied for months in anticipation of lower taxes for businesses. The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average Index .DJI closed up 0.33 percent at 24,585.43. With their defeat on Tuesday in an Alabama special U.S. Senate election, Republicans were under pressure to complete their tax overhaul before Christmas and before a new Democratic senator can be formally seated in the Senate. Democrat Doug Jones’ victory in Alabama came hours ahead of the final tax deal. When Jones arrives in Washington, the Republicans’ already slim Senate majority will narrow to 51-49. Fast action by Republicans on taxes would prevent Jones from upsetting expected vote tallies since he will not likely be seated until late December or early January. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called on Republicans to delay a vote on overhauling the tax code for the first time in 30 years until Jones can be seated. But that was unlikely. “Who would’ve thought they could have made the bill even less favorable to the middle class and more slanted towards the wealthy?” Schumer told a news conference. | 0fake |
SARAH SANDERS Asked If Trump Visiting Civil Rights Museum Is ‘Insulting’…She Drops Truth Bomb [Video] | Sarah Sanders announced during the White House press briefing Tuesday that President Trump would visit Mississippi this weekend. On his trip, Trump will participate in the grand opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. Sanders was asked later in the briefing if Trump s visit to the civil rights museum was a good idea. American Urban Radio reporter April Ryan asked about various members of the NAACP and black ministers who are protesting the visit. .@PressSec on @POTUS's statement regarding Charlottesville violence in August: "I think @POTUS got his statement very clear when he condemned all forms of racism, bigotry, and violence. There's no gray area there " pic.twitter.com/1OCs4W48Pq Fox News (@FoxNews) December 5, 2017 There are comments from people from the NAACP from black ministers who are planning on protesting and boycotting this weekend for the president s visit to the Civil Rights Museum. What say you? Ryan asked.Sanders called the planned protests to Trump s visit sad, saying:I think that would be honestly very sad. I think this is something that should bring the country together, to celebrate the opening of this museum and highlighting civil rights movement and the progress that we ve made and I would hope those individuals join in instead of protesting. Ryan continued her questioning, asking if Trump s statement on the riots in Charlottesville would be seen as an insult to those in attendance. Ryan said They take it as an insult that he s coming. As we ve had issues of Charlottesville. The president didn t get his statement straight on Charlottesville Sanders cut Ryan off, slamming the door on the line of questioning:I think he s statement was very clear. He made it very clear. He s against violence and bigotry.After the riots in Charlottesville, Trump said:We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.VIA: DAILY CALLER | 1real |
Norway appoints its first female foreign minister | OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian Defence Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide was named minister of foreign affairs on Friday, making her the first woman to hold the post in the Nordic country. She replaces Boerge Brende, who last month was appointed president of the World Economic Forum. The appointment leaves the top three government jobs, that of prime minister, foreign minister and finance minister, in the hands of women. Prime Minister Erna Solberg said European Affairs Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen will move to the defense post, while Marit Berger Roesland will join the cabinet to take up the European affairs portfolio. | 0fake |
Congress: Attorney General Lynch ‘Pleads Fifth’ on Secret Iran ‘Ransom’ Payments | Posted on October 30, 2016 by Pamela Geller
This criminal gang must be thrown out of power on November 8. “Congress: Attorney General Lynch ‘Pleads Fifth’ on Secret Iran ‘Ransom’ Payments,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon , October 28, 2016:
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is declining to comply with an investigation by leading members of Congress about the Obama administration’s secret efforts to send Iran $1.7 billion in cash earlier this year, prompting accusations that Lynch has “pleaded the Fifth” Amendment to avoid incriminating herself over these payments, according to lawmakers and communications exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon .
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) initially presented Lynch in October with a series of questions about how the cash payment to Iran was approved and delivered.
In an Oct. 24 response , Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik responded on Lynch’s behalf, refusing to answer the questions and informing the lawmakers that they are barred from publicly disclosing any details about the cash payment, which was bound up in a ransom deal aimed at freeing several American hostages from Iran.
The response from the attorney general’s office is “unacceptable” and provides evidence that Lynch has chosen to “essentially plead the fifth and refuse to respond to inquiries regarding [her] role in providing cash to the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism,” Rubio and Pompeo wrote on Friday in a follow-up letter to Lynch, according to a copy obtained by the Free Beacon .
The inquiry launched by the lawmakers is just one of several concurrent ongoing congressional probes aimed at unearthing a full accounting of the administration’s secret negotiations with Iran.
“It is frankly unacceptable that your department refuses to answer straightforward questions from the people’s elected representatives in Congress about an important national security issue,” the lawmakers wrote. “Your staff failed to address any of our questions, and instead provided a copy of public testimony and a lecture about the sensitivity of information associated with this issue.”
“As the United States’ chief law enforcement officer, it is outrageous that you would essentially plead the fifth and refuse to respond to inquiries,” they stated. “The actions of your department come at time when Iran continues to hold Americans hostage and unjustly sentence them to prison.”
The lawmakers included a copy of their previous 13 questions and are requesting that Lynch provide answers by Nov. 4.
When asked about Lynch’s efforts to avoid answering questions about the cash payment, Pompeo told the Free Beacon that the Obama administration has blocked Congress at every turn as lawmakers attempt to investigate the payments to Iran.
“Who knew that simple questions regarding Attorney General Lynch’s approval of billions of dollars in payments to Iran could be so controversial that she would refuse to answer them?” Pompeo said. “This has become the Obama administration’s coping mechanism for anything related to the Islamic Republic of Iran—hide information, obfuscate details, and deny answers to Congress and the American people.”
“They know this isn’t a sustainable strategy, however, and I trust they will start to take their professional, and moral, obligations seriously,” the lawmaker added….
Courtesy of Pamela Geller | 1real |
Democrats want 'major role' for Sanders: Reuters/Ipsos poll | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bernie Sanders may have lost his bid to become the Democratic nominee for the White House, but party members don’t want the U.S. senator from Vermont to step off the stage. More than three-quarters of Democrats say Sanders should have a “major role” in shaping the party’s positions, while nearly two thirds say Hillary Clinton - who beat him for the nomination - should pick him as her vice-presidential running mate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. In a sign that Democrats hope their party can unite after a fierce primary season, two-thirds also said that Sanders should endorse Clinton, a former secretary of state and senator who appears bound for a showdown with Republican Donald Trump in November’s presidential election. Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, managed to turn his long-shot run into a mass movement with hard-line proposals to combat wealth inequality, increase access to health care and education, and defend the environment. His challenge to Clinton, one of the best-known figures in American politics, lasted far longer than expected, as he racked up strong results in a number of state nominating contests and stayed in the race even when the delegate count seemed to spell his doom, and yielded record numbers of small donations to his campaign. Sanders so far has not conceded defeat, even though Clinton recently clinched the nomination and won endorsements from President Barack Obama and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts - a favorite of the same left-leaning voters who supported him. Sanders has said he will continue to push for a liberal agenda heading into the Democratic National Convention in July - when Clinton’s nomination is expected to become official - though he has hinted he does not want his presence to hurt the Democrats’ chances of keeping the White House. “We will not let Donald Trump become president,” Sanders told supporters last week. The poll, conducted June 7-10 - right after Clinton sewed up the delegate majority to become the presumptive Democratic nominee - showed that while most Democrats want Sanders to line up behind Clinton, about 44 percent would like him to make an independent run for the White House. Some 47 percent said he should not. The poll included 455 respondents and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 5.3 percentage points. | 0fake |
What DNC Donors REALLY think of African Americans | This Video is REALLY Disturbing...
Not just to African Americans but to Americans in General...
Many of The DNC Policies that pertain to African Americans are deeply insulting and condescending in implication.
Voter ID Laws are not restrictive to The average African American but are portrayed as impediments to them because of the Intellectual Entitlement Mentality of The Democratic Nation Party.
The Racism Game is a cover for manipulation of both minorities and the majority...
Divide and Conquer...
They Divide the Voting Block...
To Conquer The Election. | 1real |
Which Non-OPEC Producers Can Be Expected To Cut? | by Jerri-Lynn Scofield
Jerri-Lynn here: The following post summarizes the state-of-play regarding production cutbacks for twelve oil-producing states invited to participate in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) ongoing discussions regarding a much-anticipated output freeze. As the post suggests, failure to agree restrictions and stabilize prices might heighten the risks of terrorist attacks and political instability in some of the non-OPEC countries invited to participate in wider negotiations. Yet inviting new participants to the negotiating party is only likely to complicate the situation and slow further the implementation of an internal production reduction already delayed for nearly a year.
By Zainab Calcuttawala, an American journalist based in Morocco. She completed her undergraduate coursework at the University of Texas at Austin (Hook’em) and reports on international trade, human rights issues and more. Originally published at Oilprice.com
Last week, Venezuelan oil minister Eulogio del Pino released a list of states invited to participate in the OPEC ongoing negotiations regarding a much-anticipated output freeze.
Russia, Egypt and ten other oil exporters made the list, though the high variation between the economic and political standings of the non-OPEC participants add to the already complicated and delicate orchestration of the deal— if there is to be a deal, that is.
This past weekend, several of the invited non-OPEC countries sent representatives to Vienna for consultations regarding the terms of a potential freeze deal. No details have been finalized, but those who participated agreed to meet again before the 30 November OPEC summit.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Energy Minister Alexander Novak have recently agreed to freeze output in coordination with OPEC, if the group’s members can flesh out a plan amongst themselves.
According to OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo, the bloc is on track to deliver a deal by the end of November. Barkindo also said that Russia has agreed to participate in OPEC’s official meeting this month.
As outlined by the Jamestown Foundation last month, Kazakhstan is desperate for a freeze deal to help economic development rebound to the 6-7 percent expansion rate that the former Soviet Republic saw when barrel prices exceeded $100. But just because they are desperate for a cut doesn’t mean they will participate.
Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said on Tuesday that Kazakhstan itself would not be doing any cutting, because, according to Bozumbayev, their production levels are small in proportion to some of the others at the negotiating table, namely Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Iran, and Mexico.
This year, Kazakhstan does not expect its economy to grow more than 0.1 percent, while 2017 forecasts from the World Bank predict a low one-percent increase in GDP. Kazakhstan – which recently reopened its Kashagan field, depends on oil exports for over 60 percent of total government revenues and a quarter of its GDP.
A failed deal could mean renewed terrorist attacks and political instability for Kazakhstan as the Kazakh economy continues to spiral downwards.
Asked what he hoped Saturday’s meeting would achieve, a Kazakh official in attendance in Vienna desperately said: “We just hope the price will react and it will increase.” That desperation is shared by many other oil-dependent countries, but this desperation is also a sign that these countries are not in any position to scale back the production that generates the most revenue.
Azerbaijan was also at the table. Halfway through October, Azerbaijan – a country that produced more than half of the world’s oil a century ago – also announced its support of an OPEC/non-OPEC cut, which, as ClipperData noted , is convenient because the country’s September oil production was 10.2 percent lower than its August rate.
“Venezuela and Azerbaijan agree that some measures will be taken to stabilize the market,” Azeri Energy Minister Natig Aliyev said this weekend. “We agreed the price of oil can be around $60 per barrel.” Statements revolving around price, however, do not speak to who is ready to share the burden of cutting production, and do little to assuage market fears that a cut is but a wispy goal.
Oman wasn’t buying the feasibility of OPEC cuts either, and before the Algiers meeting in September, Oman said as much, stating that it did not believe in the bloc’s ability to solve the pricing crisis due to several failed efforts to freeze output over the past year.
Newer reports on Oman show that they officially support an output freeze and overall reduction, with the expectation that “similar measures be taken by other countries.” It remains unclear if Iraq, a war-torn nation currently defying production limits, and Iran, a country trying to regain its legs now that sanctions were lifted, count as one of the “other countries” that Oman expects to cut output.
As a net oil importer, Egypt does not have the market power or political capital to sway the momentum of a freeze one way or another. The North African country’s recent spat with Saudi Arabia – the de facto leader of OPEC – over suspended petroleum shipments will also limit the salience of Egyptian interests in the bloc’s proceedings.
Sources from the Egyptian Parliament say the country’s energy ministry will be asked to review Saudi Aramco’s five-year agreement to supply Egypt with petroleum derivatives in the coming weeks, further complicating relations between the two nations.
Ninety-nine percent of Canadian oil exports go straight to the United States, according to governmental data from the buyer and seller countries.
Neither of the two North American countries is part of OPEC, and they have their own agreements for energy supplies. So even though Canada has been invited to participate in the freeze talks, the country does not have the economic or political incentive to reduce output.
Brazil elected to “observe” Saturday’s meeting as the country prepares to increase production rates over the next few years. This makes them extremely unlikely participants in any efforts to scale back production.
Other countries present this weekend included Mexico, which has spent the better part of this summer building a hedge against low oil prices for the next fiscal year.
Small-scale producers such as Bolivia and Trinidad and Tobago have already turned down production over the past two years, which had a limited effect on market fundamentals.
Norway, a 1.6 million barrel per day producer that has increased output by 2.1 percent in 2014 and 3.08 percent in 2015, declined to meet with OPEC over the weekend.
The geopolitics of oil within OPEC has already delayed the implementation of an internal production reduction for almost an entire year. By adding new nations from previously uninvolved continents (North America and Europe), the bloc has flooded the negotiation table with new interests – creating a fresh slate of diplomatic obstacles to overcome before an output freeze can be implemented. 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 1real |
Romanian president opposes plans for judicial overhaul | BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania s justice minister proposed a significant overhaul of the judicial system on Wednesday which the president called an attack on the rule of law that would set the country back a decade. Romania is seen as one of the EU s most corrupt states and Brussels keeps its justice system under special monitoring. Attempts by the ruling coalition of Social Democrats and junior partner ALDE to weaken a crackdown on high-level corruption triggered the country s largest street protests in decades at the start of the year. Justice Minister Tudorel Toader proposed a slew of changes on Wednesday ranging from the way chief prosecutors are appointed to setting up a special prosecuting unit for crimes committed by magistrates. The proposals ... constitute an attack against the rule of law, the independence and proper functioning of the judiciary as well as the anti-corruption fight, centrist President Klaus Iohannis said in a statement. If this mix of measures is adopted by the government and approved by parliament, Romania s efforts for more than 10 years will be wiped out and the justice system will go back to a time when it was subordinated to politics. Under Romanian law, the president appoints chief prosecutors who have been proposed by the justice minister and received non-binding approval from the Superior Magistrates Council (CSM), the top watchdog that safeguards judicial independence. Toader also proposed that the justice minister, who is politically appointed, take control of the judicial inspection unit from the CSM. Analysts and magistrates have said this would lead to political interference in the justice system. The Prosecutor General s office said these proposals were an alarm signal, adding that prosecutors had not been consulted. Toader declined to answer questions but told reporters the proposals were within normal and necessary parameters for the rule of law. The proposals will be send to the CSM for an opinion before being submitted to the government and ultimately parliament for approval. | 0fake |
White House plans directive targeting 'conflict minerals' rule: sources | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is planning to issue a directive targeting a controversial Dodd-Frank rule that requires companies to disclose whether their products contain “conflict minerals” from a war-torn part of Africa, according to sources familiar with the administration’s thinking. Reuters could not learn precisely when the directive would be issued or what the final version would say. However, a leaked draft that has been floating around Washington and was seen by Reuters on Wednesday calls for the rule to be temporarily suspended for two years. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the document. The sources spoke on Tuesday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the plan. The 2010 Dodd-Frank law explicitly gives the president authority to order the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to temporarily suspend or revise the rule for two years if it is in the national security interest of the United States. The conflict minerals rule was endorsed by human rights groups that want companies to tell investors if their products contain tantalum, tin, gold or tungsten mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo in the hope that such disclosures would curb funding to armed groups. Business groups opposed to the measure have contended that it forces companies to furnish politically charged information that is irrelevant to making investment decisions and that it costs too much for companies to trace the source of minerals through the supply chain. In the leaked draft memo seen by Reuters, the Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury were asked to propose a plan for addressing human rights violations and the funding of armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo and report back within 180 days. The memo also lays out a justification for suspending the rule, saying that while it has helped discourage some American companies from purchasing materials in the region, it has also led to “some job loss.” It also cited 2014 SEC estimates about the costs imposed on companies, which entailed upfront costs of $3 billion to $4 billion, and $200 million per year thereafter. Carly Oboth, a policy adviser at human rights group Global Witness, said in a statement on Wednesday that she was deeply concerned about Trump’s planned executive action. “This law helps stop U.S. companies funding conflict and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo and surrounding countries,” she said. “Suspending it will benefit secretive and corrupt business practices. Responsible business practices are starting to spread in eastern Congo. This action could reverse that progress.” A White House executive order last week took aim more broadly at the Dodd-Frank rules that were put into place after the 2007-2009 financial crisis. That order did not single out a particular rule, but called on the Treasury Secretary to consult with other regulators, including the SEC, and come back with a report outlining possible regulatory changes and legislation. The conflict minerals rule is one of several disclosure regulations in Dodd-Frank that are unrelated to the financial crisis. Another Dodd-Frank SEC disclosure rule that required oil, gas and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments was repealed by the Republican-controlled Congress last week. In 2014, a U.S. appeals court struck down part of the conflict minerals law after the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers sued the SEC over it. The court found part of it violated free speech rights of companies by forcing them to publicly state that their products were not conflict free. The rest of the rule was left intact and companies are required to conduct due diligence and report the details of those inquiries in public reports filed with the SEC. The SEC cannot repeal the rule without a law passed by Congress. It can, however, use its broad exemptive powers to scale back some of the requirements or stop enforcing the rule entirely. Last week, acting SEC Chair Michael Piwowar took steps toward doing that by announcing that he had asked SEC staff to reconsider how companies should comply with it and whether “additional relief” was warranted. House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling, meanwhile, is planning to reintroduce his Financial CHOICE Act bill, which contains a provision to repeal the conflict minerals rule. | 0fake |
Ammon Bundy’s Lunatic Militia Men Facing More Charges From The Feds | The saga surrounding the idiots who decided to invade and occupy a federal building on a wildlife preserve in Oregon continues. Though the occupation itself is over, the legal troubles for this group of right-wing loons are just beginning. It has been reported that Bundy and his band of nutbags have been indicted on yet more federal charges.These latest indictments state that they will be facing charges because they had weapons in federal facilities, as well as with vandalism and theft of property belonging to the government. The original federal charges drop the hammer on the group 26 people charged in all for conspiracy to disrupt the duties of federal agents. Also, their infamous stealing of a government truck for a grocery store trip is included in these latest indictments. There are also charges of using weapons during violent criminal activity.Another blow came to the group when the death of LaVoy Finicum was ruled justified and necessary. Further, another occupier, Sean Anderson and an unnamed accomplice are charged with destruction of sacred artifacts belonging to a local Native American tribe.The fact that any of this happened at all is nothing short of absolutely disgraceful. This nonsense about being able to take over federal land whenever they please is treason. Hopefully, the charges being handed down are serious enough for all of these lunatics to do some very hard time in a federal lock-up.They went into this thinking that they could cause another Waco-type situation, but luckily there was only one death, despite all of those weapons and lunatic gun nuts hellbent on dying for this ridiculously misguided cause. There is no cause here. That land belongs to the federal government, and these people are just lawless fools who are a danger to themselves and the rest of society.Lock them up and throw away the key.Featured image via screen capture from WMUR/Addicting Info archives | 1real |
Airstrikes Move To Syria, Target More Than Just ISIS | Airstrikes Move To Syria, Target More Than Just ISIS
In a major escalation of the air campaign against Islamic extremist groups, the U.S. and its Arab allies jointly hit targets inside Syria for the first time.
