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Kremlin dismisses report of Trump campaign contacts with Russian spies | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia dismissed on Wednesday as groundless a U.S. media report that said members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign had contacts with Russian intelligence officials. The report, from the New York Times, has boosted concerns about Russia’s role in influencing the outcome of the United States’ election. U.S. intelligence agencies have already accused Russia of being behind the hacking of Democratic Party emails in order to help Trump, a Republican, to win. U.S-Russia relations are under particular scrutiny following the inauguration of Trump, who pledged in his campaign to improve ties with the Kremlin after they deteriorated to their worst level since the Cold War under the Obama administration. The New York Times, citing four current and former U.S. officials, reported on Tuesday that phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Trump’s campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election. “Let’s not believe anonymous information,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters, noting that the newspaper’s sources were unnamed. “It’s a newspaper report which is not based on any facts.” In a rare comment to media, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service told the TASS news agency the report consisted of “unsubstantiated media allegations”. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denied there had been any inappropriate contact between Trump representatives and Russian state agencies during the campaign. She told a daily news briefing the latest allegations looked like part of a domestic U.S. political tussle that Russian officials have suggested is designed to damage the chances for better U.S.-Russia ties. “We’re not surprised by anything anymore. This information once again proves that a very deep political game is playing out within the United States,” said Zakharova. The prospect of a swift rapprochement between Russia and the United has lessened since Trump’s inauguration due to scandals including the resignation on Monday of national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was seen in Moscow as a leading advocate of softer U.S. policy towards Russia. | 0fake |
The Real Reason Trump is Angry With McConnell and Ryan | Undercutting President Trump s agenda is what McConnell and ryan do best. It was most obvious during the Obamacare effort to repeal and replace. It s maddening to us but can you imagine how President Trump feels?He tweeted out his frustration last week and we can t blame him:The latest effort to block the MAGA agenda is happening because of Ryan and Mcconnell AGAIN!The Daily Caller reports below:President Donald Trump is angry with Republican leaders because of a proposal floating around Capitol Hill that undercuts his legislative agenda and provides major concessions to Democrats, two conservative strategists with more than 40 years of Hill experience told The Daily Caller News Foundation.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan are planning to pass legislation that would raise the debt ceiling and fully fund Obamacare subsidies through the 2018 election cycle, a source within the administration told TheDCNF. Leadership is also preparing to pass a short-term spending bill a continuing resolution that would fund the government through mid-December, include no appropriations for Trump s border wall, and continue funding to Planned Parenthood, the conservative strategists told TheDCNF.Trump called both Republican leaders out on Twitter Thursday, claiming he asked the pair to attach a measure to raise the debt ceiling to the recently-passed Veterans Affairs bill. He then went on to blame McConnell and Ryan for failing to follow through with his request, and said raising the debt ceiling could have been easy. Now the situation is a mess, he said.Read more: DC | 1real |
Cast of Avengers Joins Together To Support DAPL Protestor | By Claire Bernish, The Free Thought Project Four stars from the movie, The Avengers, have now joined forces to demand President Barack Obama pay attention to abuses and excessive force being used... | 1real |
KARMA? PODIUM COLLAPSES At Hillary Rally [Video] | Hillary Clinton was all smiles at a rally in California until her podium starts to collapse is this just a big case of karma? | 1real |
How Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell took such different approaches to supporting Donald Trump | House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s deepest ideological instincts were formed in the conservative movement of the 1980s. “You have to understand, I come from the conservative wing of the party, I’m a movement conservative,” the Wisconsin Republican told a small group of reporters soon after becoming speaker.
Three weeks later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) explained that his first instincts were to help get his endangered Republican incumbents reelected, right down to scheduling votes on legislation. “Our majority will be maintained only if we do well in purple states,” McConnell said in a December interview with The Washington Post.
That distance between two of the three most important Republicans in the nation is at the core of how Ryan and McConnell came to such different conclusions about what to do about the emergence of the other most powerful Republican: Donald Trump.
On Wednesday evening, 24 hours after Trump won the Indiana primary and knocked out his remaining presidential contenders, McConnell released a tepid statement saying he would support the nominee. By Thursday afternoon Ryan appeared on CNN to question Trump’s conservative credentials on key policy positions, lambaste his campaign of “belittlement” toward women and minorities, and said he was not yet prepared to support Trump.
[Ryan says he is ‘not ready’ to back Trump, deepening GOP divide]
That Ryan-McConnell split also explains a broader divide among Republicans here in Washington. Much of the Republican political class is coming to terms with the inevitable — Trump will be their nominee — and figuring out how best to handle what they consider a bad situation.
But for the idealists — some say ideologues — who came of age worshiping the Ronald Reagan doctrine of free markets, strong national defense and an optimistic “shining city upon a hill” tone, they cannot countenance Trump taking over what they still consider a conservative party.
Ryan, 46, is very much in this wing of the party. He cited his late political mentor, Jack Kemp, a 1980s congressman whose optimistic economic vision became a bedrock conservative principle, in his declaration that “I’m not there yet” in supporting Trump.
Today’s conservative intelligentsia has been so flummoxed by Trump’s ascendancy because, on so many issues, he is squarely against Ryan’s worldview. Trump is ready to start trade wars with China and other nations, rather than support trade deals that Ryan himself helped craft as a committee chairman before he became speaker. Trump has criticized lawmakers for considering sweeping changes to Social Security and Medicare, the very issues that sparked the rise of Ryan when he released budgets with optimistic titles like “Pathway to Prosperity” that included radical changes in entitlement policy.
Perhaps the only thing they seem to share these days is a love of the media and the back-and-forth jousting it provides — yet Trump uses his TV appearances to advance slash-and-burn tactics with opponents, while Ryan frequents shows to talk about a “confident America” with bold conservative ideas to help the poor.
“A lot of Republicans want to see is that we have a standard bearer that bears our standards,” Ryan told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “The Lead” Thursday.
[Ryan tries to pivot from “disheartened state of politics" – without ever mentioning Donald Trump]
What’s stunning to these Reagan-worshiping disciples is that a lot of Republican voters don’t want someone who bears Ryan’s standards. Trump did not just win the nomination, but he has, quite simply, routed the field.
“The man has won over 10 million votes,” said Josh Holmes, a top political adviser to McConnell. That’s more votes than any Republican ever in a presidential primary.
Looking at that equation, McConnell made a different, highly tactical decision on Trump. Sticking by his previous assurances he would support the nominee, McConnell said that the businessman had some work ahead of him. “As the presumptive nominee, he now has the opportunity and the obligation to unite our party around our goals,” McConnell said in a brief statement.
Advisers to both GOP leaders confirmed that each side knew ahead of time what was coming. Ryan’s and McConnell’s chiefs of staff, David Hoppe and Sharon Soderstrom, are close friends who first worked together in the 1980s. They remain in close contact over each decision, and did so this week.
Where Ryan saw Trump’s ideological apostasies, McConnell saw a simple reality that he needs to make the best of: Trump no longer has any opponent and he’s going to be the nominee, collecting votes from tens of millions of Americans in November.
It’s time to figure out how those endangered Republicans — eight of whom are facing tough competition in states that will also be presidential battlegrounds — can appeal to middle-of-the-road voters who will ultimately tip the balance in their races but also not alienate the Trump supporters.
“McConnell has never spent a lot of time wringing his hands about situations he cannot control,” Holmes said. “His job is to run the Senate and help his members and stay out of their way as they navigate their state’s politics.”
Some Washington insiders suggested that Ryan’s move gave endangered House Republicans cover to take similar positions and steer clear of Trump questions. Instead, Democrats said Ryan gave them the freedom to keep asking, almost daily, whether Trump had “earned” their vote, a position that Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) took Friday in her suburban battleground district.
“This starts an alarm clock that will go off eventually,” Matt Thornton, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said. “By setting up the ‘earn my vote’ standard, Republicans are only begging the question, ‘OK, what does that mean?’ When will Trump earn your vote?”
McConnell considers himself an artful tactician who rarely hands his opponents a weapon to use against him. Ever since Ryan began talking about drafting a “bold” agenda for Republicans, McConnell has given polite public support without any assurances his candidates would support it, lest some proposal be too far reaching for any of them.
“Before taking up measures, I’m going to be in consultation with my members, and it is a fact that we have a number of members up in purple states this year,” McConnell said in December.
Ryan never held back, promising early on a vision based on his upbringing under Kemp. “The conservative movement is beginning to concentrate itself on the fact that 2016 is everything, and the best way to have the best outcome is to unify by applying our principles to ideas and offering an agenda. So to me, the best path to unify is to propose and offer an exciting agenda,” the new speaker told reporters back in November.
It’s just no longer clear which Republicans agree with the exciting agenda Paul Ryan wants to craft. | 0fake |
Trump's NAFTA autos goals to collide with industry as talks start | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration has set a collision course with the auto industry as it launches renegotiations of the 23-year-old NAFTA trade pact this week, aiming to shrink a growing trade deficit with Mexico and tighten the rules of origin for cars and parts. More than any other industry, autos have been the focus of U.S. President Donald Trump’s anger over the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he blames for taking car factories and jobs away from America to low-wage Mexico. The United States had a $74 billion trade deficit with Mexico in autos and auto parts last year, the dominant component of an overall $64 billion U.S. deficit, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. “The Trump administration has framed their NAFTA negotiating objectives around reducing the trade deficit with Mexico,” said Caroline Freund, a senior trade fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “If they don’t touch autos, there’s no way of getting at what they want.” Among tools that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer may seek to boost auto employment in the U.S. is strengthening the rules of origin to shut out more parts from Asia, and possibly an unprecedented U.S.-specific content requirement for Mexican vehicles. Lighthizer’s negotiating objectives for NAFTA seek to “ensure the rules of origin incentivize the sourcing of goods and materials from the United States and North America,” which has raised concerns among auto industry executives and trade groups that he will seek a deal that guarantees a certain percentage of production for the United States. The industry is opposed to such a carve-out or to increasing the percentage of a vehicle’s value that must come from the region above the current 62.5 percent - already the highest of any global trade bloc. They say this would raise costs and disrupt a complex supply chain that sees parts crisscrossing NAFTA borders and has made North American car production competitive with Asia and Europe. “Our members feel very strongly that rules of origin are not the tools to use to reshore jobs into the U.S.,” said Ann Wilson, senior vice president of government affairs for the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association, a trade group representing auto parts makers. Wilson and other industry advocates say a better way to boost U.S. manufacturing jobs is through policies aimed at expanding vehicle exports. But if U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross gets his way, it would be harder to reach the 62.5 percent content threshold because the “tracing list” of parts that count towards that goal would be modernized. He argues the current rules are too loose and allow a tariff-free “back door” for Chinese auto parts. Parts that did not exist when the 300-plus page list was devised in the early 1990s, largely electronics sourced from Asia such as console touch screens or hybrid-drive controllers, do not count against reaching the threshold. If they are put on the list, companies would have to source them from North America or pay tariffs on them. If the content requirements become too onerous, automakers will simply skip compliance “and they’ll just end up paying the duty,” said Charles Uthus, vice president for international policy at the American Automotive Policy Council, a lobbying group for Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Fiat Chrysler. Foregoing all NAFTA tariff-free access benefits - something that could happen if Trump is dissatisfied with the negotiations and decides to scrap the trade pact - would raise costs by about $4 billion-5 billion a year, Ulthus added. Ford plans about $7 billion in total capital spending this year. Among the other contentious NAFTA issues that U.S., Canadian and Mexican negotiators will tackle starting on Wednesday in Washington is the future of a mechanism for resolving trade disputes. The United States wants to eliminate a so-called “Chapter 19” provision, arguing that it fails to combat unfair subsidies of some Mexican and Canadian goods. Mexico and Canada have vowed to keep the provision. Negotiators are expected to pursue new NAFTA chapters governing digital trade, and tightening environmental and labor standards, changes previously agreed by the three countries as part of the now-defunct 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership. U.S. negotiators will also seek a provision to deter currency manipulation, aiming to set a precedent for future trade negotiations, such as a revised U.S.-North Korean deal or a bilateral pact with Japan. The negotiations face an extremely tight timeline, with officials saying they want to complete negotiations by early next year to avoid ratification difficulties posed by elections in Mexico in July 2018 and in the U.S. in November 2018. Freund, a trade economist for more than a decade at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, said the negotiators should focus on a few key areas. “If you really want to do a full-blown modernization of NAFTA, it’s going to take a lot more than six months,” she said. “Ultimately I think they’re going to get bogged down in all these details and pick two to three things and have a smaller agenda.” | 0fake |
Factbox: What is in Republican tax bill? Here is the framework | (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are due to release tax legislation on Thursday calling for slashing taxes on corporations, repealing some taxes paid primarily by the wealthy and adjusting other taxes on families and individuals. As questions about the final shape of the bill swirl around Washington, the following is a look at the basic features of the plan released in September, though changes are expected: * Reduce the U.S. corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from a current statutory 35 percent. * Eliminate the corporate alternative minimum tax. * Move to a territorial tax system that no longer imposes the U.S. corporate tax on foreign profits of U.S. companies. * Require U.S. corporations to return assets held overseas at lowered one-time tax rates. * Establish a minimum global tax aimed at the overseas profits of U.S. corporations to prevent tax base erosion. “PASS-THROUGH” BUSINESSES * Limit the maximum tax rate on small businesses and other non-corporate enterprises to 25 percent, down from the present maximum rate on “pass-through” income of 39.6 percent. * Allow immediate and full expensing of capital investments for at least five years. * Partially limit the business tax deduction for debt interest payments. * Cut the top individual rate to 35 percent from 39.6 percent. * Increase the standard deduction for taxpayers to $12,000 from $6,300 for individuals, and to $24,000 from $12,600 for married couples. * Reduce the current seven individual income tax brackets to three brackets of 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent. * Consider a fourth bracket at a rate higher than 35 percent for high-income Americans to prevent shifting the overall tax burden from higher- to lower-income households. * Partially repeal the deduction for state and local tax payments. * Eliminate the $4,050 personal exemption for taxpayers and family members. * Create a “substantial” increase in the child tax credit, now $1,000; raise the income limit to qualify for the credit; and eliminate the higher qualifying income rate for married couples. * Create a $500 tax credit for taxpayers with non-child dependents. * Repeal the individual alternative minimum tax on high-income taxpayers. * Repeal the estate tax paid chiefly by the richest Americans. | 0fake |
Watch: Kenny G Performs for Delta Passengers on Flight to Los Angeles - Breitbart | A group on a Delta flight going from Tampa to Los Angeles was treated to a Kenny G performance Saturday morning. Per ABC Action News, the person sitting next to the saxophonist was an flight attendant whose daughter had died of brain cancer. She asked Kenny G to play. The head flight attendant then told passengers that Kenny G would play for them if they donated $1, 000 to cancer charity Relay for Life. Passengers rose to the challenge and then some, raising about $2, 000. Kenny G lived up to his promise, performing while walking up and down the aisle. Follow Breitbart. tv on Twitter @BreitbartVideo | 0fake |
More than a third of German voters undecided before election, poll shows | BERLIN (Reuters) - Support for Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives has slipped and over a third of Germans are still unsure how they will vote, an opinion poll showed on Friday, fuelling uncertainty about what kind of coalition will emerge from an election on Sept. 24. The weekly survey, conducted by pollster Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for ZDF television, showed support for Merkel s conservative bloc falling 2 points to 36 percent a result that would still make it the largest group in parliament. Support for its nearest rivals, the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD), rose by 1 point to 23 percent. The business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) and the anti-immigration, euro-hostile Alternative for Germany (AfD) were both on 10 percent. The poll of 1,383 voters, conducted from Sept. 12 to Sept. 14, also showed that 39 percent of those surveyed were still unsure how they would vote. More than ever, all these polls should be taken with a grain of salt now. There surely could be some surprises on election night, said Gero Neugebauer, political scientist at Berlin s Free University. He doubted the SPD could overtake Merkel s conservatives, who he expected to be the largest parliamentary party with the Social Democrats the second biggest. But in the fight among the smaller parties for third place and possible power in a coalition, everything is still up in the air, Neugebauer added. With the election likely to install six parties in parliament, up from four now, Germany will be marked by a more fractured political landscape after the vote. This could make coalition-building difficult. Friday s poll showed support for the far-left Linke stood at 9 percent, with the environmentalist Greens on 8 percent. Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a senior Social Democrat, told broadcaster SWR he favored a so-called traffic light coalition with the FDP and Greens. However, the poll put support for such an alliance at just 41 percent. [B4N1JZ031] The survey showed there would be sufficient support for both a repeat of the incumbent grand coalition of Merkel s conservatives and the SPD, and for a so-called Jamaica coalition of the conservatives, FDP and Greens. However, Greens co-leader Cem Ozdemir sounded a skeptical note about a possible three-way Jamaica tie-up a reference to the parties colors: black (conservatives), yellow (FDP) and green (Greens). I don t see how we should get together with the FDP, he told the daily Berliner Zeitung. FDP leader Christian Lindner also played down the likelihood of such an alliance. The Greens have long since bid farewell to Jamaica by raising their demands to the max, he told Der Spiegel magazine. Lindner, a potential finance minister if the FDP joins a ruling coalition, also set out red lines on euro zone policy ahead of potential coalition negotiations. I fear that Chancellor Merkel and French President Macron are agreed on new pots of money in the euro zone to create a gigantic financial transfer system, he said, before taking aim at European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Mr Juncker wants to expand the euro zone, though its consolidation should be the priority now. Neither would be on with us, Lindner added, with reference to a transfer system and euro zone expansion. Neugebauer said the FDP was fishing in the AfD s waters. FDP leader Lindner has turned a former pro-European party into some kind of AfD-light, he added. The poll s margin of error was some 3 percentage points. With support for Merkel s conservatives and the FDP natural allies who have ruled together in the past at 46 percent, the margin of error suggests they could yet squeak into power. A separate poll released on Thursday showed support for the SPD had slumped to its lowest level this year - at 20 percent - with Merkel s conservatives steady at 37 percent. There is high volatility not only because of those who are still undecided, said Neugebauer. There are also many swing voters who change tack at the last minute for tactical reasons to ensure or prevent a certain coalition option. | 0fake |
Republicans Facing Violence, Death Threats From Left-Wing Activists | Republicans going home to talk to their constituents are facing violence and death threats, with some lawmakers upping security at town hall events — a consequence of a culture of violence being fostered by activists and their allies in the liberal media. [In the lead up to the passage of ObamaCare in 2010, conservatives were vocal at town halls and other forums in their opposition to the law. Yet, despite a great deal of speculation and fearmongering by the media, town hall events were almost entirely free of violence or threats of harm. As the Democrats seek to mirror that opposition against President Trump and the Republican health care bill, the same commitment to is not there. Using similar tactics to “Antifa” activists opposing conservative speakers on college campuses, some activists are disrupting events and even resorting to threats and acts of violence. A man was arrested last week for threatening Rep. Martha McSally ( ) in voicemail messages, telling her that her days “were numbered” because of her support for the president. The Arizona Republic reported that her district is one of the most evenly divided in the nation, but the threats are especially disturbing as she represents the district represented by former Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in 2011. McSally faced one of the more extreme crowds at a town hall in February where she was heckled as activists carried signs saying, “Stop Trump’s crusade of hate” and “No! This fascist regime must be stopped before it starts. ” Some threats, allegedly from Steven Martan who was arrested by the FBI, say: “Martha our sights are set on you, right between your (expletive) eyes” and “Can’t wait to (expletive) pull the trigger (expletive),” according to the Republic. This month, a woman was arrested after she allegedly attempted to drive Rep. David Kustoff ( ) off the road over his support of the Republican health care bill after an event. When the car stopped, she is alleged to have attacked the car, hitting the windows and reaching inside the car. She was arrested after she bragged about it on Facebook. While tempting to dismiss as incidents, the threats and attacks come amid a backdrop of a culture of violence among the left. Riots, once a rare occurrence in America, now seem commonplace from leftist thugs in the era of Trump. Hundreds of people were arrested for rioting on Trump’s Inauguration Day alone, and college campuses have seen threats and violence should they dare to invite a conservative speaker onto campus. This has even been promoted to an extent by some liberal media outlets. In addition to the general hysteria and misinformation being pushed by some outlets (such as the false claim spread by a number of outlets that the health care reform bill would “make sexual assault a condition”) there have been outright calls for harassment. Two days before the attack on Kustoff, a May 10 opinion piece by Michelangelo Signorile for HuffPost told readers, “It’s time to move beyond polite protests within specified boundaries. It’s time to escalate the expression of our outrage and our anger in a massive way. ” Starting today and from here on, no elected official ― certainly those in the GOP defending and supporting Trump on a variety of issues, for example ― should be able to sit down for a nice, quiet lunch or dinner in a Washington, DC eatery or even in their own homes. They should be hounded by protestors everywhere, especially in public ― in restaurants, in shopping centers, in their districts, and yes, on the public property outside their homes and apartments, in Washington and back in their home states. A day later, a man at a town hall meeting put his hands on Rep. Kevin Cramer ( ) and tried to stuff money into his blazer to protest his support of the health care bill. The protester, Mike Quinn, was then written about sympathetically by The Washington Post, which made much of his subsequent apology to Cramer — but included this frightening quote from Quinn: “I was out of my mind with anger for a few moments there. ” Understandably, it now seems Republican lawmakers are taking precautions. The Hill reports that, after a catalog of violence and threats, many GOP lawmakers are fearing for their safety at town halls, and some are upping security in response. Rep. Tom Garrett ( ) increased security at a town hall event after he received a number of death threats online — threats deemed “credible and real” by authorities. “Dissent is American. Praise God. We need that. That’s what made us who we are. But when it’s ‘I’m going to kill you this way. Then I’m going to kill your wife. This is what I’m going to do to your daughters,’ … I’m not going to not share it,” Garrett told The Roanoke Times. In its report documenting the threats, The Hill noted that often it isn’t the lawmakers themselves that get the threats, but members of their families. It was the young daughter, for instance, of Rep. Jeff Fortenberry ( ) who found a sign on the family lawn: “Traitors put party above country Do the right thing for once, shithead. ” Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY. | 0fake |
La Federación de Atletismo considerará maricón también al penúltimo | La Federación de Atletismo considerará maricón también al penúltimo UN NUEVO GESTO A FAVOR DE LA INTEGRACIÓN Real Federación Española de Atletismo
La Real Federación Española de Atletismo ha anunciado hoy que, a partir de enero, también se considerará maricón al penúltimo. Con esto la entidad pretende concienciar a la sociedad para que no se perciba como un fracaso ser homosexual.
Asimismo, la medida persigue la consolidación en el habla popular de la frase “Maricón el último y el penúltimo”, propiciando un aliciente extra para correr más rápido. Si la propuesta funciona, no se descarta implementarla por arriba y considerar al subcampeón “Maricón de plata”.
“Creemos que ‘maricón el último’ es un concepto ya anticuado y denigrante. Necesitaba urgentemente adaptarse a los nuevos tiempos para que lo de ser maricón se considerara un acicate”, ha dicho el presidente de la federación, José Joaquín “El Bala”. La decisión ha sido aplaudida por los corredores más lentos de la federación, que se habían quejado reiteradamente de la soledad que se siente al ser el único maricón reconocido de una carrera.
Pero este no es el único cambio en la normativa. Con el fin de dejar de promover el uso de armas de fuego, los jueces de pista ya no indicarán el inicio de las carreras con pistolas sino con flautines. Según la web de la federación, los atletas no podrán empezar a correr hasta que no suene la última nota de “El Himno de la Alegría”. | 1real |
Myanmar jails foreign journalists with Turkish broadcaster for two months | NAYPYITAW (Reuters) - A Myanmar court on Friday jailed for two months two journalists on assignment for Turkey s state broadcaster, along with their interpreter and driver, for violating an aircraft law by filming with a drone. Cameraman Lau Hon Meng from Singapore and reporter Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia, were detained on Oct. 27 along with their Myanmar interpreter, Aung Naing Soe, and driver, Hla Tin. The four had been working on a documentary for TRT World, the English-language subsidiary of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, when they were detained for attempting to fly a drone near parliament in the capital, Naypyitaw. None of the four is a Turkish national, but the case has further strained diplomatic ties after President Tayyip Erdogan accused Myanmar s military of carrying out genocide of Rohingya Muslims in the Buddhist-majority country. Police initially investigated whether they had violated an import-export rule that carries a penalty of up to three years in jail, but the judge opted to introduce a fresh charge of contravening the 1934 Burma Aircraft Act, which carries a maximum sentence of three months. Both the cameraman and reporter pleaded guilty to the lesser charge, and the judge sentenced all four to two months, according to a Reuters reporter at the hearing. A fresh hearing will be held on Nov. 16 to decide if charges of violating the import-export rules are to be made. The detainees admitted that they committed the crime, hoping they would only be fined, so it shocked us when the judge sentenced them to two months, said defense lawyer Khin Maung Zaw. The lawyer said he would appeal for the sentence to be reduced to a fine. Before Friday s proceedings began, Mok told reporters in the court they were sorry for any disrespect of Myanmar s laws, but complained that the legal process had lacked transparency. We have no idea what is going on, and we are not allowed to speak to our family, she said. And the rules and procedures are not explained to us. We were asked to sign statements that are completely in Burmese that we cannot understand. As he was brought to court, interpreter Aung Naing Soe told reporters the four had not been mistreated while in custody, though police had asked about who they had spoken to and trips he made to several of restive Myanmar regions, including Rakhine. David Baulk, of the rights group Fortify Rights, called the judge s decision to accept the charges, deny bail and sentence the four defendants as ridiculous as it is dangerous . Once again Myanmar s judicial system has failed to stand up to state security forces and their blatant abuses of power, Baulk, a specialist on Myanmar human rights for the group, told Reuters by email. Myanmar says the military counter-insurgency launched in August was provoked by Rohingya militant attacks on security posts in Rakhine State, and has denied both Erdogan s accusation and a top UN official s description of the operation as a classic case of ethnic cleansing . More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar for neighboring Bangladesh since the military operation began. | 0fake |
The Religious Speakers Taking Part in Trump’s Inaugural Ceremony - The New York Times | celebrities may be staying away from Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on Friday, but a large number of religious leaders will take part in the ceremony, reading Scripture and offering prayers for his administration. Six religious leaders — including a rabbi, a cardinal, and a diverse group of Protestant preachers — will participate, more than for any previous president, said Jim Bendat, an author and historian of inaugural ceremonies. Each will have 60 to 90 seconds to offer a reading or lead a prayer. “Some inaugurations have had just one, others have had two or three covering different religions, but this is a record,” Mr. Bendat said. Here are those who are scheduled to participate: Cardinal Dolan has been the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York since 2009. His participation in the inauguration has been controversial in part because he has criticized Mr. Trump. In a 2015 piece for The Daily News, he described the as the manifestation of “the ugly phenomenon called nativism” that shaped American politics in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He said voters should “take seriously the Bible’s teaching that we are to welcome the stranger. ” Last week on his radio show, the cardinal said he was “honored” to be invited to take part in the inauguration and said he would have done the same thing had Hillary Clinton won the election. “It’s not the person, it’s the office, right?” he said. “I pray with prisoners. That doesn’t mean I approve of what they’ve done. ” Mr. Rodriguez is the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, an organization that says it represents roughly 100 million Hispanic evangelicals in the United States and Latin America. In a statement, he said that he saw participating in the inauguration as “not just a patriotic honor” but “as a sacred duty. ” Mr. Rodriguez has walked a tightrope in the past, defending Mr. Trump against accusations of racism (he called them “hyperbole from the liberal media”) but also speaking up for undocumented immigrants, many of whom attend evangelical churches. “The vast majority are not rapists or murderers,” he said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. “They’re actually Christians, committed to biblical orthodoxy or very staunch conservative Catholics. How about that? So they’re not rapists or murderers and we have to find a way of finding a solution. If we’re not going to deport them, how are we going to integrate them?” Pastor White is a Florida televangelist who is controversial in evangelical circles for her promotion of prosperity gospel, which states that true believers will be blessed not just with eternal salvation but also with health and wealth on Earth. She is also the pastor of a church in Apopka, Fla. Prosperity gospel is a theological world that has seen some abuse from the misuse of financial donations given to speed the arrival of God’s blessings. The practices of Ms. White and other televangelists were investigated by the Senate Finance Committee in 2007, but no wrongdoing was found. On her website, Pastor White sells a range of spiritual products like books and DVDs and also exhorts followers to make a “first fruits” donation to her ministry, a gift she says is ”mandated by God. ” “Your sacrificial offering will be a seed for blessings for the remainder of the year,” Pastor White wrote. “According to Ezekiel 44, when you present your First Fruits offering, it will cause a blessing to rest upon your house!” Rabbi Hier is the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization named after the Nazi hunter and Holocaust survivor. Critics have called for him to drop out of the inauguration, citing Mr. Trump’s support among white nationalist groups, but the rabbi said participating in the ceremony was a “ ” for him. “There are 364 days a year for politics, for the two sides to pile on each other. Three hundred days of that is enough,” he said. “Once every four years, the president of United States deserves a pass from both sides from political bickering otherwise, we weaken our democracy. ” Rabbi Hier will be the first Jewish religious leader to take part in an inaugural ceremony since 1985, he said, a fact that weighed in his decision to attend. “If a rabbi turned this down and said no?” he said, “It would be a tremendous backlash. Many people would say ‘look at how ungrateful the Jewish community is. ’” Mr. Graham is the son of Billy Graham, a pioneering televangelist and longtime spiritual adviser to American presidents from both parties. He has continued much of his father’s work. He is president and chief executive of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and has been a vocal Trump supporter. The day after the election, Mr. Graham wrote on Facebook that Mr. Trump had won because “God’s hand intervened Tuesday night to stop the godless, atheistic progressive agenda from taking control of our country. ” He continued: Bishop Jackson runs Great Faith Ministries International and Impact Television Network, which describes itself as the only Christian network founded and operated by . Bishop Jackson hosted Mr. Trump at his Detroit church and interviewed him on his network last September, a decision which drew criticism from other spiritual leaders because of the ’s comments about minorities. In the interview, the bishop asked Mr. Trump how he planned to heal the country’s racial divide if he won the presidency. Mr. Trump attributed that polarization to a lack of “spirit” and poverty and promised to create jobs. Bishop Jackson defended his visit with Mr. Trump to The Detroit Free Press in August. “It’s not about being a Judas to my people,” he said. “This is not an endorsement. This is engagement, for him to tell us what he wants to do. ” | 0fake |
Merkel, minister stress U.S. ties after critical Trump tweet | BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump called Germany’s trade and spending policies “very bad” on Tuesday, intensifying a row between the longtime allies and immediately earning himself the moniker “destroyer of Western values” from a leading German politician. As the war of words threatened to spin out of control, Merkel and other senior German politicians stressed the importance of Germany’s Atlantic ties, with Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel suggesting the spat was just a rough patch. Trump took to Twitter early in the day in the United States to attack Germany, a day after Chancellor Angela Merkel ramped up her doubts about the reliability of Washington as an ally. “We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change,” Trump tweeted. The tit-for-tat dispute escalated rapidly after Trump, at back-to-back summits last week, criticized major NATO allies over their military spending and refused to endorse a global climate change accord. On Sunday, Merkel showed the gravity of her concern about Washington’s dependability under Trump when she warned, at an election campaign event in a packed Bavarian beer tent - that the times when Europe could fully rely on others were “over to a certain extent”. Those comments, which caused shock in Washington, vented Europe’s frustration with Trump on climate policy in particular. And while German politicians sided with Merkel, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel signaled that it was time for cooler heads to prevail. TIT-FOR-TAT, FROM TENT TO TWITTER “The United States are older and bigger than the current conflict,” he said, adding that relations would improve. “It is inappropriate that we are now communicating with each other between a beer tent and Twitter,” he said in Berlin. Merkel had already begun finessing her message on Monday, stressing that she was a “convinced trans-Atlanticist”, a message she repeated after a meeting with visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Berlin. But Martin Schulz, leader of Gabriel’s center-left Social Democrats, was less emollient earlier in the day when he told reporters Trump was “the destroyer of all Western values”. He added that the U.S. president was undermining the peaceful cooperation of nations based on mutual respect and tolerance. In Rome, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said he agreed with Merkel that Europe needed to forge its own path. “This takes nothing away from the importance of our trans-Atlantic ties and our alliance with the United States. But the importance we put on these ties cannot mean that we abandon fundamental principles such as our commitment to fight climate change and in favor of open societies and free trade,” he said. | 0fake |
HILLARY Calls On CRANKY SOCIALIST She Stole Election From To Sway Free Sh*t Voters [VIDEO] | Poor Bernie. He s been a public servant his whole life and what does he have to show for it? After Hillary stole the election from him, he still agreed to endorse her. Suddenly, Bernie had enough money to buy 3rd home on beautiful Lake Champlain, where the one-percenters Bernie rails against call home. What s in it for Bernie now? Why, after months of being silent, is he hitting the campaign trail for Hillary? Could he and his lovely wife be in the market for a 4th home? Perhaps he s vying a cabinet position? What about Secretary of Free Sh*t For Everyone? Who better for such a position than the self-described Socialist who rails against the 1%, while simultaneously enjoying the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Ahh the hypocrisy of the Left. There s nothing quite like it Hillary Clinton, campaigning here Wednesday with Sen. Bernie Sanders, worked to sway millennial voters by promoting a plan to make public college tuition-free for working families.In a University of New Hampshire gym packed with students, Clinton sought to connect with those facing sometimes insurmountable college debt. Clinton said that when she graduated from college herself, she repaid her loans as a percentage of her income, which allowed her to take a low-paying public service job with the Children s Defense Fund. I could never have done that if I had the kind of interest rates a lot of people are facing, she told a crowd estimated at 1,200. We are going to fix it. This is wrong. Clinton said when she taught law in Arkansas she met many students who scraped together money for tuition but were sidelined by financial hardships, including broken-down cars or child-care problems.Clinton noted that New Hampshire has the highest proportion of students with debt and the second-highest average debt per student. She said she aims to make public colleges and universities tuition-free for families earning less than $125,000 per year, to make community college free, and to help students refinance their college debt. When you add it up, our plan will help millions of people save thousands of dollars, she said. USA TodayYeah because giving people free sh*t that would normally cost tens of thousands and in some cases even hundreds of thousands of dollars to people who are unwilling to sacrifice and work hard to pay off their debt obligations, while asking hard-working Americans who can barely make their own ends meet, to pick up the students tab is a great idea. That ought to go over real well with the working Americans you re asking to pay for your ridiculous vote getting scheme Hillary For anyone who has the stomach, here is their rally together in its entirety: | 1real |
Political Correctness for Yuengling Brewery; What About Our Opioid Epidemic? | We Are Change
In today’s political climate even our beer is up for debate. And why shouldn’t it be? This is America. We debate things here. That’s how democracy works. (At least when the issues aren’t taboo.) Recently, it’s shown up in the state of Pennsylvania with Eric Trump, Donald Trump’s son, garnering an endorsement for the Republican candidate from Yuengling, America’s oldest brewery.
