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Donald Trump Budget Spends Big on Military and the Wall Cuts Foreign Aid, EPA, and Public Broadcasting | President Donald Trump released his budget blueprint on Thursday, an effort to prioritize safety and security for the American people while dramatically cutting other agencies considered sacred cows by the left. [“To keep Americans safe, we have made tough choices that have been put off for too long,” Trump wrote in a message to Congress. “But we have also made necessary investments that are long overdue. ” The outline increases defense spending by $54 billion and increases funding for immigration enforcement as well as $4. 1 billion investment for his promised wall on the southern border. “We must ensure that our courageous servicemen and women have the tools they need to deter war, and when called upon to fight, do only one thing: Win. ” Trump wrote. The budget includes Trump’s promises to veterans, as the Department of Veterans Affairs gets a 10 percent increase in spending. Trump cut funding for several agencies, including a 28 percent cut in the State Department, mostly because of cuts in foreign aid programs. The EPA also experiences a 31 percent cut, the biggest loser in the budget. The Department of Agriculture gets a 29 percent cut and the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor are also cut by over 20 percent. Although there are over 13 percent cuts in the Department of Education, Trump’s budget proposes $168 million for charter school programs and $250 million for a choice program, according to the Washington Post. The Budget calls for the elimination of funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as well as the endowments for the Arts and the Humanities. “We are going to do more with less, and make the Government lean and accountable to the people,” read Trump’s message to Congress. The budget outlines Trump’s spending priorities, but a more detailed document is expected to be released by the White House in May. | 0fake |
COMEDIAN LENA DUNHAM WARNED Hillary’s Campaign “Harvey Weinstein’s A RAPIST”…What Clinton’s Campaign Did Next Is Disgusting | Actress Lena Dunham said she warned Hillary Clinton s campaign about disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and was uncomfortable with his presence during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a report out Tuesday.The Girls star told The New York Times that she heard stories about Weinstein from other actresses who claimed they had troubling interactions with him, so in March of 2016 she warned Clinton campaign deputy communications manager Kristina Schake about him. I just want you to let you know that Harvey s a rapist and this is going to come out at some point, Dunham said she told the campaign. I think it s a really bad idea for him to host fund-raisers and be involved because it s an open secret in Hollywood that he has a problem with sexual assault. Dunham, who has professed an incredible allegiance to Hillary, claimed Schake told her she d relay the message to campaign manager Robby Mook, but that she was surprised at the warning.The controversial actress said she also told another Clinton campaign member, spokeswoman Adrienne Elrod, about Weinstein. Dunham said the campaign had not responded to her concerns about the disgraced megaproducer, who s been accused of sexually assaulting or harassing more than 100 women.Weinstein donated thousands of dollars to Clinton s political campaigns over the years, and it took the former secretary of state five days to break her silence following the accusations made against him. I was shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee said in a statement through campaign communications director Nick Merrill. The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated. Their courage and the support of others is critical in helping to stop this kind of behavior. Fox News | 1real |
Lockheed says didn't seek help from Trump's ex-campaign manager | (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) did not turn to Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, and his lobbying firm to steer through the cost dispute around the F-35 fighter plane, a company spokesman said. Bloomberg reported on Thursday that Lockheed, the world’s largest defense contractor, sought Lewandowski’s help after an initial discussion on the issue between Trump and Lockheed’s Marillyn Hewson didn’t go well. “Lockheed has not retained Lewandowski, or his lobbying firm,” spokesman William Phelps told Reuters. The problem erupted in December when Trump slammed the F-35 program for being too expensive and said he intends to keep pushing to cut the costs of military hardware. Trump also targeted Boeing with tweets for “out of control” costs on new Air Force One planes and sought cancellation of the order. Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis ordered cost-cutting reviews of the F-35 fighter jet and Boeing’s (BA.N) next-generation of the Air Force One presidential plane. In June, Trump fired Lewandowski, who had been overseeing the campaign’s fundraising arm, over a dispute with other advisers. Lewandowski helped Trump win Republican presidential nominating contests. | 0fake |
Iran's Guards say missile programme will accelerate despite pressure | ANKARA (Reuters) - Iran s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said on Thursday its ballistic missile programme would accelerate despite U.S. and European Union pressure to suspend it, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. In a significant U.S. policy shift on Oct. 13, President Donald Trump disavowed Iran s compliance with a landmark 2015 nuclear deal and launched a more aggressive approach to the Islamic Republic over its missile development activity. Iran s ballistic missile programme will expand and it will continue with more speed in reaction to Trump s hostile approach towards this revolutionary organisation (the Guards), the IRGC said in a statement published by Tasnim. The Trump administration has imposed new unilateral sanctions aimed at impairing Iran s missile programme. It has called on Tehran not to develop missiles capable of delivering nuclear bombs. Iran says it has no such plans. Tehran has repeatedly pledged to continue what it calls a defensive missile capability in defiance of Western criticism. Trump s anxiety and trembling voice in his speech was a sign of beginning of the era of failure for America s hegemony, Tasnim quoted IRGC chief commander Mohammad Ali Jafari as saying. Boosting Iran s defence power remains our top priority. Iran has one of the most advanced ballistic missile programmes in the Middle East, viewing it as an essential precautionary defence against the United States and other adversaries, primarily Gulf Arab states and Israel. Imposing cruel sanctions against the Guards and hostile approach of the rogue and brute (U.S.) president shows the failure of America and the Zionist regime s (Israel) wicked policies in the region, the Guards statement said. Signalling no respite in tension in the Middle East, where Shi ite Muslim Iran has waged a long proxy war with U.S.-allied Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, the Guards also vowed to continue confronting the United States and Israel. More decisive and stronger than ever, the Guards will continue to defend Islamic Iran and its interests, the statement said, alluding to the Quds force, the Guards overseas arm that operates in Iraq, Syria and Yemen among other places. Trump s hardened Iran stance has united officials behind the IRGC. Today, Iranians, boys, girls, men, women, are all IRGC. Standing firm with those who defend us and the region against aggression and terror, U.S.-educated Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on his twitter account after Trump s speech. | 0fake |
Ohio Fireman In Deep Sh*t For HORRIBLE Remarks About Saving ‘N*****s’ | A firefighter in Ohio recently came under fire for expressing his economic uncertainty (a synonym the media concocted for racism while attempting to explain why people voted for Trump) about rescuing black people.If it came down to choosing to rescue a single dog or a million n*ggers, Franklin township firefighter Tyler Roysdon says he would save the dog, which is more important than all those African-Americans he hates.According to Roysdon s Facebook likes, he is a fan of Donald Trump, Duck Dynasty, and far-Right Facebook group Uncle Sam s Misguided Children just so you know what sort of person we re dealing with.Roysdon was suspended from his position indefinitely as soon as township officials learned of the post, which went viral on social media because that s what happens when terrible people say terrible things. It s also very likely he will lose his job according to a statement from officials: Recently, a Franklin Township volunteer firefighter posted unacceptable remarks on social media. Upon gaining knowledge of this information, Fire Chief Steve Bishop immediately contacted the firefighter and directed the comments be removed. The firefighter was suspended without pay until the Board of Township Trustees could meet to determine a course of action. Chief Bishop does not have the authority to terminate employees. Termination of any township employee requires a vote by the Board of Trustees. It s unclear if Roysdon s racism has ever affected his work or if he has caused anyone to die, but this is absolutely something that should be investigated.Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Hillary Campaign Launching Attacks on the FBI | Hillary Campaign Launching Attacks on the FBI October
If the Clinton campaign becomes any more deranged, Hillary will start running attack ads against the FBI. This kind of tactic is already perilously close to an attack ad.
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign ratcheted up its attack on the director of the FBI on Sunday, circulating a draft letter critical of James Comey to former federal prosecutors.
“It is out of our respect for such settled tenets of the United States Department of Justice that we are moved to express our concern with the recent letter issued by FBI Director James Comey to eight Congressional Committees,” the Clinton campaign’s letter speaking for prosecutors said.
The letter was signed and provided to The Daily Beast by Elkan Abramowitz, a former chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It is expected to be released Sunday evening.
So we have the bizarre spectacle of Hillary deciding that she needs to campaign against the head of the FBI, who was just being praised for clearing her, because when you're a paranoid personality who assembles lists of enemies, this is how you react. But it's also telling that the Clinton campaign finds this so threatening that it is waging war on the FBI. | 1real |
Obama immigration action goes before Supreme Court | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case on Monday that tests the boundaries of presidential powers, confronting the question of whether President Barack Obama exceeded his authority with unilateral action to spare millions of people in the country illegally from deportation. The case, one of the most consequential of the court’s current term that ends in June, pits Obama against 26 states led by Texas that filed suit to block his 2014 immigration plan. The high court is evenly divided with four liberal justices and four conservatives following the February death of conservative Antonin Scalia. That raises the possibility of a 4-4 split that would leave in place a 2015 lower-court ruling that threw out the president’s executive action that bypassed the Republican-led Congress. The arguments in the case come at a time when immigration is a divisive issue in the U.S. presidential campaign, with top Republican contenders advocating deporting all of the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally. Obama took the action after Republicans in the House of Representatives killed bipartisan legislation, billed as the biggest overhaul of U.S. immigration laws in decades and providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, that was passed by the Senate in 2013. Obama’s plan was tailored to let roughly 4 million people - those who have lived illegally in the United States at least since 2010, have no criminal record and have children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents - get into a program that shields them from deportation and supplies work permits. Obama’s program was called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA). Shortly before the plan was to go into effect last year, a federal judge in Texas blocked it after the Republican-governed states filed suit against the Democratic president’s executive action. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in November. The Supreme Court’s ruling is due by the end of June. Obama’s action arose from frustration within the White House and the immigrant community about a lack of action in politically polarized Washington to address the status of people, mostly Hispanics, living in the United States illegally. Obama has drawn Republican ire with his use of executive action to get around Congress on immigration policy and other matters including gun control and healthcare. On the immigration action, the states contend Obama exceeded the powers granted to him by the Constitution by intruding upon the authority of Congress. | 0fake |
Trump Agriculture Advisor Has A New Nickname For Clinton, And It’s Worse Than Trump’s (SCREENSHOTS) | Donald Trump has his cute little nickname for Crooked Hillary Clinton, but soon-to-be former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller seems to have one-upped him in terms of douchebaggery. On Tuesday, Miller tweeted a Pennsylvania poll showing Clinton down a point or, as he lovingly called her, Cunt. Go Trump go, the deplorable-escaped-from-the-basket proudly declared to punctuate his awful tweet.Texas ag commissioner Sid Miller just called Hillary Clinton the c word. #txlege pic.twitter.com/zkxsEo5FeI Edgar Walters (@ewaltersTX) November 1, 2016As people began to retweet this bit of awfulness, the elected official and member of Trump s agricultural advisory committee quickly removed the tweet. Rather than take personal responsibility, Miller claimed his account was hacked. Tweeted from the same account he was clearly in possession of, Miller tweeted @MillerForTexas HAS BEEN HACKED. The disgusting re-tweet has been removed and we have changed all account passwords. Be advised. When they realized that this was not a retweet that was deleted, and the lie would otherwise not work, Miller removed that claim and replaced it with another. Forgetting again that this was not a retweet, Miller again claimed it was a retweet a staffer made.The text seems to have originally appeared on noted white supremacist Twitter account @TheRickyVaughn, with the exception of Go Trump Go which was added by Miller, the staffer, or whomever. In other words, the person who tweeted it had time to read the tweet and add to it, so it was well known what was posted. They found some interesting poll numbers that included some derogatory language that I would never use, Miller said. When I found out about that, I told them to take it down immediately. When confronted with the fact that this was clearly not a retweet, Miller was full of excuses that simply do not work. I can assure you I did not post that, he said. Maybe the staffers took a screen shot and posted that. It was not a screenshot either. I m sorry to anybody out there, he said. That s not something I would condone or knowingly do. Just last week, though, while condemning Clinton for not always posting her own words on social media, he was firm that the tweets on his account were absolutely his own thoughts and the words his own meaning he took credit for this tweet in advance.Miller and millions like him will be voting on November 8. Make sure you re out there too.Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Elizabeth Warren Goes Off On Trump In Totally EPIC Series Of Tweets | As we get closer to the day when Trump must take office, conflicts-of-interest continue to rise between his presidency and his series of businesses.Trump has promised to leave his business to focus on his presidency, yet he plans to leave his children in charge of his business. Of course, that won t solve anything because as POTUS Trump wouldn t do anything to harm his children s new business and close contact with his children ensures he will still play some sort of role. Therefore, his plan wouldn t actually be effective, and Elizabeth Warren just called him out on that all over Twitter.Americans deserve to know that the President is doing what s best for the country not using his office to do what s best for himself. Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 15, 2016The only way for @realDonaldTrump to eliminate conflicts-of-interest is to divest his financial interests & place them in a blind trust. Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 15, 2016.@SenatorCardin, @ChrisCoons, @SenatorDurbin, @SenJeffMerkley & I will introduce a bill in January to implement the Emoluments Clause. Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 15, 2016Placing assets in a true blind trust has been the standard for previous presidents. Our bill makes clear we expect Trump to do the same. Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 15, 2016In the past, every president with business assets has had to place them in a blind trust before taking office, for good reason. Donald Trump should definitely not be an exception, but he should have released his taxes, too and we know how that went. He should not be allowed to leave his business in the hands of his children either, and it s looking very unlikely he will leave his business in a blind trust unless he is absolutely forced to.Featured image via Ethan Miller/Getty Images | 1real |
LOL! HILLARY’S New Anti-Trump Ad Backfires..Ends Up Being AMAZING Pro-Trump Ad [VIDEO] | Hillary has to be one of the worst candidates to ever get this far in a presidential race. She has no idea what the American people truly want. Like every good progressive, she only knows what she believes is good for Americans. And what Hillary believes are Donald s weaknesses with voters, are actually his strengths. Enjoy:Very nice of Hillary Clinton to run a pro-Trump ad, too? https://t.co/lYGCyHb7BA Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 4, 2016 It isn t so much that liberals are ignorant. It s just that they know so many things that aren t so. -Ronald Reagan | 1real |
ARE ANGRY LEFTISTS Planning Violent Communist Revolution?…“It is their goal to “block, obstruct, disrupt” Trump’s Inauguration | Author Ed Klein told Pete Hegseth on Fox and Friends Weekend that Barack Obama is setting up a shadow government in Washington DC to undermine President Trump after Inauguration Day. Does Obama have plans to work with the underbelly of the Democrat Party to disrupt Trump s term as President?But could the left really attempt a violent revolution to overthrow the U.S. government and overturn the American way of life?Not only could they, but they will try, according to Douglas V. Gibbs, who has appeared as a commentator on Fox News and is a radio talk-show host in Los Angeles.And it won t be a liberal revolution. It will be a communist revolution.That s the prediction Gibbs made in an article published Friday in the Canada Free Press titled, Democrats Prepare for Violent Revolution. Examining the evidence, he concludes a revolution attempt is not necessarily imminent, but that it will happen, once various pieces fall into place.Gibbs declared, They are in full preparation for social and economic collapse, or a violent revolution. He cites the website DisruptJ20 and its Call for a bold mobilization against the inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20, 2017. Gibbs quotes Michael Moore explaining, It is their goal to block, obstruct, disrupt, and do whatever they can to prevent the onslaught that is going to happen with Donald Trump. .It is Gibbs contention that, The liberal leftists want desperately to sabotage the Trump administration, and possibly overthrow the entire government. For their socialist big government agenda, the ends justifies the means. Why now?Because, he explained, [U]nder Obama, the veil was raised. Why worry about exposure now? They ve been poking the right-of-center groups in the chest for years, trying to instigate a violent response, and they never got it. Now, he continued, they may be realizing, it is up to them to initiate the violence. It is up to the leftists to finally launch the true coup. Or, at least that is what a lot of people think. Evidence that could support his theory is not hard to come by, as the left is becoming increasingly violent.During the 2016 presidential campaign, leftist riots broke out in cities across the country, the worst perhaps in San Jose, California, and in Chicago.WND reported assassination threats against Trump accompanied the nationwide rioting.Often-violent anti-Trump protests broke out in cities including Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Denver, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Seattle, Tampa, Dallas and Oakland, California.In Chicago, a video showed a mob of young black men beating and dragging through the streets a white man who voted for Trump.Portland, Oregon police termed a protest a riot after anarchists threw objects at officers, vandalized local businesses and damaged cars.Some 1,000 protesters in Oakland broke store windows, left graffiti on buildings and threw M-80 firecrackers, Molotov cocktails and bottles at police officers, authorities told CNN.And that s only the beginning, if Gibbs is right.He suggests the left will inevitably move on to more violence following the election of Trump, because the realization that the Democrats are losing grip on their transformational agenda in the rest of the country has slammed the leftists square in the face. Gibbs asserts the leftists hate any opposition, and are willing to do whatever it takes to either win over their opposition, or silence and eliminate their opposition. The next step by the left, according to Gibbs, is the stockpiling of arms. Now, it s the liberals who are suddenly worried, and stockpiling food, guns, and emergency supplies, he observed. Trump s 2016 win was a wake-up call. Their cheating, lying and violence was not enough to stop the man, and his very unorthodox approach to politics. Gibbs sees the left s hysteria as now having gone beyond insanity, marking a transition to violent anger.He believes the hysteria arose because the left they thought they had finally defeated the right permanently with the election of Obama, and that the election of Hillary Clinton would seal the deal. They only needed, now, to disarm the crazy right-wing bastards, wrote Gibbs. Then, with a faint whimper, the last of the opposition to the liberal left agenda would be gone. It seemed to them a near-certainty, but when it all came crashing down on Nov. 8, it was a disorienting shock to the system. Nobody on the left side of the aisle expected that Trump had a snowball s chance in Hell to win the 2016 Election. All of their skewed poll numbers said Hillary was going to win. Gibbs portrayed the left as in a state similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.For entire story: WND | 1real |
United Nations chief 'very worried' by Saudi-Lebanon tensions | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday he had serious concerns over escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, and that it was essential to avert new conflict in the region. We are indeed very worried, and we hope we won t see an escalation, the United Nations chief told reporters. It is essential that no new conflict erupts in the region, it could have devastating consequences. Guterres said he had very intense contacts yesterday with Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and other countries in the region. His comments come amid a deepening crisis between the two Middle Eastern nations that has thrust tiny Lebanon between Saudi Arabia and the region s other powerhouse, Iran. Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon of declaring war against it, citing aggression by the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi ite group Hezbollah. On Friday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah accused Saudi Arabia of declaring war on Lebanon and Hezbollah. In the midst of the conflict is Saad al-Hariri, Lebanon s former prime minister, who unexpectedly resigned his post over the weekend. Lebanese authorities have said he is being held against his will in Saudi Arabia, a charge that Riyadh has denied. | 0fake |
Venezuela crisis enters dangerous phase as Maduro foes go militant | October 28, 2016 Venezuela crisis enters dangerous phase as Maduro foes go militant In a curious convergence of events on the same day last week, four Venezuelan provincial courts issued identical rulings, state governors quickly hit Twitter to celebrate, then the election board emailed a short but bombshell statement. Opposition hopes for a referendum to recall President Nicolas Maduro were dashed, on grounds of fraud in an initial signature drive. The vote was off. For many in the opposition, that settled a years-old debate about the nature of Venezuela’s socialist government, uniting them in conviction they are now fighting a dictatorship. Their new militancy heightens the risk of unrest as the South American OPEC member of 30 million people grapples with a dangerous economic and political crisis. “Can anyone in the world now really doubt that Venezuela is living in tyranny?” said housewife Mabel Pinate, 62, dressed in white among thousands of protesters who took to the streets against Maduro on Wednesday. “We are sick of this. It’s time to toughen up and do what we must to save Venezuela,” added Pinate, whose husband was fired from state oil company PDVSA by Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez and whose two children have gone abroad. | 1real |
Trump’s Choice on Obamacare: Sabotage or Co-opt? - The New York Times | President Trump and a Congress tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Now, they have to decide whether they want to work with it or sabotage it. Both Mr. Trump and congressional leaders acknowledged on Friday that they would not bring their repeal bill back for a vote any time soon. That means that, as Speaker Paul Ryan said, “we’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future. ” Mr. Ryan and Mr. Trump reiterated their criticisms of the law and set the stage for watching it collapse and blaming the Democrats for the aftermath. “I’ve been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode,” Mr. Trump said from the Oval Office. “It is exploding now. ” Mr. Ryan said that Obamacare’s architects would be sad that the bill was allowed to live on, given what he described as its inevitable failure. In fact, Obamacare is not on the verge of “explosion. ” Enrollment in its insurance marketplaces is steady, and several independent analyses suggest that insurance prices have stabilized after a sharp market correction this year. But the structures it set up to provide health insurance to Americans are vulnerable. Insurance companies have struggled to make money in the early years of the new markets, and many have backed out. Others remain tentatively committed and skittish. Mr. Trump will need to decide, quickly, whether his goal is to knock over the markets, or help prop them up. If he decides to topple them, next year could be very messy. Insurers are making their decisions right now about whether to enter the markets for next year and about how much to charge their customers. Signals from the administration in the next few weeks about whether he will help or hurt them will almost certainly guide insurers’ choices. The biggest immediate decision concerns a court dispute between the House and the administration over subsidies to help insurance buyers pay their deductibles and . The House has argued that the money for those subsidies was not properly authorized. The Obama White House fought the case. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump’s lawyers will do the same. The availability of those subsidies, used by a majority of Obamacare customers, is critical for insurers in the markets. Without the subsidies, all the insurers will lose some money, and many smaller carriers will face bankruptcy. If Mr. Trump does not fight the court case, the Obamacare markets in most states will unravel quickly, leaving millions without insurance options on his watch. Many of the beneficiaries are Trump voters. There are smaller decisions ahead, too, about how to administer programs, whether to enforce the law’s individual mandate, and whether to recruit insurers to participate in markets where competition is thin. So far, Mr. Trump’s secretary for health and human services, Tom Price, has taken every opportunity to gloat about the health law’s setbacks, even as he is administering its programs. Mr. Price, perhaps more than Mr. Trump, has long been committed to the Affordable Care Act’s demise. But now he will have to manage the law’s many programs. Obama administration officials called insurers, cajoling and reassuring them. If Mr. Trump wants the markets to be vigorous, he could use his skills to woo insurance companies into the stabilizing markets. If Mr. Trump and Mr. Price can make peace with the health law, there are opportunities to steer it in a more conservative direction. The law gives broad authority to the executive branch to shape health care policy. So far, the health law has been driven by Obama administration priorities, but that could change. A few early regulatory changes have begun that process. The Trump administration plans to make it harder for people to sign up for plans midyear. It has given insurers more wiggle room to raise their deductibles. It may be able to make alterations that loosen up benefit requirements — though it won’t be able to completely eliminate them, as Republicans sought to do at the last minute in the failed bill. The administration will also have enormous power to allow states to reshape their Medicaid programs — and even their local insurance markets — through waivers to existing law. Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was a consultant who helped states write pathbreaking conservative proposals for their Medicaid programs. She is ideally positioned to approve many more such waivers from states, allowing them to impose premiums, and even work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries. A new Obamacare waiver program has just gone into effect: It would allow states to overhaul their entire health insurance markets if they can show that their revised plans would cover as many people. That process could allow Ms. Verma and Mr. Price to approve state plans that hew more closely to the Republican vision for health care. New powers granted under the Affordable Care Act allow the Department of Health and Human Services to make major changes to the Medicare program, through demonstration projects meant to lower costs and improve patient care. The Obama administration set a precedent of imposing “mandatory” projects on large portions of the country to test policy ideas. So far, Mr. Price has looked askance at such efforts. But the provision could give him power to reshape what Medicare pays for and how seniors receive their care. Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan, has criticized the Obama administration for stretching its legal authority with some of its Obamacare choices. But those choices have created a precedent for the Trump administration to stretch the health law in its own direction. “If you think Congress is done, and you don’t want to provoke a reaction anymore, then you own this,” he said. “You will be judged as an executive on the performance of Obamacare. ” For years, opposing Obamacare has been a rallying cry for Republicans. But if Republicans can’t repeal Obamacare, they could instead it. There are opportunities for Trumpcare yet. | 0fake |
In Bridgeport, Property Values Plummet, but Taxes Soar for Some - The New York Times | BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — When Alison Boteler opened the property tax bill last summer on the home that she shares with her mother here, she was stunned. The mayor had campaigned on a pledge of no new taxes. Instead, her taxes had shot up $5, 000, to $24, 000 a year. The Botelers are among many homeowners here who felt blindsided by one of the highest property tax rate increases any community in the nation has imposed in recent years — 29 percent. “It’s a nightmare,” said Ms. Boteler, a writer, who has not put her home on the market but has shown it informally. “People have come and fallen in love with the house. But then they look at the tax bill and can’t do it. ” The enormous tax rate increase is symptomatic of Bridgeport’s unenviable status as a poor city in a rich state. It also reflects a broader and sobering national picture: The economic revival across much of the country has bypassed many communities, including industrial hubs like this one that are grappling with dwindling resources. In a citywide reassessment last year, the value of Bridgeport’s taxable property fell by a staggering $1 billion, to $6 billion. “The story of Bridgeport, unfortunately, as with so many old towns, is that they lose their tax base,” said Richard D. Pomp, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law and an expert on state and local taxation. “It’s one of the poorest cities in the country,” he added. “You are now taking the same amount of spending and spreading it out over a smaller base and your tax rate has to increase. ” The jump in the tax rate, and a frustration with Bridgeport’s chronically chaotic governing, prompted Peter Spain to apply for a Guinness World Record: “highest increase in property tax rate in the world. ” “The Guinness World Book is a zany thing that you scare your babysitter with, by flipping to the page with the longest mustache,” said Mr. Spain, 46, who owns a graphic design firm with his wife. “It’s kooky and outrageous, and I feel like that sums up the situation here. ” A fitting description, perhaps, for a city where P. T. Barnum once lived and was mayor, and where he brought his circus to rest during the winter. The of Bridgeport’s mayor, Joseph P. Ganim, reflects some of that chaos. The city’s voters catapulted him back into office in 2015, 12 years after he was convicted of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks and bribes from people who wanted to do business with the city. Between his last term and his current one, Mr. Ganim served nearly seven years in federal prison. Mr. Ganim’s triumph last year was quickly tempered by the city’s financial reality. Within weeks of taking office, he learned that the previous administration had left the city with a $20 million budget deficit. And just as things started settling down after Mr. Ganim returned to City Hall, news emerged that the city’s property values had plummeted. State law requires municipalities to reassess the value of taxable property every five years. Bridgeport had managed to avoid a reassessment, staving off a reckoning after the financial crisis of 2008, which depressed property values across much of the region. “The longer you delay a reassessment, the worse the sticker shock,” said Joan Youngman, a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a research center in Cambridge, Mass. “It’s politically and economically hard for everybody. ” Mr. Ganim had been largely on campaign promises to hold the line on taxes. Faced with a big budget hole, the city raised the effective tax rate on properties by nearly 29 percent. “We had a double whammy — a $20 million deficit, plus the revaluation,” said Av Harris, who is a policy adviser and spokesman for the mayor. “This was not an easy decision. It was not an easy budget to figure out. But we have to make the best decisions we can. ” Still, the lower property values have actually been good for many taxpayers — their tax bills decreased because the assessed value of many properties had dropped so precipitously. Indeed, more than half of the city’s homeowners paid less in property taxes this year than last year, said Ken Flatto, who is Bridgeport’s finance director. Mr. Ganim did not own a home in Bridgeport when he was he rented a condominium on Cartright Street. After the reassessment was announced last winter, Mr. Ganim bought two condos, according to city records. Condo values took a particularly hard hit in the revaluation, and Mr. Ganim was able to buy both properties at prices well below what the sellers had paid when they bought the homes. The taxes due on one of the mayor’s condos is 40 percent less than last year’s tax bill. But others saw big tax increases, especially residents in Black Rock, an affluent neighborhood. The appraised value on Ms. Boteler’s 1948 brick Georgian Colonial climbed to $690, 000 from $650, 000, an increase she successfully challenged last spring. The value is now $645, 000, but her taxes still went up. “It’s crazy,” Ms. Boteler said. “I’d love to live here until I die, but that’s not going to happen. ” Aida said the tax increase was pushing her out of her house. At 78, she is still working full time to help pay for her husband’s nursing home care and her property taxes, which this year rose $2, 391, to $16, 072, on her Cape. “I’m getting my home ready to sell,” Ms. said, noting that her taxes had gone up 400 percent since she bought the house 20 years ago. “I can’t stay here. This last increase did it. ” But, she added, “Who’s going to buy it once they see the taxes?” The Spains knew they would pay higher taxes in Bridgeport than in Fairfield, which is a town with fewer residents and a bigger tax base. Its tax base is $10. 8 billion for the current budget of $294 million Bridgeport’s is $6 billion for its budget of $552 million. But the Spains also knew the city’s lower real estate prices meant they could afford a house that would have been out of reach in Fairfield, Mr. Spain said. The couple has lived in a American cities, Mr. Spain said. “We’ve never lived in a place where you wake up and go, ‘Oh my God, what the hell are they doing?’ Even the street sweeper does circles around the neighborhood for two days in a row,” he said. Now Mr. Spain is active in Citizens Working for a Better Bridgeport, a group pushing for changes in the way the city is run. Mr. Spain and another Black Rock homeowner, David M. Walker, are among the residents who want a financial oversight board to take hold of the city’s purse strings. “We see a lack of standards in Bridgeport,” Mr. Spain said. Mr. Walker has experience in government, having served as the comptroller general of the United States until 2008. He now divides his time between Northern Virginia and Bridgeport. His tax bill rose 22. 5 percent this year, while the value of his house fell. “You’re supposed to grow the tax base faster than the budget,” Mr. Walker said. “This city is doing exactly the opposite. ” They and several hundred other homeowners showed up at the first City Council meeting after the tax bills arrived in residents’ mailboxes. Exasperated by what he had heard from neighbors, and wanting to do something that would garner attention, Mr. Spain landed upon an idea to officially declare Bridgeport guilty of municipal lunacy. He registered with the Guinness website, paid the $5 fee and applied on behalf of the taxpayers of Bridgeport for the world record. Guinness receives nearly 1, 000 new applications every week, a spokeswoman said. It typically takes about three months to review requests before rendering a decision. Mr. Spain’s application was denied. Guinness said it could not fairly compare local tax rates, given the variations in jurisdictions and tax formulas around the world. Mr. Spain said he was not too disappointed by the ruling. His Guinness bid was designed to bring attention to the city’s plight. “It reminded me of the underlying criticism of Bridgeport,” Mr. Spain said. “It’s the phantom circus element that never really left town. ” | 0fake |
Chinese Steadily Buying U.S. Entertainment Businesses | Email
Flush with money from selling inexpensive goods (made by what is in effect slave labor) in the American market, the Chinese communists are continuing their shopping spree by buying up businesses connected with the U.S. entertainment industry. The New American recently reported on the Chinese purchase of AMC (which owns hundreds of movie theaters in the United States) and the desire of a high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party to buy an American movie studio.