The New York Times says, "The intensity of the attacks struck a fierce opening blow against the jihadists of the Islamic State, scattering its forces and damaging the network of facilities it has built in Syria that helped fuel its seizure of a large part of Iraq this year."
Besides the U.S., the Pentagon says that Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates "participated in or supported" operations against targets associated with the self-declared Islamic State.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki confirmed that "we informed the Syrian regime directly of our intent to take action through our Ambassador to the United Nations (Ambassador [Samantha] Power) to the Syrian Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
At a morning Pentagon briefing, Lt. Gen. William Mayville, the Joint Chiefs director of operations, said there were three waves of attacks, and that coalition partners provided combat air patrols and conducted airstrikes as part of the final two waves.
"We warned Syria not to engage U.S. aircraft. We did not request the regime's permission. We did not coordinate our actions with the Syrian government. We did not provide advance notification to the Syrians at a military level, or give any indication of our timing on specific targets. Secretary [of State John] Kerry did not send a letter to the Syrian regime," Psaki said.
— The Islamic State in its Syrian headquarters of Raqqa.
— The al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front, or Jabhat al-Nusra, in northwest Syria.
— A shadowy group known as Khorasan that the U.S. says is planning an imminent attack against the United States and Western interests.
NPR's Deborah Amos tells Morning Edition that militants with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, were a major focus of the attacks. The Pentagon said the strikes "employed 47 [Tomahawk cruise missiles] launched from USS Arleigh Burke and USS Philippine Sea operating from international waters in the Red Sea and North Arabian Gulf, as well as U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps fighter, remotely piloted and bomber aircraft deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of operations."
According to Deborah: "What is striking about this air campaign is that it was expanded to include the Nusra Front.
NPR's Tom Bowman says not much is known about the Khorasan group: "The Pentagon says they took this action to disrupt an imminent attack plotting against the United States by this group that's made up of seasoned al-Qaida veterans. There were eight strikes around Aleppo targeting this group. [The Pentagon says] it had training camps, explosives and munitions productions facility, communications building and also command and control facilities."
Gen. Mayville said that "we've been watching" Khorasan and that the group "clearly is not focused" on fighting the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad but instead had been "putting down roots" to work toward attacks on the U.S.
Mayville said in the first strike, which began about midnight Syrian time and involved mainly Tomahawk cruise missiles, the U.S. unilaterally hit Khorasan command and control in the country's northeast. The second wave employed F-22 Raptors in their first combat roles, as well as F-15s, F-16s and B-1 bombers, he said. The third and final wave against Islamic State militants in the east employed F-18 Hornets from the USS George H.W. Bush as well as ground-based F-16s, he said.
Mayville said the majority of support from Arab allies came in the third wave.
He showed journalists "before and after" bomb-damage assessment photos and video of various structures that had been hit.
An unnamed U.S. official tells The New York Times that the Khorasan group is led by "Muhsin al-Fadhli, a senior Qaeda operative who, according to the State Department, was so close to [Osama] Bin Laden that he was among a small group of people who knew about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks before they were launched." The Times says:
The Wall Street Journal reports: "So far, more than a dozen airstrikes have hit Islamic State military targets and administrative buildings in Aleppo and Raqqa provinces in the north as well as al Qaeda's official arm in the country, al Nusra Front in the northwestern city of Idlib, the opposition said."
What Are The Consequences?
Reuters quotes a resident in Raqqa as saying there is an "exodus" from the city in the wake of the bombardment. "It started in the early hours of the day after the strikes. People are fleeing toward the countryside," the resident tells Reuters.
The participation of the partners "gives the operation some legitimacy — more legitimacy in the region because Arab governments took part. There [are] political optics about this operation put together in Washington," NPR's Deborah Amos says, adding that the agreement to participate "changes the stakes" for the Arab partners.
The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner speculates that the Islamic State "will be enraged by this — it has no effective military answers to US air power — so those Arab countries that supported or took part in the action may well now be bracing themselves for possible reprisals."
The Associated Press quotes Rami Abdurrahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as saying, "There is confirmed information that there are casualties among Islamic State group members."
Speaking on MSNBC, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby says the U.S. "is still assessing the effectiveness of these strikes."
Later, Gen. Mayville said: "Last night's strikes are the beginning of a credible and sustained campaign to destroy" the Islamic State. | 0fake |
SEATTLE MAYOR WANTS TO HELP MUSLIMS FOLLOW SHARIA LAW BY OFFERING PLAN TO HELP BUY HOMES | No word yet about the Mayor developing a plan to help Christians who refuse to bake wedding cakes for gays based on their religious beliefs For some Muslims, it can be hard to buy a house, and Mayor Ed Murray plans to do something about it.On Monday, Murray s housing committee released its recommendations for ways the city can increase housing in the city. Most ideas were what you d expect, including increasing the city s housing levy and implementing new rules and regulations to foster development of market-rate and lower-income housing.One suggestion would help followers of Sharia law buy houses. That s virtually impossible now because Sharia law prohibits payment of interest on loans. The 28-member committee recommended the city convene lenders and community leaders to explore options for increasing access to Sharia-compliant loan products.Based on what he called rough anecdotal evidence, Bukhari estimated a couple hundred people aren t borrowing money for houses due to their religion. He said this includes even high-wage earners, such as the more than 1,000 Muslims who work for Microsoft (Nasdaq: MFST) and more than 500 Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) employees.They could easily qualify for home loans but opt not to apply simply because they don t want to pay interest, Bukhari said.Murray will send legislation based on the committee s ideas to the City Council for consideration. During a press conference, he said he wants to help Muslims. We will work to develop new tools for Muslims who are prevented from using conventional mortgage products due to their religious beliefs, Murray said.More and more lenders are offering Sharia-compliant financing, according to a USA Today report. The sector has grown to more than $1.6 trillion in assets worldwide over the past three decades, and analysts see potential for continued growth as the number of Muslims in the United States and Europe grows.It s unclear how many Muslims in Seattle would benefit from Murray s plan. The Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) estimates more than 30,000 Muslims live in the greater Seattle area, and Chapter Executive Director Arsalan Bukhari on Tuesday said it s fairly common for some not to seek loans. Via: Biz Journals | 1real |
AT&T lawyer says U.S. effort to stop Time Warner deal 'foolish': CNBC | (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice’s move to block AT&T Inc’s $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc was “foolish” because the deal posed no threat to consumers, the wireless carrier’s trial lawyer Dan Petrocelli told CNBC on Tuesday. The Justice Department on Monday sued AT&T arguing that the U.S. No. 2 wireless carrier would use Time Warner’s content to force rival pay-TV companies to pay “hundreds of millions of dollars more per year for Time Warner’s networks.” AT&T has vowed to defend the deal. “We want to go to court as soon as possible,” Petrocelli told CNBC, saying the burden of proof was on the government. The case was initially assigned on Tuesday to Judge Christopher Cooper in federal court in Washington but later reassigned to Judge Richard Leon. The case will be closely watched because U.S. President Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of Time Warner’s CNN, and opposed AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner on the campaign trail last year, saying it would concentrate too much power in AT&T’s hands. In antitrust circles, the court fight will be closely watched since the Justice Department has not successfully litigated to stop a vertical deal - where the merging companies are not direct competitors - since the 1970s, when it prevented Ford Motor Co from buying assets from spark-plug maker Autolite. | 0fake |
U.S. imposes duties after finding seven producers dumped steel plate | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Commerce made a final finding that seven foreign producers dumped certain carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate in the U.S. market, allowing it to impose duties ranging from 3.62 percent to 148 percent, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday. The determinations of dumping, or selling a product below its fair price, apply to imports of CTL plate from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Ross said. In addition, there was a final finding that South Korean imports were subsidized, leading to a countervailing duty of 4.31 percent being slapped on those products, he said at a department event. “A healthy steel industry is critical to our economy and manufacturing base, yet our steel industry today is under assault from foreign producers that dump and subsidize their exports,” Ross told the audience. In 2015, imports of CTL plate from the seven producers totaled $732 million, with those from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea and Taiwan valued at an estimated $14.2 million, $19.8 million, $179 million, $196.2 million, $37 million, $54.9 million, $210 million and $21 million, respectively, department figures show. (bit.ly/2mSZM1Z) Cut-to-length steel is used in a wide range of applications, including buildings and bridgework; agricultural, construction and mining equipment; machine parts and tooling; ships, rail cars, tankers and barges; and large-diameter pipe. The finding followed an investigation prompted by a petition from Nucor Corp and U.S. subsidiaries of ArcelorMittal SA and SSAB AB. For Austrian producers and exporters, dumping duties on the Voestalpine group and all others were set at 53.72 percent. They were 5.4 percent for Industeel Belgium, 51.78 percent for the NLMK Belgium group and 5.4 percent for all other Belgium producers and exporters. Among French manufacturers and exporters, duty rates were set at 148.02 percent for Industeel France and 8.62 percent for Dillinger France and all others. In Germany, duties were set at 5.38 percent for AG der Dillinger Hüttenwerke, 22.90 percent for the Salzgitter group and 21.03 percent for all other exporters and producers. A spokesman for Salzgitter confirmed the company was facing duties, saying the decision to impose the duties and the level of them were incomprehensible. In Italy, the department set anti-dumping duty rates of 6.08 percent for Officine Tecnosider, 22.19 percent for Marcegaglia SpA and NLMK Verona SpA and 6.08 percent for all other producers and exporters. Among Japanese producers and exporters, Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co Ltd was hit with a duty rate of 14.79 percent. A rate of 48.67 percent was imposed on JFE Steel Corp and Shimabun Corp, and for all others it was set at 14.79 percent. Taiwanese companies Shang Chen Steel Co Ltd and China Steel Corp had anti-dumping duties of 3.62 percent and 6.95 percent, respectively, imposed on them. The rate for other producers and exporters was set at 5.29 percent. For South Korea, the department imposed an anti-dumping duty of 7.39 percent on POSCO, as well as a countervailing duty of 4.31 percent to account for subsidies. The same rates apply to all other producers and exporters. The findings allow the department to ask U.S. Customs authorities to collect cash deposits from exporters based on those rates. On March 3, in a decision stemming from the same investigation, the U.S. International Trade Commission said it had made a final finding that U.S. industry was being harmed by the dumping and subsidization of imports of carbon and alloy steel CTL plate from China. That allows for the final imposition of duties by the Commerce Department on China’s producers and exporters of the plate. | 0fake |
Mayhem Awaits As Crooked Hillary Clinton Is Now Being Advised To Contest The Election Results | Mayhem Awaits As Crooked Hillary Clinton Is Now Being Advised To Contest The Election Results If the results in the three states were to be overturned, Clinton would win enough electoral votes to win the presidential election. The pro-Hillary computer scientists want the Clinton campaign to contest the election results. Each state has a separate deadline to file a challenge, with Wisconsin’s coming first on Friday. 23, 2016 Top aides to Hillary Clinton have been briefed on unproven claims that the presidential election was hacked by computer scientists, according to a new report.
Campaign chair John Podesta and counsel Marc Elias heard the complaints in a conference call last Thursday, New York magazine reports . The allegations say Clinton won 7 percent fewer votes in counties that use electronic voting, compared with counties that rely on paper ballots in the state of Wisconsin.
The campaign was told that the margin of suspicious votes would swing 30,000 votes to Clinton’s favor. Clinton only lost Wisconsin to Donald Trump in the presidential election earlier this month by .7 percentage points, or around 27,000 votes. Hillary Clinton delivers statement on election results: The allegations also pointed to voting patterns in Michigan and Pennsylvania, states that Trump won only by razor-thin margins.
If the results in the three states were to be overturned, Clinton would win enough electoral votes to win the presidential election. The pro-Hillary computer scientists want the Clinton campaign to contest the election results.
Each state has a separate deadline to file a challenge, with Wisconsin’s coming first on Friday. Clinton Supporters Breaks Down in Tears as Trump wins election: Nate Cohn, a New York Times reporter, poured cold water on the New York magazine report with his own analysis.
“Effect of paper ballots in Wisconsin goes from 7 pts, like NY article, to 0 if you control for race education, density (true w&w/o weights,),” Cohn tweeted .
He said the same voting pattern would apply in the other two states.
