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Trump 'plain wrong' to say Muslims not helping on extremists: UK minister | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s interior minister said U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was “just plain wrong” to say that Muslims in Britain were failing to report suspicious activity by extremists. “I understand he said that Muslims were not coming forward in the United Kingdom to report matters of concern. This is absolutely not the case - he is just plain wrong,” Theresa May said in Britain’s parliament. Earlier on Wednesday, Trump said in an interview with Britain’s ITV television that it was “a disgrace” that one of the suspects behind last November’s attacks in Paris had been found in an area of Brussels where he lived. He also said people in the Muslim community in California had known in advance about an attack that killed 14 people in December. | 0fake |
NO! OBSCURE FUND OF BILLIONS To Be Used To “Shore Up” Obamacare | The Obama administration is maneuvering to pay health insurers billions of dollars the government owes under the Affordable Care Act, through a move that could circumvent Congress and help shore up the president s signature legislative achievement before he leaves office.Justice Department officials have privately told several health plans suing over the unpaid money that they are eager to negotiate a broad settlement, which could end up offering payments to about 175 health plans selling coverage on ACA marketplaces, according to insurance executives and lawyers familiar with the talks.The payments most likely would draw from an obscure Treasury Department fund intended to cover federal legal claims, the executives and lawyers said. This approach would get around a recent congressional ban on the use of Health and Human Services money to pay the insurers.Read more: WaPo | 1real |
Trump talks Paris agreement, Iran with France's Macron: official | NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday that he believed the Paris climate agreement was unfair to the United States but looked forward to discussing the issue further, a U.S. official said. Brian Hook, director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, told reporters in New York that Trump also told Macron the Iran nuclear deal was deeply flawed. | 0fake |
Because Of Trump, We Need An Equal Rights Amendment NOW | The Women s March was historic. Over four million women all across the country (and world) came out in solidarity to protest against the incoming avalanche of assault from the Trump Administration.Contrary to popular belief, the Women s March was not a protest against President Trump it was a protest in support of women s rights.Before taking the oath of office, the Trump Administration pledged to defund all programs at the DOJ which enforce the Violence Against Women Act. Donald Trump himself has released the names of 21 conservative judges who are potential Supreme Court nominees that mirror the late Justice Antonin Scalia (who does not believe the 14th Amendment extends to women).On Monday, January 23, Trump signed an executive order imposing the Mexico City rule that overseas operations (including clinics) that perform or encourage abortion will lose all federal funding from the United States.The war on women is in full force, and Trump is at the reins.That is why, now more than ever, an Equal Rights Amendment is needed.The proposal is a simple one:Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.Aside from the 20th Amendment, which gives women the right to vote, there is no specific mention of women in the United States Constitution. The word men is mentioned a handful of times. The words women, ladies, or female is nowhere. Not one line in the United States Constitution even alludes to the rights of women when considering historical context (aside from the 20th). Nor is the word equality found anywhere.Even though the Constitution states All men are created equal, we know that the Founders truly did not understand that. If you weren t white, a landowner, or male, the Constitution was not written with your rights in mind. Thomas Jefferson, who authored the Declaration of Independence and made significant contributions to the Constitution, wrote:Were our state a pure democracy there would still be excluded from our deliberations women, who, to prevent deprivation of morals and ambiguity of issues, should not mix promiscuity in gatherings of men.What many people fail to realize is that the rights of women that hinge on the 14th Amendment s Equal Protection Clause can easily be taken away. The 14th Amendment says that states may not deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Should a Congress or bench of judges hold hostile views of women s equality, they could deem it necessary to roll back on much of the social progress made through common or statutory law. Should Trump appoint one, two or even three new Justices to the Supreme Court, who hold originalist views like Scalia, many issues such as equal pay, abortion, insurance discrimination, and so forth could vanish or become embedded in sex discrimination.The only thing women truly, inarguably have is the right to vote. But what s the point of voting if your rights as a human being could be taken away down the road in the name of jurisprudence?The argument women already have everything the ERA would guarantee them is not only wrong but na ve. First, women don t have everything equal to men in current law. There are still many statutes that separate on the basis of sex. Second, only the ERA would truly guarantee them these fundamental rights without fear of being stripped away so easily. So those opposed to the ERA actually give us a reason to support it they admit it would guarantee equality if enacted.This wasn t always a divisive issue. Republicans use to support it. Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford supported the ERA in the 1970s, as did President Carter. This was not a partisan issue until Phyllis Schlafly came along and derailed it using scare tactics (one argument was that this would lead to same-sex marriage).But Schlafly is gone (as is Ford and Nixon), and a new era for women is on the horizon. If women came out in support for an Equal Rights Amendment as they did on January 21st, equality would be the true law of the land.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
FACEBOOK HIRES PORN STAR And Husband Accused Of Defrauding “Snopes” Website To “Fact-Check” Mostly Conservative Websites | Facebook has announced plans to check for fake news using a series of organizations to assess whether stories are true One of them is a website called Snopes.com which claims to be one of the web s essential resources and painstaking, scholarly and reliable It was founded by husband-and-wife Barbara and David Mikkelson, who used a letterhead claiming they were a non-existent society to start their research Now they are divorced with Barbara claiming in legal documents he embezzled $98,000 of company money and spent it on himself and prostitutes In a lengthy and bitter legal dispute he is claiming to be underpaid and demanding industry standard or at least $360,000 a year The two also dispute what are basic facts of their case despite Snopes.com saying its ownership is committed to accuracy and impartiality Snopes.com founder David Mikkelson s new wife Elyssa Young is employed by the website as an administrator She has worked as an escort and porn actress and despite claims website is non-political ran as a Libertarian for Congress on a Dump Bush platform Its main fact checker is Kimberly LaCapria, whose blog ViceVixen says she is in touch with her domme side and has posted on Snopes.com while smoking potOne of the websites Facebook is to use to arbitrate on fake news is involved in a bitter legal dispute between its co-founders, with its CEO accused of using company money for prostitutes.Snopes.com will be part of a panel used by Facebook to decide whether stories which users complain about as potentially fake should be considered disputed .But the website s own troubles and the intriguing choice of who carries out its fact checks are revealed by DailyMail.com, as one of its main contributors is disclosed to be a former sex-blogger who called herself Vice Vixen .Snopes.com will benefit from Facebook s decision to allow users to report items in their newsfeed which they believe to be fake .It is asking a number of organizations to arbitrate on items which are reported or which Facebook staff think may not be genuine, and decide whether they should be marked as disputed .The others include ABC News, the Associated Press and fact-checking websites including Politifact.com.Now a DailyMail.com investigation reveals that Snopes.com s founders, former husband and wife David and Barbara Mikkelson, are embroiled in a lengthy and bitter legal dispute in the wake of their divorce.He has since remarried, to a former escort and porn actress who is one of the site s staff members.They are accusing each other of financial impropriety, with Barbara claiming her ex-husband is guilty of embezzlement and suggesting he is attempting a boondoggle to change tax arrangements, while David claims she took millions from their joint accounts and bought property in Las Vegas.The Mikkelsons founded the site in 1995. The couple had met in the early 1990s on a folklore-themed online message board, and married before setting up the site.Profiles of the website disclose that for some time before it was set up, the couple had posed as The San Fernardo Valley Folklore Society , using its name on letterheads, even though it did not exist.A profile for the Webby Awards published in October describes it as an entity dreamed up to help make the inquiries seem more legit .David Mikkeleson told the Los Angeles Times in 1997: When I sent letters out to companies, I found I got a much better response with an official-looking organization s stationery. In 2015, their marriage ended in divorce but a bitter legal dispute continues.Both stayed on as co-owners of Snopes which is registered under its legal name of Bardav, Inc. and were its sole board members.Legal filings seen by DailyMail.com detail a lengthy financial and corporate dispute which stretches long after their divorce, and which one lawyer describes as contentious in court documents.In the filings, Barbara, 57, has accused her former husband, 56, of raiding the corporate business Bardav bank account for his personal use and attorney fees without consulting her.She also claimed he embezzled $98,000 from the company over the course of four years which he expended upon himself and the prostitutes he hired .When contacted by the Dailymail.com, David said he was legally prohibited from discussing his ex-wife s allegations. I d love to respond, but unfortunately the terms of a binding settlement agreement preclude me from publicly discussing the details of our divorce, he said. Barbara Mikkelson said: No comment. In court records, Barbara alleged that her ex-husband removed thousands from their business accounts between April and June of 2016 to pay for trips for him and his girlfriend .One of the lead fact-checkers, Kim LaCapria, has also been a sex-and-fetish blogger who went by the pseudonym Vice Vixen. She described her blog as a lifestyle website with a specific focus on naughtiness, sin, carnal pursuits, and general hedonism and bonne vivante-ery. She regularly provided intimate advice and reviewed sex toys, including a vibrating wand that drives boys mad. If you are doing something to your fella, and you apply this to the base of his cash-and-prizes while you carry on, he will scream and perhaps cry, she wrote.She also recommended one book with the review: How to Tell A Naked Man What To Do seems like the perfect how-to for the dominatrix-in-waiting, or any girl looking to get in touch with her domme side. Mine, I wish I could shut her up sometimes, but there you go. In others posts, LaCapria claimed to be addicted to smutty HP [Harry Potter] fanfic. Describing her day-off activities on another blog, she wrote that she played scrabble, smoked pot, and posted to Snopes. She added, That s what I did on my day on, too. David Mikkelson told the Dailymail.com that Snopes does not have a standardized procedure for fact-checking since the nature of this material can vary widely. He said the process involves multiple stages of editorial oversight, so no output is the result of a single person s discretion. He also said the company has no set requirements for fact-checkers because the variety of the work would be difficult to encompass in any single blanket set of standards. Accordingly, our editorial staff is drawn from diverse backgrounds; some of them have degrees and/or professional experience in journalism, and some of them don t, he added.For entire story- Daily Mail | 1real |
BOOM! KELLYANNE CONWAY Schools CNN’s Anderson Cooper On The Comey Firing [Video] | Kellyanne Conway went at it with Anderson Cooper and came out on top when she basically schooled Cooper on the chain of command in government. The facts make no sense to him because he s in denial. Conway said Trump s decision to fire James Comey had nothing to do with the FBI s investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election. She goes on to explain to Cooper that the letter recommending that Comey be fired was sent to President Trump. Was Trump supposed to then deny the Assistant Attorney General s decision? It s good to note that the Assistant AG was just confirmed by over 90% of the Senate. He s a bipartisan choice and a well respected man who came into his position under AG Jeff Sessions just two weeks ago. The letter sent to Trump summarized the numerous things that prove the case for the recommendation of firing Comey. TRUMP DID NOT DO THIS ALONE But you have the fake news media beating the RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA drums over and over.Watch how Kellyanne Conway runs circles around Anderson Cooper while Cooper just keeps coming back to the Russia scenario: It s not a cover up. The president makes it very clear in his letter. Comey assured him he s not under investigation. I think you re looking at wrong set of facts here. You re going back to the campaign. This man is president of the United States. He acted decisively today. You want this to be about Russia when this is about restoring public confidence in the FBI The FBI director reports to deputy attorney general, the deputy attorney general reports to the attorney general and the attorney general reports to the president of the United States. This has nothing to do with Russia. It has everything to do with whether the current FBI director has the president s confidence and can faithfully and capably execute his duties. | 1real |
Mexico in three-day countdown to search for earthquake survivors | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Rescuers are unlikely to find any more survivors of Mexico s earthquake still buried in the ruins and will cease operations to find them at the end of Thursday, the emergency services chief said. Tuesday marks one week since the 7.1 magnitude quake struck around lunchtime, killing 331 people, damaging 11,000 homes and leading to a outpouring of civilian volunteers to aid and comfort the victims. Luis Felipe Puente, coordinator of Mexico s Civil Protection agency, told Reuters that rescuers would continue hand-picking through the debris at four sites until Thursday. I can say that at this time it would be unlikely to find someone alive, Puente said, considering that specially trained dogs have yet to pick up the scent of survivors. Forty-three people were still missing, including 40 who may have been trapped beneath a collapsed office building in the Roma district of Mexico City, Puente said. One person was believed missing at each of three other sites in the capital. At the office building, relatives protested overnight, increasingly angry with the slow progress recovering their loved ones and an alleged lack of information. Asked how much longer search and rescue operations would continue, the official responded, As of today (Monday), we have agreed to another 72 hours. The week began with signs that Mexico was resuming its routine as the streets filled with traffic and more than 44,000 schools in six states reopened. But in the capital city, only 676 of the more than 8,000 public and private schools resumed classes. The quake, coming exactly 32 years after a 1985 earthquake killed some 10,000 people, delivered a massive psychological blow that specialists say will take time to overcome. The children are in crisis and don t want to talk. Some kids didn t even remember their own names, said Enriqueta Ortuno, 57, a psychotherapist who has been working with victims in the hard-hit Xochimilco district. Much of the nation s attention was focused on a fallen school in Mexico City where 19 children and seven adults died. Later on Tuesday, the top official in the municipality where the school was located was due to reveal documents related to the its construction. That school was one of many buildings that prosecutors will investigate, Puente said. Roughly 10 percent of damaged buildings were constructed after strict building codes were enacted in the wake of the 1985 earthquake. The Mexico City mayor and the national government have already ordered judicial investigations to determine who was responsible for new construction that did not meet the requirements, Puente said from Civil Protection headquarters, where a roomful of technicians monitored seismic activity and tropical storms on an array of screens. In Mexico City, 187 people died in 38 buildings that collapsed. Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said thousands of families who lost their homes in uninhabitable buildings would be offered 3,000 ($170) pesos monthly in temporary rent assistance. Rescuers pulled 69 people from quake-damaged properties, of whom 37 were still in the hospital as of Monday, 11 of them in grave condition, Puente said. Demolitions of buildings that are beyond repair could begin as soon as Tuesday, he said. Responders from 18 countries came to Mexico to help, but with the search for survivors down to four sites most of them had gone home, with Americans and Israelis among the few to remain, Puente said. The Japanese contingent left on Monday. International aid was now focused on humanitarian needs, Puente said, with China providing large numbers of beds, tents and kitchen and bathroom fixtures for temporary shelters for the homeless. But the biggest contributions came from Mexicans themselves, who responded with so much food, supplies and volunteer work that officials had difficulty moving largesse from wealthy and accessible neighborhoods to the most needy. Puente recognized some deficiencies in coordinating relief efforts, but overall, he said, The government today is an international benchmark. | 0fake |
Clinton loses to Sanders in coal state of West Virginia | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton on Tuesday in West Virginia’s primary, winning over voters deeply skeptical about the economy and signaling the difficulty Clinton may have in industrial states in the general election. The loss slows Clinton’s march to the nomination, but she is still heavily favored to become the Democratic candidate in the Nov. 8 election. In a November match-up with Donald Trump, Clinton will need to win over working-class voters in the U.S. Rust Belt, which includes key states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. Trump, 69, won contests in West Virginia and Nebraska handily on Tuesday. The presumptive Republican nominee is set to meet with party leaders in the U.S. Congress on Thursday, including U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan. After Ryan said last week that he was not yet ready to endorse Trump, Trump said on Sunday that he would have to decide whether he still wanted Ryan to preside over the party’s July convention. Trump said in a Fox interview on Tuesday night that he would like Ryan to chair the convention as planned. “He’s a very good man, he wants what’s good for the party,” the New York billionaire said. Trump has zeroed in on Clinton’s protracted battle with Sanders, a 74-year-old U.S. senator from Vermont. He has taunted Clinton in recent days by saying she “can’t close the deal” by beating Sanders, her only rival for the Democratic Party’s nomination since Feb. 1. Clinton, 68, has said she will ignore Trump’s personal insults, including his repeated use of his new nickname for her, “Crooked Hillary,” and instead will criticize his policy pronouncements. Deep concerns about the economy underscored West Virginia’s Democratic primary. Roughly six in 10 voters said they were very worried about the direction of the U.S. economy in the next few years. The same proportion cited the economy and jobs was their most important voting issue, according to a preliminary ABC News exit poll. A remark Clinton made at an Ohio town hall in March that the country would “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” at an Ohio town hall in a comment may have hurt her with voters in coal-mining states such as West Virginia. During Clinton’s visit to West Virginia and Ohio last week she repeatedly apologized to displaced coal and steel workers for her comment, which she said had been taken out of context, and discussed her plan to help retrain coal workers for clean energy jobs. To secure the Democratic nomination, a candidate needs 2,383 delegates. Going into West Virginia, Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state, had 2,228 delegates, including 523 so-called superdelegates, elite party members who are free to support any candidate. Sanders had 1,454 delegates, including 39 superdelegates. Another 29 delegates will be apportioned based on West Virginia’s results. Clinton and Sanders will compete in another primary contest on May 17. Both candidates are also looking ahead to the June 7 contests, the last in the long nominating season, in which nearly 700 delegates are at stake, including 475 in California, where Sanders is now focusing his efforts. Sanders has vowed to take his campaign all the way to the Democrats’ July 25-28 convention in Philadelphia, and wants a say in shaping the party’s platform. Sanders has repeatedly told supporters at packed rallies that most opinion polls indicate he would beat Trump in a general election match-up by a larger margin than polls show Clinton defeating Trump. Trump, shifting into general election mode, has already begun to consider running mates. He told Fox on Tuesday night that he has narrowed his list to five people. He did not rule out picking New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former rival who ended his presidential bid in February. Christie, who endorsed Trump and then campaigned for him, on Monday was named to head Trump’s White House transition team. (Story refiles to add first name of Republican candidate Donald Trump in second paragraph.) | 0fake |
Pipeline Billionaire Who Militarized Police at Standing Rock | Pipeline Billionaire Who Militarized Police at Standing Rock 11 Shares Email
The months long Dakota Access Keystone XL pipleine protest at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation by Native Americans and those sympathetic to protection of our water supply has been met with heavy-handed and brutal clamp down by police and national guard. Militarized goons in battle dress have stormed protector camps with LRAD sonic weapons, attack dogs , tear gas, tazers , and even live ammunition ( killing horses ), while politicians and mainstream media do their best to ignore this growing atrocity, hoping to wait it out until the protestors give up.
But, as the saying goes, Water Is Life , and the issue of life and death is at the root of this protection movement, therefore, for people concerned with life, giving up on this is simply unthinkable. The root issue justifying state oppression of the protest is capitalism, and the perception that money is more important than life itself. When the police and national guard attack U.S. citizens on private property to protect corporate interests, who are they really working for?
The corporate dream of the Keystone XL pipeline is to create a profit stream for a small number of people at the expense of the natural world and anyone in the way. At the top of this pyramid of profit is Texas billionaire Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the company responsible for the project.
So who is Kelcy Warren?
A native of East Texas and graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington with a degree in civil engineering, Warren worked in the natural gas industry and became co-chair of Energy Transfer Equity in 2007. With business partner Ray Davis, co-owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, Warren built Energy Transfer Equity into one of the nation’s largest pipeline companies, which now owns about 71,000 miles of pipelines carrying natural gas, natural gas liquids, refined products and crude oil. The company’s holdings include Sunoco, Southern Union and Regency Energy Partners.
Forbes estimates the 60-year-old Warren’s personal wealth at $4 billion. Bloomberg described him as “among America’s new shale tycoons” — but rather than building a fortune by drilling he “takes the stuff others pull from underground and moves it from one place to another, chilling, boiling, pressurizing, and processing it until it’s worth more than when it burst from the wellhead.” [ Source ]
Shockingly, in 2015 the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, appointed Warren to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission which is an insult to environmentalists working to protect Big Bend National Park and surrounding sacred tribal lands from another $770 million pipeline project .
“According to the governor’s office, the state parks and wildlife commission “manages and conserves the natural and cultural resources of Texas,” along with ensuring the future of hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation opportunities for Texans.” [ Source ]
This glaring conflict of interest has inspired Environmental Science major at UTSA and former Texas State Park Ambassador Andrew Lucas to begin a drive to have Warren removed from this environmental post. His petition is described here :
Most people may know Kelcy Warren as the man behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. The Dallas-based billionaire and CEO of Energy Transfer Partners has been making headlines for fast-tracking a 1100 mile crude oil pipeline across the Midwest and under the Missouri River, just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. No environmental impact assessment, no respect for cultural sites, and no regard for the local and widespread communities living along the river. A similar story is unfolding out in West Texas, where Warren’s company has split through the pristine Big Bend region with the 200 mile Comanche Trail Pipeline and nearly-complete 143 mile Trans Pecos Pipeline. These Pipelines mark the way for massive natural gas and oil developments in the Trans Pecos region.
With untold damages unfolding for cultural and environmental resources at the hands of Energy Transfer Partners, it would surprise most to know that nearly a year ago, Texas Governor Greg Abbott appointed Kelcy Warren for a 6 year term as 1 of the 10 commissioners who preside over Texas Parks And Wildlife… Why? Probably the $550,000 in campaign contributions Abbott received from Warren.
Read More… About the Author
Isaac Davis is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and OffgridOutpost.com Survival Tips blog. He is an outspoken advocate of liberty and of a voluntary society. He is an avid reader of history and passionate about becoming self-sufficient to break free of the control matrix. Follow him on Facebook, here . | 1real |
JUDGE JEANINE HAMMERS OBAMA: “There’s a hero in Washington and you need to let him do his job!” [Video] | Jim Comey gets a 10 year tenure as FBI director so Obama can t touch him. He s a 6 8 dynamo who s single-handedly trying to be the voice of truth in a sea of liars and crooks. Judge Jeanine tells Obama in her Opening Statement last night to, Let him do his job! | 1real |
Indiana Law: Sorting Fact From Fiction From Politics | The culture wars are always percolating beneath the surface in presidential politics — until something or someone pushes them to the surface.
That something early in this cycle is Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Republican Gov. Mike Pence, who is considering a run for president in 2016, signed into law last week. It has caused a firestorm of criticism from those who say the law could lead to discrimination against gays and lesbians, including businesses like Apple and Angie's List; the NCAA, which is hosting the men's college basketball Final Four in Indianapolis; and even other states like Connecticut, which banned state-paid travel to Indiana.
Pence seemed surprised by the backlash and has had some difficulty explaining his position. Other potential 2016 candidates have leapt to his defense, and some, like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, went further than the Indiana governor.
Supporters say Indiana's law is similar to the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed in 1993.
As is often the case in controversies, however, the facts have become muddled and conflated. So what are the facts? How are the two laws different? And how have politics on both sides shaped the response?
Seeking 'Clarification' And A 'Fix,' As The Contenders Weigh In
On Tuesday, Pence said there has "been misunderstanding and confusion and mischaracterization of this law." But he said he is seeking "clarification" and a "fix" to the law with legislation "that makes it clear that this law does not give businesses a right to deny services to anyone."
On Monday, though, the law became part of the presidential campaign with Republican presidential candidates weighing in after a Sunday show performance from Pence that raised more questions. Pence sidestepped half a dozen specific questions about whether the law could lead to discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush contended that facts had not been established, and once they are, "people aren't going to see this as discriminatory at all."
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker backed the law and said through a spokesman that it was about "the right for Americans to exercise their religion and act on their conscience."
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said the law "is giving voice to millions of courageous conservatives."
Rubio, though, did something the other candidates did not. He more directly addressed the charge that businesses could discriminate against gay and lesbian couples. Gay-rights advocates, for example, say if a gay or lesbian couple wanted a flower arrangement or cake for a reception, a florist or caterer could lawfully choose not to fill the order, if he has a religious objection.
Rubio said he thinks businesses should have that right.
"The issue we're talking about here is should someone who provides a professional service be punished by the law because they refused to provide that professional service to a ceremony that they believe is in violation of their faith?" he said on Fox News Monday. "I think people have a right to live out their religious faith in their own lives."
Most conservatives, including Pence, have mostly not addressed that charge head-on. Instead, they say, the law is unfairly maligned. After all, other states have similar laws and even Democrat Bill Clinton signed a federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law as president.
Hillary Clinton, for the record, tweeted: "Sad this new Indiana law can happen in America today. We shouldn't discriminate against ppl bc of who they love."
The White House on Tuesday blasted Pence and others, who "falsely suggest" the two laws — Indiana's and the federal one — are the same.
"That is not true," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said at the White House daily briefing. He cited the spirit of the law as well as the text. He said the 1993 law "was an effort to protect the religious liberty of religious minorities based on actions that could be taken by the federal government."
On the other hand, "The Indiana law is much broader," Earnest continued. "It doesn't just apply to individuals or religious minorities. It applies to, and I'm quoting here, 'a partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, a company, a firm, a society, a joint stock company, or an unincorporated association.' So this obviously is a significant expansion of the law in terms of the way that it would apply. ... [T]his is a much more open-ended piece of legislation that could reasonably be used to try to justify discriminating against somebody because of who they love."
First, let's start with how and why the 1993 law came to be. The federal law stemmed from an Oregon Native American man, who lost his job in 1990 after testing positive for drugs. He had used peyote as part of a religious ritual. The "fix" to that problem became the federal RFRA, introduced by soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, then a House member from New York. A companion bill passed the Senate and was introduced by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.
Nineteen states, in addition to Indiana, have since enacted their own RFRAs, but as The Atlantic notes, just South Carolina and Texas have similar variations to Indiana's and neither seems to go quite as far.
Indiana Vs. Federal Law — What Do They Say?
The Federal RFRA states that "Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. ..."
The Indiana law also states, "A governmental entity may not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability."
That is, the federal law states, except when it "is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest."
Indiana also states the exception as "(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest."
But that's where the similarities end.
The federal law does not go so far as to define a "person." Indiana's law does. And a "person," by its standard, is not what you might think.
Section 7 of the Indiana code includes people, churches and corporations in that definition:
As related to whether, why or who can sue, the federal law says:
The Indiana law goes further. In Section 9, it states that "a person," in this case meaning an individual, church, limited liability company, etc., "whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding."
So, in other words, while the federal law states that a person can sue the government for a grievance, Indiana makes a point of stating that it doesn't matter if government is involved.
Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College, notes in National Review that while some read the federal provision as pertaining only to government, it has actually split federal courts. "Private parties," he points out, "had brought suits against corporations."
For example: "[T]he D.C. Circuit held that the Catholic University of America could raise RFRA as a defense against a sex-discrimination claim brought by a nun and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alike."
That said, the Indiana law explicitly wipes away any ambiguity.
Support for gay rights has increased dramatically over the past decade. Since former President George W. Bush proposed a ban on same-sex marriage during his 2004 presidential re-election campaign, support for same-sex marriage has reversed.
In 2004, a majority of the country — 55 percent — was against it, while 42 percent was in favor, according to Gallup. Now, it's exactly the opposite, with 55 percent saying they're in favor of same-sex marriage and 42 percent saying they're against it.
What's more, in 2004, 54 percent said gay or lesbian relations were "morally wrong." In 2014, 58 percent said it was "morally acceptable," while just 38 percent said it was wrong. That is a huge cultural and political shift in a relatively short time.
It's something Republican pollster Whit Ayres likens to approval of interracial marriage in the 1970s to 1990s. In his book, 2016 and Beyond: How Republicans Can Elect a President in the New America, he points out, citing Gallup numbers, that in 1972, some 60 percent of Americans disapproved of interracial marriage. Twenty-five years later, 64 percent approved with the lines crossing when the country split about evenly in 1983.
"It looks similar to gay marriage," Ayres told reporters at a breakfast meeting Tuesday sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. "The values of young people, I believe, this is where we are headed as a country." He added, "We are headed to where a political candidate who is perceived as anti-gay will never connect with people under 30 years old."
But going inside the numbers helps explain why both sides are singing very different tunes on the Indiana law. For example, Gallup found that 3 in 4 Democrats are in favor of same-sex marriage (as were almost 60 percent of independents), but the opposite was true for Republicans with 72 percent opposed, as of 2013.
That makes it difficult to get through a Republican primary being too strongly in favor of gay rights with a significant portion of the base considering themselves "social values" religious voters.
"That's a challenge," said Ayres, who is advising Rubio.
He points out that Republicans under 30 support same-sex marriage. A Pew poll in 2014, in fact, found 61 percent of young Republicans in favor.