Now, the Chinese firm Wanda, which is owned by the Chinese Communist government, has bought Dick Clark Productions for about $1 billion.
Begun in 1957 by the famed host of American Bandstand who died in 2012, Dick Clark Productions produces the Golden Globe Awards, the American Music Awards, and Billboard Music Awards.
Wanda is run by Wang Jianlin, who is considered China’s wealthiest man and is a top figure in the ruling oligarchy of the Chinese Communist Party.
Xiaoma Lu, the CEO of Wanda Investment, stated, “We are excited to partner with such an iconic company and look forward to supporting the management team as they continue to build the company and expand upon its enormous legacy.”
Wang assured that after the purchase business will continue as usual, with the new owners retaining the current executives, including Chairman Peter Guber, CEO Allen Shapiro, and President Michael Mahan. Present owner Todd Boehly will remain as an advisor to Wanda.
Another previous Wanda buy was $3.5 billion for Legendary Entertainment, the studio that produced Pacific Rim , Warcraft , and the soon-to-be released The Great Wall , starring Matt Damon.
The moves by Wang and the Chinese government into the U.S. entertainment industry have raised some concern in Congress. In September, 16 members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office asking for them to scrutinize Chinese purchases of American entertainment companies as a national security concern. The letter mentioned recent Chinese efforts to “censor topics and exert propaganda controls on American media.”
Because of the sheer size of the Chinese movie market, among other reasons, the U.S. industry has already shown extreme caution not to offend the communist giant. For example, when the 1980s movie Red Dawn was recently re-made, the new script originally called for the invaders to be Chinese communists (rather than Russian communists as in the original movie) attempting to take over America. After the film had already been made, MGM became concerned enough about the Chinese reaction to recast the invaders as North Koreans . One supposes there aren’t many moviegoers in North Korea.
And that was before Wanda took over AMC.
The propaganda opportunities for Wanda and the Chinese communists in the motion picture and television industries far surpass any such possibilities to be advanced by growing wheat, making cars, or selling cheap goods at American retail stores. For many people, once they have viewed an event on the silver screen, or heard someone say something in a movie theater, or even on television, it becomes “reality” for them.
Writing in the communist newspaper The Daily Worker in 1925, Will Muezenberg explained the importance of the movie industry in advancing the goals of the communist world. Muezenberg, an agent of the Comintern (created to spread communist ideology and promote Soviet interests worldwide) stated, “One of the most pressing tasks confronting the Communist Party in the field of propaganda is the conquest of this extremely important propaganda unit [the movies], until now the monopoly of the ruling class. We must wrest it from them and turn it against them.”
And that is precisely what is involved in the Chinese move into Hollywood and television. | 1real |
Melania Trump’s ‘America First’ Inaugural Wardrobe - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — In the end, she checked every box. Elegant, unexpected dress? Check. Unknown designer elevated to overnight sensation? Check. New York brand? Check. Implicit message about cooperation and embracing the melting pot? Check. When Melania Trump took the stage with her husband, President Trump, on Friday night for the inaugural balls, she demonstrated that, while she may have been out of the spotlight since the election, she hasn’t been sticking her head in the sand. She has been closely studying the vernacular of first lady dress. In an architectural white crepe column with a thin burgundy ribbon as a belt, a high slit and a gazar wave curving from sleeve to hip and then down the skirt, she looked — especially when compared with the younger generation of Trump women, most of whom opted for sparkling princess gowns — understated and adult. Not remotely mired in the 1980s, though her husband’s look and rhetoric may be. And despite rampant speculation about the designer behind the dress, she cannily managed to surprise the entire fashion world. The gown was, according to a statement from her office, a “collaboration” between Mrs. Trump and the designer Hervé Pierre, a Frenchman who moved to New York in the early 1990s and eventually became creative director of Carolina Herrera, where he and Mrs. Trump met and where he worked on clothes for Laura Bush and Michelle Obama, though largely behind the scenes. He left that post last February. This is his first major dress under his own name (he does not yet have a collection in that context). It will eventually join the exhibit of first ladies gowns at the Smithsonian stretching back to Helen Taft in 1909. Though rumors had surfaced earlier in the week that Mrs. Trump was working with Chanel’s creative director Karl Lagerfeld on her gown, in the end she used the opportunity — and indeed, her entire inaugural wardrobe — to do what her husband, standing on the steps of the Capitol building, said they would do: “follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American. ” After over 20 years in this country, Mr. Pierre counts. Indeed, with one notable exception — Kellyanne Conway’s coat at the which looked like she might have borrowed it off a toy soldier (it was her “Trump revolution wear” she told reporters) but in fact turned out to be a $3, 600 design from the Italian brand Gucci — the inaugural weekend overall was a series of America First fashion moments, literally and metaphorically. And not just when it came to the women. There has been a lot of speculation over whether the office of president will change Mr. Trump — encourage moderation of his Twitter account, for example, or his language. As yet that is unclear, but it does appear to have changed how his family dresses. On Friday the president wore an overcoat and shirt to the said to be by Brooks Brothers, the American men’s wear brand that outfitted 39 presidents before him. Lincoln, Grant, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama wore Brooks Brothers for their ceremonies, and Mr. Obama even wore his overcoat again on Friday when he stood with Mr. Trump. For a man who often overtly rejected the Washington establishment and what came before in his speech, it was nevertheless a nod to tradition and history. The day before, Melania Trump (who during the campaign tended toward European brands) stepped off the military jet that brought the Trumps to Washington for a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in a strict, coat by Norisol Ferrari, a small, independent New York designer who described herself to WWD as a “ minority woman. ” Then, that evening at the donors’ black tie dinner, the first lady wore a nude sequined gown by Reem Acra, the designer based in New York. And Ivanka Trump wore three different outfits from Oscar de la Renta, a name of New York Fashion Week: a coat and matching dress to Arlington a gown to the donor’s dinner and a white pantsuit to the . (Oscar de la Renta himself dressed both Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush for their husbands’ second inaugural balls the brand is something of an inaugural .) For the balls, she donned Carolina Herrera. It was when Mrs. Trump wore a Ralph Lauren cashmere dress and coat to the Inauguration Day festivities, however, that it became indubitable that something strategic was going on. It is not just because Mr. Lauren is a designer who has built an empire on the mythology of the American dream, or because he has outfitted the U. S. Olympic team and donated $13 million to help restore the Banner at the National Museum of American History. And it is not because he had dressed four first ladies before, crossing political parties in service to the role. It is because the dress and coat he made for Mrs. Trump, in shape and shade, created an image that was redolent of nothing so much as Jacqueline Kennedy at her Camelot inaugural, with all the new beginnings and freighted history that implies. Whatever you think of the reality of that connection — and on social media, there was a lot of verbal — the outfit oozed appropriateness. If it looked like something of a first lady costume, and it did, it also suggested that Mrs. Trump had studied up and was prepared to assume the starring role she played later in the evening. Just as Ivanka Trump’s trouser suit, which was designed by Fernando Garcia, one half of the new young creative duo at Oscar de la Renta, seemed a sign of the unofficial role she has often suggested she will pursue: women’s advocate. White pantsuits, after all, became famous over the summer when Hillary Clinton wore one, also by Ralph Lauren, to accept the Democratic nomination for president, at least in part in acknowledgment of the suffragists, who chose white as one of their signature colors. Later, the white outfits were adopted as a uniform of sorts by women as they went to the polls. It was thus a fairly pointed (and, to some, poignant) moment when Mrs. Clinton appeared in a final white Ralph Lauren pantsuit to accompany her husband to the inauguration — a suit that had been made as part of her campaign collaboration with Mr. Lauren, but never worn. And it was probably not by chance that Ms. Trump selected a similar look. The politics of clothing may be subtle, and may strike some as frivolous, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a requisite part of the pageantry that surrounds the presidency — especially on a day with more photo opportunities than speeches. They paint a picture of the family that now represents the country, of their ambitions, goals and values, at a moment when the world is watching. This time, the brush strokes swirled: not with accessibility, but with aspiration, and nationalism. A case of the emperor’s new clothes, or a harbinger of things to come? We’ll have to keep looking to find out. | 0fake |
FBI UNDERCOVER Informant On Hillary’s 2010 Sale Of Uranium Identified | The FBI informant who went undercover to look into Hillary Clinton s role in an Obama administration-era uranium company was identified yesterday in an exclusive from Reuters:William Campbell, a Russian lobbyist, is the informant, according to Reuters. He will be testifying before a congressional committee about the 2010 sale of Uranium One, where a Russian-backed company bought a uranium firm with mines in the U.S. Campbell gave information to the FBI about what he saw while undercover as an informant. I have worked with the Justice Department undercover for several years, and documentation relating to Uranium One and political influence does exist and I have it William CampbellCongressional committees have previously tried to interview Campbell, as he was undercover for roughly five years, working to get information on Russia s efforts to grow its atomic energy business in the U.S.Department of Justice spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores told The Hill that a deal was reached in late October, clearing the informant to talk to Congress for the first time almost eight years after he first went undercover.Two House chairmen also announced a probe in late October which is digging into new reports about Russian efforts to influence the Uranium One nuclear purchase that gave Russia control of roughly 20 percent of America s uranium.When Clinton served as secretary of state, Russia routed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, and former President Bill Clinton collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in Russian speaking fees as part of Russian efforts to influence the U.S. government to approve the deal, The Hill reported.OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON THE GAG ORDER THAT HAS BEEN LIFTED BY SESSIONS:LAWYER FOR FBI INFORMANT: My Client Knows What Russians Were Saying During Bribery of Clintons [VIDEO]Campbell s attorney, Victoria Toensing, said on Fox Business that former attorneys general under the Obama administration are the reason her client hasn t been able to tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made. The lawyer for the FBI informant under a gag order that prevents him from going before Congress spoke out about what s to come with the Clinton/Russia Uranium story:Fox Business reported: An informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is under a gag order that prevents him from testifying before the United States Congress that Russian nuclear officials were involved in fraudulent dealings in 2009 before the Uranium One deal was approved.Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch blocked the informant from testifying last year and threatened criminal action against him if he were to do so.In an interview with FOX Business Lou Dobbs, Victoria Toensing, the attorney representing the FBI informant, said she has never heard of a criminal penalty for breaching a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). If it does and it is unconstitutional and it s invalid, if it prohibits my client from giving information to the legislature, the executive cannot say to people, Hey, you can t give information to another body of the government, Toensing said.KEY POINTS: The Republican leadership was blocking the investigation into both Benghazi and the Russia uranium scandal involving Clinton.The NDA (gag order) is unconstitutional and Toensing says this type of gag order has a criminal penalty. She says she s never heard of this type of gag order.Victoria Toensing is one of the best lawyers in DC and will get to the bottom of this one way or another. The plot thickens on this one Read more: Daily Caller | 1real |
FBI NEW YORK FIELD OFFICE Just Gave A Wake Up Call To Hillary Clinton | EXCLUSIVE: FBI New York Field Office Told To Continue Clinton Foundation ProbeOfficials at FBI headquarters instructed its New York field office to continue its corruption investigation into the Clinton Foundation following the election of Republican candidate Donald Trump, according to a former senior law enforcement official.The instructions ordered agents to go forward with their ongoing inquiry into the Clinton Foundation which is focusing on issues of corruption and money laundering, according to the source. There were no instructions to shut it down, to discontinue or to stand down on the investigation, but to continue its work, the former official told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.He said he received this information about a week ago and that the order originated from the bureau s headquarters in Washington, D.C. well after the November 8 election. He did not know who at FBI Headquarters issued the order.Read more: DCF | 1real |
Police: Home Invasion Suspect Brings Crowbar to Gun Fight, Is Hospitalized in Stable Condition - Breitbart | A home invasion suspect armed with a crowbar was greeted by a Pittsburgh resident armed with a gun and was hospitalized in stable condition after being shot. [The alleged invasion occurred on Monday around 9 pm. According to WPXI, the resident “heard someone rummaging around on the first floor of his home. ” He grabbed a gun and went downstairs, where he found Darrell Bettis. The homeowner ordered Bettis to the ground, at which time police say “Bettis charged at the man and struck him with a crowbar. ” The two men struggled before the resident shot Bettis, striking him in the thigh. Bettis was transported to a hospital in stable condition. Police said he faces charges of “aggravated assault, burglary and criminal mischief. ” He will be placed in the Allegheny County Jail once the hospital releases him. The homeowner received treatment for a head wound from the crowbar. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 0fake |
Lindsey Graham Calls Out His Own Party; Says Republicans Aren’t Patriotic (VIDEO) | S.C. Senator Lindsey Graham has been a shining beacon in the Republican Party when it comes to the Russian hacking scandal. He knows that no matter what party it benefited, it s beyond dangerous to let a foreign government, especially a foreign nuclear power, gain control over our elections.On Sunday s Meet the Press, Graham laid down a pretty brutal truth bomb for Republicans, calling them political hacks, and unpatriotic. Most Republicans are condemning what Russia did. And to those who are gleeful about it you re a political hack. You re not a Republican. You re not a patriot, Graham said during an appearance on NBC News s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. We should all Republicans, Democrats condemn Russia for what they did. To my Republican friends who are gleeful, you re making a huge mistake, Graham said.Graham added that he hopes Trump, who signaled in his campaign that he would work for a better relationship with the Kremlin, takes advantage of the chance to make Russia pay a price for trying to meddle in the election.Source: The Hill17 intelligence agencies have all come to the conclusion that Russia hacked our election and loaded social media with fake news. It was clearly enough to sway the election. Donald Trump has been in a general state of denial about it. On Saturday, he tweeted, Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results. Voting machines not touched. But even his camp is starting to come around. However, they re blaming it on the Democratic National Committee for apparently making it too easy to get hacked. Of course, the Republican National Committee was also hacked, but the Russians and WikiLeaks chose to sit on those revelations, perhaps to use them for a later date?Graham expressed confusion about Trump s relationship with Russia. I don t know what drives him on Russia, but I do know this. That if our policies don t change vis a vis Russia, the worst is yet to come. And the Congress is going to have a different view on Russia than the president-elect does, he said.Here s the video:Featured image via Riccardo Savi via Getty Images. | 1real |
BREAKING VIDEO: CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS MEMBERS Rehang “Cops as Pigs” Painting In Capitol Building…Shameful! | TAKE IT DOWN! BLM Supporter, Dem Congressman Hangs COP-HATING, Race-Baiting Art-Work In U.S. Capitol BuildingJust keep it up Democrats and soon you won t have any supporters | 1real |
Israeli troops kill four Palestinians, wound 160 in protests over Jerusalem | GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead four Palestinians and wounded 150 others with live fire on Friday, medical officials said, as protests over U.S. President Donald Trump s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital entered a second week. Most of the casualties were on the Gaza Strip border, where thousands of Palestinians gathered to hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers beyond the fortified fence. Medics said two protesters, one of them wheelchair-bound, were killed and 150 wounded. In the occupied West Bank, another area where Palestinians are seeking statehood along with adjacent East Jerusalem, medics said two protesters were killed and 10 wounded by Israeli gunfire. One of the dead was a man who Israeli police troopers said was shot after he stabbed a member of their unit. Reuters witnesses said the Palestinian held a knife and wore what looked like a bomb belt. A Palestinian medic who helped evacuate the man for treatment said the belt was fake. Palestinians and the wider Arab and Muslim world were incensed at Trump s Dec. 6 announcement, which reversed decades of U.S. policy reticence on Jerusalem, a city where both Israel and the Palestinians want sovereignty. Washington s European allies and Russia have also voiced worries about Trump s decision. Gaza s dominant Hamas Islamists, which reject coexistence with Israel, called last week for a new Palestinian uprising, but any such mass-mobilisation has yet to be seen in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. There have been almost nightly Gazan rocket launches into Israel, so far without casualties. Israel has responded with air strikes on Hamas facilities, one of which killed two gunmen. The Israeli military said that, on Friday, about 3,500 Palestinians demonstrated near the Gaza border fence. During the violent riots IDF (Israel Defence Force) soldiers fired selectively towards main instigators, the military said in a statement. A military spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the wheelchair-bound protestor, Ibrahim Abu Thuraya. Abu Thuraya, 29, was a regular at such demonstrations. In media interviews, he said he had lost both his legs in a 2008 Israeli missile strike in Gaza. In the West Bank, the Israeli military said that about 2,500 Palestinians took part in riots, rolling flaming tires and throwing fire bombs and rocks at soldiers and border police. Israel captured East Jerusalem, an area laden with Jewish, Muslim and Christian shrines, from Jordan in the 1967 war and later annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians hope that part of the city will be the capital of a future independent state and Palestinian leaders say Trump s move is a serious blow to a moribund peace process. Israel has welcomed Trump s announcement as recognizing political reality and biblical Jewish roots in Jerusalem. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to visit Israel, as well as Egypt, next week. | 0fake |
NY Daily News Devotes Most Brilliant Cover Yet To Michelle Obama: ‘The Lady Is HER Champ!’ (IMAGE) | Michelle Obama is one of the most beloved First Ladies we ve ever seen. She is a brilliant wife, mother, champion of the people, and, of course, public speaker. This last talent was never more on display than Monday night during her brilliant command of the stage on the opening night of the 2016 Democratic National Convention. It was a dazzling speech and let s face it a much-needed one on a day that began fueled by anger surrounding the leak of the Wikileaks emails that seemed to indict some officials in the Democratic National Committee of wanting to conspire to undermine the campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders during the Democratic Primary.Let s be honest we have different wings of our party. We have traditional, moderate, rank and file Democrats a la the Clintons and the Obamas. We have rank and file Democrats that are a bit further to the left and generally identify as pragmatic progressives, a la Elizabeth Warren (I personally fall into this camp). Then, we have the hard left people who are hardline progressives, many of whom don t even identify as Democrats and aren t registered as such a la Bernie Sanders. However, despite these differences in positions, at the end of the day, we re all left wingers. Michelle Obama made us remember that better than anyone on Monday night, and she used her brilliance and penchant for bringing people together and lifting them up to give an amazing, full-throated endorsement of Hillary Clinton to be the next President of the United States. Her speech was so inspiring that the New York Daily News gave the First Lady her own cover, declaring her the champion of Hillary Clinton. Here is the cover, complete with Hillary s now iconic H logo, sent out via their Twitter account late Monday night:STOP THE PRESSES! New front THE LADY IS HER CHAMP@FLOTUS speech brings down the house https://t.co/Vs2SmZ9m6z pic.twitter.com/G3VmZzk8Fe New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) July 26, 2016Hopefully, all of the amazing speakers on Monday night can convince the reachable Bernie supporters that Hillary Clinton is the best choice for President in 2016 including the brilliant and passionate case laid out by Senator Sanders himself. Let s follow in the footsteps of our leaders and vote blue in November!Featured image via screen capture from Twitter | 1real |
An Aquatic Paradise in Mexico, Pushed to the Edge of Extinction - The New York Times | XOCHIMILCO, Mexico — With their waters and blue herons, the canals and island farms of Xochimilco in southern Mexico City are all that remain of the extensive network of shimmering waterways that so awed Spanish invaders when they arrived here 500 years ago. But the fragility of this remnant of life was revealed last month, when a hole opened in the canal bed, draining water and alarming hundreds of tour boat operators and farmers who depend on the waterways for a living. The hole intensified a simmering conflict over nearby wells, which suck water from Xochimilco’s soil and pump it to other parts of Mexico City. It also revived worries about a process of decline, caused by pollution, urban encroachment and subsidence, that residents and experts fear may destroy the canals in a matter of years. “This is a warning,” said Sergio Raúl Rodríguez Elizarrarás, a geologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “We are driving the canals towards their extinction. ” Xochimilco (pronounced ) a municipality on the southeastern tip of Mexico City, is home to more than 6, 000 acres of protected wetlands, hemmed in by dense streets. Here, farmers grow rosemary, corn and chard on chinampas, islands formed using a technique dating from the Aztecs from willow trees, lilies and mud. Residents ply the area’s 100 or so miles of canals in canoes, much as they have for centuries. On weekends, thousands of tourists picnic and party on brightly painted barges, or trajineras. “This is the last thread that connects us to our past,” Ricardo Munguía, an artist and tour guide, said recently while chugging through the dawn mist in a motorboat. As he slid past a field of broken corn stalks, a pelican swooped by and skidded on the water, slowing itself with its wide wings. “It would be heartbreaking to lose this,” Mr. Munguía said. As bucolic as the canals appear, intense exploitation of the area’s aquifers over the last 50 years has depleted springs, prompting the authorities to replenish the waterways from a nearby sewage treatment plant. As the earth dries out, it sinks, cracking buildings and forming sudden craters like the one that appeared on Jan. 24, 50 yards from a barge mooring. Boatmen at the mooring, known as the Embarcadero Zacapa, said they noticed the hole when a whirlpool appeared, like water running down a bath drain. By the time engineers had dammed off that part of the canal with sandbags several hours later, the water level had dropped about 10 inches. Since then, the 80 or so trajineras at Zacapa have mostly been idle, as tourists head to rival moorings, boatmen said — even though they can still reach the canals in one direction. On a recent Sunday, the boats were lined up like rows of gaudy shoes, but none had customers. “We’re kind of shocked,” said Ivan Montiel Olivares, 18, who has worked on the barges for 10 years. “If things turn bad, what will we do?” Juan Velazquez, a boatman in his 50s who was cleaning his deck, said that on the weekends he normally made about $15 a day, plus tips. The last two weekends he had made just $2. 50 each day. “Nature is making us pay for what we have done,” he said. Built on a silty lake bed, Mexico City has been sinking for centuries. The Metropolitan Cathedral became so tilted that engineers reinforced the foundations so that it would, at least, sink evenly. To slow the collapse in the city center, parts of which dropped about 26 feet during the last century, officials in the 1960s shifted water extraction from downtown to wells near Xochimilco, a decision experts called a “death sentence” for the canals. José Felipe García, Xochimilco’s director of civil defense, said that the canal should be back to normal by the end of February. Speaking by telephone, he said that the hole — which was filled this week — was a product of subsidence and geological faults beneath the area. But Dr. Rodríguez, the geologist, said it was part of a grim pattern of collapses in the area whose cause was “man made. ” Half a mile from the Zacapa mooring, a crater opened in November, splitting a main road and trapping two small buses, residents said. Eduardo Sandoval, an architectural engineer who lives in the neighborhood, Santa María Nativitas, and leads an organization fighting for water rights, said the holes were a signal that problems were “accelerating. ” Water in Nativitas has been a source of endless tension, according to Mr. Sandoval, with 130 houses damaged by subsidence. Trucks fill up at the local well and sell water on the black market, but homes near the well can get water from their faucets for only a few hours a day. There are scattered government initiatives to increase the water supply, such as collecting rainwater in rooftop cisterns. But the feat of supplying the region’s 22 million people with water more than 7, 000 feet above sea level requires more creativity, experts said, like reusing dirty water. The water in Xochimilco’s canals is polluted. Treated water pumped into the canals from nearby Iztapalapa contains heavy metals, said María Guadalupe Figueroa, a biologist at the Autonomous Metropolitan University. Worse, she said, illegal dwellings on the chinampas dump raw sewage into the canals, affecting fish and crops. Today, much of the tilapia fished from the canals are used for cat food, and many farmers grow flowers rather than edible crops. Despite a ban on construction on the chinampas, more and more of the islands are being settled, experts and residents said, as farming becomes less competitive and demand for residential space grows. Cables droop across smaller canals, supplying electricity to houses that have no running water or sewers. Near one house, beer bottles stuck out of the mud, and a rusty bedspring served as a fence on the water’s edge. Juana Altamirano, who has lived for years in a plywood shack on what used to be a chinampa farmed by her father and grandparents, has outhouses with the Spanish words for “men” and “ladies” scrawled on the metal doors. The sewage, she said, “goes into the earth and doesn’t do any harm,” an improbable claim since she lives on an island of tangled roots and mud. Ms. Altamirano, 57, admits that the canal water is polluted. Her eldest grandchildren learned to swim in the canal, she said, but these days, the water gives swimmers a rash. “Still,” she said, “we breathe pure air. ” With every farmer who, like Ms. Altamirano’s father, stops cultivating the chinampas, “we lose a part of our identity,” said Félix Venancio, an activist trying to protect the chinampas and the communal land, or ejido, in San Gregorio, a district of Xochimilco. The knowledge of chinampa farming “goes from generation to generation,” Mr. Venancio said. “We’re losing that. ” Dr. Figueroa, the biologist, said that the authorities were working on a new plan for preserving the wetlands, pulling together academics, farmers, businesses and different branches of government. Xochimilco, which was designated a World Heritage site by the United Nations in 1987, has had no shortage of preservation plans over the years, but they remain and funds “get lost along the way,” Dr. Figueroa said. “There’s a huge amount of corruption. ” She figures that, without a serious conservation effort, the canals will be gone in 10 to 15 years. But much of the damage was reversible, she said, adding: “It’s still a little paradise. ” | 0fake |
Teens walk free after gang-rape conviction | Teens walk free after gang-rape conviction Judge said group who left girl, 14, for dead appeared 'repentant' Published: 20 mins ago
(Deutsche Welle) In the wake of the news that a group of teenagers were unlikely to see any real punishment for gang-raping a 14-year-old girl and leaving her for dead, citizens of the German city of Hamburg called for new rules regarding violent crime committed by minors. On Monday, an online petition calling for the teens to see jail time had garnered some 21,000 signatures.