And now the debate turns to political action.
With the most recent statement from Richard “Dick” Yuengling Jr., the 73-year-old owner of D. G. Yuengling & Son’s, located in Pottsville, Pennsylvania — the seat of Schuylkill County — Yuengling said that his company was “behind” Trump. Inevitably, a lashing out occurred in the digital realm with regard to political correctness and expressively personal views. Customers weren’t pleased. They were offended. In fact, some even claimed that they’d never drink Yuengling again.
This is what democracy is, and should be. Sure. And yet, something is lost in the politicized scramble of this ugly election year.
A Pennsylvania state representative, Brian Sims, announced on his Facebook page that he was saying “GOOD BYE” to Yuengling Brewery.
“I’m not normally one to call for boycotts but I absolutely believe that how we spend our dollars is a reflection of our votes and values! Supporting Yuengling Brewery, that uses my dollars to bolster a man, and an agenda, that wants to punish me for being a member of the LGBT community and punish the black and brown members of my community for not being white, is something I’m too smart and too grown up to do.”
Sims represents the 182nd district of Philadelphia , which includes a majority of Center City, in addition to parts of Rittenhouse Square, Grays Ferry, and South Philadelphia. I live here. I walk those areas of the city.
And I see, feel, and hear other elements of our society that go unnoticed or receive little to no attention. To observe this sort of outcry against a presidential candidate is expectantly what democracy was birthed upon, as we know in the city of Philadelphia. We take action. (We like to think.) However, along the way I’ve seen the incessant results of many issues that get buried, in favor of political expediency and trending topics that ultimately define our aggressive actions towards “voting with our dollars”.
If that’s the case, then what about all the other detriments to our standard of living? For instance, the opiate epidemic that is sweeping Pennsylvania and the surrounding states and the rest of the country by storm.
According to a June 2016 report from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health , entitled “The Epidemic of Overdoses From Opioids in Philadelphia”, drug deaths involving the fatal use of opioids, from 2000-2014, had tripled. In 2014, approximately 47,000 people died from overdoses in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). Sixty-one percent of that total was attributed to the use of opioids.
“Since 1999, the number of prescriptions for pharmaceutical opioid pain relievers in the U.S. more than quadrupled.”
Opioid-related overdose deaths in Philadelphia were nearly three times higher in men than among women in 2015. Those deaths were also more than two times as high among whites, as opposed to deaths among African Americans.
Between 2003 and 2015, in Philadelphia, cocaine and benzodiazepines were detected in overdose deaths in tandem with opioids at a rate of 70% and 90%, respectively. During that same period, overdose deaths related to heroin more than doubled in the city, with approximately 400 deaths reported in 2015.
In that same year, there were nearly 700 drug overdose deaths in Philadelphia. That’s more than twice as many deaths from homicide in that same year.
From 2014-2015, 10% of the nearly 1,300 overdose deaths in Philadelphia were from non-residents. Most of those non-residents were people from New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and other parts of Pennsylvania.
Once the president is elected, these issues won’t go away. In fact, they’re extant — some as a surrogate to the system we attribute to healthcare. (One of the most hotly contested issues of partisan bickering in the country.)
Additionally, these effects are increasingly felt in Philadelphia hospitals.
“The percentage of Philadelphia hospital emergency department visits related to opioid overdoses increased from approximately 0.4% in 2007 to nearly 0.7% in 2015. In 2015, there were over 6,500 emergency department visits for opioid overdoses. For each opioid-related death, there were approximately 12 hospital emergency department visits.”
So while the country politically corrects itself — whatever that means — myriad issues get buried beneath picking and choosing a side, in response to the emotional disturbances of partisan bickering.
Rather than dealing with facts, the web of society becomes entangled with He Said, She Said.
Ultimately, this coercive cultural backwardness and evolutionary substandard, the rattle-mouthed bickering of intellectual thought and deceptive, manipulative action, that matches up more closely with the reptilian species, rather than the spirit of the human heart and the cultural celebration of life and all its wonder, is exactly what gave rise to Trump.
And our opioid epidemic.
Somewhere along the way, the facts were buried beneath the lie. And the truth has become something else, entirely.
Sources
http://www.phillyvoice.com/beer-drinkers-disavow-yuengling-after-owner-shows-support-for-trump/
The post Political Correctness for Yuengling Brewery; What About Our Opioid Epidemic? appeared first on We Are Change .
| 1real |
Federal Judge Just Gave Attorney General Jeff Sessions A Huge F*ck You | A federal judge just proudly gave Jeff Sessions the middle finger by approving Baltimore s police reforms even after the attorney general had voiced his opposition.The Justice Department began investigating the Baltimore Police Department in 2014 after news reports that they had paid out millions to settle upwards of 100 lawsuits over police brutality and misconduct. Following the death of Freddie Gray in 2015, the investigation intensified. The DOJ, which was still under former President Obama at the time, found widespread unconstitutional and discriminatory practices.Mother Jones reports: Earlier this week, Sessions ordered a review of all consent decrees between police departments and the Justice Department. Department lawyers asked the US district court in Baltimore to put off approving the consent decree for at least 30 days so the new administration could review it. I have grave concerns that some provisions of this decree will reduce the lawful powers of the police department and result in a less safe city, Sessions said in a scathing statement. Make no mistake, Baltimore is facing a violent crime crisis. On Friday, US District Judge James Bredar told Sessions to go to hell, informing him that the time for negotiating the agreement is over. The case is no longer in a phase where any party is unilaterally entitled to reconsider the terms of the settlement; the parties are bound to each other by their prior agreement, Bredar wrote. The time for negotiating the agreement is over. The only question now is whether the Court needs more time to consider the proposed decree. It does not. According to Sessions, the agreement was put together in a rush at the very end of Obama s presidency and it looks like he is right. The final report was issued last summer but after Trump was elected, officials reportedly scrambled to get everything finalized, and for good reason. Because they managed to complete this particular task before Obama left office, Sessions hands are now tied.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump and the Power of Money | The Vineyard of the Saker | 1597 Views October 28, 2016 8 Comments Guest Posts The Saker
by Peter Koenig
Imagine, Donald Trump would accede to the US Presidency, an unlikely event with the presstitute media relentlessly slamming, slashing and demonizing him, not unlike they do with President Putin – while cheering no-end for the warmonger Killary, no matter what atrocities she has on her hands and body, no matter that blood is dripping out of her mouth every time she opens it – like Iraq, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan, Sudan – and more, much more. They, the elite, the military-security complex, the financial mafia, want more blood, more than is already covering the entire current Obama Administration’s structure of psychopaths. Blood is weapons, blood is money, blood is more profit, blood is good for business – so said the Washington Post, just slightly translated from ‘war is good for business’. The warmongering MSM (mainstream media) also propagate for more weapons to enrich the military-security complex that pays them. But just for a moment, let’s assume, Trump would get elected with such a large margin that voter fraud would be difficult to manage.
Trump is sending a different narrative from that of eternal war. Trump seems to be looking into a different direction. He essentially says – stop the conflict with Russia, make Russia a partner, stop outsourcing jobs, bring them back, give labor back to Americans, slash the unemployment rate – which is, of course, everybody knows, way above the silly fabricated 5%. The reality is that unreported but real unemployment in the US is hovering between 22% and 25%, a real hammer for the economy, increasing anger and unhappiness and crime. Trump also says in the same vein as bringing back jobs – STOP globalization, restrain NATO, rein in the banks – yes, Wall Street, the Goldman Sachs-es and Co. of this world of fake pyramid money, dominated by the Rothschild-Rockefeller-Morgan clan. Trump says, let’s have a financial system that works for the people.
Does he mean it? – I don’t know. Could be true. Most of what he says makes sense for America, for Americans – and by extension for much of the rest of the world, especially Europe, the genuine Europe, not the puppet-commandeered Europe. He also says a lot of outright discriminatory and xenophobic rubbish – like building a wall separating Mexico from the US of A, emulating Israel; and propagates a crackdown on Moslems. Does he mean it? Or does he want to please potential voters? – Such statements are indeed dangerous rubbish, but they are secondary to all the other things that are PRIORITARY, as they would help restore American society, workforce, dignity – most important: DIGNITY. Dignity is important for Americans to wake up to realize that they are living in a country that wastes their money, the peoples’ resources – on countless criminal wars around the world, feverishly racing towards Full Spectrum Dominance to benefit a few. The secondary stuff is important too, but can be dealt with in parallel by Americans that have come to senses.
Trump is in many ways like France’s Marine LePen, representing the extreme right, and therefore, no matter what sensible things she says and has on her agenda to do – and I don’t doubt one minute that she means what she says – like EUREXIT and send NATO to hell – she is still framed by the ‘left intellectuals’ – if such a thing still exists in our neoliberal universe – as a discriminatory xenophobe who would expel all ‘colored’ and ‘veiled’ foreigners. Of course, that’s bad. But let her first initiating France exiting from the EU, the Euro and NATO – the likely salvation of Europe, then tackle the other issues. First comes first. A true intellectual left would have to understand that – and not bend to the presstitute promoted clichés.
Trump has enough money power. He doesn’t have to bend to the military security complex, to the banks, to the Obamacare pharma-fiefdom. He doesn’t really have to bend to anybody. That worries the elite. He is independent. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. In no case could he be worse than Hillary – the killer – so much can be read from every word she says. Her pattern of pathology – “We came, we saw, we won” , when she saw the bloodstained image of the NATO-slaughtered Ghaddafi – indicates that she would not stop from pressing this infamous Red Button of Death and total world annihilation – perhaps even repeating that same smirk, , “We came, we saw, we won” .
Now let’s go to the next hypothesis, assuming Trump would be elected and ‘they’ – the elusive high-powered small elite that pulls the strings on Washington and the White House’s overseas puppets, and let’s assume ‘they’ would let him live, at least for a while, Trump might be doing ‘irrational’ things in the eye of the Beltway slaves. Recognizing the perils for his own country and those for his neighbor, Canada, Mr. Trump might call on the western stooges, in Europe particularly, who for the sake of brown-nosing the naked king in Washington, are prepared to sell-out 500-plus million European and their future generations to the most nefarious trade deals the world has ever known – CETA, TTIP and TiSA (let alone the TPP, where 12 Pacific countries are about to kiss ass in Washington) – telling them to come to senses, think democracy and stop the deals that 80% or more of Europeans despise and reject.
As a parenthesis and philosophically speaking, one could say that given the hundreds of years of colonization around the globe, of shameless exploitation, of raping and killing millions of people throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America, that these trade ‘deals’ are Europe’s historically deserved heritage.—– The Saker wrote a great essay on the aberration of this upcoming election and what might follow after the election, “The US Is About To Face The Worst Crisis in Their History” – http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45729.htm . One of the article’s commenters pinned it down to the point: “ If Trump does become Commander in Chief, his first job will be securing his life. Those who really run the show in the US will stop at nothing to safeguard their empire. Truly the US is at a cross roads and by extension the world. Times are really scary .”
What Trump says he would do during his first 100 days in office, he presented in a groundbreaking speech at Gettysburg, Pa. this past weekend, is for the most part truly astounding http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2016/10/24/donald-trump-delivers-a-powerful-policy-speech-on-his-first-100-days-in-office/ . It is not less than revolutionary, because no US politician, let alone a Presidential candidate or President has said something for the most part so sensible as did Presidential candidate Trump. Summarizing, he promises bringing back overseas jobs, would prevent the continued outsourcing of the American production processes, bring order to the crime-ridden communities, he would seek friendly partnership with Russia, defusing the WWIII threat – and he would tackle, restrain and control the corrupt banking system, including the endless money-making machine, the privately owned, Rothschild dominated FED. – That is a challenge other Presidents have failed to master, including Lincoln and JFK. We know how they ended.
Trump has already hinted that to revive the American economy the zero-interest policy may have to be changed, so that banks become more responsible. The owners off the system would hardly allow Trump’s interference in their obscene profit-making scheme. They’d rather at their calling let the bomb loose. A sudden change of this policy would hit many over-stretched banks like a bombshell – reminiscent of 2008 Lehman Brothers, just magnified by a factor of 10. There are currently at least three, possibly five Wall Street giants that are on the edge. They get by, because of the FED’s zero interest policy- and they make sure that this doesn’t change, as several if not all of them are part of the private FED system. Would Trump dare touching this system? – It’s a deadly challenge. He knows it.
This time there may be more at stake then just another banking collapse, a planned emulation of the 2007 / 2008 crisis, where Wall Street was copiously rewarded for its excesses by tax-money bail-outs. Be aware, this time it would not be tax-payer’s money that would rescue the Too-Big-To Fail (TBTF) banks, but it would be YOUR money, your deposits, your savings, your pension funds, possibly even your shares if you have any in the bank being ‘collapsed’ – and the process would be called ‘bail-ins’.
The (western) world is under the hegemon of a privately-owned money system, the US-dollar – and most people don’t even know it. The accent is on the western world , because the east, comprising Russia, China, the SCO countries (Shanghai Cooperation Organization – comprising China and Russia and most of the Central Asian former Soviet Republics, plus Iran and Pakistan – and others are waiting in the wings), the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union), as well as most of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), are forming their own eastern economic and monetary block. – I have said this before, but will repeat it for readers to realize – this ‘economic block’ – is largely, if not entirely, delinked from the dollar scheme. It consists of about half the world’s population and one third of the world’s GDP, a solid GDP that is. In contrast to the western, especially the US GDP; in the eastern block much of the GDP is based on real labor output and manufacturing.
In reality, this eastern economic power block which is also displaying the world’s largest economic development potential, since history remembers, the New Silk Road – or the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) economic development scheme, stretching from Vladivostok to Lisbon (if Europe chooses to participate), does not need the west anymore. The OBOR project has already begun. It represents a view into the future, with job opportunities and the outlook for a truly better life for hundreds of millions, possibly billions of people during coming generations – a dynamic vision for the future. The east is where the future lays.——-
Donald Trump as President notwithstanding, a new western well-planned banking collapse may start in the US, the ramifications and impact would be felt around the globe – sinking millions, hundreds of millions of people into poverty, misery, the like we haven’t seen in recent history. The banks ‘depositors’ money might not be enough. The reptiles are hungry. They might privatize public properties, infrastructures, roads, ports railways, health care, education, pensions, natural resources – anything that is still in the hands of the people. If Greece is a reminder, then think of Greece blown up by a factor of 1000 – all around the globe, touching in extremis the vulnerable people of the vulnerable countries – billions of people. While the money flows again from the poor to the rich, to an ever-shrinking pool of super-rich; widening the rich-poor gap to a disgusting yawn. Leaving the 99.99 % – by now the 99. % ever more powerless, having to fend for sheer survival – seeking refuge in ‘better lands’ – It’s a war by money. Canons, bombs and guns could rest – for a while.
For years, I have felt the Empire will have to be brought down from inside – from the people who can’t take it anymore, from an internal revolt that eventually would break the worldwide extended monster’s back. Rome and most subsequent empires have fallen this way. It may still happen. But now I side more with The Saker’s theory, namely that the defeat may come from a combination of inside revolt and outside forces, not so much military forces, but economic forces. In theory, it could happen tomorrow. Just imagine, the one third of world-GDP-countries would drop all their dollar reserves, all the dollar denominated international contracts, all dollar issued trade agreements – and in particular, abandon at once the unwritten rule of hydrocarbons to be traded only in US-dollars. It would most likely wipe out the western economy.
This will not happen, of course. Simply, because the One Third GDP holders do not want to destroy the economy of the rest of the world, especially the so-called developing and emerging countries, many – or most of them – eventually to become allies of this eastern block that promises peaceful co-existence rather than the current western pattern of ever multiplying wars and conflicts – a sheer dollar-fed killing spree, with destruction and weapons manufacturing no end.
The Power of Money. Would Donald Trump, as President, himself a moneyed powerhouse, survive such a calamity? In fact, would he be able and strong enough to veer the ship around, guiding the world away from such destructive scenarios and towards peace and cooperation between East and West? – Or is the train already too far out of the station? – No telling at this time. The signals are certainly not good. But, let’s put in a grain of optimism and ‘bank’ on a positive strand of dynamics fueled by an increasing human consciousness – one that would not allow Hillary to push the Death Button.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media, TeleSUR, TruePublica, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance . The Essential Saker: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world $27.95 | 1real |
Instead Of The Middle East, Trump Sent His Terrorism Taskforce To The Midwest; Why? | Donald Trump has no real platform other than be afraid, be very afraid. In Trump s imaginary world, we are all about to be wiped out by terrorists, but not the gun toting right-wing Trump follower type. No, we re all about to be killed by green card holding people from countries from the Middle East, but not actually from the countries that have ever attacked us. Earlier in the week, Trump s Press Secretary said this: I don t think it should be any surprise that the president, when it comes to rooting out radical Islamic terrorism, which is what that initially was supposed to be focused on, he is going to make sure that that is a major focus of his keeping this country safe, Spicer said.Source: OPBIf that s the case, then why the hell is the FBI terrorism task force worried about some peaceful protesters in the Midwest?The Guardian reports that the Trump administration has its FBI terrorism task force harassing people who are protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, instead of working to protect the lives of, you know, the American people. Instead, Trump seems to be redefining the word terrorism to fit anyone who interferes with his corporate or personal agenda. In this case, it s people who might interfere with oil company profits. The idea that the government would attempt to construe this indigenous-led non-violent movement into some kind of domestic terrorism investigation is unfathomable to me, said Lauren Regan, a civil rights attorney who has provided legal support to demonstrators who were contacted by representatives of the FBI. It s outrageous, it s unwarranted and it s unconstitutional. Source: The GuardianNot only is this about enriching his buddies, but there is apparently a direct conflict of interest.Trump, a former investor in Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based firm behind the pipeline, took executive action in his first week in office to expedite the project. On Wednesday, workers began drilling to complete the pipeline across the Missouri river.There is so much that s disconcerting about this. Three days after a right-wing Trump supporting actual terrorist shot up a mosque in Canada, Trump removed any mention of right-wing terrorism from the website. Instead, he said he wanted to focus strictly on Islamic terrorism. So where exactly do protesters in the Midwest, many of whom are Native American fit in? It s simple, they don t. Trump is creating a new police state. We are either with him or against him and if we are against him, well, we too could be called terrorists. Oh, and did I mention that he wants to torture terror suspects?Featured image via Mario Tama/Getty Images. | 1real |
MUST-SEE: Protester Hurls Tomatoes At Donald Trump During Iowa Rally (VIDEO) | During a Wednesday rally at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, a protester hurled tomatoes at Donald Trump after the Republican presidential frontrunner referred to Bernie Sanders as a communist. In a news release, officials said Andrew Joseph Alemao, 28, was observed throwing two tomatoes at Trump, the real estate mogul and front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.Alemao has been charged with disorderly conduct, a simple misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $625 or 30 days in prison. He is currently being held in the Johnson County Jail.He was taken into custody by the Secret Service and the UIPD after throwing the tomatoes, the release said.At least three Sanders supporters were apparently escorted by security out of the rally, with Trump shouting, Get em outta here! to the cheers of his fans in the crowd.Not one of the tomatoes actually hit Trump.But it shouldn t matter.Frankly, regardless of how vile, obnoxious and ultimately dangerous Trump might be, there s simply no excuse for anyone to engage in physical violence against him, or any public figures for that matter. It s childish, unacceptable behavior especially for liberals who ought to know better. If activists are incapable of making an argument using words, evidence and reason, they should figure out how it s done, rather than embarrassing the rest of us (especially other Bernie supporters) by lashing out like an infant who refuses to eat and hurls his food at the wall in protest.The same goes for pie attacks against William Kristol and Ann Coulter, or red paint attacks against Condoleezza Rice. In fact, at the time, I wrote something similar when a protester attacked George W. Bush by throwing shoes at the former president. Feel free to applaud these kinds of attacks I m sure it s cathartic but know that by encouraging such atrociously violent, kneejerk behavior, you re only encouraging more of it.And, so, don t be surprised when conservative activists retaliate with the same thing against liberal leaders and celebrities, not unlike how a pissed off wingnut attacked Hillary Clinton back in 2014. Put another way: it s probably not difficult for Trump supporters to worm their way into Democratic rallies.Just to be clear: it s entirely possible that the tomato-tosser wasn t a Bernie supporter at all. Featured image via video screen grab. | 1real |
Trump says he'll decide on national security adviser in next few days | (This story corrects year to 2001 in paragraph 17 in the February 18 story.) By Jeff Mason MELBOURNE, Fla. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will interview four candidates for the position of U.S. national security adviser on Sunday and expects to make a decision in the coming days, he told reporters on Saturday. Trump will interview acting adviser Keith Kellogg, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster and Lieutenant General Robert Caslen, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “I’ll make a decision over the next couple of days,” Trump told reporters later on Air Force One. He said he was leaning toward one of the candidates he was interviewing on Sunday. Trump, who has been searching for a new national security adviser after firing his first one, Michael Flynn, could add a couple more candidates to the list, Spicer said. Retired general and former CIA chief David Petraeus is no longer a candidate. The retired four-star general, who resigned as head of the CIA in 2012 after it was revealed he was having an affair with his biographer, had been on a short list for the job after Flynn was let go. Spicer said Trump’s finalists include Kellogg, Bolton, Caslen, who is the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and McMaster, who holds a senior post with the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. Former U.S. National Security Agency head Keith Alexander, and former Army chief of staff Ray Odierno were also thought to be in contention for the job. Flynn stepped down early this week after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. Finding a replacement has been a challenge for Trump. Retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward, the president’s first choice to take over for Flynn, turned down the offer, citing family and financial reasons. A source familiar with the matter said Petraeus, like Harward, wanted control over staffing decisions within the NSC, and Trump was reluctant to grant that authority. Trump is spending the weekend at his properties in Florida. “Will be having many meetings this weekend at The Southern White House,” he wrote in a tweet on Saturday morning. The president spent the morning at the Trump International Golf Club before returning to his Mar-a-Lago resort. He later held a political rally in Melbourne, Florida. The tumult in Trump’s security team stretched into other areas of the National Security Council, the president’s main forum for decision-making on security and foreign affairs. The White House dismissed Craig Deare, the NSC’s senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs, after receiving reports that he had criticized the president and top aides, Politico reported. An NSC spokesman declined to comment. McMaster is a highly regarded tactician and strategic thinker with a PhD, who as a captain in 1991 commanded a small troop of the U.S. 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment that destroyed a much larger Iraqi Republican Guard force at a place called 73 Easting, for its map coordinates, in what many consider the biggest tank battle since World War II. Caslen, a West Point graduate, was serving in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and joined others after the attack in rushing into the damaged part of the building to search for survivors. He served in the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The Pentagon Inspector General found that he and other generals violated Defense Department ethical guidelines by appearing in a video promoting Christian Embassy, a non-profit evangelical group previously known as the Campus Crusade for Christ. | 0fake |
Texas House passes 'bathroom bill' targeting public schools | (This version of the May 22 story was corrected to clarify details of the bill in paragraph four to show that it requires schools to provide alternative facilities) By Jon Herskovitz AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Texas House of Representatives gave formal approval on Monday to a bill that would restrict bathroom access for transgender students in public schools, a measure that critics say promotes discrimination against such children. The state’s Republican-controlled legislature has been at the forefront in advancing measures seen by backers as protecting traditional values and religious liberty but criticized by civil rights groups as eroding protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, people. The Texas House gave preliminary approval on Sunday night to the bill, which requires public school students to use bathrooms, changing facilities and locker rooms that match their biological sex, not the gender with which they identify. Under the bill, school districts have to accommodate students who do not wish to use a common facility based on biological sex with a single-occupancy facility, or a multi-occupancy facility if its use occurs when no one else is present. The measure is narrower in scope than a bathroom bill passed along mostly party lines by the state Senate in March that extended to state universities and public buildings. The Senate bill is similar to one enacted last year in North Carolina. The North Carolina law prompted economic boycotts and the loss of sporting events, and was later revamped in the face of criticism. The more limited House measure is seen as a way to avoid an economic backlash in Texas, analysts said. “It is absolutely about child safety,” Republican state Representative Chris Paddie, who managed the bill, said in House debate on Sunday. The measure heads back to the Senate for consideration of changes made since it was in that chamber. Republican Governor Greg Abbott has said he supports a bathroom bill. Critics said the House and Senate versions undermined civil rights and used children as political pawns. “There is no moral middle ground on discrimination, “ said Kathy Miller, president of the civil liberties advocacy group Texas Freedom Network. The legislature on Monday also sent to the governor a bill allowing adoption agencies to reject families on religious grounds, an action slammed by critics as discriminatory against LGBT Texans and non-Christians. LGBT rights groups said they would challenge the adoption bill in court if it became law, arguing discrimination in the name of religion had no place in the state. The bill’s backers, which include several Christian groups, said it banned no one and had a mechanism for the state government to offer alternative adoption providers if any service is denied for religious beliefs. | 0fake |
LOL! $45 MILLION DOLLAR WHOOPI Complains Conservatives Prevented Her From Making A Living [VIDEO] | She s pulling down a cool $2 Million a year as the race-baiting host of ABC s flailing The View talk show.Watch Goldberg take a line from Hillary s dead broke book during this segment: | 1real |
Twitter Mocks Trump’s Face Off After Poorly-Spelled Insane Rant About Sally Yates (TWEETS) | Donald Trump kicked off his week with a ridiculous attack on former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates.Yates, of course, was fired after she refused to back Trump s first Muslim ban in court. It was, of course, later deemed unconstitutional and the administration suffered a fair amount of embarrassment from Trump s decision to fire Yates. Yates also warned The Donald about Michael Flynn, who was later fired by the administration for allegedly lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his specious contacts with Russia. Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Council, Trump tweeted Monday morning.Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Council. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017This, of course, surprised absolutely no one right down to his terrible spelling. Trump, of course, should have said counsel, but our current POTUS isn t exactly the brightest bulb in the bunch of mixed metaphors. In any case, Twitter is on to you, Trump:@realDonaldTrump and so it begins Rob Szczerba (@RJSzczerba) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump I m a psychic!!https://t.co/t6hJTxtB9f david nuzzy nussbaum (@theNuzzy) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump I CALLED IT https://t.co/NBBz5u9JIU Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Crying before you ve been punched Paul Vale (@PaulVale) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Counsel. Jon (((Wolfsthal))) (@JBWolfsthal) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Omg you re spelling things wrong and incriminating yourself nick brennan (@nfbrennan) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump It s COUNSEL, you fucking dumbshit. Brian Scully (@brianscully) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump You are so scared of Sally Yates it s funny. The world knows you tweet when you are scared and nervous. Get your popcorn ready!! Brandon Neely (@BrandonTXNeely) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump That s Counsel, Mr. Prezadint. Andrew Feinberg (@agfhome) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump you spelled counsel wrong though. Someone needs to take away your damn phone. Delete your account Kellee Terrell (@kelleent) May 8, 2017@akaCorbinDallas @realDonaldTrump We should all update our resumes with smarter than the US president. Maiko Soares (@maikofigur) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Can you feel the darkness closing in on you, Donnie? They re coming for you. Any minute now. Chris Menning (@cjmenning) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump You misspelled counsel idiot.Yates warned the White House on Jan 26. Trump kept Flynn in for 3 weeks more.Covering up #TrumpRussia pic.twitter.com/WDA6jw0Tqz DCResisterBee? (@DC_Resister_Bee) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Dude, it s COUNSEL. You re the freaking President and can t even SPELL. 5th graders are your surperior S vion (@SavionWright) May 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump *counsel. Your team should form a council to proofread and vet your tweets. This is embarrassing. Stand Up America (@StandUpAmerica) May 8, 2017This is just the beginning of what will almost assuredly be a weeks-long meltdown. We look forward to his eventual resignation.Featured image via Getty Images (Pool)/screengrab | 1real |
Mexico says does not expect Trump deportation plan to begin soon | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Deportations of undocumented Mexican migrants in the United States may start rising when President-elect Donald Trump takes office but the process will not begin soon, Mexico’s deputy interior minister for migration said on Wednesday. Trump surged to victory early on Wednesday morning after upsetting pollsters’ predictions to beat Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and seize the White House in a campaign that sent the world into uncertainty. The impact of his win was particularly acute in Mexico, where the beleaguered peso currency fell about 10 percent in the aftermath of the vote. Trump, who will be inaugurated Jan. 20, has vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, fence off Mexico with a border wall and threatened to rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement, putting in danger billions of dollars in cross-border trade. “It may well be that deportations of the estimated 6 million undocumented Mexicans increase but we don’t think it will be a measure that will take place soon or happen quickly,” Humberto Roque Villanueva, the deputy interior minister for migration, told Reuters in an interview. “The Mexicans over there are useful to the North American economy and President Trump, the president-elect, will need to recognize the economic effects of such a campaign promise,” he said. Roque Villanueva also said Mexico stands ready to lobby the U.S. Congress and use all legal means possible to block Trump’s plan for impounding remittances so that Mexico ends up paying for his proposed wall on the southern U.S. border. “They wouldn’t be retaliatory measures. They would be legal responses,” he said. “We’ll be ready for all the craziness.” | 0fake |