So, while times are changing with Republicans on gay rights, they are doing so more slowly than the more rapid change taking place in the country at large. | 0fake |
Democratic presidential candidates get chance for seventh debate | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. news channel and a newspaper will host a debate for the Democratic presidential contenders in New Hampshire a few days before the state’s primary election, but it remained unclear whether the party will relax its rule banning candidates from non-sanctioned debates. The news channel MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union Leader will hold the debate on Feb. 4 in New Hampshire, the second state in the nation to vote for parties’ presidential nominees following the Iowa caucuses on Monday, the Union Leader said on its website on Tuesday. But the Democratic National Committee (DNC) raised doubts about whether it would proceed, saying in a statement it had no plans to sanction this debate. It left open the question of whether it would punish any participants by excluding them from the remaining two sanctioned ones. Spokesmen for Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state who leads most polls, and Martin O’Malley, a former Maryland governor, said their candidates would be happy to take part, at least in theory. “Hillary Clinton would be happy to participate in a debate in New Hampshire if the other candidates agree, which would allow the DNC to sanction the debate,” Jennifer Palmieri, a Clinton spokeswoman, said in a statement. A spokesman for U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont did not respond to a request for comment. Both Sanders and O’Malley have criticized the DNC for organizing a relatively skimpy debate schedule. The DNC scheduled only six debates for its 2016 candidates, and, contrary to its practice in previous election years, forbade candidates from taking part in debates not sanctioned by the party. There were 25 Democratic primary debates in 2008 and 15 in 2004, both sanctioned and unsanctioned. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has dismissed criticisms from within her party that she organized relatively few debates and scheduled them at times when viewership might be lower than average in order to protect former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s position as the long-standing front-runner for the nomination. Sanders has recently been drawing near or even, overtaking Clinton in some opinion polls as the first voting draws near, beginning with caucuses in Iowa on Feb. 1 and the New Hampshire election on Feb. 9. “We have no plans to sanction any further debates before the upcoming First in the Nation caucuses and primary,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement, “but will reconvene with our campaigns after those two contests to review our schedule.” (Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Richard Chang) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency. | 0fake |
Vatican defends pope's avoidance of term 'Rohingya' in Myanmar | YANGON (Reuters) - The Vatican on Wednesday defended Pope Francis s decision not to use the word Rohingya in public during his visit to Myanmar, saying his moral authority was unblemished and that his mere presence drew attention to the refugee crisis. But at a news conference, the Holy See s spokesman also acknowledged that Vatican diplomacy was not infallible and that others were entitled to their views. The pope leaves on Thursday for Bangladesh, where about 625,000 Muslim Rohingya from predominantly Buddhist Myanmar have fled following a military crackdown in Rakhine state. He is due to meet Rohingya refugees there. Since he arrived in Myanmar, Francis has studiously avoided the highly charged term, following advice of local Church officials. They feared it could set off a diplomatic incident and turn Myanmar s military and government against minority Christians. Even though his calls for justice, human rights and respect were widely seen as applicable to the Rohingya, who are not recognized as citizens or as members of a distinct ethnicity, rights groups such as Amnesty International said they were disappointed. I think it was pretty clear from the local concerns that the pope was going to take the advice very seriously in public, Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said at the news conference, which was also with several Myanmar bishops. That doesn t take away from anything the pope has said in the past, or from anything he says in private, Burke said. The fact of the matter that the pope is here and draws attention to the country itself is an incredibly positive thing. Scores of Rohingya villages were burnt to the ground, and refugees arriving in Bangladesh told of killings and rapes. Washington said last week that the military s campaign included horrendous atrocities aimed at ethnic cleansing . Myanmar s military has denied accusations of murder, rape and forced displacement. The government blames the crisis on the Rohingya militants, whom it has condemned as terrorists. Everyone s entitled to their own opinion here. Nobody ever said Vatican diplomacy s infallible, Burke said when asked if the Vatican had any second thoughts about the decision for the pope not to use the word. He said the aim of Vatican diplomacy was building bridges and seek discussions as brothers, which often take place behind closed doors . This suggested the pope, who has defended Rohingya by name before in Rome, may have used the term in private during meeting in Myanmar. The pope, Burke said, was not afraid of minefields, but he could not just parachute in to areas to solve crises. I find it really hard to think that the moral authority of the pope has somehow diminished. People are not expected to solve impossible problems, Burke said. The moral of the pope stands. You ll see him go ahead and you can criticize what is said and what is not said, but the pope is not going to lose moral authority on this question, he said. Asked about the accusations of ethnic cleansing, Bishop John Hsane Hgyi said I did not see it with my own eyes. I don t know if its true or not . When she came to power in 2016, Nobel peace laureate and longtime champion of democracy Aung San Suu Kyi said her top priority was ending ethnic conflicts that have kept Myanmar in a state of near-perpetual civil war since independence in 1948. That goal remains elusive and, although Suu Kyi remains popular at home, she has faced a barrage of international criticism for expressing doubts about reports of rights abuses against Rohingya and failing to condemn the military. Although Suu Kyi formed Myanmar s first civilian government in half a century, her defenders say she is hamstrung by a constitution written by the military that left the army in control of security and much of the apparatus of the state. The military s power was clear on Monday when its leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, demanded to meet the pope before Sun Kyi, upending the planned schedule, which had her meeting the pontiff first. I m sure the pope would have preferred meeting the general after he had done the official visits, Burke said. | 0fake |
Sarah Palin Changes Endorsement To Ted Cruz
| A week after Sarah Palin endorsed Donald Trump for president, the former Alaskan Governor is now endorsing Iowa Caucus winner, Ted Cruz.
Palin told the Alaskan Times, After deep meditation while hunting me some moose, I decided Ted Cruz is the real man for the job. Its hard for me to admit, since Ive only been wrong once or twice in my life, but I have to do the right thing and put my support behind Ted.
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While he might be using tactics, Im a dirty gal and know what it takes to win. Im prouder than a duck dating a mongoose to support Ted Cruz.
Well see who wins New Hampshire, though, since there are a lot of primaries and caucuses left, and I want to pick the winner, so my endorsement will go how the political winds go. I could end up endorsing myself by the time this process is done.
Trump called Palin an Indian Giver after she changed her endorsement and gave it to rival Ted Cruz.
Is her endorsement even worth anything? Trump asked supporters at a New Hampshire rally. First she doomed McCain; then she doomed me in Iowa. I think Ill stay as far away from that nut job as possible and let Ted deal with the Palin curse. Let me tell you the truth, I didnt know what the hell she was talking about most of the time. I dont understand her appeal. | 1real |
Zimbabwe names diplomat Isaac Moyo as top spy | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe has named a former diplomat as the head of its intelligence agency, state-owned newspaper The Herald said on Saturday. Isaac Moyo, who was serving as an ambassador to neighboring South Africa and Lesotho, replaces retired army general Happyton Bonyongwe, the paper quoted chief secretary to the president, Misheck Sibanda, as saying. No one was immediately available to comment in President Emmerson Mnangagwa s office. The Herald is a mouthpiece for the government. Moyo takes over a domestic spy network, the Central Intelligence Organisation, that permeates every institution and section of society and has been used by former President Robert Mugabe to stay in power. He has served as a member of the African Union s Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA), intelligence provider to the union s 55 states. Mnangagwa, who was sworn in two weeks ago in the wake of the de facto military coup that ended Mugabe s 37-year rule, has been ringing in changes in his administration including appointing leading military officials to top posts in his cabinet. | 0fake |
The Ridiculous Reasons Obama’s Half-Brother Is Voting For Trump (VIDEO) | The right is giddy over the fact that President Obama s Kenyan half-brother Malik says he plans to vote for Donald Trump. They shouldn t be. His reasons for voting for the braggadocios billionaire are even worse than the reasons for most Americans.Malik Obama lives in Kenya, but he is eligible to vote in the United States because he sometimes lives in Maryland and he worked there. Rupert Murdoch s New York Post claims that Malik is registered to vote in the United States.Malik is the oldest of the Obama brothers; he s related through their father, but the two men have different mothers. The older Obama, 58, has spent most of his life as a Democrat, but likes Trump s slogan of Mak(ing) America Great Again. He doesn t like Hillary Clinton s email scandal, and he has more than one personal bone to pick with his younger brother.About Trump: I like Donald Trump because he speaks from the heart, Malik Obama told The Post from his home in the rural village of Kogelo. Make America Great Again is a great slogan. I would like to meet him. About Hillary Clinton and the email situation: She should have known better as the custodian of classified information, said Obama.The third reason makes one question whether Malik had been a Democrat at all. The man who reportedly has as many as 12 wives hates the idea of marriage equality. I feel like a Republican now because they don t stand for same-sex marriage, and that appeals to me, he said.Then, it gets a bit more personal. The elder Obama says that he was close, personal friends with ousted and assassinated dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. I still feel that getting rid of Khadafy didn t make things any better in Libya, he said. My brother and the secretary of state disappointed me in that regard. Malik has an even more personal beef with his brother. It s about money. Malik is in charge of the Barack H. Obama Foundation, which named after the Obamas father. The foundation was set up to help people in their native village in Kenya, but it hadn t registered with the state of Virginia, from which it was run. Shortly after the story became public, the IRS approved the foundation s tax exempt status. Fingers pointed at President Obama, but Malik insists his brother didn t help at all, and for that, he seems to resent him. My brother didn t help me at all, said Obama. He wanted me to shut it down when I set it up. He hasn t supported me at all. Oh, and the President also refused to intervene in his older brother s foray into politics, when he ran for governor of his Kenyan county. Malik partly blames his brother for his loss.Here s the video:Trump, in the meantime, is loving it. Wow, President Obama s brother, Malik, just announced that he is voting for me. Was probably treated badly by president-like everybody else! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2016None of this should be terribly surprising. Despite the fact that the two men were best men at each others weddings, Malik got on the birther train. He even questioned whether the President actually shared a father with him. Of course, we can also go birther, asking if Malik is actually registered to vote.Featured image via New York Post screenshot. | 1real |
Looking past vote, U.S. coal country sees millennials as key to revival | HUNTINGTON, WV (Reuters) - When Carissa Sellards talks to her West Virginia University friends about post-graduation plans, one dilemma keeps coming up – whether to stay in their home state or strike out for more promising opportunities elsewhere. If recent history holds, over half of them will either not find work or leave the state, contributing to a brain drain of young talent that is pushing the state to try to reinvent its economy and break with a coal industry in long-term decline. “Companies don’t come here to invest because they only associate us with coal,” said Sellards, a 20-year-old sophomore who addressed the state legislature when she was in high school about the lack of opportunities for young people in a post-coal economy. The often stark choices faced by Sellards and other young, educated West Virginians underline the challenges awaiting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton here and in other “Rust Belt” states if she wins the Nov. 8 election, as most polls suggest she will. West Virginia is expected to vote decisively for Republican Donald Trump, who has gained in recent polls and promises to revive the coal industry and put miners back to work by easing environmental restrictions and renegotiating trade deals to America’s advantage. It is a message that has resonated with millions of older voters in other Rust Belt states facing declines in manufacturing jobs and feeling threatened by foreign competition. But it largely rings hollow for college-educated millennials like Sellards, who are seeking jobs in the service economy or technology sector. By contrast, Clinton alienated swathes of West Virginia voters by saying earlier this year that “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” in transitioning to cleaner energy. Coal industry backers have long accused President Barack Obama of waging a “war on coal” by imposing tougher environmental standards. Clinton later apologized for her comment, and has proposed a $30 billion plan to help revitalize coal communities. The plan promises to secure health benefits for former coal workers, invest in new infrastructure such as broadband access, and repurpose old mines and power plant sites. Clinton energy adviser Trevor Houser has said her challenge will be to help coal and other Rust Belt communities deal with economic realities rather than “false promises” of restoring dying industries. Beneath the nostalgic coal rhetoric, West Virginia officials and grassroots groups have quietly started to focus on reversing the flight of college-educated millennials to help drive an economic revival. Of the 124,358 students who graduated from public higher education in West Virginia in the last decade, 58,730 were working in the state in 2014, a work participation rate of 47.2 percent, according to a report released by West Virginia University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research on Monday. The state had the 11th biggest net outflow of college degree holders from 2007-2014, according to the most recent U.S. census. One barrier to keeping graduates in state is a business start-up rate that is the lowest in the country at 5.1 percent in 2014, the most recent year of available data. A Reuters analysis of national data shows a strong connection between migration patterns of college graduates and local start-up rates: Among the 25 states with start-up rates below the 2014 median of 6.8 percent, 19 saw a net outflow of college grads between 2007 and 2014. The debate over West Virginia’s economic future comes as its coal production this year hit its lowest level since the 1970s. West Virginia’s energy sector, which includes coal, natural gas production and utilities, account for 17 percent of the state’s GDP but only 4 percent of employment. Coal industry employment plunged 53 percent between the fourth quarter of 2011 and the second quarter of 2016, down from nearly 26,000 to just over 12,000. The government is the state’s biggest employer, accounting for 20 percent of jobs, with healthcare a fast-growing sector at 17 percent. In 2014, West Virginia’s real GDP grew 0.7 percent from the previous year compared to the national average of 2.2 percent. The state is one of a few whose population shrank over the past two years, according to the latest national census. By median age it is the second-oldest U.S. state, four years above the national average. At the West Virginia University Institute of Technology’s new campus in Beckley, which opened in August, close to some of the state’s coal counties, officials hope to turn the struggling city into an innovation hub. In addition to offering courses in burgeoning fields like computer science, sustainable tourism and health care, WVU Tech hosts the Launch Lab, a small business incubator that helps budding entrepreneurs bring ideas to fruition. Joe Carlucci, a small business coach and director of the LaunchLab, said West Virginia is at the start of a long process of reinvention after decades of mourning coal. “They are prepared to plant that seed and not see the shade of that tree,” he said. “They are seeing that we have to change our own story.” Although Clinton would struggle to regain popularity in Rust Belt states if elected, these regions would have an incentive to work with her administration to tap into federal grants. West Virginia Republican Congressman Evan Jenkins, a member of the House appropriations committee who represents the state’s southern coal-producing regions, said the state cannot turn down assistance to diversify its economy. “I want to continue fueling grant-making opportunities to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit and energy of the state’s millennials,” he told Reuters at a ceremony in August in which federal grants were awarded. But unleashing that spirit will require a significant investment in infrastructure, specifically broadband access, something that local lawmakers ignored when coal was still performing well eight years ago, said Chris Walters, a 30-year old Republican state senator. Walters is focused on getting legislation passed to expand broadband access throughout the mountainous state, which ranks near the bottom of the list of broadband connectivity, just ahead of Guam and Puerto Rico. “If we don’t give connectivity to our residents, we aren’t giving them the opportunity to succeed in the global economy,” said Walters. In state capital Charleston, NGO Generation West Virginia has helped pass legislation to attract young entrepreneurs seeking low-cost alternatives to places like Denver or San Francisco, including a bill to waive business start-up fees to people under 30 and another to allow crowd-funding to help seed new businesses. Entrepreneurship also extends to industries like agriculture, which state officials see as an opportunity in the state’s rural coal counties. An entrepreneurship program called the Coalfield Development Corporation won a $2 million grant this year to help train young people from coal counties to run businesses, offering them college classes, life skills and paid apprenticeships. Ben Gilmer, the 34-year-old director of the corporation’s agriculture entrepreneurship program Refresh Appalachia, said part of Clinton’s challenge in coal country will be to sell the vision of a future that is unfamiliar. Small programs like his can offer concrete examples and help ease the transition, he said. “Politicians take advantage of people’s fear of what comes next,” Gilmer said. “But five years from now, we will have examples and that will speak louder than any rhetoric that’s out there.” | 0fake |
Left Wing Activists Disrupt Rep. Dave Brat’s Town Hall — ‘You Lie’ - Breitbart | Rep. Dave Brat ( ) faced unending interruptions at a town hall meeting in Richmond on Tuesday night. [Before Brat could even speak, the crowd chanted “read our questions,” and repeatedly yelled out “you lie” as he tried to make his remarks. “I’m trying to listen to the people on the key issues of our day” Brat yelled over the continuous heckling. “If we go this route it’s going to be very hard to have rational, civil discourse all night. ” “I’m trying my best here,” Brat said in a video of part of the town hall that was posted on YouTube. When Brat tried to explain how the American Health Care Act passed by the House last week would cover conditions, people booed and tried to shout him down. Activists cheered when someone asked about Trump’s tax returns and about why the Congressional Budget Office had not scored the GOP health care bill before it was voted on. Brat said he agreed a score was needed, but he was still jeered by people in the audience, some dressed in that read “RESIST” and others showing support for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The Associated Press reported the town hall this way: “Critics of Republican U. S. Rep. Dave Brat and the House health care bill he voted for packed a raucous town hall meeting in his Virginia district Tuesday night, booing and shouting down the congressman from start to finish. Brat is the latest in a series of lawmakers across the country who have gotten an earful from constituents at town hall meetings since last week’s passage of the House health care bill that would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. ” “Hundreds of people packed the suburban Richmond church for the meeting Brat with a Republican state senator, and dozens of protesters lined up outside ahead of its start, many of them holding signs shaped like tombstones. Inside, opponents appeared to far outnumber supporters. ” Much of the town hall focused on the American Health Care Act, which passed last week on a vote in the House, with Brat voting for it. But Brat, like other members of the Freedom Caucus, opposed the first version of the act and only came on board this round after the amendment was added to allow states to obtain a waiver to avoid some Affordable Care Act regulations. Brat was also asked about Trump firing FBI Director James Comey and whether he would push for a special prosecutor to investigate any ties the president might have with Russia. Brat said he would not and added, “In this country you are innocent until there’s evidence. “And this applies to all of you, right?” Brat said. “No one wants the federal government coming after you unless there is evidence and no one can stand up and give me the evidence. ” | 0fake |
Trump lukewarm on opening Clinton probes: New York Times | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump showed little appetite for instigating investigations of former Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton, although he did not take the option off the table, according to tweets from a New York Times reporter. Trump said “no” when asked if he would rule out investigating Clinton over her family’s charity or her use of a private email server while U.S. secretary of state, according to Twitter posts during his interview with the newspaper. But he said he did not want to “hurt the Clintons” and wants to move on. “I’m not looking to go back and go through this,” Trump said, according to the Times reporter. | 0fake |
Indiana Kellogg’s Snacks Plant Expected to Close by September - Breitbart | Per a WTHI report, Kellogg’s Snacks Plant in Seelyville, IN is participating in the #DumpKelloggs boycott, and is set to close by September of this year. Company officials announced in August of 2016 that the plant will cease work, leaving 150 people out of a job. The plant will close out in phases beginning in the first quarter of 2017, and officials expect it to be completely closed by September. Kellogg’s will look to sell the building once operations have been completely shut down. Follow Breitbart. tv on Twitter @BreitbartVideo | 0fake |
Cranberry Juice Does Not Prevent Urinary Tract Infection, New Study Finds | Keywords: cranberries , cranberry , cranberry juice , kidney disease , urinary tract infections , UTI , UTIs
Cranberry juice and tablets have been recommended as a way to either prevent recurring urinary tract infection (UTI), or treat the symptoms. But a new study finds there’s no difference between people treated with cranberries or placebos.
A lack of evidence for cranberry juice or capsules as being an effective preventative measure or treatment has been a recurring argument in the scientific literature for years now. Cranberry Juice – An Unrealistic Recommendation for UTIs
A urinary tract infection occurs when bacteria gets into your urine and travels up to your bladder. According to the Urinary Care Foundation , “UTIs cause more than 8.1 million visits to health care providers each year. About 10 in 25 women and 3 in 25 men will have symptoms of at least [one] UTI during their lifetime.”
For years now, cranberry juice has been recommended to aid in preventing or treating UTIs. However, there’s no solid evidence that any amount is having a positive effect.
Additionally, based on the results of a recent study led by infectious disease specialist Manisha Juthani-Mehta from the Yale School of Medicine, even if you switch to highly concentrated capsules, you still don’t see a noticeable positive effect.
In response to this recent study, Lindsay E. Nicolle, an expert on UTIs from the University of Manitoba advises the following:
“The continuing promotion of cranberry use to prevent recurrent UTI in the popular press or online advice seems inconsistent with the reality of repeated negative studies or positive studies compromised by methodological shortcomings.”
Nicolle adds, “[C]linicians should not be promoting cranberry use by suggesting that there is proven, or even possible benefit. Any continued promotion of the use of cranberry products seems to go beyond available scientific evidence and rational reasoning. It is time to move on from cranberries.” Myth versus Facts
There’s a couple of reasons why the myth that cranberry juice is beneficial in preventing and treating UTIs has persisted for so long.
First, the active ingredient in cranberries — A-type proanthocyanidins (PACs) — has been shown to block the adhesion of bacteria to the wall of the bladder. So, a vast majority of people have reasoned that if bacteria are causing UTIs, something that blocks bacteria from accumulating in the bladder could be a potential preventive or treatment measure.
But, according to Timothy Boone, M.D., Ph.D., vice dean of the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine Houston campus and chairperson of the department of urology for Houston Methodist Hospital, there’s one problem .
“Cranberry juice, especially the juice concentrates you find at the grocery store, will not treat a UTI or bladder infection, It can offer more hydration and possibly wash bacteria from your body more effectively, but the active ingredient in cranberry is long-gone by the time it reaches your bladder.”
Dr. Boone adds, “It takes an extremely large concentration of cranberry to prevent bacterial adhesion. This amount of concentration is not found in the juices we drink. There’s a possibility it was stronger back in our grandparents’ day, but definitely not in modern times.”
For example, Ocean Spray’s cranberry juice cocktail is only 27 percent juice. Something so watered down could not be so ineffective.
The second reason the myth continues is that it’s a tempting myth to believe. If you experience recurring UTIs and want to prevent them — or you want to feel empowered while you’re waiting for the antibiotics to take effect — drinking cranberry juice or taking capsules is a fairly easy and simple way to feel like you’re helping resolve your problem.
Unfortunately, though, you’re paying a lot of money for something that’s only really doing the same job as a glass of water. And cranberry juice is full of sugar anyway. Golden Rules for Kidney Health
You can do a number of things to help keep your kidneys functioning properly at every stage of life.
Here’s a list of ways to reduce the risk of kidney disease – including urinary tract infections. Drink plenty of liquids, especially water . Drinking water helps dilute your urine and ensures that you’ll urinate more frequently — allowing bacteria to be flushed from your urinary tract before an infection can begin. Stay active and keep fit . Keeping fit helps to reduce your blood pressure. Staying active and keeping fit also reduces the risk of chronic kidney disease. Eat healthy and keep your weight in check . This can help prevent diabetes, heart disease, and other debilitating conditions associated with chronic kidney disease. Reduce your salt intake . The recommended sodium intake is 5-6 grams of salt per day — around a teaspoon. Try limiting the amount of processed and restaurant food. And don’t add salt to food. It’s easier to control your salt intake if you prepare the food yourself with fresh ingredients. Don’t take over-the-counter pills on a regular basis . Common non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs — like ibuprofen — are known to cause kidney damage and disease if taken regularly. This type of medication probably doesn’t pose considerable danger if your kidneys are reasonably healthy and you use them for emergencies only. However, if you are dealing with chronic pain — like back pain or arthritis — work with your doctor to find natural ways to control your pain without putting your kidneys at risk. Wipe from front to back . Doing so after urinating and after a bowel movement helps prevent bacteria in the anal region from spreading to the vagina and urethra. Change your birth control method . Diaphragms, or unlubricated or spermicide-treated condoms, can all contribute to bacterial growth. Avoid potentially irritating feminine products . Using deodorant sprays or other feminine products, such as douches and powders, in the genital area can irritate the urethra. Empty your bladder soon after intercourse . Also, drink a full glass of water to help flush bacteria. Regularly control of your blood sugar level . About half of people who have diabetes develop kidney damage, so it is important for people with diabetes to have regular tests to check their kidney functions.
This recent randomized clinical trial study titled, “Effect of Cranberry Capsules on Bacteriuria Plus Pyuria Among Older Women in Nursing Homes,” is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. You might also like… | 1real |
Krauthammer: ’Childish,’ ’Pathetic’ Hillary Won’t Take Blame for Election Loss - Breitbart | Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer criticized 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her remarks a day earlier at a tech conference in California. Clinton avoided blaming herself for the loss, for which Krauthammer called “childish” and “pathetic. ” “Look, I know I’m in a minority with conservatives, but I actually feel sorry for her,” Krauthammer said. “I have a soft spot. It could be because I was in my youth a liberal. I retain the marshmallow deep inside of my heart that I try not to betray these days. But it’s a pathetic performance. It’s sort of childish. She can’t accept responsibility. She has practiced at this where she says — I love in one of her riffs she says was a perfect candidate? No. Did I make mistakes? Yes. These are rhetorical devices, whoever said she was a perfect candidate? She was a terrible candidate. She was the worst of imaginable. I mean just look at the fact she couldn’t shake the challenge of a socialist, who, this is the best part about Bernie Sanders, honeymooned in the Soviet Union. She couldn’t shake his challenge for six months. ” “By the way, Lindsey Graham once said about Bernie and the Soviet Union, yes, and he never left,” he continued. “That was her challenge, and she had the DNC behind her. She complained about the DNC being against her. It’s not delusional. Losing an election, losing something you’ve been after for eight years probably 16 years is pretty hard. And I think her handlers are somebody who cares for her should have said don’t go out there. You wait a few more years, people will mellow to you. They want to remember details. Maybe they will have some affection for you. Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale — these are people who didn’t elicit the same kind of antipathy she does because they didn’t wallow in . ” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 0fake |
New York attorney general says will sue over Obamacare repeal | (Reuters) - New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman intends to sue the federal government if Republican lawmakers pass proposed legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, his office said on Monday. Schneiderman’s office said it has identified “multiple constitutional defects” with the Republican healthcare bills. The U.S. Senate is considering legislation to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, commonly known as Obamacare. However, eight to 10 Republican U.S. senators have serious concerns about the proposals, moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins, who opposes the bill, said on Sunday. Democratic state attorneys general have become a major source of opposition to Republican President Donald Trump’s policies, having successfully forced him to significantly scale back a ban on travel from six Muslim-majority countries. A group of Democrats led by Schneiderman and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra earlier this year sought to intervene in a pending lawsuit in order to defend subsidies paid to health insurers under Obamacare. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has not yet ruled on that request. Among the Republican proposals that raise constitutional issues are one that would defund the Planned Parenthood health group for a year, and another that would shift some Medicaid costs in New York from counties to the state, known as the Collins-Faso amendment, said Amy Spitalnick, a Schneiderman spokeswoman. Critics of the latter provision say it would drastically increase costs in the state budget for the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor and disabled. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit threat. A representative for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell could not immediately be reached for comment. | 0fake |
The World is Waking Up and it’s Magic to Watch | . The World is Waking Up and it’s Magic to Watch It’s inspiring to witness many of the earth’s people, especially in the Western world, becoming awar... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/10/the-world-is-waking-up-and-its-magic-to.html It’s inspiring to witness many of the earth’s people, especially in the Western world, becoming aware of the deep corruption in our social system, particularly because society is building its innate capacity to actually do something about it. More and more people now understand that we are ruled via a corporatocracy where the money supply, banking, governmental policy and other vital public infrastructure has been hijacked by the oligarchs and the corporate elite. In addition, public discourse and the official narratives are dictated by the corporate media who are owned by the same people who control macro public policy via their political puppets, as well as the unprecedented wealth they have at their disposal. Their ultimate agenda is of course ultimate power, which is dressed up in a pretty dress of “let’s save the planet!”.Of course the degradation of our natural systems needs a fresh approach, yet their covert game to win a planetary control-system has been brilliantly exposed for the world to see. In stride, the people are fighting back in both explicit and subtle ways. Some examples include: Independent media has exploded, where more people now get their news from it compared to the propagandized mainstream press; The information which exposes the lies of the ‘programmed beliefs’ is increasingly circulated by an awakening populace; Global and local action groups are forming to reverse the sellout of our system; Greater numbers of people are growing or sourcing organic, chemical-free food and are personally filtering any contaminants out of their water supply; Parents are home-schooling their children in greater numbers, or at least giving them more holistic and healthy information as their core education; Conversations of substance are increasingly occurring at pubs, supermarkets and community events, making it harder for the sleeping masses not to face the uncomfortable truths about our sick system; and Individuals and families are unplugging from the control-grid the best they can, as well as reconsidering and re-prioritizing what’s truly important in life. That’s a good segue into the other dimension of the waking up process. A great awakening is occurring in terms of the deeper layers of reality, including the way the scientific philosophy on life has been intentionally designed to keep us disempowered and disconnected with our true nature. Exit scientific materialism . This theory has long been debunked by the quantum and parapsychological sciences because human consciousness has clearly been shown to play a co-creative role in the manifestation of our interconnected reality. Not that this hasn’t been known in one way or another by basically every culture on earth since the beginning of time. Yet, materialism is still the dominant philosophy of not just the dogmatic discipline we call mainstream science, but also of many minds within the truth and freedom network. When it’s pretty much common knowledge that medical, energy and other corporate-related science has been distorted and suppressed for the benefit of the control-system, why would it be any different when it comes to the philosophical implications of scientific exploration and its associated evidence? After all, we know that the elite use ritual and symbolic spells to achieve their goals, so clearly they themselves believe beyond the adolescence of a matter-based reality. And when we consider how successful they’ve been, obviously they’ve tapped into the energetic dance in a productive way, at least for themselves. The fact remains however that there is a huge network of people who are becoming conscious of the nature of consciousness itself. A term to describe this is spirituality, but in summary it’s simply about understanding the connection we have with each other and reality at large, as well as rediscovering the various layers which make up the self. If you haven’t viewed through this lens in your quest for clarity, you’re unfortunately missing a profound piece of the philosophical puzzle. In any case, the awakening community is doing some amazing work, even if it’s split between the system-focused and spiritual-focused mindsets. There are of course many balance-minded individuals and groups who are doing both, but for the time being this remains the exception, not the norm. That will change though. The veterans of truth-seeking, as well as the newly initiated to the conscious society, are energetically primed to create a balance between these two areas of exploration. After all, there is always an opportunity for the magic to be at strength with the madness, just like the positive charge is equal to its negative counterpart, in accordance with natural principles. That’s duality, in one action. To reflect on which ways in which you’ve personally woken up, watch the following short documentary. By Phillip J. Watt, Waking Times About the author: Phillip J. Watt lives in Australia. His written work deals with topics from ideology to society, as well as self-development. Follow him on Facebook or visit his website . Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.