So far, there’s no indication the Clinton campaign intends to listen to the computer scientists and contest the election results. A spokesman for Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for comment. source SHARE THIS ARTICLE | 1real |
UNC Campus Police LAUGH In Rape Victim’s Face . . . Because Football | A woman was raped by a football player at the University of North Carolina and she says that when she reported the attack to campus police, they laughed in her face.Delaney Robinson decided to go public with her horrific ordeal because she felt it would be the only way to get justice since the school would obviously rather protect a sports star than prosecute a sexual assault. Speaking at a press conference, Robinson said that on the night of Feb. 14, Tar Heels junior linebacker Allen Artis brutally raped her in a dorm room while she was incapacitated. Denise Branch, Robinson s attorney, said that her client went to the hospital following the assault, where they examined her and collected evidence with a rape kit. According to hospital records, Robinson suffered vaginal injuries consistent with blunt-force trauma and bruising consistent with a physical assault. But when she reported the sexual assault to campus police, they simply laughed in her face and asked her a litany of offensive, victim-blaming questions. I was treated like a suspect, she said. What was I wearing? What was I drinking? How much did I drink? How much did I eat that day? Did I lead him on? Have I hooked up with him before? Do I often have one-night stands? Did I even say no? What is my sexual history? How many men have I slept with? Robinson added that she was allowed to listen to an audio recording her attacker s interrogation, and it was much different than what she had been forced to endure. Rather than accusing him of anything, the investigators spoke to him with a tone of camaraderie, Robinson said. They provided reassurances to him when he became upset. They even laughed with him when he told them how many girls phone numbers he had managed to get on the same night he raped me. Robinson freely admits that she had been drinking on the night in question, but according to the assistant district attorney for Orange County unconsciousness is rape, blackout drunk is not rape. After police and prosecutors convinced Robinson that there was no way she had enough evidence to pursue felony charges, she filed two misdemeanor charges. Artis was arrested for the assault on Tuesday and according to District Attorney Jim Woodall, the case is still pending.This case is just the latest incident of rape that has been brushed off thanks to America s rape culture. Brock Turner was released after serving only three months in jail for raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. But hey, he had a promising swimming career and athletes get a free pass when it comes to rape.Robinson said her life has changed forever while the person who assaulted me continues as a student and a football player on this campus. As of Tuesday evening, UNC had not yet released a statement regarding the allegations.Featured image via Streeter Lecka/Getty Images | 1real |
New Wall Street candidates emerge to test Trump-era appeal | (Reuters) - With a businessman turned politician now in the Oval Office, a small but growing number of bankers and Wall Street financiers across the United States have set their sights on politics. In New Jersey, Connecticut and California, former bankers, hedge fund managers and private equity executives have either announced bids for legislative and gubernatorial seats, or associates have told Reuters they are considering running. Meanwhile, industry trade groups including the American Bankers Association are launching formal programs to teach members in various states how to campaign successfully. It is not the first time well-heeled candidates have entered American politics, and there are not a great number of them. But historians, political scientists and bankers say the atmosphere has changed abruptly under President Donald Trump. “It’s certainly raised the visibility of folks who in the past may have said ‘I’m not a politician,” said Richard Baier, president of the Nebraska Bankers Association, which is launching a training school for potential legislative candidates. “We’ve shown that you don’t really need that background.” The Oklahoma Bankers Association is also planning to launch its own candidate school, a spokesman said. Foreclosures, job losses and growing income inequality after the 2007-2009 financial crisis made anyone with Wall Street ties into a political pariah. But Trump, a self-described billionaire who made a fortune in New York real estate and entertainment, has stocked his cabinet with Wall Street bankers and industry tycoons. His presidency has inspired others in the financial community to pursue civic duty, according to people who have studied campaigns or are involved with current election efforts. Trump’s ascendance shows that candidates’ backgrounds matter less than whether they can connect with voters, said Joshua Sandman, a political science professor at the University of New Haven. “Trump running has encouraged more people in financial services to test the waters,” he said, “but the water could be murky for them unless they have a real set of positive experiences within business and are reflective of creating jobs and helping people.” It is hard to say quantitatively whether more candidates with finance backgrounds are pursuing political office now compared with prior election cycles. But Paul Herrnson, a political science professor at the University of Connecticut who has researched candidates’ backgrounds, says he is skeptical about how successful the new crop of candidates will be. “Sure, the mood is better than it was when the market collapsed, but I don’t think people say, ‘Wall Street financier – that’s someone I can vote for,” he said. Phil Murphy, the Democratic candidate for New Jersey governor in 2017, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive who spent 23 years at the firm, is perhaps the most prominent moneyed candidate. His campaign has focused on bolstering the middle class with proposals to create a millionaire’s tax and launch other initiatives to help low-income residents. Murphy has won support from labor unions, environmental groups and consumer rights activists, as well as bold-faced names in the Democratic party like former Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore, who have both endorsed him. An Oct. 3 Monmouth University Poll has him leading his Republican rival, Kim Guadagno by 14 points, and over 60 percent of New Jersey voters said Murphy’s ties to Goldman do not matter in a recent Quinnipiac Poll. “Obviously Goldman was his career,” said Tony Bianchini, spokesman for the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters, which is backing Murphy. “Everyone has a career.” In Connecticut, former UBS Group AG executive Robert Stefanowski is running for governor, according to a public filing, and hedge fund manager David Stemerman recently said he may do the same. The two Republicans have given few clues about their campaign strategies other than to cast themselves as outsiders who can fix Connecticut’s problems. In California, two Wall Street veterans are mulling runs as progressive Democrats. Tom Steyer, an environmentalist who worked at Goldman Sachs and was a hedge fund manager, may run for Senate or governor, a person familiar with the matter said. Joseph Sanberg, a former Tiger Global Management LLC executive, is also considering a Senate run, according to Politico. He casts himself as a “progressive entrepreneur” on his website. Other ex-Wall Streeters who have entered politics have a mixed history, and much depends on how well their messages align with voters’ concerns, political historians said. For instance, while Mitt Romney’s private-equity career helped doom his 2012 presidential bid, Illinois voters elected private equity executive Bruce Rauner as governor in 2014. | 0fake |
WATCH: Right-Wing Pastor Falsely Credits Trump For Saving The Auto Industry In 2008 | Remember that time in 2008 when Donald Trump rode in on a white horse and personally saved the auto industry all by himself? Yeah, me neither. But one of his supporters thinks that actually happened.During an interview on CNN, Trump s favorite pastor, Darrell Scott, stunned former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer and New Day host Alisyn Camerota by making that exact claim after trashing the Michigan city as a hellhole that only the Republican nominee can fix. Detroit is in bad shape, Scott said. It s in bad shape economically, it s in bad shape as far as crime is concerned, and so you have a candidate that s saying, I want to improve the conditions of the city economically, I want to improve the condition of the city as far as crime is concerned you can t turn a deaf ear to that, whoever it is. Archer took umbrage to Scott s characterization of the city and warned that voters should scrutinize candidates who make such promises, especially since Trump didn t give a damn about Detroit before his poll numbers imploded.Camerota asked Scott to continue, and when he did he gave Trump credit for something that President Bush and President Obama did in 2008 and 2009 respectively. You have someone saying, I m going to be put in a position to help Detroit in the areas that it most needs help, Scott went on. He bailed out the auto industry. Yes, Scott really did claim that Trump save the auto industry at the height of the Great Recession.Of course, the record is crystal clear that President Bush signed the first bailout of Chrysler and General Motors. When President Obama took office the next year he did even more to help the American auto industry to stay alive and continue competing with foreign automakers.The auto industry is now fully recovered in this country and Donald Trump has absolutely nothing to do with it, something Scott realized moments later as he clumsily attempted to correct himself. I mean, he just, uh, he didn t bail out the auto industry, Scott embarrassingly admitted. What I m saying is, he had been working in relationship with the auto industry in order to stimulate the American auto industry. Here s the video via Twitter.Heated debate over Donald Trump s outreach to black voters https://t.co/sdqciImnC1 New Day (@NewDay) September 2, 2016Once again, a Trump supporter humiliates himself on national television by getting the facts completely wrong. At least Scott had the decency to correct himself this time.Featured Image: Getty Images | 1real |
Ohio violated voting rights by reducing early voting: U.S. judge | (Reuters) - A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Ohio violated voters’ rights in 2014 by cutting the number of days in which people were allowed to cast early ballots to 28 from 35. Judge Michael Watson of U.S. District Court in Columbus ordered Ohio to reinstate the 35-day period and also to grant residents a week-long opportunity to register and cast a ballot at the same time - a period known as “Golden Week.” If the ruling stands, voters in Ohio will be able to vote a full 35 days before the general election on Nov. 8. Watson said the earlier changes violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and were unconstitutional. Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature changed the system two years ago. The move was challenged by the state’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union. The two groups argued that the limited opportunities for early voting directly affected minorities. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, said in a statement on Tuesday: “It is disappointing that a federal judge would again change the election rules after the current laws were upheld in the same federal district court by a settlement agreement we reached with the NAACP and the ACLU.” Husted said in a statement. The settlement between Husted and the organizations allowed residents to vote on multiple Sundays leading up to a presidential election and gave access to additional evening voting hours, according to ACLU documents. Husted said he plans to consult the leaders of the state Senate and state House of Representatives before deciding how to proceed. | 0fake |
With China in mind, Japan, India agree to deepen defense | GANDHINAGAR, India (Reuters) - The leaders of India and Japan agreed on Thursday to deepen defense ties and push for more cooperation with Australia and the United States, as they seek to counter growing Chinese influence across Asia. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived this week in his counterpart Narendra Modi s home state, skipping the tradition of visiting the capital of New Delhi, for the tenth meeting between two leaders since Modi came to power in 2014. Relations have deepened between Asia s second and third largest economies as Abe and Modi, who enjoy a close personal relationship, increasingly see eye-to-eye to balance China as the dominant Asian power. Almost everything that takes place during the visit, including economic deals, will in part be done with China in mind, Eurasia analysts said in a note. Abe s visit comes days after New Delhi and Beijing agreed to end the longest and most serious military confrontation along their shared and contested border in decades, a dispute that had raised worries of a broader conflict between the Asian giants. In a lengthy joint statement, India and Japan said deepening security links was paramount. This included collaboration on research into unmanned ground vehicles and robotics and the possibility of joint field exercises between their armies. There was also renewed momentum for cooperation with the United States and Australia. Earlier this year, India rejected an Australian request to be included in four-country naval drills for fear of angering Beijing. Relations between India and Japan are not only a bilateral relationship but have developed into a strategic global partnership, Abe told reporters in Gandhinagar, the capital of western Gujarat state. We (India and Japan) will strengthen our collaboration with those countries with whom we share universal values. Abe flew to Gujarat to lay the foundation stone of a $17 billion bullet train project, India s first, that was made possible by a huge Japanese loan. Tokyo wants to win other high-speed rail lines India plans to build, to edge out Chinese ambitions to do the same and provide a boost for its high-end manufacturers. The visit was light on specific announcements, but India said it welcomed proposals for increased Japanese investment into infrastructure projects in its remote northeast, a region New Delhi sees as its gateway to Southeast Asia. China claims part of India s northeast as its own territory. Japanese investment into the northeast would give legs to our Act East policy, Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar told reporters. Modi and Abe also said they would push for more progress on the development of industrial corridors for the growth of Asia and Africa. Analysts say the planned $40 billion Asia-Africa Growth Corridor takes direct aim at China s Belt and Road project, envisaged as a modern-day Silk Road connecting China by land and sea across Asia and beyond to the Middle East, Europe and Africa. | 0fake |
LOL! Lawless HS Snowflakes Try To Bust Out Of School For Anti-Trump Protest…School Locks Them In! [VIDEO] | It s about time an adult steps up and takes control of these lawless, out-of-control students. We all know 99% of them were just looking to break out of school early anyhow BUSTED: Students at MD High School Attempt Walkout, School Locks Them In pic.twitter.com/TFGf68eaLP Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) November 18, 2016You get a detention!And YOU get a detention!And YOU get a detention! https://t.co/KqdMMzeLP5 Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) November 18, 2016CONFUSED? Students at Northwestern High in MD Protest US Presidential Election with Flags of Foreign Countries pic.twitter.com/GZ6r6CcLkY Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) November 18, 2016https://twitter.com/AyyeeDanielle/status/799652287757090816 | 1real |
VIDEO SHOWS Stunning Damage To Streets Of Historic Hamburg After SOROS’ ANTI-CAPITALISM Cockroaches Cleared Out Of G20 [VIDEO] | New York City s radical leftist Democrat Mayor Bill DeBlasio jetted off to Hamburg, Germany, leaving New Yorker s to deal with their issues, as he joined G-20 protesters who violently rioted, burned and looted the historic city lined with cobblestone streets and beautiful buildings. Not surprisingly, the media was silent about the Mayor of America s largest city, who flew halfway around the world to join the violent, anti-capitalist protesters. The media s focus was instead on Ivanka Trump, who temporarily sat in on a G20 meeting, while her father stepped out for a short period of time.Videos showing anti-capitalist thugs breaking windows of businesses, burning cars, tearing down street signs and looting local stores have been circulating everywhere on the internet. The violent cowardly Antifa groups who are attempting to shut down free speech and threaten supporters of President Trump in America, were seen wearing masks to hide their identities as they ravaged businesses and threatened anyone who got in their way.Watch G20 rioters loot a local store in this stunning video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ_CrspbeSgAfter several days of violent riots, fires in the streets and looting by anti-capitalist punks, citizens of Hamburg woke to find their streets and businesses looking like the aftermath of a war-zone. You won t see the mainstream media covering the damage to the streets and businesses of Hamburg however, simply because it doesn t fit their anti-Trump narrative. | 1real |