Bundy Case Ruled a Mistrial – Will Federal Case Soon Crumble? | Mark Anderson 21st Century WireThe Greek philosopher Plato was credited with saying, Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens. Well, since longtime Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his sons, and his other compatriots have demonstrated they possess a strong sense of principles and justice, perhaps a little justice in the life of the American state is possible which is no small thing in an age of nearly universal tyranny and injustice.This welcome ray of light became apparent in Las Vegas on Dec. 20 when U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial in the current high-profile proceedings involving Cliven, his sons Ryan and Ammon, and Ryan Payne.This prompted members of the Bundy family and dozens of their supporters to leave the courthouse on that Tuesday in a state of elation, even with the presence of protesters who, holding signs that read, Keep your Bundy hands off public lands, appeared to be paid agitators for billionaire leftist revolutionary George Soros, as one protestor basically admitted.Back in the spring of 2014, the above-named four defendants who ve become emblematic of the plight of Western ranchers resisting heavy-handed federal land controls were accompanied by other Bundy siblings, and by scores of supporters from across the nation, all of whom gathered near Cliven s ranch in Clark County, in southern Nevada, to exercise their First and Second Amendment rights.On that basis, these brave souls, some of whom were armed in an open-carry state, protested the actions of well-armed Bureau of Land Management agents, FBI agents (including SWAT units) and contractors, when these officials showed up, set up shop, and finally moved to impound Cliven s cattle over flimsy allegations of unpaid grazing fees on public lands. The impoundment attempt, on April 12, 2014, was unsuccessful, however.But while the government retreated that day after a lengthy and often tense standoff, a 16-count federal indictment was eventually handed down. Cliven, Ammon and the two Ryans were among nearly 20 initially indicted in this now-legendary federal case, which hasn t gone particularly well for prosecutors ever since the first of several planned trials started in February of 2017.Thus, the government, despite spending millions of dollars, has seen its case steadily deflate to the point where, as of now, the only things that remain, according to a legal observer, are for Judge Navarro to receive briefs from the prosecution and the defense by 5 p.m. Dec. 29 (when a hearing may take place). Those briefs will consist of arguments to enable the judge to decide whether or not to fully dismiss the case.The mistrial happened around 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time Dec. 20, as Navarro told the jury to go home . . . it s over, recounted Roger Roots, a legal expert and author who has observed virtually every trial proceeding firsthand.He said that after Judge Navarro reviews the briefs, an open hearing will be convened at 9 a.m. on Jan. 8, according to the court schedule as of this writing. If she rules for dismissal Jan. 8 without prejudice, the indictment remains in force and federal prosecutors technically could reset the trial of Cliven and the three others, reportedly on or around Feb. 26. But if she rules for dismissal with prejudice, then the indictment is dissolved, according to Roots.Roots said a dissolved indictment would mean the government would have to go to the trouble and expense of convening a new grand jury in order to seek a new indictment which would be double jeopardy and therefore a probable constitutional violation.And while Roots said the government conceivably could appeal the mistrial ruling to the Ninth Circuit, at this point he does not believe the government would jump through all the necessary hoops for a new indictment.Notably, what helped make the mistrial a reality was Navarro s findings (reached during hearings on exculpatory evidence that the government has been withholding) that the prosecution had committed several Brady v Maryland violations including not disclosing to the defense the existence of surveillance cameras, including those trained at the Bundy homestead.Also included is not disclosing the fact that concealed snipers were stationed around the area at the time of the 2014 standoff; not disclosing the existence of maps of the snipers positions; and, among other things, not disclosing threat-assessment reports which include government admissions that Cliven and company are not dangerous people.SEE ALSO: Nevada Residents: Public Land Belongs to the People, Not DC Notably, family patriarch Cliven, as a matter of principle, stayed in prison despite a recent hearing in which the court allowed him to leave jail under house arrest. He has been jailed since early 2016 and has suffered from health problems.Cliven based his decision on the fact that a few remaining defendants which had included his sons Mel and Dave until they, too, were granted house arrest are still in jail awaiting a final trial that s been scheduled to take place sometime next year. Moreover, Ryan and Ammon Bundy, as well as Ryan Payne, all were recently released under house-arrest rulings, after an equally grueling amount of time behind bars.During a recent on-the-air interview, Cliven s daughter-in-law Briana, who s Mel s wife, told Free Speech Zone host Jim Lambley of KSDZ-FM The Twister out of Nebraska that in the almost two years that Cliven has been behind bars, several more grandchildren of his were born. Yet Cliven, despite such a strong emotional attachment to his large family, still chose to remain in jail to honor the others still imprisoned.On a Dec. 20 appearance on the same radio show, Briana added, Over 3,300 hundred pages of evidence that could ve helped the defense have been withheld and have been turned over to the defense in the last two weeks . . . . It was absolutely intentional and she [Judge Navarro] said she believes it was intentional because of what they withheld. Briana, who understands that even one, let alone several Brady violations, normally would be expected to lead to a full dismissal of the case right away (rather than carrying on with more hearings) added, however, that the Bundy siblings all are wearing electronic ankle bracelets and cannot leave their house-arrest locations before 7 a.m. and must return by 7 p.m., even while they are prohibited from congregating during Christmastime. But we re still winning here, Briana went on to tell KSDZ host Jim Lambley, while adding that even though a dismissal was hoped-for, rather than a mistrial, the upside is that any further proceedings will provide an opportunity to expose even more evidence that the government has withheld.Lambley replied: The government is just digging a deeper hole for themselves; the government is the false accuser here, that s all there is to it. Mr. Roots, who s cautiously optimistic about the remainder of this case, said that given the mistrial ruling, the few defendants still behind bars have a dramatically improved chance of never going to trial. Cliven won t go home until this case is all the way over, Roots remarked, moved by Cliven s ironclad principles.This article was originally published at The Truth HoundREAD MORE BUNDY RANCH NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Bundy Ranch FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
WATCH: John McCain Twice Claims President Obama Is ‘Directly Responsible’ For Orlando Attack | Senator John McCain is in damage control mode after he openly accused President Obama of being directly responsible for the mass shooting in Orlando, thus going even further than Donald Trump s attacks of the president.In the wake of the attack that left 50 people dead and 53 wounded, Trump responded by suggesting that President Obama is somehow helping ISIS carry out their attacks on our shores. He doesn t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It s one or the other, Trump said. And either one is unacceptable. We re led by a man who is a very look, we re led by a man that either is, is not tough, not smart, or he s got something else in mind. And the something else in mind, you know, people can t believe it. People cannot they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the ways he acts and can t even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. There s something going on. It s inconceivable. But McCain, who is facing one of the toughest re-election campaigns of his political career, went even further than that. Barack Obama is directly responsible for it, because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, al-Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama s failures, McCain said.After being given a chance to clarify his remarks, McCain repeated his claim. He pulled everybody out of Iraq, and I predicted at the time that ISIS would go unchecked, and there would be attacks on the United States of America. It s a matter of record, so he is directly responsible. Here s the audio via the Washington Post.Of course, Trump s campaign manager quickly tweeted what McCain said, most likely thinking they had found an ally for their own attacks against President Obama.John McCain: Obama is directly responsible for Orlando attack The Washington Post https://t.co/hjh5ry2r3B Corey Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) June 16, 2016There are many problems with McCain s claims. First of all, the shooter is the one who is directly responsible for the mass killing. Second, President Obama followed the order signed by President George W. Bush in 2008 agreeing to pull all US military personnel out of Iraq in 2011 after several attempts to keep troops there were rejected by the Iraqi parliament.Therefore, not only is President Obama not responsible for withdrawing our military forces out of Iraq, ISIS wouldn t have been able to rise if President Bush has not pushed to invade Iraq in the first place. The war in Iraq destabilized the region, thus allowing a terrorist organization like ISIS to form to fill the power vacuum.After much criticism, McCain has been scrambling to spin his remarks ever since. I misspoke. I did not mean to imply that the President was personally responsible. I was referring to President Obama s national security decisions, not the President himself. As I have said, President Obama s decision to completely withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 led to the rise of ISIL. I and others have long warned that the failure of the President s policy to deny ISIL safe haven would allow the terrorist organization to inspire, plan, direct or conduct attacks on the United States and Europe as they have done in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino and now Orlando. Again, it is an established FACT that President Obama did not invade Iraq and did not sign the withdrawal order. Both of those actions occurred before he ever stepped foot in the White House.But McCain was given a chance to clarify his usage of directly responsible and said it again instead so it s hard to believe him when he claims to have misspoke. Also, as a so-called leader of his party, one would think that John McCain would be able to at least try and persuade the Republican-controlled Congress to declare war on ISIS so that President Obama can wage a full war with full resources to fight terrorism. But so far, Republicans would rather criticize President Obama for not going to war against ISIS even though the Constitution clearly states that only Congress has the power to declare a war.Clearly, John McCain has served long enough in the Senate. It s time for a new senator from Arizona. Perhaps a real maverick who knows how to be respectful of their commander-in-chief and knows when to keep their mouth shut instead of spewing lies and false accusations.Featured Image: Gage Skidmore | 1real |
Merkel: State defeat hasn't weakened us before coalition talks | BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday played down suggestions that a regional election defeat for her Christian Democrats (CDU) had made her job of forming a three-way national coalition harder. The Social Democrats (SPD) won Sunday s vote in the northern region of Lower Saxony with 36.9 percent. Merkel s conservatives slumped to 33.6 percent - roughly in line with forecasts but their poorest showing in the rich agricultural province in nearly six decades. I don t see the Lower Saxony election result as weakening us in this (coalition) task, Merkel said, adding that regional issues had played a big role in the campaign there. Lower Saxony is home to carmaker Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), which is enmeshed in a diesel emissions scandal. Three weeks after Merkel s conservatives recorded their worst national election result since 1949, the chancellor is about to begin what look set to be tricky coalition discussions with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens. Merkel said her conservative bloc was heading into the talks knowing it was the strongest of the three groups, while acknowledging negotiations would be challenging. We ll have sufficient conflicts anyway. No one is under any illusions about that, Merkel said. Policy areas over which the three parties are expected to clash include migration, climate protection and euro zone reform. Carsten Nickel, deputy research director at Teneo Intelligence, said the weak CDU result would particularly worry its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which faces a regional election next year. The CSU will fear that Lower Saxony demonstrates that the popular backlash against Merkel s choices in the 2015 migration crisis is not yet over, Nickel said, referring to her decision to operate an open-boarders policy that allowed more than a million refugees in Germany. After the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) took almost a million voters from the conservative bloc in September s national election, the sister conservative parties put a long-running internal dispute to bed by agreeing to limit numbers of migrants coming to Germany. | 0fake |
Leaving Women’s Hockey to ‘Fly Under the Radar,’ as Himself - The New York Times | BUFFALO — For Harrison Browne, the hardest part about being the only openly transgender professional athlete in North American team sports is going from the comfort zone of the dressing room, ice rink and weight room to uncertainty in public, where strangers do not know how to address him, or which gender pronouns to use. “I feel like people don’t take you seriously, and sometimes I don’t take myself seriously either because I’m walking around saying I’m one thing, but I look like I’m something else,” said Browne, 23, a transgender man playing forward for the Buffalo Beauts of the National Women’s Hockey League. Since he came out publicly as transgender on the eve of the season in October, hockey has been Browne’s refuge. But now he plans to give it up, trading his career for the opportunity, he said, “to fly under the radar in my everyday life. ” Browne plans to retire at the end of the season to undergo a physical transition, starting with surgery in Florida in June to create a chest with male contours, followed by hormone therapy. He then plans to join his girlfriend in Chicago, where she is a social worker, and look for a new career. “It’s going to be so validating to look into the mirror and see the person that I see inside,” Browne said. His final game as a professional hockey player could come Friday when the Beauts, seeded third in the opening round of the N. W. H. L. playoffs, face the New York Riveters, in Newark. The winner advances to the league championship game Sunday in Lowell, Mass. Browne, who is also known as Brownie, played as Hailey Browne with Team Canada, at the University of Maine and during the inaugural season of the N. W. H. L. in when he scored five goals and seven assists in 18 games for the Beauts. He had come out to family, friends and teammates by his sophomore year at Maine, but not publicly. There had been athletes on college sports teams who came out as transgender, but never on a pro team in North America. After Browne’s announcement in October, the N. W. H. L. changed his name on its website and later created a transgender policy with the help of You Can Play Project, an organization that works to ensure that athletes are not discriminated against because of sexual orientation or gender identity. “Harrison helped teach us what being inclusive means,” said Dani Rylan, commissioner of the N. W. H. L. “How he was the same Brownie that he was before the announcement, and it was us accepting him for that. We always said we are an inclusive league, and it did take some learning to realize what that means and to move forward with a policy. We are very proud to be a leader in that. ” The policy took effect in December with a stated purpose of supporting athletes “choosing to express their gender beyond the binary of female and male. ” To address concerns over fair play, there are restrictions about transitioning from male to female. And those taking testosterone hormone therapy are barred, a condition that will disqualify Browne, prompting his retirement. His final season has featured several highlights. Browne was voted into the Game, held in Pittsburgh in February, and he scored two goals. His jersey sales rank among the top five in the league. And on Monday he was named one of the “Fans’ Three Stars of the Season,” an award based on fan voting. “I know a lot of people look to him as a sign of hope and sign of change in athletics,” said Chris Mosier, vice president of program development and community relations for You Can Play and a professional triathlete who came out as a transgender man in 2010. “He was the catalyst for the professional league to create a policy that is groundbreaking in its inclusion. ” Still, it has not been easy. “Coming out and having all the support has actually made it a little more difficult going about my daily life,” Browne said. “It’s given me a taste of what it’s like to have people refer to you properly. ” Paige Harrington, who plays defense for the Beauts and is one of Browne’s roommates in Buffalo, said the attention had not all been positive. “Others may not realize how much of a toll it takes on him because he holds himself the right way,” Harrington said. “Brownie is my first trans friend, and life is hard enough without having to deal with a transition. ” The N. W. H. L. will lose many of its marquee names next season, in addition to Browne. National team players will not join the league as they prepare for the Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in February. The talent drain is the latest blow to the fledgling league, now in its second season. With attendance down, player salaries, which originally ranged from $10, 000 to $26, 000, were slashed about a third. The league tried to compensate for the shortfall by enacting a revenue sharing agreement with players for sales of tickets and jerseys. Browne said the league’s bumps were not related to his decision. “My leaving and retiring has nothing to do with my belief in the league,” he said. His reasons have nothing to do with hockey, either. “I cannot wait until I don’t have to use the cheat sheet anymore, until people just look at me and then see me for what I am, without me having to say anything, without having to read a story,” Browne said. “It will just be me. ” | 0fake |
TRANSPARENCY! Report: Loretta Lynch won’t tell Congress who approved $1.7 billion cash transfer to Iran | won’t Posted at 12:07 pm Doug P.
Somehow this isn’t very surprising: No one wants to own approving a $1.7 billion cash transfer to terrorists. https://t.co/375cl78E5V
— Omri Ceren (@cerenomri) October 28, 2016
The Obama administration’s promise of “historic” levels of transparency continues to be a joke, and true to form, AG Loretta Lynch reportedly is doing her part to contribute to that legacy: BIG BREAKING: Attorney General Lynch 'Pleads Fifth' To Congress on Secret Iran 'Ransom' Payments https://t.co/GhwL3QlNqU
— Adam Kredo (@Kredo0) October 28, 2016 Our Attorney General won't tell Congress – elected representatives of the people – who approved the transfer of $1.7 billion to terrorists. https://t.co/pbHEN4G5ea
The “historic” transparency keeps on coming :
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is declining to comply with an investigation by leading members of Congress about the Obama administration’s secret efforts to send Iran $1.7 billion in cash earlier this year, prompting accusations that Lynch has “pleaded the Fifth” Amendment to avoid incriminating herself over these payments, according to lawmakers and communications exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) initially presented Lynch in October with a series of questions about how the cash payment to Iran was approved and delivered.
Full story here . Would Lynch instead be willing to discuss this in a private airport tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton? Maybe. It's almost as if they have something to hide. https://t.co/n9kIJKSUEW | 1real |
Watch Judge Jeanine Offer The DEFINITIVE Criminal & Political Case Against Hillary Clinton | Great job! Nothing to add to this | 1real |
Singapore decried for 'harassment' of anti-death penalty activists | SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore should end harassment of peaceful activists, Human Rights Watch has said, after participants at a candlelight vigil for a man being executed for drug trafficking were stopped from leaving the country. On July 13, around a dozen people, including opponents of the death penalty and relatives Prabagaran Srivijayan, 22, attended the vigil outside Changi Prison in support of the man, who was to be hanged early the next morning. The man, who was executed on July 14, was convicted of trafficking 22.4 grams of heroin into Singapore. During the vigil, participants said they were approached by police and told that a police report had been filed and that they were to remove the candles. The police removed the candles and photographs of Prabagaran but the participants say they were not asked to disperse. A police statement on Saturday said 17 people were under investigation relating to whether they had been involved in an illegal assembly. Assemblies and processions for a cause in public places without a permit is a criminal offense in Singapore. Anyone convicted of organizing such an assembly faces penalties of up to S$10,000 ($7,440) in fines and up to six months in jail. The Singapore government has said that the law is required to provide for the individual s rights for political expression without compromising on order and safety . Among those at the vigil were a journalist, who is an activist against capital punishment, an editor of independent online blog Online Citizen and a filmmaker whose most recent work focused on the detention in 1987 of political activists under Singapore s Internal Security Act. The three said in social media postings that they had been prevented from leaving the country, and had been told that they were required to stay in Singapore to assist police with an investigation. Human Rights Watch said the government should respect the right of free speech and assembly. The government should end its harassment of activists campaigning against capital punishment and respect their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, the group said in a release on Thursday. None of the three had been arrested or charged, Kirsten Han, the activist and journalist, told Reuters. | 0fake |
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Observing the US presidential electoral campaign, Thierry Meyssan analyses the resurgence of an old and weighty conflict of civilisation. Hillary Clinton has just declared that this election is not about programmes, but about the question «Who are the Americans?». It was not for reasons of his political programme that the Republican leaders have withdrawn their support from their candidate, Donald Trump, but because of his personal behaviour. According to Thierry Meyssan, until now, the United States was composed of migrants from different horizons who accepted to submit to the ideology of a particular community . This is the model which is in the process of breaking down, at the risk of shattering the country itself. During the year of the US electoral campaign that we have just weathered, the rhetoric has profoundly changed, and an unexpected rift has appeared between the two camps. If in the beginning, the candidates spoke about subjects which were genuinely political (such as the sharing of wealth or national security), today they are mostly talking about sex and money. It is this dialogue, and not the political questions, which has caused the explosion of the Republican party – whose main leaders have withdrawn their support for their candidate – and which is recomposing the political chess-board, awakening an ancient cleavage of civilisation. On one side, Mrs Clinton is working to appear politically correct, while on the other, «The Donald» is blowing the hypocrisy of the ex-«First Lady» to smithereens.
On one side, Hillary Clinton promises male / female equality – although she has never hesitated to attack and defile the women who revealed that they had slept with her husband – and that she is presenting herself not for her personal qualities, but as the wife of an ex-President, and that she accuses Donald Trump of misogyny because he does not hide his appreciation of the female gender. On the other, Donald Trump denounces the privatisation of the State and the racketing of foreign personalities by the Clinton Foundation to obtain appointments with the State Department – the creation of ObamaCare not in the interest of citizens, but for the profit of medical insurance companies – and goes as far as to question the honesty of the electoral system.
I am perfectly aware that the way in which Donald Trump expresses himself may encourage racism, but I do not believe for a second that this question is at the heart of the electoral debate, despite the hype from the pro-Clinton medias. It is not without interest that, during the Lewinsky affair, President Bill Clinton apologised to the Nation and convened a number of preachers to pray for his salvation. But when he was accused of similar misconduct by an audio recording, Donald Trump simply apologised to the people he had upset without making any appeal to members of the clergy. The current divide re-awakens the revolt of Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran values against those of the Calvinists, mainly represented in the USA by the Presbyterians, the Baptists and the Methodists.
While the two candidates were raised in the Puritan tradition (Clinton as a Methodist and Trump as a Presbyterian), Mrs. Clinton has returned to the religion of her father, and participates today in a prayer group composed of the army chiefs of staff, The Family, while Mr Trump practises a more interior form of spirituality and rarely goes to church. Of course, no-one is locked into the systems in which they were raised, but when people act without thinking, they unconsciously reproduce these systems. The question of the religious environment of the candidates may, therefore, be important.
In order to understand the stakes of this game, we have to go back and look at 17th century England. Oliver Cromwell instigated a military coup d’etat which overthrew King Charles 1st. He wanted to install a Republic, purify the soul of the country, and ordered the decapitation of the ex-sovereign. He created a sectarian régime inspired by the ideas of Calvin, massacred thousands of Irish Papists, and imposed a Puritan way of life. He also created Zionism – he invited the Jews back to England and was the first head of state in the world to demand the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. This bloody episode is known by the name of the «First British Civil War».
After the monarchy had been reinstated, Cromwell’s Puritans fled from England. They set up in Holland, from where some of them left for the Americas aboard the Mayflower (the «Pilgrim Fathers»), while others founded the Afrikaner community in South Africa. During the War of Independence in the 18th century the United States, we saw a resurgence of the struggle of the Calvinists against the British monarchy, so that in current manuals of British History, it is known as the «Second Civil War».
In the 19th century, the American Civil War opposed the Southern States (mainly inhabited by Catholic colonists) to the North (mostly inhabited by Protestant colonists). The History of the winning side presents this confrontation as a fight for freedom in the face of slavery, which is pure propaganda. The Southern states abolished slavery during the war when they concluded an agreement with the British monarchy). As a result, we once again saw the revolt of the Puritans against the British throne, which is why some historians speak of the «Third British Civil War».
During the 20th century, this interior confrontation of British civilisation seemed over and done with, apart from the re-appearance of the Puritans in the United Kingdom with the «non-conformist Christians» of Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It was they who divided Ireland and agreed to create the « Jewish national homeland» in Palestine.
In any case, one of Richard Nixon’s advisors, Kevin Philipps, dedicated a voluminous thesis to these civil wars, in which he noted that none of the problems had been solved, and announced a fourth confrontation [ 1 ].
The adepts of the Calvinist churches, who for the last 40 years have voted massively for the Republicans, now support the Democrats.
I have no doubt that Mrs Clinton will be the next President of the United States, or that if Mr Trump were to be elected, he would be rapidly eliminated. But over the last few months, we have witnessed a large electoral redistribution within an irreversible demographic evolution. The Puritan-based churches now account for only a quarter of the population and are swinging towards the Democrat camp. Their model looks like a historical accident. It disappeared in South Africa, and will not be able to survive much longer, either in the United States or in Israël. Beyond the Presidential election, US society will have to evolve rapidly or split once again. In a country where the youth massively rejects the influence of the Puritan preachers, it is no longer possible to displace the question of equality. The Puritans envisage a society where all men are equal, but not equivalent. Lord Cromwell wanted a Republic for the English, but only after he had massacred the Irish Papists. This is how it is at the moment in the United States – all citizens are equal before the law, but in the name of the same texts, black people are systematically condemned, while attenuating circumstances are found for white people who have committed equivalent crimes. And in the majority of states, a penal condemnation, even for a speeding ticket, is enough to cancel the right to vote. Consequently, white and black people are equal, but in most states, the majority of black people has been legally deprived of its right to vote. The paradigm of this thought, in terms of foreign policy, is the «two-state» solution in Palestine – equal, but above all, not equivalent.
It is Puritan thinking that led the administrations of preacher Carter, Reagan, Bush (Sr. and Jr. are direct descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers), Clinton and Obama to support Wahhabism, in contradiction to the declared ideals of their countries, and today, to support Daesh.
A long time ago, the Founding Fathers built communities in Plymouth and Boston which were idealised in the US collective memory. And yet the historians are formal – they claimed to be creating the «New Israël», and chose the «Law of Moses». They did not place the Cross in their temples, but the Tables of the Law. Although they are Christians, they attach more importance to the Jewish scriptures than the Gospel. They oblige their women to veil their faces and re-established corporaI punishment.
Note: | 1real |
BREAKING LIVE FEED: POLICE FORM LARGE BARRICADE In Atlanta To Keep LARGE Crowd Of Black Lives Matter Protesters Off Major Highway…Protesters Launch Water Bottles At Trucker | A large group of Black Lives Matter protesters marched through downtown Atlanta in an attempt to shut down a major highway. Police have formed a large barricade, preventing them from disrupting traffic. The protests are in response to recent police shootings.No protests have been scheduled to bring attention to the multiple murders of young black youth by young black youths in Obama s hometown of Chicago. Black lives ONLY matter when they are killed by white people or cops (especially white cops).The march began at Centennial Olympic Park at 6 p.m. and organizers expected more than 1,000 people to show up. Groups started gathering hours earlier.NAACP march organizers in Atlanta said they expect other groups, like Black Lives Matter, to merge with Friday s march. The organization said it will not tolerate any violence.MINUTE BY MINUTE:10:50 p.m.Channel 2 Action News spoke to the driver of the truck that protesters climbed on top of.Chris Golden said he was on his normal route when he got stuck. He said he was not scared when the protesters started to climb up.Protesters block tow truck from getting to truck stuck on Williams St. for hours. #atlmarch https://t.co/S7bpyd80pH pic.twitter.com/ZDu27UlSVV WSB-TV (@wsbtv) July 9, 2016Protesters are launching water bottles at a tow truck on William Street. WATCH: https://t.co/Hb26W0IR6R pic.twitter.com/yS0LbA1ZRi WSB-TV (@wsbtv) July 9, 201610:45 p.m.A group of protesters are yelling at police police on Peachtree Street near the Westin hotel.The crowd is dispersing at Williams Street.Police are setting up another blockade on Williams Street.These protestors in front of the downtown connector say they have no intention of leaving. pic.twitter.com/iJk9emiwYc Matt Johnson (@MJohnsonWSB) July 9, 2016Via: WSBTV | 1real |
U.S. lawmakers blast Obama administration over ex-Guantanamo prisoner | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers sharply criticized President Barack Obama’s administration on Thursday over the disappearance of a former Guantanamo detainee, calling for an end to transfers from the prison because of fears former prisoners could launch attacks on Americans. They also raised concerns about reports that Jihad Diyab, a Syrian among six detainees resettled in Uruguay in December 2014, has disappeared and may now be in Brazil. Obama is working to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where terrorism suspects have been held for 15 years, by transferring detainees not considered security threats to foreign countries. Republican lawmakers worry that the Obama administration is so eager to close the prison before he leaves office in January that it is sending detainees to countries that cannot ensure they will not return to the battlefield by joining militant groups that target Americans and U.S. allies. “You’re talking about detainees who have every intent of killing American families,” Republican Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina said at a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. The administration has considered sending Guantanamo detainees to a prison in South Carolina. The New York Times reported that Diyab said last month he was going on a religious retreat that would last into next week, and would be unreachable by telephone or email. Since then, some Uruguayan officials said they lost track of him and suggested he may have traveled to Brazil, the newspaper reported. “Many countries just aren’t up to the job,” said Republican Representative Ed Royce, the committee’s chairman. “... Yet the administration has sent Guantanamo terrorists to these countries anyway.” Republican and some Democratic committee members sharply questioned Lee Wolosky, the State Department’s special envoy for closing the Guantanamo detention center, and Paul Lewis, his Pentagon counterpart. Representative Jeff Duncan, another South Carolina Republican, said Diyab, charged with forging passports for al Qaeda, could pose a threat to the upcoming Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, if he were indeed at large in that country. The committee’s ranking Democrat, Representative Eliot Engel, who backs the closure of the detention center in Cuba, said it was important to keep the issue in perspective. “Under no circumstances, in my opinion, is the Obama administration simply opening the gate and releasing dangerous terrorists onto the street,” Engel said. Lewis and Wolosky said only 5 percent of detainees transferred since Obama became president have been confirmed to have returned to the battlefield. The percentage was higher for the over 500 released under President George W. Bush. There are currently 79 detainees at Guantanamo, of whom 29 are eligible for transfer. Wolosky acknowledged Diyab had been “difficult” from the time he was transferred to Uruguay. According to the Times, Diyab’s friends and supporters say he is off praying and will re-emerge soon. Obama has been trying to make good on his 2009 pledge to close the facility. But Congress has passed laws making it more difficult to do so, chiefly by barring transfers to U.S. prisons. Lawmakers are unlikely to lift those restrictions, especially in an election year. They have proposed even tighter controls on transfers in a fiscal 2017 defense policy bill, one reason Obama has threatened a veto. Guantanamo opponents say holding prisoners for years without charge or trial goes against fundamental U.S. values and since they are Muslims, is a recruiting tool for Islamist militants. Many Republicans insist the prison is an essential tool for handling suspects who threaten the United States. Donald Trump, the party’s presumptive 2016 presidential nominee, has called for the prison’s expansion. | 0fake |
House, Senate conservative Republicans plan own Obamacare repeal bill | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative Republicans in Congress said on Tuesday they oppose aspects of the Republican leadership’s healthcare bill and they plan to introduce their own legislation on Wednesday to repeal Obamacare. U.S. Representative Jim Jordan, a former chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, and Senator Rand Paul told a news conference they would introduce repeal bills in their respective chambers. | 0fake |
REPORT: Comey Firing Was Nothing More Than A Trump Tantrum Over Russia | Everyone is rightfully stunned and outraged that Donald Trump decided to inexplicably fire the man who was investigating his 2016 presidential campaign s ties to Russia, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey. People are (also rightfully) suggesting that this firing is all part of a cover-up an attempt to squash the Russia investigation. While there was likely nervousness related to the Russia investigation that went into this decision, there is a much more Trumpian reason for it, according to Politico: a Trump temper tantrum over the media s coverage of the criminal probe into the possibility of Trump/Russia collusion.Comey recently testified on Capitol Hill that there is an ongoing investigation into Russia s 2016 election meddling. Said probe includes the possibility that Trump campaign officials coordinated with the Russians in an attempt to tip the election to Trump. Of course, Trump was outraged at this public scrutiny, and his ego cannot take the idea that anything but his own supposed brilliance won him the election. From Politico:He had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia. He repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn t disappear and demanded they speak out for him. He would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe, one adviser said.So, there you have it. Trump was angry that Comey s testimony had brought the Russia story that refuses to go away back into the spotlight, and he was angry at his and his staff s inability to control it. Trump has reportedly been considering getting rid of Comey for roughly a week, which would mean that it was right around the time of Comey s Capitol Hill testimony that the easily agitated president put his FBI Director in the line of fire over Russia.This is nothing short of a Constitutional crisis. We have no choice but to DEMAND a 9/11-style independent commission on Russia, as well as a special prosecutor for this case. No one appointed by Trump ESPECIALLY Attorney General Jeff Sessions should be anywhere near this probe.This isn t partisan. This is about the soul of the republic, and we must get to the bottom of this, even as Trump continues to make Nixonian moves in fits of rage and attempts at cover-ups.Featured image via Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump Would Give Ivanka SICK And DISGUSTING Advice If She Were Being Sexually Harassed At Work | It s disgusting enough that Donald Trump jumped to serial womanizer and harsser Roger Ailes defense in the wake of a growing sexual harassment scandal at Fox News. When asked how he d respond if his daughter, Ivanka, was being harassed the way that Ailes harassed many women, his answer was positively vile.Kirsten Powers, a Fox News contributor and USA Today columnist, pointedly asked Trump that very question. His reply? I would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case. Because it should always be incumbent upon the woman to handle the situation quietly, instead of her harasser s responsibility to, oh, we don t know, maybe not harass women. Novel idea, yes? Trump literally just said he wouldn t want his daughter to report it, to complain, to fight for herself, or to out her harasser. From there, given his defense of Ailes and his own proclivity towards womanizing and harassment, we can assume that he expects her to work to avoid ruining her harasser s career and life at all costs.Just over a week ago, Trump told NBC s Chuck Todd the following: Some of the women that are complaining, I know how much he s helped them Now, all of a sudden, they re saying these horrible things about him. Piling on a bandwagon, in his opinion? Perhaps. Maybe he thinks they re jaded because Ailes passed them over for promotion, or worse, because Ailes didn t hit on them, but hit on other women in front of them and they were jealous. The mind of a misogynist can create all kinds of theories as to why women would dare ruin a career as obviously stellar as that of Roger Ailes.Most women can t just up and quit their jobs because they re being harassed. Even if they all could, they should absolutely not be expected to. Why? Because the harassment is not their fault, and it should be on their harasser to go find a new damn job. It s the harasser who was wrong.Ivanka stands by her father in his bid for the presidency, and he should not be telling her to tuck tail and run in the face of harassment, as if the harassment is her fault. That is victim-blaming at its absolute worst. He s a horrifically sick bastard for that.Featured image by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images | 1real |