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Dems Win Congressional Baseball Game, Give Trophy to Republican Steve Scalise - Breitbart | Thursday night’s Congressional Baseball Game took on added meaning and importance after the shooting at the Republican practice on Wednesday, which left Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise seriously wounded. [The Democrats would go on to win the game, convincingly, by a final . Though, the postgame scene became one of unity and camaraderie as the Democrats presented the trophy to Scalise, who is still in critical condition after the attack. Representative Joe Barton of Texas accepted the trophy on Scalise’s behalf. According to ESPN: A huge ovation came from the crowd, which swelled to a record 24, 959, when Special Agent David Bailey, one of the Capitol Police officers injured in the attack on Republicans at their ball practice in Virginia, threw out the first pitch. “ONE FAMILY,” proclaimed a sign in the crowd. The announcer’s mention of Scalise, the House majority whip who was critically wounded in the attack Wednesday, brought the masses to their feet. The highlight of the evening featured President Donald Trump delivering a video message to the assembled crowd. The said, “By playing tonight we are showing the world that we will not be intimidated by threats, acts of violence or assaults on our democracy. The game will go on. ” ESPN reported, “When the president intoned three words he said have brought Americans together for generations — ”Let’s play ball” — cheers rang out. ” While the game provides some relief and bipartisanship in a town dominated by faction and division, the other more important aspect of the game has to do with how it benefits various charities. This year, the charities are the “Boys Girls Club of Greater Washington, Washington Literacy Center, the Washington Nationals Dream Foundation and, after Wednesday’s shooting, the Capitol Police Memorial Fund. ” After Thursday’s result, the record in the game is 39 wins each, for both Democrats and Republicans, with one tie. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 0fake |
Prominent Psychologist Says, ‘Google has power to control elections, can shift millions of votes to Clinton’ | Home / Be The Change / Government Corruption / Prominent Psychologist Says, ‘Google has power to control elections, can shift millions of votes to Clinton’ Prominent Psychologist Says, ‘Google has power to control elections, can shift millions of votes to Clinton’ The Free Thought Project November 1, 2016 1 Comment
(RT) — People trust the “unbiased” internet search giant Google so much it can actually influence up to 10 million undecided voters to choose Hillary Clinton for president, prominent US psychologist and author Robert Epstein told RT following years of research.
Despite being a supporter of the Democratic presidential nominee, Dr. Epstein believes Google’s unchecked algorithm of placing one candidate over the other in search results constitutes a “threat to democracy.”
RT: Robert, how did you discover that Google is possibly in cahoots with the Clinton campaign?
RE: Well I didn’t find out that they were necessarily supporting Hillary Clinton, that’s not what I found at first. First, through several years of research, I found that they had the power to control elections, the power to shift the votes. So, that was more than four years of experimental research with more than 10,000 people in 39 countries.
So, we established through some very careful experiments that by favoring one candidate in search rankings Google can shift a lot of votes. More than 20 percent of undecided voters overall, and in some demographic groups up to 80 percent of undecided voters. People trust search rankings so much that if one candidate is favored in search rankings that shifts peoples’ votes.
Now, more recently, many people have established that Google has a very close relationship with Hillary Clinton. That didn’t come from my research, that came from all kinds of investigative research by many people.
RT: Are you going to take a look at Facebook and Twitter as well? It looks like social media play an even bigger role in the elections than televised debates.
RE: Well, we know now that Facebook has the power to shift about 600,000 votes to Hillary Clinton on Election Day with no one knowing this is occurring. All they have to do is send out “Go out and vote” reminders to Hillary Clinton’s supporters, but not to Trump’s supporters. That would cause a lot of people to vote who would otherwise stay home. So yes, we’ve looked at Facebook, we’ve looked at Twitter. But again, Facebook can shift 600,000 votes, Google can shift somewhere between 2.6 and 10.4 million votes.
RT: Have you been able to find abnormal search results by Google in some other countries intended to influence the outcome of elections?
RE: We haven’t look carefully at too many countries. We’ve looked at the UK election in 2015, we looked at the national election in India, at the Lok Sabha election in 2014. What we do know is that it is the nature of Google’s algorithm to put one candidate ahead of another. That happens automatically. That happens, as Google would say, organically. So, this means that Google’s algorithm has probably been determining the outcomes of close elections around the world for many years, probably actually controlling the winner in as many as 25 percent of the national elections of the world.
RT: What do you think about this threat of big data? Do you think Google and other search engines analyses all search results by an individual for a good purpose?
RE: Well, big data at the moment is a threat. It’s a threat to democracy, at least as we have it in the United States, it’s a threat to human freedom, it’s a threat to civil liberties. This is mainly because the technologies are very new, and new means of control, of surveillance, of manipulation are being developed which at the moment are not regulated – they’re not covered by any laws or regulations. So, the problem is that these technologies have developed quickly, and we have not developed systems for monitoring these technologies, we’ve not developed systems for regulating these technologies. Obviously, we must do so.
RT: You’ve said that unlike Europe, Russia and China were able to overcome the Google monopoly, but a lot of people are still using this search engine. Do you think that the US company can manipulate public opinion in Russia as well?
RE: Well, it’s hard for them to manipulate opinion if they don’t dominate that country. Google dominates most of the countries in the world. The only countries it doesn’t dominate are Russia and China. So, Russia and China are protected a little bit from Google, but Russia and China have their own problems. Russia has Yandex, China has Baidu, and these companies can use techniques just as the ones that Google is using and perhaps they’re already using these techniques. These techniques can be used by any big tech company that provides a search engine. These techniques can be used by any big tech company that provides search suggestions.
My newest research shows, for example, that Google seems to be favoring Hillary Clinton in its search suggestions, the suggestions it gives you when you first start to type an item, and from new research I’ve done, we know that if you suppress negative search suggestions from one candidate, that shifts votes and opinions towards that candidate. So, Google is not the only problem. Any of these big tech companies can use these techniques for surveillance, for manipulation, for control, and I think we have to be concerned about the big tech industries in general around the world, not just Google.
RT: How do you oppose such great power being wielded by one corporation like Google?
RE: Well, the problem with a lot of power being in the hands of one company is that the private company is not answerable to the public. The private company does not have people who we voted on. The private company might be run almost like a monarchy, with the CEO having enormous power and the public having no say whatsoever in what they do, even not having access to their internal records. So we would have no idea of exactly what they’re doing or how they’re doing it and how they’re making decisions. This is potentially very dangerous. The situation right now is unprecedented in human history. There has never been so much power placed in the hands of so few people who are beyond the reach of any laws, beyond the reach of any regulations, and who don’t necessarily have the public interest in mind.
RT: What about Donald Trump? In your opinion, what methods and tricks has Donald Trump and his loyal media used in this presidential race?
RE: Well, I’ve said in writing, repeatedly and in many interviews that I’m a very strong supporter of Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is by far the better candidate, Donald Trump is a very weak candidate, he would not make a good leader, he would not make a good president. Plus, I know people in his family, it makes no sense to me that he is even running for president, I don’t think he wants to be president! I think he just wants to increase his celebrity so that he can start his own television network, and I think that steps are now already being taken for him to do that.
The private company might be run almost like a monarchy, with the CEO having enormous power and the public having no say whatsoever in what they do, even not having access to their internal records. So we would have no idea of exactly what they’re doing or how they’re doing it and how they’re making decisions. This is potentially very dangerous.
I made a prediction on Twitter recently, you can check this: I not only have predicted that he will set up his own television network but that he will launch his network with a guaranteed hit show. It will be a reality TV show about Donald Trump running for president, and that will be a hit show, so I think that’s his only interest here. Hillary Clinton will become our next president, it’s guaranteed and in my opinion Donald Trump has no interest, never had any interest in becoming president.
RT: Do you believe that Hillary Clinton will become US president through the manipulation of public opinion?
RE: Oh, Hillary Clinton is guaranteed to win this election, and I have said previously based on polls that seem to show a kind of a close vote, that those polls did not take into account the power that Google and other companies have to shift votes. That’s missing from these polls. So, once you realize the power that these companies have, Hillary Clinton is absolutely guaranteed to win, and she will win in the margin of somewhere between 2.6 million and 10 million votes. If we take the mean, the average of those two numbers, I guess you could say it’s pretty clear that she will win by approximately 6.5 million votes.
RT: Given that the United States has such an expensive and powerful media industry, would you say that voters in the US have a real picture of the presidential campaign?
RE: Well, voters in the United States I think do get a pretty good picture because we have so many different kinds of media and people are just bombarded with information from newspapers, magazines and the internet, more than 400 different television channels. So I think we do get a pretty complex and deep picture of things, but you have to remember that all of these forms of media are competitive. So, we’re getting one perspective from one magazine, another perspective from another magazine.
But when you come to something like Google, there’s no competition. There’s no competitor. It’s a completely different kind of influence, it’s non-competitive. In other words, if you’re still trying to make up your mind and you go to Google and ask a question about the candidates or about some sort of issue related to the election, Google will show you whatever it wants to show you and that can easily, easily tip your opinion one way or the other and there’s no competitor, there’s no way for anyone to compensate what Google just told you.
So, this is a completely new and very dangerous kind of influence. It has no competition, there’s no corrective for it, and people trust Google – we know this from surveys – people trust Google more than they trust any newspaper, any magazine or any television station. People trust information that they get from a computer much more than information they’re getting from television or a newspaper because they know that television and newspapers are biased, because they know that people are actually giving them the information. But when they get information out of a computer they mistakenly believe that that information is impartial, that information is objective and of course, that’s not really true, but that’s what people believe. | 1real |
China Machado, Breakthrough Model Until the End, Dies at 86 - The New York Times | China Machado, one of the first to appear in the pages of an American glossy fashion magazine and a model who helped break not only the race barrier but also the age barrier, died on Sunday in Brookhaven, N. Y. on Long Island. She was 86. Her family said the cause was cardiac arrest. Ms. Machado (whose first name was pronounced ) lived a colorful life: She was born Noelie de Souza Machado on Christmas Day 1929, in Shanghai fled the country with her parents in 1946, after the Japanese occupation had an affair with Luis Dominguín, the Spanish bullfighter, who left her for Ava Gardner and socialized with François Truffaut. But at a time when the fashion industry is still struggling with diversity, it is worth pausing to consider what “colorful” really meant when it came to Ms. Machado, what her career represented and how far we still have to go, nearly six decades later. Her legacy extends far beyond the pictures she created, and the poses she struck, to make us rethink our assumptions about what is considered beautiful, and why. And it is as relevant today as when she first stepped on a runway, in the 1950s. “China Machado was one of the first great pioneers in the firmament of haute couture,” André Leon Talley, the former Vogue editor at large and the fashion and style director of i. am+ the tech firm founded by Will. i. am, wrote in an email. He added that she “made of her ethnicity something powerful. Internationally, she paved the way for diversity and other races, as well as paving the way for the rise of the black model in print and on the runway. ” Stefano Tonchi, the editor of W, said: “She was the first to put in front of the audience the idea of the otherness, bringing out memories of different cultures and fragments of other imagery. She always did it with irony, without posing, modeling or vogueing. Somehow she showed it all while dancing. ” And though she did not do it consciously in the beginning, by the time she was aware of her historic place in the fashion world, her daughter Emmanuelle said, she “was proud to wear that mantle. She thought so much of fashion looked the same, and she wanted to celebrate the idea that everyone could be who they were. ” Ms. Machado certainly was. It began in 1959, when Ms. Machado became the first nonwhite model featured in the pages of Harper’s Bazaar. She had started modeling in Paris, most notably for Hubert de Givenchy and Balenciaga (so successfully that she was the runway model in Europe) and Oleg Cassini brought her to New York for his runway show in 1958. She caught the eye of Diana Vreeland, who sent her to Richard Avedon, then Harper’s Bazaar’s star photographer and a crucial player in forming the magazine’s identity. He christened her his “muse” and began photographing her in looks that, Mr. Talley pointed out, had previously been worn only “by white models. ” Avedon wanted his photos of Ms. Machado in Bazaar’s February issue. But according to an interview Ms. Machado did with CNN in 2011, Robert F. MacLeod, the magazine’s publisher at the time, said: “Listen, we can’t publish these pictures. The girl is not white. ” “I knew I was considered kind of ‘exotic,’ if you want to use that word, in Europe, but it wasn’t any kind of a slur,” Ms. Machado told New York magazine this year. Avedon’s contract with Bazaar was up for renewal at the time, however, and, according to Ms. Machado, he threatened not to unless his photos of Ms. Machado appeared in the magazine, and such was his power that the editors finally agreed. He “sort of blackmailed them into putting these pictures into the magazine,” she said. (Some published reports have stated that Ms. Machado appeared on the cover of Bazaar in 1959, but her daughter disputes that date, saying the model was not her mother, and that her first cover was in 1971. A spokeswoman for the Richard Avedon Foundation said it could not confirm the identity of the 1959 cover model but that she “didn’t think” it was Ms. Machado.) It wasn’t the only boundary she and Avedon pushed for the magazine. She was also its first nude, in 1961. And it wasn’t the only racism she encountered. After she appeared on Cassini’s runway in 1958, she said in New York magazine, he spoke to a group of “Southern buyers” because they were ignoring all the dresses Ms. Machado had worn in the show. He asked why, and they said, Ms. Machado reported, “Oh, she’s black. ” (Actually, she was mixed race, with Portuguese, Chinese and Indian roots.) And even later, when she was at the height of her fame, she told CNN: ”Every advert that came out, it would say stupidly, ‘The Great China’ on it. I felt like … a circus!” Things have clearly gotten better since then: A recent report on diversity from TheFashionSpot said that in 2016, 29 percent of magazine covers featured nonwhite models, a 6. 2 percent increase from last year. But runways were only 25. 4 percent nonwhite, a paltry 0. 7 percent increase, which underscores the tendency of fashion to look at diversity as a trend rather than as an issue that needs to be addressed on a deep, systemic level. Indeed, broadly defined, the industry is not doing very well at all when it comes to diversity, with only 0. 9 percent of covers featuring women over size 12 (that translates as six, two of which belonged to Adele) and only 5 percent belonging to women 50 and above (including Michelle Obama, who is arguably beyond age). Which brings us back to Ms. Machado. Because by 2011, more than 50 years after her first, pioneering appearance, she was once again going where very few women in fashion had gone before. With a few notable exceptions, such as the Bazaar cover in 1971 and the Battle of Versailles fashion show in 1973, when she walked in the American contingent, Ms. Machado had, by 1962, segued from her role in front of the camera to one behind it. She became fashion director of Harper’s Bazaar, thus clearing yet another professional pathway (one later followed by such models turned editors as Grace Coddington and Tonne Goodman) and helped introduce Lear’s magazine, aimed at the set. Then, at age 81, she signed with IMG Models, becoming an effective octogenarian supermodel. She starred in ad campaigns for Barneys and Cole Haan, and was once again in the pages of Harper’s Bazaar. (Though the Cole Haan campaign was nominally celebrating individuals born in 1928, like the brand, it was the one time Ms. Machado “lied about her age to be older than she was,” Ms. said. “She thought it was close enough. ”) Only last month, she was modeling for a new shoot by the photographer Steven Klein. All without ever having plastic surgery. “You can’t worry about aging because that’s the worst thing,” she once said. “If you start, then you just keep finding more things you don’t like, and then you’re finished. There are a lot of things I could have done to my face, but it would never stop. ” Ms. Machado is survived by her husband, Ricardo Rosa two daughters, Emanuelle and Blanche Lasalle and two grandsons. According to Ivan Bart, the president of IMG Models, “China was instrumental in teaching younger models, ‘Own yourself, own your beauty. ’” Her life showed them how. Ms. Machado was always an exception. But if fashion learns anything from her example, someday, perhaps, she will be the rule. | 0fake |
China says peaceful settlement for North Korea issue wanted | BEIJING (Reuters) - A peaceful settlement of the North Korean nuclear issue is in line with the common will of the international community, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday. Wang and Pence acknowledged the important consensuses both sides have on the denuclearization of the peninsula and agreed to enhance communication over the issue, Xinhua said of the meeting on Wednesday on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York. | 0fake |
This Season’s Best Books on Hollywood - The New York Times | There are two types of show business star: matte and gloss. Matte stars deaden the light, their recesses best revealed in shadow. Creatures of chiaroscuro, they conquer and retreat, like Garbo, turn chameleonic in company, like Brando, alternating sullen disgruntlement with outright . Beards may be involved. Gloss stars, by contrast, eat up the light like a cat sunbathing on a windowsill. They strut with the ease of toddlers showing off to their parents. Think of the peacock thrill of being looked at that John Travolta evinces in “Grease” or Tom Hanks in “Big” or Jennifer Lawrence in anything besides “The Hunger Games. ” Theirs is an egoless egotism that, by dint of the generosity with which it is offered up, yields audiences the promise of transcended, liberated self. Here, have me. Alan Cumming is the latter. His new book, YOU GOTTA GET BIGGER DREAMS: My Life in Stories and Pictures (Rizzoli, $29. 95) is a scrapbook of photographs taken by the actor over the years, accompanied by biographical sketches of what he was up to at the time — prose selfies for a kind of memoir. Here is a shot of Glenn Close’s “totally smoking ripped back” on the red carpet at the Tonys. Here is Eva Mendes’s cleavage at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. Here is a blurry shot of Oprah snapped in the star’s tail winds at an Elie Wiesel Foundation dinner in her honor. “Very famous people create whirlwinds,” he notes, and kicks his book off with a Force 7 gale: Hurricane Liz, whom he runs into at Carrie Fisher’s birthday party and soon has cackling “like a trucker who’d just heard a good fart joke. ” The book ends, some 250 pages later, with the actor’s being barged out of the way by Diana Ross making a beeline for the dance floor at an Oscar party. “The song she was so desperate to dance to was one of her own!” he notes. “Talk about being in the middle of a chain reaction. ” There is a tradition of stars turning paparazzi — Jeff Bridges has taken beautiful photographs on and off the movie set. There’s a tradition, too, of British performers going to Hollywood and returning with their wits intact to write up the experience in memoirs: David Niven set the bar with “The Moon’s a Balloon. ” Quentin Crisp turned his humor into a cottage industry. Cumming has already proved himself a gifted writer with “Not My Father’s Son,” wringing humor from the hard facts of his upbringing in Scotland, not least his brute of a father, who used to shear him with clippers, like a sheep. Cumming Sr. makes a brief appearance at the start of this book, too, sneering at the little plastic Kodak camera that his son wins in a church raffle: “Get on with that grass” — an instruction to which the rest of the book might be said to raise a puckish middle finger. “I am a sensualist,” he writes. “I understand the need to let go. ” There is a curious innocence to his pictures of drag queens and boys snapped on trawls through the dive bars and strip joints of Lower Manhattan, which he eats up “like a deprived child. ” What makes Cumming unusual is that the powers of observation that make him a good writer haven’t canceled out the instincts for pleasure that propel him out into the world. He has advanced and found a retreat within himself, as all artists must, throwing his own to which we are all luckily invited. Think of this book as the goody bag you get to take home afterward. “I had never seen my name engraved on a dildo before,” Cumming writes of his haul from the Fleshbot Awards. “And I had never received an award that I could potentially penetrate myself with, safely at least. ” It’s that “safely” that sets you thinking. He never does get around to finishing his father’s lawn. If celebrity is the biggest party the ego can throw, then the example set by Bill Murray takes the principle a step further, asking: Can the ego crash its own party? In THE TAO OF BILL MURRAY: Stories of Joy, Enlightenment, and Party Crashing (Random House, $26) the Rolling Stone contributing editor Gavin Edwards tracks the mysterious sightings of the comedian made by the public for years. The Scandinavian exchange students’ party he crashed near St. Andrews Links in 2006, where he ended up washing the dishes. The international conference on biodiversity and conservation Murray dropped in on to talk about sturgeon. The music festival in Austin where he popped up behind the bar in 2010, pouring people tequila regardless of their order. The list goes on: a game of kickball on Roosevelt Island, a snowball fight in upstate New York. Typically, festivities end when Murray slips away with the words “No one will ever believe you. ” Edwards has saved some of us a lot of work. Murray watchers have been keeping unofficial scrapbooks of this activity for years, and like many of us, the author suspects there is more going on here than the irrepressibility that has long lightened his forays to the golf course — using spectators’ sweaters to polish his balls, for instance — although Edwards includes these, for good measure. “Our trickster god,” he writes, “Bill isn’t just being a clown. He has a tao, a way of being, a philosophy of life. ” Murray’s deus ex machina are an attempt, in Edwards’s formulation, “to make real life more like the movies. ” He takes careful note of the courses in French and philosophy Murray took at the Sorbonne in the years following his “Ghostbusters” success, where he was exposed to the teachings of the thinker George Gurdjieff, who argued that most of us sleepwalk through our waking lives it is the task of the freethinker to wake us up. There’s no record of these calls ever being unwelcome, although one Williamsburg hipster, disgruntled to find Murray at a Halloween party with the band MGMT, does accuse him of making “poor life choices. ” The bulk of the activity postdates the end of Murray’s second marriage in 2008, but as with his screen performances, the dusting of midlife melancholy adds rather than subtracts from the stories. My favorite has Murray driving a golf cart around the streets of Stockholm with two drunken Swedes singing Cat Stevens’s “Father and Son” until they are stopped by the police. “Bill’s explanation that he was a golfer proved insufficient,” Edwards writes, which may be one of my favorite sentences in any film book this year. There have been greater, weightier testaments to the art of cinema published in 2016 — Edwards’s book is no more than a magazine article, really, padded out with a bio of the comedian and a slightly redundant filmography — but for sheer dopamine release, it’s hard to beat. Tippi Hedren puts gossips out of their misery early on in her memoir, TIPPI ( $28. 99): Barely 37 pages in and here is Alfred Hitchcock, “shorter and even rounder than I was expecting,” casting the model in “The Birds” after seeing her in a Sego commercial. What follows has long been the subject of Hollywood rumor and inspired a 2012 TV film, “The Girl,” so Hedren’s decision to break her silence on her director’s “obsessive, often embarrassingly ardent, often cruel behavior” is a significant addition to our current conversation on sexual assault. Fixing Hedren with an “unwavering stare” wherever she went on set, Hitchcock instructed her “Do not touch The Girl,” had her followed and — creepiest of all — had a “life mask” of her face made for his own personal use. “I’m so sorry you have to go through this,” Hitchcock’s wife, Alma, confides in her at one point. Jay Presson Allen, the writer of her subsequent film with the director, “Marnie,” pleads, “Can’t you love him just a little?” Finally, after a series of “excruciating” encounters in her dressing room and a fumble in the back of his limo, he summons her to his office and assaults her. “It was sexual, it was perverse, and it was ugly,” she writes. “I’ll ruin your career,” Hitchcock threatens upon being rebuffed, and then proceeds to do just that, denying her opportunities to appear opposite David Niven and Marlon Brando in “Bedtime Story” and in François Truffaut’s “Fahrenheit 451. ” But the rest of the book (written with Lindsay Harrison) is not without incident. Hedren marries her manager the pair grow obsessed with lions, start a small animal sanctuary in their backyard and plow every penny into a film epic starring the beasts. A decade in the making, “Roar” has the scent of genuine insanity, involving multiple trips to the E. R. after the cats attack Hedren’s daughter, Melanie Griffith the cinematographer Jan de Bont (later to direct “Speed”) and Hedren herself, who is mauled by a leopard named Pepper. “I sat on the floor with my eyes tightly closed and held perfectly still while I felt his claws on my right thigh, followed by his sandpaper tongue licking honey off my cheek,” she recalls, in slightly more detail than her mauling by Hitchcock. At least Pepper didn’t block her from working with Truffaut. Bryan Cranston’s memoir, A LIFE IN PARTS (Scribner, $27) suffers from the lopsidedness that afflicts any account of fame — Cranston was 51 when he took the role of Walter White in AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” which made him a global star. But Cranston is a storyteller, practiced enough in his skills of to make those five decades pull their weight. Determined not to repeat the path of his father, an actor who appeared on TV shows and in a movie about killer grasshoppers before succumbing to terminal resentment, young Cranston works as a farmhand, learning the correct way to kill a chicken he sees a cadaver split open while a trainee for the Los Angeles Police Department learns how to spot shoppers from thieves while working as a security guard (“Shoppers move quickly. Thieves have a slower pace”) and is motorcycling down the Eastern Seaboard when, seeking refuge from a storm, he reads “Hedda Gabler” in one sitting. As he drifts off to sleep that night, he knows what he wants to do with his life. “I knew how he carried himself. Burdened,” he writes of Walter White, upon being sent the script for “Breaking Bad” by the showrunner Vince Gilligan, who remembered Cranston from a small role he’d given him on “The . ” He’d also, by that point, appeared in six episodes of “Seinfeld” and seven seasons of “Malcolm in the Middle,” and was up against Steve Zahn for the role. As intriguing as the Zahn idea is, it was Cranston’s less glitzy résumé — the years spent doing commercials for Excedrin and Preparation H — that was required for the chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin Walter White: a pinpoint study in frustrated ambition and simmering megalomania, in White’s demented liberation a lusty Gloria in Excelsis Deo for jobbing actors everywhere. Jason Diamond’s SEARCHING FOR JOHN HUGHES: Or Everything I Thought I Needed To Know About Life I Learned From Watching ’80s Movies ( paper, $15. 99) is one of those pop culture bildungsromans in the vein of Nick Hornby’s “Fever Pitch,” wherein a writer enacts an obsessive battle with a pop culture phenomenon that fills his or her sky, before finally realizing the fixation is perilous and parachuting to safety. Growing up Jewish in the Chicago suburbs, beaten by his father, abandoned by his mother, Diamond is by 15 a punk with a carving a Dead Kennedys logo into his desk, seeking plaintive escape in films like “Pretty in Pink,” “Home Alone” and “The Breakfast Club. ” “I wanted to live in a John Hughes film. I wanted everything to turn out just right,” he says, but wonders, “How many more times could I tell myself there’d be a happy ending?” The reader suffers from a similar curiosity. Diamond, now the sports editor at Rollingstone. com, never gets far enough into his John Hughes obsession to explain it, or why his alienation doesn’t express itself in angrier form — the music of Nine Inch Nails, say, rather than the quirky but world of Hughes. But the sweetness is telling, a sign of the strain to his nature that will eventually win out. He moves to New York, takes a job as a barista, starts an unauthorized biography of Hughes, stalls on Chapter 1 (“He’s an artist just screaming to break out,” his notes read) before finally returning to old haunts in Chicago, where he succeeds in laying some of his ghosts to rest and opening a crack of daylight between himself and his idol. I’m not sure Diamond gets enough about Hughes into the book — for long swaths, the title rings literally true — but he has successfully negotiated the writer’s most important rite of passage: He makes himself matter, first to himself and then to us. A sequel to his previous book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” Thomas C. Foster’s READING THE SILVER SCREEN: A Film Lover’s Guide to Decoding the Art Form That Moves (Harper Perennial, paper, $15. 99) aims to make you “a better reader of movies. More informed. More aware. More analytical. ” Despite this lofty aim, the book is written in the style of someone anxious to reassure his readers that they will not be left behind at any point: “Films not only have to have chemistry they’re like chemistry. Now, relax, there won’t be any lab reports. ” Foster goes in for so many of these icebreakers, each an implicit expression of the author’s confident air of superiority, that you grow a little impatient for the fruits of the wisdom whose brilliance he is so thoughtfully shielding from us. What you get is this: “Movies are motion” “If you put enough” shots “together in the right order you get a movie” “Every character has a story” and “A filmmaker can jump from place to place,” but “jumping from time to time is problematic. ” This last observation is so off the mark you wonder if the author has ever seen a movie: “Citizen Kane”? Flashbacks? ? Elliptical editing? Every now and again, one stumbles through the fog of generalities across a piece of analysis born of simple observation: the way John Ford uses Monument Valley to frame the landscape of the West, for example, or the cocoon of alcoves, rooms, elevators and stairwells in Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel. ” “This is a world very much like the actual world between the wars,” Foster writes, citing Ionesco. “Personal freedom is a scarce and fragile commodity. ” It is telling that Foster is at his best when he forgets his readers entirely. Brian Jay Jones’s biography GEORGE LUCAS: A Life (Little, Brown, $32) tells an tale: how a scrawny, easily bored nerd from Modesto, Calif. resisted the lure of his cooler, more flamboyant filmmaking contemporaries to stun the world with cinema aimed at his inner that reshaped Hollywood overnight. The collective double take over “Star Wars” never gets old, although if it’s a definitive reconstruction of the creative spaghetti that fed into the saga you want, then Chris Taylor’s masterly “How Star Wars Conquered the Universe” is your book. Jones, who comes to Lucas from a celebrated life of Jim Henson, tells a more straightforward story in definitive detail, although you have to wonder whether Lucas is a good fit for the biographical format: a cautious, withdrawn man, bland in his tastes, his resentment toward his father driving his fight for autonomy from the studios. So much in Lucasland seems born of peeve and pedantry, it’s a miracle the films are as ebullient as they are, but then that is the Faustian sacrifice behind “Star Wars”: All the fun, humor and adventure in its maker’s life are instead up there on the screen. Crisper pleasures await in BRESSON ON BRESSON: Interviews (New York Review Books, $24. 95) edited by Robert Bresson’s widow, Mylène, and translated by Anna Moschovakis. This collection of interviews reveals the great French filmmaker’s own interview technique to bear more than a passing resemblance to Roger Federer’s drop shot. In shuffles a nervous interviewer to take his or her seat, stealing the odd personal observation: The auteur’s eyes are and he speaks softly. “What was it that drew you to this subject?” he is often asked. It seems innocent enough, but this is Bresson. He thinks, then gently deconstructs the implicit assumptions about cinema contained therein, and rolls the ball back to the interviewer’s feet with a smile. “I don’t choose my subjects. They choose me,” he says. “Films should not have subjects at all. . ’u2008. ’u2008. What I’m trying to do is to come up to the edge of saying too little, in order to try to express with silence what other films express with words — the almost imperceptible things that happen on a face, or in a look in someone’s eyes. ” He interviewed much as he made films: by saying very little, with great eloquence. | 0fake |
The DIRTY TRUTH About DACA Recipients…Where They’re REALLY Coming From…Their CRIMINAL Records…And How They REALLY Got Here | Yesterday, a second U.S. judge on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump s decision to end a program that protects immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children from deportation.U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn ruled that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, cannot end in March as the Republican administration had planned, a victory for Democratic state attorneys general and immigrants who sued the federal government.The decision is similar to a Jan. 9 ruling by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco that DACA must remain in place while litigation challenging Trump s decision continues.The legal battle over DACA complicates a debate currently underway in Congress on whether to change the nation s immigration laws.The Supreme Court on Friday is due to consider whether to take up the administration s appeal of the San Francisco ruling. The court could announce as soon as Friday afternoon whether it will hearing the case. ReutersSince when does a judge unilaterally decide that a program based on an executive order by a radical and lawless president, with an expiration date, can be extended?Peel back the layers of lies that are being told to the American public by Democrats like Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, and their allies in the media, and discover the shocking truth about the Dreamers (or voters) they re fighting so hard to keep in America. According to The Hill, the narrative surrounding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program holds that it was put in place to protect kids who were brought here through no fault of their own. DACA supporters implied that applicants were mostly Hispanic and that as citizens of distressed republics a short distance away from the wealthy United States, their violation of our immigration laws was somehow understandable. Program applicants were also portrayed as brilliant valedictorians and proud members of the military.From the outset, that narrative rang hollow. In a column for the Washington Post, Mickey Kaus described it as public-relations-style hooey. Here s why.New data released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) definitively establishes that most of the DACA narrative is false. Particularly overblown are claims that deported DACA recipients would inevitably be strangers in a strange land.USCIS lists 149 countries of origin for DACA applicants. English is the national language in at least 26 of those countries. Those include the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. A large number of applicants are from India, Hong Kong and the Philippines, where there are enormous English-speaking communities.Other statistics also undermine claims that the United States must take care of the DACAs or condemn them to a life of isolation and poverty.In fact, many DACA applicant s birth countries are listed on the higher end of the common standard of living indexes. Which means that DACA advocates are arguing that the United States has a moral obligation to undermine its own laws in order to avoid returning illegal aliens to countries whose citizens are considered to have a higher standard of living than many Americans.One wonders why it has never occurred to Congress that its primary obligation should be protecting native-born American kids from illegal aliens who compete with them for entry-level jobs and seats at colleges and universities. Curiously, our elected representatives seem remarkably unconcerned about protecting America s standard of living.What is most disturbing about the data released by USCIS, however, is the number of DACA applicants who come from countries associated with terrorism or overt anti-Americanism. This is cause for concern given the lean and lite vetting used to quickly approve DACA applications:Based on the facts rather than the myth it seems clear the individuals who applied for, and received, DACA were not the oppressed, well-meaning, high-achievers that the media and the open-borders lobby portrayed them to be. | 1real |
Election 2016 and the Growing Global Nuclear Threat | Election 2016 and the Growing Global Nuclear Threat Playing a Game of Chicken with Nuclear Strategy Email This Page to Someone Your Name Here's something interesting from The Unz Review... Recipient Name Recipient Email =>
Once upon a time, when choosing a new president, a factor for many voters was the perennial question: “Whose finger do you want on the nuclear button?” Of all the responsibilities of America’s top executive, none may be more momentous than deciding whether, and under what circumstances, to activate the “nuclear codes” — the secret alphanumeric messages that would inform missile officers in silos and submarines that the fearful moment had finally arrived to launch their intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) toward a foreign adversary, igniting a thermonuclear war.