After Baton Rouge Flooding, Learning Lessons From New Orleans - The New York Times | BATON ROUGE, La. — Darren McKinney knows about floods, having spent days huddling in the upper rooms of a house when the waters of Hurricane Katrina drowned his New Orleans neighborhood, the Lower Ninth Ward, 11 years ago this month. And so on Saturday afternoon, at a house in a Baton Rouge subdivision that had been flooded a week earlier, Mr. McKinney passed his knowledge on to a group of volunteers from lowernine. org, a nonprofit organization founded after Hurricane Katrina: cut the drywall here, this high up, and pull out the insulation like this. “Because I’ve been through it,” he said, “I know the dos and don’ts. ” There are plenty here in south Louisiana who have been forced to learn this kind of thing, and plenty who have learned much larger lessons as well. Those lessons include how to get money most efficiently from the federal government and ways to avoid leaving thousands of people for years in temporary shelters, like the notorious Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers, as the rebuilding proceeds. The big thoughts and small details constitute a grimly earned expertise here and particularly in New Orleans, which sits just 75 miles down the road. It is a that will now be drawn on considerably, with devastation across 20 parishes, at least 60, 600 homes damaged or ruined, and the long and often exasperating road to recovery just now beginning. “The silver lining, if there is any silver lining, is that this sits in a large region that has a lot of experience with rebuilding and recovery,” said Mary L. Landrieu, a former United States senator from Louisiana, and a veteran of funding fights during the hurricane recovery. “They don’t have to go far to find experts. ” Many organizations that came into existence to tackle problems after Hurricane Katrina are now on the front lines of this recovery, which President Obama will survey during a visit on Tuesday. The Louisiana Civil Justice Center, started in the months after the hurricane to respond to the many and confounding legal issues of the poor, is the official statewide legal aid resource in the state bar association’s disaster plan. The St. Bernard Project, a nonprofit rebuilding group which now calls itself SBP and was started by two volunteers in 2006 in a parking lot in a wrecked parish outside of New Orleans, is planning to open at least one office, if not several, in Baton Rouge. The group’s leaders have been in talks with advertising firms in New Orleans about campaigns to educate people about how to navigate the FEMA process for grants and loans, how to avoid being defrauded by contractors and how to do some work without any outside help at all. All are things that the group learned after Hurricane Katrina and in subsequent relief efforts elsewhere around the country. “The fact is, disaster recovery hasn’t worked well in America, ever,” said Zack Rosenburg, one of the founders of the group, which has done rebuilding work after floods in South Carolina and West Virginia. “It’s an extraordinarily challenging process. ” On Saturday, some of the original members of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the state agency set up to oversee the rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, met with local and state officials at the offices of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, a civic group, to talk about the lessons of the last 11 years. With homes in Louisiana still underwater, the talk was preliminary, said John Spain, the executive vice president of the foundation. But there was plenty to look back at and see as experiences not to repeat. “We’re 11 years after Katrina, and only 60 percent of the housing stock in St. Bernard Parish is back,” Mr. Spain said, referring to a parish just east of New Orleans that was almost entirely destroyed by the levee failures after the hurricane. This time, it was Livingston Parish, just east of Baton Rouge, that was almost entirely flooded. “It’s important that we don’t repeat mistakes whether it’s from Sandy or Katrina or Gustav. ” Part of the issue then was how long it took for homes to be rebuilt and essential services to come back. After Hurricane Katrina, thousands endured extended stays in FEMA trailers, and thousands of others eventually settled down permanently in cities elsewhere, bleeding New Orleans of its population. In this flood response, several officials said, FEMA is pursuing a strategy of getting people to move back as quickly as possible into at least one or two rooms of their houses, an aim that would depend on quick payments and a work force of volunteers. “Our efforts to help the schools get back open and get as many people back in their home as soon as possible is going to minimize the effect we had after Katrina,” said Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, a Republican, who praised the federal response. “Right after Katrina, we didn’t see that passion to really help,” he said. Still, there is plenty that has not been learned, or learned but not fixed. A report released last year by Save the Children, an advocacy group, found that few of the recommendations of a federal commission on children and disasters, which was set up after Hurricane Katrina, have been carried out nationally. And those who have worked with poor and families since Hurricane Katrina expect to see many of the exact same problems they saw over the last decade, even if they now feel more savvy about fighting them. “The kinds of things you’re going to see early on are things like people facing a potential eviction because housing is scarce,” said Laura Tuggle, the executive director of the Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, which helped the poor after Hurricane Katrina. She ticked off some more of what she expected: sudden sharp rises in rent, withheld deposits, increases in domestic violence for those stuck in close quarters and, for homeowners, complicated title problems that could jeopardize access to assistance. All of these are matters that lawyers with her group had to tackle after Hurricane Katrina. She has already gotten calls about some of them this time. “You know what needs to be done,” Ms. Tuggle said, recalling the months during which she was unable to get back to her home in New Orleans in 2005. “Because we’ve been there. ” Betty Michelli, 63, of Baton Rouge, has now been there, though she had never been there before. On Saturday, volunteers with the St. Bernard Project were gutting her house and piling debris out on the front lawn. She and her husband stood in the hot garage, going over all that they do not know about disasters, from how FEMA is supposed to contact them, to how one gets loans from the Small Business Administration, to what exactly they are going to be doing next. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just sit down and cry. ” | 0fake |
Fifteen dead in food aid stampede in Morocco: ministry | RABAT (Reuters) - Fifteen people were killed and five more injured when a stampede broke out in a southwestern Moroccan town on Sunday as food aid was being distributed in a market, the Interior Ministry said. A hospital source put the death toll at 18, adding that most victims were women who had been scrambling for food handed out by a rich man in the small coastal town of Sidi Boulaalam. A local journalist said the donor had organised similar handouts before, but this year some 1,000 people arrived, storming an iron barrier under which several women were crushed. King Mohammed ordered that the victims families be given any assistance they needed and the wounded treated at his cost, the ministry said in a statement, adding that a criminal investigation had been opened. Last month, the king dismissed the ministers of education, planning and housing and health after an economic agency found imbalances in implementing a development plan to fight poverty in the northern Rif region. The Rif saw numerous protests after a fishmonger was accidentally crushed to death in a garbage truck in October 2016 after a confrontation with police, and he became a symbol of the effects of corruption and official abuse. In July, the king pardoned dozens of people arrested in the protests and accused local officials of stoking public anger by being too slow to implement development projects. | 0fake |
OBAMA THREATENS TO SURFACE FROM LEFTIST BUNKER To Speak Out Against Trump’s Plan To End DACA | Contrary to what the media would like us to believe, Obama has not remained silent when it comes to policy that President Trump put in place by executive order. Neither he nor his Democratic henchmen remained silent when President Trump desperately tried to convince Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare, or when he had the opportunity to attack him over his handling of the Charlottesville controversy. The media celebrated Obama s post-Charlotseville tweet designed to make our former President look like he was in favor of uniting the nation (which we all know is a bald-faced lie), while falsely giving the impression that President Trump was choosing sides.Before the media gets into a full-blown tizzy about Obama using social media to bash our current president over DACA, they might consider that most of America aren t stupid enough to believe that Valerie Jarrett didn t move into Barack Obama s DC home because he needed a friend to play checkers with. He may not be making public statements to voice his opposition against our current president, but one thing we do know is that he and Valerie Jarrett aren t sitting on their hands, while President Trump unwinds everything they worked so hard to make happen, including DACA.Hotair You know it s killing this guy not to be on camera every day scolding Trump in his usual that s not who we are terms but that would be a strategic disaster so obvious that silence is really the only option. A Trump vs. Obama fight over almost any issue would unify most of the right behind the president and O knows it; the most brutal thing he can do to Trump is to deny him that our-guy-versus-their-guy dynamic. I don t think it s crazy to believe that Trump s job approval would be five to 10 points higher if Obama had spent the last seven months sniping at him regularly. By withholding his criticism, he s made it possible for soft Republicans and right-leaning independents to criticize POTUS without fear of being accused that they re carrying O s water.Two days before President Trump s inauguration, Obama warned him that he would come out against him if Trump rescinded his unconstitutional DACA.Why attack Trump now? I think there s more to it than DACA just being near and dear to Obama s heart. He knows that congressional Republicans are going to be jammed up here to an unusual degree. Immigration is a fraught issue for the GOP under the best of circumstances but DREAMers are an especially hard case due to their having come here as children. They re the one class of illegals about whom even Trump speaks warmly. In fact, the president s going to end DACA not because he wants to but because Republican AGs are squeezing him to do so, replete with the threat of a court battle; even then, Trump is still so reluctant to pull the plug that he s willing to hold off for another six months. The entire GOP (apart from Steve King) will spend those six months telling every voter who listens that they re open to legalizing DREAMers. All they ask in return is some face-saving security measures so that they can semi-plausibly argue to their base that they didn t roll over completely on amnesty.Having Obama wade in publicly on the side of DREAMers will complicate all of that. With O banging the drum for amnesty, Republican voters who are lukewarm on the idea in the first place will start to turn frosty. Populists will have a field day attacking Ryan and McConnell (and Trump?) for essentially doing Obama s bidding by negotiating for a DREAM bill. Some congressional Republicans might start to get cold feet. The more hostile Trump and the congressional GOP become towards a DREAM deal as part of a backlash towards Obama, the more ammo Schumer will have to say that Republicans are being cruel to poor illegal children whose only mistake was trusting the federal government. The whole GOP we like DREAMers too! messaging effort will be scrambled. Either negotiations will end up collapsing in Congress, with Dems using the DREAM failure against Republicans next fall, or Trump, Ryan, and McConnell will have to swallow hard and approve an amnesty cheered on by Barack farking Obama, which is about the RINO-iest move a modern Republican is capable of making. Either the GOP base ends up angry at the White House or everyone else does. Obama speaking out is tinder for the match Trump is about to strike.Let s hope President Trump will be able to locate and tweet this pesky little video of candidate Obama telling his constituents how he disagrees with law breaking illegal aliens living and working in America: | 1real |
The Pathologization of Dissent | Photo by Jamelle Bouie | CC BY 2.0
According to the mainstream media, in a recent speech in West Palm Beach, Donald Trump finally completely lost it. Sawing the air with his tiny hands in a unmistakeably Hitlerian manner, he spat out a series of undeniably hateful anti-Semitic code words … like “political establishment,”“global elites” and, yes, “international banks.” He even went so far as to claim that “corporations” and their (ahem) “lobbyists” have millions of dollars at stake in this election, and are trying to pass the TTP, not to benefit the American people, but simply to enrich themselves. He then went on to accuse the media of collaborating with “the Clinton machine,” presumably to benefit these “global elites” and “international banks” and “lobbyists.”
Now, a lot of folks didn’t immediately recognize the secret meanings of these fascistic code words, and so mistakenly assumed that “global elites” referred to the transnational capitalist ruling classes, and that “lobbyists” referred to actual lobbyists, and that “banks” meant … well … you know, banks. As it turned out, this was completely wrong. None of these words actually meant what they meant, not in anti-Semitic CodeSpeak. So the mainstream media translated for us. “Political establishment” meant “the Jews.”“Global elites” also meant “the Jews.”“Banks” meant “Jews.”“Lobbyists” meant “Jews.” Even “corporate media,” meant “Jews.” Apparently, Trump’s entire speech was a series of secret dog-whistle signals to his legions of neo-Nazi goons, who, immediately following Clinton’s victory, are going to storm out of their hidey holes, frontally attack the US military, overthrow the US government, and, yes, you guessed it …“kill the Jews.”
OK, maybe I’m exaggerating the mainstream media’s reaction just a little bit. Or maybe Trump’s speech really was that fascistic. Judge for yourself. Read the transcript. ( NPR offers a complete version of it here. ) Then compare the reactions of The Wall Street Journal , The New York Times , Washington Post , The Inquirer , The Guardian , and other leading broadsheets, and magazines and blogs like Mother Jones , Forward , Slate , Salon , Vox , Alternet , and a host of others, most of which rely on Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League and former Special Assistant to the President, as their authoritative source on Trumpian cryptology. (Mr. Greenblatt, incidentally, should know better, given the treatment he has received from hard-line Zionist publications for refusing to demonize Black Lives Matter, and for “taking sides against” the State of Israel.)
Look, I’m not defending Donald Trump, who I consider a self-aggrandizing idiot and a soulless huckster of the lowest order, and whose supporters include a lot of real anti-Semites, and racists, and misogynists, and other such creeps. I’m simply trying to point out how the corporate media have, for months, been playing the same hysterical tune like an enormous Goebbelsian keyboard instrument, and how millions of Americans are singing along (as they were before the invasion of Iraq, which posed no threat to the USA , but which according to the media had WMDs), and how terribly fucking disturbing that is. In case you didn’t instantly recognize it, the name of the tune is “This guy is Hitler!” and it isn’t the short vulgarian fingers of Donald Trump that are tickling the ivories. And no, it isn’t “the Jews” either. It’s the corporate media, and the corporations that own them, and the rest of the global capitalist ruling classes … in other words, those “global elites.”
The thing I find particularly disturbing is how these rather mundane observations — i.e., (a) that a global ruling class exists, (b) that it’s primarily corporate in character, (c) that this class is pursuing its interests and not the interests of sovereign states — how such observations are being stigmatized as the ravings of unhinged anti-Semites. This stigmatization is not limited to Trumpists. Anyone to the left of Clinton is now, apparently, an anti-Semite. For example, Roger Cohen, in The New York Times , riding the tsunami of condemnation of the insidious verbiage of Trump’s West Palm speech, executed an extended smear-job on Jeremy Corbyn and his “Corbynistas” (they’re fond of coining these epithets, the media), denouncing their virulent “anti-Americanism,”“anti-Capitalism,”“anti-globalism,” and “anti-Semitic anti-Zionism.”
Which, let me hasten to add, and stress, and underscore, and repeatedly emphasize, is not to imply that the Labour Party, or the British Left, or the American Left, or any other Left, is anti-Semitism-free. Of course not. There are anti-Semites everywhere. That isn’t the point. Or it isn’t my point.
My point is that this stigmatization campaign is part of a much larger ideological project, one that has little to do with Trump, or Jeremy Corbyn, or their respective parties. Smearing one’s political opponents is nothing new, of course, it’s as old as the hills. But what we’re witnessing is more than smears. As I proposed in these pages back in July , political dissent is being gradually pathologized (i.e., stigmatized as aberrant or “abnormal” behavior, as opposed to a position meriting discussion). Consider the abnormalization of Sanders, back when he was talking about “banks,”“global elites,” and other things that matter, or the media’s portrayal of British voters as racists in the wake of the Brexit referendum. And, yes, the charges being leveled against Trump, much as we might despise the man. Anti-Semitism, inciting violence, paranoid conspiracy theorizing, insurrection, treason, et cetera — these are not legitimate arguments one needs to counter with superior arguments; they are symptoms of deviations from a norm, signs of criminality or pathology, which is increasingly how the corporate ruling classes are dismissing anyone who attempts to challenge them.
A line is being drawn in the ideological sand. On one side of it are the decent people, the normal people, in their business wear, with their university degrees, and prescriptions, and debts. On the other side are … well, the deplorables, the ignorant, racist, anti-Semitic, neo-nationalist, populist extremists. This line cuts through both the Left and the Right … supersedes both Left and Right, making bedfellows of supposed adversaries like Obama, Clinton, Kagan, Wolfowitz, Scowcroft, and their ilk on the Normal team, and a motley crew of Trumpists, Putinists, European populists, Corbynistas, Sandernistas, socialists, anarchists, Wikileakers, anti-Zionists, anti-capitalists, neo-Nazis, Black Lives Matterers, angry Greek pensioners, environmental activists, religious zealots, the Klu Klux Klan, David Graeber, most of the contributors to CounterPunch, and various other “extremist” types, many of whom detest each other, in the Deplorables’ current starting line-up.
The corporate media is sending a message … a message aimed at a much broader audience than undecided American voters (assuming such creatures really exist). The message is, “get with the fucking program, or get stigmatized as an anti-Semite, or a racist, or a Russian spy, or whatever.” The message is, “drop the populist rhetoric, shut the hell up about the Wall Street banks, and the corporations, and the ‘one percent,’ and … actually … forget about politics completely, except for identity politics, of course. Go ahead and knock yourself out with that.” The message is, “you’re either with us or against us … and it doesn’t matter why you’re against us, or what it is you think you’re for. Right, Left … who gives a shit? It’s one big Basket of Deplorables to us.”
This message, of course, displays many of the hallmarks of the classic authoritarian mentality, the need for nearly total conformity, mindless allegiance to one’s so-called superiors, delegitimization of all opposing viewpoints, and the infantile type of hero-worship figures like Obama and Clinton inspire … not the old-fashioned authoritarianism that would-be despots like Trump represent, but, rather, a more attractive version, a hopey, changey, lovey version, where there are no frightening Hitlerian leaders barking out anti-Semitic code words, and no one is exterminating thousands of people in faraway countries they want to destabilize in order to entirely dominate the region. No, this is the version where Obama sells the TPP on the Jimmy Fallon show, and wars of aggression are not wars of aggression, but “humanitarian interventions.” It’s also the version where universal healthcare is, regrettably, “unrealistic,” but $38 billion for the State of Israel so it can operate its Apartheid State, and weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, so they can bomb the shit out of farmers in Yemen, and cut off people’s heads for blasphemy, is somehow in “America’s vital interests.”
But what do I know? I’m just a satirist. I should probably leave all this complex stuff, like what is and isn’t in my interest, and what words really mean and all that, to the experts in the mainstream media. Since they did so well decoding Trump’s speech, maybe they could translate some of these other code words I’ve been having trouble with, like the ones I put in scare quotes above, or other such code words, like “enemy combatant,”“free trade agreement,”“security barrier,”“indefinite detention,”“targeted killing,” or “troubled asset relief program.”