How to Buy a Used Car in an Age of Widespread Recalls - The New York Times | For people in the market for a used car, the “certified ” designation has long been the gold standard, an indication that a qualified mechanic has vouched for the car and that a buyer can expect a vehicle that is — hopefully — almost as good as new. But the Takata airbag recall, which is the biggest in history, has upended all of that. Now the certified designation — known in the auto trade as C. P. O. — will no longer necessarily have the same meaning. For one thing, last month the Federal Trade Commission made it easier for cars to be billed as “certified,” even if they were under recall and hadn’t been fixed yet. And just as significantly, Ford — with the F. T. C. settlement for cover — told its dealers this week that they could sell recalled vehicles and certify them too, so long as they did not advertise them as “safe” and required buyers to sign forms acknowledging that they were aware of the problem. Against this backdrop, one dealer in Florida has refused to sell recalled vehicles that he cannot get fixed, letting 100 or so pile up on a lot miles from his main showroom. He even sued a rival who he believes is selling recalled cars without disclosing that they have not been fixed yet. How did the market get so confusing all of a sudden? For starters, the Takata airbag recall is unprecedented in its scope, with over 60 million airbags affected, but also in its complexity. Dealers can’t simply fix everything at once, because there are not enough replacement parts. As a result, the airbags most likely to cause harm are first in line for repair, and the lines for existing recalls and others to come may extend for at least a few more years. Given that situation, the Federal Trade Commission told General Motors and two dealers in December that it was just fine to advertise used vehicles as certified even if their airbags were under recall and had not been fixed. Just disclose it, the agency said (in a complaint that has sent jaws dropping throughout the auto industry). Until early this week, every major car company had said that they forbade their dealers from selling certified used vehicles with any open recalls, including ones for Takata airbags. On Monday, however, Ford broke ranks, issuing an update to dealers on its “enhanced” recall process and giving them permission to certify used vehicles that had open recalls after all. There are conditions for the dealers, including these: They must note the recall in two different places and have buyers initial a form. When parts arrive, they have to contact buyers to schedule a replacement. And no advertisements may make claims about “safety” or “safety inspections. ” So does Ford believe there is no competitive advantage to be gained from fixing all recalled cars before selling them? “It’s very difficult to answer that,” Sara Tatchio, a Ford spokeswoman, said. “We absolutely put safety first and fix everything we can. ” All the chaos, conflict and changing policies leave consumers in a frustrating position, trying to sort out who’s still selling cars that federal regulators have ordered to be fixed and just how much any seller is disclosing. While federal law prevents dealers from selling new cars with an open recall, no federal law forbids them from selling used ones that way, even if some state consumer protection laws might help an injured owner’s case. In the complex ecosystem of and with wholesalers and sellers of various sorts, this has created a number of challenges and a wide range of responses, including some prominent companies that have changed their policies 180 degrees. Whatever policies they set, automakers have only so much control, given that people who work at dealerships occasionally go rogue. Moreover, dealers sometimes certify a car as clean and put it up for sale — and then it’s recalled right after that. If the dealer does not catch it and pull the car out of the sales inventory, it is violating the automaker’s rules (and could attract the attention of the F. T. C. ). Buyers who wonder how safe it is to drive with a recalled Takata airbag and check the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website will learn the following: “The vast majority of Takata airbags will perform as expected. ” Oh, but: “Lives have been lost due to this defect. ” Reaction in the industry to Ford’s move was somewhat muted. Audi, BMW, General Motors, Honda, Kia, Mazda and Subaru said they had no plans to follow Ford’s move. Toyota’s response was a bit more squishy. “We are not going to speculate on what impact the F. T. C. ruling may or may not have on Toyota’s current policy,” Aaron Fowles, a Toyota spokesman, said via email. “But there have been no changes to date. ” The chain CarMax has taken a similar approach to Ford’s. While it too had a recent with the F. T. C. over disclosure issues, the company says that it is transparent as possible, from its online listings to its interactions. But why sell cars with open recalls at all, thus putting the onus on consumers to sort out the repair? In a statement on its website, CarMax, which cannot repair recalled vehicles itself, states that “customers are in the best position to act on recall information. ” How can that be? Well, CarMax explains that dealers who are authorized to do recall repairs are more likely to repair cars quickly when working with an individual. If CarMax showed up with dozens of cars, those dealers might shun it because it competes with that dealer’s operation. Does this sound like an extremely useful conspiracy theory designed to dump all the hassle on consumers, who have the least knowledge of how the system works? Would CarMax at least call out said manufacturers by name, to help get to the bottom of this? No, it would not. “Some manufacturers have provided guidance to their dealers that they should remediate recalls for dealer customers first,” a CarMax spokeswoman, Catherine M. Gryp, said in an email message. “Across the country, we have been put in the back of the line for recall repairs. ” AutoNation took a different approach, at least at first. In 2015, its chief executive, Mike Jackson, told Automotive News that the recall situation was “a dysfunctional nightmare that the industry should be ashamed of. ” The company pledged to sell no cars with open recalls, period. By last year, it was costing the company dearly, to the tune of 6 cents per share of its earnings in the third quarter. In November, it gave up and began selling some cars with open recalls (and full disclosures). The lack of Takata airbag replacements, the F. T. C. ’s decision and other anticipated regulatory rollbacks proved to be too much. “We are proud of the efforts we made, but sometimes the system beats you down,” Marc Cannon, the company’s chief marketing officer, said. Sounds kind of like what it feels like to be a consumer in the middle of all this. If you’re about to start shopping for a used car, begin at safercar. gov. There, you can look up cars — even the vehicle identification number of a specific car you’re considering — to see what recalls are in effect. A report from Carfax can help you figure out whether a recalled car has been fixed. But don’t stop there. Ask the dealer about any open recalls, as well as any proof they might have that they have gotten the recall fixed. Trust, but verify. (Actually? Don’t trust too much, and verify twice.) Worried about a car that you already have? You should be, both about future Takata recalls and others that we don’t know about yet. Rosemary Shahan of the Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety suggests registering your vehicle both with your car’s manufacturer and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration so that you get a notice if your airbag or anything else comes up for recall. Run the vehicle identification number through some checks yourself from time to time too, just to make sure you’re not missing anything. You might also hope that more dealers act out in the same way as Earl Stewart of Lake Park, Fla. He refuses to sell used cars with open recalls, but he doesn’t want to turn away people who are trading in cars with recalled Takata airbags that they have not been able to get fixed yet. This policy isn’t just good customer service if he can’t take their trade, they might not buy another vehicle from him at the same time that they turn their old one in. As a result, however, he has 100 or so cars sitting in a lot waiting for repair. And when he sent secret shoppers into competing dealers to see how much disclosure they were doing about recalled cars they were selling, he was outraged at what he found. “Maybe this is unique to South Florida, but they are all extremely devious and proactively trying to sell recalled cars by saying there is no recall,” Mr. Stewart said. So he filed a lawsuit to try to swing others over to his way of doing things. “I don’t want the money — I just want to stop the practice,” he said. “We’re going to keep filing suits until they throw the towel in. ” | 0fake |
Here’s What Companies Admit They Will REALLY Do With Money They Save From Trump’s Tax Break | Trump, like George W. Bush before him, thinks a tax holiday on repatriated money will spur major corporations who are currently hoarding money overseas to bring that money back and invest it in America. They fail to take into account that, like other tax breaks, companies are not going to build new factories, plants, offices or stores and hire more people if consumer demand doesn t warrant it. Instead, they ll pocket the money they save in one of any number of ways, and regular Americans won t benefit one iota from it.That s what they ll do with Trump s tax holiday. This isn t speculation or conjecture, this is something to which they literally admit. Bank of America Merrill Lynch conducted a survey of more than 300 companies over the summer, asking them what they d do with all that money they bring back from overseas. Their top two responses were the following: Pay down debt, and buy back their own stocks.The idea that they d use the money for stock buybacks is especially upsetting since this is a known method for artificially driving stock prices up. Rich executives and shareholders then get even richer. Workers see no benefit from it, and the unemployed and underemployed don t see new job opportunities popping up.Literally, the whole point of this practice is to make the rich richer.When George W. did this in 2004, companies voluntarily brought over $300 million back in from overseas. $240 million went to stock buybacks. Let that sink in for a moment 80 percent of the money brought back in from overseas went to stock buybacks. Companies took advantage of that tax holiday to inflate their stock prices and get richer. There was no economic growth from that.The companies that brought back the most money actually turned right around and laid people off.Let that sink in as well.There will be no economic growth from Trump s tax break. Companies are not so broke that they can t afford to expand without some of the money they re hoarding elsewhere and protection from repatriation taxes. They don t need this money to build anything or hire new workers. This is nothing more than the government enabling companies to enrich themselves, possibly at the expense of the Americans Trump claims to love so much. The only way to spur economic growth is to help the consumer class afford to spend their money again. But we can t expect that from Trump he parrots Republican talking points on this because he knows he can use them to make himself and his most loyal rich buddies richer.Featured image via Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
Zimbabwe's vice president, possible Mugabe successor, says he was poisoned | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa said late on Thursday he had been hospitalized in August because he had been poisoned, raising the political temperature in the fight to succeed 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa, a former intelligence chief nicknamed the Crocodile , is the leading candidate to succeed Mugabe, the only leader Zimbabwe has known since independence in 1980. He did not say who he believed was responsible for trying to kill him, and his main rival for the top job, First Lady Grace Mugabe, swiftly denied having anything to do with it. Hours earlier, she told a public gathering at a nearby hotel on Thursday night that Mnangagwa and his allies were plotting a power grab that was tantamount to a coup, according to an audio recording of her speech. Mnangagwa was airlifted to Johannesburg after falling ill in August. At a news conference late on Thursday open only to state media, he said doctors had concluded that poisoning was to blame for his illness, and not inadvertent food poisoning. The medical doctors who attended to me ruled out food poisoning but confirmed that indeed poisoning had occurred and investigations were in progress, Mnangagwa said, reading from a statement. He provided no further details or proof. Mnangagwa, 75, became vice-president in 2014, putting him at the front of the pack to succeed Mugabe. However over the last 18 months he has met fierce opposition from Grace and a faction of the ruling party backing her. The first lady denied having anything to do with his illness and accused him of lying about it to get public sympathy. Why should I kill Mnangagwa? Who is Mnangagwa on this earth? Grace Mugabe said in footage aired on Friday on state television. Killing someone who was given a job by my husband? That is nonsensical. Veterans of Zimbabwe s 1970s independence war have publicly backed Mnangagwa to step into Mugabe s shoes and last year described the nonagenarian ruler as a dictator, a jolting rebuke that laid bare the fissures within the ruling ZANU-PF party. In her hotel address on Thursday evening, Grace said Mnangagwa was plotting to force ZANU-PF to support him as Mugabe s successor - a scheme she said must be resisted. We are being threatened day and night that if this one does not become president, we will kill you, she said without stating the origin of the threats. No, we will not bow down to that pressure, never. You will have to arrest all of us and throw us in prison before you can rule. According to a trove of hundreds of documents from inside Zimbabwe s Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) reviewed by Reuters in September, Mnangagwa and other political players have been positioning themselves for the day Mugabe either steps down or dies, with the tacit backing of some of Zimbabwe s military and former colonial power Britain. The ruling party s next leadership congress is due in 2019 and Mugabe, who plans to context next year s elections, has said he is staying put for now. | 0fake |
WOW! Sheriff Clarke DESTROYS Lie That Obama Is Helping Black Community With BRUTALLY HONEST Commentary On This Photo-Op | Sheriff Clarke better beef up his security detail after Obama and his Democrat friends sees this truth bomb! Kid, I got everything ready for you, food stamps, failing pubic schools, inescapable poverty, unemployment, crime. pic.twitter.com/Le2KyibUvP David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) August 6, 2016 | 1real |
Donald Trump: I’m Not Going to Tell You What I’ll Do in Syria - Breitbart | President Donald Trump said he was disturbed by reports of chemical weapons used in Syria but told reporters that he would not signal any plans for action in the country. [“That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me. Big impact,” Trump said. “That was a horrible, horrible thing, and I’ve been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn’t get any worse than that. ” The president made his remarks during a press conference at the White House on Wednesday with King Abdullah II of Jordan. “I’m not saying I’m doing anything one way or the other, but I’m certainly not going to be telling you,” Trump said. Trump said he was flexible in reaction to foreign policy around the world, but criticized the Obama administration for declaring the use of chemical weapons as a red line in Syria and then backing down. He said that after the attacks his attitude toward Syria and President Bashar “has changed,” despite past statements urging the United States to stay out of Syria. “That crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line — many, many lines,” he said. | 0fake |
Czech billionaire' s ANO party leads election - results projection | PRAGUE (Reuters) - The ANO party of billionaire businessman Andrej Babis was seen winning a Czech parliamentary election with 29.1 percent of the vote, results projections based on 8.8 percent of voting stations reporting showed on Saturday. The projection by the Median agency showed eight parties crossing the 5 percent threshold to win parliamentary seats. The centre-right Civic Democrats were seen second with 11 percent, the projection showed. Actual results from 10.6 percent of poling stations counted had ANO ahead at 31.8 percent. | 0fake |
Trump budget cut bid would make it 'impossible' for U.N.: spokesman | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to slash funding for the United Nations would make it “impossible” for it to continue its essential work, a U.N. spokesman said on Wednesday, adding that the organization was ready to discuss reform with Washington. The Trump proposal cuts about a third from U.S. diplomacy and aid budgets, or nearly $19 billion. This includes cutting some $1 billion from a U.N. peacekeeping funding and a steep cut to funding for international organizations. The United States is the biggest U.N. contributor, paying 22 percent of the $5.4 billion core budget and 28.5 percent of the $7.9 billion peacekeeping budget. These assessed contributions are agreed by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly. “The figures presented would simply make it impossible for the U.N. to continue all of its essential work advancing peace, development, human rights and humanitarian assistance,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said in a statement. Congress sets the federal government budget, and Republicans who control both houses and Democrats have said they do not support such drastic cuts. Trump has said the U.S. share of the U.N. budgets was “unfair.” The General Assembly is currently negotiating the peacekeeping budget from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018 and will later this year negotiate the next U.N. regular budget. Trump wants to cap the U.S. peacekeeping contribution at 25 percent. The United States is reviewing each of the 16 U.N. peacekeeping missions as the annual mandates come up for renewal by the Security Council in a bid to cut costs. During a lunch with U.N. Security Council ambassadors at the White House last month, Trump described the U.S. contributions to the United Nations as “peanuts compared to the important work” as he pushed the world body to reform. “The Secretary-General is totally committed to reforming the United Nations,” Dujarric said. “We stand ready to discuss with the United States and any other member state how best we can create a more cost-effective organization to pursue our shared goals and values.” Trump’s budget proposal included a 44 percent cut to funding for international organizations, but does not specify the cuts, other than “funding for organizations that work against U.S. foreign policy interests.” The State Department said last month it was ending funding for the U.N. Population Fund, an agency focused on family planning and maternal and child health in more than 150 countries. Guterres warned the cut could have “devastating effects.” U.N. agencies such as the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), the children’s agency UNICEF, and the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), are funded by governments voluntarily. In 2016, the United States was the top contributor to the UNDP’s core budget, with an $83 million donation; the leading donor to UNICEF’s core budget in 2015 with $132 million; and the fourth-largest donor to the UNFPA, giving $75 million. | 0fake |
Senator Franken to resign on Thursday: Minnesota Public Radio | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic Senator Al Franken, facing allegations of sexual misconduct, will resign on Thursday, Minnesota Public Radio reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed Democratic official. A Franken staff member told the Democratic official that the Minnesota senator had gone to his home in Washington to discuss his plans with family, Minnesota Public Radio said. Franken said on Twitter earlier on Wednesday he would make an announcement on Thursday. | 0fake |
WATCH The Weird Ad George W. Bush Made For His Little Brother Jeb | The people supporting Jeb Bush s quest for the presidency have invested millions in a candidate who has so far failed to inspire support from Republican voters, and has in fact continued to collapse in poll after poll resulting in a 6th place finish in the Iowa caucus with a measly 2.8% of the vote behind Ben Carson and Rand Paul, who has now dropped out of the race.But when you ve wasted that much money, there s probably a temptation to salvage something, anything. So the geniuses at Right to Rise, the super PAC that Bush himself raised funds for and directed right-wing millionaires to pour their funds into, has released a new ad featuring the most infamous Bush ever: George W. Bush.In the ad, Bush touts his younger brother. And that s where the ad gets extremely bizarre. George, who lost more Americans to terrorism than any other president in American history, describes Jeb as the right person to protect America. After touting Jeb s heart and strong backbone, he says Jeb will unite our country. Of course, during his presidency George W. Bush pioneered new techniques in dividing the country, particularly on the topic of a war of choice in Iraq he used as a political weapon describing those opposed to the war as allies of terrorists, and directing his underlings like Karl Rove to insinuate that Democrats were soft on terrorism despite his administration s failure to kill or capture Osama bin Laden.The elder Bush also claims that his brother knows how to bring the world together against terrorism but what sort of standing does Bush have on that type of diplomacy? He failed to unite the world in support of invading Iraq, and in the wake of that failure chose to commit Americans to a war that would eventually kill 4,491 members of the U.S. armed services and thousands more Iraqis.George W. Bush even reminds people about how his administration crossed the moral threshold and utilized torture, claiming that Jeb Bush knows when tough measures must be taken. That kind of talk might help among Republicans, but it also reminds people of the abdication of moral leadership that happened on Bush s watch.It is highly unlikely that Jeb Bush will become the Republican Party s nominee. He has been exposed as a poor campaigner who let a playground bully like Donald Trump pull his pants down in front of the entire world without ever really fighting back.And now his big brother has come barreling into the election after sitting on the sidelines since his failed presidency, reminding everyone left and right just why it is the country moved on from the Bush clan.Featured image via YouTube | 1real |
WATCH: SNL BRUTALLY Mocks The Kushner/Bannon Feud In HILARIOUS Reality Show Spoof | Saturday Night Live is back with new episodes, and this week s cold open did not disappoint. As the iconic show went live coast-to-coast for the first time in history, they went all in on the incompetence of The Donald s reality show presidency. Alec Baldwin returned as the reliably buffoonish Trump, and Jimmy Fallon played the notoriously silent son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kusher. To round off the spoof, the Grim Reaper returned as the newly diminished Steve Bannon. There was even a cameo by Mike Pence, played by Beck Bennett, where the show ruthlessly mocked reports that Pence actually calls his wife mother. In the spoof, Baldwin s Trump is doing a reality-show style elimination round to finally end the Kushner vs. Bannon feud that has been irritating him and amusing the rest of us for weeks now. He starts out by saying that he is holding a photo of each adviser, and only one will get to stay. Trump praises Kushner for being photogenic, while telling Bannon that pictures of him make him want to puke. In the end, Kushner is chosen, and another Grim Reaper-like figure comes to take Bannon to hell. After that, SNL kicked off what is sure to be a successful President Kushner narrative, as they have Trump tell Kushner to sit at the president s desk in the Oval Office, while Trump himself returns to the child s desk to play with his toys, just as he did in previous episodes with President Bannon. All in all, SNL outdid themselves with this one. There are no words to describe how funny this is.Watch below for the most hilarious few minutes of your evening:Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
BREAKING: ACLJ Files Lawsuit Against Obama’s Corrupt Attorney General For Secret Bill Clinton Meeting On Plane During Hillary Investigation [VIDEO] | Are the most criminal, brazen and crooked group of people to ever act as public servants in our government watching their house of cards fall? I told you about the Obama Justice Department s incompetence and corruption when, over four months ago, I called for Attorney General Loretta Lynch s resignation.Remember when Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the husband of the former Secretary of State met on a plane on the tarmac:I told you about General Lynch s decision to hold a secret meeting on her airplane with former President Bill Clinton just days before the FBI interviewed his wife, the former Secretary of State, as part of a criminal investigation; and just days before General Lynch announced the former Secretary of State would not be indicted. Here s what I said in June:Misconduct. Dishonesty. Impropriety. No matter what word you choose, Attorney General Lynch s secret meeting with former President Bill Clinton was flat-out wrong. She s clearly disqualified from participating in the investigations into former Secretary of State Clinton s private email server.And she must resign.I m leading our senior litigation team preparing to file legal demands and ethics complaints. If the DOJ doesn t respond and she doesn t resign, we ll be back in federal court. As promised, we took action. We sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Obama Justice Department and the FBI, demanding answers on how such a careless and perhaps intentionally underhanded meeting was allowed to happen.The FBI acknowledged our FOIA requests, and even granted our request for expedited processing by determining that we had shown our requests concerned [a] matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions about the government s integrity which affect public confidence. The Justice Department remained silent.Then, last week s earth-shattering news hit that the FBI a component of the Justice Department was reopening the underlying criminal investigation.And early this week, the FBI advised the ACLJ Government Accountability Project that [n]o records responsive to your request were located. Hard to believe. What may be even harder to believe, though, is the fact that the Department of Justice completely ignored our lawful requests for records. Or maybe that s just par for the course.So today, we re forcing their hand. We re taking the Obama Administration to federal court. Again. We re filing a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, to ensure true justice. If the corruption and flippant disregard for the law won t stop, neither will our Government Accountability Project, and neither will our lawsuits.As we explained in our Complaint, we re demanding records like this:Any and all records containing the names of any DOJ official, staff or employee who participated in any discussion regarding the meeting between General Lynch and Bill Clinton that occurred on Monday, June 27, 2016, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona.Any and all records, communications or briefings prepared, sent, received or reviewed by General Lynch or any other DOJ official, staff or employee, at any time, containing any discussion of or in any way regarding the meeting between General Lynch and Bill Clinton that occurred on Monday, June 27, 2016, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona.Any and all records of any communication or briefing received by General Lynch, any DOJ official, staff or employee from Bill Clinton or his staff regarding the meeting between General Lynch and Bill Clinton that occurred on Monday, June 27, 2016, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, regardless of whether the communication or briefing was received before, during, or after the meeting.For entire story: ACLJ | 1real |
Donald Trump Is Going To HATE What The NY Times Published This Morning | If you needed more proof that Donald Trump is a toxic hateful bully, there s a two-page spread in the New York Times you need to read.On Monday, the New York Times published every single insult Trump has made on Twitter against every person, place, or thing since he threw his hat in the presidential race in June 2015.And it s such a long list that it take up a full two pages.Wow Today s @nytimes features a 2-page spread of all the people, places & things Trump has insulted on Twitter since declaring his candidacy pic.twitter.com/eDzwZNIjkF Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 24, 2016Among the people, places, and things the Republican nominee has insulted includes the United States, Saturday Night Live, Saudi Arabia, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, the TSA, reporter Katy Tur, sexual assault victims, Megyn Kelly, CNN, Ted Cruz, the Republican Party, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, China, immigrants, a book about William McKinley, and more. The list goes on and on.No president in the history of this country has ever been this hateful. This list could also very well be the first of its kind and it s about a major presidential candidate.Trump and the Republican Party should be embarrassed. Donald Trump has disgraced himself over and over again but his supporters still continue to back him.But Twitter users pointed out a few things about this list.@brandonwojo I think what s more important is how LONG that list is. If he can t get along with that list can he get along with others? Lori (@followthatband) October 24, 2016@kylegriffin1 @TheFix @nytimes Not one white supremacist on that list. Jenn (@Gibby23Roar84) October 24, 2016@kylegriffin1 @TheFix @nytimes still looking for Putin on the list but finding him strangely absent Marty Reeder (@martyreeder) October 24, 2016Of course, conservatives whined that there isn t a similar list about Hillary Clinton and proceeded to post about things that have been debunked or things Hillary has been cleared of.@kylegriffin1 @nytimes wow Hitlerys own newspaper #subscriptioncancelled Brian Dane (@MrBrianDane) October 24, 2016@kylegriffin1 @srussolillo @nytimes no mention of the dead Americans Hillary killed in Benghazi? Or the 12 year old girl she smeared? wsmco (@wsmco) October 24, 2016@kylegriffin1 @pbmech @nytimes NY Times, so not surprising. Wonder if they will list all the donors to Clinton Foundation in pay to play Bret Jensen (@bret_jensen) October 24, 2016Trump s supporters apparently didn t read the title of the article because if they had they would see that it s all the things Trump has said on Twitter over the last year and a half. They even printed it in big letters.If the New York Times printed a list of all the other things Trump has said and done it would fill the entire paper. Maybe the New York Times should consider doing that.Featured Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 1real |
Our New Country: Women And Minorities Hardest Hit | Our New Country: Women And Minorities Hardest Hit Ann Coulter, VDARE, October 26, 2016
Every ethnic group except whites bloc-votes for the Democrats. Coincidentally, the Democrats have brought in another 30 to 40 million nonwhite immigrants in the last few decades.
It doesn’t help that white voters can’t agree on what constitutes an acceptable candidate. In 2012, working-class whites sat out the election, rather than vote for the out-of-touch rich guy they saw in Mitt Romney. This year, the out-of-touch rich guys say they’ll vote for Hillary because Trump is tacky and gross.
The sad irony is that the only people who will be better off in our new country are mostly white plutocrats–the top .01 percent. The rest of us will be their servants.
The people who will be worse off are everybody else–the working class, the middle class (who will soon be working class) and, most of all, women, minorities, children, the elderly, the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.
Look to Mexico for your future–or any Third World country. Or to Univision’s Jorge Ramos. The ruling class in Mexico is composed of European-looking, white descendants of Spanish conquistadors who raped the native population, giving them only their Spanish names in return. (British settlers in America brought women with them.)
Explaining Latino culture’s acceptance of incest and child rape, criminal justice researcher Shana Maier writes in a book about rape that “the male is the head of the household, and women are subordinate to men. . . . Hispanics and Latinos are more likely than other racial/ethnic groups to blame the victim. The victim, not the perpetrator, is blamed for bringing dishonor to the family.”
One American detective said that, today, police are being taught to keep an “open mind” about child rape because “it’s a cultural thing.”
{snip}
, our media already have a totally “open mind” about incest and child rape–and murder!–when it’s committed by immigrants.
{snip}
Immigrant women arrive in America, thrilled to have escaped cultures where rape, incest and spousal murder are acceptable, only to discover that those crimes are perfectly acceptable in this country, too–provided the perpetrator is from the very culture they fled.
{snip}
Perhaps American men could do better, but, as American women may soon discover: They never had it so good.
Manifestly, the purpose of our immigration policies is not to help Americans–or the immigrants who wanted to live in a place like America. They are designed to funnel welfare-dependent voters to the Democrats and cheap labor to the rich. {snip}
Our country will be Zimbabwe, but–if all goes according to the Democrats’ plan–they’ll get to be Mugabe!
That’s Hillary’s dream. If she wins, Joe Sobran’s parody of the typical New York Times headline (about anything) will come true: “Women and Minorities Hit Hardest.” | 1real |
BLACK REPUBLICAN AND BRILLIANT NEUROSURGEON ANNOUNCES RUN FOR PREZ: Huffington Post Places Story Next To Story About Dog Living In Tree Trunk | 1real | |
BREAKING: Obama Nominates Liberal Merrick Garland For Supreme Court Justice | Obama decides to nominate Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court even though the Senate announced they would wait until a new administration to confirm a nominee. This is an attempt to box in the Republicans in the Senate. This nominee is left on some things and right on others like criminal justice but has been supported in the past as a judge who will articulate a broad progressive vision for the law . This should be interesting: To be clear, Garland s record does not suggest that he would join the Court s right flank if confirmed to the Supreme Court. He would likely vote much more often than not with the Supreme Court s liberals. Here s the skinny on left leaning Garland:Garland is unquestionably qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. A 19 year veteran of the DC Circuit a court that is widely viewed as the second-most powerful in the nation Garland graduated with high honors from Harvard Law School. He clerked for Justice William Brennan, and spent a few years as a partner in the multinational law firm Arnold and Porter. He also held senior positions in the Justice Department, including a leadership role in the department s criminal division and a stint as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General.At age 63, Garland is also the oldest person nominated to the Supreme Court since President Nixon named Justice Lewis Powell in 1971. Thus, if confirmed, Garland is unlikely to match or even approach Justice Scalia s nearly 30 years on the Supreme Court. Garland s relatively advanced age may help explain why Hatch floated the DC Circuit chief judge as his ideal Obama nominee. Another factor that almost certainly played a role is Garland s reputation for moderation. In 2003, for example, Garland joined an opinion holding that the federal judiciary lacks the authority to assert habeas corpus jurisdiction at the behest of an alien held at a military base leased from another nation, a military base outside the sovereignty of the United States an opinion that effectively prohibited Guantanamo Bay detainees from seeking relief in civilian courts. A little over a year later, the Supreme Court reversed this decision in Rasul v. Bush. Although, in fairness, it should be noted that legal experts disagree about whether the decision Garland joined was mandated by existing precedents. The former prosecutor also has a relatively conservative record on criminal justice. A 2010 examination of his decisions by SCOTUS Blog s Tom Goldstein determined that Judge Garland rarely votes in favor of criminal defendants appeals of their convictions. Goldstein identified only eight such published rulings, in addition to seven where he voted to reverse the defendant s sentence in whole or in part, or to permit the defendant to raise a argument relating to sentencing on remand, during the 13 years Garland had then spent on the DC Circuit. To be clear, Garland s record does not suggest that he would join the Court s right flank if confirmed to the Supreme Court. He would likely vote much more often than not with the Supreme Court s liberals.Read more: Think Progress | 1real |
3 Charlotte Area Counties Report Voting Machines Picking Wrong Candidates | MecklenburgCatawba
The complaints noted that the machines wrongly identified a voter’s choice, but in all reported cases, the voters were able to correct their ballots before casting them.
“To my knowledge, at this point, we don’t have any cases where elections officials noted significant problems with any machines based on these complaints. Of course they’re all looked into and that’s why we encourage people to immediately flag down an election official,” commented Gannon.
The NC State Board Of Election released the following statement regarding the complaints:
The N.C. State Board of Elections is aware that some voters have contacted advocacy groups or elections officials with concerns about touch-screen voting machines in several counties.
Similar reports have been made in recent elections, and we take them very seriously.
We want to ensure voters that safeguards are in place to ensure touch-screen machines accurately record voters’ selections.
Touch-screen machines are tested thoroughly before each election. They are recalibrated daily before voting begins to test and ensure accuracy. If a voter notices an issue with selection accuracy of a machine, they should raise their hand and notify an election official immediately. If needed, the machine may be taken out of service for recalibration, and the voter may be moved to a different machine.
Also, each touch-screen machine prompts voters to review their selections before casting their ballot. As with paper ballots, voters should check over their selections to ensure accuracy prior to casting their ballot. On touch-screen machines, voters also can review a real-time audit log that records all of their selections.