Until recently in the post-Cold War world, however, nuclear weapons seemed to drop from sight, and that question along with it. Not any longer. In 2016, the nuclear issue is back big time, thanks both to the rise of Donald Trump ( including various unsettling comments he’s made about nuclear weapons) and actual changes in the global nuclear landscape.
With passions running high on both sides in this year’s election and rising fears about Donald Trump’s impulsive nature and Hillary Clinton’s hawkish one, it’s hardly surprising that the “nuclear button” question has surfaced repeatedly throughout the campaign. In one of the more pointed exchanges of the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton declared that Donald Trump lacked the mental composure for the job. “A man who can be provoked by a tweet,” she commented , “should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes.” Donald Trump has reciprocated by charging that Clinton is too prone to intervene abroad. “You’re going to end up in World War III over Syria,” he told reporters in Florida last month.
For most election observers, however, the matter of personal character and temperament has dominated discussions of the nuclear issue, with partisans on each side insisting that the other candidate is temperamentally unfit to exercise control over the nuclear codes. There is, however, a more important reason to worry about whose finger will be on that button this time around: at this very moment, for a variety of reasons, the “nuclear threshold” — the point at which some party to a “conventional” (non-nuclear) conflict chooses to employ atomic weapons — seems to be moving dangerously lower.
Not so long ago, it was implausible that a major nuclear power — the United States, Russia, or China — would consider using atomic weapons in any imaginable conflict scenario. No longer. Worse yet, this is likely to be our reality for years to come, which means that the next president will face a world in which a nuclear decision-making point might arrive far sooner than anyone would have thought possible just a year or two ago — with potentially catastrophic consequences for us all.
No less worrisome, the major nuclear powers (and some smaller ones) are all in the process of acquiring new nuclear arms, which could, in theory, push that threshold lower still. These include a variety of cruise missiles and other delivery systems capable of being used in “limited” nuclear wars — atomic conflicts that, in theory at least, could be confined to just a single country or one area of the world (say, Eastern Europe) and so might be even easier for decision-makers to initiate. The next president will have to decide whether the U.S. should actually produce weapons of this type and also what measures should be taken in response to similar decisions by Washington’s likely adversaries.
Lowering the Nuclear Threshold
During the dark days of the Cold War, nuclear strategists in the United States and the Soviet Union conjured up elaborate conflict scenarios in which military actions by the two superpowers and their allies might lead from, say, minor skirmishing along the Iron Curtain to full-scale tank combat to, in the end, the use of “battlefield” nuclear weapons, and then city-busting versions of the same to avert defeat. In some of these scenarios, strategists hypothesized about wielding “tactical” or battlefield weaponry — nukes powerful enough to wipe out a major tank formation, but not Paris or Moscow — and claimed that it would be possible to contain atomic warfare at such a devastating but still sub-apocalyptic level. (Henry Kissinger, for instance, made his reputation by preaching this lunatic doctrine in his first book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy .) Eventually, leaders on both sides concluded that the only feasible role for their atomic arsenals was to act as deterrents to the use of such weaponry by the other side. This was, of course, the concept of “ mutually assured destruction ,” or — in one of the most classically apt acronyms of all times: MAD. It would, in the end, form the basis for all subsequent arms control agreements between the two superpowers.
Anxiety over the escalatory potential of tactical nuclear weapons peaked in the 1970s when the Soviet Union began deploying the SS-20 intermediate-range ballistic missile (capable of striking cities in Europe, but not the U.S.) and Washington responded with plans to deploy nuclear-armed, ground-launched cruise missiles and the Pershing-II ballistic missile in Europe. The announcement of such plans provoked massive antinuclear demonstrations across Europe and the United States. On December 8, 1987, at a time when worries had been growing about how a nuclear conflagration in Europe might trigger an all-out nuclear exchange between the superpowers, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
That historic agreement — the first to eliminate an entire class of nuclear delivery systems — banned the deployment of ground-based cruise or ballistic missiles with a range of 500 and 5,500 kilometers and required the destruction of all those then in existence. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation inherited the USSR’s treaty obligations and pledged to uphold the INF along with other U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements. In the view of most observers, the prospect of a nuclear war between the two countries practically vanished as both sides made deep cuts in their atomic stockpiles in accordance with already existing accords and then signed others, including the New START , the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 2010.
Today, however, this picture has changed dramatically. The Obama administration has concluded that Russia has violated the INF treaty by testing a ground-launched cruise missile of prohibited range, and there is reason to believe that, in the not-too-distant future, Moscow might abandon that treaty altogether. Even more troubling, Russia has adopted a military doctrine that favors the early use of nuclear weapons if it faces defeat in a conventional war, and NATO is considering comparable measures in response. The nuclear threshold, in other words, is dropping rapidly.
Much of this is due, it seems, to Russian fears about its military inferiority vis-à-vis the West. In the chaotic years following the collapse of the USSR, Russian military spending plummeted and the size and quality of its forces diminished accordingly. In an effort to restore Russia’s combat capabilities, President Vladimir Putin launched a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar expansion and modernization program. The fruits of this effort were apparent in the Crimea and Ukraine in 2014, when Russian forces, however disguised, demonstrated better fighting skills and wielded better weaponry than in the Chechnya wars a decade earlier. Even Russian analysts acknowledge, however, that their military in its current state would be no match for American and NATO forces in a head-on encounter, given the West’s superior array of conventional weaponry. To fill the breach, Russian strategic doctrine now calls for the early use of nuclear weapons to offset an enemy’s superior conventional forces.
To put this in perspective, Russian leaders ardently believe that they are the victims of a U.S.-led drive by NATO to encircle their country and diminish its international influence. They point, in particular, to the build-up of NATO forces in the Baltic countries, involving the semi-permanent deployment of combat battalions in what was once the territory of the Soviet Union, and in apparent violation of promises made to Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not do so. As a result, Russia has been bolstering its defenses in areas bordering Ukraine and the Baltic states, and training its troops for a possible clash with the NATO forces stationed there.
This is where the nuclear threshold enters the picture. Fearing that it might be defeated in a future clash, its military strategists have called for the early use of tactical nuclear weapons, some of which no doubt would violate the INF Treaty, in order to decimate NATO forces and compel them to quit fighting. Paradoxically, in Russia, this is labeled a “ de-escalation ” strategy, as resorting to strategic nuclear attacks on the U.S. under such circumstances would inevitably result in Russia’s annihilation. On the other hand, a limited nuclear strike (so the reasoning goes) could potentially achieve success on the battlefield without igniting all-out atomic war. As Eugene Rumer of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace explains, this strategy assumes that such supposedly “limited” nuclear strikes “will have a sobering effect on the enemy, which will then cease and desist.”
To what degree tactical nuclear weapons have been incorporated into Moscow’s official military doctrine remains unknown, given the degree of secrecy surrounding such matters. It is apparent, however, that the Russians have been developing the means with which to conduct such “limited” strikes. Of greatest concern to Western analysts in this regard is their deployment of the Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile, a modern version of the infamous Soviet-era “Scud” missile (used by Saddam Hussein’s forces during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 and the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991). Said to have a range of 500 kilometers (just within the INF limit), the Iskander can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead. As a result, a targeted country or a targeted military could never be sure which type it might be facing (and might simply assume the worst). Adding to such worries, the Russians have deployed the Iskander in Kaliningrad, a tiny chunk of Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania that just happens to put it within range of many western European cities.
In response, NATO strategists have discussed lowering the nuclear threshold themselves, arguing — ominously enough — that the Russians will only be fully dissuaded from employing their limited-nuclear-war strategy if they know that NATO has a robust capacity to do the same. At the very least, what’s needed, some of them claim , is a more frequent inclusion of nuclear-capable or dual-use aircraft in exercises on Russia’s frontiers to “signal” NATO’s willingness to resort to limited nuclear strikes, too. Again, such moves are not yet official NATO strategy, but it’s clear that senior officials are weighing them seriously.
Just how all of this might play out in a European crisis is, of course, unknown, but both sides in an increasingly edgy standoff are coming to accept that nuclear weapons might have a future military role, which is, of course, a recipe for almost unimaginable escalation and disaster of an apocalyptic sort. This danger is likely to become more pronounced in the years ahead because both Washington and Moscow seem remarkably intent on developing and deploying new nuclear weapons designed with just such needs in mind.
The New Nuclear Armaments
Both countries are already in the midst of ambitious and extremely costly efforts to “ modernize ” their nuclear arsenals. Of all the weapons now being developed, the two generating the most anxiety in terms of that nuclear threshold are a new Russian ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) and an advanced U.S. air-launched cruise missile (ALCM). Unlike ballistic missiles, which exit the Earth’s atmosphere before returning to strike their targets, such cruise missiles remain within the atmosphere throughout their flight.
American officials claim that the Russian GLCM, reportedly now being deployed, is of a type outlawed by the INF Treaty. Without providing specifics, the State Department indicated in a 2014 memo that it had “a range capability of 500 km [kilometers] to 5,500 km,” which would indeed put it in violation of that treaty by allowing Russian combat forces to launch nuclear warheads against cities throughout Europe and the Middle East in a “limited” nuclear war.
The GLCM is likely to prove one of the most vexing foreign policy issues the next president will face. So far, the White House has been reluctant to press Moscow too hard, fearing that the Russians might respond by exiting the INF Treaty altogether and so eliminate remaining constraints on its missile program. But many in Congress and among Washington’s foreign policy elite are eager to see the next occupant of the Oval Office take a tougher stance if the Russians don’t halt deployment of the missile, threatening Moscow with more severe economic sanctions or moving toward countermeasures like the deployment of enhanced anti-missile systems in Europe. The Russians would, in turn, undoubtedly perceive such moves as threats to their strategic deterrent forces and so an invitation for further weapons acquisitions, setting off a fresh round in the long-dormant Cold War nuclear arms race.
On the American side, the weapon of immediate concern is a new version of the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, usually carried by B-52 bombers. Also known as the Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO), it is, like the Iskander-M, expected to be deployed in both nuclear and conventional versions, leaving those on the potential receiving end unsure what might be heading their way. In other words, as with the Iskander-M, the intended target might assume the worst in a crisis, leading to the early use of nuclear weapons. Put another way, such missiles make for twitchy trigger fingers and are likely to lead to a heightened risk of nuclear war, which, once started, might in turn take Washington and Moscow right up the escalatory ladder to a planetary holocaust.
No wonder former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry called on President Obama to cancel the ALCM program in a recent Washington Post op-ed piece. “Because they… come in both nuclear and conventional variants,” he wrote, “cruise missiles are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon.” And this issue is going to fall directly into the lap of the next president.
The New Nuclear Era
Whoever is elected on November 8th, we are evidently all headed into a world in which Trumpian-style itchy trigger fingers could be the norm. It already looks like both Moscow and Washington will contribute significantly to this development — and they may not be alone. In response to Russian and American moves in the nuclear arena, China is reported to be developing a “ hypersonic glide vehicle ,” a new type of nuclear warhead better able to evade anti-missile defenses — something that, at a moment of heightened crisis, might make a nuclear first strike seem more attractive to Washington. And don’t forget Pakistan, which is developing its own short-range “tactical” nuclear missiles, increasing the risk of the quick escalation of any future Indo-Pakistani confrontation to a nuclear exchange. (To put such “regional” dangers in perspective, a local nuclear war in South Asia could cause a global nuclear winter and, according to one study , possibly kill a billion people worldwide, thanks to crop failures and the like.)
And don’t forget North Korea, which is now testing a nuclear-armed ICBM, the Musudan, intended to strike the Western United States. That prompted a controversial decision in Washington to deploy THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) anti-missile batteries in South Korea (something China bitterly opposes), as well as the consideration of other countermeasures, including undoubtedly scenarios involving first strikes against the North Koreans.
It’s clear that we’re on the threshold of a new nuclear era: a time when the actual use of atomic weapons is being accorded greater plausibility by military and political leaders globally, while war plans are being revised to allow the use of such weapons at an earlier stage in future armed clashes.
As a result, the next president will have to grapple with nuclear weapons issues — and possible nuclear crises — in a way unknown since the Cold War era. Above all else, this will require both a cool head and a sufficient command of nuclear matters to navigate competing pressures from allies, the military, politicians, pundits, and the foreign policy establishment without precipitating a nuclear conflagration. On the face of it, that should disqualify Donald Trump. When questioned on nuclear issues in the first debate, he exhibited a striking ignorance of the most basic aspects of nuclear policy. But even Hillary Clinton, for all her experience as secretary of state, is likely to have a hard time grappling with the pressures and dangers that are likely to arise in the years ahead, especially given that her inclination is to toughen U.S. policy toward Russia.
In other words, whoever enters the Oval Office, it may be time for the rest of us to take up those antinuclear signs long left to molder in closets and memories, and put some political pressure on leaders globally to avoid strategies and weapons that would make human life on this planet so much more precarious than it already is.
Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular , is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for What’s Left . A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation . Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1. (Reprinted from TomDispatch by permission of author or representative) | 1real |
First Lady Melania Trump Defies Critics…Rocks Beautiful Stilettos On Second Trip To Texas [Video] | The media will lose it again because Melania Trump wore stilettos on her way to Texas. Nevermind that she ll probably change when she gets there. FLOTUS ROCKS!Pres. Trump, Melania Trump depart for Texas, their second trip to the storm-battered region this week https://t.co/kg45OOc9L4 pic.twitter.com/J2RfhH9Agg ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 2, 2017IN CASE YOU MISSED STILETTOGATE HERE S OUR PREVIOUS REPORT: President Trump and First Lady Melania traveled down to Texas today to assist with and show support for flood victims. You d think the press would point out that this is a great gesture by the First Couple but that s not the case. The press could only focus on the fact that the First Lady wore heels on her departure to Texas. They mocked her saying she wasn t quite ready to help flood victims: Melania s shoes are impressive but perhaps not what I would wear to a city submerged in floodwaters, wrote Elizabeth Bruenig, an assistant editor at the Washington Post.Those stilettos should help her stay above the flood line https://t.co/dQ89fK18N5 Ryan Teague Beckwith (@ryanbeckwith) August 29, 2017Melania is wearing stilettos to a hurricane zone: https://t.co/29WIwlipab erica orden (@eorden) August 29, 2017She had on all black with a pair of black stilettos Who cares? At least she made the trip! We can t say the same for Michelle Obama during the Louisiana floods!We checked into what Michelle Obama wore to visit the Louisiana floods Oops! She didn t go! Remember that she was on vacation with Barack and the girls but then came home and didn t make the trip with Barack.We checked to see if Michelle went to New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy Oops! She didn t go to that either!MELANIA GETS THE LAST LAUGH:Guess what Melania had on when she arrived in TEXAS? TENNIS SHOES! Is she ready enough now?First lady Melania Trump wore a baseball hat that said FLOTUS as she exited Air Force One upon landing in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Tuesday.First Lady Melania and President Trump arrive in Texas to be briefed on Harvey s devastating aftermath pic.twitter.com/Dz0IbQBRk3 Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) August 29, 2017The first lady had her hair pulled back in a ponytail under the black hat with white lettering.She also wore white sneakers, black pants, and a white button-up shirt.LOOKING GREAT!Read more: WE | 1real |
GOP Senate Candidate Says Kids Were Murdered At Sandy Hook Because His God Was Angry | I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. That s a pretty easy quote from Gandhi to understand. The man was complicated and problematic in a lot of ways, but this one quote never loses its edge for me, because it s so simple.I have no doubt, however, that firebrand GOP Senate hopeful Roy Moore would dismiss it as the ramblings of a skinny brown cultist. I mean, Hinduism has to be a cult, since there s no story of a savior coming back from the dead, no fire and brimstone and angry gods. I mean, there are, but not Roy s angry God.Roy s angry God is apparently the guy responsible for the murders of 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary five years ago this December. You see, Roy s God is the one from the Old Testament of the Bible, and the book that Roy gets this particular idea from was apparently written 800 years before Christ came around. Laws were different then. You couldn t eat shrimp or cut your hair at the temples, and I guess if you were a biblical lady, you probably should have been essentially in hiding the entire time you menstruated, because holy shit, was that frowned on.In fact, that book of the Bible, Hosea, has 197 verses in it, and they re essentially all about how terrible everyone is, and how God wants to smite them because they don t love Him enough.They turned away from the Laws Of God, you see, and that meant the Almighty laid the smack down on them. Translated into current context, Roy Moore says, that means God instructed Adam Lanza to pull the trigger on those children and eventually himself, because America, like the Northern Kingdom of Israel before her, is worshiping false idols.Personally, I think Hosea himself was just an angry dude. His wife (Gomer) cheated on him, and God made him give his kids funny names, and he wasn t even sure if the last kid was his Well, the story s pretty convoluted, really, but suffice it to say, if I had been designated as one of God s main spokesmen and I was going through some shit like Hosea was, I can imagine telling my wife that all the bad things happening to her were happening because she was a sinner.It s not very Christian, though.In fact, it s pretty gross. Here s video of the guy who s probably going to win a Senate seat in Alabama telling a church in the town of Guin that God murders children when He s angry:On TV today we played footage I found of Roy Moore saying the Newtown, CT. shooting happened because we forgot God's law. pic.twitter.com/jzyVD4tIcW ?andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) September 27, 2017I know the Bible is a long book, but let s hope Roy gets to the New Testament soon.Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images | 1real |
China releases draft law to expand power of new anti-graft body | BEIJING (Reuters) - China s legislature on Monday released the first public draft of a law giving a nascent super-ministry powers to detain, investigate and punish public servants, widening President Xi Jinping s signature war on graft. A National Supervision Commission that combines several anti-graft bodies, set to be launched next year, will spearhead Xi s campaign and expand its scope beyond the ruling Communist Party to any civil servant. At last month s five-yearly party congress, Xi pledged to continue the campaign to root out deep-seated corruption in the party, which has ensnared more than 1.3 million officials. The public has a deadline of Dec. 5 to comment on the draft, but the largely rubber-stamp legislature did not say when the final law would be implemented. The new commission will be empowered to investigate, interrogate and detain government workers, besides freezing their assets and seizing property, the draft released by the parliament, the National People s Congress, shows. The new law would further centralize the power of anti-graft investigations and apply to bureaucrats, including teachers at government schools and managers at state-owned enterprises. The draft gave new details of a detention system to replace a controversial practice of questioning suspects at undisclosed sites without legal representation, known as shuanggui , which rights activists say carries the threat of torture and abuse. The new measures can be used when the case is major or sensitive , when a subject is at risk of fleeing or suicide, when there is danger of collusion or evidence tampering or other forms of obstruction to the investigation, the draft said. Detained suspects must sign off on all confessions and their family or work unit should be notified within 24 hours, it added, with a three-month limit on the interrogation that can be doubled in special circumstances , which it did not specify. The draft includes measures to monitor the finances of those suspected of graft, to avoid their fleeing overseas. Separately, the Party s official People s Daily on Monday provided frontpage details of trial commissions launched in January in the capital, Beijing, and the eastern province of Zhejiang and northern Shanxi. In Zhejiang, the commission handled than 24,000 cases from January to August, more than double the number handled by the authorities during the year-ago period, Xinhua said. In Shanxi, the total number of people overseen by anti-graft authorities jumped to 530,000 from 131,500, it said. | 0fake |
Scandalous: Nobody tell Jay Z that Donald Trump used the word ‘ghettos’ in a campaign speech | — Libertarian Larry (@Libertarian5000) October 28, 2016 @CNNPolitics So! Definition: A part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a minority group or groups.
— Patrick Driver (@PDriverKC) October 28, 2016
“Slum area” sounds pretty sketchy as well. Let’s see; the Associated Press suggests that reporters use section, district, quarter, or … slum area? Come on. @CNNPolitics Yeah, so? That's what a ghetto is. You're grasping at straws.
— Naly (@nalywid) October 28, 2016
When you’re at Starbucks they let you do it. Grasp straws by the handful. You can do anything. @CNNPolitics I guess this is more important than pay to play and government corruption which should disqualify @HillaryClinton Good work CNN
— Andrew Mack (@5MACKnIT) October 28, 2016 @CNNPolitics any email news lately to report? 🤔
— Lois Lasseigne (@LoisLasseigne) October 28, 2016 @CNNPolitics you just don't get that the rest of America is sick of your PC bullshit. #DrainTheSwamp #WikiLeaks
— Deplorable Mike (@wrenchboy) October 28, 2016
Where did Trump even pick up such a word? @CNNPolitics Maybe he heard it in a rap song.
— Nick Titan (@nicktitanmill) October 28, 2016
Chances are pretty good that Donald Trump has never heard a rap song, unlike West Coast rap aficionado Hillary Clinton . Trending Flip-flop: Vox warns of serious risk of Election Day violence, and not the good kind either
She certainly knows that ghetto is not OK in mainstream political discourse, but hopefully there’s an exception for Jay Z’s Get Out the Vote concert on her behalf in Cleveland … C-town is going to be counting on Hova to deliver classics like “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” and “So Ghetto.”