“The sexual self-determination and integrity of a woman must have more weight than any concern for the perpetrators,” [of sexual crimes,] says the petition.
According to an update on the Change.org petition, state prosecutors in Hamburg have said they will explore a way to make sure that the teens are punished despite laws that make it difficult for minors to be prosecuted and sentenced to detention. | 1real |
South Korea says Trump's warning to North Korea 'firm and specific' | SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump s speech to the United Nations, where he warned he would totally destroy North Korea if threatened, reinforced the need for Pyongyang to realize it must give up its nuclear weapons, South Korea said on Wednesday. In a hard-edged speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a rocket man for his repeated ballistic missile tests. We view the speech as portraying a firm and specific stance on the key issues regarding keeping peace and safety that the international community and the United Nations are faced with, the office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in a statement on Wednesday. It clearly showed how seriously the United States government views North Korea s nuclear program as the president spent an unusual amount of time discussing the issue, the presidential Blue House s statement said. Trump s speech reaffirmed that North Korea should be made to realize denuclearization is the only way to the future through utmost sanctions and pressure , it said. Moon came to power in May on a platform of more engagement with North Korea. Since Pyongyang s sixth and largest nuclear test earlier on Sept. 3, however, Moon has said the time is not right for dialogue. He and Trump plan to meet in New York early on Wednesday U.S. time, Moon s office said. Trump s most direct military threat to attack North Korea was his latest expression of concern about Pyongyang s repeated weapons tests. The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea, Trump told the 193-member world body. Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime. U.S. ally Japan, which Pyongyang often threatens to destroy, has taken a consistently hard line on North Korea, pushing for increased sanctions and pressure. We greatly appreciate President Trump s approach to changing North Korea s policy stance, denuclearizing the country and calling on the international community, including China and Russia, for their cooperation toward strengthening pressure on North Korea, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters. Suga also welcomed Trump s reference to a Japanese girl who was kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1977. The plight of abductees is a key issue for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has pledged to rescue them while in office, and an emotive one for the Japanese public. North Korea admitted in 2002 it had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train spies. Five of them returned to Japan but Tokyo suspects that hundreds more may have been taken. North Korea, which has conducted more than 80 missile tests under third-generation leader Kim, says it needs its weapons to protect itself from U.S. aggression. South Korea and the United States are technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty. U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis told an Air Force event on Wednesday that the effort to deal with Pyongyang was still diplomatically-led even as he acknowledged the somber reality that the Pentagon needed to have military options at the ready. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, speaking to CBS News, said on Wednesday the United States had lots of military options on North Korea that stop short of totally destroying the country, adding: There are steps that lead up to that. No one wants war, the president doesn t want war. We have tried to do this through dialogue, we have tried to do this through sanctions, we have tried every diplomatic measure that we possibly can. We re not giving up on diplomatic efforts, she said. The U.N. Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006, the latest earlier this month aimed at restricting fuel supplies and cutting off textile exports, a key foreign exchange earner. The United States has urged China, North Korea s main ally and trading partner, and Russia to do more to rein in Kim, something Trump appeared to allude to in his speech. It is an outrage that some nations would not only trade with such a regime but would arm, supply and financially support a country that imperils the world with nuclear conflict, Trump told the General Assembly. China s Foreign Ministry, asked to respond to Trump s comments about destroying North Korea if it had to, said U.N. resolutions were clear the Korean peninsula issue should be resolved peacefully through political and diplomatic means. The resolutions passed by the U.N. Security Council on North Korea reflected the common will and consensus of the international community to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing. | 0fake |
WATCH: Marco Rubio Says Trump Will ‘Have To Answer’ For Wiretapping Lies | Donald Trump s list of allies is getting shorter because of his outrageous accusation against President Obama.During the campaign, Marco Rubio fiercely opposed Trump but soon chose to kiss his ass and endorse him.Rubio has been reluctant to say anything against Trump ever since, but that changed over the weekend after Trump openly accused President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in a Saturday morning Twitter rant.Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017Trump offered zero evidence to back up his claims and both former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and current FBI Director James Comey have forcefully refuted Trump s accusation.And now Rubio, who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, says that Trump will have to answer for his lies. I have no evidence and no one has presented anything to me that indicates anything like that, Rubio told Meet The Press on Sunday. Suffice it to say I don t have any basis, I ve never heard that allegation made before by anybody. I ve never seen anything about that anywhere before. But again, the president put that out there, and now the White House will have to answer as to exactly what he was referring to. Chuck Todd went on t ask Rubio if he would concede that if Trump is lying that it would be a huge political scandal and Rubio agreed.Here s the video via YouTube:Trump is desperate to distract everyone from focusing on his ever-growing Russia scandal, so he made up this lie based on a conspiracy theory he read on Breitbart in the hopes that Congress and the media will shift their focus.This is a serious accusation against a former president and Trump should be severely punished for it. He has offered no evidence to prove his claim and that means he is slandering President Obama, which should result in a lawsuit and impeachment. But we all know that Republicans in Congress have zero credibility so they will more than likely shield Trump and pursue a witch hunt against Obama, who was a more honorable and respected president than Trump will ever be.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
ETHIOPIAN MUSLIM Monster Deported From U.S. 10 Years After Performing “Clitorectomy” On Daughter With Scissors | With a growing number of Muslim refugees and immigrants living in America who are strict adherents of Sharia Law, it should come as no surprise that female genital mutilation is not so uncommon anymore in many parts of the United States. It is a felony to perform a clitorectomy on a female in America, but getting caught is the hard part A petition from the womens group Equality Now reveals that immigration has put the United States on a list that will be much more difficult for progressive immigration enthusiasts to cheer. A massive influx of immigrants from Muslim-populated countries in Africa and the Middle East has led the group to conclude that more than half a million girls in the U.S. are in danger of having their exposed sexual organs skinned from their bodies.The practice is known as female genital mutilation (FGM).The Atlantic describes how the procedure is carried out:It usually involves the complete removal of the clitoris, and often the removal of some of the inner and outer labia. In its most extreme form infibulation almost all the external genitalia are cut away, the remaining flesh from the outer labia is sewn together, or infibulated, and the girl s legs are bound from ankle to waist for several weeks while scar tissue closes up the vagina almost completely. A small hole, typically about the diameter of a pencil, is left for urination and menstruation. The cutting is usually done with a razor, a kitchen knife, or a pair of scissors. It is rare for any anesthesia to be used.As the United States continues to mail out immigrant visas to countries with hostile and violent attitudes towards women, it will increasingly challenge Americans self-perception of what it means to live in a First World country.Haha Dukureh, an FGM-survivor and founder of the activist organization Safe Hands for Girls, warned that every year thousands of girls here in the United States go through female genital mutilation. Breitbart NewsA Gwinnett County Muslim man was deported today after female serving 10 years in an American prison (on the American taxpayer dime) for a genital mutilation sentence. An Ethiopian man convicted of aggravated battery and cruelty to children was removed from the United States on Monday.Khalid Adem, 41, was arrested for using scissors to mutilate the genitals of his 2-year-old daughter.He was deported on Monday after serving 10 years in prison.Adem was an Ethiopian citizen and native when he was living in Gwinnett County, Georgia in 2006. (He was convicted in 2006, but his wife who turned him in believes the crime was committed in 2001). His case was drew national attention for being the first criminal conviction in the United States for female genital mutilation (FGM).He became the catalyst for the specific criminalization of FGM under Georgia state law.Female genital mutilation is a federal crime, and any involvement in committing this crime is a human rights violation that results in imprisonment and potential deportation. (This crime includes doing the procedure within the United States as well as sending women overseas to be cut) . Jihad Watch | 1real |
U.S. Ambassador Haley: U.N. has exhausted options on North Korea | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Sunday the U.N. Security Council has run out of options on containing North Korea s nuclear program and the United States may have to turn the matter over to the Pentagon. We have pretty much exhausted all the things that we can do at the Security Council at this point, Haley told CNN s State of the Union, adding that she was perfectly happy to hand the North Korea problem over to Defense Secretary James Mattis. As world leaders head to the United Nations headquarters in New York for the annual General Assembly meeting this week, Haley s comments indicated the United States was not backing down from its threat of military action against North Korea. North Korea launched a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday in defiance of new U.N. Security Council sanctions banning its textile exports and capping imports of crude oil. China has urged the United States to refrain from making threats to North Korea. Asked about President Donald Trump s warning last month that the North Korean threat to the United States will be met with fire and fury, Haley said, It was not an empty threat. If North Korea keeps on with this reckless behavior, if the United States has to defend itself or defend its allies in any way, North Korea will be destroyed. And we all know that. And none of us want that. None of us want war, she said on CNN. We re trying every other possibility that we have, but there s a whole lot of military options on the table, she said. Pyongyang has launched dozens of missiles as it accelerates a weapons program designed to provide the ability to target the United States with a powerful, nuclear-tipped missile. North Korea said on Saturday it aimed to reach an equilibrium of military force with the United States. Trump plans to meet with South Korean President Jae-in Moon on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. I spoke with President Moon of South Korea last night. Asked him how Rocket Man is doing. Long gas lines forming in North Korea. Too bad! Trump said in a Twitter post on Sunday morning. White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Friday, after the latest North Korean missile launch, that the United States was running out of patience: We ve been kicking the can down the road, and we re out of road. On Sunday, he warned of imminent danger from Pyongyang. This regime is so close now to threatening the United States and others with a nuclear weapon, that we really have to move with a great sense of urgency on sanctions, on diplomacy and preparing, if necessary, a military option, McMaster told the Fox News Sunday program. Military options available to Trump range from a sea blockade aimed at enforcing sanctions to cruise missile strikes on nuclear and missile facilities to a broader campaign aimed at overthrowing leader Kim Jong Un. Mattis has warned the consequences of any military action would be tragic on an unbelievable scale and bring severe risk to U.S. ally South Korea. Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein said on Sunday that Trump should not rule out talks with North Korea before it agrees to end its nuclear program. I think that North Korea is not going to give up its program with nothing on the table, she said on CNN. Feinstein said that a freeze of both its nuclear program and missile arsenal, rather than ending them, would be more palatable to North Korea and to China, who fears the U.S. goal is toppling Kim. The United States still wants a peaceful solution and has been waiting for the North Koreans to indicate they are ready to talk, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on CBS Face the Nation. We have tried a couple of times to signal to them that we re ready, when they re ready, he said. And they have responded with more missile launches and a nuclear test. | 0fake |
New Interior chief vows review of Obama-era rules, 'bold' restructuring | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke plans to review Obama-era measures that limited energy development on some federal land and undertake a “bold” reorganization of his 70,000-employee agency, he said on Friday. The former U.S. congressman addressed employees at the Department of Interior’s headquarters on his second full day on the job, assuring them he would not sell off federal lands, as some had feared, but also promising change. “You can hear it from my lips: We will not sell or transfer public lands,” he said. The department manages about a fifth of the country’s surface, including national parks, forests and tribal territories, from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico. Zinke said he wanted to change the structure of the department, which includes the National Parks Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to give more authority to rangers and land managers outside the District of Columbia. “The last time the Department of Interior has been reorganized was about 100 years ago, so the reorganization is going to be bold,” he said. Zinke, who arrived on horseback for his first day at the department, did not provide specifics but said he would rely on input from Interior’s sub-agencies and bureaus. The ex-Navy SEAL said employee surveys showed the farther staffers were from Washington, the unhappier they were because “they felt they don’t have authority.” Zinke, whose home state of Montana is one-third federal land, addressed career employees who face an uncertain future under Republican President Donald Trump. Some worry that Trump’s platform would open the door to selling off public land and more mining and drilling. Others fear deep cuts to the agency’s budget. Zinke told staff he was “unhappy” about preliminary budget figures and would “fight” to secure more money. Zinke has advocated for mining and drilling on federal land. He told reporters after his speech that he would review some executive actions from the waning days of the administration of former president Barack Obama, a Democrat, that had placed more federal land off-limits to development. Those orders include limits to drilling in sensitive offshore areas like the Atlantic coast and Arctic, as well as a ban on new federal coal mining leases. “I think I am going to review everything that didn’t go through Congress,” Zinke said. However, he said the department would continue Obama’s effort to study whether coal leases had been properly valued to ensure taxpayers receive their fair value. “I think we all benefit from that rather than buying a junk bond,” he said. | 0fake |
HUH? GERMANS BOMBED PEARL HARBOR? Congressman Up For DNC Chair Needs A History Lesson! [Video] | The video from 2012 is a little blurry but the audio is fine this is just too funny! | 1real |
BILL CLINTON RECENTLY CAUGHT Making Racist Remarks: Obama’s Presidency Will Cause White Working Men To Die Sooner | The economic stagnancy of the Obama years is to blame for plummeting life expectancy rates among white, working-class Americans, according to former president Bill Clinton, who privately told Democratic donors that lower-income whites don t have anything to look forward to when they get up in the morning. Clinton made the remarks while speaking to at a November 2015 closed-door fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in Canton, Ohio.Echoing a theme of Republican nominee Donald Trump s campaign, the former president expressed his concern that white, working-class Americans have been left behind over the last eight years.Clinton expressed his frustration with the most recent (at that time) Democratic debate, which he said lacked a single mention of the fact that 84 percent of the American people, after inflation, had not had a raise of 1 cent since the financial crash. We have incredible debates all over America that shouldn t exist between people in different racial groups because they don t trust law enforcement anymore, he continued. And in the middle of all this we learned, breathtakingly, that middle-aged, non-college-educated white Americans life expectancy is going down and is now lower than Hispanics, even though they make less money. And the gap between African Americans and whites is closing, but unfortunately not because the death rate among African Americans is dropping but because the death rate among white Americans is rising. Clinton continued. Why? Because they don t have anything to look forward to when they get up in the morning. Because their lives are sort of stuck in neutral. Read more: Daily Caller | 1real |
Trump Suing Chicago After He's Forced To Cancel Rally
| After protests erupted in Chicago that led to the cancellation of a Donald Trump rally at the University of Illinois-Chicago Pavilion, the controversial Republican candidate has filed a lawsuit against the city for prohibiting his First Amendment right to free speech.
My free speech right was infringed last Friday in Chicago and thats what it will say in the lawsuit, Trump told reporters. Well be asking for a monetary settlement and for those protestors to be prosecuted. It was very, very wrong of them. I do not condone violence. Im very against violence, especially at my campaign events.
Trumps attorneys drew extensive papers on the lawsuit and are filled on Monday. A Chicago judge will review them by next week.
Chicago violated my First Amendment right and they arent going to get away with it. Just like China wont get away with stealing our jobs and manipulating their currency.
The campaign thinks a conspiracy might be involved with the anti-trump protesters. When the cops saw a bunch of black people entering my rally, they knew they shouldnt be there but let them in anyway. I mean, what the Hell is that?
Trump then went after Chicagos Mayor Rahm Emanuel. I know Rahm thinks hes a tough guy, but hell be a mouse looking for his mom by the time I get done with him. He makes Little Rubio look like a giant. A New Yorker will beat a Chicagoan every time. Believe me, he is going to regret not having his city under control.
He was terrible as Obamas Chief of Staff and hes been a terrible Mayor. Look at the gang problem and the cities credit rating.
Im happy Nabisco closed that Chicago factory and moved it to Mexico. I was against it before, but after tonight, Im totally for it.
The Mayor
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel1 called the lawsuit frivolous and ridiculous.
You cant have a presidential candidate going around suing cities because the local people dont like the guy, Emanuel told the Chicago Tribune. The city is in massive debt and the last thing we need is to be tied up in court for years to come cause we know Trump loves to sue people. Legal fees arent cheap.
Trump claimed the Chicago Police Department told him to call off the event but they responded by saying it was Trumps campaign that called off the event and the Chicago Police did not infringe on his free speech right.
If Trump thinks he can bully the City of Chicago, hes got another thing coming. | 1real |
U.S. must stop judicial 'extortion' of corporate Europe, French lawmakers say | PARIS (Reuters) - Europe should challenge the United States over its increasingly aggressive use of extraterritorial laws that have cost European companies - especially banks - billions in fines and other settlements, a French parliamentary report said. Still reeling from the $9 billion fine its biggest bank, BNP Paribas, had to pay U.S. authorities over violations of American sanctions against other countries, the French government has criticized in recent years what it considers the over-reach of the U.S. legal system. Paris’s main objections center on the U.S. Department of Justice’s broad interpretation of what it considers its jurisdiction. This sphere of influence can include transactions between non-Americans outside the U.S. where the U.S. dollar currency is involved. It can also cover deals and other actions taking place via the Internet using U.S. computer servers. “We consider that today’s situation amounts to abusive use of American law,” Karine Berger, a lawmaker from the ruling Socialist party told Reuters in an interview, calling the practices akin to “extortion”. “We ask France and Europe to let it be known to the United States that we will no longer accept this type of behavior.” In a non-binding investigative report last week, lawmakers from both the Socialist party and opposition conservatives said U.S. law appeared to be more punitive toward foreign firms than domestic ones. Although foreign firms accounted for only 30 percent of investigations opened by U.S. authorities between 1977 and 2014 under its anti-foreign bribery law, 67 percent of the amount levied in fines came from foreign companies, the report said. Since 2009, European banks such as HSBC and Deutsche Bank have paid about $16 billion to the United States over breaches of various sanction regimes. European firms have also accounted for 14 of the 15 biggest penalties, the report said. The report did not question U.S. regulators’ current prosecution of Deutsche Bank over mis-selling toxic mortgage securities before the financial crisis, since the actions took place in the United States. But it did say the DoJ had not taken account of the impact on the financial system that the $14 billion fine it sought from the German bank went on to have. Swiss bank Credit Suisse said on Sunday it has put five employees on leave while it investigates a tax-related matter. Swiss paper SonntagsZeitung reported that the move was connected to a U.S. probe of the bank’s Israeli unit over possible tax evasion. Berger said Europe’s response had not been forceful enough, and that both the European Union and individual member states should adapt their own legislation, which is why the report will be sent to counterparts at other EU parliaments. “There must be a legal rearmament in Europe, so we fight on equal terms with the United States in the field of economic competition,” Berger said. The European Union should consider challenging parts of the U.S. sanction regime at the World Trade Organisation, the report said, citing a 1998 precedent when Europeans successfully forced the U.S. to back down over Congressional sanctions against Cuba, Libya and Iran that could have affected European firms. The EU should update a 1996 ban on European firms complying with U.S. sanctions based on such extraterritorial legislation, giving European firms a legal “excuse” to reject U.S. demands. European countries and institutions should also encourage the use of the euro for global transactions and strengthen the use of intelligence services for economic means. Citing the recent EU ruling asking Apple to pay up to 13 billion euros in back taxes to Ireland, Berger said Europe should not be afraid to be more confrontational. “It shows Europe is perfectly capable of waging this economic war since the U.S. is only going to keep it up,” she said. | 0fake |
China, C.I.A., International Women’s Day: Your Morning Briefing - The New York Times | Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • China warned of a nuclear arms race after the U. S. began delivering parts of an advanced missile defense system, known as Thaad, to South Korea. It’s meant to counter the growing threat from North Korea, but China fears that such systems could encourage U. S. consideration of a first strike to destroy the relatively small Chinese nuclear arsenal. The tensions are creating a difficult balancing act for the Trump administration. _____ • WikiLeaks’ latest release, if confirmed, would rock the technology world and deliver a serious blow to the C. I. A. The Vault 7 documents offer details of C. I. A. hacking tools used to break into smartphones, computers and even televisions. Entirely compromised smart phones yielded the contents of encrypted messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp. WikiLeaks said the source was raising policy questions that “urgently need to be debated in public. ” Here’s a look at how vulnerable your smartphone might be to hacking. _____ • One of India’s biggest foreign charities, Compassion International, is closing operations in the country, the latest and most prominent victim of the Modi government’s crackdown on outside aid groups. Like more than 11, 000 other nongovernmental agencies, the Christian group had been blocked from access to foreign funds. Above, one of 500 partner groups that will be forced to shut down. _____ • More than 330, 000 acutely malnourished children, 3. 3 million people in need of medical care, 7, 731 cases of cholera. The U. N. secretary general, António Guterres, listed data points of desperation as he visited Somalia to make an urgent appeal for $825 million in aid for about half the population. • President Trump and his allies have for years accused China, Japan and others of protectionism. Our correspondents analyze that claim and what the Trump administration might do to reduce the U. S. trade deficit, which rose 9. 6 percent in January to a high. • ZTE, the Chinese tech giant, agreed to pay the U. S. $1. 19 billion for selling electronics to North Korea and Iran, the largest criminal fine in a U. S. sanctions case. • China releases trade data for February, and Japan announces its regular G. D. P. revision. • Beijing’s $300 billion plan to make China in a range of industries, from planes to computer chips to electric cars, is raising alarm among international companies. • Almost half of Masayoshi Son’s $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund is made up of Saudi money, prompting our financial columnist to urge a broader discussion of the fund’s plans to invest $50 billion in the U. S. • Saudi Arabia’s oil minister said the initial public offering of Saudi Aramco was on track for 2018. The Saudis plan to offer 5 percent of the company, which could raise $20 billion to $100 billion, but questions remain about transparency, privatization and . • Wall Street was lower, but oil was up. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Iraqi forces pushed into western Mosul, retaking a major bridge and a ransacked archaeological museum from the Islamic State. [The New York Times] • Thirty people were killed in Myanmar’s Shan State when Kokang rebels attacked a hotel, casinos and police and army posts near the Chinese border. [The New York Times] • Australia’s highest court hears a constitutional challenge to the government’s practice of detaining asylum seekers who are sent to the country from offshore camps for medical treatment. [The New York Times] • Australian police officers in Queensland saved a British woman who had been held captive by a former boyfriend for months. [The New York Times] • A new study put the number of people living in other countries as of 2015 at 15. 6 million, or one in every 20 global migrants. The top destinations: the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan. [Quartz] • Germany and Turkey have been trading barbs over free speech as campaigning heats up ahead of a Turkish referendum that could expand the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Some 1. 5 million Turks living in Germany are eligible to vote. [The New York Times] • Traffic signs of pedestrians in dresses, part of a gender equality campaign in Melbourne, Australia, are getting a mixed reception. [BBC] • “Real life” textbooks for Chinese primary schools set off intense debate over their depictions of genitalia, couples having sex and homosexuality. [South China Morning Post] • Kyle Higashioka, a catcher for the New York Yankees, grew up a quintessential Californian. He’s begun to explore his family’s roots — by learning to speak Japanese. [The New York Times] • Do you eat before you exercise in the morning? It might be worth reversing that order. • Readers responded to a touching essay by a writer who, after learning she will soon die, composed a dating profile for her husband. • Recipe of the day: Will your St. Patrick’s Day be far from a New York deli? Making your own corned beef takes just a little planning. • Paris Fashion Week is almost over. Then there’s Tokyo. Shanghai. Australia. It seems as if every country now has a fashion week — or two, like Kazakhstan, or three, like Indonesia. Above, last year’s Lagos Fashion Week, in Nigeria. • And indulge your escapist fantasies with this year’s U. S. News World Report survey of the best countries in the world. Switzerland took the top spot and Japan came in fifth. The best country for retirees was New Zealand, followed by Australia. Today, for International Women’s Day, let’s see which country tops the list of female representation in Parliament. Rwanda. Out of 80 seats in the lower house, 49 are held by women (61 percent) as are 10 of the 26 in the upper house (38 percent) according to an international organization of parliaments. Since 2003, the country has required that at least 30 percent of representatives be female. Next: Bolivia, where a 2009 measure requires women to occupy at least 50 percent of elected positions. Women now hold 69 of the 130 seats in the lower house (53 percent) and 17 of 36 in the upper house (47 percent). Cuba, in third, uses “positive discrimination,” putting women in almost half the seats in the National Assembly. Iceland, Nicaragua, Sweden, Senegal, Mexico, Finland and South Africa fill out the top 10. The U. S. is No. 104, with 83 women out of 435 representatives and 21 of 100 senators. “The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them,” the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, told a Harvard graduating class in 2011. “If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough. ” Caryn A. Wilson contributed reporting. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. | 0fake |
‘LARGEST’ $20 MILLION FOOD STAMP BUST Raises Red Flags Over Names Involved [Video] | Florida has had its share of food stamp busts but South Florida reached a fraud milestone for what the Justice Department called the largest combined financial fraud loss for a food stamp trafficking takedown in history. RED FLAGS RAISED OVER NAMES INVOLVED:That dubious new record, federal prosecutors claim, is $20 million and resulted in a dozen charged with doing the government dirty via food stamp fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.The 12 charged over four cases are Hasan Saleh, 59, Mohammed Alobaisi, 37, Reynold Francois, 38, Ihab Hassouna, 44, Mohammad Alteen, 33, Maria Jerdana, 36, Joe Ann Baker, 56, Yousef Joe Homedan Zahran, 60, Omar Hajje, 43, Jalal Hajyousef, 42, Andy Javier Herrera, 24, and father Javier Herrera, 49.Mostly Muslims The government makes it easier for immigrants to get small business loans with the INVESTOR VISA PROGRAM. Is our government setting itself up for fraud when they knowingly give loans to these people?NEWS REPORT ON THE BOLD LAWLESSNESS:Check out the names below and you ll see that so many times foreigners come to America to scam the food stamp system. We have reported on numerous scams involving immigrants and food stamps. Believe us they come from all over the world to take your money! Here are just a few examples of foreign-run convenience stores caught in food stamp fraud millions and millions stolen and probably sent overseas:OUR PAST REPORTS ON FOOD STAMP FRAUD: IMMIGRANT Ghanaian Woman Pleads Guilty To $3.6 Million in Food Stamp Fraud Media Ignores Her Immigrant Status22 LATINOS ARRESTED In Largest Food Stamp Fraud Bust In History Here s How They Did ItALABAMA FRAUD: FOOD STAMPS TO CASH SENT TO YEMEN3 BUSTED, 4 AT LARGE! IMMIGRANT MUSLIM GROUP Ran Huge Food Stamp Fraud RingIs this connected to the Investor visa program? It makes you wonder if they have training programs abroad in how to buy convenience stores in the US and rip off the dumb (infidel) Americans!$20 MILLION LOST IN FOOD STAMP SCAM: In this instance, eight small convenience stores in South Florida committed a staggering amount of fraud in a relatively short amount of time, said Karen Citizen-Wilcox, special agent in charge, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Office of the Inspector General, in a release. These retailers created an illegal benefits exchange system that defrauded the American taxpayer and denied healthy foods to needy children and their families. The store owners who allegedly orchestrated this trafficking scheme pocketed millions in fees which they charged for converting food assistance benefits into cash. Some of the defendants owned, worked at or operated stores authorized to accept Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program payments, known as SNAP. Others worked at stores not authorized, but allegedly used the point-of-sale terminals for stores that were authorized.The fraud happened like this, according to authorities: A store clerk swipes a person s electronic benefits card at a point-of-sale terminal for a large amount. The person with the card is paid a lesser amount in cash. The remainder is ill-gotten profit for the store owner.The bust from Operation Stampede/Cash Hungry in Florida involved more than $13 million in fraudulent food-stamp transactions and could be the largest food stamp bust in the nation s history. The Palm Beach County Sheriff s Office, state and federal law enforcement conducted a joint identity theft investigation involving obtaining SNAP EBT cards with the stolen identities. According to the sheriff s office, the fraudulently obtained EBT cards were taken to the Opa Locka Flea Market where the SNAP(food stamp or EBT) benefits allocated to them were exchanged for cash. Twenty two people have been charged with crimes.Saleh managed Four Corners convenience store, 821 NW Sixth St. in Fort Lauderdale, which wasn t authorized to take SNAP payments. Prosecutors say Saleh and other Four Corners employees used the point-of-sale terminals at Liberty City s Sparkle, 6530 NW 18th Ave., run by Alobaisi. Prosecutors say that from April 2015 through this past August, Saleh, Alobaisi and employees Francois, Hassouna, Alteen, Jerdana and Baker stole $2 million with the scheme.Case No. 2 involved Zahran, also known as Youssef Hussein, who worked at Pompano Beach s Community Food Store, 401 NW 27th Ave. He is being accused of being on the fraud train a relatively short time, Nov. 3, 2016, through Jan. 11.Hajje and Hajyousef owned Steve Market 2 and Yum-Yum s grocery, stores across the street from each other at 6804 NW 15th Ave. and 6813 NW 15th Ave. in Miami s Liberty City neighborhood. They allegedly fraudulently acquired $4.2 million.But federal prosecutors give the money title, $10 million, to the Herreras, who also allegedly ran their game longer than everyone else April 2012 through last month. Andy owned Santa Ana Market II, 1832 NW 17th Ave. in Miami. Father Javier worked there and Santa Ana Market, 3000 NW 12th Ave. Javier has convictions for third-degree grand theft and lottery violations on his rap sheet.Read more here: Miami Herald | 1real |
AS JIHADI’S TIES TO ISIS Are Exposed…Obama’s DOJ Tells Muslims: “We stand with you in this” | As one would expect the Obama regime is tripping all over the dead bodies of this tragedy to promote gun control. They only take a break from their embarrassing behavior to assure Muslim s they ve got their backs. Will this nightmare ever end?On Thursday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, speaking at the Muslim Advocate s 10th anniversary dinner, shockingly refused to focus on the Muslim community after the terrorist attacks committed by Muslims in San Bernardino and Paris, instead. She reassured her audience, We stand with you in this. In another astonishing moment, Lynch said that since the Paris attacks, her greatest concern has been the incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric that fear is my greatest fear. One humdred thirty people were massacred by Muslim terrorists in Paris last month, added to the 17 killed in the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket attacks in Paris, plus the 14 slaughtered in San Bernardino, the 13 soldiers murdered at Fort Hood, and the four Marines killed in Chattanooga. Lynch would not say how many Muslims have been killed in the United States because of backlash.Lynch pontificated, When we talk about the First Amendment we [must] make it clear that actions predicated on violent talk are not American. They are not who we are, they are not what we do, and they will be prosecuted My message not just to the Muslim community but to all Americans is We cannot give in to the fear that these backlashes are really based on. The Obama Administration has been loath to ascribe any religious motive to Muslim terrorists, with the Defense Department referring to the Fort Hood slaughter as workplace violence, Obama himself saying the murderers at the kosher Paris supermarket randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris, and Obama assiduously avoiding any reference to Islam or Muslims in his statement after the massive Paris terror assault.Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
The Fix Is In: NBC Affiliate Accidentally Posts Election Results A Week Early: Hillary Wins Presidency 42% to Trump’s 40% | NBC affiliate WRCB TV in Chattanooga, Tennessee has inadvertently posted election night results. The results page appears to be similar to what mainstream news networks display on election night, including Presidential and Congressional results, the popular vote count, electoral votes, and percentage of precincts reporting.