“We urge all voters to carefully review their selections before casting their ballots, and to immediately report any questions or concerns to elections officials,” said Kim Westbrook Strach, executive director of the N.C. State Board of Elections. | 1real |
Florida State Women Rally to Eliminate Oregon State - The New York Times | Ivey Slaughter jumped into the passing lane on Oregon State’s first possession of the second half on Saturday and stole the ball, and then she drove the length of the floor in one of those timely moments that have defined her senior season at Florida State. That steal was a big reason the Seminoles were able to rally from a deficit to advance to the Stockton Region final in California, beating Oregon State, to set up a rematch with South Carolina. The Gamecocks won that 2015 tournament meeting by 6 points. Slaughter recorded a nine steals and added 11 points and 8 rebounds. “She really changed a lot of things,” said Leticia Romero, who led the Seminoles with 18 points. Oregon State ( ) failed in its bid to return to the Final Four. Sydney Wiese, the Beavers’ leading scorer this season, finished with just 9 points, shooting 3 of 14, and missed all 10 of her tries in her final game. Shakayla Thomas, the Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year, recorded her third straight for the Seminoles ( ) with 12 points and 11 rebounds. The Seminoles trailed by 17 points late in the first quarter and by 10 midway through the second, but Florida State Coach Sue Semrau had a quick reminder for her team. “If we could convince them how good we are defensively, things could change,” she said. She added, “I was stunned that we were missing the shots that we were missing. ” The Seminoles stormed back with a big run, closing the gap to by the break and opening the third quarter with a burst to take a lead. Oregon State tied the score at with 6 minutes 55 seconds to play as Gabriella Hanson’s free throws capped a run. But Florida State responded. Wiese struggled to get clean looks and never got comfortable with her shot. The Beavers were 2 for 17 from range and shot 36. 4 percent over all after a talented senior class led the team to the past three Conference titles. Kolbie Orum was the Beavers’ lone player to score in double figures, with 12 points. S. CAROLINA 100, QUINNIPIAC 58 Kaela Davis, A’ja Wilson and South Carolina ( ) overpowered Quinnipiac ( ) the No. 12 seed, from the opening tip, scoring the first 16 points and advancing to the Stockton Region final in a rout. Davis scored 28 points, with five . Wilson added 24 points, and the Gamecocks’ athleticism and swarming defense were too much for the Bobcats. Quinnipiac started 0 for 10 from the field and took more than seven minutes to score as it struggled to get off shots and to establish its usually prolific perimeter game. OREGON 77, MARYLAND 63 The freshman Sabrina Ionescu led five Oregon players in double figures with 21 points, and the Ducks ( ) continued their run through the N. C. A. A. tournament by upsetting Maryland ( ). The freshman Ruthy Hebard added 16 points for Oregon, which advanced to a regional final for the first time. The Ducks will play Connecticut on Monday in Bridgeport, Conn. Brionna Jones and Shatori each had 16 points for the Terrapins. The Maryland offense, whose average of more than 90 points a game led the nation, was held to its lowest point total this season. Oregon Coach Kelly Graves said before the game that his young team, which starts three freshmen, might not know it is not supposed to be winning. The Ducks became the second No. 10 seed to advance to a regional final, after the 1991 team from Lamar University of Texas. | 0fake |
Kremlin says no firm date for Syria peace congress | MOSCOW (Reuters) - There is no firm date yet for the much-discussed Syria peace congress, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. No one wants to artificially accelerate holding of the congress, Peskov told reporters on a conference call. | 0fake |
Right-Wing Columnist Is Now Officially Begging Democrats To Kiss And Make Up With Out Of Control Republicans | New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks is absolutely amazing. After years of sitting by while Republicans waged a scorched earth campaign against Democrats, the Constitution and basic human decency, he suddenly laments the toxic level of discourse in America. Why? Because Democrats are ascendant and Republicans are teetering on total collapse. Now, he says, we should work together and it would be bad for America if we don t!Brooks sets the stage by describing how we got here. He calls it anti-politics and he s VERY upset about it: Over the past generation we have seen the rise of a group of people who are against politics. These groups best exemplified by the Tea Party but not exclusive to the right want to elect people who have no political experience. They want outsiders. They delegitimize compromise and deal-making. They re willing to trample the customs and rules that give legitimacy to legislative decision-making if it helps them gain power. I m guessing he s referring to Bernie Sanders supporters as being the left-wing version because I can t think of any other group on the left that even remotely fits the description. But Bernie has been in Washington for 30 something years. He s hardly an inexperienced outsider. His followers may like his rebel cred but they don t want him to get into office for the sole purpose of bringing the government to a grinding halt. This is Brooks creating a false equivalency in order to absolve himself of his responsibility in creating antipolitics.He goes on to describe the antipolitics people as being extremists that cannot compromise and increasingly damage the process of governing. Essentially what the GOP has been doing for years while Brooks gave them ideological cover to wreck the country. Brooks is especially put off by Trump despite having enabled his rise in the first place.So far, the column is the usual right wing shifting of blame. They are patently incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions. But then we get to this, the plaintive wail for sanity: The answer to Trump is politics. It s acknowledging other people exist. It s taking pleasure in that difference and hammering out workable arrangements. As Harold Laski put it, We shall make the basis of our state consent to disagreement. Therein shall we ensure its deepest harmony.' It sure does sound reasonable but the timing of this sudden epiphany is not coincidental. You see, Republicans have spent the last 30+ years polarizing the country to the point where the two sides cannot work together. While Republicans controlled the White House, both chambers of Congress AND the Supreme Court, this was exactly what they wanted. They spent 6 years of ignoring the Democrats and doing whatever they wanted. Then they spent all of Obama s presidency breaking the system so they could stop his agenda. They became the party of antipolitics.But in November, Republicans are going to be crushed at the ballot box. Trump is going to going to lose so badly, he s going to cost Republicans the Senate by a comfortable margin, not a small number of House seats, a few governorships and control of several state legislatures. Oh, and the Supreme Court is going to tilt left for the next 30 years, which will put the final nail in the coffin of the Republican voter suppression schemes that are the only thing keeping Republicans in power in many parts of the country.So after decades of I hate you! I hope you die! Burn in hell! Compromise is surrender! Burn it all down unless we get 100% of what we want! , we should stop playing by their rules of winner takes all? Now that they re on the edge of losing everything, Republicans want to play nice again? Noooooope, fuck that. Republicans don t get to kick sand in our faces and then demand we share our ice cream because they dropped theirs.So sorry, Mr. Brooks. You had your chance and you blew it. You sat by and let your party turn American politics into a polarized blood sport. It s not our fault you lost and we re in no mood to give you the time of day much less any concessions. We re going to put you in a little box and undo all of the damage your policies have wrought since the 80s. Unions are going to grow in strength again. The minimum wage will become a living wage. Workers will have their rights restored. Women will have their rights restored. So will minorities and the victims of the Drug War (most of whom are minorities anyway). Wall Street will still make billions but they won t be able to crash the economy again. All of your voter suppression laws will be repealed and extreme gerrymandering will end. All of this will happen without no input from you because you have painted yourselves into a corner where working with a Democrat is grounds for being primaried from the far right. It won t happen in 4 years. Or even 8. Decades of damage will take decades to clean up. But it s going to happen and there s nothing you can do to stop it.Karl Rove once boasted of a permanent Republican majority in which Democrats would be utterly powerless. While I m not so bold as to claim a permanent Democratic majority, Republicans will grow weaker and weaker until they can stop appealing only to white racists. In the meantime, we re gonna take it all while you, Mr. Brooks, sit and scream in impotent rage at how mean and unfair the left has become. Ha. Ha. Ha. Fuck you.Featured image via diginpix.ina.fr | 1real |
Dyson Wants to Create a Hair Dryer Revolution - The New York Times | WILTSHIRE, England — Sir James Dyson, the British designer and engineer, sporting sneakers, cobalt blue spectacles and a voluminous thatch of silvery hair, stood in his vast glass office in the depths of the English countryside one recent Tuesday afternoon. He was clutching a device that he contends could change the monotony of bathroom routines forever. “There has been zero innovation in this market for over 60 years,” said Mr. Dyson, 68, a billionaire who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006. “Millions of people use contraptions daily that are hideously inefficient, waste their time and are causing them damage,” he said. “We realized that we could — and should — sort this situation out. ” He triumphantly held up what appeared to be a sleek black and pink plastic doughnut on a stick. “Four years, 100 odd patents and 600 prototypes later, I think we might have found the answer. ” Known as the Dyson Supersonic and unveiled in Tokyo on Wednesday, the device is his response to a question many never thought to ask: Is it possible to make a better hair dryer? This may not seem like a big deal. A few burned scalps and frizz issues aside, people have been doing just fine with the standard hair dryer for decades. But, as Dai Fujiwara, a Japanese fashion designer who collaborated with Mr. Dyson on an Issey Miyake runway presentation, wrote in an email, “Because everyday life is too common, people rarely realize there is a problem. ” About 92 percent of British women regularly use a hair dryer (according to the consultancy Mintel) while 75. 5 percent of all women and 24. 5 percent of men in the United States and 97 percent of women and 30 percent of men in Japan use one (according to Dyson) and most spend an average of 20 minutes on each session. So changing even a small percentage of that behavior could have outsize repercussions. Mr. Dyson, Britain’s living inventor, is the Steve Jobs of domestic appliances. He has built a fortune from making otherwise standard products seem aesthetically desirable, in the process persuading untold numbers of consumers that they really, really want cordless and bagless vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, bladeless fans and even household robots. “His inventions are disruptive — beautifully so,” said Terence Conran, the British restaurateur, retailer and furniture designer. “Who would have imagined that a bagless vacuum cleaner could become a highly covetable status symbol? He has made other businesses think differently about how to use design, creativity and innovation. ” Mr. Dyson studied furniture design and architecture at the Royal College of Art in London. He is currently provost there. “His advocacy for the discipline and for British manufacturing has had a profound influence on the British national psyche,” said Dr. Paul Thompson, rector of the Royal College. Now Mr. Dyson is trying to extend that influence into hitherto unchartered territory: the global beauty and grooming sector. Dyson said there were 103 engineers involved in the creation of the Supersonic, which included the taming of over 1, 010 miles of human hair tresses and 7, 000 acoustic tests as teams tackled three core issues: noise, weight and speed. Ground zero for the project was the Dyson research facility, a Willy world deep in the rolling Wiltshire hills, with a Harrier fighter jet and spliced Mini car in the visitors’ parking lot. Projects are kept firmly under lock and key from virtually all outsiders — as well as many within the walls itself (which, like those owned by Roald Dahl’s flamboyant fictional chocolate factory owner, are often painted a lurid purple). Matt Kelly was one of many young engineers milling around the plant in near identikit uniforms of hoodies, jeans and sneakers or battered brogues. “You can sit next to someone in the cafeteria here for years and not have the first idea what they are working on, and they will have no clue what you do, either,” Mr. Kelly said. “Discretion and an ability to keep secrets are essential traits if you want to work at Dyson. ” Especially when doing something so counterintuitive as moving from the practical question of what to use to clean carpets to the more question of what to use to style a personal image. Ed Shelton, a design manager for the Supersonic, said: “It was the hardest project I’ve ever worked on. Beyond having to crack the science of hair, we’ve had to tackle a highly subjective user psychology. “Trust me when I say there are many more approaches and angles to than vacuuming in the world. British women want volume. Japanese women want straightness. No one wants hair damage. And then we had to create a fleet of robots specifically to test that over and over again. ” The company says the key to the Supersonic is its motor. About the size of a quarter, the motor is small enough to fit in the base of the hair dryer handle, rather than in the conventional motor position at the top of the device, a shift that creates its unorthodox streamlined aesthetic. The smaller motor allows for high velocity flow but not pressure, the company says, which is how temperatures shoot up on traditional hair dryers and users burn themselves if the dryer is too close to the head. The company says the positioning of the motor in the hand also limits the dumbbell effect of models, where weighting can cause arms to ache. Weighing just 370 grams, the new structure allows for a longer silencer tube and smaller fan, cutting down drastically on noise. Coupled with the high motor speed, the fusion of new technologies gives rise to Dyson claims that the sound waves can operate at an ultrasonic level — in other words, at frequencies higher than the upper audible limit for humans. It also has magnetic heatproof nozzles and intelligent heat sensors to prevent hair burn. “Frankly, I’m rather terrified,” Mr. Dyson said. “We had to learn a great deal with the Supersonic, and there have been a lot of firsts on all fronts, including the fact that I had to grow my hair especially for a launch. ” “It hasn’t been this long since my ’60s student days, when I wore flowered shirts and flares,” Mr. Dyson said. Despite his newly flowing locks, both Dyson the man and Dyson the company are conscious that they may not come across as the most convincing of beauty gurus. Consequently, the company has enlisted the services of Jen Atkin, a celebrity hairstylist with a client Rolodex that includes Kim Kardashian, Jessica Alba and Katy Perry and a social media following of millions. Her job is to decode the appliance and its styling power to viewers via online tutorials following the introduction (i. e. she’s a brand ambassador) but her input was also instrumental in its creation. Jake Dyson, the oldest son of Mr. Dyson and heir apparent to the Dyson helm, said the company understood that personal care “was a radically different market from the ones we are used to competing in. Cleaning floors is much less glamorous than styling hair. ” Ms. Atkin, who can see up to 30 clients a day, said she had initially begun the relationship by “giving her two cents” to Dyson engineers on the model and what it needed. “That feeling that usually makes your arms ache completely disappears with this, whether working on your own hair or blow drying someone else,” she said. “For me, or any woman, that is a game changer. This is the ‘break the Internet’ dryer. ” As with any other Dyson device, research and development didn’t come cheap: The investment, including a hair laboratory, reached £50 million (about $72 million). As a result, the Supersonic will retail at $399 when it arrives in the United States at Sephora stores in September, a price at stark odds with the business model that has traditionally defined the competitive hair dryer market. Currently, hair dryers sold by Amazon in the United States retail for $12. 99 to $219. 98. Still, Dyson has a convincing track record in persuading fans to pay hundreds of dollars on domestic status symbols that spend most of their working lives in the cupboard under the stairs or next to the dog basket. But there have been expensive failures along the way, like its washing machine, which the company no longer makes. More recently, some of Dyson’s boldest claims, about advancing science in certain markets, have also been called into question by critics like the University of Westminster in London. This month the university released research suggesting that Dyson Airblade hand dryers spread 60 times more germs than standard air dryers, and 1, 300 times more than standard paper towels, although the assertion is one that the company emphatically and repeatedly rejects. So the hair dryer stakes are high and the market deeply fragmented, not least by the popularity of newer electrical appliances like straightening irons and curling tongs. Can Dyson really pull off another product revolution? “This all does feel a lot more personal than usual,” Mr. Dyson said. “Which I suppose makes me a little nervous. But actually, I have found everything we are learning with the Supersonic very exciting. It’s the start of a new push into this sector for us. Though I can’t tell you more than that. ” What he can say is that the company is set to spend £1. 5 billion (about $2. 2 billion) investing in future technology and recently announced the development of four new portfolio sectors. While bullish, he also knows that not all his inventions could be winners. “I actually believe that success teaches you nothing failures teach you everything,” he said, surrounded by sketches and prototypes in his meticulously cluttered office. One hundred new products are in the pipeline in the next four years around the world, he said. The hair dryer is just the beginning. “For decades, people have just accepted a subpar experience because no one was offering them anything else,” said Stephen Courtney, concepts director at Dyson and a leader on the hair project. The company wants to change that, one locker room, spa and beauty salon at a time. | 0fake |
Snowden Reveals How Easy It Is To Hack Voting Machines | Share on Facebook Edward Snowden demonstrated to his Twitter followers how easy it is to commit election fraud by hacking voting machines used in several crucial swing states. He showed his 2.4 million followers a video in which experts hack a machine in minutes – using a flash memory card that costs no more than 30 bucks. They change the number of votes for each candidate in the computer's memory, and even change the paper trail backup to evade detection. Researchers just demonstrated how to hack the official vote count with a $30 card. Details: https://t.co/uhcLVd0yPg https://t.co/uIFOQVb5uu — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) 7 Νοεμβρίου 2016 The NSA whistleblower added: “Little time to patch this vulnerabilty but can still forbid use of this model, run statistical analysis after polls close on rest to ID outliers.” As ZeroHedge reports, a U.K. based company that has provided voting machines for 16 states, including important battleground states like Florida and Arizona, has direct ties with billionaire leftist and Clinton crusader George Soros. With recent WikiLeaks emails showing that Hillary Clinton received foreign policy directives and coordinated on domestic policy with Soros, along with receiving tens of millions of dollars in presidential campaign support from the billionaire, concerns are growing that these shadowy players may pull the strings behind the curtains of the upcoming presidential election. As Lifezette reports, the fact that the man in control of voting machines in 16 states is tied directly to the man who has given millions of dollars to the Clinton campaign and various progressive and globalist causes will surely leave a bad taste in the mouth of many a voter. The balloting equipment tied to Soros is coming from the U.K. based Smartmatic company, whose chairman Mark Malloch-Brown is a former UN official and sits on the board of Soros' Open Society Foundation. According to Lifezette, Malloch-Brown was part of the Soros Advisory Committee on Bosnia and also is a member of the executive committee of the International Crisis Group, an organization he co-founded in the 1990s and built with funds from George Soros' personal fortune. In 2007 Soros appointed Malloch-Brown vice-president of his Quantum Funds, vice-chairman of Soros Fund Management, and vice-chairman of the Open Society Institute (former name of OSF). Browns ties also intertwine with the Clintons as he was a partner with Sawyer-Miller, the consulting firm where close Clinton associate Mandy Grunwald worked. Brown also was also a senior advisor to FTI Consulting, a firm at which Jackson Dunn, who spent 15 years working as an aide to the Clintons, is a senior managing director. When taking that into account, along with the poor track record Smartmatic has of providing free and fair elections, this all becomes quite terrifying. An astonishing 2006 classified U.S. diplomatic cable obtained and released by WikiLeaks reveals the extent to which Smartmatic may have played a hand in rigging the 2004 Venezuelan recall election under a section titled “A Shadow of Fraud.” The memo stated that “Smartmatic Corporation is a riddle both in ownership and operation, complicated by the fact that its machines have overseen several landslide (and contested) victories by President Hugo Chavez and his supporters.” “The Smartmatic machines used in Venezuela are widely suspected of, though never proven conclusively to be, susceptible to fraud,” the memo continued. “The Venezuelan opposition is convinced that the Smartmatic machines robbed them of victory in the August 2004 referendum. Since then, there have been at least eight statistical analyses performed on the referendum results.” “One study obtained the data log from the CANTV network and supposedly proved that the Smartmatic machines were bi-directional and in fact showed irregularities in how they reported their results to the CNE central server during the referendum,” it read. With such suspicion and a study which claims to prove that the U.K. firm's equipment tampered with the 2004 Venezuelan recall election, should be enough for states to reject these machines if they desire a fair election. Smartmatic is providing machines to Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, which means these Soros and Clinton linked machines are going to take the votes of thousands of Americans. While GOP nominee Donald Trump has been voicing his opinion that the elections are indeed rigged due to media bias, and the proof that mainstream polls are heavily weighted to favor Clinton, it is needless to say that if the results show Hillary as a winner in November, there is going to a mess to shuffle through to find signs of honesty. Related: | 1real |
Review: In ‘Little Men,’ Boys Develop a Bond That Is Threatened by Money - The New York Times | There is hardly a shortage of buddy movies about mismatched men bonding under duress, but films that chart the emotional weather of everyday male friendship are rare. Literature has more to offer, at least as far as boys are concerned. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have a rich and renewable legacy. And it may be that association that imparts a novelistic vibe to Ira Sachs’s “Little Men,” beyond the Louisa May Alcott echo in the title. It’s a subtle movie, alert to the almost imperceptible currents of feeling that pass between its title characters. They are Jake Jardine (Theo Taplitz) and Tony Calvelli (Michael Barbieri) two middle schoolers who cross paths in Brooklyn. I almost ended that sentence “and fall in love,” a possibly misleading but not at all inaccurate account of what happens. The childhood bond that the psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan called “chumship” can be as intense and mysterious as romantic love, and can be sparked by the kind of intuitive connection that arises between Jake and Tony when they first meet. Jake, pale and reserved, is an exile from Manhattan, flung across the East River by the tides of family fortune. His father, Brian (Greg Kinnear) might be described as a struggling actor if it didn’t seem that the fight had mostly gone out of him. He works, but he mostly worries, tries to be a nice guy and feels guilty when he fails at it. Jake’s mother, Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) who is a bit more decisive, is a therapist, and her smiling demeanor acts as a shield against the unspoken tensions hovering in the air whenever she and her husband are together. The family moves into an apartment that used to belong to Brian’s father, whose death is the movie’s precipitating catastrophe. The old man also owned the building where Tony’s mother, Leonor (Paulina García) runs a dress shop, and if “Little Men” is a love story it is also a tale of economic conflict in a rapidly changing city, a fable about the insidious, toxic power of money and real estate. Jake’s grandfather is recalled as a bohemian of the kind that used to be more plentiful in New York. “He loved me,” Leonor says, perhaps hinting that they were lovers but more pointedly explaining why he charged her so little rent. Brian, urged on by his sister, wants to raise it. As the dispute between them escalates, it casts a shadow over Jake’s relationship with Tony. All the think they are being perfectly reasonable as they dig in their heels and allow a business matter to turn into a personal grudge. None of them can help it everyone needs money. Their behavior — the politesse that grows increasingly cold, the contempt that seethes among people who believe themselves to be not only right but righteous — is dismaying, but hardly surprising. It’s also not really the point. Mr. Sachs holds the adults at arm’s length, declining either to judge them too harshly for their selfishness or to extend them more than minimal sympathy for their difficulties. In other words, “Little Men” is on the side of Jake and Tony, as both a narrative strategy and a moral choice. Their temperaments and backgrounds are different, as are their interests. Jake is a hothouse flower, his artistic talents and sensitivities carefully cultivated by his parents. Tony, whose father travels for work and is almost never at home (Hernan, a friend of Leonor’s played by Alfred Molina, is around a lot) is more of a kid. He’s gregarious and easygoing and dreams of being an actor. The two boys conceive a plan to apply to a specialized arts high school together. When parents are around, “Little Men” feels like a modest, precise drama of urban life, but when it follows Tony and Jake, absorbing the loose rhythms of their companionship, the film becomes something richer and harder to classify. It’s a boys adventure story edged with unspoken risks, and the young actors take the kind of chances that their more careful and disciplined elders have been trained to avoid. There are inklings of sexual desire between the boys and implications of homophobia in the world around them, but mostly there is a sense of discovery and change, of all the unruly and enigmatic experiences often collapsed into the phrase “ . ” There is also a protest against the banal imperatives of maturity, and above all against the ways that adults ignore and discount the emotional lives of the young. Kathy, Brian and Leonor would do anything for their sons except take their relationship seriously, and the possibility that something as precious and real as friendship could be sacrificed because of money registers as a profound insult. And also as a fact of life. Mr. Sachs, in his last three features — this one, “Love Is Strange” and “Keep the Lights On” — has refined a style of emotional realism that stands out against both the mumbly diffidence and the sociological scorekeeping of too much independent American cinema. “Little Men” only looks like a small movie. “Little Men” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). Parental guidance is the worst. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. | 0fake |
U.S. House Speaker Ryan says up to Conyers whether to resign | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday commended Representative John Conyers for stepping down as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee in the face of sexual misconduct allegations, and said it was up to Conyers to decide if he should resign from the House. “I know what I would do if this happened to me. I will leave it up to him to decide what he wants to do. I think he made the right decision in stepping down from his leadership position,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters. | 0fake |
OBAMA’S WAR ON COPS Takes Toll On Black Communities: Young Girl Cries Over #BlackLivesMatter Violence In Her Milwaukee Neighborhood [VIDEO] | Communities like Ferguson, Baltimore and now Milwaukee, didn t ask for this war on cops, it was thrust upon them. It was organized, paid for and well-orchestrated by Obama and other Democrats players from a variety of backgrounds. Former Attorney General Eric Holder was caught paying protesters with taxpayer money to come to Sanford, FL to march against George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case that got Obama s Race War/War on Cops started back in March, 2012. With so many stories about the violence and crime coming out of Milwaukee, a bright ray of hope comes from a prayer rally created by a community torn apart by Obama s war on cops.A young girl bravely speaks out against the violence in her neighborhood. The sadness and despair in her shaking voice is truly heartbreaking. These people are trapped in a neighborhood overrun with crime, violence and despair. They re trapped in a neighborhood run by greedy Democrat politicians who have substituted government control for self-respect and dignity. They have taken away these citizens desire to do better, they have stripped them of the belief that they truly can escape their situation. They ve set up Planned Parenthood abortion mills on every corner to keep their population down and have given them just enough to sustain themselves, but not too much to escape government control.Rotten school officials and union leaders tasked with improving their education are only out for themselves, always looking for the next pay raise or special perk that comes with the job. What these self-serving politicians and school administrators are giving to these communities of mostly fatherless kids are a poor education, low self-esteem and no hope for a better life.These young adults are choosing a life of crime over a job. They re choosing to drop out of school instead of getting a job at a local fast-food restaurant while attending a local community college or technical training center. These young adults don t know, or understand the value of sacrificing today for a future tomorrow, because the Democratic Party has convinced them they don t need to worry about the future. They ve convinced them they don t need to be self-sufficient. The only thing they need is the government and that s enough. That s also the reason this frightened little girl seen in the video below, is trapped in this tragic neighborhood filled with violence and crime and may never get out as long as Democrats continue to fool the voters in these crime-ridden cities they are on their side.Thank goodness these citizens, (who are truly a ray of hope in these uncertain times) are able to turn to God for guidance and to ask for protection for their community, and for law enforcement officers who keep their neighborhoods safe. | 1real |
Bernie Sanders Blocked From Speaking At Iowa High School, Guess Who They Let Speak Instead | Urbandale High School students worked hard to get a presidential candidate come to speak at their school in Urbandale, Iowa. Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump said that they would come speak to at the high school. Trump ended up speaking during the school s homecoming. Sanders was blocked by the administration.The Des Moines Register reports on the story, saying: The billionaire Republican visited the high school s homecoming in September after students launched a month-long campaign to recruit a presidential candidate to campus. Students had also reached out to the campaign of Bernie Sanders, who couldn t make the fall homecoming dance, but expressed interest in a later visit. Campaign officials recently tried to firm up Sanders visit, but were turned down by school administrators. Students say they were told that another candidate visit would be too much of an administrative hassle. There were allegations of the school playing favoritism by only letting a Republican candidate speak to the school. The move prompted a backlash from some of the students. We let Donald Trump come as a presidential candidate, but in reality the main focus of his appearance at our school was that he was a high-profile celebrity, said Josh Ingham, a senior at the school. So we wanted a politician that is only involved in politics. So when the administration turned down this opportunity, we were kind of surprised and outraged since the campaign directly contacted our school. We had the opportunity. Ultimately, the matter was resolved with a somewhat weak compromise. Sanders wasn t allowed to speak at the school but some Urbandale students were given reserved seats at a Sanders event. They were able to meet Sanders back stage at the event.The Des Moines Register reports that Ingham who, along with other students, was about to launch a petition to get the school s administration to reverse their decision, got a very special shout out from Sanders at the event: Sanders Iowa staffers reserved prime seats at his Saturday evening appearance at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and set up a quick meet-and-greet with the candidate. About 25 Urbandale students gathered backstage behind a black curtain that separated them from the crowd of more than 1,500 waiting for the Vermont senator s arrival.When Sanders reached the venue, he handed a microphone over to Ingham and asked him to tell the group what had happened at the school. He told them standing up to their school was a very brave thing to do. It s great that those students who attended the event got to have that experience. However, it is antithetical to the idea of civics education to have only one candidate, from one party speak. Representative democracy is about having candidates present their ideas, and then letting people decide who they agree with. When an institution only lets one side of the aisle speak, all they are doing is providing another bully pulpit for that party or candidate. Which is totally not cool.At least some of those students learned a valuable lesson. When the establishment screws you over organize.Featured Image Credit:By Michael Vadon (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons | 1real |
Hilarious: Trevor Noah Has More Fun Than One Guy Should With Last Week’s Debates (VIDEO) | Another huge crowd of Americans tuned in last week as the Republicans held their latest fear-fest, also known as a debate. Refusing to acknowledge that so many people have been tuning in to watch them make fools of themselves and to see what Donald Trump will say next, the GOP field of freaks took the opportunity to once again go at each other s throats for at least half of the debate while invoking fear and bashing Hillary Clinton for the other half.On the flip side, the Democratic debate held at 9PM on a Sunday night after a long day of playoff football drew a tenth of the audience but had a thousand times the substance. As the GOP remains focused on having Americans clutch their guns while watching out the front window for ISIS to come knocking on their doors, the Democrats were firmly planted in the world of domestic policy, discussing things that the next president will have the pleasure of dealing with here at home.Both debates had desirable outcomes. The Republicans continued making fools of themselves, alienating more independent voters in the process, in two and a half hours of Clinton bashing, fear-mongering nonsense while the Democrats finally got to see the candidates bear their teeth while Martin O malley interrupted every so often to spread his vision of a world where tree-hugging liberals will stand next to Ammon Bundy for the betterment of humanity.No matter who you support, there was plenty of material from both debates to go around. As comedians and late-night show hosts get back to work, there will be plenty of laughs to be had. Trevor Noah and the team at Comedy Central s Daily Show were the first to hit an absolute home-run with a hilarious segment that includes brutal jabs at the GOP combined with some hilarious Democratic moments as well.Trevor Noah may be having trouble with ratings and people may still not be over the loss of Jon Stewart from their Daily Show fix, but he continues to show why he was Stewart s choice to move his beloved show forward. Here s the clip, courtesy of Comedy Central:The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Get More: The Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,The Daily Show Video ArchiveFeatured image via screen capture | 1real |
Russia may run out of patience and respond to USA's rudeness | Russia may run out of patience and respond to USA's rudeness 28.10.2016 AP photo Russian President Putin said at the meeting of the Valdai Club in Sochi that Washington has not been able to distinguish between terrorists and moderate opposition in Syria, despite many promises to do so. As a result, the truce was terminated, and the White House accuses the Kremlin of all mortal sins. "This is simply a disgrace. We behave with restraint and we do not respond in such a rude way to our partners, but everything has its limits. We may respond," Putin warned. Pravda.Ru asked an expert opinion about the possible development of events from specialist on US-Russia relations, Victor Olevich. "How can Putin respond?" "Russia has a whole arsenal of potential responses. At the moment, Russia is keeping a pause in the Syrian Arab Republic. The Russian Federation is not using its full military capability to resolve the Syrian crisis. "If the United States continues to engage in further provocations against Russia and Russian interests , then, of course, Moscow will take more active measures to counter what remains, in fact, a terrorist threat in Syria." Print version Font Size "Putin mentioned during his speech that "our personal agreements with the US president did not work." He added that there were forces in Washington that did their best not to let them work. What kind of forces are they?" "First of all, this is the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies: the CIA and some others that have, indeed, made every effort to bury the agreements between Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry that they had reached in Geneva. "As you know, a few days after the agreement on Syria between Moscow and Washington was reached, the US military accidentally bombed one of the most combat-ready Syrian military bases near Deir ez-Zor. The bombing continued for an hour. Up to 80 Syrian military men were killed, and many more were injured. Of course, one could not talk about any agreements afterwards. "Moreover, when Russia raised the issue at the UN Security Council, US Representative Samantha Power reacted very sharply, and, indeed, in a rude way. A few days later, a humanitarian convoy in Aleppo was attacked, and the United States and their Western allies presented totally unsubstantiated and groundless accusations against Russia again. "It was clear that Pentagon chief Ashton Carter, a number of American generals and the CIA were not interested in a joint struggle against the terrorist threat in Syria. Jabhat en-Nusra serves as a reserve of the United States that the country uses when necessary to topple Syrian President Assad. "These non-constructive forces in the United States want to see Hillary Clinton as president to have a more aggressive approach both to Russia and to the settlement of the Syrian crisis." Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru US gets ready for war with Russia because of Assad | 1real |
Donald Trump Threatened with Assassination on Twitter | 7 hours ago 0 warns the American public of a Mainstream media MKULTRA messaging campaign. GoFundMe Alternative Media Television! Leave a Reply Login with your Social ID Your email address will not be published. Name | 1real |
SHOCKING: DNC Contractor Caught in Voter Fraud Sting Visited White House 342 Times | 21st Century Wire saysFollowing a wave of hidden camera sting operations captured by the investigative non-profit Project Veritas, it has now been revealed that the Democratic consultant Robert Creamer of Democracy Partners, met with White House officials some 342 times over the past year. SCANDAL (Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton)The DailyMail reported the following as it relates to the Democratic campaign bombshell: A convicted felon caught up in a pair of stinging political expos s has visited the Obama White House 342 times, according to the administration s records, including several visits to the Obama family s residence and one, in October of last year, to the Oval Office.Robert Creamer was caught on one hidden-camera video discussing ways to commit large-scale voter fraud, and talking in another about paying liberal activists to start fights and otherwise disrupt Donald Trump rallies.Democracy Partners, the community organizing firm that until Tuesday employed Creamer, works hand-in-hand with Hillary Clinton s presidential campaign. CAUGHT ON FILM Robert Creamer resigns over massive Democratic Party controversy. (Image Source: CNN)Creamer s visits to the White House also included his wife, a 9-term Illinois Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.White House visitor records show that Schakowsky took 47 private meetings with Obama or his senior staff, also over the past year. The consultancy Democracy Partners appears to have applied Schakowsky as a political buffering point, possibly in the event of a fallout over their operations at a grassroots level. The impetus of this type of procedural separation is to keep certain high ranking officials of the hook in case of a massive upheaval over various underhanded campaign tactics.Creamer, a convicted felon, (in 2005, Creamer plead guilty $2.3 million in bank fraud and tax violations) was promptly shoved out of the Hillary Clinton campaign s inner circle, following a heavily publicized sting that caught the Democratic consultant discussing how to commit large-scale voter fraud, while also apparently outlining how to incite violence at campaign rallies.Scott Foval, the former national field director at Americans United for Change also discussed controversial and apparent criminal campaign methods, prompting him to be fired after the Project Veritas video footage went viral. Whatever your political persuasion and whether or not Wikileaks may or may not be just another western intelligence asset masquerading in public, some of the emails recently released have raised some interesting questions. Notably, the dissent among the Clinton campaign, the Clinton Foundation s perceived misconduct in Haiti, an email disclosing that ISIS received clandestine financial and logistic support from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which was a story that dovetailed another possible Pay-for-Play scheme, in the form of an attempted Qatari gift to Bill Clinton for $1 million in 2012.Other Wikileaks of importance, presented the collusion between the Clinton campaign and media arms the Associated Press and The New York Times, the latter of which in the last 24 hours, has provided damage control for Hillary Clinton s sycophantic Wall Street speeches that outline an amnesty-laden open borders strategy as well as a rights dissolving trade deal like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP trade deal has been covered extensively at 21WIRE over the past few years and is under the guise of a so-called free-trade agreement. The international trade law for new trade treaties appears to be a way for private corporations to exempt themselves from the laws of sovereign nations, something which belies a truly free market the world over.Despite the Democratic candidate s timely flip flop shift over the TPP deal during the election cycle she provided a lot of vocal support for the deal while seating as the Secretary of State.Indeed, as released in the Wikileaks batch #12, Democratic pollster Joel Benenson, is quoted as stating the following, the reality is HRC is more pro trade than anti and trying to turn her into something she is not could reinforce our negative [sic] around authenticity. This is an agreement that she pushed for and largely advocated for. Interestingly, one of the most impactful and potentially criminal docu-dumps to come out recently was released by the FBI this week, which according to Real Clear Politics, outlined the following quid pro quo allegations: Notes from an interview with a now-retired FBI agent suggest that the State Department tried to get the FBI to declassify a Benghazi-related email found on Hillary Clinton s private email server, in exchange for the State Department allowing the FBI to place more undercover agents in certain countries. The conversation allegedly took place while the State Department was engaged in a review to prepare emails from Hillary Clinton s private server for public release. The Washington Post added the following on the matter: The purported quid pro quo between [Brian] McCauley and [Pat] Kennedy was first reported over the weekend by Fox News and The Weekly Standard and confirmed Monday when the FBI released dozens of interview summaries from its criminal investigation into Clinton s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. According to FOX News: Undersecretary [Patrick] Kennedy s attempt to barter away American national security interests for plainly political purposes is appalling, and may rise to the level of a federal crime, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., wrote in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Tuesday.In the heavily redacted files, known as 302s, an FBI official described the incident with Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy as a quid pro quo. According to the files, in exchange for marking a particular email unclassified, the State Department would reciprocate by letting the FBI place more Agents in countries where they are presently forbidden. If true, these FBI and State Department files could reveal yet another glaring example of collusion that may have provided political protection for presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.Both the FBI and State Department deny any arrangement was made. However, records show that Kennedy attempted to reduce the number of classified emails linked to Clinton s personal server.In early October, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped all charges against an American arms dealer named Marc Turi, whose weapons made it into the hands of radical Libya militants.According to federal court records obtained by Politico: The deal averts a trial that threatened to cast additional scrutiny on Hillary Clinton s private emails as Secretary of State, and to expose reported Central Intelligence Agency attempts to arm rebels fighting Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi. It also worth mentioning again that over the summer we discussed how the 2016 s DNC convention was the latest in a long line of sordid political productions. Bernie Sanders delegates staged a mass walkout after a series of email leaks disclosed that a Clinton lawyer gave the DNC strategy advice on how to sideline the Sanders campaign.Expect the Clinton campaign and the White House to whitewash the DNC voter fraud fallout and other FBI allegations as another scandal replaces them. Something to watch for will be the case of former Joint Chiefs of Staff vice chairman General James Cartwright, who plead guilty this week to felony charges of lying to the FBI after allegedly leaking classified material about covert operations against two Iranian journalists.Here s another look at one of the many DNC operatives outlining how to disrupt a Trump political rally through intimidation. More from Zero Hedge below Why Did Vote-Rigging Robert Creamer Visit The White House Over 200 Times During The Obama Admin?Zero HedgeEarlier today we wrote about a new Project Veritas undercover video that uncovered several democratic operatives openly discussing, in explicit detail, how to commit massive voter fraud. One of the operatives was a person by the name of Robert Creamer who is a co-founder of a democratic consulting firm called Democracy Partners. Within the video, an undercover journalist details a plan to register Hispanic voters illegally by having them work as contractors, to which Creamer can be heard offering support saying that there are a couple of organizations that that s their big trick (see: Rigging Elections For 50 Years Massive Voter Fraud Exposed By Project Veritas Part 2 ).Unfortunately, the embarrassing video caused Creamer to subsequently resign from consulting the Hillary campaign as he issued a statement saying that he was stepping back from my responsibilities working the [Hillary] campaign over fears that his continued assistance would be a distraction for the campaign.Zero Hedge continues here READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | 1real |
This Touching New Bernie Sanders Ad Will Leave You in Tears (VIDEO) | Bernie Sanders candidacy is attractive to many different demographics. He s extremely appealing to younger generations who are the future of tomorrow with his ideas on education and income equality. He s also appealing on social justice issues like incarceration of African Americans and the plight of the Palestinian people, who have been under a brutal Israeli military occupation for decades. There is one other demographic that is backing Bernie Sanders for president: the American men and women who serve in the military.Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who voted against the Iraq war, correctly predicting its terrible ramifications. Millions of Iraqis have been killed, a once thriving economy decimated, and a power vacuum was created that lead to the rise of organizations like ISIS.As for the United States, trillions of dollars have been lost which lead to a recession under the Bush administration unseen since the Great Depression. More importantly, thousands of our American soldiers were killed, and hundreds of thousands were injured both physically and psychologically. The number of US servicemen and women committing suicide is alarming, estimated to be 50% higher than the general population. Tulsi Gabbard, U.S. Representative for Hawaii s 2nd congressional district since 2013 and an Iraqi war veteran understands the price of war and that is why she endorsed Bernie Sanders in a powerful new ad. She said:Bernie Sanders voted against the Iraq war. He understands the cost of war that that cost is continued when our veterans come home. Bernie Sanders will defend our country and take the trillions of dollars that are spent on these interventionist regime change, unnecessary wars and invest it here at home. The American people are not looking to settle for inches. They re looking for real change. What I saw in Bernie was the heart of Aloha. No matter who you are or where you come from in this country, we are all in this together. Sending our kids to fight unnecessary and catastrophic wars is criminal. We should be sending them to college to empower themselves. Bernie Sanders has a proven track record of opposing senseless wars for decades.Watch the Ad Here:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QEy0mxfFaM] Featured image via video screenshot. | 1real |
Syria declares victory over Islamic State | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria s army declared victory over Islamic State on Thursday, saying its capture of the jihadists last town in the country marked the collapse of their three-year, hardline reign in the in the region. The army and its allies are still fighting Islamic State in desert areas near Albu Kamal, the last town the militant group had held in Syria, near the border with Iraq, the army said. But the capture of the town ends Islamic State s era of territorial rule over the so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across Iraq and Syria and in which millions suffered under its hardline, repressive strictures. Yet after ferocious defensive battles in its most important cities this year, where its fighters bled for every house and street, its final collapse has come with lightning speed. Instead of a battle to the death as they mounted a last stand in the Euphrates valley towns and villages near the border between Iraq and Syria, many fighters surrendered or fled. There s some fighters left but they re few. Small numbers is all I can say, said a Syrian army commander of the remaining militants near Albu Kamal. Some were killed and some ran away. They went toward eastern or northern villages. In Albu Kamal, the jihadists had fought fiercely, said a commander in the pro-Syrian government military alliance. But it was captured the same day the assault began. This sealed the fall of the terrorist Daesh organization s project in the region , an army statement said, using an Arabic term for Islamic State. The fate of its last commanders is still unknown killed by bombardment or in battle, taken prisoner but unidentified, or hunkered into long-prepared hideouts to plot a new insurgency. The last appearance of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared himself caliph and heir to Islam s historic leaders from the great medieval mosque in Iraq s Mosul, was made in an audio recording in September. Oh Soldiers of Islam in every location, increase blow after blow, and make the media centers of the infidels, from where they wage their intellectual wars, among the targets, he said. Mosul fell to Iraqi forces in July after a nine-month battle. Islamic State s Syrian capital of Raqqa fell in October to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, after four months of fighting. But all the forces fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq expect a new phase of guerrilla warfare, a tactic the militants have already shown themselves capable of with armed operations in both countries. Western security chiefs have also said its loss of territory does not mean an end to the lone-wolf attacks with guns, knives or trucks plowing into civilians that its supporters have mounted around the world. As it did after previous setbacks, Islamic State s leadership may now stay underground and wait for a new opportunity to take advantage of the chaos in the Middle East. It might not have long to wait. In Iraq, a referendum on independence in the northern Kurdish region has already prompted a major confrontation between its autonomous government and Baghdad, backed by neighboring Iran and Turkey. In Syria, two rival campaigns raced across the country s east this year driving back Islamic State the Syrian army backed by Russia, Iran and Shi ite militias, and an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the United States. Syrian officials and a senior advisor to Iran have indicated the Syrian army will now stake its claim to Kurdish-held territory. Washington has not yet said how it would respond to a protracted military campaign against its allies. Aggravating tensions and raising the possibility of turmoil from which Islamic State could benefit is a contest for power between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It has developed a religious edge, pitting Shi ite groups supported by Iran against Sunni ones backed by Saudi Arabia, infusing the region s wars with sectarian hatred. A senior Iranian official this week spoke from Syria s Aleppo of a line of resistance running from Tehran to Beirut, an implicit boast of its region-wide influence. In recent days the rivalry has again escalated as Riyadh accused Lebanese Hezbollah of firing a missile from the territory in Yemen of another Iranian ally, the Houthi movement. Hezbollah is a critical part of the Tehran-backed alliance helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Hezbollah fighters played the key role in ousting Islamic State from Albu Kamal, a commander in that alliance told Reuters. Baghdadi s declaration of a caliphate in 2014 launched a new era in jihadist ambition. Instead of al Qaeda s strategy of using militant attacks against the West to spur an Islamist revolution, the new movement decided to simply establish a new state. It led to a surge in recruitment to the jihadist cause, attracting thousands of young Muslims to immigrate to a militant utopia slickly realized in propaganda films. Islamic State s leadership ranks included former Iraqi officials who well understood the running of a state. They issued identity documents, minted coins and established a morality police force. Unlike previous jihadist movements that relied on donations from sympathizers, Islamic State s territorial grip gave it command of a real economy. It exported oil and agricultural produce, levied taxes and traded in stolen antiquities. On the battlefield, it adapted its tactics, using heavy weaponry captured from its enemies during its first flush of military success, adding tanks and artillery to its suicide bombers and guerrilla fighters. It imprisoned and tortured foreigners, demanding ransoms for their release and killing those whose countries would not pay in grotesque films posted online. The number of those treated in this way was as nothing to the multitude of Syrians and Iraqis Islamic State killed for their behavior, words, sexuality, religion, ethnicity or tribe. Some were burned alive, others beheaded and some dropped from the roofs of tall buildings. Captured women were sold as brides at slave auctions. But as Islamic State was pushed from territory in recent months, there were pictures of women pulling off face veils and smoking previously banned cigarettes. | 0fake |
If a Carrot for Jordan Works, Syrian Refugees Will Stay Put - The New York Times | AMMAN, Jordan — On a busy thoroughfare in Amman, Jordan’s capital, a coffee seller named Mohammed Al Mulki no longer shivers when he sees a police car pull up. At a nearby sweet shop, the counterman, Zuheir Taleb, no longer slips out of the back when a uniformed official walks in. And in the country’s north, on scorching fields a few miles from the Syrian border, Badra Hadahed, a diabetic grandmother doing backbreaking work, no longer worries that she will be plucked from the cucumber fields and sent back to her home. Like many Syrians who fled their country’s civil war, all three had been working illegally in Jordan. But under a shrewd, delicate experiment that grew out of Europe’s desire to contain the influx of foreigners to its shores, Jordan has been persuaded to let these Syrians make an honest living — in return for potentially big financial rewards. Jordan, which has 650, 000 Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations inside its borders, has long made it nearly impossible for them to work legally, citing concerns about high unemployment among its citizens. But under the new experiment, the government has given out 13, 000 work permits to Syrians, and is promising to issue up to 50, 000 by year’s end — and tens of thousands more in the future. In exchange, the World Bank is giving Jordan a $300 million loan, the likes of which are traditionally reserved for extremely poor countries in Africa. Western nations, including the United States, have offered roughly $60 million to build schools to accommodate Syrian children. And Jordan is close to clinching what it wants most: exports to the European Union, especially garments stitched in its industrial export zones. In short, Western leaders are using their financial and political leverage to convince Jordan that it is worthwhile to help refugees improve their lot in this country so they do not cross the Mediterranean Sea in flimsy rafts in search of a better life in Europe. It is a stark shift for both donor countries and Jordan, which, after absorbing generations of refugees from wars across the Middle East, had tried to keep Syrians from establishing a permanent foothold. “Some may say this is the one shot that the government has to extract a lot of money,” Stefan Dercon, a professor at Oxford University and the chief economist at the British government’s development aid agency, which supports the effort in Jordan. “I would say it is also the only shot that it will have to really reform its economy and create jobs, with substantial international funding. ” Jordan is not the only country trying to leverage Europe’s anxiety about refugees and migrants. Turkey has negotiated a deal that involves taking back most of those who traveled across the Aegean Sea into Greece in exchange for $6. 6 billion in European aid and a proposed waiver of visas for Turks entering Europe. Europe is also promising over $4 billion in aid to several African countries in exchange for their help in stemming the exodus out of the continent. Even Sudan, long under European and American sanctions for its human rights record, is reaping money as part of the package. Libya is getting assistance from Europe to keep migrant boats from crossing the Mediterranean, an approach that Human Rights Watch describes as outsourcing “the dirty work to Libyan forces. ” The shifts in refugee aid policies come as war and persecution drive numbers from their home countries and into poor and countries like Jordan, where they are blamed for straining public services and driving down wages by working for less. The Jordan deal, announced in February as part of the Jordan Compact, is described optimistically by its framers as “turning the Syrian refugee crisis into a development opportunity. ” Its goal is to draw new foreign investment and create jobs for both Jordanians and Syrians. The risk, its proponents privately point out, is that no new investments will pour in, Jordan’s economy will continue to languish and local resentment will grow. Until recently, barely 5, 000 Syrian refugees had work permits. The International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency that supports and devises work policies, estimated that 50, 000 people in Jordan worked off the books — roughly the number that the government is promising to legalize this year alone. For Jordan’s leaders, grappling with debt and an economy growing at an anemic 2. 4 percent, access to the European market is a critical incentive. But antipathy to Syrian refugees runs high among the Jordanian public, so much so that Bassam Badareen, a Jordanian political columnist, recently suggested that the government had “anesthetized” the citizenry before agreeing to let refugees work here. Jordanian officials have taken pains to point out that Syrians are allowed to work mainly in jobs in construction and agriculture that are unattractive to most Jordanians. They also point out that those holding work permits must be paid the minimum wage of about $270 a month, which helps blunt criticism that refugees drive down wages. The challenge for Jordan is to demonstrate that the new deal will revive its economy and create jobs that its citizens want. “This is a good opportunity for Jordan to attract new investment,” said Raed Nimri, a Jordanian engineer turned aid worker with Mercy Corps, a group based in Oregon that assists people during crises. “In five years, 10 years, the Syrians are going to go home. The investment is going to stay. ” There are still many uncertainties. Jordanian officials point out that they are waiting for much of the aid that has been promised and for the European Council to approve the trade concessions that Jordan hopes will draw foreign businesses. Refugees are often nervous that signing up for work permits may imperil other aid they get from the United Nations. One industry being targeted is garment manufacturing in factories in special export zones. One of those, the Al Hassan Industrial Zone, sits barely a drive from the Syrian border, near the city of Irbid in northern Jordan, now home to an estimated 300, 000 Syrians. The factories there employ barely any Syrians or Jordanians. Instead, they employ thousands of women from poor countries under temporary contracts. Among them: Baby Hawladar, a mother of two from Bangladesh who defied her husband’s orders to travel halfway around the world to hunch over a sewing machine 10 hours a day, six days a week. On a recent afternoon, Ms. Hawladar, 27, was stitching Under Armour yoga pants for export to the United States. She has been in the job two years, working for about $155 a month, plus overtime, and a room and meals. Her goal is to stay a bit longer to save enough money to build a house in her home village. Every week, her children call and ask when she is coming home. Every week, she says, “Soon. ” Western Union sends agents directly to the factory floor. Bangladeshi migrants around the world sent $15 billion in remittances back home last year. Replacing workers like her with Syrian refugees, some economists say, would be like robbing Peter to pay Paul — rewarding those fleeing war to the detriment of others fleeing poverty. Not far from the industrial zone, leaning over rows of cucumbers on a vast farm close to the Syrian border, were migrant workers from Egypt, Pakistan and Syria, plus a few Jordanians. In May, after the loosening of work rules, the farm’s owner, Jamal Muhammad Zoabi, obtained permits for the 100 or so Syrians who used to work for him illegally. Ms. Hadahed, the grandmother, was one of them, having taken over the job from her son after he was picked up in a police raid last year for working without a permit. He was deported back to Hama, the Syrian province now partly controlled by the Islamic State. Exhausted, ailing, her head spinning some days in the heat, Ms. Hadahed supports herself, her and two grandchildren on her $270 monthly wage. She does not have much of a choice. Every time she speaks to her son on the phone, he warns her: “Whatever you do, don’t come back. ” Mr. Zoabi, the farmer, knows something about the perils of life on the other side. Before the war, he grew watermelon in Syria. He went back last year to collect some money he was owed, only to be detained, he said, by Islamic State fighters at a checkpoint. Mr. Zoabi said they had held him for six hours. They made him watch as they beheaded an entire family and then threw the heads into an icebox. Mr. Zoabi said he had paid the fighters close to $3, 000, before being allowed to leave. “It was the worst trip of my life,” he recalled. “Imagine living there. ” | 0fake |
New snowstorm, new target: South under siege | The latest winter storm to rattle the Eastern USA was poised Monday to deal battered Boston only a glancing blow while blasting several states in the South and East.