* * *
Related : BIG PIMPIN’. Guess who’s headlining a concert JUST for Hillary? [hint, he raps about b*tches and ho’s] https://t.co/seRszhM4yE | 1real |
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Factbox: Contenders for key jobs in Trump's administration | (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump held meetings in New York on Monday as he worked to fill administration positions ahead of his inauguration on Jan. 20. Below are people mentioned as contenders for senior roles. See end of list for posts already filled. * Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive and Trump’s campaign finance chairman * Jeb Hensarling, U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee * Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive officer * Tom Barrack, founder and chairman of Colony Capital Inc * Jonathan Gray, global head of real estate at the Blackstone Group * Mitt Romney, 2012 presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor * Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City * Nikki Haley, governor of South Carolina * John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush * Bob Corker, U.S. senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee * Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq * James Mattis, retired Marine general * David Petraeus, former CIA director and retired general * Tom Cotton, U.S. senator from Arkansas * Jon Kyl, former U.S. senator from Arizona * Duncan Hunter, U.S. representative from California and early Trump supporter, member of the House Armed Services Committee * Jim Talent, former U.S. senator from Missouri who was on the Senate Armed Services Committee * Kelly Ayotte, outgoing U.S. senator from New Hampshire and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee * Rick Perry, former Texas governor * Tom Price, U.S. representative from Georgia who is an orthopedic surgeon * Rick Scott, Florida governor * Rich Bagger, former pharmaceutical executive and former top aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie * Bobby Jindal, former Louisiana governor * Michael McCaul, U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee * David Clarke, Milwaukee county sheriff and vocal Trump supporter * Joe Arpaio, outgoing Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff who campaigned for Trump * Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state * Jeff Holmstead, energy lawyer, former EPA official during George W. Bush administration * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Leslie Rutledge, Arkansas attorney general * Carol Comer, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management * Harold Hamm, Oklahoma oil and gas mogul, chief executive of Continental Resources Inc * Kevin Cramer, U.S. Representative from North Dakota * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Larry Nichols, co-founder of Devon Energy Corp * James Connaughton, chief executive of Nautilus Data Technologies and a former environmental adviser to President George W. Bush * Rick Perry, former Texas governor * Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee * Jan Brewer, former Arizona governor * Forrest Lucas, founder of oil products company Lucas Oil * Harold Hamm, Oklahoma oil and gas mogul, chief executive of Continental Resources Inc * Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors * Mary Fallin, Oklahoma governor * Ray Washburne, chief executive of investment company Charter Holdings * Wilbur Ross, billionaire investor, chairman of Invesco Ltd subsidiary WL Ross & Co * Linda McMahon, former World Wrestling Entertainment executive and two-time Senate candidate * Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency * Ronald Burgess, retired lieutenant general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief * Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency * Pete Hoekstra, former U.S. representative from Michigan * Kelly Ayotte, outgoing U.S. senator from New Hampshire and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee * Richard Grenell, former spokesman for the United States at the United Nations * Peter King, U.S. representative from New York * Tulsi Gabbard, a war veteran and Democratic U.S. representative from Hawaii * Dan DiMicco, former chief executive of steel producer Nucor Corp * Andrew Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants * Victoria Lipnic, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission commissioner and former Labor Department official during the George W. Bush administration The Trump transition team confirmed he would choose from a list of 21 names he drew up during his campaign, including U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, and William Pryor, a federal judge with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. * Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus * Steve Bannon, former head of the conservative website Breitbart News * Jeff Sessions, Republican U.S. senator from Alabama and senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (subject to Senate confirmation) * Republican U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo from Kansas (subject to Senate confirmation) * Michael Flynn, retired Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency | 0fake |
Norway says sunken Russian helicopter wreckage may have been located | OSLO/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Norwegian rescuers believe they may have located the sunken wreckage of a Russian helicopter that went missing on Thursday with eight people aboard off the coast of the Arctic Svalbard archipelago. We ve found oil spills and air bubbles rising to the surface, and a vessel in the area has observed what appears to be a submerged object. It may be the helicopter, Tore Hongset, the leader of Norway s rescue coordination center, told Reuters. A remotely operated mini submarine was being flown to the site and would likely be deployed in the early hours of Friday to help verify whether a discovery had been made, he added. A search for survivors would continue, the rescue center said, noting that the helicopter was equipped with life rafts. Russia s Emergency Ministry said the five crew and three passengers were Russians. The Russian-made Mil Mi-8 aircraft had been reported missing around 1335 GMT. The three passengers were working for Russia s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, the Russian Energy Ministry said in a statement. The helicopter was on its way from the abandoned Pyramiden settlement to the coal mining port of Barentsburg, but was later confirmed to have gone down in the ocean a few kilometers from its destination. Several vessels were in the area, according to shipping data from Marinetraffic.com. The ship of the governor of Svalbard, the Polarsyssel, was coordinating the search. The Russian coal company Arktikugol runs the coal mine at Barentsburg, which employs Russian and Ukrainian miners. An official at the Russian company Convers Avia Air told Reuters it owned the helicopter and had lost communication with it. Earlier, Hongset told Norwegian broadcaster TV2: For every minute that goes by, the risk of hypothermia and death rises. Located around 700 kilometers (435 miles) north of the European mainland, Svalbard is governed under a treaty that grants NATO-member Norway sovereignty while allowing other signatories to do business and exploit natural resources. More than 40 countries are parties to the treaty. Moscow has maintained a presence on the islands for decades as a strategic foothold in the high north. | 0fake |
NYT: Trump’s Climate Decision ’A Victory’ for Steve Bannon, Pruitt - Breitbart | President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement Thursday marked a decisive win for Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, as reported by the New York Times. [From the Times: advertisement | 0fake |
Obama's Attorney General Warned FBI Director Not to Inform Congress of New Hillary Investigation | Obama's Attorney General Warned FBI Director Not to Inform Congress of New Hillary Investigation
The media is shamelessly spinning this corrupt behavior by Attorney General Lynch as standard protocol and blasting the FBI from deviating from some imaginary standard in which Democratic presidential candidates are supposed to be immune from the consequences of their criminality . And Congress is meant to be kept in the dark.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates disagreed with FBI Director James Comey's decision to notify Congress about his bureau's review of emails potentially related to Hillary Clinton's personal server, law enforcement officials familiar with the discussion said.
There was no direct confrontation between Lynch or Yates and Comey. Instead, the disagreements were conveyed to Comey by Justice Department staff, who advised the FBI chief his letter would be against department policy to not comment on investigations close to an election, the officials said.
It is in line with policy though for Lynch to have met with Bill Clinton.
But yes, a Hillary backer disagreed with a course of action damaging to her candidate.
Comeydecided to disregard their concerns and sent the letter Friday anyway, shaking the presidential race 11 days before the election and nearly four months after the FBI chief said he wouldn't recommend criminal charges over the Democratic nominee's use of the server.
The officials acknowledged there was little Lynch and Yates could do given the fallout over Lynch's controversial meeting over the summer with former President Bill Clinton.
Note how the media is spinning this as Comey's drastic course of action while Lynch is just being a responsible public servant. The default assumption is that Comey is in the wrong for providing information to one of the major branches of government and the greater public. | 1real |
Putin: Crimean Integration Into Russian Legal Framework Goes Forward | Get short URL 0 23 0 0 The integration of Crimea into the Russian legal and administrative systems is a complex process, but the majority of the key issues have already been addressed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.
YALTA (Russia), (Sputnik) — During the All-Russia People's Front forum in Crimea, Putin said: "There are a lot of questions and small problems, which are invisible at first glance. The federal authorities try to do something themselves, but they do not know the local conditions… That's why the question of entering, as I said, the Russian legal and administrative framework has turned out to be a difficult process, but we have practically overcome the main issues."
The president also noted that one of the main impediments to progress has been the fact that local authorities, who have volunteered to oversee the integration, "do not know how the laws and the system of Russia are organized." Putin: Drinking Water Issue in Crimea No Longer Acute The two-day regional All-Russia People's Front forum, called the 'Forum of action. Crimea,' covered issues of energy, gas supplies, development of agricultural industry and other promising sectors of the economy.
Crimea , Russia's historical southern region, seceded from Ukraine to rejoin Russia in March 2014. Almost 97 percent of the region's population voted for reunification in a referendum. Sevastopol, which has a federal city status, supported the move by 95.6 percent of votes. The referendum was held after a coup in Ukraine in February 2014. ... | 1real |
Al Shabaab bomb kills 12 in Somalia's Puntland | BOSSASO, Somalia (Reuters) - An al Shabaab bomb attack killed 12 people, including five soldiers, in Somalia s Puntland region on Friday, the Puntland military said. The explosions hit Af-Urur, 100 km (60 miles) south of the city of Bossaso. Af-Urur is near the Galgala hills, an area controlled by al Shabaab Islamists who have attacked and captured the town several times and in June killed 38 people there. A bomb planted near the khat market of Af-Urur exploded, Major Mohamed Ismail, a Puntland military officer, told Reuters. So far 12 people including civilians and soldiers have died. The attack coincided with Eid al-Adha, a Muslim holiday. Al Shabaab, which is linked to al Qaeda and wants to impose strict Islamic law, claimed responsibility. We are behind the attack in Af-Urur village. We killed five soldiers and injured 10 others, al Shabaab s military operations spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab told Reuters. | 0fake |
Attorney General Sessions visits White House, not Trump | ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was at the White House on Monday but did not meet with President Donald Trump, who referred to him in a tweet as “beleaguered” earlier in the day, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. Sanders reiterated that Trump was frustrated with Sessions for recusing himself from the Justice Department’s Russia investigation. Sessions said last week he loved his job and planned to continue serving. | 0fake |
Breitbart News Daily: Comey’s Revenge - Breitbart | On the Wednesday edition of Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 6AM to 9AM Eastern, Breitbart Alex Marlow will continue our discussion of the Trump administration’s agenda. [Scott Uehlinger, former CIA operations officer and of “The Station Chief” podcast, will discuss the latest deep state leaked stories coming out of the Trump White House concerning the Comey firing and the Washington Post’s story alleging that Trump revealed classified information during a meeting with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister. Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton will also weigh in on the media’s coverage of the Comey firing and Washington Post story. Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy will discuss the Washington Post story and the recent global ransomware cyberattacks. Live from London, Rome, and Jerusalem, Breitbart correspondents will provide updates on the latest international news. Breitbart News Daily is the first live, conservative radio enterprise to air seven days a week. SiriusXM Vice President for news and talk Dave Gorab called the show “the conservative news show of record. ” Follow Breitbart News on Twitter for live updates during the show. Listeners may call into the show at: . | 0fake |
John Bolton: I’m Concerned That U.S. Is Pushing Back on Israeli Settlements, Delaying Jerusalem Embassy Move | On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, SiriusXM host Alex Marlow asked former U. N. Ambassador John Bolton about the Trump administration’s evidently softening support for Israeli settlement construction. [“I’m concerned about it. I’m concerned about the fact that the embassy hasn’t been moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” Bolton said. “It has the mark of the kind of thinking you hear at the State Department, that questions like the final status of Jerusalem and the argument that settlements are an obstacle to peace. We’ve been hearing these kinds of arguments for 30 or 40 years, and they appear to have gained some traction. ” “Now, I don’t want to read too much into it,” he added. “I’m not saying it’s the end of the world. But if you look at, for example, all of the campaign promises in effect that candidate Trump made, he’s really done an unbelievable job and showed, I think, he’s not a normal politician, in the number of those promises he’s already begun to fulfill or actually fulfilled. The embassy move is kind of conspicuous at this point, so I worry about it. ” “I understand, and I would certainly advocate that when you’re ready to announce it, you’re going to need some very active diplomacy to calm our European friends down, to talk to our friends in the Arab world, to explain why it is we’re doing it. You need a strategy. You need to be prepared for it. I grant all that. But that doesn’t take forever to do, and we’re now approaching the third week. So I don’t know where the vibes are coming from, but I have to say that the fact that this has slowed down, and the comments about the settlements should lead us to ask, ‘What’s the story?’ I think we need to hear more from the administration on that point,” he said. “The State Department, all you have to do is tap them on the knee, and you get these kinds of responses. So it could be that somehow or another, this kind of thinking has wended its way over to the White House, and some people over there have been attracted to it, for reasons I don’t frankly understand,” Bolton suggested. “I mean, the ‘peace processers,’ as they’ve been called, have been at this for a long time, and ultimately it’s always Israel that has to strike the deal, as it did for Egypt and the Camp David accord, as it’s done with Jordan. Our theories about what’s going to lead to peace or what we think the best way to proceed is, is not necessarily as acutely aware of the sensitivities in the region as Israel is. ” “We’re fortunate, I think, that Prime Minister Netanyahu, who will be coming next week, he and President Trump can sit down and hash all this out. Hopefully, both on Iran and on some of these things like the embassy and the settlements, maybe we’ll see some clarity emerge from that meeting,” he said. Bolton offered a fiery denunciation of British House of Commons Speaker John Bercow for effectively banning President Trump from speaking before Parliament. “This man is an embarrassment to the British Parliament,” he declared. “There are just any number of stories of his behavior. The position of Speaker of the House of Commons is not the same as in our system, the Speaker of the House of Representatives that Paul Ryan holds. It’s much more of a ceremonial position. This fellow Bercow, again for reasons I don’t understand, is a Conservative Party member, but he doesn’t follow the leadership. He’s a completely independent figure. That’s fine. That’s the British constitutional tradition. But somehow, they’ve gotten somebody who seems to think that he has some voice that gives him a role in British politics way beyond his capabilities. ” “I think Theresa May’s government, the prime minister, I’m sure she’s outraged at this and would like to try and find a way to correct it. Hopefully, she will,” he added. Marlow also asked Bolton about a new Rasmussen poll that shows Democrats believe Muslims in the United States are worse off than Christians in the Middle East. “I hadn’t heard of that poll, but that is simply bizarre,” Bolton responded. “If you go to the U. S. Commission on International Religious Freedom or look at any number of people who have studied this question of the persecution of Christians around the world — former Senator Joe Lieberman refers to it often — you can see the real threat that they’re under. ” “Right in the Middle East now, the Christians in Syria affected by ISIS and the civil war there, they’re the ones we should be granting refugee status to in the United States. But they’re even afraid to come into the refugee camps because the extremists are dominant there, and they’re worried they’ll be in danger even in U. N. refugee camps. So how people can come to that conclusion is beyond me. Maybe they just watch too much MSNBC,” Bolton said. Marlow built on that point to suggest the Rasmussen poll is evidence that Democrats “live in a bubble, and they don’t seem to get any information outside of the establishment press. ” Bolton said he found the results of the poll “inexplicable” as anything but a partisan information bubble. “There’s no reason, no justification for discriminating against anybody simply because of their religion in this country. That’s what we have a First Amendment for. It was vital to the founding of our country. I think most Americans, whatever their feelings about party affiliation, really are prepared to be tolerant of any religion that respects and tolerates other religions, as well. So I think your point about Democrats living in a bubble is absolutely right,” he told Marlow. “That should trouble us. It’s not just that they’re wrong it’s that fundamentally, this is going to have a negative effect on our democracy if people are operating in such a universe,” Bolton warned. John Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and founder of 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 |
Obama rallies Obamacare troops at 'critical time' for program | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Thursday urged more than 25,000 volunteers and advocates who dialed in to a White House conference call to pull out the stops to boost the number of people signing up for Obamacare health insurance plans. Obama warned it will be challenging to overcome the skepticism about the plans given an onslaught of headlines about surging premium prices, but he said the stakes are high. “I think we’re at a critical time where we have to show that this program works for people, if they just see what their options are,” he told the volunteers, who work in their communities to encourage and assist enrollment. Americans who do not receive health insurance through their employer or through Medicare or Medicaid programs shop online for subsidized insurance plans starting Nov. 1 until the end of January. The average premium for benchmark 2017 plans sold on healthcare.gov rose 25 percent compared with 2016. Obama said tax credits will help more than seven in 10 shoppers get a plan for less than $75 per month, but said many may not bother looking because they have heard about spiking costs. “We’re going to have to clear the bugs off the windshield so people can see the road ahead, and that’s where you guys come in,” Obama said. The law has been fought by Republicans in Congress, who said it creates unwarranted government intervention in personal healthcare and private industry. Several big insurers, including UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH.N), Aetna Inc (AET.N) and Humana Inc (HUM.N), are pulling out of the online marketplaces selling the subsidized plans, citing bigger-than-expected financial losses. Aetna Chief Executive Mark Bertolini said on Thursday that the earliest his company may return to the marketplaces would be 2019. Obama said more young and healthy people need to sign up for plans. That would offset insurers’ costs of covering members with serious illnesses. Obama has said there are a series of improvements that could be made to his signature domestic policy achievement - the 2010 Affordable Care Act - if Congress and the next president, who will take office on Jan. 20, can work together. “Part of what we can do this time is to overcome the skeptics, to prove people wrong, and to provide momentum so that when the next administration comes in, they are starting from a position of strength,” Obama told the conference call. | 0fake |
Germany to cut pension contributions, free up 1.3 billion euros: sources | BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany plans to reduce the combined pension contributions it takes from employers and employees by a total of 1.3 billion euros in 2018 due to record-high employment and a rising level of reserves, government sources said on Friday. The contributions for 2018 that both employers and employees pay into the public pension system will be lowered by 0.1 percentage points to 18.6 percent of the total wage package, government officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity. That means employers and employees, who roughly share the contribution, will have about 1.3 billion euros more next year, the government officials said. The exact figures will be agreed after the government has published its updated tax revenue estimates due on Nov. 9, the officials said. The cabinet could then formally agree the reduction on Nov. 22. According to calculations thus far, pension contributions were meant to remain stable at 18.7 percent until 2021 and then rise to 18.9 percent in 2022 due to Germany s rapidly ageing society. Despite a recent rise in the birth rate and the arrival of more than a million migrants, experts estimate the working age population, whose pension contributions support the growing number of retirees, will shrink massively in the next decade. Employers in Europe s biggest economy often complain about the high level of pension contributions and regularly urge the government to lower the level. A survey of Germany s DIHK Chambers of Industry and Commerce showed on Thursday that companies view rising labor costs as one of the principle risks for future growth. | 0fake |
For our freedom and yours | November 4, 2016 For our freedom and yours
IF EUROPEAN history once seemed to have arrived at its terminus in 1989, it has sped off in a new direction in Poland. After winning the country’s first post-1989 outright majority in elections one year ago, the populist Law and Justice party (PiS) immediately set about undermining independent checks on its power, from the constitutional court to public media. Such antics would disqualify an aspirant from membership of the European Union, but it is harder to punish miscreants once they are inside. Surrounded by problems outside its borders, from Russia to Turkey to Libya, the EU now confronts a particularly chewy one within.
Outsiders sometimes lump Poland’s government in with the other populists making the running in much of western Europe. But while it shares their hostility to outsiders and taste for economic statism, PiS is a very Polish phenomenon. Its chairman, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who runs the country from the party’s headquarters (the prime minister, Beata Szydlo, is a cipher who does her leader’s bidding), is fixed on completing what he considers an unfinished revolution. Mr Kaczynski believes the Polish state was captured by a cosy, treacherous elite after 1989, with the connivance of the EU. His aim is to overturn and replace it. | 1real |
Volkswagen says offices of CFO, HR chief, chairman raided by tax authorities and prosecutors | FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Prosecutors and tax authorities on Tuesday raided the offices of several senior officials of Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), the German car-maker said. Investigators searched the offices of supervisory board chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch, finance chief Frank Witter, and human resources head Karlheinz Blessing, a Volkswagen spokesman said. Files and computers were seized. The raid was related to suspicions of overpayments for works council chief Bernd Osterloh, the spokesman said. Osterloh s office was also searched. Neither the works council nor the prosecutor in Braunschweig were immediately available for comment. A person with knowledge of the matter said the tax authorities were acting on suspicion of tax evasion. That is because over-remuneration could result in overly high operating expenses and the payment of too little tax. It was revealed earlier that German prosecutors were investigating current and former executives at Volkswagen on suspicion that they paid works council chief Bernd Osterloh an excessive salary. In Germany, wasting corporate funds is legally a breach of fiduciary duty. | 0fake |
FBI Discovered Emails Weeks Ago, Stash Includes Classified Emails “Likely” Deleted By Clinton – Wikileaks | Home » Headlines » World News » FBI Discovered Emails Weeks Ago, Stash Includes Classified Emails “Likely” Deleted By Clinton – Wikileaks
JACKPOT…
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 31, 2016
Lost in all this is further criminal revelations from Wikileaks regarding donations: Tina Flournoy, Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton, tells Hillary Clinton campain chair John Podesta: https://t.co/xPuAzjvBEM pic.twitter.com/PhMvUu7m3F
Meanwhile, Wikileaks begins “Phase 3” of the Hillary leaks this week: We commence phase 3 of our US election coverage next week. You can contribute: https://t.co/MsNZhrTzTL @WLTaskForce pic.twitter.com/XferJnMGux
2017 Gold Pandas and 2017 Silver Panda Coins Are Now Available! Secure Your 2017 Panda Coins Today at SD Bullion! | 1real |
HIV POSITIVE, CRACK SMOKING, Liberal Actor Charlie Sheen Wishes Death On Donald Trump…Gets DESTROYED On Twitter | Less than one year ago, Charlie Sheen s ex-wife Denise Richards told reporters that their twin daughters are allegedly scared of him. Sisters Sam, 11, and Lola, 10, are reportedly scared to be alone with their father after an alleged string of abusive texts and threatening outbursts.Richards is suing Sheen for $1.2 million after he allegedly evicted her from the home Sheen left to their daughters, Sam, 11, and Lola, 10, in a trust.The suit filed last week alleges that Sheen once texted to Lola: Your dad is a rock star genius . . . Your mom is a p s wart, and that he called the girl a [bleeping] pig whore while yelling, I m going to kill you and I m going to kill your mom. In November 2015, Sheen announced he was infected with HIV and had paid upwards of $10 million to keep it a secret.It s not that being infected with HIV is in and of itself a crime, but most people who would hide it while continuing to have sex would be in jail. But then again, Hollywood moonbats are not most people and like Hillary and other leftist politicians, they have special rules.In November 2015, The Daily Mail published a story about Sheen with this headline:You are a crack smoking, hooker buying, mentally enslaved moron with HIV. If anyone is on deaths door, it's you, Charlie. https://t.co/iWXmn6bcLC Mark Dice (@MarkDice) December 29, 2016Keep it up. You are the reason why Trump won and you don't even realize it. Thanks for the Win!! Howie (@DwhowardWayne) December 29, 2016no matter how bad life gets, I never actively root for someone to die. That is a truly evil soul. Nick Paredes (@npthree) December 29, 2016 I defended ur ass through ur one of MANY breakdowns. Now ur just a piece of shit. You're living on a prayer Good luck ass! Kristin Billitere (@SpecialKMB1969) December 29, 2016Trump is a deadly menace to this country & the world. I hope Death comes for him next. Laura P (@dsigningwmn) December 29, 2016@Me4Hillary throw in Pence and the rest of the cabinet and I forever promise to eat all my veggies Neolib Sheetcake (@vicsepulveda) December 29, 2016 | 1real |
FLASHBACK VIDEO: JESSE JACKSON Praises Donald Trump For His Commitment To Bringing Blacks, Minorities Into Corporate America | Oops! Hillary and her race-baiting campaign team are NOT going to want the Black community to see this video Donald Trump doesn t want to give the Black and minority communities a hand-out he wants to give them self-respecting JOBS. He wants to see every American reach their full potential regardless of the color of their skin. This is a concept so foreign to the Democrat Party that the only response they re able to come up with is falsely accusing Trump of being a racist and hoping it sticks. For decades, the Democrats have been able to get away with falsely labeling Republicans But Donald Trump is NOT your average Republican, and he s about to bring down the Democrats false narrative like a house of cards.Enjoy:https://youtu.be/7U6Pp5iflTs | 1real |
A Conundrum of the Current Political Season | Op-Ed by Laraine C. Abbey The political story of our time is less about Hillary or Trump than what many believe is the destruction of... | 1real |
House Speaker Ryan: All options open on Zika funding | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday said a range of options to provide funds to fight Zika, adding that lawmakers take the threat seriously but have not yet decided the best way to allocate resources to prevent and combat the deadly virus. “We’re looking at all different options,” adding that the White House has begun providing congressional staff with answers to questions over President Barack Obama’s funding request. “The administration has a bit of a track record of over-requesting what they need.” | 0fake |
Mark Zuckerberg Brutally SHAMES Trump For Calling The Media America’s ‘Enemy’ | Recently, President Bannon s underling, Donald Trump, called the American news media the enemy of the American people in a quickly-deleted tweet.Obviously, this did not go over well, given that there are very few leaders who have classified the press as the enemy of the people and none of them were or are nice people.As most of us mock Easy D for his transparent effort to delegitimize all but himself and his approved (friendly) news sources, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg managed to shame Trump in the most classy way possible and he didn t even have to mention The Donald by name.On Monday, Zuckerberg posted that he and his wife Priscilla had spent their day stopping by local newspapers in Alabama where the folks there were working hard over President s Day weekend to keep their communities informed. It seems like a good time to say thank you to all the journalists around the world who work tirelessly and sometimes put their lives in danger to surface the truth, Zuckerberg continues. I don t always agree with everything you say, but that s how democracy is supposed to work. In other words, he doesn t scream FAKE NEWS every time someone reported unflattering information about him. I know I join many people in America and across the world in thanking you for your work, Zuckerberg confluded. He even posted a lovely photo of the two of them in front of the Selma Times-Journal.(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));Today Priscilla and I stopped by some local newspapers as we drove through Alabama. The folks there were working hard Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, February 20, 2017The media is not the enemy. Trump is. The sooner we all realize that the better.Featured image via Getty Images (David Ramos)/screengrab | 1real |
null | The military industrial complex is filled with none too bright people if they value their own children's lives. Why are they, with all their technical creativity and ability not diversifying with production that broadens and improves their market? Why not better aircraft, alternative renewable energy systems, agriculture, storage systems, better mouse traps or space exploration? Why not clean environment, getting ready for inevitable comet or asteroid strikes, or colonizing Mars or the Moon? Why not build products the public can use? Why not solve problems instead of readying us for a bad end? Short term profits? Emphasis on "short term". | 1real |
Trump’s Election Fraud Claims Just Got Weirder And More Dangerous | Donald Trump is doubling down on his bizarre claim that the only way that he can lose in Pennsylvania this October is because of electoral fraud. Trump began this narrative last week in Ohio where he said that he is afraid the election is going to be rigged. We re going to watch Pennsylvania. Go down to certain areas and watch and study and make sure other people don t come in and vote five times, Trump said at a rally in Altoona, Pennsylvania Friday. If you do that, we re not going to lose. The only way we can lose, in my opinion I really mean this, Pennsylvania is if cheating goes on. That claim was made despite the fact that Hillary Clinton has maintained a very comfortable lead over Trump in the polls.Since then, Trump has doubled down on his claims that the election will be stolen from him in Pennsylvania. Trump s campaign has gone so far as to try and recruit supporters to act as election observers. Normally, recruiting election overseers wouldn t be too out of the ordinary for a campaign to do. However, traditionally campaigns hire or recruit people with a legal background to do the work. Trump s campaign is calling for anyone and everyone to answer his call to action. We have to call up law enforcement, and we have to have the sheriffs and the police chiefs and everybody watching, Trump said on Friday.Calling in an army of your supporters, who will likely have no legal background, to hang out at the polls with a battalion of armed police officers sounds far more like voter intimidation than a move towards ensuring protecting voter s rights. Given the scenes of carnage that have come out of Trump s rallies, this move is almost sure to set up Pennsylvania s polling locations as the backdrops to a few riots. I am going to go ahead and predict that should events unfold that way; it ll be areas with minority populations that are targeted.Trump cannot give any evidence as to why there will be election fraud in Pennsylvania. How could there be? The election hasn t even occurred yet. He is spouting unfounded nonsense because he is desperate. Like a wounded animal trapped in a corner, Trump is flailing. As nice as it is to see Trump squirm, unfortunately, it is the people of Pennsylvania and the rest of the United States who will be scratched by the tiny nails on his tiny hands.Featured image from Jeff Swensen/Getty Images | 1real |
Pro-Damascus alliance declares Syria offensive near Iraq border | BEIRUT (Reuters) - A military alliance fighting together with the Syrian army said it launched an assault in the east of the country on Saturday to drive Islamic State militants from the border with Iraq. The alliance of Iran-backed Shi ite militias said the offensive, with Damascus s military support and Russian air cover, began in the southern corner of Deir al-Zor province. The attack will target Islamic State all the way up to the town of al-Bukamal, where the Euphrates river meets the Iraqi border, it said. Iraqi armed forces said on Saturday they had started an offensive to dislodge Islamic State from a border area holding some of the militants last towns in the country. | 0fake |