The page, a screen shot of which has been sourced from internet archive site The Wayback Machine , is posted below and shows totals for the upcoming Presidential race. It announces Hillary Clinton as the winner.
As Jim Stone notes, the page was pulled directly from the WorldNow.com content management platform utilized by major networks like NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox and appears to be a non-public staging area for news and election results.
The original page has since been reset.
( Click here for full size image )
Though the results information appears on an FTP server at WorldNow.com, media companies like NBC’s WRCB TV utilize the platform, also know as “Frankly,” to power their news content. This can be verified directly a the WRCB web site by scrolling to the very bottom of the page footer which notes that it is, “Powered By Frankly.”
In addition to national results, Jim Stone has identified another page at the WorldNow.com FTP server that appears to show the State-By-State Presidential election results. This page is also accessible in archive format at WayBack Machine with a line by line breakdown available at Stone’s website.
Of interest is that the State-By-State results indicate a Hillary Clinton win in states like Texas (42% to 40%), Florida (44% to 40%) and Pennsylvania (44% to 40%) which have all been identified as states Clinton must steal to win the election .
Do these latest election “results” confirm that the fix is in and the vote is rigged?
If so, then we are no longer looking at an election where our votes will count, but rather, a selection where the winner is determined by those who count the votes.
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Are you ready for the disaster that will follow this election? | 1real |
Russia Drops Bombshell, Confirms It’s Been Talking To Trump Throughout Campaign (DETAILS) | For the entirety of Donald Trump s presidential campaign, there was a massive amount of suspicion surrounding the reality television star s relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin. It turns out that just two days after Trump has gotten elected to be the next President of the United States, most of our instincts were correct.On Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov confirmed that there were contacts between the Trump campaign the Russian embassy staff throughout this election. He said: Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage. Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions. I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives. This news comes after we d already seen various instances where Trump embraced and praised Putin during his campaign, giving the impression that these two might actually be best friends. Trump had also said he would improve America s relations with Russia, and told NATO allies they ll need to pay tribute to the United States if they want to continue to have protection against possible Russian aggression. Trump s relationship with Russia concerned intelligence and foreign policy experts alike and it should concern all of us as well. Trump has lied about his relationship with Russia much like he has lied about everything else in his presidential campaign. Trump repeatedly told Americans that he had not been interacting with the Kremlin even in the face of evidence that he was praising Putin. Once again, Ryabkov contradicted Trump s previous denial when he said: We have just begun to consider ways of building dialogue with the future Donald Trump administration and channels we will be using for those purposes. It s also useful to point out that Trump s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort resigned from the campaign after the New York Times reported that ledgers discovered in Ukraine found that millions of dollars had been earmarked for Trump from the pro-Russian political party of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. If that isn t shady, I don t know what is.Now that the election is over, Trump s lies are being exposed one by one. His followers are going to be devastated when they find out who they really elected.Featured image via Adam Berry and Mark Wilson / Getty Images | 1real |
LT GEN JOHN KELLY’S INCREDIBLE SPEECH Just Days After His Own Son Was Killed In Action: “Brave Men On Watch All Over the World Tonight—For YOU” | Just days after the death of his own son in combat, Lt Gen John Kelly eulogized two other sons in an unforgettable manner:Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 The Walking Dead, and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour.Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines.The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda. Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island.They were from two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would never have met each other, or understood that multiple America s exist simultaneously depending on one s race, education level, economic status, and where you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. You clear? I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: Yes Sergeant, with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, No kidding sweetheart, we know what we re doing. They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way perhaps 60-70 yards in length and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped.Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different.The regimental commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I d have to do it as a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine. They all said, We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing. The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion.All survived. Many were injured some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, They d run like any normal man would to save his life. What he didn t know until then, he said, and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal. Choking past the emotion he said, Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and done what they did. No sane man. They saved us all. What we didn t know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. The two Marines had about five seconds left to live. It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines weapons firing non-stop the truck s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers American and Iraqi bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have know they were safe because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God.Six seconds.Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight for you. | 1real |
Joe Biden DESTROYS Trump In Fiery DNC Speech: Hillary Gets It, Trump – Not A Clue (VIDEO) | Everyone paying attention to the 2016 presidential election, regardless of politics, realizes that Donald Trump is not fit to hold the office he seeks. The man is clearly dangerously unqualified to take the oath of the presidency, and the idea that he might do so in January is absolutely terrifying.Well, the Democrats have put together a star-studded event to make sure that voters understand what is at stake here, and to make sure that people vote blue from the top on down this November, and one such star was none other then Vice President Joe Biden. VP Biden is likeable, adorable, smart, charming and funny. He s also incredibly knowledgeable. He knows what he is talking about, and he knows that the difference between the two choices this year is like night and day. Here is what Biden said, in part, to make his case against Trump, via Daily Kos:Let me say this as clearly as I can, if you live in the neighborhoods like the ones Jill and I grew up in, if you worry about your job and getting a decent pay, if you worry about your children s education, if you are taking care of an elderly parent, then there is only one person in the selection will help you, only one person in this race who will be there, who has always been there for you and that is Hillary Clinton s life story. Not just who she is, it is her life story. [Cheers] She is always there. She has always been there. [Cheers] And so has Tim kaine. [Cheers]Ladies and gentlemen, let s say the obvious, I really meant, that is not Donald Trump story. Just listen to me a second without doing or cheering. Booing or cheering, his cynicism is undoubtedly his lack of empathy and compassion can be summed up in that phrase he is most proud of making famous, you re fired. I m not joking. Think about that. Think about that. Think about everything you learned as a child. No matter where you were raised, how can there be pleasure in saying you re fired? He is trying to tell us he cares about the middle class. Give me a break. That is a bunch of malarkey. [Cheers]Whatever he thinks, whatever he thinks, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I know I m called middle-class Joe and in Washington, that is not meant as a compliment. It means you are not sophisticated. I know why we are strong, I know why we are held together, I know why we are united, it is because there has always been a growing middle class. This guy does not have a clue about the middle class. Not a clue. [Cheers] Because folks, when the hill class middle class does well, the rich do very well and the poor have hope. They have a way out. He has no clue about what makes America great. Actually, he has no clue period. [Cheers]Not a clue! Not a clue! Not a clue!Folks, let me say, let me say something that has nothing to do with politics. Let me talk about something that I m deadly serious about. This is a complicated and uncertain world we live in. The threats are two great too great, the times are too uncertain to elect Donald Trump as resident of the united States. Let me finish, no major party, no major party nominee in the history of the station has ever known less or been less prepared to do with our national security deal with our national security.Our vice president is right. This is not about politics anymore. Trump is incompetent, and dangerously so. He has no clue about the economy, national security, or anything else. He doesn t understand what makes the nation function, even on the most basic level, and he certainly doesn t understand what makes it great. The choice is clear, my fellow Americans. Vote for a demagogue who peddles in hate and fear who is completely unprepared to occupy the Oval Office, or vote for the woman who knows what she is doing and will continue to KEEP America great.Watch Vice President Biden s incredible speech below:Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
University of Washington Tacoma Declares Proper Grammar Is Racist - Breitbart | The Writing Center at the University of Washington, Tacoma, is telling students that expecting Americans to use proper grammar perpetuates racism. [A press release put out by UW Tacoma’s Writing Center argues that “there is no inherent ‘standard’ of English,” and that pressure to conform to proper American grammar standards perpetuate systems of racism. “Linguistic and writing research has shown clearly for many decades that there is no inherent ‘standard’ of English,” claims the writing center’s statement. “Language is constantly changing. These two facts make it very difficult to justify placing people in hierarchies or restricting opportunities and privileges because of the way people communicate in particular versions of English. ” The university’s Writing Center Director, Dr. Asoa Inoue, suggests that racism has produced certain unfair standards in education. “It is a founding assumption that, if believed, one must act differently than we, the institution and its agents, have up to this point,” Inoue claimed. While overt racism is usually easily identified, more elusive are microaggressions, forms of degradation which manifest on a subconscious and casual level. As the statement reads “Racism is pervasive. It is in the systems, structures, rules, languages, expectations, and guidelines that make up our classes, school, and society. ” The university’s Vice Chancellor, Jill Purdy, claimed that the Writing Center’s new statement is a great example of how academia can fight back against racism. “Language is the bridge between ideas and action,” she claimed. “So how we use words has a lot of influence on what we think and do. ” | 0fake |
Ryan says U.S. House will put up funds to build Mexico border wall: MSNBC interview | (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday the House would fund a wall President Donald Trump wants to build along the U.S.-Mexico border. “We’re going to pay for it and front the money up,” Ryan said in an interview with MSNBC when asked who is going to pay for the wall. “There are a lot of different ways of getting Mexico to contribute to doing this,” Ryan said. | 0fake |
Former soccer star Kaladze runs for mayor in Georgia's capital | TBILISI (Reuters) - Kakha Kaladze climbed to the top of world soccer as a defender for Italian club AC Milan, and now his career is taking another turn: he wants to become the mayor of the capital city in his native country of Georgia. Kaladze, now 39 and running as a candidate for the ruling Georgian Dream party, has an advantage over the other seven candidates in the field as one of ex-Soviet Georgia s most recognizable public figures. He told Reuters after a campaign event he considered his career in sport was good preparation for politics. It taught him about teamwork. Every time when I talk about success in politics or in sport, I stress how important it is to have a team of professionals, he said. Kaladze has more than 30 percent support among likely voters, the National Democratic Institute said in a report this month more than any other candidates. His closest competitor is likely to be Zaal Udumashvili, a well-known former television anchor who is representing the United National Movement, an opposition party. The result may have to be decided in a second round run-off. Some voters see Kaladze as the favorite, in part because he has the backing of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of the Georgian Dream party and Georgia s richest man. I m sure Kaladze will be elected as a mayor, said Nugzar Malkhazashvili, a 47-year-old doctor and resident of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Kaladze s soccer career included a spell at Ukrainian club Dynamo Kyiv, then a period at AC Milan during which the club were Italian league champions once and won the UEFA Champions League twice. He finished his career at another Italian club, Genoa, before retiring in 2011. Kaladze was also a successful businessman, owning a handful of investments in Georgia, Ukraine, Italy and Kazakhstan. He entered politics in the year he retired, becoming an active supporter of Ivanishvili. He has served as energy minister and deputy prime minister in governments dominated by Ivanishvili s allies. In the race for mayor of the Georgian capital he has promised to solve problems with traffic by building new roads and overpasses, improve ecology by constructing new parks and green zones and to address education and healthcare problems. He said he was already looking beyond the election, and focusing on how he will fulfill his promises. I don t see October 21 (the election day) as a problem. I anticipate difficulties after October 21. We will have serious challenges, but I hope that we will overcome all difficult barriers, Kaladze told Reuters. | 0fake |
WATCH: Ted Cruz Pushes Birther’s Bizarre Star Wars Video Supporting His Presidential Run | Ted Cruz is promoting the work of a birther filmmaker who has created a bizarre YouTube video that casts the right-wing Texas senator as the hero of the Star Wars movies. Cruz s campaign pushed a link featuring the video in a blast email to supporters: In honor of the latest Star Wars movie, the team here at Cruz HQ wanted to share with you a YouTube video created by a fellow supporter that depicts Senator Cruz as a Jedi Warrior, fighting for the Constitution, the Cruz campaign wrote in an email to supporters last night, linking to a fawning Breitbart article about the video.The video shows Cruz riding an elephant with a lightsaber made out of the U.S. Constitution moving from state to state, flipping them from Democratic blue to Republican red. The video ends with Cruz confronting President Obama flanked by a phalanx of RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and restoring liberty.The film was created by birther filmmaker Joel Gilbert, who produced the anti-Obama propaganda film Dreams from My Real Father. In that film, Gilbert indulges in the conspiracy theory that Obama s father was Communist Frank Marshall Davis. The video also uses fake images to smear President Obama s mother, claiming that she posed for sexual photos.Gilbert also claims that Obama has had plastic surgery so that his nose no longer resembles Davis. Gilbert also alleges that the president is secretly a Muslim, despite the ample evidence that he is a practicing Christian, and claims that the 2012 presidential election was stolen. He writes columns for World Net Daily, a leading pro-birther conspiracy website affiliated with Donald Trump.Pushing the video is just the latest example of Cruz s significant habit of stroking his own ego, often indulging in hyperbolic speech to cast himself and his campaign as central figures in a hero/persecution myth.Featured image via YouTube | 1real |
Two dead in Russian apartment collapse after apparent gas blast | MOSCOW (Reuters) - At least two people died and two were injured on Thursday after a part of a nine-storey building collapsed in the Russian city of Izhevsk, an emergencies ministry official said, after an apparent gas explosion. The official said there were still some people trapped under debris of the building in Izhevsk, which is 1,220 km (760 miles) east of Moscow and hosts the plant that manufactures the famed Kalashnikov assault rifle. Russia s Investigation Committee said a natural gas blast appeared to have caused the building collapse. There have been several similar accidents across Russia in recent years due to a poor safety record of gas usage, including in the southern Russian city of Volgograd in December 2015 where at least five people died. | 0fake |
Trump Jr. Once Again Shows His Lack Of Humanity With Disgusting Tweet About Syrian Refugees | We ve all seen the horrific photos of children who are victims of the Syrian Civil War. Perhaps the most infamous is the one of the little boy sitting, covered in blood and dirt, barefoot, in the back of an ambulance. He is clearly in shock. It shows us just what that kind of war does to a society, to ordinary people, and children just like us, just like the kids in our own lives.via Mirror.co.UKWell, there is one person who is completely unmoved by these images: Donald Trump Jr. The Donald s mini me has long shown his lack of humanity. After all, he made a disgusting Holocaust reference when trying to tear down the media s coverage of Hillary Clinton, saying if the GOP did what the Democrats are doing, they d be warming up the gas chamber. Well, now, he s gone into the gutter again, this time regarding Syrian refugees. Trump Jr sent out the following tweet, comparing refugees to a bowl of Skittles:This image says it all. Let's end the politically correct agenda that doesn't put America first. #trump2016 pic.twitter.com/9fHwog7ssN Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 19, 2016And as if this weren t bad enough, comparing human beings to a bowl of candy, this is actually a white supremacist meme.The Skittles are a reference to white supremacist meme. Changed from M&Ms to Skittles because of George Zimmerman. https://t.co/86FsWdft5O Laura Seay (@texasinafrica) September 20, 2016George Zimmerman is, of course, the wannabe cop who got away with murdering Trayvon Martin, a black teen who was walking home from the store in Florida with only a can of iced tea and a package of skittles. So, in other words, once again, Trump Jr. is openly courting white supremacists on his father s behalf.Skittles spokeswoman Denise Young said that her company, Wrigley, which is the parent company that produces skittles, didn t believe Trump Jr s image was appropriate. She went on to say: Skittles are candy. Refugees are people. We don t feel it s an appropriate analogy. We will respectfully refrain from further commentary as anything we say could be misinterpreted as marketing. The Trump campaign is so repugnant that even candy makers have to speak out. This meme is racist, disgusting, and is just another sign of what a morally bankrupt family the Trumps are. Do everything you can to keep them out of the White House, folks. VOTE BLUE.Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
PLAYING POLITICS? HERE’S WHY A JUDGE Will Unseal A Clinton Search Warrant [Video] | 1real | |
Russia Looks to Populate Its Far East. Wimps Need Not Apply. - The New York Times | Russia — Standing ankle deep in mud in a swampy grassland more than 4, 000 miles from his home, Yuri A. Bugaev surveyed a wasteland that the Russian government is offering to pioneers under its own version of the 1862 Homestead Act in the United States. “This is not really what I had in mind,” said Mr. Bugaev, who had traveled across seven time zones from St. Petersburg, Russia, to scout the possibilities for settlers in the country’s sparsely populated Far East, a territory roughly the size of the United States. The nine Far Eastern regions targeted for settlement in the government’s land giveaway, which began on June 1, encompass more than a third of Russia but are home to only 6. 1 million people. This is just 4 percent of the country’s population and compares with the 110 million Chinese living across the border in the three provinces that make up Manchuria. Mr. Bugaev is a dedicated, if largely sedentary, Cossack, a fraternity of Slavic warriors, freebooters and rebels. A romantic throwback to earlier generations of Cossacks who settled and secured the borders of the Russian empire, he sees getting his Cossack brethren and other Russians to move out east as the only way to keep mostly empty Russian lands safe from China. For years, he said, he had dreamed of Russia embracing, or rather the pioneer spirit, and he was delighted by the Kremlin’s backing of a program meant to reassert the country’s manifest destiny as a power. All the same, he conceded that not many Russians living in the European side of Russia, who dream of a house in London or Paris, not a shack in a swamp near China, share his zeal for a new life in wild eastern regions that many associate with labor camps and convicts. “Most people these days don’t want an adventure,” he said. The Russian government, however, is intent on proving otherwise and on giving some substance to a command by President Vladimir V. Putin in 2013 that the development of Siberia and the Far East must be “our national priority for the entire 21st century. ” How to get people to settle in the Far East is a question that has preoccupied and confounded Russian rulers since the establishment of a Russian naval base on the Pacific Ocean at Okhotsk in the 17th century. Cossacks, convicts and desperate peasants have often been the only takers. In Communist times, labor camps, heavy investment in remote industrial sites and the construction of a second railroad across Siberia and the Far East revived the eastward flow of people. But this ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and residents began to drift away. A population of more than eight million dwindled by about two million. Russia’s Ministry for the Development of the Far East, the agency managing this latest development gambit, cited a survey it commissioned, saying that 20 percent of Russians would be ready to move east if given free land. Younger Russians, the ministry said, were even more enthusiastic, with more than 50 percent expressing an interest in heading east to take advantage of the offer — one free hectare, about two and a half acres, a person. But as often happens in Russia, grandiose hopes and plans have run far ahead of the reality on the ground, where bureaucrats, appalling weather and immense distances conspire to smother the Kremlin’s ambitions. “It is all pie in the sky,” said Vladimir V. Mishchenko, the head of the Khankaisky district, one of nine pilot areas chosen by Moscow to test the free land program. He complained that the whole thing had been dreamed up by people in Moscow who had no understanding of the Far East but needed to show the Kremlin that they were doing something. For the moment, the free land is restricted to small areas, like the Khankaisky area around an isolated settlement north of Vladivostok, and is open only to Russians already living in the Far East. Starting in February, however, all Russian citizens can apply, and Mr. Bugaev wants to make sure he is ready to “help save Russia. ” At the start of his scouting mission, after a flight to Vladivostok from Moscow, he found his hotel packed with Chinese, mostly tourists. Donning his Cossack fur hat, he declared his mission even more urgent than he had thought. He set off the next day for to inspect the land on offer, driving for hours in torrential rain through sodden taiga and mostly empty villages. Undaunted, he said he thought there were enough hardy souls ready to join his organization, the Far Eastern Hectare Social Movement, a private outfit set up in St. Petersburg to drum up interest in the free land program and to organize new settlements. Its website explains that it is possible to be a pioneer without even leaving home, at least to start with. People can simply apply for free land and pool what they get so a larger plot can be developed by a few adventurous souls. If this works, those who contribute land but stay behind in St. Petersburg can move east later, after most of the hard work is done. “Virtually nobody wants to come out here right now,” Mr. Bugaev conceded, complaining that the available plots — about 12, 000 square yards a person — cannot possibly support sustainable agriculture or any other business venture. (American pioneers got more than 60 times that amount — 160 acres — under the Homestead Act.) The Russian plan has been derided as a dreamy patriotic stunt cooked up by Kremlin image makers or a scam that will end up enriching officials, who have the right to take back the land after five years if they decide development targets have not been met. The Kremlin, however, has thrown its weight behind the program, set in motion this summer with a blitz of publicity on state news media presenting the Far East as an El Dorado of opportunity, and the start of a government website that allows citizens to view plots of land and make online applications. The official website went down as soon as it was unveiled, a mishap that Aleksei A. Navalny, the renowned anticorruption campaigner, said was probably a deliberate malfunction engineered by officials so they could grab the best land for themselves. Mr. Navalny, in a report last month, noted that coveted plots on the shore of a picturesque lake outside had been snapped up by the time the website started working again. Yan P. Ovodenko, a local official, denied that the lakeside plots had all been taken. A more serious blow to Mr. Bugaev’s hopes was delivered by Mr. Mishchenko, the district head. While the area might look empty, he explained, nearly all the land is already owned or at least claimed by somebody. And even if Mr. Bugaev were to get allotted land, developing it would require cooperation from 22 different government agencies responsible for enforcing a thicket of rules and regulations. “The water code, you have to abide by it town planning code, you have to abide by it land code, you have to abide by it border area rules, you have to abide by them prescriptions of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, you have to abide by them forest regulation, you have to abide by it,” the district chief said. Of the 460 people who have applied since June 1, Mr. Mishchenko said, 390 have been rejected outright because they failed to provide the necessary information. In all, only four people, all from Vladivostok, have thus far secured plots. “For any meaningful agriculture, you need 5, 000 hectares to start off,” Mr. Mishchenko said. “And those lands don’t exist. They’ve been snapped up a long time ago. ” Undeterred by his initial finding in Khankaisky district, Mr. Bugaev pressed on. A Cossack leader in the regional administration in Vladivostok, Oleg Melnikov, assured him that the land giveaway was on track and faced no serious problems. A local company involved in agriculture also liked Mr. Bugaev’s plans for an updated version of collective farming and urged him to focus on trying to find people in St. Petersburg ready to apply for plots of land. “I think this will all work out,” Mr. Bugaev said, warily eyeing Chinese tourists crowded in the lobby of his Vladivostok hotel. “This is not just for adventure but to save Russia. ” | 0fake |
VIDEO : Black Professor, “Black Voters Are Breaking For Trump” – TruthFeed | VIDEO : Black Professor, “Black Voters Are Breaking For Trump” VIDEO : Black Professor, “Black Voters Are Breaking For Trump” Videos By Amy Moreno November 4, 2016
Obama and Hillary avoid talking about black poverty rates, unemployment, and crime in black communities because the statistics are a NIGHTMARE.