Despite bitterly cold temperatures, Boston was happy for a respite from snow after a weekend storm dumped 16.5 inches on the city, pushing the winter total to 8 feet — and counting.
Boston's forecast called for a few more inches Tuesday, far short of what was rolling toward less well-equipped areas of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and Maryland.
Washington, D.C., not known for its prowess in handling big storms, was bracing for between 4 and 8 inches of snow, most of it falling early Tuesday and tapering off during the morning commute. With up to a foot forecast farther south, in Roanoke and Richmond, Va., Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a statewide emergency.
Non-essential travel was discouraged, and thousands of students throughout the region will get another day off Tuesday, courtesy of Winter Storm Octavia.
Bitter cold temperatures were adding to the region's woes. Washington's high temperature was forecast to reach 25 degrees — about 20 degrees below average for the date.
Frigid temperatures plagued New England on Monday. Mount Washington, N.H., recorded a low of -34 degrees with a wind-chill factor of -87. A New York City hiker who activated her emergency personal locator beacon in the state's Presidential Range amid minus-30 temperatures and 100-mph winds was found dead Monday.
In Kentucky, a section of Interstate 71 near Louisville closed Monday shortly after the snow started. Parts of the state could see more than a foot of snow, the National Weather Service said.
"For Louisville, it could be one of the worst (snowstorms) in 10 years," said meteorologist Joe Sullivan.
In Nashville, homeless shelter volunteer coordinator Robb McCluskey said he was worried that a few inches of slush, ice and snow would keep drivers from bringing people to the shelter and keep church congregations from delivering dinner.
"That's the big issue," McCluskey said, "seeing how others are going to survive it."
Jacksboro, Tenn., reported a midday total of a half inch of ice on the ground.
The Weather Channel reported that "snow, sleet and freezing rain will make travel difficult, and winter storm warnings have already been posted for almost 47 million people."
That could translate to 4 inches of nasty ice and snow as far south as northern Georgia.
Atlanta forecasters cautioned about possible black ice for the morning commute after a day of cold rain and overnight temperatures dipping below freezing.
Frigid temperatures were reported all across the northeastern USA Monday morning: Erie, Pa., dropped to minus-18 degrees, tying the city's all-time record low temperature, according to the National Weather Service. Cleveland's minus-8 degree reading broke a daily record low previously set in 1904.
Daily record lows were also tied or broken in Detroit, Baltimore, Syracuse, Toledo, Trenton, N.J., and Wilmington, Del., the Weather Channel reported.
Boston fell to minus-3 degrees, its coldest reading since January 2004, while Philadelphia bottomed out at 3 degrees, its coldest since January 2005, meteorologist Matt Lanza reported.
Airlines took notice of the cold and snow, canceling more than 1,000 flights nationwide Monday and more than 300 for Tuesday. Monday's cancellations were scattered across airports from New England to the Deep South as lingering disruptions from the weekend's blizzard mixed with the latest winter storm.
Still, no region has faced more winter difficulties than eastern Massachusetts. In Boston, the 58.5 inches of snow so far this month makes February 2015 the city's snowiest month on record, the National Weather Service reported. That's 10 times what the city typically receives in February.
The city's 2014-15 winter is the third-snowiest on record, with more than 95 inches recorded so far. The city is only 12 inches away from its snowiest winter ever — based on records dating to the 1870s.
"It's certainly not a record that we want," Mayor Marty Walsh told the Boston Herald. "It looks like a record we can get."
Contributing: Doyle Rice, Ben Mutzabaugh, Michael Winter and Melanie Eversley, USA TODAY; Matthew Glowicki, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal; Stacey Barchenger, The (Nashville) Tennessean, Associated Press. | 0fake |
Death toll in Iran's western province quake reaches 328: ISNA | ANKARA (Reuters) - At least 328 people were killed and over 2,500 injured by a quake in Iran s Kermanshah province. on the Iraqi border, the Students News agency ISNA reported on Monday. ISNA quoted the coroner s office in the province as saying that the death toll was expected to increase. | 0fake |
See Trump Run—And Win! | Leave a reply
John P. Warren – Can anyone doubt Donald J. Trump may well become our first Independent POTUS? Conservatives disdain him and all that he stands for, and Progressives of all stripes deplore him and the basket of his supporters. The establishment disavows him. So who will elect him? · The Blue Dog Coalition —represents conservative Democrats who have tired of identity politics, empty promises to working people, destruction of their mores, and the rampant corruption amongst top Dems. · Mainstream Republicans —are all over the map in their beliefs about religion, sexual identity, abortion, gun rights, and immigration, but they are fed up with the take-no-prisoners approach by extremists in their party. Despite putdowns to the contrary, they cross social, wealth, and educational boundaries. · Indies —comprise the big chunk smack in the middle who, like ordinary Republicans, eschew the extreme positions, are willing to compromise, even on sensitive and personal issues, but want something done about immigration and the gaps in job opportunities, education, and wealth. Indies hate corruption more than bad social behavior.
These groups are angry about the banana republic culture of progressive Democrats. They know that for all his personal foibles, Donald Trump is right: the system is rigged against an outlier. That’s not to suggest there’s a group of elites arranging things to their liking with a few string-pulls.
It’s the system of two major party establishments encrusted with the principles of their in-house philosophical tyrants. It’s a society in which progressives infest our educational system, Hollywood and the entertainment industry, and the grossly mis-named mainstream media crowd. It’s a federal government no longer a traffic cop protecting our rights, but rather, but another tool corrupted for the progressive political agenda. Trump’s constituencies know that anyone running outside permitted boundaries has had no chance of success.
Until now. Until Donald J. Trump. He’s the outlier. The underdog tired of being kicked around. Despite myriad splinters this particular example of presidential timber, Trump has beat all the odds, and from this vantage point of over a week out, November 8 looks to be more than a squeaker in his favor.
Unless, of course, the election itself is stolen by Democrats so desperate to keep hidden their secrets. Is it possible to commit vote fraud? Most definitely. It’s not about people registered in both Ohio and Florida, whole cemeteries or ex-residents of state pens going to the polls. That has happened and will happen again, but unless there’s a massive number of people moving a massive amount of votes in exactly the right locales, the national election should remain relatively immune from such shenanigans.
Also, defective voting machines have always been with us, so it’s up to each citizen to pay close attention to what happens before pulling the lever. What they can’t see, however, is the invisible third party electronically camped between county election offices and their respective state capitols flipping votes a few thousand here and there. If THAT happens, we will not keep the republic Ben Franklin and the Founders gave us. For this discussion, however, let’s hope that’s not the case.
If Hillary Clinton is “elected,” her administration will be dogged by journalistic and other investigators digging deeper into the pile of political offal that represents the mass of Clinton pay-to-play activities. And if the FBI “gets religion” this time around, that cancer will not be curable.
If Trump, surviving every barrage, pushes through to electoral victory, November 8 th is one hurdle, but there remain others before Inauguration Day. If possible—despite Hillary’s oh-so-pious promises to the contrary—progressives will challenge the vote everywhere they can. Assuming those challenges come to naught, the next hurdle is the vote by the Electoral College itself.
Currently, there are 538 electors (for 435 representatives, 100 senators, and three allotted to Washington, DC). Except for Maine and Nebraska, which awards its electoral votes by congressional district, the other forty-eight are winner-take-all. Electors are usually chosen by each political party, and most often, they are true to the pledge they have given.
Yet, in this year of all years, when Trump is not a Republican’s Republican, and Democrats will not be shy about dirty tricks, it’s the issue of faithfulness that matters. Only 24 states have laws to punish faithless electors—those who cast a vote for other than the person to whom they are pledged, so the potential for faithless electors in the other 26 states and DC is greater than ever before.
Faithless electors aside, they will meet in their respective state capitals on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December—this year, December 19 th , and ordinarily, the process should be little more than a formality required by the Constitution.
Then, there’s the Twelfth Amendment requiring Congress to convene in joint session on January 6, 2017. There, the newly installed House of Representatives declares the winner of the election. The kicker is that if one member of each house, in writing, objects to the vote count of a state, the entire assemblage, after separate debate in their respective chambers, decides whether to accept or reject the objection. It’s easy to imagine, how in this particular election, the process might be manipulated by a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren.
Trump’s last hurdle will be to disabuse the fears of many Americans so heavily stoked by those arrayed against him, and then bring together all but die-hard progressives in rebuilding America as the last best hope of humanity on this planet. It’s a daunting task, but Donald Trump is the only candidate with the political cojones to get it done.
So, let’s get ‘er done! SF Source Townhall Oct. 2016 Share this: | 1real |
RED ALERT: China officially orders its citizens to prepare for WW3 as tensions with the United States boil over | November 2015 Ads RED ALERT: China officially orders its citizens to prepare for WW3 as tensions with the United States boil over Oct 28, 2016 Previous post
We have been cautioning all of you for a considerable length of time that something significant was going on, yet now it would appear that we have affirmation. The Chinese Defense Minister, Chang Wanquan, has cautioned its natives to plan for the coming World War III.
China has promised to take measures to resist the twelfth of July governing by the Permanent Court of Arbitration and to ensure its sway. It has been accounted for that in a post-Brexit world, China and Russia will turn into the world’s super powers.
China’s state-run media has been inundated with rant on the subject of their military and sway. China’s Global Times ventured to test Australia specifically, saying: “If Australia ventures into the South China Sea waters, it will be a perfect focus for China to caution and strike.”
On Weibo, a state-controlled blogging website, Lian Fang, a teacher at the military –run National Defense University said that “The Chinese military will venture up hard and China will never submit to any nation on matters of sway,”
Wanquan apparently put forth the expression while investigating army bases in China’s eastern beach front region of Zhejiang. The Defense Minister said the Chinese open ought to be instructed about national protection issues in light of the fact that the nation’s power and its regional uprightness are at danger.
Wanquan additionally cautioned of seaward security dangers, and the need to recognize the gravity of danger to China’s national security. He promote charged the whole security device of the nation, including military, police, together with subjects to get ready for assembly to protect their national sway and regional respectability.
Pundits likewise trust that China has a solid conviction that the United States actuated the Philippines to question the South China Sea so that the United States could exploit and adventure the territory for its advantage.
The Free Thought Project affirms that several boats and submarines from every one of the three armadas of China’s People’s Liberation Army directed broad live ammo drills in the nation’s East, North, and South Seas as a show of hostile and protective capacities.
A war amongst China and its neighbors additionally has the risky probability to separate the world. The U.S. will most likely go to the guide of its partners, and China and Russia have expanded military ties which could assist muddle the situation.
| 1real |
Exclusive: Koran, boots and scarves all that remain in Philippine rebel leader's lair | MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) - Prayer mats, chequered scarves, black fatigues, and bullet-ridden walls mark the hideout where the emir of Islamic State in Southeast Asia spent months preparing the most brazen and devastating militant attack in the region. A four-storey house in a quiet alley of Marawi City in the southern Philippines was the secret lair of Isnilon Hapilon until late May. After a botched military raid to apprehend him, a thousand-strong rebel alliance held large parts of the city for five months. Hapilon s death in a military operation elsewhere in Marawi on Oct. 16 was the catalyst for the end of Philippines longest and most intense urban battle in recent history. Security forces moved in on the house on May 23, trying to capture the country s most wanted man, but came under sustained attack from rebels firing rocket-propelled grenades. A bomb-battered structure, shattered windows and wall-to-wall holes from machine gun fire tell the story of the ferociousthree-day battle that erupted at Hapilon s hideout, and promptedthe call to hundreds of fighters to expedite the plannedtakeover of Marawi. Hapilon escaped through a large hole that was blasted out of a rear wall, making his way across a rice field to a mosque next to the vast Lake Lanao. From there, he joined the guerrillas. Community volunteers on Thursday showed Reuters the house in the now empty, narrow street where the military believes Hapilon had lain low for several months. All other properties were intact and neighbors had fled long ago. At the time, no one knew who these people were. People saw them about but there was no reason to suspect anything, said Mohammed Seddick Raki, who lived nearby. Other volunteers said women and children stayed at the rented house and visitors were frequent. Children s shoes were scattered amid the debris and a woman s robe was hanging from a window. Inside the house, black shirts, pants and plaid scarves synonymous with Islamic State were strewn across rooms littered with broken floor tiles and chunks of rock from blasted walls. Left behind were waterproof boots, a balaclava, medical supplies and camouflage bags and waistcoats typically used by soldiers to carry rifle magazines. Coated in a think layer of dust on floors of every room were pocket-sized copies of the Koran, some with pages stained by water leaked through gaping holes in the roof. A mosque, about 100 meters behind the house, was the venue for an annual gathering in Marawi of Tablighi Jamaat, a Sunni missionary movement, just days before the fighting erupted. Military officials say the foreigners who fought in Hapilon s alliance - among them Indonesians, Malaysians and some from Arab states - had used that event as a cover to slip into Marawi without raising suspicion. The deputy task force commander in Marawi, Colonel Romeo Brawner, said Hapilon evaded security forces because rebels had a network of lookouts and gunmen ready to defend him. They put up heavy resistance. They were spread across a large area. They were strategically placed, he said. They were prepared for it. Hapilon s escape in the last week of May led to anarchy in the city of about 200,000. Rebels took hostages, set fire to buildings, ransacked churches, broke into the local jail to free inmates and looted an armory. The government had insufficient security forces in Marawi to prevent the fighters from fanning out across the city and seizing hundreds of buildings. Hapilon was wanted by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and had a bounty on his head of up to $5 million. He was killed by army rangers in a night operation and his body was retrieved from the battle zone in the heart of the city. His identity was confirmed by the FBI s DNA analysis. The city of Marawi was all but destroyed by government air strikes and shelling that leveled commercial areas and crushed thousands of shops, homes and vehicles. No one could have known what would happen, said Mohamed Faisal Mama, a resident in the same Basak Malutlot district where Hapilon was hiding. No one knew them. They weren t famous then. | 0fake |
Advisers Are Now Warning Donald Trump About Impeachment | Donald Trump s so-called presidency is plagued with so many scandals it s hard to keep up. So naturally, impeachment is being floated around. The former reality show star and co-writer of Art of the Deal , has unsurprisingly failed to make any deals after being on the job for 8 months now. Trump s approval ratings are abysmal as he finds himself to be the most unpopular president ever in the 70-year history of polling and then there are the investigations into his presidential campaign s possible ties to Russia.On top of that, White House advisers have reportedly been warning Trump about his potential removal from office, which entails the exhaustive impeachment process, according to Newsweek.Meanwhile, Trump is so worried that he s taken to his Twitter account to look for protection. It s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President, Trump tweeted in late July. If Republicans don t Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand! According to The Washington Post, several White House advisers have voiced their concerns to Trump about his possible impeachment, and about how overcoming such proceedings would require friendships with the elected officials responsible for making a decision as to whether he should remain in office, but instead, he seems to be at battle with them, including his Republican colleagues, who he has lashed out at repeatedly. If Democrats take the House in 2018, impeachment proceedings could begin. And as far as funding his ego-wall along the Southern border, well, that wouldn t even be a consideration in a Democratic controlled House.Trump s latest war has been with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, a man of influence in Washington, DC. Despite what we might think of McConnell, he s a powerful man. He could, ironically, make Trump a one-term President. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
10 Free (or Cheap) Travel Apps Worth Downloading - The New York Times | After a week of downloading and trying out various travel and navigation apps, I reached an unfortunate conclusion: Most of them are worthless — clunky, buggy, seemingly desultory efforts by developers rushing a poor product to market. There are a few, though, that provide elegant solutions to some of travel’s more common complications, doing what a good app should do: make life easier. Here are seven free travel apps that are worth your time, and three that are worth your money. Hotspot Shield VPN A VPN, or virtual private network, can be used to bolster online security as well as to access resources that might otherwise be . I’ve found it particularly useful when I’m in countries that block certain websites. When I was in Bulgaria, for instance, the ticket resale website StubHub is blocked, as is Southwest Airlines. Why, I have no idea, but I had a Southwest reservation that I needed to manage. Using the VPN, I could circumvent the block by connecting with a server in a country that doesn’t have those restrictions. It’s not 100 percent reliable, and there are ads you’ll get better service and faster load times with a VPN that you pay for. (Hotspot Shield VPN does have an “Elite” option, with faster servers and no ads, that costs $29. 99 per year.) Memrise Are you going to become fluent in French before your trip to Paris? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean you can’t commit a few choice phrases to memory. Memrise, developed by the memory champ Ed Cooke and Greg Detre, a Princeton neuroscientist, makes learning languages fun and strangely addictive through its mix of flashcards and audiovisual games. Users of the free app can choose from among dozens of language courses, some of which are better than others. The romance languages, including French and Spanish, are all very good. There’s also an entertaining option called “The Partial Polyglot,” which teaches you a few choice words and phrases in multiple languages. (Memrise offers a “Pro” option, with more features, for $59. 99 per year.) Avast Photo Space Many of us have faced the predicament of running out of room on our phones and have been forced to choose pictures to delete. Avast Photo Space is a new app that aims to eliminate this quandary by connecting to Dropbox or a Google Drive account and uploading the original, photos for safekeeping. You’re left with a copy of the picture on your phone. While Avast worked well for me — I was able to upload 100 photos and free up almost 200MB of space on my phone — there are complaints that the app is slow and buggy. An update was introduced on June 25 that clears up some of these issues, but you may want to wait another release or two before investing your time (and photos) in the app. Flight Stats Despite their popularity, you don’t ever need to pay for a flight status app. You can easily Google the information, and if you really need an app to do it for you, FlightStats is the only one you need. The last time I used it, it nailed the time of my flight’s departure, almost down to the minute. FlightStats allows you to search by flight number, airport and route, and provides basic information at your departure and destination cities. Units Plus The interface is a little simplistic, but this is the best free currency and units converter that I’ve used. While the app is open, it downloads currency exchange rates every 15 minutes, keeping it remarkably . It will also convert weight, volume, area, distance and nearly anything else you can think of. There is an version available for $2. 99. 5 Every Day It’s a situation we all find ourselves in from time to time: You just want to be told where to go and what to do. Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt of the indie band Yacht created an app that curates a list of five path events, restaurants and activities in Los Angeles every day of the year. You’ll get suggestions for theatrical productions, hikes, a Chuck Klosterman reading or dive bars you didn’t know about. The app is simple and intuitive, and mines the city’s events calendar for interesting . 5 Every Day is free, but allows for the unlimited “ ” of events (that is, saving them for later) for an additional $1. 99. It’s Los for now, but hopefully will expand to other cities. Mobile Passport This app from Customs and Border Protection does away with the annoyance of that long customs form you get before arriving in the United States — you keep your passport information and answer all the customs questions on this app. Once you land, you submit your to customs — no more paper slips (you will have to do this every time you the United States, however). Best of all, you get to skip the line and use a dedicated mobile passport lane — at least at the airports where this is in place (about a dozen locations right now, including Kennedy, Newark Liberty and Chicago O’Hare, with plans for expansion). Touchnote If you’re no good at remembering to send postcards when you’re traveling, this app will do nearly all the work for you. Select any picture from your camera roll, and Touchnote will turn it into a postcard and mail it to any location in the world with a working postal service. You can add a personalized message on the back, just as you would on an actual postcard. It’s not perfect — a matte finish option would be nice — but that’s a minor complaint. It’s not as exciting as getting a stamp from a foreign country, but if you don’t have time to find a post office, or want to send a customized postcard, this app will do the trick. $1. 50 to $2. 99 per card. Packing Pro Do you like to get organized? Like, really organized? Then Packing Pro is the app for you. It breaks down your routine in such a granular way it’s almost impossible to forget anything. Lists for clothes, accessories, medical needs and toiletries are all available, as well as the ability to set priorities, organize and even photograph clothing and other items you need to bring (or purchase before you leave). Lists can be reused, making it easy to get a solid travel organization regime down pat. $2. 99. Human Resource Machine If you’re anything like me, you occasionally need a puzzle game to get you through a particularly arduous flight or bus trip. Human Resource Machine is perfect for those who like logic puzzles — the game is essentially set up as a series of cartoony programming challenges, and you have to create progressively more complicated lines of “code” to complete them. This is not a Candy game, mind you — it demands brainpower. $4. 99 in the App store. | 0fake |
TOP NAVY COMMANDER RELEASED After Reportedly Revealing Secret About Obama | Seven years ago, this story would ve seemed like something from The Onion (a satirical publication). Unfortunately where Barry Sotoero, aka Barack Hussein Obama is concerned, nothing is unbelievable, and truth seems to be stranger than fiction Recently, a new Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report was released stating that one of the United States Navy s top commanders was released from command after he sent out an email revealing that President Barack Obama was in the process of purchasing a multi-million dollar seaside villa in Dubai.The report indicates that Rear Admiral Rick Williams, Commander of the US Navy s Carrier Strike Group 15, posted a query on January 8 to the Naval Institutes Readiness Kill Chain. It inquired why Navy security and intelligence personal had been dispatched from a Naval Support Facility in Thurmont to an Obama house hunting mission. The message has since been deleted.As to the Obama house hunting mission Admiral Williams was making his query about before being fired, this report continues, SVR intelligence assests in the UAE identified it as being a luxury seaside villa located in the Palm Jumeirah development of Dubai being offered for sale at the price of $4.9 million (18 million United Arab Emirates Dirham), and which a deposit on it was made this past week by the Washington D.C. based global public affairs company Podesta Group. Important to note about the Podesta Group, this report notes, is that its leader is Tony Podesta, who aside from being one of the most powerful oligarchs in the US, is a close personal friend of President Obama too.Within 18 hours of posting the query, Vice Admiral Noral Tyson fired Admiral Williams on orders from President Obama. Her action was reportedly due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command based on allegations of his misuse of government computer equipment. To cover their tracks, the Pentagon reportedly began releasing anonymous stories that Admiral Williams had been viewing pornography on his computer. Of course, this is an impossibility due to the US Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI), which blocks such sites. Via: Conservative Post | 1real |
Hillary Clinton: Her Notable Moments - The New York Times | The name Hillary Rodham first appeared in the pages of The New York Times 47 years ago, in a 1969 article about her commencement address at Wellesley, the women’s college in Massachusetts. It was five years before her husband, Bill Clinton, would be mentioned in The Times. Since then, The Times has covered her rise, beginning with her role as a lawyer and governor’s wife who first gained the national spotlight in Arkansas. She then became an influential first lady, United States senator, secretary of state and presidential candidate (twice). Here are some highlights from over the years. The country wasn’t sure what to make of Mrs. Clinton when she first burst on the national stage during the 1992 presidential campaign. A product of the feminist movement who had followed her husband to Arkansas, Mrs. Clinton seemed to be breaking the mold of candidate’s wife. And yet, talk of her hairstyle still permeated many conversations … and has ever since. Mrs. Clinton’s 1993 interview with The New York Times Magazine, in which she expounded on the “politics of meaning” and her Methodism and New Age beliefs, was met with widespread ridicule. It has often been cited as a reason for Mrs. Clinton’s reluctance to discuss her spiritual side. She even resisted wearing white for years after the magazine’s cover portrayed her as a saintly figure. Soon after her husband’s inauguration, Mrs. Clinton was appointed by the president as head of a task force on health care reform. It was her first time working to develop policy on a national stage, and it “ran into a political buzzsaw,” as The Times found in a 1994 on what critics nicknamed Hillarycare. Instead of cowering after a White House scandal broadcast Bill Clinton’s infidelities around the world, Mrs. Clinton did the opposite: She ran for the Senate in New York, subjecting herself to the harsh local tabloids. Her victory was the first time a first lady was elected to public office. (Never mind that she hadn’t been living in New York.) As the first woman with a real shot at the presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton wasn’t sure how to approach gender. In her 2008 campaign, she emphasized strength and experience, often at the expense of warmth. The Times’s Mark Leibovich highlighted the few times she showed a softer side, as when she spoke at her friend Diane Blair’s funeral in 2000. After Mrs. Clinton lost to Barack Obama, she surprised the nation again by accepting the position of secretary of state and diving into diplomatic work. Although her tenure is now marked by controversy over her email, in the period she served as the country’s top diplomat, Mrs. Clinton enjoyed some of her highest approval ratings. Gallup consistently named her the country’s most admired woman. The image was of Mrs. Clinton’s facial features superimposed on a moon with the names of old Clinton friends, aides and orbiting around her. It symbolized the challenges she would face as she considered another run for the presidency and how to organize the circle of people who hoped to tag along. As issues of race and criminal justice dominated the 2016 contest, parts of Mrs. Clinton’s biography began to form a central part of her campaign’s story. Mrs. Clinton declined to be interviewed about the time in 1972 when she went undercover to investigate “segregation academies” in the South. But after an article about it ran, she and Bill Clinton talked openly about this chapter in her life, including at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. | 0fake |
Single Family Housing Starts Surge Before Long Winter of Our Discontent | Single Family Housing Starts Surge Before Long Winter of Our Discontent By Lee Adler. Yesterday we looked at total housing starts for October. The numbers were very strong. I concluded that within those strong numbers lay the seeds of destruction. Total housing starts are comprised of single family and multi family units. The total number can be misleading about one of the two markets if one is materially stronger than the other. | 1real |
Top Republican Grows A Backbone After Charlottesville, Blames Trump For Dividing America (IMAGE) | Donald Trump s weak response to the racially motivated, white supremacist terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia has been a sombering moment for America. While many Americans did not have any high hopes for Trump as POTUS, some at least thought he would be decent enough to condemn violence and bigotry, or at least not publicly defend racism. Unfortunately, we have been severely disappointed.Trump has failed so miserably to denounce hate that even several Republicans are disgusted by the lazy tweeter in chief. And while many of them are speaking up, most of them don t have the guts to call Trump directly out or make any sort of passionate statement on the matter. However, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is beyond done with Trump. In response to Trump s continued failure to respond appropriately to the Charlottesville crisis, Graham has issued a blistering statement calling Trump out by name and accurately accusing the disgraced president of dividing America.Here s Graham s statement, which we hope will inspire many more conservatives to openly criticize our modern-day Hitler:In his statement, Graham also brilliantly pointed out that Trump is basically welcoming neo-Nazis and KKK members with open arms by making comments that defend racists.Graham s statement was much needed, as much of the Republican Party has not stood up to Trump s inaction in a strong enough way. An innocent life was lost in Charlottesville, and Trump has defended the people who were responsible. That should make GOPers across the country ashamed of even being associated with Trump.Condemning racism and white supremacy should be a no-brainer. It is extremely odd that the Republican Party s leader and many other conservatives are having a hard time calling this out and taking the strong stance that Graham has. Now is not the time to be silent and stick to party lines.Featured image via Sean Gallup / Getty Images | 1real |
Patrick Henningsen and Don DeBar Discuss Trump’s ‘Immigration Ban’ and the Media Reaction | Sputnik Radio s new program Trend Storm is hosted by American geopolitical analyst and writer Andrew Korybko. This week, Andrew explores what s really driving the media uproar and political protests surrounding President Trump s executive order on immigration Andrew Korybko Trend StormUS President Donald Trump s controversial Executive Order to temporarily limit the entrance of select foreign nationals to the US is becoming a larger-than-life scandal of epic proportions.Following through on yet another of his campaign promises, America s new leader has banned people from seven countries from entering the US, building off of the list of supposedly terrorist-prone countries that his predecessor first identified. The immediacy of the order caught many people off guard, and there was confusion about whether it would apply to permanent residents (green card-holders), already-vetted refugees, and individuals in transit. Almost immediately after the announcement was made last Friday, thousands of people across the US flocked to their local airports to protest the measure. In doing so, they defied what are ordinarily strict security measures, which during regular times would prohibit such large-scale gatherings at locations considered essential to the nation s infrastructure.The protesters claimed that Trump had banned Muslims from entering the US, and the hashtag #MuslimBan instantly started trending on Twitter. In defense of the motion, Trump and his surrogates said that most majority-Muslim countries were untouched by the temporary border restrictions, pointing out that Indonesia the world s most populous Muslim country isn t on the list, for example. Moreover, in a cynical retort to the critics, they reminded the public that Obama had earlier suspended the US refugee program for Iraqi nationals for half a year back in 2011, though no such protests erupted at that time. Nevertheless, it s hard for the Trump Administration to shake the social media stigma that this is a Muslim Ban , no matter how convincingly they may argue that it amounts to nothing more than a brief review period for high-risk countries prior to the implementation of what s being called extreme vetting. This is because the mainstream US media is very sympathetic to what Trump and his spokespeople have termed the political opposition, namely, the Democratic Party.The perception management and narrative-building that these two institutions are known for was seen vividly and on full display during the presidential campaign, but it s gotten even more intense since Trump s election. Just like back then, however, it doesn t seem to be doing its intended job, since a Reuters poll released on Tuesday found that 49% of Americans are in favor of the President s action, while 41% are against it.Patrick Henningsen, Founder and Executive Editor of 21stCenturyWire.com and the host of the Sunday Wire Show, and Don DeBar, host of a syndicated daily radio newscast CPR News heard across the US, commented on the issue . READ MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE NOW & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