Oklahoma Republican: God Will Pay Legal Expenses And Save Economy If We Ban Abortion | Republican delusion never ceases to reach new ridiculous heights of absolute stupidity.In their race to make Oklahoma the most anti-abortion state in the nation, Republicans passed SB1552 in the House this week. The legislation now moves to the Senate where it will likely also pass before then heading to the desk of GOP Governor Mary Fallin, who will likely sign it into law. You know, because hating women and costing taxpayers millions of dollars to defend an unconstitutional law is what Republicans obsess with these days.But one Republican actually argued that Oklahoma taxpayers shouldn t worry about the cost of the legal expenses because according to him, God will pay the costs.Despite the fact that Oklahoma faces a $1.3 billion deficit, GOP state Rep. David Brumbaugh excused passing the bill by claiming that God will fix the state s crumbling economy and pay all the legal expenses resulting from forthcoming lawsuits if they do the moral thing and ban abortion. Everybody talks about this $1.3 billion deficit, Brumbaugh said on Thursday. If we take care of the morality, God will take care of the economy. I ve heard almost every argument today about judicial challenge to this legislation and after much prayer and study, I ask myself this question, he continued. Do we make laws because they re moral and right, or do we make them based on what an unelected judicial occupant might question or overturn? No, Rep. Brumbaugh. We make laws in this country based on the Constitution and the Supreme Court has ruled that the 14th Amendment prohibits banning women from making private choices regarding their own bodies, and that includes the right to choose to have an abortion.But if SB1552 passes in Oklahoma, women across that state will no longer get a choice because the bill makes it a law that doctors who perform an abortion other than for a woman who has suffered a miscarriage or their life is in danger to have their license revoked. In short, women would not even be able to get an abortion within the first 13 weeks of pregnancy when 90 percent of abortions occur because doctors would be faced with having their license to practice medicine taken away from them. Basically, Republicans are trying to ban abortion by punishing doctors who perform the procedure.Brumbaugh went on to compare abortion to slavery and then scoffed at the fact that the bill is unconstitutional. Don t let people tell you, Unconstitutional arguments, Roe v. Wade, all this, he said.Once again, a Republican insanely believes that passing certain legislation will please God enough that all of our problems will be magically fixed. Taxpayers in Oklahoma should be outraged that one of their own representatives is trying to dupe them in this way to excuse a bill that would strip millions of women of their reproductive rights.Featured Image: YouTube | 1real |
Puerto Rico may have better chance of Supreme Court win after Scalia death | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Financially troubled Puerto Rico’s push for a debt restructuring program could get a lift from the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who was viewed as likely to oppose granting such relief in an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case. The highest U.S. federal court in December agreed to hear Puerto Rico’s bid to reinstate a 2014 law called the Recovery Act after it was struck down by a lower court. The government of the U.S. territory, which has around $70 billion in borrowings, hoped the act would help it to restructure its debt and pull it out of a fiscal crisis. It would give the Caribbean island more power to impose conditions on creditors in a debt restructuring, which could worsen creditor recoveries, bondholders had argued. “Scalia has been a fairly aggressive defender of contractual rights over the years,” said Height Securities analyst Daniel Hanson, who estimated the chances of a Puerto Rico victory have risen to around 30 percent from five percent after Scalia’s death. Scalia, who served on the Supreme Court for nearly 30 years, died at a ranch in Texas last Saturday, setting up a major political showdown between President Barack Obama and the Republican-controlled Senate over who will replace him on the nine-member court. A Supreme Court victory could help strengthen the arguments of island officials and a number of Democrats in their campaign to give Puerto Rico bankruptcy protection rights, which U.S. states already receive. That effort has been stunted by lack of Republican support. The Recovery Act was designed to apply to some of Puerto Rico’s public corporations, such as utility PREPA, but excluded debt issued by the island and its Government Development Bank. PREPA bondholders Oppenheimer Funds and Franklin Templeton sued Puerto Rico, claiming the act would enable Puerto Rico to modify debt obligations. A U.S. federal court in Puerto Rico a year ago voided the Recovery Act saying it contravened federal bankruptcy law, and a U.S. appeals court affirmed that last July. The Puerto Rican government and its lawyers, as well as a representative for the bondholder plaintiffs, did not respond to requests for comment or declined comment. Scalia’s death means that only seven justices are likely to vote on the Puerto Rico case as Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, who had investments in funds with Puerto Rico bonds, last year recused himself. If there had been a tied 4-4 vote it would have automatically upheld the lower court’s decision. Alito could still participate if he divests investments before the oral argument. Of the remainder of the justices, four are viewed as liberals and three as conservatives. The latter are seen by some restructuring experts as more likely to support creditors on the basis of contractual business rights. “The four liberal justices are the justices most likely to be sympathetic to Puerto Rico’s arguments,” said David Skeel, Professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school, who said Scalia’s death creates the possibility that the liberal block will prevail by a 4-3 vote. Skeel wrote a brief supporting Puerto Rico’s position in the case. Still, the restructuring experts said that it may be too simple to suggest that Scalia would have voted against Puerto Rico as the case involves complex legal questions. Richard Levin, Co-head of Jenner & Block’s Restructuring and Bankruptcy Department, said the court tries very hard to apply the law, rather than allow political leanings to dominate its decisions. Carlos Del Valle Cruz, counsel for Eduardo Bhatia, president of Puerto Rico’s Senate, also said that Scalia’s absence may favor Puerto Rico. A complicating factor is a separate case which was just argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. That concerns the indictment of two men by Puerto Rico prosecutors on gun charges, and their subsequent indictment by a federal grand jury. Both pleaded guilty to the federal charges and were sentenced to prison but the case in Puerto Rico continued. The U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli has argued that the Puerto Rico prosecution violated double jeopardy laws that ban trying a defendant twice for the same crime in the same jurisdiction, while Puerto Rico’s government countered that its rights to self-governance were threatened. Nicholos Venditti, a portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management, said rulings in both cases could “have significant implications for Puerto Rico and the U.S. that reach far beyond the $70 billion in debt.” John Miller, co-head of fixed income for Nuveen Asset Management, which holds around $300 million in par value of insured Puerto Rican paper, said the concern with the Recovery Act being reinstated would be the potential for it to be expanded to other issuers beyond the public agencies it was originally designed for. Oral arguments in the Supreme Court case are scheduled to be held March 22. | 0fake |
TEN INCIDENTS IN TEN DAYS That Prove TRUMP Right on Sweden’s Mass Muslim Migration Problem [VIDEO] | 1real | |
One Republican Senator Is So Fed Up With Trump He’s Retiring In 2018 | Donald Trump has been a thorn in Senator Bob Corker s side for quite some time, but especially since the mess that was The Donald s disgraceful response to the deadly racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. After Trump offered a defense of the neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and white supremacists, Corker said:Featured image via Chip Somodevilla via Getty images | 1real |
FUNNY! SNL’S SOLUTION To Democrat Election Denial: “Safe Space For Everyone” [Video] | 1real | |
Analyst Visits Moscow And Finds Russians Are Laughing At Us As Putin Manipulates ‘That Fool’ Trump (VIDEO) | The whole world is laughing at us after we kinda-sorta elected (since the opinion of the majority of Americans are meaningless under our current electoral system, which was introduced to keep slave owning states happy) largely thanks to the influence of Russian hackers directed by Putin and the FBI through James Comey a man to office who is, frankly, an idiot.While Donald Trump denies that Russia had any influence in our election and chooses to instead attack the intelligence agencies that have confirmed not only that, but that Putin personally directed it all, the Russian people are having a field day with the fact that we ve managed to elect someone so stupid that he allows their leader to play him like a fiddle.Asked about Putin s recent letter to Trump (that one that spurred Trump to say he is so correct ), Russia expert Nina Khrushcheva told MSNBC Saturday that The Donald is playing right into Putin s hands. I was just in Moscow and the Russians are saying Look at those fools, look at their democracy. Absolutely, she said. How could America lecture us on any development, institutions, human rights, democracy, rhetoric when they just elected Donald Trump. He s such a fool. He s such a bully. That s what America deserves and we re going to take advantage of it. And that s how Russians feel about it, and now it s taking shape with letters from Vladimir Putin to Donald Trump with their exchange on potential nuclear armament and whatnot. Asked to weigh in on whether or not Trump would hinder an investigation into his cozy relationship with Putin and his talented team of hackers, intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance explained that he absolutely would interfere with the investigation faster than Putin interfered with our election: I don t think there will be any accountability with the regards of the Russian hacking against the DNC or even violating the entirety of the U.S. electoral process. He has benefited from that. He s going to shut down any investigation if it implicates him or his campaign. However, Nina is righ. We are being played as fools by a spymaster-in-chief, a former KGB officer, Director of Russian Intelligence. He s laughing at us in his letters which stroke Donald Trump. His excellency! We haven t had a letter like that in the United States since King George III. As long as Trump is manipulated, Russia and China will take our market share from the international markets out there, and the United States will be relegated to a third class country. Trump taking office is terrifying for a number of reasons and we re going to have to rely on the Republican Party to stop him. May Cthulhu help us all.Watch the segment below:Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
FIREWORKS! THE VIEW’S CONSERVATIVE PANELIST Gets Into Heated Debate With Liberal Snowflake On Obamacare [Video] | 1real | |
Charleston Jury Gets Case of Officer Who Killed Walter Scott - The New York Times | CHARLESTON, S. C. — They sat on the same courtroom bench, but worlds apart — the parents of Walter L. Scott, a black man shot to death in 2015, and Michael T. Slager, the white police officer who killed him as he fled after a traffic stop. And the arguments they heard from lawyers were just as disparate as they pleaded with jurors to settle a bitterly divisive case in their favor: for the government, a rare conviction of a police officer, and for the defense, an acquittal of an officer seen on tape shooting a fleeing man. “Our whole criminal justice system rides on the back of law enforcement,” Scarlett A. Wilson, the chief prosecutor for Charleston County, told the jury of 11 white people and a black man. “They have to be held accountable when they mess up. It is very, very rare, but it does happen. ” But Mr. Slager’s lawyer, Andrew J. Savage III, pressed jurors to resist “a false narrative” — that the officer malevolently opened fire toward Mr. Scott’s back on April 4, 2015, when he fled a traffic stop for a broken taillight — and to find that Mr. Slager had acted in . “This shooting didn’t happen in a vacuum,” Mr. Savage said. “Mr. Scott did not get shot because he had a broken taillight. Mr. Scott was shot because of what he did on April 4. ” Jurors, who began their deliberations on Wednesday evening, must reach a unanimous decision, and they have three options if they are to avoid a mistrial: a conviction for murder, a conviction for voluntary manslaughter or an acquittal. The difference between murder and manslaughter — charges with vastly different potential penalties in this state — revolves around whether someone had “malice” toward the person who was killed. Under South Carolina law, a conviction for murder carries a prison term of 30 years to life the penalty for manslaughter is between two and 30 years in prison. Mr. Slager has also been charged in Federal District Court with violating Mr. Scott’s civil rights. Like the federal case, the state’s case, tried over four grueling weeks in a courtroom here, turns on a matter of minutes on the Saturday before Easter last year, when Mr. Slager stopped Mr. Scott for an equipment violation. It was a stop, virtually everyone agrees, that began normally. But Mr. Scott soon decided to flee on foot — his family and prosecutors believe he did so because of outstanding child support obligations — and Mr. Slager chased him. The men became involved in a fight, and, according to Mr. Slager, who testified on Tuesday, Mr. Scott took control of the officer’s Taser, leaving him in “total fear. ” Near the end of their physical struggle, a switched on his cellphone’s camera and began to record a video of the moments that soon rocketed into the national consciousness: when Mr. Slager fired eight shots and Mr. Scott, wounded, collapsed to the ground. Mr. Scott was at least 17 feet from Mr. Slager, and running away, when the officer began to shoot. Mr. Savage, during a presentation when he argued that Mr. Slager had been maligned by the news media, failed by his department and victimized by a shoddy investigation, said Mr. Scott had left Mr. Slager with little choice after he “made decisions to attack a police officer. ” “Should he have assumed that an unarmed man would have attacked a police officer?” Mr. Savage said of Mr. Slager, who he complained had been made a “poster boy” of alleged police misconduct because of controversial killings in other parts of the country. Ms. Wilson unambiguously and furiously denied that other cases had affected the prosecution here, and she told jurors that there could not “let your decision be based on things going on elsewhere. ” Rather, she contended, investigators had at first sided with Mr. Slager. “They bought everything he said hook, line and sinker,” she said. “They believed him until they didn’t, until they knew better. ” Winding down a criminal case that has drawn enormous attention here, Ms. Wilson accused Mr. Savage of relying on a defense strategy she said was intended to confuse jurors and shift blame for Mr. Scott’s death. The defense’s approach, she argued, could be summarized simply: “Look at everything else — everybody else — but don’t look at that video. ” She said that Mr. Slager, who is now 35, had embellished the nature of his confrontation with Mr. Scott, who was 50. She characterized one of Mr. Slager’s wounds, cited by his lawyers as evidence of a struggle, as “a glorified paper cut,” and she hailed the role that video had played in the case. “Thank goodness we have a camera,” she said, “because it’s not just memory that matters. ” Eventually, as Ms. Wilson neared the end of her argument, she played the video of the shooting again. As the eight shots echoed the courtroom one last time, Mr. Scott’s parents, still in their seats, embraced, looking away from the killing. | 0fake |
BREAKING NEWS: PRESIDENT TRUMP SPEAKS Out On #Charlottesville Tragedy, After Car Plows Through Protesters…1 DEAD…19 Injured…”We Are All Americans First” | To his credit, President Donald Trump almost immediately responded to the violence in Charlottesville, VA after a White Nationalists obtained a permit to march and were met with violence by counter-protesters, many of whom were Antifa thugs who ve made a practice of using violence to shut down free speech in America and around the world.There was more hate in Charlottesville, VA today than America has seen in quite some time. Barack Obama created a racial divide like we haven t seen since the civil rights movement. We must pray that President Trump will have the ability to heal the wounds Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Al Sharpton and Loretta Lynch opened in an effort to divide America for votes. We must also pray that the American people will come together and stop listening to so-called leaders who would like to divide us.Charlottesville, VA At least one person was killed and 19 others were injured Saturday when a car rammed into a group of counter-protesters during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer tweeted that he was heartbroken that a life has been lost here and urged all people of good will [to] go home. The person driving the car has been arrested, but his identity has not yet been released. Via: Fox News | 1real |
30 WORKERS FIRED For Skipping Work To Protest On Behalf Of Illegal Immigrants…Calls Employer Who Fired Them A “Racist” [VIDEO] | The owner of a masonry business in Colorado is speaking out about his decision to fire more than 30 employees who did not show up for work in support of last week s Day Without Immigrants protest.Jim Serowski, the owner of JVS Masonry, told CNN in an interview on Sunday he did nothing wrong and said he warned his employees about the consequences of joining in the protest movement before they actually took the day off.Serowski said he told his employees, If you re going to stand up for what you believe in you have to be willing to pay the price. On Saturday, Serowski also spoke to his local CBS News affiliate in Denver after one employee made an allegation that his termination felt like racism. Serowski denied the decision to terminate the workers was in any way racially motivated and said he made the decision because the employees violated the company s policy about not showing up to work. He said the decision put his company in a real bind because he had to shutdown two job sites on Thursday due to the protest and he is now risks missing an important construction deadline. They were told, if you no-call-no-show, you don t have a job, Serowski told the news station. It s that simple. | 1real |
U.S. investigation finds no Afghan civilian casualties in Kunduz strike | KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. investigation into reports that at least 13 civilians were killed during an operation in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz last week found no evidence of any civilian casualties, a statement from the U.S. military in Kabul said on Tuesday. United States Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) has investigated allegations of civilian casualties in Kunduz province during the period of November 3 and 4; no evidence of civilian casualties has been found, the statement said. Officials in the Chahardara district outside Kunduz city said 13 people in two villages had been killed by U.S. air strikes in the area, while some reports said as many as 65 people had been killed. However, other Afghan civil and military officials denied the reports and said civilians had been evacuated before a combined operation in the area began. They said dozens of Taliban insurgents had been killed. We can confirm operations occurred in this area and numerous enemy combatants were killed, as also confirmed by Kunduz Governor Omarkhail and Ministry of Defense Spokesman Major General Dawlat Waziri, the U.S. statement said. The USFOR-A investigation was conducted independently and concluded that there were no civilian casualties. Specifically, no hospitals or clinics in the local area indicated treatment of people with wounds from armed conflict, it said. The issue of civilian casualties has taken on increasing sensitivity as the United States has stepped up air strikes against the Taliban as part of a more robust strategy aimed at breaking the stalemate with the insurgents. United Nations figures from last month showed a 52 percent increase in civilian casualties from air strikes in the first nine months of the year from the previous year, with 205 killed and 261 wounded. | 0fake |
Hillary Collapses On Her Way To The Stage, Sellout Bruce Springsteen Covers For Her – The Resistance: The Last Line of Defense | Home Election 2016 Hillary Collapses On Her Way To The Stage, Sellout Bruce Springsteen Covers For Her Hillary Collapses On Her Way To The Stage, Sellout Bruce Springsteen Covers For Her Stryker Election 2016 , Leftist Corruption , Liberals Behaving Like Liberals 0
Hillary Clinton’s sad last push for votes was supposed to culminate in a gathering of “talent” the left was calling “The Avengers of campaigning.” Hillary, Slick Willy, Barry Soetoro and Moochelle along with Creepy Uncle Joe Biden were to all come together at a huge show featuring hasbeens Bon Jovi and working class sellout Bruce Springsteen.
From one libtard to the next, promises of work-free lives filled with food stamp steak and lobster flew amid delusional dreams of free college education for everyone and a health care system that will cure what ails you for eleven bucks a month, no questions asked. The $15 minimum wage and 90 percent tax on the people who have done well in America were celebrated with great vigor, until it came time for the woman of the hour herself to take the stage.
Bruce Springsteen, acting as master of ceremonies, shouted over the roar of the feminist-laden crowd, “Here she is, and I’m with her!” Unfortunately, she never appeared in the spotlight.
Springsteen, after holding a finger to his earpiece, picked up his acoustic guitar and started slowly picking away a familiar tune. He turned to the audience and said:
“You know, before the next President of the United States comes out here I want to make sure we’re all ready. Are you ready?” The crowd cheered. “If there’s one thing we’ve always known about this amazing woman, one thing that w2as never in question, it’s that she was born to run.”
As the crowd went nuts for the popular song, interns and medical staff were reportedly attending to Clinton backstage after she collapsed from an unknown ailment. The press was quickly corralled and swept aside, but a couple of rogue stagehands tweeted about the incident before they were discovered and their posts deleted. This screenshot was grabbed within a minute of it being tweeted:
Clinton is said to have looked pale and distant, unaware of her surroundings. As of the writing of this article, Springsteen was still playing his set. Join The Resistance And Share This Article Now! 234 | 1real |
Trump team doubles down on rebuke of civil rights leader | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s vice president and top aides on Sunday joined the U.S. president-elect in criticizing an historic civil rights activist and lawmaker for questioning the legitimacy of his election win, opening up a new divide days before the inauguration. U.S. Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” he thought hacking by Russians had helped Trump, a Republican, get elected in November. Lewis said he does not plan to attend Trump’s swearing in on Friday, the first time he would miss such an event since being elected to the House in 1986. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Trump spokesman Sean Spicer characterized Lewis’ remarks as disappointing and damaging to the reputation of U.S. democracy. “We honor the sacrifice that he made,” Pence said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “For someone of his stature not just in the civil rights movement but in voting rights to make a comment that he did not consider Donald Trump to be a legitimate president I think is deeply disappointing. I hope he reconsiders both statements.” Pence said he had attended both of President Barack Obama’s inaugurations. He said at a time when the country was facing challenges both at home and abroad, Americans should look for ways to come together and work together. The 76-year-old Lewis, who has been a civil rights leader for more than half a century, was beaten by police during a march he helped lead in 1965 in Selma, Alabama, drawing attention to hurdles preventing blacks from voting. He protested alongside leader Martin Luther King Jr. that day and on other occasions. The spat comes ahead of Monday’s federal holiday that honors King. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week”, Priebus said Lewis’ comments, given his position in society, were irresponsible. “We need folks like John Lewis, and others who I think have been champions of voter rights, to actually recognize the fact that Donald Trump was duly elected,” said Priebus. “I think putting the United States down across the world is not something that a responsible person does.” Outgoing White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said Obama believed that Trump was the freely elected president. McDonough, however, said concerns raised by Lewis and other Democrats about Russia’s interference in the election were not trivial. “My hope would be that the president-elect will reach out to...John Lewis, who has done so many things over the course of his life, to try to work this out,” McDonough said on CNN’s State of the Union. Such a gesture, he said, would show Americans that the nation is united and send a message to the Russians that “their efforts to divide us, to weaken us, to advance their own interests, at the expense of ours, are going to fail.” Trump’s aides defended his hard-hitting response on Twitter on Saturday that Lewis “should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested),” instead of complaining about the Nov. 8 election results. Lewis’ district encompasses Atlanta and the city’s main newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, told Trump he was “wrong” in his characterization of the area, which includes “many of Atlanta’s crown jewels as well as pockets of poverty.” “It was John Lewis that attacked Donald Trump. Donald Trump has a right to respond to that, and he did. And forcefully,” Spicer said on Fox News. But other Republicans and conservatives, like Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, had voiced support for Lewis on Saturday and his contribution not just to the United States, but to the world. At least 10 other Democratic U.S. politicians have said they also plan to skip the inauguration. | 0fake |
Syria deal may be on agenda for Putin-Trump Asia meeting: report | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump may discuss a Syria settlement at an Asian economic summit in Vietnam next week, the RIA news agency reported on Saturday. Relations between Moscow and Washington have soured further since Putin and Trump first met at a G20 summit in Hamburg in July when they discussed allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election, but agreed to focus on better ties.. Tensions have risen over the conflict in Syria, after Russia vetoed a United Nations plan to continue an ongoing investigation into chemical weapons.. A Syria settlement is being discussed for the agenda of a possible meeting between the two presidents, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by RIA, adding it was in their common interest to have enough time to discuss the issue. Somehow or another it requires cooperation, Peskov said. Trump told Fox News this week that it was possible he would meet Putin during his Asia trip. We may have a meeting with Putin, he said. And, again Putin is very important because they can help us with North Korea. They can help us with Syria. We have to talk about Ukraine. | 0fake |
Russia says general killed in Syria held senior post in Assad's army | MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian general killed in Syria had been seconded to the Syrian government as a military commander, Russia s military chief of staff said on Wednesday. Moscow has long been a staunch ally of Syria, but the role of the deceased general reveals the extent to which Russia has become an integral part of President Bashar al Assad s ruling system. Lieutenant-General Valery Asapov, 51, was killed on Saturday by shelling from Islamic State positions near Deir al-Zor. He was the chief of staff of Russian forces deployed to the country and later became the commander of Syria s Fifth Corps of volunteers, chief of general staff Valery Gerasimov said. It was known that the Syrian Fifth Attack Troop Corps of volunteers, formed in late 2016, was equipped and advised by the Russians, but Damascus and Moscow had not previously announced it was under Russian command. Speaking at Asapov s funeral, Gerasimov said: High prestige combined with care were outstanding features of his work. Of course, those qualities were displayed during his working trip to the Syrian Arab Republic, where he had been deployed from February this year, Gerasimov said, addressing Asapov s family and colleagues. He worked as the chief of staff of the group of our forces and then was in command of the Fifth Corps of volunteers ... A treacherous shell cut short his life. A security specialist, who worked in Syria alongside the Russian and Syrian military, said Asapov was de facto the commander of Syria s Fifth Corps but he may have been listed as chief military adviser on paper. Syrian officers relied completely on our officers, he said. Hundreds of people, most of them from the Russian military, attended the funeral at the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery for Asapov who became the highest ranking military officer to be killed in the Syrian war. Inscriptions in Russian and Arabic on some of garlands said they were sent by President al-Assad, Syrian ministers and military commanders. | 0fake |
Samantha Bee Condemns NBC and Jimmy Fallon’s Trump Interview - The New York Times | Monday was in many ways typical for the comedy shows, with network hosts like CBS’s Stephen Colbert and NBC’s Seth Meyers performing pointed satirical monologues about Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and his many years spent propagating lies about President Obama’s birthplace. But Samantha Bee, on her TBS cable series, “Full Frontal,” took aim at a different target, condemning the NBC network and its host Jimmy Fallon for putting Mr. Trump on “The Tonight Show. ” She faulted Mr. Fallon for conducting a genial, interview on Thursday, even as Mr. Trump had refused that day in other interviews to acknowledge that Mr. Obama was born in the United States. “Network execs, and a lot of their audience, can ignore how very dangerous Trump is because to them, he isn’t,” Ms. Bee said on her show. “They’re not going to be deported. They’re not going to live under a president who thinks of them as a collection of sex toys. “They’re not racist. They just don’t mind if other people are, which is just as bad. ” It’s one thing to make fun of Mr. Trump, who said on Friday that Mr. Obama “was born in the United States, period. ” It’s another to criticize a network or Mr. Fallon, who is typically not held up to such scrutiny, partly because of his amiable personality and the perception that his “Tonight Show” (which draws more than three million viewers a night, the most in its category) is a place for nonpartisan diversions. He and rival hosts like Mr. Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel try to avoid criticizing one another in public. NBC declined to comment on Tuesday, and Mr. Fallon has not spoken publicly on his conversation with Mr. Trump, except in a short TMZ. com interview, in which Mr. Fallon says on camera: “Have you seen my show? I’m never too hard on anyone. ” But Mr. Fallon took plenty of criticism for the Thursday interview, and Ms. Bee’s monologue was perhaps the bluntest denunciation of it so far. On a day in which Mr. Trump continued to give ambiguous answers on whether he still supported his false birtherist theory, Mr. Fallon asked him mostly uncontroversial questions and playfully ran his fingers through Mr. Trump’s hair. Playing off that image, Ms. Bee said sarcastically, “Aw, Trump can be a total sweetheart with someone who has no reason to be terrified of him. ” Jo Miller, an executive producer of “Full Frontal,” said in an interview on Tuesday that seeing the cozy behavior between Mr. Fallon and Mr. Trump “was a punch in the gut. ” Ms. Miller said that she and her “Full Frontal” colleagues “love Jimmy. ” She added, “Who doesn’t love Jimmy?” But, she said, Mr. Fallon’s ingratiating treatment of Mr. Trump is “a problem because we love him. ” “If he thinks that a demagogue is O. K. that gives permission to millions of Americans to also think that,” she continued. Ms. Miller, who came with Ms. Bee from Comedy Central’s news satire “The Daily Show,” said she has no problem “showing candidates and public servants as human beings, and I think there needs to be more of that. ” “That said,” Ms. Miller added, “this is not a race between Democrat and Republican — this is a race between Democrat and demagogue. You don’t normalize someone who’s inciting violence. ” The “Full Frontal” segment about Mr. Fallon and NBC had been touched off when Ms. Miller received a text early Friday morning from Travon Free, a former writer for “The Daily Show” who now works on HBO’s “Any Given Wednesday With Bill Simmons. ” The text from Mr. Free included a picture of Mr. Fallon caressing Mr. Trump’s coiffure, and an urgent, slightly vulgar message exhorting Ms. Miller and Ms. Bee to address the subject on their show. “That was the first I heard of it,” Ms. Miller said. “I was like, What? This didn’t happen. ” Mr. Free said on Tuesday in a phone interview that, other than Ms. Bee, “I knew no one would do it, because it’s just this buddy culture among the hosts in that category. ” Mr. Free added: “If Jimmy Fallon was my friend, we would have had a real conversation. Not being cool with what he did on his show doesn’t make you his enemy. ” Echoing Ms. Bee’s monologue, Ms. Miller said that Mr. Fallon did not deserve all the blame, and that NBC was more culpable for providing Mr. Trump a platform as the star of its reality shows “The Apprentice” and “The Celebrity Apprentice. ” Even after NBC said in June 2015 that it was firing Mr. Trump for “derogatory statements” at his presidential announcement, in which he referred to Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and “murderers,” the network continued to feature him on “The Tonight Show” and “Saturday Night Live. ” Ms. Miller pointed out that there is still an awkward relationship between Mr. Trump and NBC, where the “Today” show host Matt Lauer was criticized for going too easy on him in a presidential forum, and Mr. Trump has expressed skepticism of the NBC “Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt, who will moderate the first presidential debate. She drew a distinction between the broader categories of political satire programs like “Full Frontal” and talk shows that can only engage their guests in harmless banter. “It’s not their job to be political satirists and to shake people by their shoulders and say, ‘Look at this thing — do you think it’s O. K.?’” Ms. Miller said. “That’s our job. ” Ms. Miller said it would be helpful to hear her message reinforced by white men in her field. Otherwise, she said, “It becomes, ‘Oh, you see everything through the lens of sexism,’ or, ‘Not everything has to be about race. ’” “To me, this is just about decency,” she said. On Monday night, meanwhile, Mr. Fallon’s “Tonight Show” guests included Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee. Going through items that they said belonged to Mr. Trump, Ms. Clinton offered Mr. Fallon something that she said Mr. Trump had left behind for him: a bag of softballs. Mr. Fallon responded, “That was my gift to him. ” | 0fake |