Global politics have destroyed blacks.
Instead, they talk about “racism” as if black people are so unsophisticated that they can’t see truth or facts for themselves.
This professor says that black voters see the truth and are much smarter than Democrats give them credit – and they’re breaking for Trump this election.
Watch the video: This is a movement – we are the political OUTSIDERS fighting against the FAILED GLOBAL ESTABLISHMENT! Join the resistance and help us fight to put America First! Amy Moreno is a Published Author , Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here . Support the Trump Movement and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 1real |
Iraqi Army: US Hindering Advance on Mosul | LUCIFER in the Temple of the Dog II ‹ › GPD is our General Posting Department whereby we share posts from other sources along with general information with our readers. It is managed by our Editorial Board Iraqi Army: US Hindering Advance on Mosul By GPD on October 31, 2016 TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iraqi army blasted the US for troubling its Mosul liberation operation through electronic jamming to disrupt the communication among various army units. “The US army troops have disrupted communication among Iraqi forces participating in the Mosul liberation operation,” the Iraqi army reported. Iraq’s joint military forces, including the Hash Al-Shaabi (popular forces), started their military operation in Western Mosul on Saturday to recapture Tal Afar and also prevent terrorists from fleeing to Syria. The Iraqi parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, meantime, confirmed that the advances of the Iraqi volunteer forces to the West of the city of Mosul has foiled the US plot to help the ISIL terrorists to flee to Syria. “Hashd al-Shaabi’s efforts in the biggest military operation in Mosul city blocked the US aid to senior ISIL commanders’ escape to Syria from the Western part of Mosul city. The parliamentary committee underlined that Washington intended to repeat the Fallujah scenario and help the ISIL commanders to escape to Syria. Earlier on Monday afternoon, the first units of the Iraqi army entered the strategic al-Karama region Southeastern Mosul. Al-Karama is the first region of Mosul city that the Iraqi army has entered after the city fell to the ISIL terrorists in July 2014. Earlier on Monday, Iraq’s joint military forces kicked off a new round of military operations from three directions towards the Eastern parts of Mosul after seizing control over a vast swathe of land in the surrounding areas of the city in Nineveh province. “The Iraqi forces started moving towards the Eastern bank of the Tigris river near Mosul city,” the Arabic-language media reported. The military operation towards the Eastern part of Mosul started on the 15th day of the Mosul liberation operation. Meantime, the Iraqi sources disclosed that the ISIL has laid mines and stationed snipers on the Eastern bank of the Tigris river. On Sunday, Spokesman of the Iraqi Volunteer Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) Ahmad al-Assadi announced that the country’s joint military forces had seized back tens of villages since the start of the Mosul liberation operation about two weeks ago. “Iraq’s joint military forces have seized back 100 villages from the ISIL on the West of the city of Mosul,” al-Assadi said. He noted that a sum of 20 bomb-laden vehicles of the ISIL have also been destroyed to the West of Mosul over the past 12 days. Also on Sunday, local sources said ISIL has broadly planted bombs in toys and other attractive objects for children and civilians in areas they leave as Iraqi joint forces continue their advances in the military operations to liberate Mosul from the terror group grip. “ISIL used toys because they know the Peshmerga will not touch it, but children will,” said Colonel Nawzad Kamil Hassan, an engineer who says his unit has cleared more than 50 tons of explosives from areas once controlled by the militants. In the areas where ISIL rules for, the group has attempted to plant bomb before its retreat. A toy, a playing card and an abandoned watch are all detonators designed to spark the acquisitive curiosity of a returning civilian, who would be maimed or murdered by the explosion. Related Posts: No Related Posts The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VT, VT authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians, or the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. LEGAL NOTICE - COMMENT POLICY Posted by GPD on October 31, 2016, With 148 Reads Filed under Investigations . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. FaceBook Comments
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THE MOST CORRUPT WOMAN IN POLITICS Calls Trumps Success “Pretend” [VIDEO] | Says the women whose whole life has been a series of lies.Hillary Clinton on Sunday effectively dismissed her two remaining White House rivals, suggesting that she s better vetted and tested than Democratic primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders and that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump is only pretend successful. I have been vetted and tested, the Democratic front-runner and former secretary of state said on NBC s Meet the Press. Clinton also suggested that the Vermont senator has not had a negative ad against him during the primary and said, I am going to be the nominee. I m in a much stronger position, and voters who have given me 3 million more votes think that as well. Clinton repeated what she has said in recent days, We re stronger together, a likely reference to the acrimony between the Clinton and Sanders campaigns and supporters, as Sanders keeps alive his longshot White House bid.Recalling how she stayed late into her failed 2008 primary race against now-President Obama, Clinton said that Sanders, campaigning hard this weekend in California ahead of the state s June 7 primary, has every right to finish off his campaign however he chooses. She also appeared to dismiss Trump s business success, the centerpiece of which is his real estate holdings, in an apparent attempt to get him to release his tax returns. She compared him to business people who are really successful, instead of pretend successful. Via: FOX News | 1real |
London's Canary Wharf Docklands Light Railway station reopens after fire alert | LONDON (Reuters) - London s Canary Wharf Docklands Light Railway Station was reopened on Thursday after a temporary closure due to a fire alert, Transport for London (TfL) said on Twitter. The service has resumed to all destination, TfL said. | 0fake |
Bangladesh, Myanmar agree on 'working group' for refugee plan: minister | DHAKA, (Reuters) - Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed on Monday to set up a joint working group on the repatriation of Rohingya Muslim refugee who have fled to Bangladesh, Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali told reporters after talks with a Myanmar official. We are looking forward to a peaceful solution to the crisis, Ali said after his talks with Myanmar government official Kyaw Tint Swe. More than half a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since late August, to escape what the United Nations has branded ethnic cleansing by Myanmar s military. | 0fake |
Arkansas lawmaker wants to strip Clintons' name from airport | LITTLE ROCK, Ark (Reuters) - The largest and busiest airport in Arkansas would no longer be named after the only president and first lady from the state if a bill introduced in the legislature on Thursday succeeds. The legislation would prohibit public buildings or civil works from being named for anyone living or who served in public office in the 10 years prior to the structure’s completion. DON’T MISS Video: Trump's plan to hire more border patrol agents would be costly Trump asks NASA to explore putting crew on rocket's debut flight Details emerge of Republicans' plans to replace Obamacare The bill makes no mention of former President Bill Clinton or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for whom the Little Rock airport was re-named four years ago - as Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field - but its author does not hesitate to identify its target. “You have a president who was impeached for having an affair with an intern in the Oval Office and then disbarred,” said state Sen. Jason Rapert, the bill’s author and one of the Arkansas legislature’s most outspoken conservatives. President Clinton was impeached in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives, which accused him of obstructing justice by lying under oath about a sexual relationship with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was acquitted in a Senate trial the following year. Hillary Clinton served as attorney to the city’s airport commission during her husband’s tenure as governor of Arkansas. At the conclusion of her husband’s presidency she won a Senate seat in New York. She was appointed secretary of state by President Barack Obama, who defeated her for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton won the nomination last year but was defeated by President Donald Trump. Rapert, whose Senate district does not include Little Rock, said he introduced the legislation after “several Arkansans across the state” had expressed to him their “discomfort” with naming its largest airport after the controversial Clintons. He conceded his legislation might not win approval. “But we can prevent this sort of thing in the future,” he said. City officials have defended re-naming the airport, although sometimes tersely. “I think the name of the airport is appropriate and I support retaining it,” said Meredith Catlett, a member of the terminal’s governing commission. | 0fake |
‘Brexit’ Talks Will Start by End of March, Theresa May Says - The New York Times | BIRMINGHAM, England — Outlining a timetable for Britain to leave the European Union in the spring of 2019, Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday put immigration at the center of her strategy for withdrawal, suggesting that Britain could be headed for a “hard Brexit,” or clean break, from the bloc. In a speech at the start of the Conservative Party’s annual convention here, Mrs. May said Britain would formally begin exit negotiations by the end of March. Those talks will be governed by a deadline unless all members of the bloc agree to prolong them. Previously, Mrs. May had said only that the talks, under Article 50 of a European Union treaty, would not begin before the end of this year — a delay designed to buy time for the government to work out its negotiating stance. On Sunday, Mrs. May also began to lay down her priorities for a deal on withdrawal, known as Brexit, including the power to control immigration and reject European Union rules that allow people to move and settle across national frontiers. “We have voted to leave the European Union and become a fully independent, sovereign country,” Mrs. May said to applause from delegates. “We will do what independent, sovereign countries do. We will decide for ourselves how we control immigration. And we will be free to pass our own laws. ” That position strikes at the heart of the usual by countries that have unfettered access to Europe’s internal market of about 500 million people, but that also accept the freedom of Europeans to cross frontiers and live and work in any member state. While Mrs. May said she wanted the “maximum” scope for British companies to trade inside the European Union’s single market, she added that Britain would not accept the right of European Union law to trump national legislation, another pillar of the single market. Mrs. May also spoke of striking deals with new partners, suggesting that Britain would leave Europe’s Customs Union, which lays down common tariffs but prevents member states from making independent arrangements with other countries. Her speech left many details unclear and undoubtedly represents a tough opening bid before next year’s talks, which are likely to be complex and fraught with disagreement. She argued that the country’s new relationship with the European Union would be unique, and rejected the idea that there was a clear division between a “hard” Brexit and a “soft” one with closer economic ties, although there are signs of deep differences within her cabinet on the issue. Ideally, Mrs. May would like to regain the ability to limit migration from the Continent while keeping full access to the European Union’s single market. In an interview in The Sun published on Saturday, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, argued that Britain’s policy was “having our cake and eating it. ” Yet across the English Channel, there has been no sign of compromise, and European politicians have made it clear that a is required from Britain. Over all, Mrs. May’s speech suggested that she would emphasize the right to limit immigration even if that meant securing less favorable access to European markets. David Davis, the minister responsible for negotiating Brexit, underscored the position that trading arrangements were not the only, or even the most important, part of the British equation. “We want to maintain the freest possible trade between us, without betraying the instruction we have received from the British people to take back control of our own affairs,” Mr. Davis told the convention. Mrs. May insisted in her speech, the first of two to the convention, that Scotland would leave the European Union, too, and had “no from Brexit. ” In the referendum that determined Britain’s exit from the union, the majority of Scots voted to remain. She also announced plans to start the domestic legislative process for Brexit next year by asking Parliament to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act, which allowed Britain to join the European Union’s predecessor. Although this new legal step would not come into effect until Britain left the bloc, it would transfer European legislation, including laws to protect labor rights, into British law. Parliament would then be able to decide at a later point which laws to keep. In a statement, Carolyn Fairbairn, the director general of the nation’s main business lobby group, the Confederation of British Industry, welcomed that development but highlighted the anxieties of many companies. “With a rapid timetable pointing to an exit from the E. U. in spring 2019, businesses need to know the government’s ambition on the fundamental issues of skills and access to E. U. markets as soon as possible,” she said. “Businesses cannot continue to operate in the dark,” she added, because “the decisions they face today are real and pressing. ” There have been warnings in recent weeks from manufacturers, including carmakers that fear they may face tariffs, and from financial services companies that worry about their ability to do business across Europe from London. Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of Nissan, said last week that he would be unable to make investment decisions in Britain unless the government guaranteed compensation for any tariffs that might be imposed after Brexit. Still, the outcome of the June referendum was interpreted by many politicians, including Mrs. May, as a rejection of the European Union’s policy of free movement of people, which has allowed hundreds of thousands from Southern and Eastern Europe to settle in Britain. Mrs. May served as home secretary for six years and devoted much of that time to an ultimately ineffective attempt to reduce immigration. Normally, there would be no speeches on the opening Sunday of a Conservative convention, but party leaders hope to get the European Union issue out of the way so they can focus on less contentious subjects during the rest of the gathering, which will conclude on Wednesday. The European Union aims to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services and people across its frontiers, and for many of Europe’s policy makers, it would be a betrayal to allow Britain to enjoy the economic benefits while rejecting free movement of people. In a recent interview with the BBC, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy said it would be “impossible” to give British people more rights than others outside the European Union. The president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, has said that Britain should not be granted any special favors on access and that “any outcome should ensure that all participants are subject to the same rules. ” | 0fake |
Gold trader's trial strains U.S.-Turkey relations | ISTANBUL/NEW YORK (Reuters) - A trial which has strained Turkish-U.S. ties before it even started opens this week in New York despite the possible absence of a defendant who Turkey says is cooperating with prosecutors in what it calls a clear plot against Ankara. Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, charged with conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran, has dropped out of sight in the last two months, prompting Turkey s prime minister to suggest he has reached a plea deal with U.S. authorities. James Margolin, a spokesman for U.S. prosecutors in Manhattan, declined to comment on whether Zarrab was cooperating with the authorities. A lawyer for Zarrab, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment for this article. Zarrab and eight other people, including Turkey s former economy minister and three executives of Turkish state-owned Halkbank, have been charged with engaging in transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Iran s government and Iranian entities from 2010 to 2015 in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions. Only Zarrab and Mehmet Hakan Atilla, one of the Halkbank executives, have been arrested by U.S. authorities. Ex-minister Zafer Caglayan, who has not been arrested by the United States and remains in Turkey, is also accused of receiving tens of millions of dollars in bribes from the proceeds of the scheme. The Turkish government has said he acted within Turkish and international law. Caglayan, Zarrab and Atilla have denied all the charges against them. Victor Rocco, a lawyer for Atilla, declined to comment on the case. Caglayan could not be reached for comment. Halkbank says all its transactions fully comply with Turkish and international regulations. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan s government has said the case has been fabricated for political motives. The tensions it has exacerbated between Ankara and Washington - NATO allies - have hit investor sentiment toward Turkey, and traders say it has also contributed to the lira s fall to record lows. U.S. prosecutors claim that the defendants helped Zarrab use his network of companies to supply currency and gold to the Iranian government and Iranian entities, violating U.S. sanctions. The prosecutors have alleged that the defendants used front companies and fake invoices to trick U.S. banks into processing transactions disguised to appear as though they involved food, which is exempt from the sanctions. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the charges were baseless, and that Turkey had not violated its own or international laws regarding exports and trade. The Zarrab case is a clear plot against Turkey, a political case and lacking any legal basis, government spokesman Bekir Bozdag said last week. Zarrab has been absent from recent court hearings. Last month Atilla s lawyers said Zarrab, who was arrested in Miami in March 2016, had essentially not participated in the case and that Atilla might be the only defendant appearing at trial. The defendants in the case are under pressure and being forced to make statements against our country, Yildirim said, without explanation. The case is acutely sensitive in Turkey because the prosecutors say a Turkish government minister, Caglayan, was involved in the alleged conspiracy to evade the U.S. sanctions. In a filing four weeks ago, prosecutors also included the transcript of an April 16, 2013 recorded phone call in which a speaker they identified as Zarrab discussed with another co-defendant his efforts to buy a bank to establish a conduit for Iranian transactions. Prosecutors said Zarrab and Erdogan, then Turkey s prime minister, had spoken four days earlier at a wedding. I explained it that day at the wedding, Zarrab told the co-defendant, according to prosecutors. I will go back and will say, Mr. Prime Minister, if you approve, give me a license . Erdogan has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but has repeatedly expressed frustration with the case. You arrest the general manager of my bank when there are no crimes, try to use my citizen (Zarrab) as an informant, try him without having anything against him, Erdogan said in a speech to provincial governors on Oct. 12, in an apparent reference to the U.S. prosecutors. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said he sees in this case the hand of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. Erdogan accuses Gulen of masterminding last year s failed military coup in Turkey and also of driving an earlier legal case involving Zarrab. In that earlier case, Turkish prosecutors accused Zarrab and high-ranking Turkish officials of involvement in facilitating Iranian money transfers via gold smuggling. After details of the Turkish prosecution were leaked in 2013, several prosecutors were removed from the case and police investigators were reassigned. Erdogan branded the case an attempt by Gulen s supporters to undermine his government and the investigation was later dropped. Cavusoglu said the two legal cases were exactly the same , and showed the extent to which Gulen had infiltrated American state institutions, including its judiciary. Needless to say, those claims are ridiculous, acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said last week. The case has been handled by career prosecutors concerned only with U.S. law, not Turkish politics, Kim said, adding: They re not Gulenists. Gulen denies involvement in the failed 2016 coup or any other attempts to undermine Erdogan and his government. The Zarrab case is one of several festering disputes between Ankara and Washington, which disagree over U.S. support for Kurdish fighters in Syria and suspended visa services after the arrest of a locally employed U.S. consulate worker in Istanbul last month. In a speech on Wednesday, Yildirim highlighted the economic fallout from the court hearings, saying they had come to the point of harming Turkey and our global economic ties . Turkey s bank regulator denied a report in Haberturk newspaper last month that six unnamed Turkish banks could face fines worth billions of dollars over Iran sanctions violations. Investors are nervous. Turkish bank shares have fallen more than 13 percent in November, nearly twice the decline of the broader Istanbul market. Jury selection is due to start on Monday, meaning the trial may begin as early as Tuesday. | 0fake |
FAR-LEFT AUSTRIAN PRESIDENT: “We must ask all women to wear a headscarf”…You Won’t Believe Why! [Video] | Austria s President really said this! During a talk with students, the president said if rampant Islamophobia continues, there will come a day when we must ask all women to wear a headscarf all of them! out of solidarity towards those who do it for religious reasons .While the president in Austria has little influence over Austrian policy, this is a very symbolic move by the president. It could be in response to the banning of the headscarf in Austria just last month. Legislation was put in place to ban the burqa causing protests from Muslim women who called the government Islamophobic .Here s a take on what the president said from an Austrian Language alert! | 1real |
WATCH: Journalist Kicked Out Of World’s Largest Gun Show For Asking This Totally Valid Question (VIDEO) | Wednesday, January 22 was the day of the world s largest gun show. Held in Las Vegas, Nevada, the SHOT show (Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade) is where arms dealers gather to show off their best and newest instruments of death. Understandably, the event sponsors have to keep a tight grip on media at the event, lest journalists ask questions that might make people think just a little bit.That s why when The Guardian s Rupert Neat went to the show to ask people questions that are indirectly related to gun control, he must have known it would be only a matter of time before he would be thrown out of the event. Neat s experiences were documented on video, and then posted online.In the beginning of the video, Neat says that he was specifically asked not to talk about gun control with any of the more than 1,600 hundred exhibitors at the event. Despite this warning, Neat actually talked to many of the exhibitors and attendees of the event about questions indirectly related to gun control, before being kicked out of the show. Neat asked people what they thought was driving the huge boom in gun sales that were seen last year.They re answers were nearly identical fear. Fear is what is driving the record sales of firearms in the United States. It has been well documented that mass shootings drive gun sales. So does talk of gun control, when President Obama is elected/reelected, and when minuscule actions on gun control are taken. In December of 2015, after President Obama announced he would be taking executive actions to slightly increase gun regulations, 1.6 million guns were sold. The only other month that has topped that record was in January of 2013, which coincided with both the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, and Obama s second term.But those types of questions are not what get Neat kicked out of the gun show. While talking to an exhibitor with Smith & Wesson, Neat was shown a MP 1522 sport rifle. Neat held the gun and casually asked the exhibitor: So, is the same gun used in the San Bernardino shooting? Neat asks.The exhibitor dodged the question, simply answering that the gun is MP 1522 sport rifle. He then promptly removes his microphone. At that point Neat gets an e-mail asking him to come speak to the communications director at the event. Neat and his crew are told multiple times to stop filming, and refused to answer any questions while the camera was rolling. Neat then left the gun show.The truly disturbing and important aspect of the encounter between the journalist and man from Smith & Wesson is that it shows how dangerous breaking the fantasy that the NRA and other lobby groups sell, is to gun manufacturers. The goal of public relations is to sell a credible version of reality. The reality that weapons manufacturing industry wants to sell is that their weapons are tools to fight dangerous people, not tools used by dangerous people or toddlers. Any questioning that can potentially unravel the credibility of their meticulously crafted version of reality must be silenced, or disregarded as the deranged ramblings of lunatics.You can watch the video, in full, below.https://www.facebook.com/GuardianUs/videos/1264293813597683/Featured Image Credit: Video Screenshot via Facebook/Guardian US | 1real |
Hillary Turns Her Back on Standing Rock Sioux: ‘Path Forward Must Serve Broadest Public Interest’ | Home / Be The Change / Hillary Turns Her Back on Standing Rock Sioux: ‘Path Forward Must Serve Broadest Public Interest’ Hillary Turns Her Back on Standing Rock Sioux: ‘Path Forward Must Serve Broadest Public Interest’ Jay Syrmopoulos October 29, 2016 Leave a comment
Brooklyn, NY – With tensions escalating rapidly after the militarized police action at the Standing Rock Sioux “Treaty Camp,” which included the use of armored police tanks, attack dogs, batons, rubber bullets, high-velocity bean bags, tear gas and LRAD sound weapons, and that saw the arrest of over 100 water protectors, the Clinton campaign, after months of silence, could no longer sit quietly on the sidelines and released a statement about the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) one day after the violent assault.
The statement from the Clinton campaign director of coalitions press, Xochitl Hinojosa, who oversees Hispanic, black, and women’s media for the Clinton campaign, reads in full:
We received a letter today from representatives of the tribes protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. From the beginning of this campaign, Secretary Clinton has been clear that she thinks all voices should be heard and all views considered in federal infrastructure projects. Now, all of the parties involved—including the federal government, the pipeline company and contractors, the state of North Dakota, and the tribes—need to find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest. As that happens, it’s important that on the ground in North Dakota, everyone respects demonstrators’ rights to protest peacefully, and workers’ rights to do their jobs safely.
On the same day the militarized action in North Dakota took place, Native youth from the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribes — tired of the damning silence from Hillary Clinton — demonstrated outside of Clinton campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, New York.
A number of brave Lakota youth and their Lenape relatives erected a teepee and prayed in the lobby of Clinton’s Brooklyn office as a militarized police force evicted water protectors from their traditional Treaty Lands in North Dakota. They were there to deliver a letter to Clinton about the pipeline.
A 14 –year-old girl from Standing Rock attempted to deliver a letter to Hillary Clinton’s Brooklyn campaign HQ to ask her to take a stand on the Dakota Access Pipeline. The youth stood at the front desk in tears asking for someone to please come down to accept the letter. The guards completely ignored the young girl, and the Clinton campaign refused to show enough respect to send a campaign staffer to cordially accept the letter.
Just after this dozens of police arrived and ordered us to disperse or we would be arrested.
“ What a crock,” said Ruth Hopkins, a Dakota-Lakota Sioux writer for Indian Country Today Media Network.
“Hillary Clinton managed to make a statement about the Dakota Pipeline that literally says nothing. Literally,” 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben tweeted in response to the Clinton campaign statement.
“Kind of a BS statement by the Clinton camp on #NoDAPL, frankly,” wrote MSNBC host Joy Reid. “The outrage taking place out there cries out for outrage.”
Or as Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting journalist Adam Johnson put it, this “is the most Clinton thing of all times.”
This curiously appears to be another case of Clinton having a “public and private position,” as revealed in her leaked speeches to Wall St. banks, the primary drivers behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The fact is that Clinton has completely turned her back on the Standing Rock Sioux. Her statement was essentially a non-statement, which speaks volumes as to who she is truly beholden too… and it isn’t the American public. The words “find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest” can be directly translated into “this pipeline is good for Merica, and we don’t care about Native issues… but we’ll pretend we do until I’m elected.”