I could go on, but I probably shouldn’t. Odds are, I’m already on the list of Putin-worshiping, anti-Semitic, racist, misogynist, neo-nationalist, non-standing up for the National Anthem, conspiracy theorizing America-haters. The last thing I need to do at this point is start jabbering about how the United States is an authoritarian corporatist dystopia ruled by a global capitalist elite that couldn’t give less of a shit about Americans (or any other actual people living in any other actual countries), where the corporate media can whip up mass fanatical support for wars of aggression, or corporate puppets, by pointing their fingers at yet another bogeyman and shouting “Hitler” at the top of their lungs. Next thing you know I’d be writing about “banks,” and “global corporations,” and “national sovereignty,” and we all know what that’s about, don’t we? | 1real |
Watch: Is This Proof Trump Is Unfit for Service? | New questions are being asked about President Donald Trump s ability to lead after he slurred his words during a speech about his Jerusalem decision. Possible reasons for this include: fatigue, a dry mouth (the White House explanation), the use of drugs or alcohol, a problem with his dentures or more troubling issues dealing with his mental or physical health. Morning Joe reported this morning that, unlike other presidents, Trump has opted not to get his physicals at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.Questions about Trump s mental stability have been growing over the last few months. While he has never been viewed as a stable person in the traditional sense, his tweets and comments have gotten more erratic. He was widely criticized recently when he retweeted several anti-Muslim videos that were posted by radicals in the United Kingdom.One psychiatrist talk to MSNBC s Lawrence O Donnel about his impressions of Trump s state of mind.Many think that any degradation in Trump s mental state may be due to the increased pressure he is feeling from Robert Mueller s investigations into collusion between his campaign and the Russian government. This has increased since former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.All of this talk is leading to more people to ask if Trump should be removed from office, citing the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Rep. Jamie D. Raskin (D-MD) has circulated a dear colleague letter suggesting just that. As published in the Washington Post, it says: Please join a rapidly growing group of colleagues in cosponsoring H.R. 1987, the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity Act. It sets up and defines the Congressionally-appointed body called for by the 25th Amendment. Under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, the Vice-President and a majority of the Cabinet or the Vice-President and a majority of such other body as Congress may by law provide can determine that the President is for reasons of physical or mental incapacity unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. The 25th Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1967, but in the last 50 years Congress never created the body that its language contemplated. Perhaps it never occurred to prior Congresses that setting up this body was necessary. For obvious reasons, it is indeed necessary, and now is the time for us to do it. While the Republicans in the Cabinet and Congress may not yet be ready to take this step, it is out there.Featured image via Andrew Burton/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump vows to sue Cruz over birthplace if 'false ads' stay up | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump blasted close rival Ted Cruz on Monday, threatening to file a lawsuit challenging his eligibility for the White House if the Texas senator does not take down his “false ads.” The New York billionaire, whose campaign has long been littered with insults, called Cruz “totally unstable” and said he is “the single biggest liar I’ve ever come across, in politics or otherwise, and I have seen some of the best of them.” Speaking at a news conference in South Carolina, Trump said he could “fight back” by bringing a lawsuit against Cruz over the fact that he was born in Canada, which Trump argues makes him ineligible to become president. “If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies, I will do so immediately,” he said. Cruz scored a key early victory in the Republican race to pick a nominee for the Nov. 8 presidential election when he won the Iowa caucuses earlier this month, and has been attacking Trump on a range of issues. Trump said the Republican National Committee should intervene to stop Cruz from misrepresenting his views and policies on issues such as abortion, gun rights, healthcare and potential Supreme Court nominees. He said he had signed a pledge with the RNC agreeing not to run a third-party candidacy, and to support the eventual Republican nominee, and the RNC should do its bit to keep the campaign fair. “The bottom line is the RNC is controlled by the establishment ... and special interests,” Trump told reporters. “I signed a pledge, but it’s a double-edged pledge. As far as I’m concerned, they’re in default on their pledge.” Trump’s remarks, days ahead of Saturday’s Republican primary in South Carolina, came after increasingly bitter exchanges between the two candidates in recent weeks. Cruz has hammered Trump on key issues, and said on Saturday that if elected he would appoint liberals to the Supreme Court. Trump has long said that Cruz may not be constitutionally qualified to serve as president because he was born in Canada. The U.S. Constitution says only “natural born” citizens can become president of the United States. Born in Calgary, Alberta, to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban father, Cruz has accused Trump of bringing up his birthplace simply because Cruz is leading some polls. Last month, Cruz said Trump, who led the movement questioning whether the Hawaiian-born President Barack Obama was really from the United States, had asked his lawyers to look into the issue of Cruz’s birth in September and concluded there were no issues. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Frances Kerry) SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters’ editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage. | 0fake |
BOOM! MARINE PENS LETTER TO ENTITLED, RACIST MOOCH: ” I don’t blame black people for the ignorance that comes from your mouth” | Mrs. ObamaIt sickens me that I have to take time to write you this letter. I am a Marine who doesn t recognize color because every color has lived and died for you. You live in a free country to blame your life on the color of another man s skin. All colors have given their lives for an educated woman to have the freedom to be so ignorant. I don t blame black people for the ignorance that comes from your mouth. I love all colors because I love all that God creates. I don t have to like you to love you because we can t always like the ones we love. Just because I don t like you today doesn t mean I can t like you tomorrow. I don t like you or your husband today because of what you re doing to this country. Isn t it funny how the truth always reveals itself in time. You and your husband never showed this side of yourselves in 2008 before he was elected.You both live better than 99% of the people in this world because of this country. You said that you are for the first time proud to be an American. Well, I will tell you that most of us are ashamed of you. You and your husband have become millionaires off the people of this country, but demonstrate very little appreciation for all that we give. White, black, brown or indifferent millions have fought and died for you to have the freedom to say the ignorant things you say. You are educated, but clearly have very little common sense. You blame past generations of Americans for the troubles of a few. Stop blaming white people for your misery and take a look at yourself in the mirror. We are responsible for our own happiness and misery. The KKK is ignorance wrapped in a sheet while the Black panthers are raised on ignorance and hate. No different from the teaching of Islam thinking their race is better than all other men. God is love and creates every color to include everyone s skin. To truly love God is to love all that He loves. For that I love each of you and pray that we all start taking responsibility for our own damned sins.Martin Luther King had a dream that we would all live in the promise land. He is not remembered for being black. He is remembered for the love, and character he had within his heart. If you don t like this country get on that plane and never come back. I will stay here and love all Americans, regardless of skin. I will love the beauty of what God created and stand tall with my American friends. Not because of their color but for the character and love they carry within. This country doesn t owe you anymore than it owes me. So many have thanked me for my service and I will always be grateful. I pray that one day you and your husband might cause me to be grateful for yours.You will never be remembered as the First Lady of Color but soon forgotten after you leave the White House. You nor your husband shall ever divide us. I wish you no harm, but pray you will take your troubles to a land you no longer hate. Hate shall come and go but His love shall last forever.If you wish to find me I am now a writer for the DC Gazette. Also on Twitter @mshep08_mike God bless you and Semper Fi Mike Shepard | 1real |
Who’s The Fascist? Barack Obama, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton? | Margaret Kimberly Global ResearchThe U.S. public loves fascists; they elect them, constantly. Donald Trump, who says he would raise the minimum wage and stop the endless efforts at regime change, is called a fascist by some. But Hillary Clinton is happy to bomb Libya or Syria or any other country, and played a major role in mass Black incarceration. Barack Obama is the war-maker and deporter-in-chief. All of the major party candidates fit the F word description in some way. Donald Trump is the ill spoken, boorish, graceless version of every American president in modern history. He differs from them only in his unconcealed appeals to white nationalism. But Democrats aren t much better. They pretend to work on behalf of human, civil and economic rights but those claims are lies. They are meant to hide their partnerships with corporate America, very wealthy individuals and the worldwide imperialist project.If Trump is a fascist then he will fit in nicely with the pantheon of horrific men we are told to respect and venerate. Barack Obama charges and convicts whistle blowers with the little used espionage act from the era of Woodrow Wilson. He claims and has exercised an invented right to kill Americans. His predecessor invaded and occupied Iraq but he continues the dirty deed there and in Afghanistan. He tries to fool the public by assassinating al Qaeda number two, over and over again. Al Qaeda certainly doesn t lack for plan B staffers.Bush the younger cut tax rates for rich people but Obama didn t change that. Under the guise of compromising with intransigent Republicans he did the same thing. When he and the Democrats controlled Congress in 2009 and 2010 they raised the minimum wage a paltry 70 cents.Conversely, Donald Trump says he would raise the minimum wage and says he would stop the endless efforts at regime change. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders have questioned that fundamental premise of American foreign policy. Hillary Clinton has already proven herself to be particularly blood thirsty. She is happy to bomb Libya or Syria or any other country. Her so-called expertise amounts to nothing more than an expansion of state sponsored terror committed by the United States.Trump says he wouldn t cut Social Security while Barack Obama famously declared that he and his 2012 Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, agreed on the need to cut this program that was once called the third rail of politics.Every president since the 1980s has grown the horrific mass incarceration industry. Using wars on drugs as a pretext they have locked up 2 million people, half of whom are black. No one comes into office with any intention of undoing America s leadership as the world s worst jailer.American history teaches black people to be, at the very least, wary of public officials who are beloved by red necks as much as Trump is. When Trump speaks of preventing Muslim immigration or deporting all of the estimated 11 million undocumented people in this country he is making inherently racist appeals.That is why he is protested and rightly so. But the protesters have already missed the mark by giving a pass to equally questionable policy actions and statements coming from Democrats.It is a Democratic president who brought back a cold war against Russia and recklessly brought troops to the edge of that country s borders.This scenario was unheard of during the worst days of the cold war and now risks nuclear confrontation. That is because George W. Bush unilaterally abrogated the missile defense treaty with Russia. Perhaps he can be called a fascist also.The trade deals passed by American presidents with congressional connivance grow worse. There is no longer any pretense that their goal is to help corporations maximize profits and minimize everyone else s rights. Not even members of Congress were allowed access to the text of the Trans Pacific Partnership legislation.If Trump is protested, Obama ought to be as well. He is spending his last year in office on an imperialism tour. He goes to Hiroshima for photo opportunities with atomic bomb survivors while building more nuclear warheads than any other president. He tells endless lies about Russian aggression but he is the provocative head of state.Trump should be disliked by Latinos and everyone else when he says that Mexican immigrants are rapists and murderers. But Obama is the deporter in chief, sending a record number of Latino immigrants out of the country with dubious rationales, devastating them and their families.Apparently all of the major party candidates fit the F word description in some way. Trump s bombast and ignorance make him the easiest to pick out of the crowd but appearances are deceiving. It seems that if a politician has the right establishment credentials and knows how to give prepared speeches he or she can get away with committing any outrage.In just the last 40 years American presidents or their allied partners in crime have killed people in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo, Somalia, Haiti, Grenada, Gaza, Kosovo, Serbia, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen. What do they have to do to be called fascists? Showing bad manners seems to be the only thing that sets off expressions of outrage among Americans.There is already fascism in the White House, the Justice Department, the State Department and Congress. The only question is who will be the next person to keep that sick machinery running.This article originally appeared on Global ResearchGet 10% off a 21WIRE TV membership package today using promo code: STU21WIRETVEVERYTHING ON ELECTION 2016: 21st Century Wire Election Files | 1real |
James Baldwin’s Archive, Long Hidden, Comes (Mostly) Into View - The New York Times | James Baldwin died in 1987, but his moment is now. His books are flying off the shelves. He has inspired homages like Raoul Peck’s documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” and Coates’s memoir “Between the World and Me. ” Baldwin’s prophetic essays on race read like today’s news. And yet a full understanding of this pioneering gay artist remains elusive. While Baldwin’s books are in print, there’s one revealing work that admirers long to read but have mostly been unable to: his letters. The Baldwin estate has held tight to hundreds in its possession, letting only a few scholars see them. It has almost never allowed any of Baldwin’s correspondence to be published, or given biographers permission to quote a single word. Now, Baldwin’s papers have landed in one of the nation’s leading archival institutions, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library, in Harlem. But, in a striking twist, many of his personal letters will remain off limits for another generation — a byproduct of complicated negotiations between the library and the estate, and a reminder that family members are not always comfortable with the spotlight’s falling on a loved one, even decades after death. The acquisition is a coup for the Schomburg, which announced the surprise news at a event there on Wednesday night. It’s also a kind of homecoming for Baldwin, a preacher’s son who grew up not far from the center’s landmark building on Malcolm X Boulevard. “Even though it’s taken 30 years, it’s the perfect time,” Kevin Young, who became the director of the Schomburg in December, said in an interview. “It’s like he never left. ” The archive — the bulk of which is open to researchers immediately — contains a wealth of manuscripts, drafts and notes relating to Baldwin’s sprawling output, most of which have rarely been seen by scholars. There are also letters from luminaries including Lorraine Hansberry, Nina Simone, Bobby Seale, William Styron and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a testament to the sociability of a man who seemed to go everywhere, and know everyone. Still, Baldwin’s correspondence with four of his closest intimates is under seal, part of a set of restrictions that suggest that his famously protective estate is not quite ready for the world to see the private Baldwin in full. Those confidants include Baldwin’s brother David and three lifelong friends, among them Lucien Happersberger, a bisexual Swiss painter Baldwin once called “the one true love story of my life. ” William Kelly, the New York Public Library’s director of research libraries, described the restrictions, including the seal on roughly half the personal correspondence in the archive, as complicated but “fairly modest. ” “There’s always a balance in guaranteeing access for scholars, while at the same time being sensitive to the family,” Mr. Kelly said. (Gloria Baldwin’s sister and executor, declined through the library to be interviewed for this article.) Other limitations — like a waiting period on any public display of all but a handful of items — seem puzzlingly out of step with current trends at archives, which tend to make as much freely available and visible online as copyright will allow. (The library also declined to let The New York Times photograph anything beyond eight items the estate had approved for display.) But Mr. Kelly said the restrictions were outweighed by the sheer richness of the archive, which sheds light on how Baldwin navigated different aspects of his identity — gay, political, artistic. “I was dazzled by it,” he said, referring to the collection. The library declined to disclose the purchase price, which was paid with donations from the Ford Foundation, the Knight Foundation, New York Life and three individual donors. (One donor, Mr. Kelly said, contributed the last $500, 000.) For its money, the Schomburg got some 70 boxes of material — about 30 linear feet, in . It spans the full range of Baldwin’s career, from typescripts of his teenage poetry to handwritten drafts of “The Welcome Table,” his final, unfinished play about an imaginary dinner party featuring an Panther, a professor and a Josephine dancer. (It was inspired by visits Baker made to Baldwin’s house in the South of France, where he spent the last decades of his life.) “He went where his muse went,” said Steven G. Fullwood, the Schomburg’s associate curator of manuscripts, archives and rare books. “He was always questioning himself and the world. ” The eight preapproved items from the collection will be on view through Monday, in a small exhibition. When I visited the Schomburg earlier this month, archivists had laid out a much larger selection that spoke to the archive’s range and depth. There was a typescript of unpublished notes on Beauford Delaney, a gay painter whom Baldwin met at the age of 15 and came to see as his “spiritual father. ” It was from Delaney that he learned about “the light contained in every thing, in every surface, in every face,” Baldwin wrote. (Correspondence with Delaney is covered by the seal.) One folder held an unproduced play script based on “Giovanni’s Room,” Baldwin’s 1956 novel about an American expatriate in France, torn between his love for a man and societal pressure to marry. (The novel was dedicated to Happersberger.) There were character notes for his novel “Just Above My Head” (1979) scrawled on a card for a jazz club, and a draft of an unproduced screenplay about Malcolm X, written out longhand in an orange notebook labeled “Homework. ” There were also clarion blasts of the prophetic Baldwin, like an unpublished 1978 note recalling the day 10 years earlier when he had learned that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. “Ten years! The mind and the heart refuse that knowledge,” Baldwin wrote. “I really feel, as I write this now, the same, unbelieving wonder, the same shocked and helpless rage. ” That passage echoes a scene in the new documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” which was based on notes for “Remember This House,” a book about King, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers that Baldwin planned but never wrote. In a recent essay, Mr. Peck, who said he gained full access to Baldwin’s papers, recalled the eureka moment when Ms. handed them to him. (Those notes, now at the Schomburg, are sealed for 10 years.) But for others, the real buried treasure is the correspondence. In 2007, the critic Hilton Als wrote that there was “one great Baldwin masterpiece waiting to be published, one composed in an atmosphere of focused intimacy, and that is a volume of his letters, letters his family does not want published. ” One person who has seen some of the most intimate letters is Ed Pavlic, a poet and professor at the University of Georgia. In 2010, Ms. gave him access to some 120 letters from Baldwin to their brother David, written over the course of 40 years and totaling some 70, 000 words. Ms. suggested that Mr. Pavlic try to find a book in them. But when he sent her a manuscript and asked for permission to quote, Mr. Pavlic said, he got no response and was unable to publish it. Mr. Pavlic, who has written about his experiences with the letters, said the lack of access to Baldwin’s correspondence had made it difficult for scholars to make full sense of — or even create an accurate record of — a life spent constantly on the move. And the letters he saw, far from damaging Baldwin’s reputation, would burnish it, he said. “The private record, for me, just amplifies and confirms and makes more dramatic the public messages he was out to convey,” he said. In addition to David Baldwin and Happersberger and Delaney, the seal also covers Baldwin’s correspondence with Mary Painter, a longtime friend to whom he dedicated his 1962 novel, “Another Country. ” Oddly, some of Baldwin’s letters to these intimates (who are all dead) are accessible in other archives, like the Beinecke Rare Book Manuscript Library at Yale, which has even posted some of its Baldwin collection online. As for the restrictions at the Schomburg, Mr. Young emphasized that a vast majority of the collection was open for research, and that the rest would be available “in due time. ” “I take the long view,” he said. “Archives move by decades and generations. We’re here to keep it forever. ” | 0fake |