Bruce Springsteen Rips ’Con Man’ Trump in Protest Song | Bruce Springsteen blasts President Donald Trump as a “con man” and calls his administration “crooks” in a new protest song released this week. [“That’s What Makes Us Great” is a joint effort between The Boss and frequent collaborator Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers. “Don’t tell me a And sell it as a I’ve been down that road And I ain’t going back,” Springsteen sings on the track, which was released Wednesday morning on Grushecky’s website. “Don’t you brag to That you never read a I never put my In a con man and his crooks,” the song continues. Grushecky — whose 1995 album American Babylon was produced by Springsteen — told the Pittsburgh that he’d written the song before the Boss got involved. Springsteen reportedly sent his part to the musician over the Internet. “I had this song, and Bruce and I had been talking. I sent it to him and he liked it,” Grushecky told the paper. “I said, ‘What do you think about singing on it?’ He gave it the Bruce treatment. ” Springsteen was vocal supporter of former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and a fierce critic of Trump during the 2016 campaign. In September, the E Street Band leader called Trump a “moron” in an interview with Rolling Stone. “The republic is under siege by a moron, basically. The whole thing is tragic,” he said. “Without overstating it, it’s a tragedy for our democracy. When you start talking about elections being rigged, you’re pushing people beyond democratic governance. And it’s a very, very dangerous thing to do. ” On the eve of the election, Springsteen performed at a campaign rally for Clinton in Philadelphia, where he predicted Trump and his campaign were “going down. ” “Let’s all do our part so that we can look back on 2016 and say, ‘We stood with Hillary Clinton on the right side of history,’” he said then. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 0fake |
House Speaker Ryan will not accept a presidential nomination | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, will not accept a nomination to be a U.S. presidential candidate, his spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said on Wednesday. “The speaker is grateful for the support, but he is not interested. He will not accept a nomination and believes our nominee should be someone who ran this year,” Strong said in an email to Reuters. She was responding to a report by Politico that quoted former Speaker John Boehner as saying that Ryan should be the Republican nominee for president if the party fails to choose a candidate on the first ballot at the convention in July. “If we don’t have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I’m for none of the above,” Boehner said at the Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton Florida, Politico reported on Wednesday. “They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I’m for none of the above. I’m for Paul Ryan to be our nominee.” Ryan, who is from Wisconsin and became House speaker last year, has been touted as a possible dark horse candidate for president, should the Republican convention fail to agree on any of the current contenders on the first ballot. Ryan has repeatedly insisted that he does not want to run for president this year, and a committee that sought to draft him closed last week after Ryan’s office urged a halt to its activities. Ryan ran for vice president in 2012 on the unsuccessful Republican ticket with presidential contender Mitt Romney. U.S. Republican front-runner Donald Trump scored big wins in Republican primaries in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina on Tuesday which brought him closer to the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the nomination. But he still might fall short of the majority required, enabling the party establishment to put forward another name at the July convention in Cleveland. A spokesman for Boehner said Wednesday that the former speaker, who is from Ohio, had endorsed that state’s Governor John Kasich in the presidential race. “His (Boehner’s) off-the-cuff comments this morning were about a hypothetical scenario in which none of the current candidates are able to secure the nomination at the convention,” the spokesman, Dave Schnittger, said. | 0fake |
11 Highlights of Susan Rice’s MSNBC Interview with Andrea Mitchell - Breitbart | On Tuesday afternoon, President Barack Obama’s former National Security Advisor Susan Rice appeared on MSNBC with host Andrea Mitchell to answer questions about allegations that had emerged earlier in the week to suggest that she requested the “unmasking” of the names of Donald Trump’s campaign and transition teams in intelligence reports, which allegedly had nothing to do with national security, and that she had compiled spreadsheets of those names. [Here are the highlights of Mitchell’s interview with Rice, which took up the first of Mitchell’s show. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 0fake |
Trump seeks tougher sanctions to prod North Korea into negotiations | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With no palatable military options, U.S. President Donald Trump may ultimately have no choice but to give diplomacy a chance to end the crisis over North Korea s nuclear and missile programs. For now, though, he is pursuing tougher economic sanctions, including an oil embargo, and opposed to making any concessions that might look like appeasement, insisting that more pressure on the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is needed before it is time to talk. North Korea seems even more opposed to negotiations until it has achieved the ability to attack the continental United States with nuclear weapons. North Korea is not interested in dialogue. ... Kim Jong Un has sent a message with this last test that he doesn t listen to anybody, said a senior official who helps coordinate the European Union s North Korea policy. So for now, despite calls from Russia, China, and others, there is no push from the United States or North Korea for direct talks, despite an escalating crisis that threatens millions of lives after North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test last weekend. The Trump administration says the United Nations needs to tighten economic sanctions to pressure North Korea to change its behavior and start talking. A draft sanctions resolution was circulated to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday. Trump s tactics, one senior administration official said on the condition of anonymity, mirror those in many of his business deals: simultaneously playing good cop and bad cop, not appearing too interested in making a deal but keeping lines of communication open. Trump said on Wednesday after a call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that military action against North Korea was not a first choice, but we will see what happens. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that Kim was begging for war, but added: The time has come for us to exhaust all of our diplomatic means before it s too late. The United States wants the Security Council to impose an oil embargo on North Korea, ban its exports of textiles and the hiring of North Korean laborers abroad and subject leader Kim Jong Un to an asset freeze and travel ban, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear if the draft had the support of North Korean ally China, which along with Russia, while denouncing the latest test, has said that resolving the nuclear crisis is impossible with sanctions and pressure alone. [L4N1LN25F] A decade of sanctions has not slowed North Korea s nuclear weapons program, and now that it is closer to its goal, diplomats and analysts say it is unlikely to back down. The U.S. policy of strategic patience on North Korea has assumed that time is on their side - that economic sanctions will eventually lead to the collapse of Kim Jong Un s regime and its economy, and it will come to the negotiating table, no longer able to withstand the economic pain, said Moon Chung-in, a special adviser to South Korea s president on foreign affairs and national security. However, such an assumption has now proven wrong. North Korea s economy has not only adapted quickly to tightening sanctions, but the country has also succeeded in advancing its nuclear weapons programs despite more than a decade of economic hardship. Zhao Tong, a Beijing-based North Korea expert at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center, said Pyongyang may hope Washington ultimately will recognize it has developed a credible nuclear capability, abandon its long-standing precondition for talks - that North Korea accept that they be aimed at its nuclear disarmament - and instead seek the freezing its nuclear program. From the North Korean perspective, their strategy is working, he said. Most experts say it no longer is realistic to think North Korea will trade away its nuclear arsenal in exchange for sanctions relief, economic support, or a peace treaty with the United States ending the formal state of war that has existed since the 1950-53 Korean War. Robert Einhorn, a former senior U.S. non-proliferation specialist now at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, said North Korea has learned from the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi s decision to stop developing weapons of mass destruction that you can t give up critical assets that you need for your own survival. China has put forth a freeze-for-freeze proposal that would suspend large-scale U.S. military exercises with South Korea in return for a suspension of North Korean nuclear and missile tests. Washington continues to reject that idea. But the longer diplomacy is delayed, the greater the chances that North Korea can master the ability to hit the U.S. mainland with nuclear-tipped missiles, and then enter talks from a position of strength. South Korea is keeping open the option of dialogue with North Korea, and hopes Washington and Seoul can develop a diplomatic roadmap, Cho Hyun, South Korea s second Vice Foreign Minister, said at a seminar in Washington on Tuesday. It may sound unrealistic today, but we cannot abandon it. | 0fake |
Syria fighting worst since Aleppo, air strikes deadly: aid agencies | GENEVA (Reuters) - Syria is in the throes of its worst fighting since the battle for eastern Aleppo last year, with heavy air strikes causing hundreds of civilian casualties, aid agencies said on Thursday. Hospitals, schools and people fleeing violence have been targeted by direct air strikes that may amount to war crimes, the United Nations said, without apportioning blame. Russia and a U.S.-led coalition are carrying out separate air strikes in Syria ostensibly aimed at defeating Islamic State militants. September was the deadliest month of 2017 for civilians with daily reports of attacks on residential areas resulting in hundreds of conflict-related deaths and injuries, U.N. regional humanitarian coordinator Panos Moumtzis said in a statement. Air strikes killed dozens this week in Raqqa, where 8,000 people remain trapped, and at least 149 people, mostly women and children, in residential areas of rebel-dominated Idlib province in Syria s northwest in the last 12 days of September, he said. Explosions in Damascus killed 20 people and civilian casualties were also reported in rural areas around the Syrian capital and in Hama, Aleppo and Deir al-Zor, Moumtzis said, again without saying who was responsible. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement that up to 10 hospitals were reported to have been damaged in the past 10 days. We have seen a number of hospitals being targeted, we got very worrying reports and converging reports about hospitals, schools, civilian infrastructure being targeted, Robert Mardini, ICRC regional director for the Middle East, told Reuters in an interview in his Geneva office. And of course this is outrageous, unacceptable, he said, adding that damage to Sham hospital in Idlib alone had cut off half a million people from access to health care. The ICRC voiced alarm that violence was occurring in many of the de-escalation areas including Idlib, rural Hama and eastern Ghouta. Taken together, these are the worst levels of violence since the battle for Aleppo in 2016, it said. Hundreds of civilians killed is certainly a very conservative figure, Mardini said. We see a very strong correlation between the escalation and the intensification in the fighting on one hand and the human cost of this conflict, the attacks on health facilities and civilian infrastructure. Syria s six-year-old civil war pits President Bashar al-Assad s government supported by Russia and Iran against a myriad number of rebel factions, some Western-backed, and Islamist militant groups. Military jets believed to be Russian killed at least 60 civilians trying to flee heavy fighting in the oil-rich Deir al-Zor province when their small boats were targeted as they sought to cross the Euphrates River, opposition activists, former residents and a war monitor said late on Wednesday. The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria has carried out air strikes that have also caused civilian casualties, which it says it goes to great lengths to avoid. The point here is not to point fingers, Mardini said, declining to identify suspected perpetrators of deadly strikes. What should be non-negotiable is the respect for the laws of war, everywhere in Syria. This is absolutely critical today. | 0fake |
Elizabeth Warren Is Going OFF On Trump’s Pick Of Mike Pence, And It’s Magical (TWEETS) | Speaking up against hate where it stands, yet again, is Senator Elizabeth Warren from the great state of Massachusetts.As Donald Trump was making his official announcement of his choice for Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to be his vice presidential pick, Warren took to Twitter, as only she can, to tear the choice to shreds.Warren brilliantly stated, as she does, in an epic tweetstorm: Donald Trump and Mike Pence are a perfect match: Two small, insecure, weak men who use hate and fear to divide our country and our people. Of COURSE Donald Trump a guy who calls women fat pigs & bimbos picked a VP who is famous for trying to control women s bodies.What s worse? Donald Trump and Mike Pence s sexism isn t some radical fringe of the GOP. They re in line with the party platform. The GOP platform is the most anti-choice ever: defund Planned Parenthood and denounce all abortion. Even cases of rape, incest and woman s potential death.And OF COURSE Donald Trump a guy who [doesn t] feel good about marriage equality picked a VP famous for LGBT discrimination.The GOP platform says overturn marriage equality & it supports parents putting their LGBT children through conversion therapy. Disgusting.The GOP platform even says that children not from natural marriage are more likely to be drug addicts. Hateful AND disgusting.Terrifying to thing of Mike Pence being a heartbeat from presidency but the direction [the GOP] wants to take our country is MORE terrifying. .@realDonaldTrump & @mike_pence are a perfect match: Two small, insecure, weak men who use hate & fear to divide our country & our people. Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) July 16, 2016Of COURSE @realDonaldTrump a guy who calls women fat pigs & bimbos picked a VP who is famous for trying to control women s bodies. Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) July 16, 2016What's worse? @realDonaldTrump & @mike_pence s sexism isn t some radical fringe of the @GOP. They're in line with the party platform. Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) July 16, 2016The @GOP platform is the most anti-choice ever: defund @PPFA & denounce all abortion. Even cases of rape, incest & woman's potential death. Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) July 16, 2016And OF COURSE @realDonaldTrump a guy who [doesn t] feel good about marriage equality picked a VP famous for LGBT discrimination. Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) July 16, 2016The @GOP platform says overturn marriage equality & it supports parents putting their LGBT children through conversion therapy. Disgusting. Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) July 16, 2016The @GOP platform even says that children not from natural marriage are more likely to be drug addicts. Hateful AND disgusting. Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) July 16, 2016Terrifying to think of @mike_pence being a heartbeat from presidency but the direction @GOP wants to take our country is MORE terrifying. Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) July 16, 2016Warren gets it, and hopefully most of America gets it, too. Trump is bad for America, and with Trump s pick of Pence bad just went to worse.We need to make sure a Trump/Pence administration never happens for the sake of all things good and decent.Featured Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
‘Westworld’ Season 1, Episode 6: The Tipping Point - The New York Times | Perhaps the bleakest in a catalog loaded with bleak albums, Radiohead’s “Kid A” closes with “Motion Picture Soundtrack,” a song that obliquely suggests the end of a relationship but is, more broadly, about disillusionment and death. “It’s not like the movies,” singer Thom Yorke laments. “They fed us on little white lies. ” Radiohead has provided the musical accompaniment for Maeve since the second episode, when “No Surprises” scrolled through the player piano as she unsuccessfully solicited a guest. In this week’s episode, Maeve wakes up to an instrumental version “Fake Plastic Trees,” which continues as she walks to work, unfazed by the mundane spectacle of a bloody shootout on the streets behind her. When “Motion Picture Soundtrack” plays, it again serves as a kind of coda, as a technician gives her a guided tour through the Westworld sausage factory. Maeve witnesses the creation and processing of synthetic beings, having come to realize she is one of them the steady diet of “white lies,” as it were, is over. It’s the most haunting and affecting sequence the show has yet produced. The obvious reason the robots of “Westworld” draw more sympathy than the humans is their vulnerability, the fact that their daily lives require a passive acceptance of the abuse, terror, and tragedy that’s heaped upon them. But Maeve’s peek behind the curtain hints at a more fundamental cause: As the engineers, coders and technicians dismantle and reconstruct the hosts, the show constantly forces us to reflect on how we humans are composed, too. How many of our own actions are scripted? How much can we really improvise? And what purpose did our own creator have in mind for us? If we were put through the full diagnostic test Maeve experiences here, perhaps the results would be equally unsettling. The tour signals a tipping point for Maeve, the season and the series at large. The world as Maeve has understood it is gone — and, more painfully still, she learns that neither she nor it was ever authentic. She sees dead bodies getting hosed off before the techs throw them on the slab and reanimate them. She sees buffalo and deer getting their movements calibrated in glass pens. She sees the programmed interaction, like lesbian playacting and a . She sees a designer literally sculpting facial details. And finally, she sees her life and memories edited into a slick advertisement for real people to “Live Without Limits. ” For Maeve, it’s simultaneously a death and a reawakening, the end of her old life (or lives, given the sloppy accumulation of past constructs) and the beginning of a new one. What happens to Maeve in Episode 6 is a variation of what happened in the previous episode to Dolores, who gunned down a pack of outlaws and chose to pursue a destiny more assertive than her loop. Both women are now though Maeve has the extra advantage of being able to manipulate her “attribute matrix,” dialing down her sense of loyalty and her ability to feel pain while amping up her “bulk apperception,” which will make her smarter and more powerful than the humans who built her. Having played the victim for years in Sweetwater, Maeve has essentially turned herself into a monster, hellbent on revenge. Beyond Maeve’s request for alterations, we learn that someone else with high clearance has already been manipulating her attributes. In Michael Crichton’s original “Westworld,” the robot revolt was as preordained as the dinosaur rampage in his “Jurassic Park,” an example of chaos theory in action. The root causes here are a little more ambiguous, a cocktail of design flaws, human weakness and the development of and free will. But “The Adversary” reveals that someone — most likely Arnold, our ghost in the machine — has been tweaking with the earlier android models in the park, which Arnold had a hand in creating. Whether Arnold is alive or not is an open question, but he appears to have tweaked his creations from within — and maybe with Theresa’s help. Questions about Ford are floating around, too, particularly about his secret plans to expand Westworld. But this episode finds him in a rare state of powerlessness. When Bernard discovers a group of unregistered “anomalies” residing in the unused Sector 17, his investigation leads him to a family scene with a stern father, a mother, two young sons and a dog. Ford modeled the family from his own past and has been keeping these older machines around as an act of nostalgia, so he can interact with “ghosts” from his childhood. It’s yet another example of the creators imprinting the hosts with their flaws, but a poignant one for a man like Ford, who’s defined more by his aloofness than by his soul. “If you could see your son again, Bernard,” he asks, “wouldn’t you want to?” When you have the power to raise the dead, as Ford does, it’s hard to keep yourself from doing it. But then, there are consequences. Ford finds the robot dog dead. He asks the boy about it. The boy lies about killing it. Prime directives have been violated here and elsewhere, as the protections put in place to keep the hosts from lying to humans or from killing them have eroded. The final lyric of “Motion Picture Soundtrack is “I will see you in the next life. ” Hosts like Maeve and Dolores have died and been reborn, but the form that next life will take — and the amount of control they will exert over it — is a mystery. Paranoid Androids • A note on sex and nudity in “Westworld”: Last week’s episode got a lot of media attention for the big orgy in Pariah, but I wound up addressing it lightly, because William and Dolores’s lack of interest in participating seemed much more notable than the event itself. But I feel like “Westworld” has been tossed into the same basket as HBO shows like “Game of Thrones,” “True Detective,” and “Rome,” which have brought the network some criticism for appealing heavily to libidinous men. The difference is that “Westworld” has been, from the very first image of the show, studiously despite a premise whose human subjects indulge a lust for sex and violence. If you were bored by the orgy, that’s not a mistake on the part of the filmmakers. • Asked by Elsie if they’re in a or situation, Bernard replies: “We’re engineers. It means the glass has been engineered to the wrong specifications. ” That joke will not curb the popular fan theory that Bernard is a robot. • The Man in Black and Teddy continue their hunt for Wyatt and the center of the maze, leading to the disturbing news that Teddy might not be the White Hat he appears to be. Teddy’s decision to slaughter the soldiers with a Gatling gun startles even the Man in Black, who thinks it’s more prudent to flee than to fight. “They’ll just follow us,” he says coldly. • Teddy also supplies more information about the “old native myth” of the maze, with the ominous news that the man responsible “vanquished all his oppressors in a tireless fury. ” Finding the center of the maze would appear to be an mission. | 0fake |
Upset at Trump, Mexico voices 'worry and irritation' to U.S. envoys | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico on Thursday expressed “worry and irritation” about U.S. policies to two of President Donald Trump’s top envoys, giving a chilly reply to the new administration’s hard line on immigration, trade and security. Comments by Trump about a “military operation” to deport criminals added to the tense atmosphere, and prompted a clarification from Homeland Security chief John Kelly, one of the U.S. officials visiting Mexico City. The U.S. government angered Mexico this week by saying it was seeking to deport many illegal immigrants to Mexico if they entered the United States from there, regardless of nationality. It is the latest point of friction between neighbors that have also been at odds over Trump’s vow to build a wall on the border and his attempts to browbeat Mexico into giving concessions on trade. “There exists among Mexicans worry and irritation about what are perceived to be policies that could be harmful for the national interest and for Mexicans here and abroad,” Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray told a news conference. He was speaking after talks in the Mexican capital with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Kelly, who later met with President Enrique Pena Nieto. The Mexican leader scrapped a summit meeting with Trump in January as tensions rose. Tillerson and Kelly emphasized traditionally strong U.S.-Mexico ties and both sides pledged further dialogue on migration, trade and security issues. Pena Nieto said the talks were a sign of the will to build a constructive relationship. Two Mexican newspapers leaked comments from Videgaray, however, that bolstered the perception that Mexico is taking a more robust approach to its dealings with Trump, following jibes that Pena Nieto should stand up to his counterpart. If the United States taxes imports from Mexico, there will be a response that “hits them where it hurts,” La Jornada and Reforma reported Videgaray as saying, based on recordings obtained of a closed-door session with lawmakers on Wednesday. Videgaray warned of counter-taxes and tariffs targeting U.S. congressional districts most reliant on exports to Mexico if Trump started limiting trade. Kelly and Tillerson were more measured in their words than either the Mexicans or Trump, who said on Thursday a military operation was being carried out to clear “bad dudes” such as gang members and drug lords from the United States. Kelly said there would be “no use of military force in immigration operations,” and “no, repeat, no” mass deportations. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump’s comment was meant to describe the “flawless” manner that U.S. immigration and border authorities worked. There were some signs of congeniality behind closed doors. Tillerson drank tequila with Mexican counterparts at dinner on Wednesday night, a person familiar with the event said. Pena Nieto’s office described the U.S. officials as professional and constructive. Looking stern as he stood beside the U.S. visitors, Videgaray said it was “a complex time” for U.S.-Mexican relations, which have gone downhill quickly since Trump’s election last November. Videgaray and Pena Nieto have been criticized at home for being too willing to engage with the Republican president, who has repeatedly cranked up tension with the country ahead of key meetings. Opposition politicians and a handful of protesters demanded that Pena Nieto snub the visitors, and even Economy Minister Idelfonso Guajardo had said the meeting with the president on Thursday might not happen, depending on the tone of the talks in the morning. Mexico relies heavily on exports to its neighbor. But stakes are also high for the United States, not least because a breakdown in relations with Mexico could affect extensive cooperation on the fight against narcotics and stemming the flow of Central American illegal immigrants that reach the U.S. border. Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said the two countries needed to strengthen intelligence sharing, as well as take more action to stem the flow of weapons and drug money from the United States and to shut down criminal organizations, . “Mexico needs the United States, and the United States also needs Mexico. Our countries will always be neighbors so the best thing would be to have agreements that work for both equally,” Osorio Chong said in comments at the Foreign Ministry. In a concession to Mexican concerns, both Kelly and Tillerson acknowledged the need to stop arms and drug proceeds moving south, and praised Mexico’s extensive programs to turn back Central American immigrants traveling north. “There is no mistaking that the rule of law matters along both sides of our border,” Tillerson said. None of the officials made direct references to the deportation of immigrants from third countries to Mexico, or to paying for the border wall planned by Trump, a red-flag issue for Mexico. | 0fake |
GOP Senator BURNS The Hell Out Of Trump With His Reason To Avoid The GOP Convention | GOP Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska has been one of Trump s most vocal critics in the Republican Party. He s also adamant that he s not going to the GOP convention this year; it seems he doesn t want to expose his kids to Trump. He doesn t want to have anything to do with Trump, and he s going to nope the hell on out of there.To make his point, his spokesperson told The Hill the following: Sen. Sasse will not be attending the convention and will instead take his kids to watch some dumpster fires across the state, all of which enjoy more popularity than the current front-runners. Burn! That hurts. When Trump met with GOP Senators on Thursday, things got heated when he decided that was just the peachiest of times to criticize Senators that don t like him, instead of, oh, actually behaving in a presidential manner and talking strategy, platform and other important things. Sasse is one of the louder members of the Never Trump movement, and one of the Senators that Trump felt it appropriate to excoriate.There is nothing more important to His Royal Narcissist than how many people bow and scrape before his really gross little feet. Those who resist? He ll make sure they regret it.Sasse isn t the only one to have a snarky response for not attending the convention. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said he ll be mowing his lawn, and Steve Daines (R-MT) will be fly-fishing rather than doing anything to help Trump along. These have to be the three most insulting reasons for not helping to officially crown the Fascist-in-Chief.Sasse s spokesperson invoked dumpster fires again when explaining why Sasse cannot and will not vote for Trump: Mr. Sasse continues to believe that our country is in a bad place, and, with these two candidates, this election remains a dumpster fire. The burns just keep coming, and from a GOP Senator, are absolutely amazing.Featured image by Zach Gibson/Getty Images | 1real |
FLYNN: Kathy Griffin Hopefully Decapitates Partisan Comedy, a Joyless Oxymoron - Breitbart | Did you hear the one about comics? [Kathy Griffin transformed from jokester to punchline this week by holding the image of the president’s severed head. Offending comes with the territory, but some comics mistake this as their raison d’etre. They miss that the essential aspect of comedy, even (especially?) in times, remains to provoke laughter. Griffin mistook shock for humor. Where but at the ISIS Improv does anyone laugh at the beheading of a president? Senator Al Franken canceled a joint appearance with Griffin over the controversy. “After hearing from many Minnesotans who were rightfully offended,” the Minnesota Democrat explained, “I’ve come to the conclusion that it would be best for her not to participate in the event we had previously scheduled. I understand why Minnesotans were upset by this, and I take that very seriously. ” The senator overruled Stuart Smalley. Politicians seek to control the message. Comedians prefer a more freedom of speech. These two factions warred for Franken’s soul this week. In ditching Griffin, Franken in effect ditched his former Saturday Night Live self. Hopefully the senator can still look in the mirror and join Smalley in saying, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. ” Franken, like Griffin, holds decidedly views. Franken, unlike Griffin, boasts a history of making people laugh. Do you recall even smiling at anything Kathy Griffin said or did? Audiences increasingly laugh out of ideological solidarity rather than the inherent funniness of anything said or done. Many famous comedians rank as unfunny comedians. Joy Behar, Janeane Garofalo, Trevor Noah, Dean Obeidallah, Griffin, and many other ideological bores got ahead by misunderstanding their profession’s charge to be hysterical. Roseanne Barr is really funny. George Carlin made people laugh hard. Sarah Silverman, at least on her Comedy Central program, was hysterical in the right way. So leftish views don’t rob one of humor. A mindset does. A mission creep pervades everything. The same sportswriters who praised the Colin Kaepernick bashed Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady. They play quarterback but strangely receive judgment on displaying a “Make America Great Again” hat in a locker in the case of the latter and in taking a knee on the national anthem in the case of the former. Brendan Eich suddenly becomes a horrible tech CEO because of the causes to which he donated and Florida elementary school teacher Veronica Fleming suddenly becomes an unfit teacher because she posted in support of President Trump on her Facebook page. The same mentality that bases rooting interests on how the quarterback votes dictates a response to a comedian on his or her partisan affiliation (Tina Fey, haha Dennis Miller, boo). It’s not exactly laughing on the cue of the grim man holding the machine gun off camera but this unhealthy tic comes from the same place. Politics, which fuels so much contemporary comedy, kills so much humor. In his 2010 book Humorists, Paul Johnson judged political correctness “fatal to humor if enforced and persisted in. For one vital element of humor is inequality, and striking visual, aural, and physical differences. Differences in sex, age, color, race, religion, physical ability, and strength lie at the source of probably the majority of jokes since the beginning of human . And all jokes are liable to provoke discomfort if not positive misery among those laughed at. Hence any joke is liable to fall foul of hate laws. The future for humorists thus looks bleak, at the time I write this. ” True, but in appointing themselves cultural guardians comics make themselves authorities, a class of people unintentionally cracking us up as much as class, color, size, and other differences do. So, although PC enforcers limit what we can laugh at, the ensure that we laugh at them. Think the Joy Behar losing it on The View when Norm Macdonald persisted in saying that Bill Clinton murdered people despite repeated warnings not to say that or a Amy Schumer bizarrely turning an episode of her Comedy Central show into an infomercial for gun control. They don’t get the joke. The punchlines rarely do. | 0fake |
Trump Gives 6 Reasons To Vote For Him | Thursday, 3 November 2016 'VOTE FOR ME, WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE?"
Donald Trump has given an amazing closing speech about why he should be elected President in 2016. It can be broken down into different parts about why he should be elected according to Mr. Trump:
1) "People say I suffer from a pathological narcissistic disorder, am a megalomaniac, assault women, and am a sociopath. Well, suppose all of this is true. It mostly isn't true of Bill Clinton and Barak Obama and look where these lightweights have gotten us today! They are total losers who have destroyed the military and the middle class. Why not give a crazy person a chance? I'm bound to be better than they are. What have you got to lose?"
2) I'm a great entertainer. Elect me and you'll never be bored. If I threaten some country or the other with nuclear annihilation you'll hold your breaths to see if I carry it out. It will be amazingly exciting. You'll have nothing to lose!
3) Previous Presidents, from what I've read about only 4 of them, because of my limited attention span, have been relatively honest. Not me! I've engaged in many fraudulent business practices even cheating widows and orphans! Why not try a deceitful swindler like me? Politics is just one big con anyway! What have you got to lose with a guy like me on your side? What have you got to lose? Bing bing bong bong bing bing bing.
4) The PC people say that Presidents should be well read and educated. And the lightweight loses who have been in the Oval office have mostly been that way. Even though I've forgotten everything I've learned, I did go to one of the best Ivy League Schools. And, remember this folks, reading is for low energy people who don't have the best brains; they are the opposite of me. Education and reading, believe me, are overrated.
5) Hatred, bigotry, racism, strong immigration restrictions, Nativism, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, advocacy of violence against one's political opponents and misogyny are part of our American heritage. I embody all of these. I am the true voice of the American people. I "tell it like it is," and say things millions of Americans are afraid to say. That is why hate groups support me.
6) People say I am a "walking Id." I say, so what? The id is very, very strong. It is the reptile in our brains. It's all about winning, being a celebrity and grabbing women's vaginas to show one's power. It's all about the strength and power that total losers don't have. I am an unbelievably strong winner just like my friend Putin. You need on your side. Vote for me. What have you got to lose? I truly am unbelievable."