Please share this story if you believe Clinton’s statement is a blatant disrespect to all Native peoples! Share | 1real |
Investigators Say Mexico Has Thwarted Efforts to Solve Students’ Disappearance - The New York Times | MEXICO CITY — An international panel of experts brought to Mexico to investigate the haunting disappearance of 43 students that ignited a global outcry say they cannot solve the case because of a sustained campaign of harassment, stonewalling and intimidation against them. The investigators say they have endured carefully orchestrated attacks in the Mexican news media, a refusal by the government to turn over documents or grant interviews with essential figures, and even a retaliatory criminal investigation into one of the officials who appointed them. For some, the inevitable conclusion is that the government simply does not want the experts to solve the case. “The conditions to conduct our work don’t exist,” said Claudia Paz y Paz, a panel member who earned international recognition for prosecuting a former Guatemalan dictator on charges of genocide. “And in Mexico, the proof is that the government opposed the extension of our mandate, isn’t it?” The pressure on the investigators — described by four of the five panel members in interviews with The New York Times — undermines promises by the Mexican government to cooperate fully and uncover what happened to the students, one of the worst human rights abuses in the country’s recent memory. Hundreds of thousands flooded the streets to protest the disappearances, sending President Enrique Peña Nieto’s approval ratings plummeting and contradicting his effort to depict Mexico as a progressive nation ready to assume its place on the world stage. Instead, the case exposed the impunity tearing at the seams of the rule of law. The international investigators say that their job is far from complete. But they will leave Mexico in the coming days nonetheless — pushed out, they say, by a government many suspect of covering up what actually happened on the night in September 2014 when the 43 college students were abducted by the police and never seen or heard from again. By contrast, the Mexican government says that it has fully cooperated with the experts, completing the vast majority of their information requests, while it is still processing the rest. For the families of the missing, young men training to be teachers in the impoverished stretches of rural Mexico, the experts’ departure is devastating. All along, they have refused to believe the government’s version of events — that their children, who were in the city of Iguala as part of a protest, were kidnapped by local police officers working for powerful criminal gangs, then killed and incinerated in the garbage dump of a nearby town. In its version of the story, the government never gave a clear motive for the attack. But for many Mexicans, the case represents something far greater than 43 people: It is a window onto the tens of thousands of others who have also disappeared during the nation’s drug war, and the anguish visited on their families. Caught between cartel violence and a government either unwilling or unable to help, they are victims twice. The arrival of the international experts inspired hope and a shot at closure, if only vicariously, for those who suffer their losses quietly on the margins of Mexican society. In an exceptional gesture, Mexico was granting foreigners permission to conduct a true investigation. Now their departure is a bitter one. “This is something that will probably haunt us for a long time,” said Francisco Cox, a Chilean human rights lawyer and another member of the group of experts. “But it didn’t make sense to stay here, because in a certain way it’s giving legitimacy to something deep inside you know isn’t right. ” Though the group’s final report will be issued on Sunday morning, the case is far from solved. The remains of only one of the 43 has been found and identified the rest are all still missing. Another question is how high the collusion between the drug gangs and the government goes. Although the government’s own investigation focused on the complicity of the local authorities, the expert panel uncovered evidence that state and federal officials and even military personnel were present on the night of the students’ disappearance. “It was clear in the government’s investigation and the official account that there was an intention to keep this case at a municipal level, in terms of responsibility,” said Carlos Beristain, another expert in the investigation. “But we revealed the presence of state and federal agents at the crime scenes, and furthermore that their participation implied responsibility. ” The government insists that the parting of ways with the international experts is amicable, and has thanked them in public for their work. The experts were not forced out, according to the government. They ran out of time. The government says it has played no part in a smear campaign. There is a free press in Mexico, and the government cannot prevent certain outlets from writing what they want, it says. In written responses to questions, Eber Betanzos, the deputy attorney general for human rights, said that his office has worked closely with the experts. “The Mexican state recognizes their work, their efforts and the attention to the victims,” he said. But when asked to issue a joint statement denouncing the media campaign against the experts, the government more than once declined to do so. When the experts arrived in Mexico, in March of last year, they received a warm welcome from the government. At first, the experts said, there was a willingness to share documents and respond to requests for information, and a collegiality that seemed to match the government’s public posture. That abruptly changed in September, when the experts published a report that contradicted the government’s version of events, referred to by the former attorney general as the “historic truth. ” The government’s investigation said that the students were killed and then burned in a garbage dump in the town of Cocula. Neither this panel of experts nor another international team of forensics experts also working on the investigation have found any physical evidence at the dump site corroborating a fire of such dimensions. “After our report, it was pretty clear the relationship had changed,” Mr. Cox said. “They still thought that we would sustain their version of what had happened. ” Routine requests from the government took months, the experts said. Suggestions for ways to streamline the investigation were ignored. A media smear campaign began, assaulting individuals in the group, including accusations that they misspent money and had made statements supportive of terrorist acts in the past. For the investigators, the message was clear. “There are sectors within the government that don’t want certain things to be questioned and therefore there is an attempt to reinforce the ‘historical truth,’ without taking into account the new elements we have uncovered,” Mr. Beristain said. “These sectors within the government looked at us as a threat and this hardened their view towards us, which actually reinforces the impunity that stops things from changing in this country. ” The media attacks largely focused on Ms. Paz and another female lawyer, Ángela Buitrago, who earned broad recognition for prosecuting government and military malfeasance in Colombia. In addition to little known outlets, some national newspapers, like El Financiero and Milenio, took part as well. In one instance in January, Ms. Buitrago was waiting in line at the Mexico City airport when she noticed a story on the front page of a local newspaper — about her. It began with a characterization of Ms. Buitrago as someone known to “fabricate testimony and pressure alleged witnesses in order to imprison military figures and politicians. ” It also quoted a person she had prosecuted as saying that any investigation in her hands would lack all credibility. “It was unimaginable,” she said. “The purpose of all this was just to delegitimize the investigation, and to discredit and distract us. ” Ms. Paz, too, said she became a target. organizations claimed that she had protected violent leftists and violated Guatemala’s peace accords by trying former military officers. Though the government has repeatedly denied playing a role in the media campaign, it wields an inordinate amount of control over the news media here. The state spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year in advertising, making it a highly influential voice in the market. “We couldn’t go out on the streets every day and read all the newspaper headlines insulting us,” Ms. Paz said. Perhaps the most direct example of government pressure came in the form of a criminal inquiry opened into Emilio Álvarez Icaza, the executive secretary of the Commission on Human Rights, the international body that appointed the experts. The inquiry was opened after a activist filed a complaint against Mr. Icaza, claiming fraudulent use of the money for the experts, funds that had been furnished on agreement by the Mexican government. For weeks, the government sustained its investigation, claiming it had a responsibility to follow up on every complaint. But human rights experts in the region said the action sent a message, warning those agitating against the government’s narrative. Eventually, the government dropped the case, but not before it sent a chill. “It is interesting that they would choose to investigate this patently baseless claim when there are thousands of families who are desperately seeking their loved ones without any assistance from the attorney general,” said James L. Cavallaro, the president of the Commission on Human Rights. “That is profoundly disturbing. ” | 0fake |
NEW YORK TIMES BUSTED: Undercover Video Exposes Editor for Bias Against Trump [Video] | Project Veritas latest installment in the American Pravda series takes aim at The New York Times, the supposed paper of record. In the first part of this series, Nicholas Dudich, Audience Strategy Editor for the Times extensive video library speaks candidly about how his left political bias influences his editorial judgement and reveals an unusual connection to former FBI Director James Comey, and a strange association with domestic terror group Antifa.Since this video came out, the New York Times released a statement saying they ve launched an investigation:This should have been done when hiring this former antifa thug who also worked for Clinton.RT reported:In the video, Dudich calls himself the gatekeeper for all the New York Times videos posted online, saying that his imprint is on every video we do. Any video that goes on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram I have a hand in that, Dudich said.When talking journalistic ethics, Dudich is captured sarcastically making air quotes while he said that he will be objective working for the Times before quickly admitting: no I m not. That s why I m there. According to the New York Times ethical handbook, employees must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of The Times. As a journalist, I m not able to give any money to any political organization. I m not able to volunteer for any political organization. I m not able to work for any nonprofit or charity. Like, there s a lot of guidelines and ethics, Dudich said.However, before joining the Times, Dudich worked social media on the 2012 presidential campaign of former President Barack Obama and the 2016 presidential campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.When asked how he was able to be politically active and still work as a journalist, Dudich said that he had to leave his job at ABC to take a job where he wasn t deemed a journalist anymore in order to work for the Clinton campaign.Dudich said he made the sacrifice in order to work against Trump, who he said was a threat. I saw the threat and I was like, I want to do something, Dudich said. Trump was a threat and still is a threat, right? Trump is a threat, the interviewer interjects. He s a threat. Oh, he s a threat to everything, Dudich added.Read more President/co-founder of The Dream Corps and CNN contributor Van Jones Rich Polk CNN s Van Jones calls Russia nothing burger video edited, right-wing propaganda At one point, Dudich explains his idea to make Trump resign or leave office by going after his businesses and his dumb f**k of a son, Donald Jr., and Eric. Target that. Get people to boycott going to his hotels, Dudich said. If you can ruin the Trump brand and you put pressure on his business and you start investigating his business and you start shutting it down, or they re hacking or other things. He cares about his business more than he cares about being President. He would resign. Or he d lash out and do something incredibly illegal, which he would have to. | 1real |
‘Les Deplorables’: This Entrance Proves Donald Trump Has Officially Lost His Damn Mind (VIDEO) | At this point, it is well known that there is no limit to how low Donald Trump will sink. But Friday night, he walked onto the stage and proved that he has gone completely off the deep end, all without even opening his mouth.Remember his grand WWE style entrance at the Republican National Convention? Well, that wasn t sh*t compared to his entrance on Friday night at a rally in Miami. In a sick and twisted parody of Les Miserables, the GOP nominee walked onto the stage with Do You Hear The People Sing? blaring across the loudspeakers and this backdrop behind him:No, this is not a joke. No, this is not satire. Yes, this really happened. Yes, this is actually real life.Since Trump has decided to embrace the term deplorable as an accurate description himself and his supporters, let s take another look at just who was in Hillary Clinton s now notorious basket of deplorables, shall we? You know, just to be grossly generalist, you could put half of Trump s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up, Clinton said at a rally last week.Despite all the fake outrage from the right that Clinton would have the audacity to call them out for what they are, deplorable, Trump has now decided to go ahead and use this as another dog whistle to his white supremacist followers. I won t even take the time here to go into the irony of Trump using Les Miserables to bolster his campaign s bigoted message. Instead, I will just draw attention to the fact that Trump just walked on stage and proudly declared himself to be racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamaphobic.And without a doubt, his racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic supporters are eating it up. Which also makes it very obvious that it isn t only Trump who has lost his damn mind.Watch Trump s entrance, here:Trump walks out to Les Miserables song with Les Deplorables sign behind him pic.twitter.com/8FGLKL3TU5 Nick Corasaniti (@NYTnickc) September 16, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
THIS INTERNATIONAL COMPANY Is Luring Refugees And Illegals To America…Do You Buy Meat From Them? | Are you tired of supporting companies who are couldn t care less about the future of this nation? Are you tired of giving jobs to people who break laws to enter our country or who are being vetted by the UN and coming here through a State Department sponsored program on our dime? Then take a stand and STOP supporting them! When I saw the article at the Wall Street Journal this morning that gushes about how wonderful it is that the International Rescue Committee is giving out loans to refugees to start businesses, but goes on to talk about the industries in need of cheap immigrant labor, I wanted to scream.Four meat giants are changing the face of rural America, Cargill is one of those. It is all about cheap labor! It is all about money!Meet globalist and CEO of Cargill, David MacLennan, in Davos. One of the key players in changing rural towns in America by working with the US State Department and refugee contractors to bring in large numbers of Somali workers.Today we posted about how Amarillo, TX is under enormous social and economic tension. It is Cargill that was originally responsible for overloading (with the help of UN/US State Department refugee resettlement contractors) that city.Last week it was Cargill caving to CAIR demands in a dispute about prayer break times at their plant in Ft. Morgan, CO.One of the most important features of this new blog American Resistance 2016! is to showcase the enemy. I want those responsible for mass migration to America to become household names! Here is a list of the products you will find on Cargill s website: Swift Pork productsList of Beef productsList of Chicken productsList of additional FOOD productsHere is a map showing Cargill s facilities across North America:And, for your work in Election 2016, I want you all to identify which of your elected officials are in the pockets of BIG MEAT! and expose them!Refugee resettlement is not about humanitarianism! It is about globalists and greedy industries wanting to improve their bottom lines the social and economic condition of your towns and cities be damned! Via: Refugee Resettlement Watch | 1real |
Mob boss and mass murderer Riina dies of natural causes | ROME (Reuters) - Salvatore Toto Riina, the Sicilian Mafia s most powerful boss of the 20th century who was convicted for ordering dozens of murders, died of natural causes early on Friday after almost a quarter of a century in jail. Riina, who turned 87 on Thursday, died in the prison ward of a hospital in Parma, the northern Italian city where he had been serving 26 life sentences for homicides committed between 1969 and 1992. His victims included the two magistrates who led the campaign to bring mob bosses to justice. He had fallen into a coma after complications during surgery a few days ago, and his family had been given permission to be by his side on Thursday, the Justice Ministry said. Nicknamed the Beast , Riina began his violent criminal career on the streets of Corleone after World War Two and became the Sicilian Mafia s boss of bosses when it reached its 20th century apex. Riina oversaw a flourishing economic period for organized crime group Cosa Nostra, or Our Thing , when it was trafficking heroin to the eastern United States and pulling the levers of political power in Palermo and Rome. But due to Riina s savagery, hundreds of mobsters broke their code of silence in the 1980s and 1990s and testified against him, allowing magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino to uncover the long-hidden secrets of Cosa Nostra and prosecute its leaders for the crimes of its soldiers. Riina s January 1993 arrest, after more than 20 years as a fugitive, came just months after Falcone and Borsellino were blown up on his orders, and coincided with the tumultuous downfall of Italy s corrupt post-war political system. Since then, Riina has been held under high security with little access to his family in accordance with a law written to prevent bosses from commanding from prison. However, he remained a powerful figure within the mob even behind bars and refused to cooperate with investigators until the end. Matteo Messina Denaro, a Riina ally who has been a fugitive for 25 years, is the highest ranking boss still at large, but it is unlikely he will be able take power, John Dickie, a British historian and author of the book Cosa Nostra , told Reuters. Cosa Nostra is internally and politically divided in a way that makes it almost ungovernable, and this division dates back to Riina s campaign for power in the 80s, Dickie said. Riina s surviving foes within Cosa Nostra had close ties to North America, and they are the ones most likely to seek a shift in the crime syndicate s balance of power. Because the Sicilian Mafia is struggling, it needs to renew its access to the United States, which has been crucial to the organization since the 1880s, Dickie said. Given various nicknames over the years - Toto, Shorty, the Beast among them - Riina was 19 when he shot a man dead during a gang fight in Corleone and spent six years in prison, a rite of passage for a mafioso. When he returned to Corleone, he and his childhood friend Bernardo Provenzano, who would lead Cosa Nostra after Riina s arrest, fell under the sway of Luciano Leggio. Leggio took over the Corleone mafia with Riina and Provenzano at his side by killing the town s wartime mafia boss, medical doctor Michele Navarra, in 1958. U.S. author Mario Puzo would later name the main character in The Godfather after the town. In 1969, Riina and Provenzano led a hit squad against feared boss Michele the Cobra Cavataio, ambushing him inside an office in Palermo, killing the Cobra, another mafioso and two innocent bystanders. The so-called Lazio Street Massacre gave the Corleone clan a foothold in Sicily s capital and a post on Cosa Nostra s governing body, the Commission , and the arrest of Leggio in 1974 made Riina the acting boss of the Corleone crime family. The 1981 murder of mob boss Stefano Bontate signaled the beginning of a two-year killing spree known as The Slaughter , in which Riina sought to annihilate his many rivals. Fearing for their lives and for those of their families, hundreds of mobsters broke their code of silence, or omerta, and cooperated with investigators. The turncoat testimony was a key component in Falcone and Borsellino s landmark case against Cosa Nostra, which in January 1992 ended by holding mob bosses responsible for crimes committed by their underlings. Two months later, mafia assassins gunned down Salvo Lima, Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti s right-hand man in Sicily, sending a clear message about what Riina thought of the court ruling and Rome s failure to stop it. In May of the same year, a massive bomb that blew apart a motorway near Palermo killed Falcone, his wife and three bodyguards. In July, Borsellino was blown up by another car bomb along with his five bodyguards. Riina was arrested in Palermo six months after Borsellino s murder, but he never broke his code of silence, leaving a shroud of mystery over suspected negotiations between Cosa Nostra and Rome said to have taken place after Falcone s assassination. The law-enforcement crackdown that followed the 1992 bombings severely hobbled Cosa Nostra, whose presence in Sicily is still felt, but whose economic and political might has faded. Today, Calabria s Ndrangheta is considered by investigators to be Italy s most powerful organized crime group thanks to its role as the biggest European importer of South American cocaine. The mafia tradition has been carried forward by Riina s two sons, Giovanni and Giuseppe, who remained loyal to their father. Giovanni has been sentenced to life in prison for four murders, and Giuseppe spent several years in jail on mafia charges, though he is now free. Riina is also survived by two daughters, Maria Concetta and Lucia, and his wife Antonietta. His funeral is likely to be a private ceremony in Corleone, police said. | 0fake |
Local Fox Affiliate Just Gave Fox News A GIANT Middle Finger Over Their Biased News | A local news station in Boston has had it with the Fox brand damaging their own reputation. WFXT Channel 25 is going to change the name of its newscast to Boston 25 News removing Fox entirely following a drop in its ratings and a study that showed their audience saw the newscast as leaning conservative. Fox News itself has some ridiculous shows, like Fox & Friends and The O Reilly Factor, both of which tend to peddle not just misleading information, but also the very attitudes that make things worse, not better, in this country. For instance, on Fox & Friends this morning, Brian Kilmeade whined about conditions in immigration detention centers. But he wasn t talking about the stunning human rights abuses. He s upset about this: Get this: They re enjoying seven hours of outdoor activity. Who gets that anymore? Fresh sheets, and absolutely I don t get that. No need to learn English. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt added: Seven hours of outdoor activity, freshly washed sheets, and absolutely no need to learn English. That s the easy life of an illegal immigrant inside American jails. Or clean sheets have something to do with basic sanitation, but hey, they ll think what they want here. The outdoor activity it s not like they re in some Eden-like garden of paradise.There s also the whole controversy with Bill O Reilly and sexual harassment, and Fox News failure to deal with their male employees who engage in such behavior. Billo the Clown is still on the air, and so far, Fox doesn t seem to have done much about it.Who wants to be associated with this crapola? WFXT is actually owned by Cox Media Group and not Fox News, but they re still considered a Fox affiliate and the brand carries a reputation that is increasingly negative. Massachusetts is a deep blue state, and their businesses and media outlets need to act accordingly to continue reaching their audiences.This decision is actually a few years in the making it didn t just happen. WFXT s news director, Mike Oliveria, said that Massachusetts viewers want unbiased news. Fox News is decidedly not unbiased, but WFXT strives to be, as do most local newscasts. He said: It s not that [Fox is] a bad brand; it s just that it s not ours. While other Fox affiliates under Cox Media s umbrella aren t considering dropping Fox from their names at this time, we have t wonder if that s going to change.Featured image by Spencer Platt via Getty Images | 1real |
Obama to meet Senate leaders over Supreme Court next week: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will convene a meeting on Tuesday with the Republican and Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate and its Judiciary Committee to discuss a Supreme Court nominee, the White House said on Thursday. The White House has contacted every member of the judiciary panel, both Republicans and Democrats, to discuss efforts to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a news briefing. | 0fake |
Al Qaeda Turns to Syria, With a Plan to Challenge ISIS - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda’s top leadership in Pakistan, badly weakened after a decade of C. I. A. drone strikes, has decided that the terror group’s future lies in Syria and has secretly dispatched more than a dozen of its most seasoned veterans there, according to senior American and European intelligence and counterterrorism officials. The movement of the senior Qaeda jihadists reflects Syria’s growing importance to the terrorist organization and most likely foreshadows an escalation of the group’s bloody rivalry with the Islamic State, Western officials say. The operatives have been told to start the process of creating an alternate headquarters in Syria and lay the groundwork for possibly establishing an emirate through Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, to compete with the Islamic State, from which Nusra broke in 2013. This would be a significant shift for Al Qaeda and its affiliate, which have resisted creating an emirate, or formal sovereign state, until they deem conditions on the ground are ready. Such an entity could also pose a heightened terrorist threat to the United States and Europe. Qaeda operatives have moved in and out of Syria for years. Ayman the group’s supreme leader in Pakistan, dispatched senior jihadists to bolster the Nusra Front in 2013. A year later, Mr. Zawahri sent to Syria a shadowy Qaeda cell called Khorasan that American officials say has been plotting attacks against the West. But establishing a more enduring presence in Syria would present the group with an invaluable opportunity, Western analysts said. A Qaeda state would not only be within closer striking distance of Europe but also benefit from the recruiting and logistical support of fighters from Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Mr. Zawahri released his first audio statement in several months in early May, and it seemed to clear the way for the Qaeda figures to use the Nusra Front to form an emirate in Syria with his blessing. Some Nusra leaders, however, oppose the timing of such a move, so the affiliate has not yet taken that step. “The combination of an Al Qaeda emirate and a revitalized Al Qaeda central leadership in northern Syria would represent a confidence boost for the jihadi organization’s global brand,” Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, wrote this month in Foreign Policy. “Al Qaeda would present itself as the smart, methodical and persistent jihadi movement that, in contrast to the Islamic State, had adopted a strategy more aligned with everyday Sunni Muslims,” Mr. Lister wrote. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have the same ultimate objective to create an Islamic state, but they have used different tactics, Mr. Lister and other scholars said. The Islamic State moved quickly to impose harsh, unilateral control over territory in Iraq and Syria and declare its independence. The Nusra Front has painstakingly sought to build influence over areas it wants to control and with other Syrian rebel groups opposed to the government of President Bashar . American officials say the Islamic State has largely eclipsed Al Qaeda in the global jihadist hierarchy, with Al Qaeda hemorrhaging members to its more brutal and rival. Many of the Khorasan operatives, including their leader, Muhsin have been killed in eight American airstrikes in northwest Syria since September 2014. The Islamic State has between 19, 000 and 25, 000 fighters, roughly divided between Iraq and Syria, American intelligence analysts estimate. The Nusra Front has about 5, 000 to 10, 000 fighters, all in Syria. An emirate would differ from the Islamic State caliphate in the scale of its ambition, in that a Nusra emirate would not claim to be a government for all the world’s Muslims. Some senior American and European intelligence and law enforcement officials say the small but steady movement of important Qaeda operatives and planners to Syria is a desperate dash to a haven situated perilously in the middle of the country’s chaos. These officials say Qaeda operatives in Syria are determined but largely contained. “There’s always been a steady trickle, and it remains,” said Col. Steve Warren, a military spokesman in Baghdad for the campaign in Iraq and Syria. Nonetheless, the presence of a senior cadre of experienced Qaeda leaders in Syria — some with American bounties on their heads — has raised alarms in Washington as well as in the allied capitals of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. “We have destroyed a large part of Al Qaeda,” John O. Brennan, the director of the C. I. A. said this month on NBC’s “Meet the Press. ” “It is not completely eliminated, so we have to stay focused on what it can do. ” The evolving assessment about Al Qaeda and the Nusra Front in Syria comes from interviews with nearly a dozen American and European intelligence and counterterrorism officials and independent analysts, most of whom have been briefed on confidential information gleaned from spies and electronic eavesdropping. They also analyzed the public statements and social media commentary among Qaeda and Nusra Front members. One of the operatives Western intelligence officials are focused most intently on is Saif a senior member of Al Qaeda’s ruling body, known as the Shura Council, who oversaw the organization immediately after Osama bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs in Pakistan in 2011. It is unclear whether Mr. Adl is in Syria, North Africa or somewhere else, American intelligence officials said. The government of Iran released Mr. Adl and four other senior members of Al Qaeda early last year as part of a secret prisoner swap with Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, the group holding an Iranian diplomat, Nour Ahmad Nikbakht. Mr. Adl, a former colonel in the Egyptian military who is believed to be in his 50s, is listed on the F. B. I. ’s Most Wanted Terrorist list and was indicted in the 1998 United States Embassy bombings in East Africa. He is the subject of a $5 million American bounty. “As a senior adviser to Al Qaeda’s networks in Syria and proximate environs, could be especially useful in helping to define strategies that will help the group achieve successes,” said Michael S. Smith II of Kronos Advisory, a terrorism research and analysis firm. The other four men released by Iran are also suspected of being in Syria. They are Abdul Khayr an Egyptian who formerly led Al Qaeda’s foreign relations council Abul Qassam, a Jordanian who was a deputy to Abu Musab the founder of the organization that later became the Islamic State Sari Shibab, a Jordanian operative and Abu Mohamed an Egyptian who helped orchestrate Al Qaeda’s major attacks before Sept. 11, 2001, according to American officials briefed on details of the transfer. They agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s confidential nature. It is unclear how and when Al Qaeda might form an emirate in Syria that would hold territory and most likely harden its position toward more moderate Syrian opposition groups. The Nusra Front was created in 2012 as an offshoot of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq — which under the leadership of Abu Bakr later declared itself the Islamic State — to fight Mr. Assad’s government. That same year, the United States designated the Nusra Front as a terrorist organization. But in 2013, the Nusra Front balked at joining Mr. Baghdadi when he announced the creation of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and instead pledged allegiance to Mr. Zawahri in Pakistan. This ignited an often bloody rivalry between Nusra and Islamic State fighters in Syria. Now Al Qaeda’s top leadership is looking to stanch its losses in Pakistan and score a propaganda coup in Syria by establishing a formal emirate. A portion of Nusra’s leadership, however, supports continuing the group’s more pragmatic strategy of cultivating local support. “The fundamental disagreement is over how far Al Qaeda’s strategy should be sustained before revealing more and more of Nusra’s real face and solidifying territorial control through the formation of an emirate,” Mr. Lister said in an interview. Many of the Syrian rebel groups that are fighting alongside Nusra against Mr. Assad’s government reject the idea of forming an emirate, fearing it would further splinter the opposition to Mr. Assad. “From Al Qaeda’s religious perspective, the declaration of a state or of an emirate should only happen in a context where it is possible to govern effectively,” said Firas Abi Ali, a senior principal analyst with IHS Country Risk in London. “It would be ironic for Al Qaeda to declare an emirate while there’s a caliphate that it rejects. ” | 0fake |
Breitbart News Daily: Dutch Election Results - Breitbart | On the Thursday edition of Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 6AM to 9AM Eastern, Breitbart Alex Marlow will continue our discussion of President Trump’s first 100 days. [Breitbart London’s Oliver Lane will offer analysis of the Dutch election results. Breitbart’s Washington political editor Matt Boyle will discuss the latest developments regarding House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Obamacare replacement bill, which is coming under intense criticism from all quarters and has been dubbed “Ryancare,” “ ” and “ ” by critics. Dr. Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Trump and author of the bestselling book Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, will discuss the latest challenge to Trump’s new executive order on immigration and travel from six countries. Attorney Robert Barnes will also weigh in on the this latest challenge to Trump’s immigration executive order from an district judge in Florida. Congressman Phil Roe ( ) the chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, will discuss the VA Accountability First Act he introduced in Congress. Breitbart business and finance editor John Carney will discuss the Fed’s interest rate hike and what this means for the economy. Breitbart’s national security editor Frances Martel will discuss her article on UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Live from London, Rome, and Jerusalem, Breitbart correspondents will provide updates on the latest international news. Breitbart News Daily is the first live, conservative radio enterprise to air seven days a week. SiriusXM Vice President for news and talk Dave Gorab called the show “the conservative news show of record. ” Follow Breitbart News on Twitter for live updates during the show. Listeners may call into the show at: . | 0fake |
The detente between Trump and Cruz is definitely over | The mutually beneficial campaign detente between Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) came to an end on the debate stage here Thursday.