National Debt Dips. Trump Crows. Well, Sure, but … - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — In a message posted on Twitter on Saturday, President Trump highlighted a dip in the national debt during his first month in office, contrasting it with an increase in the first month of the Obama administration. The numbers are broadly accurate, but the lack of attention to them is for good reason: Neither president bore responsibility for changes in the federal debt in his opening month in the White House. The slight decline cited by Mr. Trump — a drop of 0. 06 percent, according to Treasury data — is a temporary fluctuation, not a change in direction. The federal debt is determined by the government’s decisions about taxing and spending, and by the strength of the American economy. The debt was increasing rapidly in early 2009 because the economy was in free fall, and because of policy decisions made during the administration of President George W. Bush. The debt is rising more slowly now because economic growth has strengthened and because of policy decisions made during Mr. Obama’s administration. But the debt is on a clear upward trend. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in January that the debt would increase by $559 billion in the current fiscal year, ending in September. The exact amount of the debt bounces around that trend line because the Treasury borrows money by selling securities with maturities — or repayment dates — ranging from 28 days to 30 years. That creates an irregular pattern of inflows and outflows from the federal cash box. The president leveled his complaint on Twitter not long after Herman Cain, a former Republican presidential candidate, raised a similar criticism on “Fox and Friends Weekend. ” Mr. Trump did not describe his calculations, but similar numbers can be derived from the Treasury’s daily reports on the national debt. The data show that on Feb. 21, the national debt was $12 billion smaller than on Jan. 20. As of Thursday, the day with the most recent data, the national debt had declined by $33 billion since Mr. Trump’s inauguration. The daily Treasury reports also show that the national debt increased by $212 billion from Jan. 20 to Feb. 20 in 2009. Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, issued a statement applauding the president for focusing on the national debt while noting that “the improvement this early in his term has to do with normal fluctuations in spending and revenues rather than new policies he has implemented. ” While presidents do not exert immediate influence over the size of the national debt, Mr. Trump will have his chance to make an impact. He has proposed tax cuts that would reduce federal revenues, as well as tariffs on imports that would have the opposite effect. He has also proposed reducing federal spending in some areas while increasing it in others, like defense and infrastructure. The performance of the economy will also play an important role. Economic growth generates more tax revenue and reduces federal spending on social welfare programs. The national debt increased sharply during Mr. Obama’s first term as the government increased spending in response to the 2008 financial crisis. The debt grew more slowly during his second term as the economy improved and tax increases brought more money into the government’s coffers. | 0fake |
The Western Banking System Is Totally Broken, Totally Insolvent And Totally Corrupt (VIDEO) | By: The Voice of Reason | Provided that you are someone who doesn’t rely on the mainstream media for anything more than entertainment, and you get your actual “news” elsewhere, then you already know that, “[T]he Western central banking franchise system is totally broken, totally insolvent, totally corrupt,” and it’s been inviting the return of a Gold Standard for some time. More than likely, you also already know that it won’t be a United States Gold Standard that global financial system defers to when the U.S. Dollar finally takes it’s last gasp of air before dying on the operating table. The entire financial system of the Western banking system and the U.S. Dollar were built upon a debt-based monetary system, and the debt saturation process has run its full course. The days of the U.S. Dollar are numbered, and anyone who has followed the work of Dr. Jim Willie for even a short while, should already know that. However, Because of his sarcastic manner, and the informal atmosphere in which Dr. Willie often conducts his interviews, sometimes it can be difficult to understand (or take seriously), the points he is making. So, for anyone looking to better understand the basis of some of Dr. Willie’s more recent forecasts, the article below is written by Dr. Willie himself, and it contains all the details one could ask for that support the positions he has often discussed during many of his most recent prior interviews. The interview is about three weeks old, but it’s also his most recent. During the interview, just a few of the topics include how recent geopolitical and economic events have begun to severely fracture NATO, and how post-Brexit the European Commission is becoming largely irrelevant as a governing body. With respect to the death of the U.S. Dollar, Dr. Willie discusses how the Chinese will launch new short term RMB notes backed by gold, causing even more countries to abandon the U.S. Dollar when settling foreign trade debts. Then, to facilitate the U.S. Dollar’s transition from the slow precipitous decline we’ve seen in recent years, into a complete collapse, Dr. Willie explains how we should expect the IMF to soon back it’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR’S) with gold, in conjunction with the Saudi’s abandoning the PetroDollar for good. Stay tuned at the conclusion of Dr. Willie’s technical analysis below, for another good look into the death of the Dollar, in a full-length documentary titled, “End of An Empire: America Destroyed From Within /Death by Bank-ism.” Dr. Jim Willie Writes: The Western central bank franchise system is totally broken, totally insolvent, and totally corrupt. It invites the Gold Standard return. The entire financial system is built upon a debt-based monetary system. The debt saturation process has run its full course. The central bank heads have been covering the sovereign debt for the last five years, having rendered their balance sheets as ruined. Debt is at obscene levels, like $19.7 trillion for the USGovt. No debt limits are in place anymore, a signal that most likely it has already defaulted. A hidden game is underway, with control lost to the creditors, even as they attempt to salvage their debt holdings. The major central banks continue to manage badly the great game, where money is fake phony and a farce. A titanic battle is underway, where the Eastern nations are discarding their USTreasury Bonds, and doing so in tremendous volume while they set up the many platforms and pieces to the Gold Standard. The US Federal Reserve monetary policy of hyper-inflation has failed to revive the US Economy, failed to legitimize the debt securities, failed to halt the financial corruption, and failed to stem capital destruction. The official monetary policy has only succeeded in preventing the failures of almost all big Western banks. They are all insolvent, mostly supported by narco money laundering in the hundreds of $billions. The Eastern super-powers are leading a campaign to put aside the US$-based financial system, isolate it to the sidelines, while arranging a new system. The Gold-based system will be complete with its currency, sovereign debt securities, transfer systems, global offices, and debt rating agencies, maybe even debit cards. The East strives to install the Gold Standard as the remedy to the ongoing global financial crisis. The West has made exactly no movement toward solution, remedy, or enforcement against bond. Four graphs display the broken unfixable bizarre situation. Graph 1 – BALANCE SHEET DESTRUCTION Central bank balance sheets could take decades to normalize, so the conventional thinking goes. Their balance sheets will never return to normal. Most assets of toxic paper are far more worthless than junk bonds. A normalization process would require at least 50 years of more financial repression and deep corruption. A massive global debt writedown of sovereign bond is coming, on the back end of the Global Financial RESET. Think paradigm shift of the most disruptive type while power shifts eastward. The risk of war rises. The big Western banks find themselves in an impossible Catch-22 situation. The markets are addicted to QE and its destructive money hyper inflation. Federal Reserve policymakers have acknowledged that their $4 trillion balance sheet will not shrink any time soon. Also, Bank of England officials talk of crisis fighting tools as semi-permanent fixtures. In Asia, the Bank of Japan has developed a new monetary policy framework that features admitted infinite QE. The financial crisis the balance sheet volume to GDP ratios for the Bank of England and USFed have peaked at around 25%, the highest level ever recorded. Uncharted territory has been entered. The USFed balance sheet ratio to GDP previously reached 23% in 1940 during World War II. The Bank of England ratio approached 20% in the 1730s during the South Sea Bubble scheme, 1816/17 during the Great Re-coinage, the 1830s/1840s following other wars, and in the immediate aftermath of WW2. In every scenario above, the central banks managed to unwind their balance sheets. But then the great unwinding took decades, up to 60 years in some cases. This time is different. No economic growth is anywhere remotely on the current horizon, nothing sufficient to unwind the tremendous debt burden. This is where the conventional analyst turns stupid, even locked in fantasy. They assume the GDP growth has been around 3% in recent years, when it has been closer to minus 4% or minus 5% each year since 2008 in a fierce recession with strong feedback loops. We are not on the verge of economic expansion, which can relieve the balance sheet toxicity, but rather a financial reform to sweep away the USDollar and to render its USTreasury Bonds as near worthless paper. The next chapter will be centered upon the Gold Standard, first in trade payment, next in bank reserves, finally in currencies. READ FULL ARTICLE THE VOICE OF REASON is the pen name of Michael DePinto, a graduate of Capital University Law School, and an attorney in Florida. Having worked in the World Trade Center, along with other family and friends, Michael was baptized by fire into the world of politics on September 11, 2001. Michael’s political journey began with tuning in religiously to whatever the talking heads on television had to say, then Michael became a “Tea-Bagging” activist as his liberal friends on the Left would say, volunteering within the Jacksonville local Tea Party, and most recently Michael was sworn in as an attorney. Today, Michael is a major contributor to www.BeforeItsNews.com , he owns and operates www.thelastgreatstand.com , where Michael provides what is often very ‘colorful’ political commentary, ripe with sarcasm, no doubt the result of Michael’s frustration as he feels we are witnessing the end of the American Empire. The topics Michael most often weighs in on are: Martial Law, FEMA Camps, Jade Helm, Economic Issues, Government Corruption, and Government Conspiracy. Submit your review | 1real |
WATCH: CNN Panel FLOORED By Trump Lover’s Claims That Liberal Media Emboldened White Supremacists | Over the weekend, the white supremacist group, National Policy Institute, held their annual conference in Washington, D.C., and it naturally drew some ire. A panel on Anderson Cooper s show laid into Trump for enabling and emboldening the white supremacist movement, because, let s face it, he has with his hateful rhetoric during his campaign and by being a complete failure at effectively denouncing them.Trump surrogate Kayleigh McEnany, however disagreed, claiming that Trump repeatedly denounced white supremacists and that the liberal media repeatedly takes him out of context: President-Elect Trump has repeatedly denounced racists more than any candidate in this race. And if the alt-right thinks that they have a friend in the White House, it s not because of Donald Trump, who s repeatedly denounced racism, it s because of liberal commentators who completely take him out of context, who gloss over the fact that he has called out racism, and mischaracterize his statements like you just did when he said he called Mexican immigrants rapists. That is not what he said. Um, yes it is, but Trump surrogates live in an alternate reality, where his words aren t actually his words some liberal ventriloquist pretended they were Trump s words.The rest of the panel wasn t having it, though. Journalist Peter Beinart, of Haaretz, shot back at her: With all due respect, I really don t think that s why they think they have a friend. I did not imagine that Donald Trump spent years claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. I didn t make that up. I didn t make up the fact that Donald Trump responded to the San Bernardino attack by calling for a halt to Muslim immigration into the United States.You are the one who, at every turn, has tried to defend the indefensible about this man. Oh, burn! McEnany apparently didn t like that, because she changed tactics and tried to invoke Reagan in a horribly wrong way, given Matt Lews, of The Daily Caller, said Reagan denounced bigotry and racism. She just gave us another demonstration of how Trump lovers have to grasp at any straw there is in order to defend their lord and savior, King Cheeto. She really sounds like a spin artist instead of someone who really understands what s happening.Watch the whole exchange below:Featured image via screen capture from embedded video | 1real |
Iranian troops prepare to aid Russia with Syrian ground assault, officials say | More Iranian troops have arrived in Syria for an upcoming ground operation to accompany Russian airstrikes, defense officials confirm to Fox News.
“It has always been understood in this building that the Russians would provide the air force, and the Iranians would provide the ground force in Syria,” one official said.
Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters, “We know the Iranians are a part of this. We've known that since day one.”
The officials speaking to Fox News could not disclose the size of this new Iranian force due to the sensitivity of the information.
These Iranian forces are under the command of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the Quds Force commander in charge of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s international operations, which runs a network of proxy forces throughout the Middle East, including Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon.
Fox News first reported a secret meeting between Soleimani and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which took place in late July. Part of the discussions between Soleimani and Putin was the future Russian build up in Syria, coordinated closely with Iran.
In addition, sources tell Reuters that Lebanese Hezbollah forces will soon arrive to aid in the ground operation. Hezbollah, a Russian and Iranian ally, has fought alongside President Bashar al-Assad's forces since early in the Syrian civil war.
The goal of the operation would be to recapture territory the Syrian government lost to rebels, not specifically to target ISIS, those sources tell Reuters.
Meantime, Russia’s foreign minister maintains Moscow and the US coalition “see eye-to-eye” on the targets in Syria.
“We have the same approach,” Sergey Lavrov said Thursday. “We fight terrorists. The [US-led coalition] announced ISIS as the enemy, and the coalition does the same as Russia.”
But Col. Warren added, “We don't believe" that [Russia] hit ISIS targets.
Human rights groups say Russian airstrikes in Syria targeted US-backed rebels on Thursday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims the targets of Russian airstrikes included US-backed group Tajamu Alezzah.
There have also been reports Russian airstrikes killed civilians, but President Vladimir Putin has denied the accusations, calling them "information attacks."
Russian Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov acknowledged in televised comments that unidentified groups were being targeted in addition to ISIS, but said Thursday’s airstrikes damaged or destroyed 12 ISIS targets, including a command center.
The head of the Syrian National Council, an anti-Assad group, said at the United Nations that at least 36 people had been killed by airstrikes in the western city of Homs, including five children, since Wednesday. Khaled Khoja, the SNC's leader, said none of the four areas targeted by Russian planes Wednesday contained ISIS fighters.
Putin also said he expects Assad to talk with the Syrian opposition about a political settlement, but added he was referring to what he described as a "healthy" opposition group.
Putin and other officials have said Russia was providing weapons and training to Assad's army to help it combat ISIS. Russian Navy transport vessels have been shuttling back and forth for weeks to ferry troops, weapons and supplies to an air base near the coastal city of Latakia. IHS Jane's, a leading defense research group, said last week that satellite images of the base showed 28 jets, including Su-30 multirole fighters, Su-25 ground attack jets, Su-24 bombers and possibly Ka-52 helicopter gunships.
Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report. | 0fake |
ONE VIDEO Perfectly Illustrates Why Liberals Wanted BILL O’REILLY Off The Air | Bill O Reilly was dismissed overnight from FOX News allegedly over allegations of sexual harassment by at least six women. Was O Reilly ousted from FOX News over allegations made by women like the one who is already out promoting herself on TV shows like The View , or because he DEMANDED both sides of the story were being heard on his show? (Watch one of the accuser s interviews on The View HERE.)Bill O Reilly took on highly controversial topics on his FOX News The O Reilly Factor show that other TV hosts wouldn t touch for fear of being labeled by the left as a racist, a hate-monger or a right-wing nazi sympathizer! O Reilly demanded both sides of the story were being told and for over 20 years he was able to rise to the top for having the courage to do just that on his wildly popular The O Reilly Factor show. Bill wasn t afraid to invite flame-throwers like Al Sharpton to appear on his show, in fact he relished it. O Reilly knew that if he was able to get these bad-actors on his show, that through logical discourse, he would very likely be able to expose them to his massive audience. Almost like magic, within 10-15 minutes O Reilly was usually able to discredit them while exposing their hidden radical agenda. The video below is a perfect example of how with a respectful tone, and with composure that most of us wouldn t be able to maintain, he forces his radical leftist guests to explain their positions. By dissecting their argument and forcing them to explain themselves to his viewers, he was able to expose the hypocrisy and lies of their positions.In the interview below, O Reilly attempts to expose how the Democratic Party is trying to undermine federal law, undermine law enforcement in general and upend our capitalistic system. O Reilly asks a VERY IMPORTANT question of his viewers, How many Americans even know that it is happening? In his interview with Criminal Defense Attorney Kisha Hebdan and NYC Councilman Humane Williams, Bill O Reilly exposes the hypocrisy of the left and their support for Black Lives Matter, Abortion and illegal immigration. There aren t too many hosts who can attack all three of these very controversial subjects in one interview, but then again, that s why O Reilly had substantially more viewers than any other news host on cable TV. That s also a very good reason to eliminate him from your lineup if you re James and Lachlan Murdoch, the two liberal sons of Rupert Murdoch, who owns the FOX News network where the #1-rated host Bill O Reilly has reached a massive audience for over 20 years.Watch one video that perfectly illustrates why the left is cheering from the rooftops now that Bill O Reilly no longer has the ability to expose them: As an added bonus, watch Bill O Reilly as he exposed the lies of the left being pushed on Americans about police officers using racial hatred by low-life race-baiters like Al Sharpton:In this video, O Reilly continues to expose the lies of the left about the racial divide in America. Bill O Reilly points out Racial politics are abhorrent and black Americans should rebel against them. Earlier this week we published a story about the liberal sons of Rupert Murdoch and about their liberal wives, one of whom regularly posts anti-Trump tweets and is employed by the Clinton Climate Initiative.From the article IS FOX NEWS ABOUT TO BECOME CNN? : | 1real |
How To Reduce Stress | Share on Facebook Share on Twitter The root cause of stress is fear, as all fear is the threat of losing our attachments. If we’re attached to a desired outcome, anything that threatens it will be something we fear. The fear of losing control underpins stress, for example, and creates frustration over what can’t be controlled. As desirable as it is to be in a position of control, our attachment to it ultimately creates a fear that can manifest as stress, worry, anxiety, and panic. advertisement - learn more Fear brings disorder into our experience when it is within us, and it’s an energy that suppresses consciousness. Activation energy is the force required to get you from doing something when you’re on autopilot (such as habits, routines, procedural awareness, or relaxing) to doing something new. It is a manifestation of willpower. When we are in a state of fear (stress), our activation energy is diverted toward doing things to ourselves that are primarily against our will. Running late for work and caught in a traffic jam? You can either become frustrated and upset because you fear arriving to work late (which brings you no closer to your goal of getting there on time), or you can accept the present moment and use it as a learning lesson to leave earlier next time. You can also choose to enjoy the unexpected free time in the morning and listen to a podcast or some music. There are many choices you can make in that space of time that can affect or degrade even the most minute increments of your personal development. Stress causes you to divert attention and willpower away from your initial goal, bringing you no closer to it than when you began. In a state of stress and fear, your willpower gets diverted toward the threat, not the goal, and this is against your own best interest. Time is currency, so pay attention to what you spend your time on. advertisement - learn more Now of course there are valid situations where your willpower MUST be diverted toward dealing with the threat or there might not be any willpower left for you to use in the future! There are two types of fear: survival based fear and ego based fear. Ego fear includes fear of rejection, failure, humiliation, loss, uncertainty, lack of control, etc. These fears are not real, but may feel so to you. Ask yourself, what’s the worst that could happen? Is it death, the loss of freedom, a loved one suffering? If it’s none of those then you’re too attached to an outcome that is not essential to your wholeness. When we’re mindful of our awareness, extraordinary things await us on the opposite side of fear. Believe. Believe in what? Yourself? A higher power? Both? Believe in the truth of your situation by first accepting everything that is happening. You can’t move forward in a state of denial because denial is resistance. Then think about what you’re afraid of (an outcome, for example) and why it is making you feel afraid. What will you lose that is causing your anxiety? What is this thing that you’re holding onto that is vital to your security and wholeness? Fear should be an alarm, not a program. An alarm alerts you of danger, while a program controls and runs the show. When ALERTED by fear we can use the logic of our conscious mind to analyze if we are in any real danger, rather than allowing the subconscious mind and its primal instincts to impulsively control us. Even if we don’t lash out during times of stress and frustration, we may remain divided and chaotic internally, throwing emotional temper tantrums no one else sees. Do your job to parent yourself and take control of the inner child embedded in your subconscious mind (we all have one). Fear is an insecurity, and insecurity is the source of many malfunctions in the human condition. However, if it wasn’t for fear, we would never know who and what we really are. Fear is illusion. Life is designed to strip illusion from you by bringing you face to face with your fears again and again until you have no choice but to face them, release resistance to them, and become fearless. Once you become fearless you’re free from illusion because you have discovered the truth of what’s on the other side of your fear. We design our lives to run away from fear so we don’t have to feel it, but whatever we resist persists, chasing us into the corner. It’s understandable why we do this but it’s not helpful because this daunting tool that keeps offering itself to us is the tool of our expansion, the tool of truth if we are ready to accept it. You would be oblivious to yourself without fear, which makes it one of the greatest tools of awareness. You shouldn’t feel ashamed of it; regardless of how tough you are, every human being feels fear. People who suppress fear are glorified. Rather than suppress it, feel it and come to terms with it. This way you won’t feel the need to suppress it because you have already gotten to its source: truth. And the truth will always wipe out fear. By suppressing fear you’re ignoring your personal lesson. We often ignore what our emotional guidance system is trying to tell us because we don’t think fear is valid. Fear is a red flag within us that we should pay closer attention to so we can dig deep and find the source of that fear. Suppressing it is only ignoring the shadow, masking it as courage. We don’t examine the fear that we have; instead, we try to focus on anything that decreases the level of fear that we experience. Sometimes fear is legitimate and sometimes it is not, but we must always pay attention to it so we can get to the Truth of why it’s there. Fear of the unknown is also common. Since we know nothing about the unkown, what we actually fear is whatever we ourselves project into it. We think we know what potential negative thing the unknown might hold for us and we are running from the projection of that potential pain. We fear what we project into the unknown based on our previous experiences (mostly from childhood) of uncertainty and discomfort. The reptile brain seeks comfort, so anything that is uncomfortable alerts our primal survival drives. These red flags create anxious moments to our pleasure-seeking and pain-avoiding ego. When faced with the unknown, the mind goes to work projecting its already acquired fears into the unknown so that it can predict what lies there. It’s those projections that we fear. It’s not the unknown of that experience that it fears, it’s what it thinks it knows that experience will create. We need to be brave enough to face and admit to what we actually fear. This may sound counterintuitive, but everything we do, regardless of how stupid or damaging it is for ourselves, has a positive intention at its core. Anxiety responses aim to help us — usually to get us out of a situation, to protect us. Every behaviour that we generate, even if it’s detrimental to our long-term growth and happiness, has a positive intention behind it, and recognizing this will allow you to change the behaviour. Your subconscious mind wants to protect you but it doesn’t think long-term with respect to your growth and happiness; it reacts in the present moment, and wants to deal with the perceived danger NOW. The subconscious is always thinking about what’s happening now, and how to fix it now. It thinks, “How do I get out of it? How do I survive it?” While your subconscious mind is intuitive, smart, and integral to the mind-body system, it is also deeply irrational and has the cognitive capacity of a 10-year-old child. Ask yourself, would you let a 10-year-old run your life? We need to educate and guide the subconscious mind using its own language and worldview. The subconscious mind’s job is to keep you happy, healthy, and safe, so when you give it a way to understand that what it’s doing is hurting you, it will stop the behaviour. If the subconscious mind has to choose between safety and happiness, it will always chose safety. Self-preservation is its primary objective, to protect you and keep you alive so you can move your genes forward. Do not justify your fear. While something could have happened to you that created the fear, such as a traumatic event, you must still move beyond it. It may be difficult, but when you justify your fear, in whatever terms, you remain a prisoner to it. You give yourself a reason to hold onto the fear because you’re telling yourself that this fear is coming from the outside instead of its true source, the inside. Once you become aware of something, you have the choice and power to change it. Your belief systems determine your ability to overcome your fears. If you tell yourself, “I can’t overcome this fear,” you ensure this remains true. As long as you believe it, it will be True in your reality. The perception we have of ourselves is greater than the perception other people have of us. Your perceptions will determine how you will react, which in turn determines how long the fear will last in your life. Facing your greatest fears will be your greatest liberation. Your fears are your unresolved issues; once you get to the Truth of why they exist, you can resolve those issues and stop feeding the fears. We must let go of and reexamine what we think is good and bad because our perspective shapes our fears.
The Sacred Science follows eight people from around the world, with varying physical and psychological illnesses, as they embark on a one-month healing journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.
You can watch this documentary film FREE for 10 days by clicking here.
"If “Survivor” was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and “The Sacred Science” hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune | 1real |
Glenn Reynolds: Don't be a sucker for socialism | From the USSR to Venezuela, experience reveals Sanders' policies wouldn't enrich anyone but a ruling elite.
It is a common misconception that socialism is about helping poor people. Actually, what socialism does is create poor people, and keep them poor. And that’s not by accident.
Under capitalism, rich people become powerful. But under socialism, powerful people become rich. When you look at a socialist country like Venezuela, you find that the rulers are fabulously wealthy even as the ordinary citizenry deals with empty supermarket shelves and electricity rationing.
The daughter of Venezuela’s socialist ruler, Hugo Chavez, is the richest individual in Venezuela, worth billions of dollars, according to the Miami-based Diario Las América. In Cuba, Fidel Castro reportedly has lived — pretty much literally — like a king, even as his subjects dwelt in poverty. In the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as Hedrick Smith reported in his The Russians, the Communist Party big shots had lavish country houses and apartments in town stocked with hand-polished fresh fruit, even as the common people stood in line for hours at state-run stores in the hopes of getting staples.
There’s always a lot of talk about free health care, but it’s generally substandard for the masses and fancy for the elite. (The average Cuban or Venezuelan peasant — or Soviet-era Russian — doesn’t get the kind of health care that people at the top get.)
In the old Soviet Union, the new communist nobility, whose positions and influence seemed to run in families somehow, were called the Nomenklatura (from the Latin word for a list of names). Despite all the talk about equality, etc., they generally did a lot better than people who didn’t have the right connections. Dissident Milovan Djilas referred to these managers and apparatchiks (another Soviet-era word) as the “New Class.” Where socialist equality was supposed to eliminate the distinction between exploited workers and peasants and their capitalist exploiters, it instead produced a new distinction, between exploited workers and peasants and their “New Class” socialist oppressors.
Well, this is old news: George Orwell explained the phenomenon in his Animal Farm many decades ago. But people keep falling for it: Like Ponzi schemes, socialism is an evergreen form of fraud, egged on by suckers eager to believe the lies hucksters tell them.
Which brings me to Bernie Sanders. The Washington Post recently ran a piece originally entitled "Bernie Sanders’ plans have surprisingly small benefits for America’s poorest people." Among other things, it noted that “in general, though, Sanders’ health care plan would benefit affluent households more than it would poorer ones.”
Likewise, a paper from the left-leaning Brookings Institution notes that the biggest beneficiaries of Bernie’s free-college proposal would be rich kids: "Families from the top half of the income distribution would receive 24% more in dollar value from eliminating tuition than students from the lower half of the income distribution.”
Well, America isn’t socialist — though, these days, we’re not really capitalist, either, if by capitalist you mean a free-market economy without much government direction — but we do have our own New Class. And those people tend to be Bernie supporters.
America’s New Class isn’t the super rich (they tend to donate to Hillary Clinton); it's the upper-middle-class employees of non-profits, universities and government agencies. They benefit twice from the kinds of programs that Bernie supports: Often, they’re employed to administer them, or receive funds for providing services (think college administrators who, unsurprisingly, heavily support Bernie and Hillary), and then they also receive the benefits because their kids are more likely to go to college than, say, a Kroger cashier’s. (And if we ever wind up with government-run health care, ask yourself who’ll get the hip replacement first — a woman who works as a cashier at Kroger or a senior bureaucrat in the Department of Health and Human Services.)
Higher up the political scale, of course, the powerful really do become rich: Bill and Hillary Clinton are likely worth about $45 million, paid a lot for boring speeches given to people who are really just buying influence. But at least in America, becoming powerful isn’t the only way to become rich. Under socialism, you’re either powerful, or you’re poor.
But poverty isn’t a byproduct of socialism: It’s a requirement, as illustrated by Cato Institute analyst Juan Carlos Hidalgo's report concerning Venezuela:
As the Rainmakers sang, back in the 1980s, “They’ll turn us all into beggars 'cause they’re easier to please.” That’s socialism in a nutshell. The “equality” talk? That’s just for the suckers. Don’t be a sucker.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.
In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns, go to the Opinion front page and follow us on Twitter @USATOpinion. | 0fake |
Congress Is About To Deal A KNOCK-OUT PUNCH To Obama’s ‘Back Door’ Gun Grab…Gun Owners Are Cheering! | Obama s unconstitutional government overreach was allowed to run rampant in DC for way too long. There s a new sheriff in town and under that new sheriff s leadership is a newly emboldened Congress who miraculously just found their spine Congressional lawmakers will review a final rule issued by President Obama in December that stomps on the Second Amendment rights of Social Security beneficiaries.According to the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, Obama s Social Security rule qualifies SSI and disability insurance recipients as mental defectives, and therefore incapable of legally owning firearms.The rule allows those affected to file a petition for restoration of their Second Amendment rights, yet tens of thousands of legal gun owners must now prove their possession of firearms would not harm public safety or the public interest, even though the government never established, or tried to establish, the contrary, NRA-ILA added.NRA-IRA executive director Chris Cox praised Congress decision in a Wednesday statement. Congress s decision to review the Obama administration s back-door gun grab is a significant step forward in restoring the fundamental constitutional rights of many law-abiding gun owners, he wrote. The NRA has been fighting this unconstitutional government overreach since it was first discussed and we look forward to swift congressional action to overturn it. Via: Daily Caller | 1real |
Trump Wins in Historic Anti-establishment Uprising; Will He Deliver? | Email
Donald Trump has done what many said could not be done. In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, he exceeded the necessary 270 electoral votes and was announced the winner of the presidential election. To call his victory a political upset would be an understatement; the establishment media spent the evening watching the votes come in in a state of frenzied disbelief.