With apologies to Nicholas Krisof whose 11/3/16 NYT's column sparked this. Make Keith Shirey's | 1real |
IRONY! WATCH WHAT HAPPENS WHEN FEMALE REPORTER Punched In The Face At Women’s March…Find This Man! [Video] | 1real | |
Fox Host Shatters Conservative Claim That Bathroom Bills Are Needed To Stop Predators (VIDEO) | A Fox host actually debunked a conservative talking point by doing what a real journalist does best: research.An anti-LGBT conservative columnist appeared on Fox News Sunday to defend anti-LGBT laws that ban transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.Ben Domenech argued that such laws are necessary to protect women and children from predators whom right-wingers claim will use transgender protections to get into women s restrooms to sexually harass and assault victims. That s actually what people are concerned about, The Federalist columnist claimed. They re less concerned about transgender people coming into bathrooms than they are about men using this as a way to get into locker rooms with women and to exploit that opportunity to participate in some kind of criminal act. Of course, predators can already do that and no law will stop them from doing it anyway if they are stupid enough to do it. Besides, sexual assault is a crime whether transgender people are protected by the law or not. So men who willfully go into women s locker rooms and sexually assault them are going to be arrested and jailed for it.These anti-LGBT bathroom bills, however, criminalize the act of going to the bathroom and have more to do with bigotry than they do with preventing crimes that haven t even happened yet. It sounds like many of these Republicans have watched the film Minority Report one too many times.And that s the exact point Chris Wallace made in response to Domenech s claim. We actually tried to find out whether it is a public safety issue, Wallace said. Whether it is a problem with transgender people misusing bathrooms to prey on others. Wallace then hit conservatives with a PolitiFact ruling stating that they haven t found any instance of criminals convicted of using transgender as cover in the United States. Neither have any left-wing groups or right-wing groups. Indeed, in 17 states and over 200 cities across the country that have passed transgender protections, there has not been a single example of a predator using the protections to get into a women s bathroom. This seems to be a solution in search of a problem, Wallace observed.Fox analyst Juan Williams agreed and used the example of a North Carolina Sheriff who said that he had never dealt with this issue over the course of his entire 40 year career in law enforcement. Republicans are creating a wedge issue, Williams explained, so that they can court the votes of evangelicals in the same way that Republicans did by putting anti-same sex marriage initiatives on the ballot in 2004. Only this time, the transgender issue isn t having the same power because most of the population doesn t consider transgender people to be a problem.Here s the video via YouTube.These bathroom bills are nothing more than a bigoted effort by Republicans to legalize discrimination against the LGBT community and states that have foolishly passed them are facing severe backlash that has resulted in corporations cancelling projects and entertainers cancelling shows. The federal government is even looking into whether federal funding in these states should be revoked over violations of federal anti-discrimination laws which could cost these states billions of dollars.The fact is that Republicans are creating an imaginary issue to justify the passage of bigoted laws and they have brought shame and economic ruin to their states in pursuit of nods of approval from an ever-shrinking evangelical population who wish to use religion as a shield to excuse discriminating against certain groups of people.But Fox News just shattered the bullshit claim made by conservatives to defend these bigoted laws. So the question is what excuse will they invent next?Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
WHY OBAMA’S CORRUPT INNER CIRCLE Is Desperately Fighting To Protect His Failed Reputation | History shows that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea. Those words were written by former National Security Adviser Susan Rice on Thursday in the New York Times, in arguing for appeasement towards Kim Jong-un.It was also the perfect symbol of everything that was wrong with Barack Obama s feckless foreign policy and it explains why the world that President Donald Trump inherited is so dangerous and unstable.The Obama administration believed it was worth living in the shadow of terror and nuclear aggression as long as the U.S. could maintain a dignified posture that could not provoke anyone. BreitbartNoah Rothman of Commentary Magazine wrote a brilliant article about the death rattle of Obama s reputation . In his article, Rothman reminds us of the ineffective and dangerous path former President Barack Obama took our nation down, and why the successes of President Trump are forcing his corrupt inner circle to speak out against Trump in defense of Obama s failed legacy.The members of Barack Obama s administration in exile have become conspicuously noisy of late even more so than usual. Former CIA Director John Brennan accused Donald Trump and his administration of engaging in outrageous, narcissistic behavior typical of vengeful autocrats by threatening proportionate retaliation against countries that voted to condemn the United States in the United Nations, as though that were unprecedented. It is not. James Clapper, Obama s director of national intelligence, all but alleged that the president is a Russian asset. Perhaps the most acerbic and incendiary series of accusations from the former Democratic president s foreign-policy professionals were placed in the New York Times by Obama s national security advisor, Susan Rice. In her estimation, America has abdicated its role as a force for good. Rice s attacks on the Republican administration deserve the most attention, if only because they are the most apoplectic. Donald Trump s recently released national-security review paints a dark, almost dystopian vision of the world, Rice contended. His world is full of hostile states and lurking threats. Rice claimed that there is no common good in Trump s worldview. What s more, there is no international community and no universal values. There are just American values. Rice acknowledges that Moscow is a threat to regional stability and peace, Western values, and U.S. sovereignty. She implies that Trump is a menace because he declines to recognize that. In fact, it was Obama much more so than Trump who has failed to see the obvious.Barack Obama was inarguably the least Atlanticist president since the end of World War II. Within a year of Russia s brazen invasion and dismemberment of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, Obama scrapped George W. Bush-era agreements to move radar and missile interceptor installations to Central Europe. In 2013, the last of America s armored combat units left Europe, ending a 69-year footprint on the Continent. By 2014, there were just two U.S. Army brigades stationed in Europe. The folly of this demobilization became abundantly clear when Vladimir Putin became the first Russian leader since Stalin to invade and annex territory in neighboring Ukraine.A year later, Putin intervened militarily in Syria, where U.S. forces were already operating, resulting in the most dangerous escalation of tensions between the two nuclear powers since the end of the Cold War. Putin s move in Syria should not have come as a surprise; Barack Obama outsourced the resolution of the Syrian conflict to Moscow in 2013, if only to avoid making good on his self-set red line for intervention in that conflict despite the norm-shattering use of WMDs on civilians. Even Rice s chief complaint about Trump, his failure to condemn Putin s brazen intervention in the 2016 election, didn t elicit a reaction from Barack Obama until the final month of his presidency.By contrast, and to the surprise of just about everyone, the Trump administration has been tough on Russia. Trump has ordered harsh sanctions on Moscow s Iranian allies for violating United Nations resolutions a course the Obama administration declined to take even if it allowed Hezbollah terrorists with direct links to Putin to operate with impunity. He ordered long overdue airstrikes on Putin s vassal regime in Syria, halting any further use of chemical weapons in the process. Trump not only declined to lift Obama-era sanctions on Moscow, as many feared he would, but expanded them. This administration closed Russian consulates and annexes in the United States. It has targeted Putin allies like Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov under the Magnitsky Act the same act that Kremlin cutout Natalia Veselnitskaya lobbied the Trump campaign to scuttle. Trump has even gone so far as to open U.S. arms sales to Ukraine, representing a significant blow to Putin s ambitions in Europe. It is without a doubt that Trump now has a stronger record on Russia than Barack Obama ever did. No wonder Susan Rice is so angry.Rice further alleged that Trump recklessly accused China of being an avowed opponent of the U.S. rather than just a competitor, and then insisted that China has not illegally occupied its neighbors. Tell that to Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, or Taiwan, each of which lay claim to strategic territory in the South China Sea that the People s Republic seized and turned into forward air and naval bases. Rice suggested that Trump s realists decided to lump Beijing in with Moscow, not because it is a rising military and economic power, but because they wanted to placate American nationalists. Though this White House declined to defibrillate the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement back to life when it inherited its corpse, it has done a far more comprehensive job of working with Beijing to isolate Pyongyang than Obama did. As the North Korean nuclear crisis intensifies, China has backed fresh sanctions on North Korean financial institutions, cut off all access to Chinese iron, lead, and coal, and may even scale back petroleum deliveries to the Stalinist state by as much as 90 percent. And all in the space of one year.Rice contended that the document failed to itemize the discrete identities on whose behalf the U.S. should labor: LGBT people, people in poverty, people with AIDS, people under 30, et cetera. Rather, the document insists that all mankind, regardless of conditions or accidents of birth, are objects of U.S. interest. Rice complained that climate change is no longer viewed as a threat to national security. Good. Climate change is not itself a threat to American national security but a threat multiplier, as the weather has always been. Save for some valid concerns about the prospect of an overly restrictive immigration policy and the precariousness of U.S. free-trade obligations, Rice painted a picture not of a radical administration but one that is returning to a familiar status quo ante. In nearly all respects, it was Obama s White House, not Trump s, that adopted an ideological foreign policy and rendered the U.S. and the world less safe as a result.Even as early as March of 2017, it was clear that the Obama administration s foreign-policy professionals were quite insecure about how posterity would remember their stewardship of American interests abroad. They had every reason to be. For now, at least, the Trump administration has declined to govern as Trump campaigned; not as a populist firebrand but a conventional Republican. Susan Rice and her former White House colleagues have every reason to worry, but not for the United States. Their reputations, however, are another matter entirely.To read the entire article, click here. | 1real |
Beyoncé Cancels Coachella Appearance Under Doctor’s Orders | Beyoncé has canceled her scheduled headlining appearance at the Coachella music festival this year after her doctor advised her to maintain a less strenuous schedule while she is pregnant with twins. [In a statement, festival organizer Goldenvoice said the singer would not be able to perform in Indio on April 15 and April 22 as planned, but would instead headline Coachella in 2018. “Following the advice of her doctors to keep a less rigorous schedule in the coming months, Beyoncé has made the decision to forgo performing at the 2017 Coachella Valley Music Arts Festival,” the organizer said in a statement. “However, Goldenvoice and Parkwood are pleased to confirm that she will be a headliner at the 2018 festival. Thank you for your understanding. Stay tuned for more information. ” Coachella organizers had hoped that Beyoncé’s performance at the Grammy Awards this month was a sign that she would be able to take the stage at the Southern California festival in April. The singer’s fans took to social media Thursday afternoon to express their disappointment, with many saying they would request refunds from the festival or else sell their tickets to interested buyers. I literally only bought a Coachella ticket for Beyoncé. This is stupid. Who wants my ticket?! — Amanda Castillo (@ACastillo121) February 23, 2017, I was only gonna go to @coachella for @Beyonce so guess I’m not going anymore🙃 — R O G Ξ L I O (@ItzMe_Roger) February 23, 2017, If Beyoncé getting pregnant not preforming at Coachella (I got my tix in May) isn’t the epitome of my luck this past year then idk what is, — Megan (@meganelizax) February 23, 2017, Makes sense why so many people are selling their Coachella tickets now … — ♔ shana (@lalashana) February 23, 2017, Coachella will still go on as planned over two weekends in April. The festival’s other headliners include Kendrick Lamar and Radiohead, while other artists set to perform include Bon Iver, Lorde, Future, Justice, The xx and DJ Khaled. The festival did not immediately announce a replacement headliner. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 0fake |
PressTV-Yemen’s Hudaydah suffering from dire humanitarian situation | Yemen’s Hudaydah suffering from dire humanitarian situation Sat Nov 5, 2016 2:28AM Critical humanitarian situation continues in Yemen's southern city of al-Hudaydah.
Mohammed al-AttabPress TV, Hudaydah
Yemeni officials have warned of a dire humanitarian crisis in Hudaydah due to Saudi Arabia’s blockade on the port city. They say the Saudi aggression has left people with little access to proper medical care as well as basic commodities. Press TV’s Mohammed al-Attab reports from Hudaydah. Loading ... | 1real |
FORMER FBI ASST DIRECTOR LETS IT RIP! Comey’s a ‘Political Hack’…Sessions is in a ‘Coma’ [Video] | James Kallstrom is the former Assistant Director of the FBI who is no fan of former FBI Director James Comey. We ve reported several times on Kallstrom s very blunt take on the politicization of the intelligence community (see below). Check out his awesome take on how Comey folded Wow!Kallstrom tells it like it is in his latest interview: James Comey, the notion that Barack Obama was going to let Hillary Clinton was going to be indicted that was obvious to anybody who knows anything at the very beginning Unfortunately, it turns out he was a political hack I think he maybe started out in an honorable way. His opinion of himself is sky high. Unbelievable guy. Just an arrogance about him I think he thought he was Superman and found out he wasn t. The dogs are always going to bite you on your heels when you re dealing with the Clintons. Look how long the American people have been dealing with the crime syndicate known as the Clinton Foundation We got all these major crime things bubbling All of which are 20 times bigger than Watergate! And nothing seems to be happening The Attorney General is in a coma! James Kallstrom, former FBI Assistant Director, said he is glad it happened. Daily CallerKallstrom endorsed Donald Trump for president He said he feels like America is going down the tubes . We should listen to this man! He s been in the belly of the FBI beast and knows the truth. | 1real |
Factbox: Trump names executives, labor officials to manufacturing jobs council | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday said he was launching a manufacturing jobs initiative and named a group of U.S. business executives and labor union officials to help with the effort, the White House said in a statement. Participants include: Bill Brown, CEO of Harris Corp Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies John Ferriola, CEO of Nucor Corp Jeff Fettig, CEO of Whirlpool Corp Mark Fields, CEO of Ford Motor Co Ken Frazier, CEO of Merck & Co Inc Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson & Johnson Greg Hayes, CEO of United Technologies Corp Marillyn Hewson, CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric Co Jim Kamsickas, CEO of Dana Inc Klaus Kleinfeld, CEO of Arconic Inc Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel Corp Rich Kyle, CEO of Timken Co Thea Lee, Deputy Chief of Staff of AFL-CIO Andrew Liveris, Chief Executive of Dow Chemical Co Mario Longhi, CEO of U.S. Steel Corp Denise Morrison, CEO of Campbell Soup Co Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of Boeing Co Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc Doug Oberhelman, former CEO of Caterpillar Inc Scott Paul, Alliance for American Manufacturing Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour Inc Mike Polk, CEO of Newell Brands Inc Mark Sutton, CEO of International Paper Co Inge Thulin, CEO of 3M Co Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO Wendell Weeks, CEO of Corning Inc | 0fake |
Britain says to pursue balanced post-Brexit immigration policy | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will pursue a balanced policy on immigration once it has left the European Union by seeking to attract high-skilled workers while driving the overall numbers down, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said on Wednesday. The Guardian newspaper published a leaked government document late on Tuesday detailing plans to drive down the number of lower-skilled EU workers coming to Britain once it has left the EU in 2019. We ll set out firm proposals later in the year, Fallon told Sky News. There is a balance to be struck, we want to attract to this country, not shut the door, on highly skilled people who want to come here and make a contribution to our society. Equally we have to make sure that British companies are also prepared to train and train up British workers. The public are very clear, they want to see immigration not stopped but brought properly under control. They also want to be clear that we implement what they voted for in the Brexit referendum. | 0fake |
China Warns of Arms Race After U.S. Deploys Missile Defense in South Korea - The New York Times | HONG KONG — The United States said on Tuesday that it had begun deploying an advanced and contentious missile defense system in South Korea, prompting China to warn of a new atomic arms race in a region increasingly on edge over North Korea’s drive to build a nuclear arsenal. The American announcement came a day after the simultaneous launch of four missiles by North Korea into waters off the Japanese coast, which Pyongyang said was a drill for striking American bases in Japan. The feat, footage of which was broadcast on state television, raised concern about the North’s ability to overwhelm the new defense system being deployed. Hours later, North Korea further unnerved the region by declaring it was blocking all Malaysians from leaving its soil, sharply escalating a dispute over last month’s assassination of Kim the half brother of North Korea’s dictator, Kim . Malaysia has accused several North Korean citizens of using VX nerve agent to kill Mr. Kim in a case that has reminded the world of Pyongyang’s access to a stockpile of banned chemical weapons on top of its nuclear program — and its willingness to take extreme measures. The flurry of developments heightened anxiety in Asia over signs that Pyongyang is closing in on its goal of developing an intercontinental missile that can deliver a nuclear payload to the United States — and what the new Trump administration might do to prevent it. And they came as the United States and South Korea participated in military exercises that North Korea has condemned. The New York Times reported Sunday that President Trump’s national security deputies have discussed both the possibility of strikes that would almost certainly provoke an attack on South Korea and a reintroduction of nuclear weapons to the South. Intelligence officials say North Korea is already able to hit much of South Korea and Japan with a missile. A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Geng Shuang, denounced the United States’ decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or Thaad, and vowed that Beijing would “take the necessary steps to safeguard our own security interests. ” “The consequences will be shouldered by the United States and South Korea,” Mr. Geng added, warning that the two countries should not “go further and further down the wrong road. ” For days, the official Chinese news media has warned that deployment of Thaad could lead to a “de facto” break in relations with South Korea and urged consumers to boycott South Korean products. The Chinese authorities recently forced the closing of 23 stores owned by Lotte, a South Korean conglomerate that agreed to turn over land that it owned for use in the Thaad deployment, and hundreds of Chinese protested at Lotte stores over the weekend, some holding banners that read, “Get out of China. ” Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, warned that Thaad “will bring an arms race in the region,” likening the defensive system to a shield that would prompt the development of new spears. “More missile shields of one side inevitably bring more nuclear missiles of the opposing side that can break through the missile shield,” it said. But in another article, the news agency rebuked North Korea, saying it must “face the reality that it can neither thwart Washington and Seoul nor consolidate its security in a breeze with its immature nuclear technology. ” The United States’ decision to deploy the missile technology brought new scrutiny to China’s policies toward North and South Korea and suggested that its attempts to please both countries in hopes of averting a crisis had fallen short. “To put it bluntly using a common Chinese expression, it has wanted to have a foot in two boats,” said Deng Yuwen, a current affairs commentator in Beijing who has sharply criticized North Korea. Yang Xiyu, a former senior Chinese official who once oversaw talks with North Korea, said China was worried that the deployment of the system would open the door to a broader American network of antimissile systems in the region, possibly in places like Japan and the Philippines, to counter China’s growing military as much as North Korea. “China can see benefits only for a U. S. regional plan, not for South Korea’s national security interest,” he said. The developments come as South Korea is consumed by turmoil over the impeachment of President Park whose administration agreed to the Thaad deployment. But with the president facing possible removal from office over a corruption scandal, the fate of the system has been in doubt. Its accelerated deployment could make it harder, if not impossible, for her successor to head off its installation. Moon an opposition leader who is the in the race to replace President Park, acknowledged that it would be difficult to overturn South Korea’s agreement to deploy the system. But he has insisted that the next South Korean government should have the final say on the matter, saying that Ms. Park’s government never allowed a full debate on it. Under its deal with Washington, South Korea is providing the land for the missile system and will build the base, but the United States will pay for the system, to be built by Lockheed Martin, as well as its operational costs. A cargo plane landed at the United States military’s Osan Air Base, about 40 miles south of Seoul, on Monday evening, carrying two trucks, each mounted with a Thaad launchpad. More equipment and personnel will start arriving in the coming weeks, South Korean military officials said. The South Korean Defense Ministry declined to specify when the system would be operational. But the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that the deployment was likely to be completed in one or two months, with the system ready for use by April. Paul Haenle, director of the Center at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said that policy makers in China had failed to grasp how Washington and its allies regarded North Korea’s nuclear program as getting closer to a dangerous threshold of being able to place a warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit American cities. “That’s a ” said Mr. Haenle, who was director for China on the National Security Council under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. China has long opposed American missile defenses, in part because of fears that they might embolden American to consider a first strike to destroy China’s relatively small nuclear arsenal. Chinese strategists warn that the United States might consider such an attack if it was confident a defense system could intercept Chinese weapons that escaped destruction. China is believed to have already embarked on a program to modernize its arsenal and develop new weapons designed to avoid missile defenses, and analysts said the deployment of Thaad could prompt it to accelerate those efforts. Takashi Kawakami, a professor of international politics and security at Takushoku University in Tokyo, said the deployment of Thaad could put the United States in a stronger position to consider a strike on North Korea. If the United States took such action, he said, “North Korea is going to make a counterattack on the U. S. or Japan or another place, so in this case they will use Thaad” to defend against the North’s missiles. The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said he spoke for 25 minutes on Tuesday with Mr. Trump, who reiterated his pledge to stand by Japan “100 percent,” according to the public broadcaster NHK. “I appreciate that the United States is showing that all the options are on the table,” Mr. Abe said, adding that Japan was “ready to fulfill larger roles and responsibilities” to deter North Korea. | 0fake |
Lewandowski To Fox News: Apologizing To The Reporter I Assaulted Is ‘Unrealistic’ | Corey Lewandowski got some good news last week when the state s attorney for Palm Beach, Florida announced that he was dropping the charges against him and is now saying he is ready to move on. But don t expect Trump s abusive campaign manager to admit he did something wrong or apologize for it.Lewandowski appeared on Fox News Sunday, and Chris Wallace asked if he had any intention of apologizing to Michelle Fields: In the interest of avoiding unnecessary litigation, which I know Republicans don t like, are you prepared here and now to apologize to Ms. Fields for touching her and for saying that she was delusioned? The campaign manager responded exactly the way you d expect Trump s right-hand man to respond: Here and now I d like to say I ve never spoken to Ms. Fields. I turned over my phone records to the Palm Beach County district attorney s office. It clearly shows I called her phone number that evening [after] I read about this on the Twitter feed. I d be happy to have a conversation with her. But to apologize to somebody I ve never spoken to and candidly don t remember ever having any interaction with is something that is a little unrealistic right now. He added, This is a person I ve never spoken to and I d be happy to have that conversation if we can put this thing behind us. Just like his boss, Lewandowski is incapable of admitting that he was wrong. He still refuses to apologize to the woman he assaulted and called names even though there is video evidence proving he did it. He, like Trump, thinks that he can just walk through life and do whatever he wants without ever suffering any consequences and unfortunately, Palm Beach prosecutors reaffirmed this by not pursuing the charges.Ms. Fields has likely had her career ruined, while this jackass gets to proceed as if nothing happened. Lovely, isn t it?Featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 1real |
DID HILLARY Cut Interview Short Because She Felt Another Coughing Fit Coming On? Ducks Behind Pillar [Video] | 1real | |
WOW! ANOTHER YOUNG MAN Found DEAD After Serving DNC With Papers In Fraud Suit On Behalf Of Bernie Sanders [VIDEO] | That s the third suspicious death of a man tied in some way to Hillary. Does anyone in law enforcement have an accurate body count of suspicious deaths tied to Hillary? We recently questioned the suspicious murder of 27 year old Democrat Data Director Seth Rich, as he was walking home through his affluent Washington DC neighborhood. He was beaten and shot in the back, but apparently nothing of any value was taken from his body, which would likely mean robbery was not a motive. If robbery wasn t a motive and the police still have no clues what exactly was the motive for his brutal murder? In our previous article, we explored the possibility that he may have been about to blow the whistle on voter fraud. Does anyone have an actual tally of the number of people who had ties to the Clintons that ended up dead? Now Bernie Sanders supporter and activist Shawn Lucas is found dead.On July 3, 2016, Shawn Lucas and filmmaker Ricardo Villaba served the DNC Services Corp. and Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz at DNC s headquarters in Washington, D.C., in the fraud class action suit against the Democrat Party on behalf of Bernie Sanders supporters.Shawn Lucas was thrilled about serving the papers to the DNC before Independence Day.According to Snopes Lucas was found dead on his bathroom floor.We contacted Lucas employer on 4 August 2016 to ask whether there was any truth to the rumor. According to an individual with whom we spoke at that company, Shawn Lucas died on 2 August 2016. The audibly and understandably shaken employee stated that interest in the circumstances of Lucas death had prompted a number of phone calls and other queries, but the company had not yet ascertained any details about Lucas cause of death and were unable to confirm anything more than the fact he had passed away.An unconfirmed report holds that Lucas was found lying on the bathroom floor by his girlfriend when she returned home on the evening of 2 August 2016. Paramedics responding to her 911 call found no signs of life.** This was before Wikileaks released documents proving the DNC was working against the Sanders campaign during the 2016 primary.Shawn Lucas was found dead this week.This follows the death of 27 year-old Democratic staffer Seth Conrad Rich who was murdered in Washington DC on July 8. The killer or killers appear to have taken nothing from their victim, leaving behind his wallet, watch and phone. Shortly after the killing, Redditors and social media users were pursuing a lead saying that Rich was en route to the FBI the morning of his murder, apparently intending to speak to special agents about an ongoing court case possibly involving the Clinton family.Watch here:And on June 22, 2016, former UN official John Ashe accidentally crushed his own throat and died a week before he was scheduled to testify against the Clintons and Democrat Party.Via: Gateway Pundit | 1real |
WOW! WASHED UP LIBERAL CHER Uses Tweet About France Terror Attack To Remind Followers She Once Won An Award There | Translation: I m so sorry for your loss but wanted to use this moment to point out I won an award for my acting in Nice!Literate translation of Cher s illiterate tweet: My broken heart (emoji translation) goes out to people of France. I was just THERE. France is the world s Treasure box (heart emoji). Spent MANY (misspelled in tweet) July s SIMCER70 s (not sure what that means). won Cannes (misspelled Cannes) Best Actress for Mask My goes out 2PPL OF FRANCE. I Was Just THERE. France is the worlds Treasure box Spent MANNY JULY S SIMCER70swon Canne Best Actress 4 mask Cher (@cher) July 15, 2016 | 1real |
Man in Antwerp, Belgium, Tries to Drive Into Crowd - The New York Times | PARIS — A French resident tried to drive over pedestrians on a crowded shopping street in the Belgian port city of Antwerp on Thursday, and a rifle and several knives were found in the vehicle, prosecutors said. With tensions already high in Europe after a similar attack involving a vehicle on Wednesday near Parliament in London, Belgian prosecutors identified the suspect only as Mohamed R. in keeping with traditional practice — a French resident of North African ancestry. No injuries were reported, but a bomb disposal unit was sweeping the car for explosives and inspecting an unidentified canister of liquid that was also found in the car. “We remain vigilant,” said the Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, on Twitter. “Our security services did an outstanding job in Antwerp. ” Bart De Wever, the mayor of Antwerp, increased the state of alert and added police security in busy neighborhoods, including shopping areas, transportation hubs, monuments and museums. The ministry of defense was sending additional troops to patrol. It was one day after Belgium observed the first anniversary of the deadliest attack on its soil, when suicide bombers in Brussels assaulted the main airport and a subway station, killing 32 people. Antwerp is the second most important hub for radicalization in Belgium, and only Brussels has sent more people from the country to fight for Islamists in Syria. The city is home to the and defunct terrorist group Sharia4Belgium, but Antwerp has so far averted a terrorist attack, and the local authorities have succeeded in foiling several plots and convicting dozens of terrorists in court over the last three years. Around 10:45 a. m. Thursday, the authorities said, a red car with French plates sped through a shopping area in central Antwerp, forcing pedestrians in the Meir, Belgium’s biggest shopping area, to dive out of the way. Soldiers on a routine patrol noticed the vehicle and signaled to the driver to stop, but he ignored them and drove through a red light, again putting pedestrians in danger. A rapid response team was called in and chased the car, stopping it less than a mile away and arresting the driver on the banks of the Scheldt River. Once the car stopped, the suspect did not resist as he was taken into custody, bystanders told local news media. The investigation was being handled by the federal prosecutor’s office, an indication that the attack would be treated as a terrorist case unless proved otherwise. President François Hollande of France said the attack “seemed to involve a French national,” adding that the suspect “was looking to kill or at the very least create a dramatic incident. ” | 0fake |
Senator McCain wants hearing on possible F-16 sale to Pakistan | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain on Thursday urged the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hold a hearing on the possible sale of Lockheed Martin Corp F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, as more lawmakers expressed concern about the deal. McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters he was concerned about the timing of the Obama administration’s decision to approve the sale of the fighter jets to Pakistan, and the potential consequences for U.S. relations with India. “I would rather have seen it kicked over into the next administration,” McCain said. A hearing would help senators decide what to do about the proposed sale, he said, noting he was very “conflicted.” The U.S. government announced on Feb. 12 that it had approved the sale to Pakistan of up to eight additional F-16 fighter jets, as well as radars and other equipment in a deal valued at $699 million. The deal drew immediate criticism from India. Separately, U.S. Senator Rand Paul said Thursday he had introduced a resolution of disapproval seeking to halt U.S. arms sales to Pakistan’s government. If passed, the measure would stop the F-16 sale. U.S. lawmakers have until March 12 to block the sale. Such action is rare since deals are usually well vetted before any formal notification, and it remained unclear if lawmakers would thwart the deal. State Department spokesman David McKeeby said the proposed sale of F-16s would assist Pakistan’s counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations and was in the interests of Pakistan, the United States, NATO and the region. “Pakistan’s current F-16s have proven critical to the success of these operations to date. These operations reduce the ability of militants to use Pakistani territory as a safe haven for terrorism and a base of support for the insurgency in Afghanistan,” he said. McKeeby said the department was aware of congressional concerns and would continue to consult and engage with lawmakers. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker allowed the Obama administration to proceed with the deal, but said he would not approve using U.S. funds to pay for the planes through the foreign military financing (FMF) program. Corker told Secretary of State John Kerry in a letter earlier this month that he was concerned about Pakistan’s ties to the Haqqani network, a militant group that U.S. officials have said is behind attacks in Afghanistan. | 0fake |
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