The two Republican presidential candidates, locked in a tight race to win the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, argued over whether Cruz meets the constitutional requirements to serve as president and whether Trump is a trustworthy conservative or is tainted by what Cruz called “New York values.”
Theirs was far from the only battle that broke out in the sixth GOP debate of the 2016 campaign season. Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) had intensely personal clashes with both Cruz and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Rubio and Christie are both hoping to emerge from the crowded Republican field as the establishment’s champion against the forces of insurgency that Trump and Cruz represent.
Until recently, it was in both Trump’s and Cruz’s interest to avoid a direct confrontation. Cruz was leery of alienating Trump’s supporters — who might come to him, if the incendiary billionaire were to self-destruct. Trump, for his part, did not consider Cruz much of a threat.
On Thursday, they went so far as to question each other’s fitness to govern.
Trump contended that Cruz’s birth to a U.S. citizen in Canada might disqualify him from becoming president because the Constitution decrees that only a “natural born citizen” may hold the office.
“There’s a big question mark on your head. And you can’t do that to the party. You really can’t,” Trump told Cruz.
The senator from Texas retorted that Trump was motivated more by his political prospects than any constitutional concern.
“I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa,” Cruz said. “But the facts and the law here are really quite clear. Under long-standing U.S. law, the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen.”
Then it was Cruz’s turn to go on offense.
Repeating something he first said in a radio interview, Cruz charged that Trump had “New York values” — invoking that city’s reputation, particularly in red-state America, as the bastion of the liberal elite.
“I can frame it another way,” Cruz said. “Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I’m just saying.”
Trump responded with indignation, saying New York City is home to “loving people, wonderful people.” He recalled the fall of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001, noting the “smell of death” that pervaded the city for months.
“I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York,” Trump said. He added, “That was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”
As Trump and Cruz argued over the latter’s constitutional qualifications to be president, the other candidates struggled to get a word in. Rubio drew applause when he interjected, “I hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV, but I think we have to get back to what this election ought to be about.”
However, when Rubio and Cruz got their chance to go at it, theirs turned out to be an esoteric back-and-forth over the consistency of their Senate votes, particularly on immigration.
After Rubio ticked through votes that he described as flip-flops and political opportunism on Cruz’s part, the Texan said: “He had no fewer than 11 attacks there. I appreciate you dumping your oppo research folder on the debate stage.”
At that point, former Florida governor Jeb Bush interjected: “This latest back-and-forth between two backbench senators, it explains why we have the mess in Washington, D.C.”
Christie, who has often dismissed the Senate as nothing more than a debating society, interrupted another argument between Cruz and Rubio over taxes, saying: “You’ve already had your chance, Marco. You blew it.”
The disputes that broke out during the debate, which was sponsored by Fox Business Network and included the GOP’s seven leading presidential hopefuls, have been simmering on the campaign trail in recent days. The event gave the candidates a chance to confront one another face to face, rather than through their stump speeches, surrogates and allied super PACs.
Among the Republicans, several battles are going on at once. Where Trump and Cruz are each looking to win the caucuses by claiming to be the one who can slay the old order, the field also includes a host of current and former governors and senators.
Nearly as important as which candidate comes in first place is the question of which will emerge from what is being called the “establishment lane.”
Rubio repeated his charge that Christie, the governor of a heavily Democratic state, has a record too liberal for a conservative party. He noted that Christie once supported Common Core educational standards, backed some gun-control legislation and supported Obama’s nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“Our next president has to be someone that undoes the damage Barack Obama has done to this country,” Rubio said. “It cannot be someone that agrees with his agenda. . . . Unfortunately, Governor Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports.”
Turning to face Rubio, Christie accused the senator of being loose with his facts and manufacturing indignation because Christie has emerged as a political threat. He reminded Rubio that he had once called him “a conservative reformer that New Jersey needed,” but that “he’s changed his tune.”
Christie recalled October’s debate, when Rubio responded to an attack from Bush by saying someone had convinced him that Bush had to hit his onetime protege. “It appears that the same someone who has been whispering in old Marco’s ear, too,” Christie said.
As the leading candidates feuded, Ben Carson — the mild-mannered retired neurosurgeon who briefly topped the polls — urged civility. “We have to stop this because, you know, if we manage to damage ourselves and we lose the next election and a progressive gets in there and they get two or three Supreme Court picks, this nation is over as we know it,” he said.
The call did not stop Bush from going after Trump, describing his rival as “unhinged” for his policies on immigration and Muslims and misguided in his plans for high tariffs on Chinese imports.
“This would be devastating for our economy. We need somebody with a steady hand being president of the United States,” Bush said.
Trump responded with an attack on Bush’s personality.
“We don’t need a weak person being president of the United States,” Trump said, returning to an old insult that Bush is “low-energy.” “We don’t need that. We don’t need that.”
Trump brushed off criticism of his demeanor, saying, “I will gladly accept the mantle of anger.”
“Our military is a disaster,” he said. “Our health care is a horror show. Obamacare, we’re going to repeal it and replace it. We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immigration is beyond belief. Our country is being run by incompetent people. And yes, I am angry.”
The debate came just 48 hours after President Obama delivered the final State of the Union address of his presidency, which included sharp condemnation of the angry GOP rhetoric over Muslims, immigration and other issues. At the debate, the candidates flung zinger after zinger in an attempt to outdo one another in delivering the most visceral condemnation of both Obama and Clinton, his first-term secretary of state and the leading Democratic presidential candidate.
Christie called Obama “a petulant child” and likened his State of the Union to “storytime” because it painted, in Christie’s view, too rosy a picture of the country.
“We are going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall,” Christie said of Obama.
The language was just as strident in discussing Clinton. Bush suggested that she “might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse” because she is under FBI investigation for her email practices. Then Rubio stepped up the rhetoric and charged that Clinton was “disqualified from being commander in chief.”
When co-moderator Maria Bartiromo asked Cruz about a New York Times report Wednesday that he failed to properly disclose loans from Goldman Sachs and CitiBank during his 2012 Senate campaign, Cruz used the moment to slam “the mainstream media.”
“Yes, I made a paperwork error disclosing it on one piece of paper instead of the other,” Cruz said. “But if that’s the best the New York Times has got, they better go back to the well.”
Although Ohio Gov. John Kasich did not figure in the more contentious exchanges, he sought to appeal directly to frustrated middle- and working-class families.
“People are upset,” he said. “You’re 50 or 51 years old and some kid walks in and tells you you’re out of work and you don’t know where to go and where to turn. Do we have an answer for that? We do.”
David A. Fahrenthold in Washington contributed to this report. | 0fake |
Sickening Reason COP-HATING, RACIST 49’ers QB Colin Kaepernick Just Announced He’ll Now Stand For National Anthem | It looks like veteran San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick might be done with his national anthem protests now that he s looking for a new NFL contract.The controversial player will stand for The Star-Spangled Banner next season, according to sources who spoke to ESPN Thursday. Kaepernick first made headlines in August 2016 for refusing to stand during his team s preseason game against the Green Bay Packers, citing the oppression of black people in the United States.Kaepernick explained his refusal to stand for the Star-Spangled Banner, expressing solidarity with the neo-Marxist racial narratives of Black Lives Matter: I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder. Describing himself as a black man in a society that oppresses black people, Kaepernick signed a 6-year contract with the 49ers in 2015 for $114 million. He has also been paid millions of additional dollars through endorsement deals.In the days after Kaepernick s first protest, fans began burning their 49ers-themed gear. One lifelong San Francisco fan set his Kaepernick jersey up in flames, slamming the athlete for claiming to be oppressed when he s making $126 million. And in September, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that, while the league supports players who want to see change in society, the organization believes very strongly in patriotism. I personally believe very strongly in that, he said, according to USA Today. I think it s important to have respect for our country, for our flag, for the people who make our country better; for law enforcement, and for our military, who are out fighting for our freedoms and our ideals. While Kaepernick received kudos from those on the left, many fans and even NFL insiders weren t too fond of the protest, so it s no surprise he s changing his ways now that he s looking for a new job.According to the ESPN report, Kaepernick no longer wants his method of protest to detract from the positive change he believes has been created a change that comes one day after the NFL Network s Ian Rapport revealed that the veteran quarterback has decided to opt out of his 49ers contract and is now a free agent. The Blaze | 1real |
Schumer: Trump Is Using ’Populist Rhetoric to Cover Up Hard Right Agenda’ - Breitbart | Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ( ) said he is worried President Donald Trump is “using populist rhetoric to cover up a hard right agenda. ” Schumer said, “Let me just say about his address, it was populist, but I’m worried he’s using populist rhetoric to cover up a hard right agenda. If you look at his cabinet appointments, so many of them are not populist but hard right. You know. Dr. Price, he wants to end Medicare as we know it. Mulvaney wants to cut even research into health care, DeVos wats to cut public education, Puzder goes against labor. So his cabinet is very troubling and that’s what I discussed. He said, ‘can you move my cabinet a long.’ I said, ‘look, with people who seem to be pretty mainstream, Mattis and Kelly we approved them quickly but so many of your cabinet appointees, Mr. president, are quite different than what you campaigned on and even what your speech was about.’ So I am really troubled at this populist rhetoric is covering up a hard right agenda which is way, way out of touch with what the American people want and even what Trump campaigned on. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
WATCH: Trump Becomes Unhinged When Confronted About His Vulgar Language In Front Of Children | Donald Trump continues to give American voters important clues and hints as to why we shouldn t vote for him. He fits the typical prototype for a demagogue, and his comments about minorities and women have rendered him the most divisive presidential candidate in modern history. His most recent act of idiocy came when a man confronted him with concerns over Trump s tendency to swear during debates and on the campaign trail.The man first asked Trump about a new ad targeting him over his use of words like, motherf*cker, p*ssy and a** to describe his opponents and wanted to know whether Trump thought that was presidential. Trump said: I was a little concerned with that ad until I saw it. I think it s better than any ad I ve ever taken for myself. The man then pressed Trump more saying, A lot of parents are trying to figure out how to explain some of the language they re hearing on the campaign trail. That s when Trump threw a hissy fit and shot out a typical red herring, preferring to attack the man rather than address his valid question: Oh you re so politically correct, oh look at you. Oh I know, you ve never heard a little off-language. Aren t you just a perfect young man. You know it s stuff like that, that people in this country are tired of. I don t have children but one can only imagine the parenting skills required to explain Donald Trump, to explain how this individual is actually running for the most powerful position in the world and has support. The hope is that Americans can send a powerful message to their children and to the world by ensuring this character does not become president.Watch video here:Donald Trump responds when asked whether his use of vulgar words, highlighted in a critical new ad, is presidential.https://t.co/ht2rbbZPiS NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) March 10, 2016 Featured image via video screenshot | 1real |
Elizabeth Warren SMASHES Trump Over His $100 Million Ties To A Foreign Bank | Donald Trump s many business ventures mean that he s got business relationships with many banks, including Wall Street banks. He could easily waltz into the White House owing at least $100 million to Deutsche Bank, which creates a massive conflict of interest that many have pointed out. Deutsche Bank has been heavily penalized by our government for repeated violations, and having business ties to Trump means they could whip him into letting them off the hook just to preserve his businesses, creating a massive conflict of interest.Now, anti-Wall Street crusader Elizabeth Warren has joined the chorus of voices decrying this, slamming Trump and his relationship with Deutsche Bank in a statement to Mother Jones: The job of the President is to enforce the law fairly. If a serial lawbreaker like Deutsche Bank is caught manipulating markets again, how would Trump hold it accountable knowing that the bank had the power to pull the plug on his own businesses? That s a question that should worry every American. These financial entanglements along with many of his other ongoing business concerns and arrangements present huge conflicts of interest. Deutsche Bank settled with U.S. regulators for things like fixing metals prices and rigging interest rates that s what Warren means when she calls them a serial lawbreaker, but they re fighting us on other things and have been for years. They re among the banks that screwed the little guy that Trump claims to stand for in order to enrich themselves.Having Trump in the White House could easily allow them to put our regulators over a barrel, and he ll have to break his promises to the little guy.Two weeks ago, Warren attacked Trump for saying that he d made money off of the 2008 economic crash, which is something for which everyone should attack him because that s just sick for a presidential candidate to say. She said back then that Trump only cares about Trump, and those statements disqualify him from being president of the U.S.She also went after him for saying that Dodd-Frank put too many regulations on Wall Street bankers. She wanted to know whether he could even name three things that Dodd-Frank does, and said, Seriously, someone ask him. Chances are, he doesn t have a clue.What his businesses owe Deutsche Bank should disqualify him from the presidency because the President of the United States can t be in a position where foreign entities, whether they re governments or private organizations, can put him or her in a bind over regulation. Elizabeth Warren knows what s what here, and that s why her attacks are escalating. Trump can t be trusted in the White House.Featured image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
Exxon CEO is now Trump's secretary of state favorite - transition official | GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson emerged on Friday as President-elect Donald Trump’s leading candidate for U.S. secretary of state, a senior transition official said. Trump met Tillerson on Tuesday and may talk to him again over the weekend, the official said. Trump appears to be in the final days of deliberations over his top diplomat with an announcement possible next week. Tillerson’s favored status was revealed as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani formally withdrew from consideration for secretary of state. The transition official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tillerson, 64, had moved ahead in Trump’s deliberations over 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has met Trump twice, including at a dinner in New York. But the official said Romney was still under consideration for the job, along with John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, and retired Navy Admiral James Stavridis. Giuliani’s withdrawal came after he was fully vetted by the Trump transition team for his overseas business ties in what was described by the Trump official as an “intense” effort by lawyers and accountants. Giuliani, who runs a global consulting firm, was given a clean bill of health, with Trump’s aides concluding his business interests would not pose a risk to his confirmation. Should Tillerson be nominated, his business ties, too, will come under scrutiny. Exxon Mobil has operations in more than 50 countries and boasts that it explores for oil and natural gas on six continents. In 2011, Exxon Mobil signed a deal with Rosneft, Russia’s largest state-owned oil company, for joint oil exploration and production. Since then, the companies have formed 10 joint ventures for projects in Russia. In 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded Tillerson his nation’s Order of Friendship. But U.S. sanctions against Russia for its incursion into Crimea cost Exxon Mobil dearly, forcing it to scrap some projects and costing it at least $1 billion in losses. Tillerson has been a vocal critic of the sanctions. Trump has spoken of wanting warmer relations with Moscow, which has sparked concerns in Congress that he could lift or loosen some of the sanctions on Russia. Tillerson has been chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil since 2006. He is expected to retire from the company next year. Should Tillerson be nominated, climate change could be another divisive issue. The company is under investigation by the New York Attorney General’s Office for allegedly misleading investors, regulators and the public on what it knew about global warming. | 0fake |
The new war on the press: When satire sparks terrorism | When I think of freedom of the press, what comes to mind is the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, Abu Ghraib, NSA surveillance—the tough terrain of investigative reporting.
Not the handiwork of people trying to get a few laughs.
Yet satire, it seems, has suddenly become the new battleground for free expression. And that requires some rethinking for all of us.
I love a good comedic skewering as much as the next person. But satire, fairly or not, has always seemed less “serious” than other forms of journalism, more of an indulgence.
Yet as the massacre at Charlie Hebdo reminds us, cartoonists, satirists and funnymen are often on the front lines of very risky battles. Perhaps because their barbs sting in a personal way that news stories and commentary do not. Perhaps because the comedic overlay gives them license to tackle incendiary subjects from which others shy away.
And here’s the rub: Sometimes what they peddle is truly offensive—maybe to me, maybe to you. And that makes it harder to defend.
Who wants to go to bat for the Piss Christ photo, or the Virgin Mary covered in cow dung, or depictions of Mohammad that obviously make Muslims angry? But we must defend the right to publish, if not the content. Free speech is meaningless if it doesn’t apply to unpopular, even repulsive speech.
If you think about the North Korean-backed hacking of Sony Pictures, it was triggered by a movie whose idea of comedy was a plot to assassinate Kim Jung Un that ends with his head exploding. That, as I said at the time, was an incredibly stupid and needlessly provocative project. Yet I also ripped Sony for caving to threats and deep-sixing the film before bowing to public and Hollywood pressure and making “The Interview” available. In America, you have the right to make a moronic movie.
Nor would I defend the content of such Charlie Hebdo cartoons as one in which rolls of toilet paper were marked “Bible,” “Torah” and “Quran,” with the caption: “In the toilet, all religions.” But the satirical French newspaper has the right to publish outrageously offensive material without being attacked by terrorists.
The issue has surfaced before because of Charlie Hebdo’s poke-in-the-eye editorial approach. The paper’s offices were firebombed in 2011 after it published a cartoon mocking Muhammad. The following year, both the White House spokesman and the French foreign minister criticized the newspaper—but not its right to publish—for another Muhammad cartoon following the Benghazi attack that the administration initially blamed on an anti-Islam film.
Stephane Charbonnier, the paper’s courageous editor and one of the 12 killed in Wednesday’s attack, told ABC in 2012: “We can’t live in a country without freedom of speech. I prefer to die than to live like a rat.”
Chuck Lane made the broader point in his Washington Post column: “It turns out that such political jokesters take big risks, bigger than perhaps even they realize or anticipate — and the repercussions affect us all.
“Yet it is vitally important that the United States and all other Western democracies rally to their unequivocal defense.”
Lane faulted the officials who criticized Charlie Hebdo in 2012 for “mixed messages” that ran the risk of conveying “how dangerous it is to give violent extremists a veto over what your citizens can and cannot say.”
The Washington Post ran of one of Charlie Hebdo’s Muhammad cartoons in a gesture of solidarity yesterday. Other news organizations, including Fox News, CNN, the AP and the New York Times, have since made an editorial decision against running the images. Some critics say that’s cowardly; I think it’s a tough call.
I would prefer that they continue aggressive reporting, commentary and, yes, satire if warranted against Islamic terrorists and those who would extinguish free speech at the point of a gun.
In one encouraging sign, Google, Guardian Media and several French publishers have donated money to ensure that Charlie Hebdo will publish next week. That is a message that even terrorists can understand.
Click for more from Media Buzz
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. | 0fake |
In 1178, Five Monks at Canterbury Saw Part Of The MOON Explode | posted by Eddie “…Out of the middle of its division, a burning torch sprang, throwing out a long way, flames, coals, and sparks. As well, the moon’s body which was lower, twisted as though anxious, and in the words of those who told me and had seen it with their own eyes, the moon palpitated like a pummelled snake. After this, it returned to its proper state…” The moon is without a doubt, one of the most enigmatic objects in the sky. Thousands of years ago, ancient civilizations observed the sky, watching in awe Earth’s faithful companion. Since time immemorial, the moon has also been the subject of numerous myths and conspiracy theories. All kinds of strange ‘things’ are connected t. Interestingly, in 1178, a group of monks from Canterbury observed how the moon ‘suddenly exploded’ into ‘sparks’, taking a ‘blackish appearance’. If we look history history, we will realize that man times have astronomical events been mistaken for supernatural signs. In ancient times, these events were considered omens, and from time to time, strange lights observed in the sky were interpreted as evil signs. Mysteriously, on June 18th of 1178, monks in Canterbury observed a fascinating sighting. As they looked up to the sky, they witnessed a fascinating event which they described accordingly: “…This year on the Sunday before the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, after sunset when the moon was first seen, a marvelous sign was seen by five or more men sitting facing it. Now, there was a clear new moon, as was usual at that phase, its horns extended to the east, and behold suddenly the upper horn was divided in two. Out of the middle of its division, a burning torch sprang, throwing out a long way, flames, coals, and sparks. As well, the moon’s body which was lower, twisted as though anxious, and in the words of those who told me and had seen it with their own eyes, the moon palpitated like a pummelled snake. After this, it returned to its proper state…” So what did they observe in 1178? Did the moon really blow up? According to researchers, they didn’t actually witness the moon exploding, but they observed a massive impact of a large body that smashed into the moon, forming what we today know is the Giordano Bruno crater. However, there are others who disagree saying that an impact od such magnitude would have sent towards Earth debris that would have resulted in sightings observed by more people on Earth, and not just a few monks. However, studies have shown that the impact would have launched 10 million tons of ejecta into the Earth’s atmosphere in the following weeks. According to a report from NASA , such an impact would have triggered a blizzard-like, week-long meteor storm on Earth –yet there are no accounts of such a storm in any known historical record, including the European, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese and Korean astronomical archives. Withers reported his analysis and other tests of the hypothesis in this month’s issue of Meteoritics and Planetary Science . According to many, if we want to explain what the monks saw from a scientific perspective, then the most plausible explanation is that the monks probably witnessed a massive meteor blow up in the atmosphere. From the monk’s observational point –and only from there— It would have looked as if the moon had exploded, while people from elsewhere would have spotted the phenomenon but only as a bright shooting star. “I calculate that this would cause a week-long meteor storm comparable to the peak of the 1966 Leonids,” he said. Ten million tons of rock showering the entire Earth as pieces of ejecta about a centimeter across (inch-sized fragments) for a week is equivalent to 50,000 meteors each hour. And they would be very bright, very easy to see, at magnitude 1 or magnitude 2. It would have been a spectacular sight to see! Everyone around the world would have had the opportunity to see the best fireworks show in history.” “I think they happened to be at the right place at the right time to look up in the sky and see a meteor that was directly in front of the moon, coming straight towards them.” “That would explain why only five people are recorded to have seen it. Imagine being in Canterbury on that June evening and seeing the moon convulse and spray hot, molten rock into space.” “The memories of it would live with you for the rest of your life.” Source: | 1real |
Miss Texas Gave A VERY Unexpected Answer When Asked About Trump, And Republicans Are Furious | Long before Cara Mund, Miss North Dakota, won the 2018 Miss America pageant, she faced a crowd of 50 other young women, all competing in various categories for the coveted crown. Two of those categories, to most of our readers, are patriarchal and silly: The evening wear and swimwear competitions pit all these beautiful young women against one another for assessment on their looks by a panel of judges.The other two categories, however, can be quite interesting, especially when something happens like what went down with Miss Texas in this year s competition.The talent portion of the show is, of course, just plain entertaining. Perhaps you ve seen the movie Miss Congeniality, starring Sandra Bullock, and if you have, you know what I m hoping to see in a talent show. The real thing is very little like that, however, and so is the interview portion of Miss America. Source: Meme Central, a folder on my computerTonight, Miss Texas was no Miss Rhode Island. There were two rounds of questions this time around, and when Margana Wood was called on for the second, more serious question, she got a doozy. Drawing a judge s name from a dish, she pulled Jess Cagle, the editor-in-chief of People Magazine. Cagle wasted zero time getting right to it: Last month, a demonstration of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the KKK in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent and a counter-protester was killed. The president said there was shared blame with, quote, very fine people on both sides. Were there? Tell me yes or no, and explain. Well, then. That s a far cry from every participant simply answering World Peace! whenever their turn came around to say the one thing to the world they had in their heart. Ms. Wood was not, as they say, f*cking around. Barely containing her anger, Margana turned it up to 11: I think that the white supremacist issue, it was very obvious that it was a terrorist attack. And I think that president Donald Trump should have made a statement on it earlier, addressing the fact, and making sure all Americans feel safe in this country. That is the number one issue right now. Naturally, Republicans were butthurt. Here s a summation of all the cleverest things they came up with in response:#MissAmerica pageant should be renamed "Miss Liberal America" pageant Kurt (@KMGIndy) September 11, 2017OOOH! We re gonna need to call the burn ward! Just kidding, go f*ck yourself, Kurt.Watch the amazing exchange here:Miss Texas was asked if Trump handled Charlottesville badly. She, uh didn't play. ?? #MissAmerica pic.twitter.com/5JMT4tBpeL shauna (@goldengateblond) September 11, 2017Featured image via Donald Kravitz/Getty Images | 1real |
SOCIALIST BERNIE SANDERS Can’t Explain Single Payer or Why Blue States Rejected It [Video] | Bernie Sanders should know his socialized medicine but in an exchange on Sunday he failed when he was pressed to explain why a single-payer health care system was rejected in Vermont and California, two staunchly Democratic states:CNN host Jake Tapper said that California and Vermont are cobalt blue states and asked how single-payer could be affordable at the national level if they rejected the system at the state level because of the expense:Single-payer failed to pass in both California and Vermont after lawmakers were unable to figure out how to fund the system. Voters in Colorado also rejected single-payer last year.Sanders pushed back against Tapper, citing studies that he has seen, and said that single-payer would save the average family significant sums of money. If you look at Canada s single-payer health care system per capita, their costs are far far less than the United States, Sanders said. If you look at the UK, if you look at countries around the world, all of which have different approaches to a national health care system, in every instance, they are spending substantially less per capita than we pay in the United States. Read more: WFB | 1real |
Hurricane Irma to become tropical storm on Monday: NHC | (Reuters) - Irma is forecast to weaken into a tropical storm over far northern Florida or southern Georgia on Monday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. The Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale was about 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Tampa, Florida with maximum sustained winds of 100 miles per hour (155 km/h), the NHC said. On the forecast track, the center of Irma will continue to move over the western Florida peninsula through Monday morning and then into the southeastern United States late Monday and Tuesday, it said. | 0fake |
Jeremy Vine already tripping his tits off | Tuesday 8 November 2016 by Lucas Wilde Jeremy Vine already tripping his tits off
Veteran election reporter Jeremy Vine has embarked on his usual pre-election broadcast ritual by taking a load of drugs and hallucinating maps of the USA, pie-charts and various other election-themed visages.
The least-funny of the Vine brothers usually waits until the polls close before cracking open his thermos flask full of hallucinogens, but has decided to get on it early this year.
“I can’t say I blame him” said Lucy Millwall, Head of CGI for BBC News.
“This election has been impressive only for sheer scale of mind-numbing awfulness.
“Honestly, you try pretending to give a shit about what Gary Johnson is up to without yawning.
“It’s actually intriguing watching him dance around an empty green room, imagining he’s kicking a football marked “Florida” between Trump and Clinton.
“We just computer-generate images around whatever he’s imagining. Technically we are ‘enabling’ him but fuck it; it’s really good telly.
“We’re always careful to cut away from him before he starts talking to Peter, the ‘Rapiest Giraffe of Them All’.” Jeremy Vine election coverage
Jeremy Vine has been taking LSD ever since John Major’s first election victory; the campaign proving so overwhelmingly dull that recreational drug use became BBC protocol for several weeks.
Vine is thought to be the only one to keep this up, apart from the Chuckle Brothers, who owe their youthful energy to a vigorous cocaine regimen.