The Scope of the Orlando Carnage - The New York Times | These locations are never random. These targets aren’t accidental. They’re the very vocabulary in which assailants like the Orlando gunman speak, and he chose a place where there’s drinking. And dancing. And where L. G. B. T. people congregate, feeling a sense of welcome, of belonging. That last detail is already in the foreground of the deadliest mass shooting in American history — and rightly so. But let’s be clear: This was no more an attack just on L. G. B. T. people than the bloodshed at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris was an attack solely on satirists. Both were attacks on freedom itself. Both took aim at societies that, at their best, integrate and celebrate diverse points of view, diverse systems of belief, diverse ways to love. And to speak of either massacre more narrowly than that is to miss the greater message, the more pervasive danger and the truest stakes. We don’t yet know all that much about Omar Mateen, who pulled the trigger, again and again, in a nightclub whose name connotes life, not death: Pulse. We’ll be learning more in the hours and days to come, including just how potently homophobia in particular factored into his actions, how much ideological influence the Islamic State or other extremists had, how extensive his planning was, how far back he began plotting this, and how much he knew about Pulse itself and the specific composition of its crowd on different nights of the week. But we can assume — no, we can be sure — that he was lashing out at an America at odds with his darker, smaller, more oppressive . The people inside Pulse were citizens of it. More to the point, they were emblems of it. In Pulse they found a refuge. In Pulse they found joy. To him they deserved neither. And he communicated that with an assault rifle and bullets. The Islamic State and its ilk are brutal to gay people, whom they treat in unthinkable ways. They throw gay people from rooftops. The footage is posted online. It’s bloodcurdling, but it’s not unique. In countries throughout the world, to be gay is to be in mortal danger. To embrace love is to court death. That’s crucial context for what happened in Orlando, and Orlando is an understandable prompt for questions about our own degrees of inclusion and fairness and whether we do all that we should to keep L. G. B. T. people safe. We don’t. As Florida Gov. Rick Scott spoke publicly of his heartache on Sunday, I saw complaints on social media about his own lack of support for issues important to L. G. B. T. people. Those complaints have merit. But this isn’t a moment for identity politics, which could muddle the significance of the carnage. Yes, that carnage exposed the special vulnerability of L. G. B. T. Americans to violent extremists, recommending special levels of security. And there was a frightening coda to it on the opposite coast, in the Los Angeles area, where a man with an arsenal of weapons was arrested en route to gay pride festivities. But the threat isn’t only to L. G. B. T. Americans, as past acts of terror have shown and as everyone today must recognize. All Americans are under attack, and not exclusively because of whom we drink, dance or sleep with, but because of our bedrock belief that we should not be subservient to any one ideology or any one religion. That offends and inflames the zealots of the world. Often our politicians can’t find their voices. Sometimes their words are poignantly right. President Obama, speaking about the victims on Sunday afternoon, said: “The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub. It is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights. So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. ” And this was Eric Garcetti, the Los Angeles mayor, at a news conference: “Today we know that we are targeted as Americans, because this is a society where we love broadly and openly, because we have Jews and Christians and Muslims and atheists and Buddhists marching together, because we are white, black, brown, Asian, Native American. The whole spectrum and every hue and every culture is here. ” It was a perfect description of the country I love. And it was an equally perfect description of what the Orlando gunman couldn’t bear. | 0fake |
COMMIE CALIFORNIA BILL Would Allow Prosecution Of Climate Scam Dissent | How can you be prosecuted for something that isn t true? The climate scam folks in California are planning on strong-arming Americans into complying with climate change thought. This is fruit-loops!A landmark bill allowing for the prosecution of climate change dissent effectively died Thursday after the California Senate failed to take it up before the deadline.Senate Bill 1161, or the California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act of 2016, would have authorized prosecutors to sue fossil fuel companies, think tanks and others that have deceived or misled the public on the risks of climate change. The measure, which cleared two Senate committees, provided a four-year window in the statute of limitations on violations of the state s Unfair Competition Law, allowing legal action to be brought until Jan. 1 on charges of climate change fraud extending back indefinitely. This bill explicitly authorizes district attorneys and the Attorney General to pursue UCL claims alleging that a business or organization has directly or indirectly engaged in unfair competition with respect to scientific evidence regarding the existence, extent, or current or future impacts of anthropogenic induced climate change, said the state Senate Rules Committee s floor analysis of the bill.Read more: WT | 1real |
WATCH: ’Kill Jews, Americans’ - Osama Bin Laden’s Son Calls for Global Terrorist Attacks | One of the sons of leader and architect Osama bin Laden has called on Islamist terrorists around the world to kill Jews and attack American interests wherever they are found. [The chilling demand is made by Hamza bin Laden in a video which features images of terror attacks around the world including several in Israel. The terrorist encourages Muslims in “America, the West and occupied Palestine” to carry out solo attacks where they are instead of traveling to the Middle East. “Know that inflicting punishment on Jews and crusaders where you are present is more vexing and severe for the enemy,” he says, according to the video, which was distributed by media arm and posted to YouTube. Bin Laden, who was added to the U. S. blacklist in January, provided a voiceover for the video centered around “advice for in the West. ” He tells followers to “look for Jewish targets everywhere” and to attack American or NATO interests if no Jews can be found. It was immediately noted by terrorism experts: Hamza bin Laden, son of Osama, releases audio message offering “advice for martyrdom seekers in the West. ” Tells people to attack at home. pic. twitter. — Shiraz Maher (@ShirazMaher) May 13, 2017, 1) Breaking: Hamza bin Laden, son of #UBL, gives directives to #lonewolf terrorists in speech, “Advice for in the West” pic. twitter. — Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) May 13, 2017, The video includes footage from at least two attacks in Israel: a Jerusalem that claimed four soldiers on a cultural tour in December 2016, and a November 2015 incident in which a Palestinian woman stabbed and lightly wounded a settlement security guard. Bin Laden also urges attacks on Russia, and the video features footage of the brutal December 2016 public assassination of Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov. This is not the first time Hamza bin Laden has tried to rally followers of his dead father. As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, he made a similar call last year. On that occasion he praised the stabbing attacks by Palestinians against Israelis and called on Muslims from around the world to join the fight to defend Jerusalem, urging them to “participate in the intifada” of their Palestinian brethren by “killing the Jews and attacking their interests everywhere. ” | 0fake |
U.S., Mexico nearing deal on sugar: Mexico's Guajardo | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Mexico are close to announcing that they have struck a deal on sugar trade, Mexican Minister of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo said in an interview on CNBC on Tuesday. Guajardo told CNBC the agreement would likely be announced at a planned news conference later on Tuesday with U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after negotiators worked on minor technicalities overnight. | 0fake |
The Meaning of Trump | Fri, 21 Oct 2016 21:32 UTC Clinton can't draw crowds this large The question regarding the meaning of Trump is unlike questions concerning the person of Trump or what the Republican candidates stands for. The meaning of Trump is that, pretty much, half of the American people say enough is enough. Half of the American people are expressing a total fatigue of the system and their ruling elite. In the last few weeks we learned that Trump left behind a score of offended women. He was disrespectful and grossly misbehaved, allegedly. This may tell us something about who Trump is; yet the fact that all those embarrassing revelations had zero impact on Trump's popularity suggests that we are dealing with a force of nature. No one else in modern politics would have survived a fraction of such bad publicity. Trump may be a horrid and disrespectful human being, and yet, he appears to be invincible. Trump is not as eloquent or as lucid as Hillary Clinton or President Obama but he manages to express in a just a few words the deepest and most profound philosophical ideas and criticisms of Western life. It was Trump who reminded us, once again, that true utopia is in fact nostalgia. Trump's campaign slogan 'Make America Great Again' is probably the most profound existential rejection of the progressive delusional mantra. It is an essentialist admission that the prospect of a better future is actually rooted in the past, in the soil, in manufacturing and agriculture -- pretty much the few things from which Wall Street's mammonites were happy to divest . Trump hinted in the last debate that he may challenge the result of the US presidential election if he loses. "I'll keep you in suspense," is how he phrased it. Once again, Trump is not a philosophy graduate, yet, he manages to unleash an existential viper into the room. Secretary Clinton and President Obama were appalled by the man who doesn't adhere to the great American democratic tradition. They were probably correct. Trump, puts into question the entire American or, more accurately, Western paradigm. Democracy is not sacred to him - it is a means rather than the end. Like the vast number of his followers, Trump believes that America and its democracy are currently rotten. American democracy is set up to serve its own oligarchy. It conveys the image that the dystopia in which we live is a product of our 'free (democratic) choice'. While Clinton and Obama communicate persuasively within the symbolic order, Trump manages to revolutionize the discourse constantly. This is a quality that is usually associated with the artist and the Athenian spirit not with real estate moguls. But does Trump really mean what he says? Is he genuine or is he playing a game. No one knows. But far more interesting, no one really cares and it doesn't really matter. And this is probably the real meaning of Trump. Donald Trump is merely a vehicle. It doesn't really matter whether Trump will be the next president or not. The call for a radical social change has been established. It is now becoming aware of itself. | 1real |
U.S. Takes A Stab At A No Fly Zone In Two Places – Syria And Standing Rock | Activist Post
As the United States marches forward with its war of terror abroad it is, as predicted by researchers and informed observers many years ago, clamping down on the domestic population at home. Indeed, it is virtually inevitable that the great eating machine of the empire returns home to be turned on the people who ignored it while it was grinding up so many innocent lives overseas.
So as the war drums beat louder and as America eeks closer toward the impending Clinton coronation and the possibility of the declaration of yet another “ no fly zone ,” this time over Syria, becomes more and more likely, it is poetic justice that a no-fly zone is being declared inside the United States.
While Russia stands in the way of America’s march to create Libya 2.0 in Syria, there is no one willing and virtually no one able to stand in the way of America’s declaration of war on itself, personified by the vicious police state brutality being visited upon the protestors at Standing Rock – indigenous and otherwise – and the crackdown on virtually every amendment to the Constitution including the arrest of demonstrators and journalists, some of whom are facing incredibly ridiculous amounts of time in jail.
Indeed, the United States has even declared a no-fly zone over the protest area, preventing media coverage of the ensuing bravery of the protestors and brutality of the “Serve and protect” crew who are willing to bash every skull and crush every human right in the quest to “just do their jobs.”
One need only take a look at the photos of the protestors vs the heavily armed and militarized police (can we still call them police?) forces amassed around the location to see the crumbling of America into the police state foreseen for Western countries as the rug gets pulled out from under them economically, socially, and culturally despite their use as tools of imperialism abroad. The blunt hammer of Anglo-American hegemony that is the United States is falling apart even as it continues to strike at Syria, Iran, and Russia.
While police can murder with impunity and Black Lives Matter activists can destroy cities at will, Standing Rock protestors are charged with high crimes for spray painting bulldozers and journalists who dare to even cover the protests are arrested and charged with trespassing, inciting riots, and conspiracy. Even left gate keepers like Amy Goodman have been charged with such crimes. But, while Goodman’s charges were eventually dropped, other journalists such as Deia Schlosberg are facing 45 years in prison simply for filming a protest that involved the disruption of the pipeline’s operations.
In regards to the current events taking place at Standing Rock, Jay Syrmopoulos writes ,
This latest flashpoint in the ongoing conflict is north of the larger and more permanent encampments, which have been constructed on federally owned land where over 200 Native American tribes have gathered to oppose the pipeline’s construction.
On Wednesday, a heavily militarized law enforcement presence began mobilizing heavy equipment, including Humvees, armored personnel carriers, and buses and demanded the protesters leave the occupied area.
In an ominous sign, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has restricted flights , and banned the use of drones within a radius of about 4 ½ miles of Cannon Ball. The FAA declared that only aircraft affiliated with the North Dakota Tactical Operation Center are allowed within the restricted airspace. The flight restriction went into effect Wednesday and will last until November 5.
Indian Country Today reports :
What began with prayers and a single tipi alongside Highway 1806 quickly grew to more than a dozen tipis surrounded by tents, buses, cars and hundreds of water protectors. Some are calling it the “1851 Treaty Camp” to acknowledge their Treaty rights.
Across the road is the encroaching pipeline and a heavily militarized police force with armored vehicles, helicopters, planes, ATVs and busloads of officers. Tensions are growing as unarmed citizens worry that police will use unnecessarily harsh tactics.
In recent weeks, nearly 300 unarmed water protectors who were arrested have been subjected to pepper spray, strip-searches, delayed bail, exaggerated charges and physical violence, according to interviews with several who were taken into custody. The ACLU and National Lawyers Guild recently sent attorneys to Standing Rock to help the Red Owl Collective, a team of volunteer lawyers headed by attorney Bruce Ellison, who are representing many of those arrested.
The massive law enforcement contingent, consisting of sheriff’s deputies and officers from numerous other states and counties, as well as National Guard, began staging near the encampment — with scores of Armored Personnel Carriers, buses and Humvees poised at the ready.
“At some point the rule of law has to be enforced,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said Wednesday. “We could go down there at any time. We’re trying not to.”
Dakota Access LLC, the pipeline developer released a statement encouraging trespassers to “vacate the land immediately” or be “removed from the land.”
“Alternatively and in coordination with local law enforcement and county/state officials, all trespassers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and removed from the land,” the company said. “Lawless behavior will not be tolerated.”
Just days ago, sheriff’s officials had said earlier they didn’t have the resources to immediately remove activists from the private land, about 50 miles south of Bismarck. Subsequently, law enforcement officials put out a call for reinforcements, with hundreds of officers from out of state responding.
So there is an official “no fly zone” over the Standing Rock protest (which can be seen here at the FAA website ) and, on the ground, we have an army of storm troopers no doubt eager to bust heads and fire off some rounds into a group of people who only want clean water, property rights, and the honoring of the legal agreements they signed.
Across the ocean, however, we await another fly zone with the creeping Clinton coronation and possibly even a last stab by the Obama administration once the fix for Hitlery is officially in.
In the last of three Presidential (in name only) debates, Clinton stated clearly her support for war in Syria by virtue of establishing a “no fly zone.” She stated , “I’m going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria not only to help protect the Syrians and prevent the constant outflow of refugees but to, frankly, gain some leverage on both the Syrian government and the Russians so that perhaps we can have the kind of serious negotiation necessary to bring the conflict to an end and go forward on a political track.”
Of course, the establishment of a “No-Fly Zone” is tantamount to a declaration of war . Such has even been admitted by top U.S. Generals when explaining exactly what a No Fly Zone would entail. As General Carter Ham stated ,
We should make no bones about it. It first entails killing a lot of people and destroying the Syrian air defenses and those people who are manning those systems. And then it entails destroying the Syrian air force, preferably on the ground, in the air if necessary. This is a violent combat action that results in lots of casualties and increased risk to our own personnel.
General Philip Breedlove also echoed this description when he said,
I know it sounds stark, but what I always tell people when they talk to me about a no-fly zone is . . . it’s basically to start a war with that country because you are going to have to go in and kinetically take out their air defense capability
When Senator Roger Wicker asked Gen. Joe Dunford what it would take to impose a no fly zone upon Syria, the General responded , “Right now… for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia.”
Thus, the entire Western “sphere of influence” is slowly descending down to become a place of no fly zones, riot police, and a boot slowly stamping on the human face. At home, those individuals who resist the “new normal” will be steadily dealt with either by economic hardship or a rude reminder that dissenters will be silence, imprisoned, or killed.
Elsewhere, however, the Anglo-American system has begun to encounter nations who are not only willing to fight back but who are able to do so. A dying empire caught in its death throes, trying to remain alive by creating the “absence of dissent” might well launch a third world war with a nuclear power as a last stab at hegemony.
On the other hand, Rome could just burn slowly.
Rest assured, however, the skies above the city will be empty. Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom , 7 Real Conspiracies , Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2 , The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President . Turbeville has published over 850 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV . His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com .
This article may be freely shared in part or in full with author attribution and source link . | 1real |
Five militants, two soldiers, killed in Egypt's Sinai | CAIRO (Reuters) - Five militants and two soldiers were killed on Wednesday in clashes that followed a failed attack on a security checkpoint in Egypt s strife-torn North Sinai province, a military spokesman said. Troops were seeking some of the militants who fled the scene during the clashes, the spokesman said in a statement. One of the militants, wearing an explosive vest, attempted to raid one of the security checkpoints and due to the vigilance of the security forces the terrorist was killed while the rest of the militants were dealt with, he said. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, with its news agency Amaq saying one of its militants had set off a suicide vest at a security checkpoint. An Islamist insurgency in North Sinai has gathered pace since mid-2013 when the military ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi after mass protests against his rule and the group leading it pledged allegiance to Islamic State a year later. Hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed since and in recent months the attacks extended to Coptic Christians, who make up 10 percent of Egypt s 90 million population. | 0fake |
How Ted Cruz outfoxed Donald Trump in Iowa | It was on a hot July day in 2013, six months after he joined the Senate, that Ted Cruz began what would become his winning campaign in Iowa.
At a faith gathering at the Des Moines Marriott, the Texan bowed his head as pastors laid their hands on his shoulders to pray. Meanwhile, the senator’s aides collected their names and email addresses, starting a database of evangelical leaders that would swell over the following months and years. Cruz’s father, Rafael, himself a preacher, looked on, beaming.
Donald Trump began his Iowa campaign with a business trip. He landed here in January 2015 to address a land investment expo, but, unbeknownst to the political world, he also started to build his campaign.
Iowa was a foreign place to the Manhattan mogul, and Trump knew he needed two things: credibility and a fast tutorial. He sought to gain both through Chuck Laudner, a veteran Iowa operative.