Trump campaigned on an anti-establishment platform that both distanced himself from the leadership of the GOP and drew attacks from both GOP leaders and Democrats. Trump came out against so-called free trade agreements such as TPP, promised to defend the border, promised to work to build the American economy, and — worst of all to the establishment — put America first. Whether he will do those things remains to be seen, but the point is that the establishment seems to have pulled out all stops in an effort to keep Trump from ever seeing the inside of the White House as anything other than an invited guest.
What the establishment appears to have overlooked — indeed appears to always overlook — is the American mindset. That mindset is as mysterious to the insiders as theirs is to patriotic Americans.
As Patrick Caddell wrote for Fox News : Unfortunately, the analysts, the pollsters and most importantly the commentariat of the political class have never understood, and in fact are psychologically incapable of understanding what is happening. And for the entire cycle of this presidential campaign they have failed to grasp what was happening before their eyes — for it runs counter to everything they believe about themselves. In truth, they are suffering from cognitive dissonance believing in their righteous superiority and are not capable of realizing that it is they who have become the adversary of the American people. And therefore they have been wrong, in this entire election cycle, every step of the way.
Caddell goes on to note that the “uprising” — of which Trump was the Right Guard and Bernie Sanders was the Left Guard — was not created by either Trump or Sanders; it was the other way around. And that — because of their “cognitive dissonance” — the “leaders” within the establishment (both Left and Right) missed that point: For them, American politics only began yesterday. They know little history and have no appreciation of the collective consciousness of the American people. Whether it is the campaign of Bernie Sanders, who came within a hair’s breadth of knocking out the coronated nominee of the Democratic establishment or on the other side, the emergence of the total outsider Donald Trump, the most improbable candidate of all. In truth, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, sucked from the same trough even if it was from opposite ends. But the critical point that is missed, by almost everyone, was that neither Sanders nor Trump created this uprising. They were chosen vehicles — they did not create these movements, these movements created them.
By giving the American people a choice between Hillary Clinton (who WikiLeaks disclosures show wanted Trump to win the GOP nomination) and Donald Trump, the establishment put Americans in a position to come out swinging. While a great many voters would have preferred a more constitutionally minded option, the GOP played the same tired, old game it has been playing for the past several election cycles. By filling the roster with one establishment Republican after another, the GOP put voters in a position to nominate and then elect Trump.
Neither the talking heads of the mainstream media nor the leadership of the GOP ever thought that Trump could actually win. Republicans and Democrats alike said time and again that Trump could not win . More than that, though, it appears that even many in the leadership of the GOP did not want Trump to win. As The New American ’s William F. Jasper wrote in August: Hedge fund billionaires, Wall Street mega-bankers, Hollywood movie moguls, RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), ultra-Left “Progressive” Democrats, and Big Media journalistas have all ganged up on one man. Together with an AstroTurf army of neocon pundits, radical academics, student activists, and street agitators funded by the Big Foundations and Big Government, they have united to stop that one man: Donald J. Trump. George Soros, David Rockefeller, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, Steven Spielberg, Jeff Bezos, and a bevy of other uber-rich titans have teamed up with National Review , the Weekly Standard , the New York Times , the Washington Post , CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, et al., to ensure that “The Donald” never makes it into the White House. Some of these plutocrats — Soros, Buffett, and Spielberg — have taken the full “I’m With Her” Hillary Rodham Clinton loyalty pledge. Many of the anti-Trump “Republican” and “conservative” poseurs, on the other hand, have not formally taken the Hillary plunge, but their implacable “Never Trump” stance amounts to the same thing.
Of course, there were many who could have been classified as being firmly in the “Never Trump” camp who were there for reasons of principle, wanting to send a message of no compromise by voting for a third-party candidate with a stronger understanding of constitutional issues. Considering the strong showing of third-party votes Tuesday night, it appears that while many did reject Trump, many more rejected Clinton. The third-party vote did not prevent a Trump victory, but there is little doubt that had Clinton secured more of the votes that went to Johnson (who — on issues such as abortion, the environment, and guns — is not very far removed from Clinton) and other third-party candidates, she could have closed the gap to a large degree. In the end, those who pulled the lever for Trump (whether in outright support of the man and his policies or as a “protest vote” against Clinton and her policies) carried the day.
From the beginning, Trump maintained a lead in both the popular vote (ranging anywhere from 750,000 to almost 2,000,000 throughout the night) and the electoral vote. (As of this writing, the count shows that Clinton did eventually edge out Trump for the popular vote, but only by a couple hundred thousand votes.) Even as that was happening, the mainstream media was in denial. The New York Times was still predicting an 85-percent chance of a Clinton win at least as late as 10:20 p.m., even as Trump was already leading by a growing margin.
By 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Times was predicting a 95-percent chance of a Trump victory. But even at that, the graph shown on the Times website shows that by 10:20 p.m. — while still claiming an 85-percent chance of a Clinton win, the Times had already faced the music and realized that the candidates stood an even chance of winning.
Of course, by 1:30 a.m., it was all over except the crying, and a Trump victory was a foregone conclusion. But how — and why — did Trump win?
There are a number of factors that came into play. The first (as pointed out above) is that the American people are simply tired of the status quo and are ready and willing to make choices (for good or bad) that they would never have previously made. The second is that Hillary Clinton’s campaign — dogged by one scandal and legal battle after another, from beginning to end — can be said to have died of exposure. That exposure came from a variety of sources, including WikiLeaks, Judicial Watch, and others. Even having twice dodged indictment at the hands of the authorities for her crimes, she was denied the White House by the people who voted. The “ rigged system ” of which Trump spoke may have given her a pass; the people did not. The “ Shadow Government ” may have protected her — at least so far — from the consequences of her actions, but it could not get her elected.
The biggest factor, though, is that — while often sounding a bit like a caricature of a patriot — Trump said many things that resonated with Americans who have lived under eight years of Obama’s policies. While many have said that they are not sure Trump will do what he has said he will do, they were sure that Clinton would do what she said she would do. Given the choice between a man they may not be able to trust while he promises to “Make America Great Again” and a woman they are certain is telling the truth when she says she is going to sell America out all over again, the choice — for many — was clear.
Of course, it now becomes the responsibility of those people to hold Trump to his word. Republicans now control the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. Trump will nominate Supreme Court justices who could tip the balance of the court. If that happens, Trump could enjoy the same balance of power enjoyed by George W. Bush for the middle four years of his presidency. Bush failed to use that power to reduce the debt (in fact, he grew the debt), to shrink the size and scope of the federal government (again, he expanded the federal government — especially the surveillance state), or to end or even reduce the scourge of abortion (he did nothing), though he ran on a platform including all of these issues and more.
Trump has some big promises to keep. He has promised — among other things — to reduce the size and scope of government, to pay off the debt, to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, to kill so-called free trade agreements that threaten both our sovereignty and economic stability, to overturn Roe v. Wade , and to launch an investigation into Clinton’s crimes and put her “in jail.”
Trump has also promoted some ideas that are very unlikely to “Make America Great Again.” In February, as the FBI v. Apple case was brewing, he called for a boycott of Apple unless the company would undermine the encryption of the iOS platform used by millions to protect their personal data . Last November, he said that if elected he "would absolutely bring back interrogation and strong interrogation," including waterboarding , ignoring (or perhaps being ignorant of) the fact that torture is both immoral and ineffective . What the American people do not need is another surveillance hawk and torturer in the White House. Those ideas were rejected by reasonable Americans the last time we had a Republican president. Trump needs to reject them, as well.
If Trump — who rode to victory on a populist wave — will abide by the Constitution and surround himself with advisors who do the same, while maintaining a strong moral compass and abiding the moral will of the people who elected him, he may yet prove the “Never Trump” camp wrong. If he does not, he will prove them right.
Either way, President Trump has to prove that the anti-establishment candidate will be an anti-establishment president. And it is up to the American people to hold him to that. Please review our Comment Policy before posting a comment
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Please keep your comments on topic with the article. If you wish to comment on another subject, you may search for a relevant article and join or start a discussion there. | 1real |
In Case Testing Police Liability in Shootings, Supreme Court Shows Divide - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — In a police shooting case that tests when people can sue law enforcement officers, Supreme Court justices on Wednesday argued sharply different views of whether improper actions by officers expose them to liability for what follows. In 2010, while looking for a wanted man, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies did not have a warrant when they illegally searched a house and a small shack behind it. Two deputies entered the shack without knocking or announcing themselves, saw what they said was a man holding a rifle — it turned out to be a BB gun — and opened fire. They wounded the man and his pregnant girlfriend, neither of whom was the person they were looking for. Angel Mendez, who lost his right leg below the knee in the shooting and lived in the shack with Jennifer Lynn Garcia, sued the county in federal court and won $4 million in damages. The county appealed. The legal question in the case, County of Los Angeles v. Mendez, is not about the shooting itself the courts have agreed that at the moment they pulled their triggers, the deputies could have reasonably believed they were in danger. Instead, the argument has turned on whether the warrantless search, a violation of constitutional rights, was the “proximate cause” that made the deputies liable for the shooting, or if it was merely a contributing factor. “It doesn’t seem to me a fluky or random thing to say, when there’s an unauthorized entry into someone’s home, violence may result,” Justice Elena Kagan said. She likened an officer without a warrant to a trespasser, who would meet a very different response than would a guest. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. disagreed strongly. “If you take away the failure to get a warrant, the harm still occurs,” he said. “The search warrant is not going to change the conduct. ” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy voiced seemingly conflicting views. Without liability, “we simply have no way to enforce the warrant requirement,” he said. But calling the lack of a warrant the proximate cause of the shooting, he said, is “a difficult position to defend. ” The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled against Los Angeles County partly based on a theory that officers who recklessly provoke a confrontation can be liable for the results. Legal analysts expect that reasoning, which other appellate courts have not adopted, to be addressed in the Supreme Court’s decision. But it was barely discussed on Wednesday. The deputies’ failure to warn before entering the shack could be deemed improper, and was more directly linked to the shooting. But the Ninth Circuit ruled that it was not clear in 2010 that the “knock and announce” rule the courts have espoused would apply to a building like a shack. Using that rule to support the plaintiffs, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said, “You end up imposing liability for what is arguably a violation of best police practices. ” But Justice Stephen G. Breyer questioned the need to break the incident down moment by moment to find liability. “The background circumstances can be such that there is no justification for the whole ball of wax,” he said. | 0fake |
GOP has a day of reckoning coming | License DMCA The face of the Republican Party.
There is a light at the end of this tunnel called a presidential election campaign and, if the gods are not playing a cruel trick on us, that light is not on an engine with TRUMP emblazoned on its sides. In any event, the end is near and I am as weary of writing about this ugly affair probably as you are of reading about it.
The problem is, that's all most of the mainstream and social media care to talk about these days. In case you missed the other news: 1) The Cubs and Indians are in the World Series. 2) Heavily armed police in North Dakota attacked hundreds of protesters who joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe trying to block construction of a pipeline they say threatens water supplies and sacred sites. 3) Soupy Sales, master of the pie-in-the-face, died. And 4) Tim Tebow is apparently just as good at baseball as he was at playing quarterback in the NFL.
But really, the only thing the media want to talk about are Donald Trump's repeated claims that the election is rigged and that the press -- meaning all the news outlets who report accurately on his words and actions -- lie.
These are claims that losers and demagogues resort to when everything else -- lies, threats, lies, threats, lies, threats -- fails. Honestly, it is disheartening to feel a need to point out to, apparently, millions of Americans, that Trump's claims are nonsense. It is even more disheartening to realize that many of the people who still support his candidacy don't seem to care. There is a major issue to address some day soon in that.
Meanwhile, as to his two claims: Voter fraud is virtually non-existent in America. You can check this with any legitimate news provider. The real threat is voter intimidation -- keeping some people from voting through excessive (illegal) regulations and perceived threats. Suggesting rigged elections is a serious threat to the very foundation of a free, democratic society -- an orderly transfer of power. This is something about which Trump knows little and seemingly cares less. As far as he's concerned, if he doesn't win, the powers that be must be against him. The press. Ah, the press. "They can say anything they want," he complained the other day. No kidding, Sherlock. You just noticed? He says if he's president he's going to change that and strip the major media companies of their power. He can try, of course. It won't be easy though. You see, Donald, those same forefathers who were so wise as to guarantee Americans the right to bear arms in that Second Amendment you and your followers are so fond of spouting and shouting about thought the idea of a free and unfettered press was so important to a functioning democracy that they wrote it into the First Amendment of the Constitution. That's one ahead of the guns amendment, which some might say suggests it is more important. Since a civics lesson is apparently in order for Trumpers, it should be noted that the First Amendment also guarantees everyone freedom of religion. Which is also to say, freedom from your religion.
But these are mere facts and Trump and the folks at Fox News have demonstrated the power of repeating false news over and over again until listeners -- like the inhabitants of Orwell's "1984" -- simply take it for fact. We have always been at war with Eurasia. We have never been at war with Eurasia. Love is hate. War is peace. I know Putin well. I never met the man. - Advertisement -
We are told that many Trump supporters -- virtually all of them white and the majority male -- are angry and frustrated with their lives. Somehow, goes the argument, all those black, brown, Muslim, Mexican, gay, Jewish, Arab, Asian people who don't belong here -- and some pushy American women as well -- have prevented these Trump fans from realizing the American Dream. They took all the jobs and live on welfare. Love is hate. Up is down. Bigotry has nothing to do with it. We just want to make America great again, like before all those other people said they wanted to enjoy the American Dream, too.
Enough already. At some point in a person's life, if he or she is lucky, the opportunity presents itself to take responsibility for one's actions. To take stock of how things are going. Not materially, but really. It can be frightening. It can also be rewarding. Among other things, this look in the mirror allows one to say -- if one can be honest -- "I've made some mistakes. I sincerely regret them. I hope to do better from now on." A lot of people never do this.
With that runaway train called Trump menacing the trust and tolerance that are the pillars of our, yes, already great nation, I'm thinking that a lot of people -- a lot of white, Republican people -- have a date with a mirror. It's far too late to undo the damage Trump has done or to deny any part in it, but it's not too late to admit the mistake of supporting him in spite of all the hateful, false things he said. It's not too late to admit to acting as if he didn't say them because, well, maybe because you were angry or confused or frightened or thought it would be disloyal. Maybe you feel you were lied to. Or maybe you just wanted to believe the lies.
Republican politicians who have stuck with Trump have no such out. The McCains and Ryans and Cruzes and Rubios knew Trump was bad news from day one. But he was their bad news and his lies became their lies even when they disagreed with him, because they never had the courage -- the humility, the simple decency -- to look in the mirror and say: "Enough. This man is obscene. He is an insult to our party and our nation. We made a grave mistake in pandering to the worst instincts of some of our party members in order to get their votes. Our pride kept us from admitting this. Fear drove our decisions. We allowed him to make fools of us. Indeed, we made fools of ourselves."
Speaking, if I may, for the rest of an angry, resentful nation, that day of reckoning can't come soon enough. - Advertisement - | 1real |
Keith Lamont Scott Was Killed by Two Gunshot Wounds, Family Autopsy Finds - The New York Times | A black man whose fatal shooting by the police in September prompted days of protests in Charlotte, N. C. died from gunshot wounds to the back and the abdomen, according to an autopsy performed at the request of his family. The results, released on Wednesday, show that the man, Keith Lamont Scott, was shot three times: in the back, the abdomen and the wrist. The Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet released the results of its own autopsy. “The Scott family authorized this release of information because, as they have maintained from the very beginning, they are simply seeking transparency,” Charles G. Monnett, a lawyer for the family, said in a statement. “We will continue to pursue justice for this family. ” The autopsy was performed on Sept. 30, at the Newberry County Memorial Hospital morgue by Newberry Pathology Associates. Mr. Scott was in a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot of his apartment complex on Sept. 20 when police officers, there to serve a warrant on someone else, confronted him. He was rolling a marijuana cigarette and held a gun up, the police said. His family has disputed that Mr. Scott was armed. Officer Brentley Vinson, who is also black, fatally shot Mr. Scott, whose actions he perceived as threatening, the police have said. In obscured footage of the shooting, released by the Police Department, Mr. Scott did not appear threatening, although officers can be heard at one point shouting, “Drop the gun!” His right hand appeared empty, but it was unclear if he was holding anything in the other hand. The shooting immediately drew protests, which lasted for several days. On the second night, one protester was fatally shot. | 0fake |
MARK LEVIN BURNS OBAMA: “Trump did what Obama didn’t have the nerve to do” [Video] | This is truly epic! Mark Levin goes after the Democrats on their hypocrisy in the firing of Comey and the Russia/Trump investigation .He specifically goes after Chuck Schumer:Notice how he says, the media and the Democrats, one and the same Haha!Levin lists all of the items that he feels warrant a special prosecutor including the Iran deal: How about an independent special prosecutor to investigate this whole seedy Iranian deal? Levin goes on to speak highly of the Assistant Attorney General and how the Democrats are truly hypocritical because they voted overwhelmingly for his confirmation:Every single Democrat voted for his confirmation: 94-6 The new assistant Attorney General doesn t have a political bone in his body https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUyf945m8ho The President of the United States did what Barack Obama didn t have the nerve to do! Mark LevinWe want more Levin! He nails it! | 1real |
Syrian official says 'wide-scale offensive' launched | (CNN) The Syrian regime, which had appeared earlier this year to be on the ropes, has "launched a wide-scale offensive," a senior military official said Thursday.
The aim is "eliminating the terrorist groups and liberating the areas and towns that have suffered from terrorism and its crime," Gen. Ali Abdullah Ayyoub, the Syrian army chief of staff, said on state media,
Ayyoub provided no details of the area in which the offensive is being launched or its size and scope.
But he acknowledged the key role being played by Russia , which appears bent on supporting a Syrian regime that had been badly in need of help.
"Following the Russian military airstrikes that diminished the fighting capacity of ISIS and other terrorist groups, the Syrian armed forces maintained their military initiative," Ayyoub said.
Shoigu said the strikes were launched from the Caspian Sea using precise long-range missiles that flew 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) to their targets.
The report appeared to offer fresh evidence that Russia's primary goal is propping up al-Assad rather than fighting terrorism.
Even as its ships and warplanes conducted fresh strikes, Russia said it was willing to cooperate with the United States in carrying out attacks in Syria.
However, speaking to reporters in Rome, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called the Russian campaign of airstrikes in Syria a "fundamental mistake." He said the United States was not ready to cooperate with Russia on operations in Syria.
The U.S. military recently had to divert an aircraft over Syria to ensure it could maintain a safe flying distance from a Russian fighter, a Pentagon representative said. Until the two countries agree on mutual flight safety rules in Syrian airspace, U.S. pilots are under orders to change their flight path if a Russian plane is within 20 nautical miles (37 kilometers), a senior defense official told CNN.
Russian warplanes conducted heavy airstrikes Wednesday on Islamist factions, accompanied by shelling from government forces, according to the UK-based, anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The head of the observatory said that there were no ISIS positions in the areas targeted and that fierce clashes were taking place on the ground between regime forces and their allies and armed Islamist rebel factions, including the Ahrar al-Sham and al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front.
Wednesday's clashes are the fiercest in the last month, the observatory said.
But Turkey, Syria's neighbor to the north, cast fresh doubt Wednesday on whether Russia's goal was to go after ISIS.
A fraction -- 3.5% -- of Russia's airstrikes in Syria so far have targeted the terror group, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
On Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called recent violations of Turkish airspace unacceptable and said the alliance stood ready to help Turkey protect itself.
Speaking after a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Stoltenberg said the alliance was in constant dialogue with Turkey, and its determination to help Turkey defend itself was "rock solid."
"A political solution to the crisis in Syria is more needed than ever," he said.
The U.S. Embassy in Syria also questioned Russia's targets.
The developments came a day after Stoltenberg expressed alarm over how the Russian military had grown on several fronts in Syria, including boots on the ground. Russian planes have also incurred into Turkish airspace twice, he said.
"It's unacceptable, it's dangerous, and it's reckless behavior and it adds to the tensions," he told CNN.
Stoltenberg said he doubted that Russia was interested primarily in fighting ISIS.
"I'm also concerned that Russia is not targeting ISIL but instead attacking the Syrian opposition and civilians," he said.
The latest U.S. assessment indicates that Russia has moved ground combat weapons and troops to western Syria where anti-regime forces are, according to two American defense officials. The United States sees the move as Russia "stepping up its ground activity" in Syria to attack those forces, rather than ISIS elements, according to one of the officials.
But Russian officials deny ramping up military activity. Officials quoted by state media said there would be no ground operation in Syria and -- in contrast to what officials had said earlier -- Russia would try to prevent any "volunteers" from going to Syria. | 0fake |
UK PM May to make Brexit speech in Italy on Sept. 22: spokesman | LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May will make a speech on Britain s future relationship with the European Union on Sept. 22 in the Italian city of Florence, her spokesman said on Wednesday. The speech will focus on what kind of ties Britain wants to have with the EU after it leaves the bloc in March 2019 - something British negotiators have been keen to discuss with a so-far reluctant Brussels. The prime minister wanted to give a speech on the UK s future relationship with Europe in its historical heart, May s spokesman told reporters. She will underline the government s wish for a deep and special partnership with the European Union once the UK leaves the EU. Negotiations on the terms of the divorce with the EU have made limited progress since May started a two-year countdown to Brexit. That has prompted warnings from the EU that discussions on the future relationship between the two could be pushed back from their intended start time of October. The September round of Brexit talks has been pushed back by a week until the end of the month, in what EU diplomats said was a move designed to allow May to make her speech. Britain said the rescheduling was to allow both sides more time to make progress. May s speech could add weight to the British push to move talks forward, which ministers say is a crucial step in providing certainty for businesses worried about how Brexit will affect their ability to trade across borders. Her choice of venue - a city celebrated as the birthplace of the Renaissance period and made wealthy by international trade and banking - is a nod to the kind of free-trading relationship Britain wants to maintain with Europe and develop globally. Sceptics have said the British approach amounts to cherry picking the benefits of EU membership without paying for them. The UK has had deep cultural and economic ties spanning centuries with Florence - a city known for its historical trading power, the spokesman said. As the UK leaves the EU we will retain those close ties. As the prime minister has said many times, we are leaving the EU, not Europe. | 0fake |
Is the US Headed Towards War in Syria? | by Yves Smith
Yves here. This Real News Network interview with Lawrence Wilkerson , not surprisingly, is pretty sobering. The rush transcript didn’t have apostrophes, so I added them as best I could, but there are sure to be some spots I missed.
SHARMINI PERIES, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore.
The Obama administration is currently considering a proposal to send more arms to CIA backed anti Assad forces in Syria. According to the Washington Post, Obama has not made a decision yet and could leave it up to whoever wins the election in November. This of course raises questions of what would a President Hillary Clinton or President Donald Trump do in Syria? This has also been the topic at the presidential debates, recently.
Joining us to discuss the Clinton’s and Trump’s approach as to foreign policy is Larry Wilkerson. Larry is a retired United States army soldier and former Chief of Staff to the United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. He’s also just published an article in National Interest, written together with Gordon Adams about this topic. Larry thank you so much for joining us today.
LARRY WILKERSON: Thanks for having me Sharmini.
PERIES: So Larry in your recent piece titled No Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Policy Judgment Isn’t As Good As Everyone Says, you argued that a case for Clinton as a better foreign policy president on the basis on knowledge and experience. Now factoring all of this in, what’s going on in Washington in terms of how they should behave or what foreign policy actions or military actions need to be taking place in Syria. How do you think Hillary Clinton would act?
WILKERSON: I’m very concerned about it. I can tell you that right up front. Her posture with regard to Syria in general when she was secretary of state and some of the remarks shes made during the campaign, lead me to believe that she’ll be very bellicose with regard to Syria. I hope I’m wrong. I hope a better judgement prevails. But as I said in the National Interest article, I,’m not all that convinced of it. That’s based primarily on her track record with regard to Libya which is now a disaster, and it’s my understanding that she was one of the if not the principle advocates of action in Libya when President Obama somewhat reluctantly decided to do it, following NATO into that country. And she was also an advocate of the war in Iraq and regime change there. So in those two instances, her judgement was flawed, seriously flawed you could argue, and based on her rhetoric with regards towards Syria, I certainly don’t want to see that kind of judgement continued in that regard.
PERIES: And in the recent debate, she was advocating a no fly zone over Syria. What does that mean and what implications will it have in terms of geopolitical allegiances at this time?
WILKERSON: We’re not dealing with a Libyan air force or an Iraqi air force or indeed a Syrian air force. What we’re dealing with here is Russian air forces perhaps even as you and I were discussing eventually Chinese air forces, so they’re not there now I don’t think, and the Syrian air forces. So if we go in to establish a no fly zone and were serious about it, the first airplane that penetrates that zone is all important because youve just about got to shoot it down. If it’s a Russian airplane, youre in trouble because youve now performed an act of war against Russia and Syria. What that means, well just have to wait and see but I don’t think itll mean anything good for either side, or ultimately for Syria.
So we’re talking about if we lay down something like a no fly zone and say this is it as of midnight on such and such a time, no aircraft can fly through here. And suddenly 5 minutes later even, a Russian aircraft flies though, we have two choices. We shoot it down and risk war with Russia and that has all kinds of ramifications that are outside Syria as well as in Syria. Or we back off our claim and look like ineffectual boobs. I don’t think either of those outcomes is conducive to US national security interests so I don’t think we should go there in the first place.
PERIES: Larry recently I did an interview with former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern and he said that President Putin in Russia, sees the next few months before potential Clinton presidency as a window of opportunity for consolidating Russia’s position in the Ukraine and in Syria. Now many world leaders are predicting that a Clinton, as you have just done, will likely to escalate the situation particularly in Syria that this is an area that President Obama has been restrained with. Do you think that Ray is correct, that Putin consolidating his power and will Hillary Clinton in her assessment, go ahead on with Putin?
WILKERSON: I’m concerned about it, as I said before because of her previous actions and because of some of the people she has advising her that look a lot like the people who were advising George W. Bush in his first administration from 2001-2005 of which I was a rather intimate member. So I am concerned about it. I hope that once she is in the Oval Office and if she indeed shes elected and she gets all the briefings and is brought up to speed and so forth. And she gets the council of her military leaders, she will be more circumspect and be more rational let us say than she is sometimes compelled to be on the political circuit and on the campaign trail. That’s my hope. But as I said, based on her track record, I have some concern. Perhaps not as much as Ray but I still have some concern.
PERIES: Now there’s been a number of other defense analyst in recent years who argue that the president has relatively little room to maneuver because the intelligence community, the Defense Department and the State Department are the ones that really policy strategy. To what extent is that correct, science youve been at the center of all of this?
WILKERSON: Defense Department does have an enormous amount of influence on the national security decision making process. There’s no question about that. As do other nefarious influences like Lockheed-Martin, Halliburton and all the usual suspects weve heard about who influence congressional decision making and ultimately influence where the money goes and so forth. I think probably in this particular instance though with regard to Syria, what I’m hearing is the military and particularly the joint chiefs of staff are reluctant to enter this trade with potential for starting a shooting war with Russia.
So I hope that what I’m hearing is correct and that they will act as a break on anything precipitant military action that secretary, then President Clinton or President Trump for that matter, would be willing or want to order.
Let me just say that Trump has been all over the sheet of music if you will on this. But the remarks I have heard that resonate with me are those that would keep us out of these small wars on the periphery of empire if you will. They cost a fortune in blood and treasure and don’t really promise to and rarely do solve anything. They certainly don’t bring peace to instable regions and regions in conflict that Syria is today. They just make things worse.
PERIES: Then finally Larry, when Hillary Clinton became the Secretary of State and then there was this very public pronouncement of resetting relations with Russia, what went wrong? Why are we where we are now where shes accusing the Russians of hacking into emails and as you know there’s controversy over what she actually said in the debate in terms of the Russian involvement in all of this. Why is she escalating this and what went wrong with resetting the relations with Russia?
WILKERSON: What went wrong with resetting the relationship was us. The US of A. We have wasted no opportunity to make Mr. Putin more powerful politically in his own country. As soon as he figured out that sticking his fingers in Washingtons eyes was a winning political formula, you could guarantee you were going to get more fingers in our eyes. More so than that, geopolitically and geostrategically, that is to say in the heart of Russia’s near abroad we have been making moves from Ukraine to Georgia. And we have been making moves that anyone including myself, being the ruler of a country first erstwhile great power and seeing it happen would be responding to and responding to with the elements of national power which I have that can compensate for weakness that I have too.
By that I mean Id be responding with everything from cyber warfare to little green men, to whatever I had that was competent and powerful in my arsenal that I felt like I could win with against the United States and ultimately against NATO. That’s precisely what Putin has been doing. You could almost sit down and map it. Every time we make a mistake they capitalize on that mistake. I don’t just mean mistakes as in execution or mistakes in being in somewhere where we shouldnt be at in a particular time. I mean policy mistakes. The policy mistake most glaringly pushing ourselves into Russia’s near abroad and NATO along with us with ballistic missile defense, with exercises and so forth.
If I were Putin I wouldve responded the same way. I think that Id have been just as smart as he has and Id capitalize on my streets against weaknesses and I wouldve gained the political capital that hes gained in the course of this time. It’s not all totally our fault but a whole lot of it is.
PERIES: So if we are collecting our thoughts here, Larry Russian, Chinese now, possibly Iranian collaboration over Syria are serious times.
WILKERSON: And Russia exercising for the first time since the death of Anwar Sadat with the Egyptians. Russia selling major armaments to the Egyptians for the first time since I think about that same time period. The world is changing. Power is shifting and the United States needs not to be fearful of such changes but it needs to be a lot smarter of how it plays those changes to its own benefits.
One of the things it needs to be most hard about is fear of deployments of its own military forces to get engaged in things like weve been engaged in for the past 20 years. Things like Afghanistan, things like Iraq, things like Syria and so forth. We really have no capability to influence these conflicts, these basically civil wars and so forth. Trying to do so from the opening as we did in Afghanistan with Mujahideen for example by having the CIA essentially arm everybody that we can find that looks like he might be a freedom fighter, only to discover months or maybe half a year or so later that they’re anything but freedom fighters.
Indeed, they’re using some of the weapons that we sold them on our troops or on our own formations is just not the answer. It simply doesn’t work clandestinely or openly to the support elements in these conflicts that we know basically don’t have a hares breath chance of winning. The mistake in Syria has been as I said all along. That is our attempt to get rid of Bashar al-Assad. We need to face up to that mistake. We need to be more receptive to his remaining in power and some guys. The best we can probably get at the negotiating table is that maybe hell be gone sometime in the unspecified future.
But we need to understand that sometimes we have to give a little too, especially if we want to stop the bloodshed in Syria which is reaching proportions where everyone in the world ought to be appalled at.
PERIES: Alright Larry. I look forward to your report next week as things really escalate and intensify over Syria. Thank you for joining us.
WILKERSON: Well lets hope that no one else decides to throw in their lot with the forces in Syria. China and Russia are quite enough, thank you very much.
PERIES: Indeed. I thank you again and thank you for joining us on the Real News Network. 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 1real |
Spin, MSM! Spin! Hillary/FBI news has Republicans ‘pouncing’ like crazy | — Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) October 28, 2016
Let’s get to it:
— Alex Leary (@learyreports) October 28, 2016
Of course. @learyreports @marcorubio There you go! Just got the first square in my "Predictable MSM Story Reaction" Bingo chart covered. Thanks, man!
— Shane Styles (@shaner5000) October 28, 2016
Inevitable? Of course. But that doesn’t make it any less obnoxious. There it is- Republicans always "pounce" on scandal involving a Democrat. https://t.co/rMqilpw6pc
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) October 28, 2016
When will the MSM get some new material? They should be concerned about being this predictable. | 1real |
Republicans make gains in U.S. governors' races | (Reuters) - Republicans in Missouri, Vermont and New Hampshire won competitive governor’s races on Tuesday, though most of the 12 contests left power in the hands of the incumbent party. Here are the results. In one of the year’s closest gubernatorial races, Republican former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens edged Democrat Chris Koster, the state’s attorney general. Greitens will succeed Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat who has served the maximum two terms in office. Vermont elected a Republican, Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott, over Democrat Sue Minter, a former state transportation secretary. Scott succeeds retiring Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat. Democratic Governor Kate Brown held off a challenge by Republican Bud Pierce, an oncologist. Brown was sworn in last year after her predecessor, John Kitzhaber, resigned in scandal. The election is for the final two years of Kitzhaber’s term. Republican Eric Holcomb, the state’s lieutenant governor, beat Democrat John Gregg, a former state lawmaker. Holcomb entered the race after current Governor Mike Pence opted not to seek re-election in July when Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump chose him as his vice presidential running mate. Democratic businessman Jim Justice defeated Republican state Senate President Bill Cole. Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin was barred by term limits from running again. Incumbent Governor Gary Herbert, a Republican, won his re-election race against Democrat Mike Weinholtz, a healthcare executive. Herbert, who took office in 2009 after his predecessor, Jon Huntsman, resigned, won a second full term. Republican Doug Burgum, a former Microsoft Corp executive, defeated Democratic State Representative Marvin Nelson in the solidly Republican state. Governor Jack Dalrymple, a Republican who was eligible to run for re-election in 2016, declined to seek another term. Democrat John Carney, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, beat Republican Colin Bonini, a state senator. Democratic Governor Jack Markell was prohibited by term limits from running for re-election to the position he has held since 2009. Drawing national attention because of a debate over transgender rights, Republican Governor Pat McCrory is seeking a second term against Roy Cooper, a Democrat who has been the state’s attorney general since 2001. Cooper held a razor-thin lead as of Wednesday morning. McCrory told supporters tallying an unknown number of provisional ballots could take until Nov. 18. Democratic Governor Steve Bullock is battling Republican tech entrepreneur Greg Gianforte to keep his seat. The race remained too close to call on Wednesday morning. Republican Chris Sununu defeated Democrat Colin Van Ostern to become the state’s next governor. Both candidates had been seeking to succeed Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan, who is running for the U.S. Senate. Democratic Governor Jay Inslee defeated a challenge from Republican Bill Bryant, a businessman and former commissioner of the Port of Seattle. | 0fake |
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