Trump invited Laudner and his wife, Stephanie, into his SUV. He poured on the charm. He leaned in to listen as Laudner explained Iowa’s political topography — the 99 counties, the caucus math, the glut of disengaged Iowans who might be persuaded to come out for the right candidate.
Trump later brought the couple aboard his Boeing 757, where they sat in plush leather chairs with gold-plated seat-belt buckles and sipped soft drinks. Trump tried to make a deal — and Laudner was sold. The Trump candidacy would soon be born, and the businessman would try to win over Iowa just as he had won over Laudner: by the power of his own seduction.
There was yet a third playbook: that of Marco Rubio. The senator from Florida banked on rising late. His supporters grumbled that he showed disdain for the campaign grind; during a five-day Iowa swing in November, he took the third day off to watch football.
But Rubio believed that Iowa could be won with an air war and a late burst of activity. In the final three weeks, his ads were ubiquitous on televisions here. As he crossed the state last weekend sounding an optimistic call for Republican unity, his campaign paid to beam a 30-minute video of him on the stump into homes in each of Iowa’s media markets.
Rubio’s strategy proved highly effective as he surged to a surprisingly strong third place, just one percentage point behind Trump.
But in a state that has long rewarded conservatives who put religion at the fore, and in a political era dictated by data analytics, Cruz won on the strength of both. His message was perfectly tuned to Iowa conservatives, he used his web of relationships to try to unite evangelical leaders, and he invested deeply in data and turnout organization. By caucus day, Cruz had 11,986 volunteers in Iowa and trained captains at nearly all of the 1,681 precincts.
“We formed the philosophy that our campaign would be waged by neighbors telling their neighbors who to vote for, and we needed to set up every piece and shred of data to allow that to happen,” said Jeff Roe, Cruz’s campaign manager.
That approach was paying off by the beginning of the year. Cruz had a clear lead in the polls. His list of endorsements was growing by the day. Crowds were swelling, even when he stopped by gas stations near midnight.
On a six-day, 28-stop bus tour in early January through far-flung pockets of Iowa, Cruz sounded triumphant. “Father God, please, keep this awakening going,” he said in Mason City.
Still, two threats started to emerge.
Rubio’s “peak late” strategy was ramping up, and he started to directly engage Cruz with a new fervor. He also began talking about his faith everywhere he went.
Rubio had a model in Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has found support from both the right and the center of Iowa’s GOP going back to 2014, when she navigated a crowded primary in spite of her ties to the party establishment. Rubio was guided by Ernst’s strategist, Todd Harris, who recognized that suburban Republicans could compete with the state’s conservative wing.
“We went fishing where the fishes are,” Harris said. “We knew exactly who the voters we wanted to talk to were. A lot of them were suburban. It’s no surprise [Rubio] was dubbed the ‘mayor of Ankeny.’ People made a lot of fun at that, but we knew what we were doing.”
Then there was Trump. Around the beginning of the year, his gut was telling him he could be the winner. He started to attack hard, hitting Cruz on his Canadian birth, on previously undisclosed loans, on his “nasty” reputation in Washington.
“I am putting myself a little bit out there,” Trump said in an interview in the boys’ locker room at Muscatine High School, where he held a rally late last month. “If I come in second, I come in second. I think we’re going to come in first, frankly. I could say, ‘Oh, well, I just want to do well . . .’ ”
Trump rolled his eyes. “I want to win,” he said. “I want to win.”
Hours after Trump’s June 16 announcement that he was running, he flew to Des Moines for his first rally. Attendees at the Hoyt Sherman auditorium were revved up. The reigning Miss Iowa was there. Cub Scouts recited the Pledge of Allegiance. With Neil Young’s “Keep On Rocking in the Free World” blaring, Trump was surrounded as he slowly made his way down the aisle.
As he left the rally, Trump asked campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, “Why aren’t we going to win this state?”
Trump’s on-again, off-again romance with Iowa had begun. He would spar with the state’s biggest newspaper, the Des Moines Register, and bar its reporters from his events. When Ben Carson briefly surpassed him in the polls in the fall, he took to the stage in Fort Dodge and wondered resentfully, “How stupid are the people of Iowa?”
But Trump always believed he could will himself to victory here. Early on, Laudner, director of Trump’s Iowa campaign, described the strategy in the state as a “parallel campaign.” Rather than focusing on the roughly 120,000 Republicans who regularly caucus, he targeted nontraditional voters — “people who wouldn’t be caught dead at a Republican event.”
That included Trump’s lieutenants. Tana Goertz, a political neophyte best known for being a runner-up on Trump’s NBC show “The Apprentice,” was tapped as Iowa co-chair. She used her own celebrity as a former spokeswoman for the Bedazzler, a rhinestone-setting machine popular with home-crafts enthusiasts, to draw in volunteers.
One brisk night last week, Goertz was at Trump’s Iowa headquarters carrying a carton of beads and shiny plastic gems as she headed out to a call center. She rewarded the most dedicated volunteers by Bedazzling their “Make America Great Again” T-shirts and hats.
Goertz also recorded a cheery YouTube video with instructions on how to caucus. It was viewed more than 200,000 times.
During the summer, as Trump whipped up throngs of fans from Alabama to Arizona, aides drove a hulking royal-blue bus around Iowa, wowing locals and signing up potential supporters.
By late August, Trump had surged to the lead for the first time in the Register’s Iowa poll.
But he had difficulty sustaining his momentum. Enthusiasm for Carson was growing. Trump’s flippant comment at an August gathering of evangelicals that he occasionally had a “little cracker” when he attended church and rarely, if ever, asked God for forgiveness sowed doubts about his character.
His operation now had a dozen staffers in Iowa, but his organizing was shrouded in mystery. Republican operatives became dubious and saw little evidence of a Trump ground game.
While other campaigns happily showcased packed phone banks and detailed complex data applications, Trump’s did neither. After years of being a favorite source of quotations for Iowa reporters, Laudner went, in his words, “radio silent.”
From his first trip to Iowa three summers ago, Cruz was plotting his path to the caucuses.
Cruz’s father, Rafael, journeyed to every corner of the state, again and again, huddling with pastors and preaching in churches. He told the story of his emigration from Cuba and testified to Ted’s character, conviction and conservatism.
To run his Iowa campaign, Cruz interviewed several seasoned consultants but settled on a former Baptist pastor named Bryan English who had deep ties to the evangelical networks led by Rep. Steve King and Bob Vander Plaats, head of the conservative group the Family Leader. English was an unusual hire, but the move underscored Cruz’s strategy.
“Do you set up your operation with a bunch of khaki-slacks, blue-blazer clowns?” Roe, Cruz’s campaign manager, asked. “Or do you set it up with an activist?”
Back at national headquarters in Houston, Roe and his team invested several million dollars in a data analytics operation. There were about 175,000 Republicans in Iowa who had participated in a presidential caucus, and Cruz’s statisticians and behavioral psychologists set out to learn everything they could about them.
The campaign conducted “psychological targeting” of likely caucus-goers, building its own version of a Myers-Briggs personality test to categorize Republicans so it could send them personally tailored phone calls, mail and other messages.
Sitting in his office last week, with war-strategy tomes by Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz stacked on his desk, English looked out at the bustling phone bank, which on this afternoon included Rafael Cruz.
“If anybody goes to caucus and says, ‘I haven’t seen Ted Cruz,’ I want it to be their fault, not ours,” English said.
For the first six months of the campaign, he was the lone Cruz staffer in Iowa, and he worked out of the basement of his home. By August, though, there was a headquarters in Urbandale, then more staffers. The team grew to 20, and Cruz rented out a dormitory building in Des Moines — “Camp Cruz” — to house volunteers from Texas and other places who came in the final month to help canvass.
Cruz peeled supporters from former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who together won the past two caucuses with heavy support from evangelicals and home-school parents. Cruz also targeted the libertarian followers of former congressman Ron Paul, whose son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), was proving to be less popular than his father in his presidential bid.
By January, the Cruz campaign had so much information about Iowa Republicans that it believed it could pinpoint exactly which ones were certain to caucus for Cruz, which were undecided and which were leaning toward competitors.
Ten days before the caucuses, the internal data (based on a turnout of 150,000 people, which would set a new record) showed that 19,186 were certain to be with Cruz. About 1,400 had supported him at one point but had turned to another candidate; they got personal phone calls from Ted; his wife, Heidi; or Rafael Cruz in a push to win them back.
Only 15,626 people were certain to caucus for Trump, according to the figures. The Cruz campaign believed it was winning.
The decision facing Trump was straightforward: shower attention on Iowa in the final days, only to risk a humbling defeat, or turn to New Hampshire and South Carolina, the next two states to vote, where he enjoyed substantial leads.
The real estate magnate chose to roll the dice, propelled, in part, by his irritation at watching television pundits say that Cruz was likely to win.
So Trump reminded Iowans, again and again, about Cruz’s opposition to federal renewable-fuel standards, an issue critical to the state’s powerful ethanol industry. In that, Trump had an ally in Gov. Terry Branstad (R), who broke his neutrality to call for Cruz’s defeat.
Trump also raised questions about Cruz’s Canadian birth, first in an interview with The Washington Post and then at almost every rally and on TV. The issue dogged Cruz: A man dressed in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform trailed him, and a super PAC supporting Rubio ran an ad depicting Cruz’s face inside Canada’s iconic maple leaf. Huckabee’s super PAC aired a provocative ad suggesting that Cruz was “a millionaire that brags about his faith” but does not tithe.
There were signs that the right was not united behind Cruz. Former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, a tea party and evangelical heroine, endorsed Trump at a splashy rally in Ames.
The nightly surveys conducted by the Cruz campaign showed that Palin was a boon for Trump — 67 percent of Iowa Republicans had heard of her endorsement, and of them, 19 percent were more likely to support Trump. Only 13 percent were less likely to.
A few days later, Trump won the backing of Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the late televangelist and president of Liberty University. The two men campaigned together across Iowa the weekend before the caucuses.
Rubio also was making an overt play for evangelical support, airing ads about his faith and opposition to abortion, and talking on the stump about God as if he were a Sunday school teacher.
Not everyone was sure that Rubio’s embrace of the religious right would work; some thought he was going too far in his attempt to win Iowa. “Rubio’s mistake is that he’s moved too far toward the Christian right when he should be focused on the mainstream,” Doug Gross, an unaffiliated Iowa Republican power broker, said in December.
Attendees at Rubio’s events often would say that they were drawn to him not out of passion but out of a desire to back someone more moderate who had a chance to win in the general election.
At a Rubio stop in the late fall in West Des Moines, Carol and Pete Click said they drove through an icy mush and argued politely along the way about the senator from Florida. Pete, 65, a retired business owner, said he wasn’t enthusiastic, but Carol urged her husband to give Rubio a second look.
“All right, I’m open to it,” Pete told his wife. “I’m tired of the establishment, but Trump is a problem and maybe he needs to be stopped here.”
Carol replied with a chuckle. “We’ve never caucused” for someone with a chance of winning the general election. “It’s about time.”
In the past two weeks, Rubio shifted as he saw an opening with Cruz and Trump bloodying each other. He kept up his citation of Bible passages and channeled voter anger, but began to speak more of his ability to bring the party together as others clashed. He was a bridge-builder with conservative credentials.
It worked. Entrance polls of caucus-goers showed that he won over voters in Iowa who waited until the final week to choose a candidate.
On the eve of the caucuses, Cruz returned to Des Moines for a Sunday evening rally at the state fairgrounds.
The crowd was deeply religious, with children wearing church youth-group T-shirts and two elderly couples up front holding hands in prayer. The videos that played on oversize screens before Cruz went on featured soaring guitar chords mixed with testimonials from conservative leaders. Rep. Steve King rallied the crowd with an introduction that assured people Cruz was spoon-fed the Constitution and the Bible as a child.
Cruz cast himself as the one true conservative in the race. “Stand with us. Caucus for us. If we stand together, we will win.”
The crowd roared. A day later, they stood with him. | 0fake |
“GENTLEMAN” SOLDIER Who Gave Sarah Huckabee Sanders His Coat In Freezing Cold Korean Militarized Zone Is Identified | Too bad the media wasn t there to cover the event, there would have been enough hot air to keep everyone warm It s nice to see there are still gentlemen in this crazy world.When President Donald Trump tried to visit Korea s demilitarized zone on Wednesday during his 12-day trip through Asia, a U.S. Army Ranger made headlines by lending White House press secretary Sarah Sanders his camouflage jacket on a chilly morning. Now the Army has exclusively shared photos of the new face of American chivalry with DailyMail.com.Meet Chief Warrant Officer 2 Bobby Zizelman, a helicopter test pilot who stepped in to warm Sanders up on the tarmac at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan.Zizelman hails from Roanoke, Virginia and is stationed in Korea on a two-year deployment along with his wife and their two daughters.They came to Yongsan just a month ago from Fort Riley, Kansas.Katelyn Radack, a public affairs officer with the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, said Friday that Zizelman has been in the Army for 11 years, beginning as an 11B infantryman in the 3rd Ranger Regiment and now serving as an aviator a role he s had since 2011. Lt. Colonel Junel Jeffrey, a spokeswoman for the 2nd Infantry Division, said Zizelman s job is to fly Chinook helicopters on maintenance test missions for the General Support Aviation Battalion, part of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Aviation Regiment.Zizelman, who was on-hand to certify the safety of the choppers scheduled to ferry Trump and his team to the Korean DMZ, stepped in on Wednesday when he saw the jacketless Sanders shivering in tarmac winds with temperatures in the 40s. One of our brave soldiers was nice enough to loan me his flight jacket, Sanders told DailyMail.com, because I was freezing. The tough-girl Trump spokeswoman put the Army Combat Uniform coat on right over her dress and pearls.Trump s unscheduled attempt to visit the Korean DMZ was foiled by dense fog that forced the helicopter convoy to turn around when they were just 5 minutes from the landing zone.Military pilots couldn t see each other and decided to scrub the mission.Sanders said the president was disappointed, even as he waited gamely for nearly an hour in his limousine for the weather to clear. Instead, she said ruefully, it got worse Daily Mail | 1real |
Guatemala prosecutors target ex-president for alleged corruption | GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemala s attorney general and a U.N. anti-graft body accused the mayor of Guatemala City, Alvaro Arzu, of corruption on Thursday, adding him to a long list of influential politicians under investigation for suspected wrongdoing. Arzu, who was also Guatemalan president from 1996-2000, rejected the accusations after they were announced by Ivan Velasquez, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), and Attorney General Thelma Aldana. Velasquez, who has unsuccessfully tried to impeach President Jimmy Morales but was instrumental in bringing down his predecessor Otto Perez, said Arzu was suspected of creating fake payrolls and using public funds for his re-election bid in 2015. It was possible to document existence of bogus positions in the Guatemala municipality, Velasquez, a veteran Colombian prosecutor, told a news conference that Arzu also attended. Velasquez said the positions were created for relatives of Byron Lima, a former security official for Arzu and army captain who died in a prison riot in 2016 while serving a 20-year sentence for the murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi in 1998. Velasquez and Aldana, who worked together to bring charges against the now-imprisoned Perez, need Supreme Court approval to strip Arzu of the immunity he enjoys as an elected official. Arzu, one of the most influential politicians in Guatemala and mayor of the capital since 2004, tried to get hold of the microphone to face down his accusers during the news conference. This pair are trying to get back at me because they couldn t carry out their coup with another president, Arzu told reporters. These were not bogus positions, those people came to work every day. They should go ahead and investigate me, I m not bothered (that they are trying to strip my immunity), he said. Arzu has been a vigorous supporter of President Morales who, unlike Perez, managed to avoid being stripped of his immunity by Congress when it was put to a vote last month. That followed CICIG accusations that Morales used illicit campaign financing during his run for the presidency in 2015. Velasquez and Aldana have also accused Guatemala s main political parties of engaging in illegal campaign financing, setting much of the establishment against them. Former president Perez and his ex-vice-president are in prison and on trial for corruption. Many senior officials from his Cabinet are also under investigation for suspected graft. | 0fake |
Factbox: In U.S. Senate, Democrats represent highest-tax states | (Reuters) - Proposals from U.S. Republicans to repeal or restrict a popular deduction on federal income tax for state and local tax (SALT) payments would hit Americans in high-tax states. The 10 states with the highest taxes are represented in the Senate by Democrats, and by Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, an independent who votes with Democrats. A Senate tax plan about to be unveiled on Thursday was expected to propose ending the SALT deduction entirely. An earlier House plan would sharply curtail the deduction. If left unchanged, the Senate plan’s SALT provision would make it harder to attract what could be necessary support for the tax bill from Democratic senators, as it would disproportionately hurt their constituents. Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the chamber, meaning they can afford to lose only two Republican votes and so could be looking for some Democratic support for passage. Here are the U.S. states with the highest annual combined state and local income taxes and property taxes, measured as an average per capita, as calculated by the Tax Foundation, a pro-business Washington think tank. 1. New York: $5,208; Chuck Schumer (D), Kirsten Gillibrand (D) 2. Connecticut: $4,935; Richard Blumenthal (D), Chris Murphy (D) 3. New Jersey: $4,404; Cory Booker (D), Bob Menendez (D) 4. Massachusetts: $4,141; Elizabeth Warren (D), Ed Markey (D) 5. Maryland: $3,558; Chris Van Hollen (D), Ben Cardin (D) 6. Vermont: $3,416; Bernie Sanders (I), Patrick Leahy (D) 7. Rhode Island: $3,338; Sheldon Whitehouse (D), Jack Reed (D) 8. Minnesota: $3,186; Al Franken (D), Amy Klobuchar (D) 9. California: $3,137; Kamala Harris (D), Dianne Feinstein (D) 10. Oregon $3,024; Ron Wyden (D), Jeff Merkley (D) | 0fake |
Ryan says expects legislation to replace Obamacare this year | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday he expected to have legislation to replace, as well as repeal, the Affordable Care Act this year. “Our legislating will occur this year,” Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, said at a news briefing. “What date all of this gets phased in on is something we do not now know,” partly because the administration is not in office yet. | 0fake |
Tillerson urges Iraq, Kurds to resolve conflict through dialogue | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan region on Monday to resolve their conflict over Kurdish self-determination and disputed territories through dialogue. Tillerson laid out his position at the start of a meeting in Baghdad with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who in turn defended the role of an Iraqi paramilitary force backed by Iran against criticism the secretary of state made on Sunday. We are concerned and a bit sad, Tillerson said in his opening remarks. We have friends in Baghdad and friends in Erbil and we encourage all parties to enter into discussion ... and all differences can be addressed, he said, referring to the Iraqi and Kurdistan region capitals. The U.S. administration sided with Abadi in rejecting the validity of the referendum held last month in the Kurdish region, which produced an overwhelming yes for Kurdish independence. The administration also called on the two sides to avoid further escalation, after Abadi retaliated against the vote by isolating the Kurdistan region and ordering his troops to seize the oil city of Kirkuk from Kurdish fighters. We don t want to enter into any battle against any Iraqi component, Abadi said. When we entered Kirkuk we sent a clear message that the citizens of Kirkuk are important to us. It was Tillerson s second meeting with Abadi in as many days. After Sunday s meeting, alongside Saudi Arabia s King Salman, Tillerson said it was time for Iranian-backed militias that had helped Baghdad defeat Islamic State to go home . Abadi told Tillerson the paramilitary force called Popular Mobilisation is part of the Iraqi institutions, rejecting accusations that it is acting as Iran s proxies. Popular Mobilisation fighters should be encouraged because they will be the hope of country and the region, he said. A few hours earlier, Abadi s office published a statement rejecting Tillerson s comments. No party has the right to interfere in Iraqi matters, it said [nL8N1MY1UJ]. Washington, which also backed Baghdad against Islamic State, is concerned Iran will use its increased presence in Iraq, and in Syria where it supports President Bashar al-Assad, to expand its influence in the region. Shi ite Muslim Iran s influence in Iraq, where the population is also predominantly Shi ite, has grown since the U.S. invasion of 2003 that overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni. Iraq s Sunni Muslim neighbours, including Saudi Arabia, share Washington s concern about rising Iranian influence. Tehran has trained and armed the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation forces that have fought, often alongside Iraqi government units, against Islamic State, which was effectively defeated in July when a U.S.-backed offensive captured its stronghold, Mosul. The United States has over 5,000 troops deployed in Iraq and provided critical air and ground support in the offensive on Islamic State. It is also the main backer of the Kurdish-led Syrian coalition that captured the IS stronghold of Raqqa earlier this month. Of the closest groups to Iran within Popular Mobilisation, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, reacted to Tillerson s comment by saying it would be the Americans who will be forced to leave Iraq. Your forces should get ready to get out of our country once the excuse of Daesh s presence is over, said Asaib s leader, Sheikh Qais al-Khazali, according to the group s TV channel, al-Aahd. | 0fake |
Washington Post Blind Item: FBI Russia Probe Expands to WH Adviser ’Close to the President’ | The Washington Post has published a “blind item” White House report — where not only its sources but the subject of the article is anonymous. [Using “people familiar with the matter” as sources, the Post’s Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky report that the investigation into the Trump campaign and its connections to Russia “has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching the highest levels of government. ” The person is a senior White House adviser “close to the president,” but the unnamed sources would not identify that official, the Post reported. “The sources emphasized that investigators remain keenly interested in people who previously wielded influence in the Trump campaign and administration but are no longer part of it, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort,” the Post reported. However, the story says, “people familiar with the investigation said the intensifying effort does not mean criminal charges are near, or that any such charges will result. ” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer emphasized the lack of evidence of collusion in a statement responding to the Post’s story. “As the President has stated before — a thorough investigation will confirm that there was no collusion between the campaign and any foreign entity,” the statement said. The Post published this story as President Donald Trump is on his way to Saudi Arabia on the first leg of multiple state visits, his first trip abroad since he took office. Earlier this week, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to serve as special counsel and lead the investigation going forward. | 0fake |
Rohrabacher on CIA WikiLeaks Revelations: ’We Are Not Immune to Authoritarian Government’ | Rep. Dana Rohrabacher ( ) spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam regarding the CIA and recent Wikileaks revelations and the current state of America’s spy state combined with a growing government bureaucracy. [“We are not immune to authoritarian government in this country,” said Rohrabacher, citing the Obama years and adding “I think we are sliding … into an authoritarian mode where the government is running the lives of the people and we have a bureaucracy that is spiteful and jealous about their own power, even over the public, much less over other government entities. ” “Back when I was younger,” said Rohrabacher, “the book was ‘1984,’ George Orwell’s book was showing how … well, a lot of that is coming true. ” “If we are not jealous of our own privacy from government intrusion, at the very least, we’re going to find we’ve lost our freedom,” he concluded. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. | 0fake |
Poll shows improvement in Brazil President Temer's low approval rating | BRASILIA (Reuters) - The approval rating for Brazilian President Michel Temer s scandal-plagued government has doubled to 6 percent from the prior survey, a new poll published on Wednesday showed, as the country s economy continues to improve. The survey by pollster Ibope, conducted between Dec. 7-10, said the number of people who considered Temer s government bad or terrible fell to 74 percent, from 77 percent in the previous survey in September. That represents the first improvement in Temer s unfavorable rating since he took over last year from his predecessor Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached for breaking budget rules. Brazil s economy continues to strengthen as it exits its worst recession in a century, posting its third consecutive quarter of growth in the third quarter. The poll comes as Brazil s Congress heads into a winter recess until February without voting to overhaul the pension system, Temer s top policy initiative that is seen as vital to fixing the country s finances but is widely unpopular. The government has notched some smaller legislative successes, including more flexible labor regulations that came into effect last month. In October, the lower house of Congress again rejected corruption charges against Temer. | 0fake |
Trump picks coal lobbyist for EPA deputy role, drawing mixed reaction | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday named Andrew Wheeler, a coal industry lobbyist and former congressional staffer, as his pick for deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, prompting contrasting reactions from industry and environmental groups. The Sierra Club, an environmental group, called his nomination, which is subject to Senate confirmation, “absolutely horrifying,” while a coal industry group and some Republican politicians said he was well qualified for the job. The EPA said in a statement Wheeler had spent four years at the agency’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics during the George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations, as well as many years on Capitol Hill, including as counsel for conservative Republican Senator James Inhofe. It said he currently works as a principal at FaegreBD Consulting, “providing guidance on federal regulatory and legislative environmental and energy issues.” Inhofe said in the statement that no one is more qualified than Wheeler to help EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “restore EPA to its proper size and scope.” The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry lobby group, called Wheeler extraordinarily qualified for the job, saying in a statement: “His understanding of a wide range of environmental policies and the policy development process — combined with his thoughtfulness, judgment and temperament — will enable him to be an outstanding Deputy Administrator.” But the Sierra Club called his nomination “absolutely horrifying,” adding in a statement: “Andrew Wheeler is a big time lobbyist who has represented Big Coal for almost a decade, including in numerous lawsuits challenging the EPA. He is a friend to polluters, not to American families that rely on clean air and clean water.” Pruitt led 14 lawsuits against the agency when he was Oklahoma’s attorney general, and has said he is not convinced that carbon dioxide from human activity is the main driver of climate change, a position widely embraced by scientists. He was appointed by President Donald Trump, a climate change doubter, who campaigned on a pledge to boost the U.S. oil and gas drilling and coal mining industries by reducing regulation. He also promised to pull Washington out of a global pact to fight climate change, which he did in June. | 0fake |
This Professor Devotes Her Life to Countering Dangerous Speech. She Can’t Ignore Donald Trump’s. | Loading Posted on November 2, 2016 This Professor Devotes Her Life to Countering Dangerous Speech. She Can’t Ignore Donald Trump’s. Colby Itkowitz, Washington Post, October 24, 2016
When Susan Benesch began looking at how speech could incite mass violence, her research took her to far-flung places like Kenya and Burma.
Lately, she’s been unable to ignore a case study at home in the United States.
The American University law professor and Harvard University faculty associate has grappled for months with whether Donald Trump’s rhetoric constitutes dangerous speech as she has come to define it. She has examined election-year speech before, but only abroad where the risks of mass atrocities were great.
But in the past week, with Trump claiming that the election system and the media are rigged against him, his messages have the type of undertone that increases the risk of violence between groups, she said.
Benesch, 52, has dedicated the past six years of her life to developing and testing a framework for identifying dangerous speech. To rise to that level, at least two of these five indicators must be true: A powerful speaker with a high degree of influence over the audience. The audience has grievances and fears that the speaker can cultivate. A speech act that is clearly understood as a call to violence. A social or historical context that is propitious for violence, for any of a variety of reasons, including long-standing competition between groups for resources, lack of efforts to solve grievances or previous episodes of violence. A means of dissemination that is influential in itself, for example because it is the sole or primary source of news for the relevan t audience.
“Trump’s speech is very difficult in the sense that he is so often slippery with it,” Benesch said in a recent interview. “The meaning is so often ambiguous.”
But when Trump said his supporters could use the Second Amendment against Hillary Clinton, “it seems to me impossible that people didn’t understand that as a reference to violence,” she said. Or when he suggested that Clinton and President Obama were founders of the Islamic State, something he alluded to again at Wednesday’s final debate, that was a “hallmark of dangerous speech to describe an in-group member as the enemy,” she said.
And now, with Trump trafficking in the conspiracy theory that if he loses the election it will be because of a rigged system against him, he’s definitely laying the groundwork for potential unrest after the balloting. Direct incitement of violence is illegal, but Trump falls short of actually calling for any kind of civil disobedience.
Because of that, it’s still a gray area that surrounds whether Trump does use dangerous speech.
“Trump may well be undermining the extent to which his supporters trust the essential institutions and practices of U.S. democracy,” Benesch said. “Some of them–those who are most susceptible to being inflamed by such messages–may therefore be more likely to commit violence. However, the United States is not in danger of mass intergroup violence, in my view. It is deeply irresponsible, though, since it can undermine some Americans’ belief in our own democratic institutions, which can make them more susceptible to dangerous speech going forward.”
{snip} | 1real |
6 Natural Remedies that will help you get rid of blackheads quickly | Keywords: beauty , blackheads , blackheads treatments , How to get rid of blackheads , natural cures for blackheads , Remove Blackheads
Blackheads are an annoying skin problem that you probably want to get rid immediately as possible. These small ugly bumps caused by clogged pores are a mild form of acne. Blackheads are most noticeable on the face, particularly around the nose. They can also appear on other parts of the body, such as the chest, shoulders, arms, and back. This skin problem is most common in pre-menstrual women and teens. Luckily, this type of acne is very easy to treat you can even use home treatments to remove blackheads. Home remedies for blackheads are very affordable, safe and effective. They do not contain any harmful chemicals that can cause skin irritation or drying of the skin. Additionally, they are easy to make by yourself. Say goodbye to blackheads for good with this 6 natural remedies that will help you eliminate blackheads quickly and easily
Honey
Honey has antiseptic and antibacterial properties that help get rid of blackheads by completely destroying impurities or germs that clog pores. Honey is also a natural antibiotic that helps tighten, hydrate and remove dirt from skin pores to clear blackheads. However, if you are allergic or sensitive to honey, try to use other suggested natural remedies to avoid reactions on your skin. This remedy is more effective as an overnight treatment of blackheads.
Egg whites
Egg whites are rich in albumin and proteins that offer many benefits to the skin, such as providing skin toning properties and promoting wrinkle-free skin. Egg whites are great for oily skin because of its ability to minimize pores and tighten skin. Furthermore, it can completely remove blackheads and reduce the chances of their re-occurrence by drawing out sebum and pulling out any dirt or germs stuck inside the pores.
Oatmeal
Oatmeal is rich in nutrients making it a popular breakfast cereal. Additionally, it is widely used as a safe and effective natural remedy for several skin conditions, such as sensitive or irritated skin and blackheads. This grain has exfoliating properties, anti-inflammatory properties, and antioxidants to help soothe irritation, remove dead skin cells, and soak up excess oils. It is also a gentle natural cleanser that clarifies the skin complexion and loosens clogged pores that cause blackheads. For maximum results, try applying this remedy more than once a day.
Baking Soda
Baking soda contains antiseptic properties making it a great product for your skin. It works as an exfoliant to remove dead skin cells, leaving your skin smooth and soft. With baking soda, you are guaranteed flawless skin with no blackheads. This natural remedy also removes excess oil from your skin while encouraging the skin to produce small amounts of oil at the same time. In addition, baking soda can help neutralize the pH of the skin to completely remove blackheads with regular use. Repeating this remedy at least once or twice a week will quicken the removal of debris from pores thereby stopping clogging that result in blackheads.
Lemon Juice
Lemon juice has citric acid and AHA, alpha-hydroxy acid, which are functional in removing dead skin and stopping clogged pores due to their natural astringent properties. Lemon juice also contains vitamin C that stimulates the production of collagen to help reduce scarring from acne and improve skin health through blackhead removal. Vitamin C is a natural antioxidant. This lemon juice remedy should be used only once a day to avoid irritation of the skin.
Cinnamon
Cinnamon has antibacterial properties that are suitable for making aromatic face masks that offer a wide range of skin benefits particularly the removal of annoying blackheads. This spice can help eliminate acne and flaky skin and can also be used to scrub the body for a smoother and more glowing complexion. This natural remedy works great when combined with honey.
Apart from these six suggested natural remedies, you can also try out other effective home treatments, such as green tea, turmeric powder, Epsom salt, and sugar. These home remedies have been proved to be safe and effective in treating most skin problems compared to other chemical treatments that are not good nor safe for your skin. It is recommended that you visit a dermatologist if these remedies are not effective in getting rid of your blackheads. You might also like… | 1real |
Hillary Supporter MARK CUBAN Makes Most Ignorant Statement About Trump Since Election When He Claimed Stock Market Would Tank [VIDEO] | TMZ caught up with Mavericks owner and Hillary supporter Mark Cuban yesterday to ask what he thought of President Donald J. Trump. Arizona citizens must be thrilled to hear billionaire Mark Cuban who has personal security surrounding him talk about how ridiculous Trump s efforts to secure our borders and keep our nation safe from foreigners who sneak in with actual refugees with a goal of doing harm to our nation.WATCH CUBAN S SOUR GRAPES INTERVIEW HERE:Well, that s not exactly what happened now is it Cuban?Here s what REALLY happened to the stock market after Trump s election: Market Watch U.S. stocks rallied Wednesday, with the Dow industrials jumping 257 points, led by a surge in financial, health-care and industrial stocks, as investors bet on the infrastructure spending policy promised by President-elect Donald Trump.The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.40% gained as much as 316 points, briefly surpassing the all-time closing high set in August. The index closed 256.95 points, or 1.4%, higher at 18,589.69, its highest level since Aug. 18. Pfizer Inc. PFE, +7.07% and Caterpillar Inc CAT, +7.70% led the gains, rallying more than 7%.Way to go Cuban you just reminded us of how little you know about economics or choosing the right candidate for President Keep up the great work Mark. You re really helping out your brand. | 1real |
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