After ballot day, it is thought that Vine will commence the mother of all comedowns, which should wear off just before his next pre-election bender for a Brexit-inspired snap election sometime next month. Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 1real |
Swiss volunteer firefighters: It’s ok to be a bit tipsy when reporting for duty | Swiss volunteer firefighters: It’s ok to be a bit tipsy when reporting for duty Published time: 26 Oct, 2016 23:00 Get short URL A Swiss firefighter helps a volunteer during a save and rescue drill in Zurich's Letzigrund Stadium April 19, 2008. © Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters Volunteer firefighters along with other emergency workers operating heavy vehicles in Switzerland will be able to turn up on the job slightly tipsy under new government plans that are due to take effect on January 1.
Those working voluntary in the “blue light” industry who respond to urgent situations will no longer be penalised for being a tad merry so long as their blood-alcohol level doesn’t go over 0.50 percent, which is the limit for all other drivers, Reuters reports.
READ MORE: Clown arrested for drunk driving in Alabama (PHOTOS)
Describing the change as “necessary,” the Swiss Federal Roads Office said relief organizations are becoming more dependent on those who are not on duty or call.
“The government is addressing the need for the best possible recruitment of personnel in the event they are needed for unexpected rescue operations,” FEDRO said in a statement.
The blood-alcohol level currently stands at 0.10 percent for volunteers in the emergency service sector.
Zurich emergency services commander Peter Wullschleger said a full drinking ban still remains in force for all professional firefighters on duty or on call.
He added that the easing of restrictions was aimed at smaller communities where there is a shortage of professional firefighters who then rely on volunteers at short notice.
“With the ban, theoretically it would have been impossible for somebody enjoying even a nice glass of red wine during the Christmas holidays to fulfill their duty in the event of an emergency,” Wullschleger told Reuters. | 1real |
Wikileaks: Clinton Foundation’s ‘Pay-To-Play’ With Ukraine Oligarch To Show Support For Coup | Sent: Monday, March 30, 2015 9:58:55 AM To: Amitabh Desai Cc: Jon Davidson; Margaret Steenburg; Jake Sullivan; Dan Schwerin; Huma Abedin; John Podesta Subject: Re: Victor Pinchuk
Team HRC – we’ll get back to you on this
On Mar 30, 2015, at 9:53 AM, Amitabh Desai <ami@presidentclinton.com> wrote:>> Victor Pinchuk is relentlessly following up (including this morning) about a meeting with WJC in London or anywhere in Europe. Ideally he wants to bring together a few western leaders to show support for Ukraine, with WJC probably their most important participant. If that’s not palatable for us, then he’d like a bilat with WJC.>> If it’s not next week, that’s fine, but he wants a date. I keep saying we have no Europe plans, although we do have those events in London in June. Are folks comfortable offering Victor a private meeting on one of those dates? At this point I get the impression that although I keep saying WJC cares about Ukraine, Pinchuk feels like WJC hasn’t taken enough action to demonstrate that, particularly during this existential moment for the county and for him.> > I sense this is so important because Pinchuk is under Putin’s heel right now, feeling a great degree of pressure and pain for his many years of nurturing stronger ties with the West. >> I get all the downsides and share the concerns. I am happy to go back and say no. It would just be good to know what WJC (and HRC and you all) would like to do, because this will likely impact the future of this relationship, and slow walking our reply will only reinforce his growing angst. >> Thanks, and sorry for the glum note on a Monday morning…
RT further reports on the pay-to-play involving Pinchuk and The Clinton Foundation…
In 2008, Viktor Pinchuk, who made a fortune in the pipe-building business, pledged a five-year, $29-million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, a program that works to train future Ukrainian leaders “to modernize Ukraine.” The Wall Street Journal revealed the donations the fund received from foreigners abroad between 2009-2014 in their report published earlier this week .
Several alumni of the program have already graduated into the ranks of Ukraine’s parliament, while a former Clinton pollster went to work as a lobbyist for Pinchuk at the same time Clinton was working in government.
Between 2009 and 2013, the very period when Hillary Clinton was serving as US secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation appears to have received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.
That places Ukraine as the leading contributor among foreign donators to the Clinton Foundation.
The Pinchuk foundation said its donations to the Clinton-family organization were designed to make Ukraine “a successful, free, modern country based on European values.” It went on to remark that if Pinchuk was hoping to lobby the US State Department about Ukraine, “this cannot be seen as anything but a good thing,” WSJ quoted it as saying.
However, critics have pointed to some disturbing aspects regarding the donations, including the coincidence of the Ukrainian crisis, which began in November 2013, and the heavy amount of cash donations being made to the Clinton Foundation on behalf of wealthy Ukrainian businessmen.
This article originally appeared on The Duran. Be Sociable, Share! | 1real |
Conservative Christian Running For Congress Shares Screenshot With Porn Tabs Open (IMAGES) | Mike Webb is a conservative Christian who is running for office in the hopes that he can represent Virginia s 8th district in the United States House of Representatives as an Independent. Just days after Webb s announcement, his career may already be over due to a careless screenshot that he took and posted to his campaign s Facebook. That s because Webb accidentally left a couple of porn sites open in his browser which can be seen in the image he shared.Here s the screenshot that Webb shared:Here s a closer look at the screenshot:The story gets even more hilarious, considering that Webb was already involved in another controversy. Webb had failed to file his FEC report on time, which he claims that he could not do because of a virus that had infected his computer.The post has been up for 11 hours at the time of this writing. Since Webb posted the screenshot, he has made two more posts to his Facebook page. In the first one, he writes a very long letter of condemnation towards those mocking him. He begins the post by writing, SEE HOW DIRTY YOU ARE? In the post, Webb writes after that one is far more bizarre. He begins the post by saying THANKS FOR THE TAB CHECK, RANGER BUDDIES! This is followed by a Bible verse: For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. Psalm 100:5The post is accompanied with a screenshot that shows his page s reach. That s because he is proud of the negative attention he has received. Webb goes on to write that the the Lord has lifted him up. Apparently, in Webb s mind Jesus has the same mentality as a public relations agent who holds true to the theory that no publicity is bad publicity.Featured image from screenshot via Mike Webb s campaign site | 1real |
Carly Fiorina Ambushes Preschoolers On Field Trip To Prove Point About Abortion (VIDEO) | It gets weirder and more exploitative with the Republicans on a daily basis. This time, a party of preschool kids on a field trip to the Greater Iowa Botanical Garden unwillingly served as a backdrop to Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina s anti-abortion speech. One parent said: The kids went there to see the plants. She ambushed my son s field trip. The former Hewlett Packard executive embarked on a day of campaigning in Iowa in an attempt to save her ailing campaign. The ambush occurred when Fiorina hosted a right to life forum at the Greater Des Moines botanical garden. She entered the rally before a crowd of about 60 and directed 15 kids to a makeshift stage. The problem, according to one parent, is that Fiorina did not get permission from any of the parents to sit with her in front of a huge banner bearing an image of an unborn fetus while she talked about the harvesting of organs from aborted babies. Chris Beck, the father of four-year-old Chatham, said: Taking them into a pro-life/abortion discussion [was] very poor taste and judgment. I would not want my four-year-old going to that forum he can t fully comprehend that stuff. He likes dinosaurs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers. The discussion about abortion and the vivid images are difficult for adults, but such a heavy topic with its images weighs more on young kids. During the rally and with children present, an anti-abortion activist carried a scale model of a four-month-old fetus sucking its thumb. This is the face of abortion, said the activist as Fiorina looked on.Fiorina s campaign apparently doesn t see anything wrong with what she did . A campaign spokeswoman said: We were happy that these children chose to come to Carly s event with their adult supervisor. So four-year-old children chose to come to an event to hear about abortion? Is she nuts? It s no surprise that Fiorina s campaign is foundering, polling at 1.5% in Iowa. Her opportunist approach to using little kids for political purposes, exposing them to pictures and rhetoric they don t understand, all without permission from their parents, is alarming and tells us a lot about her.Watch the video below:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giv4p1HXyhE]Featured image via YouTube screen capture | 1real |
The Deep State Is Split on Killery | Zero Hedge November 1, 2016
With both Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton voicing extreme accusations of violating federal law against FBI Director Comey’s decision to be transparent about his investigation into Clinton’s emails, it appears President Obama is having none of it. As White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated: “President Obama doesn’t think Comey is trying to influence the election.”
Senate minority leader Harry Reid claiming Comey may have violated federal law…
“I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act,” Reid wrote in a letter to Comey, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Hatch act prohibits government officials from using their positions to influence an election.
“Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law.”
“When Republicans filibustered your nomination and delayed your confirmation longer than any previous nominee to your position, I led the fight to get you confirmed because I believed you to be a principled public servant,” Reid wrote.
“With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong.”
But, President Obama has now crushed that narrative:
John Earnest explains:
“President Obama doesn’t think Comey tried to influence the election.”
“Obama still believes Comey has “good character””
“Obama has a lot of confidence in AG Loretta Lynch”
Which, roughly translated into images is this…
Furthermore, as we noted last night , Harry Reid had suggested that ” talked w/ top NatSec officials who say that Comey “possesses explosive information” about Trump’s ties to Russia.”
That has also been completely rebuffed as The White House says it “has not been briefed on the existence of any FBI investigation on activities, habts of Donald Trump.”
So more lies?! | 1real |
Restaurant Chain Tim Hortons Blocks Independent Journalist’s Website on WiFi | By Dan Dicks Tim Hortons Doesn’t Want You To See The Truth. Press For Truth has been banned from Tim Hortons! In this video Dan... | 1real |
Taiwan says Chinese air force exercised near island 16 times in last year | TAIPEI (Reuters) - China s air force has carried out 16 rounds of exercises close to Taiwan in the last year or so, Taiwan s defense ministry said on Tuesday, warning that China s military threat was growing by the day. China considers self-ruled and democratic Taiwan to be its sacred territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring what it views as a wayward province under Chinese control. China has taken an increasingly hostile stance towards Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen from the island s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party won presidential elections last year. Beijing suspects her of pushing for the island s formal independence, a red line for China. Tsai says she wants peace with China, but that she will defend Taiwan s security and way of life. In a lengthy report, Taiwan s defense ministry listed the number of times China s air force had drilled near the island since the end of October last year and which aircraft were involved, including bombers and advanced fighter jets. Of the 16 drills, 15 of them were around Taiwan, flying through the Bashi Channel which separates Taiwan from the Philippines and near Japan s Miyako island, to the north of Taiwan. The other drill was through the Bashi Channel and out into the Pacific. China has repeatedly said the drills are routine. Taiwan s defense ministry said China was the island s biggest security threat. The Chinese military s strength continues to grow rapidly, it said. There have been massive developments in military reforms, combined operations, weapons development and production, the building of overseas military bases and military exercises, and the military threat towards us grows daily. Chinese missiles can already cover all of Taiwan, and China has been improving its abilities in long-range anti-ship missiles to build an ability to resist foreign forces , the ministry added. Tensions rose earlier this month after a senior Chinese diplomat threatened that China would invade Taiwan if any U.S. warships made port visits there. Taiwan is well equipped with mostly U.S.-made weapons, but has been pressing Washington to sell more advanced equipment. The United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, to China s distaste. Proudly democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being run by autocratic China, and Taiwan s government has accused Beijing of not understanding what democracy is all about when it criticizes Taipei. | 0fake |
Senate panel delays vote on Trump trade nominee Lighthizer | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate Finance Committee on Thursday delayed a scheduled vote on President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Trade Representative due to the lack of a quorum among committee members. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, the committee’s chairman, said he hoped the nomination of Robert Lighthizer for the administration’s top trade negotiating job could be taken up after Congress’ two-week Easter break ends on April 24. Senate confirmation of Lighthizer’s nomination has been delayed partly by demands from Democrats that the Finance Committee first advance a bill aimed at protecting retired coal miners’ pensions and health care benefits. Only one Democrat, Senator Ron Wyden, showed up for the start of the panel’s meeting on Thursday. Also contributing to delays were questions over whether Lighthizer, a veteran trade lawyer and Reagan-era deputy USTR, needs a congressional waiver from a 1995 law prohibiting USTR candidates from working on behalf of foreign governments. After leaving USTR but well before that law was passed, Lighthizer did some work for Brazil’s agriculture department in the late 1980s and assisted a law firm colleague who was advising a Chinese electronics industry group in the early 1990s. Lighthizer has strong support from both parties because of his pledges to strengthen enforcement of U.S. trade laws to stop unfairly dumped and subsidized imports, but the waiver issue has become a leverage point for Democrats on the miners’ pension bill. That measure seeks to transfer certain pension obligations to the federal government and provide funding to prevent some 22,800 retired coal miners from losing healthcare benefits at the end of April. Wyden said Democrats’ concerns needed to be addressed, but he was “confident that we can find a way to have a positive, strongly bipartisan markup of Mr. Lighthizer.” | 0fake |
Vicar sacked over orgies, hookers & porn after wife exposes his double life | Vicar sacked over orgies, hookers & porn after wife exposes his double... Vicar sacked over orgies, hookers & porn after wife exposes his double life By 0 41
A sex addict Church of England vicar who took part in orgies, visited gay saunas and collected “perverted” pornography has been sacked after his estranged wife exposed his double life.
Reverend James Day’s actions amounted to “conduct unbecoming and inappropriate,” a Church of England tribunal found. It has banned him from ministry for life.
Read more
Speaking at the tribunal in London, Birte Day said she had collected evidence showing her husband had taken part in group sex, attempted to set up meetings with prostitutes and used a fake name to meet new partners.
She said her husband had stored “a substantial amount” of porn on his computer, which she collected on memory sticks presented to the tribunal, according to the Telegraph.
“There were about 50 short films of men and women in scenes of sexual pleasure and orgies, at least 100 sketches of naked women being tortured and burned, a scene of a gladiator being hit and tortured, many images of naked young men… and other sexually explicit material.”
She said her husband became increasingly open about his “sexual addiction,” adding: “He often said the two most important elements in his life were God and sex.”
“I think James wanted to hurt me with his sexual activities and was making me feel guilty as I was just ‘not good enough,’” she said.
Read more
The hearing was told the vicar had also been violent towards his wife – tightening a scarf around her neck so she couldn’t breathe, spanking her as punishment for wearing shorts in front of workmen, biting her hand and spitting in her face.
“I had to protect myself by gathering evidence to show that he was not normal, because to others outside the marriage he projected himself to be a successful and respectable person,” his wife said.
She also referenced an email she had found from Day – who is also a psychology professor – to his friend. He wrote: “You must never desist on account of my priesthood and all to do with vocation … Perhaps I should send you photos from a gangbang I participated in … to assuage your guilt.”
His wife also found business cards suggesting Day was visiting gay saunas in Brussels, New York and Italy. He had also created email addresses for himself under different names and identities.
The Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal for the Diocese of Europe concluded Day’s behavior was not criminal – but that standards for clergy “must be different.”
It said it was satisfied the assaults on his wife took place, adding the allegations made against the priest were proved in their entirety.
Day did not attend the tribunal but did not contest the proceedings.
Via RT . This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license. | 1real |
DNC MEGA-DONOR Ditches Dems in Scathing Message: ‘Bunch of dumb-ass political hacks’ | Wow! This is huge! The Democrats and their leaders are obviously ticking off the big guys with big bucks Was it something they said? DNC Chairman Tom Perez could be the culprit or was it Donna Brazile exposing the corruption in the DSNC? We re happy Morgan saw the light and ditched the DNC but he s still on board with some Democratic candidates He needs to come on over to the RIGHT side!TALLAHASSEE John Morgan tossed a bomb Friday into the 2018 political landscape, saying in a post-Thanksgiving message he is leaving the Democratic Party, and that Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson should not run for re-election, but rather seek the governor s mansion so he can leave a legacy. I can t muster enthusiasm for any of today s politicians, the prominent trial lawyer and Democratic fundraiser wrote on Twitter. They are all the same. Both parties. I plan to register as an independent and when I vote, vote for the lesser of two evils. Morgan said, while he would support some Democratic candidates he likes, he would not raise a dime for national groups like the Democratic National Committee. F no, he said when asked if he would help national organizations. That s like pissing money down a rat hole. Read Donna [Brazile s] book Morgan was referring to a book by the former interim DNC chair, previewed this month in POLITICO Magazine, where she says the party essentially rigged the DNC to support Hillary Clinton before the Democratic primary was over. Bunch of dumb ass political hacks, Morgan added. | 1real |
NASA accidentally films the BEST UFO sighting yet | NASA accidentally films the BEST UFO sighting yet Lol. Re: NASA accidentally films the BEST UFO sighting yet Just in time for the election...Do they really think this will stop us talking about her? Information is the most dangerous weapon of all ... Page 1 | 1real |
PRO-LIFE LICENSE PLATE DEEMED ‘Patently Offensive’ BY FEDERAL APPEALS COURT | Because after all, what s more offensive than choosing to allow your baby to live?The pro-life message can be classified as patently offensive, a federal appeals court ruled last week. The new opinion came as a three-judge panel ruled that New York state was right to reject a Choose Life license plate on the grounds that it may grate on New Yorkers political sensibilities.The judges split on whether New York could deny a pro-adoption group the right to have its own license plate, although the state has in the past allowed plates endorsing political causes associated with the liberal viewpoint, such as environmentalism.Judge Rosemary Pooler, who was appointed by President Clinton, wrote that the state s denial did not harm anyone s right to freedom of expression, because drivers may display a Choose Life bumper sticker or even cover every available square inch of their vehicle with such stickers. That message will resonate just as loudly as if vehicle displayed a Choose Life license plate. Judge Debra Ann Livingston, a President George W. Bush appointee, wrote in her dissent that a proposed custom plate depicting a sun and two smiling children, and bearing the words, Choose Life [thought] to be patently offensive was surprising. Pro-adoption organizations should have the same speech rights as any other organization. While the district court affirmed this basic freedom, the circuit court denied free speech in favor of government censorship, said Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at ADF. The state doesn t have the authority to target The Children First Foundation specialty plates for censorship based on its life-affirming viewpoint. The ruling is the lastest round in a legal battle that has raged for more than a decade and, pro-lifers say, seen state officials repeatedly suppress their First Amendment rights.The Children First Foundation applied for the specialty license plate in 2002, but state officials say the message and design was too controversial. In 2004, the Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit on CFF s behalf.New York s Department of Motor Vehicles repeatedly denied the Choose Life license plates on the grounds that the message was patently offensive. The same appeals court rejected an effort to suppress the plates made by then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and agreed that Albany officials denied the plates based on viewpoint discrimination.Via: LifeSite News | 1real |
Russian Lawyer Willing To Testify In Front Of The Senate ONLY If ‘Given Safety’ | Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and everyone else in Trump World who was in that meeting with a shady Russian lawyer who definitely worked for Kremlin-connected spy agencies might be in even deeper trouble than they were before. It seems that this same lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, is willing to testify under oath for the United States Senate but only if her safety can be guaranteed. Veselniskaya says: Let s put it this way I m ready to clarify the situation in today s mass hysteria, only within the legal field or through lawyers, or by testifying in the Senate. When asked by a reporter if she was willing to go before the Senate, Veselnitskaya said: Yes, if I am guaranteed safety. Today I have to think about my safety first, the safety of my family, my four children. Well, something hot is brewing if this woman is worrying that something might happen to her if she breaks her silence. Granted, she never should have even been in the United States at all, given her history and shady connections to Vladimir Putin s Kremlin, but she was, and she was heavily connected to an American presidential campaign. The Senate definitely needs to hear from her. We need to know what happened in that meeting.To that end, Congress, Secret Service, or whomever, please do what you must to make sure this woman stays safe so that she will testify. Natalia Veselnitskaya could have a lot of keys to unlock this whole Russian puzzle even if she s a part of it and lying.Watch her remarks below:Featured image via Natalia Veselnitskaya Facebook | 1real |
Peter Schweizer: Media Chases Trump-Putin Conspiracy Theories, Ignores Evidence of John Podesta’s Russia Ties | On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, SiriusXM host Alex Marlow asked Breitbart News Senior Editor at Large Peter Schweizer about allegations that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman, John Podesta, may have violated federal law through his dealings with the Russians. [Schweizer said Podesta has “a very interesting relationship with Russia, going back to when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. ” “When she was secretary of state, he was an adviser. He sat on her foreign policy advisory board. We know from the Podesta emails that he was talking to her all the time on everything from speeches to personnel decisions to policy positions,” Schweizer elaborated. “In 2011, he joins the executive board of this small energy company in Massachusetts called Joule Energy,” Schweizer recalled. “And Joule Energy, about two months after he joins the executive board, gets a large infusion of cash. They get one billion rubles, which is about $35 to $45 million, invested from Russia. It comes from a very unusual entity, this entity called RUSNANO. ” “RUSNANO is this investment fund, called ‘Putin’s Child’ by the Russian Science Ministry, so it shows you how connected this fund is,” he explained. “They actually buy an equity stake in this John company, which they can do. You can raise the question of why they’re doing it while he’s advising Hillary Clinton, but they can legally do that. ” “The problem for Podesta becomes when he joins the Obama White House as counselor to the president in 2013,” he continued. “In order to do that, he’s got to file those large, cumbersome, but I think essential financial disclosure forms where you list what boards are you on, that you are connected to or have been connected to in the last year, what entities. You’re also required to disclose your stock holdings. ” “In the case of Podesta, there are two omissions. One of them is the way the Joule was structured, it has three corporate boards. It has one based in Massachusetts, one based in the Netherlands, and then it has a holding company. John Podesta, according to corporate records, was on all three of those boards. He only listed two of them on his financial disclosure. He omitted probably the most important one, which was the holding company,” said Schweizer. “Now, you could say okay, maybe it was just an omission. He listed two of the three that’s not bad,” he granted. “The problem is that he failed to disclose what he did with the 75, 000 shares of stock that he had in the company that were given to him as a board member. He gave them to his daughter through an LLC. ” “There’s a question of whether she actually owned them — and by that I mean the Podesta emails show that he had a email conversation with Joule Energy executives and people connected with them, even though he ostensibly didn’t own stock anymore. But he failed to disclose that transaction. He failed to disclose the 75, 000 shares he owned that he gave to his daughter. That is a direct, clear violation of what you are supposed to disclose on these federal forms,” Schweizer said. Marlow noted there have been “zero pieces of hard evidence connecting the Trump campaign to the Russian government,” while “there is so much evidence, much of it uncovered by you, connecting the Clintons with the Russian government. ” “And yet, the media is obsessed with one and not the other,” he said. Schweizer found the disparity of coverage interesting as well. “I’m a big believer that you need to investigate and look into things, particularly if you’re talking about foreign governments or foreign entities trying to influence our politicians,” he declared. “What we know right now about the Russia story as it relates to Trump is the relationship, as it were, amounts to meetings that some Trump officials had with people from Russia. Those Trump officials never really made it into the Trump administration — with the exception of Michael Flynn, who left pretty quickly,” he pointed out. “The thesis that everybody is operating on is the Russians helped Trump win and Trump is going to do all these favors for Russia. The problem is, when you look at the personnel decisions, who’s running Russia policy in the United States — whether that’s General Mattis at the Pentagon, whether that is McMaster, the national security adviser, whether that’s the CIA director, whether that’s the director of Russia policy on the National Security Council, who’s a very solid scholar from the Brookings Institution — none of these are remotely ” he said. “All you have is sort of this concern that the Russians were hacking during the election, which I think is a legitimate concern and a theory that hasn’t been proved, that there was a connection between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. There’s just been no evidence of that,” he noted. “My point is both should be looked into, but you actually have very substantial things that went on when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, that, number one, included the transfer of money to the Clintons and to John Podesta and number two, very serious favors done by the Hillary Clinton State Department to the Russians, including technology transfer, et cetera,” he said. “The kind of scenario that people envision happened with Trump happened in the Clinton State Department. And yet, there seems to be a lack of interest in pursuing and investigating precisely what those relationships were and how everything was carried out,” Schweizer observed. Peter Schweizer is a senior editor at large for Breitbart News, president of the Government Accountability Institute, and author of the Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 0fake |
Sumner Redstone Moves to Replace Ousted Trust Members - The New York Times | The names put forward to replace the executives who were suddenly ousted from the trust and board that will determine the fate of Sumner M. Redstone’s $40 billion media empire have close connections to his recently reconciled daughter, Shari Redstone, according to three people briefed on the matter. The developments are likely to be cited by Viacom executives as evidence of Ms. Redstone’s role in the contentious over the weekend of the succession plans for her father’s companies. On Friday, two longtime confidants of Mr. Redstone, 92, were unexpectedly removed from their positions on the trust that will control Mr. Redstone’s companies after he dies or is declared incompetent. They were also separated from the board of National Amusements, the private theater chain company through which Mr. Redstone controls about 80 percent of the voting stock in Viacom and CBS, two of the world’s largest entertainment companies. One person expected to be named to the trust is Thaddeus Jankowski, the senior vice president and general counsel of National Amusements, according to people with knowledge of the development, who requested anonymity because the deliberations are private. Ms. Redstone is a director and president of National Amusements, where she holds a position of authority over Mr. Jankowski. Viacom executives and directors on Saturday questioned Mr. Redstone’s competency in making the sudden changes and asserted that he had been manipulated by his daughter. On Sunday evening, Mr. Redstone released a statement through a spokesman in which he attested to being independent and “engaged, attentive and as opinionated as ever. ” He also disputed claims made over the weekend by Viacom directors and executives that company directors had been denied access to him. According to the statement, Mr. Redstone is opposed to the plans underway by Viacom leadership to sell a stake in Paramount Pictures, the film and television studio. Philippe P. Dauman, the chief executive of Viacom, has said that a deal should be reached by the end of June. “Mr. Redstone regrets that Mr. Dauman has diverted resources to these baseless attacks and misrepresentations, rather than focusing on the continuing challenges that are faced by Viacom,” the spokesman, Mike Lawrence, said in the statement. In a later statement, Carl Folta, a Viacom spokesman, said that the company was “deeply troubled and saddened by this state of affairs. ” He outlined how Viacom directors addressed company issues, including the sale of a stake in Paramount, during 12 hours of meetings last week that Mr. Redstone attended by phone. Upon Mr. Redstone’s death or upon him being declared incompetent, his control of the voting stock in Viacom and CBS is to pass to the trust, with his five grandchildren as the beneficiaries. Ms. Redstone is vice chairwoman of Viacom and CBS and one of the seven members of the trust. Mr. Dauman was unexpectedly dismissed from the trust and removed from the board of National Amusements on Friday. George Abrams, a Viacom director, a representative of Mr. Redstone’s for 50 years and an ally of Mr. Dauman, was also removed from both positions that day. Their swift removal was seen as a major victory for Ms. Redstone in her quest to dictate the future of her father’s media empire. She has publicly opposed Mr. Dauman’s leadership of Viacom. In addition to Mr. Jankowski, the other person expected to be appointed to the trust is an undisclosed friend of Ms. Redstone, two of the people briefed on the matter said. Ms. Redstone’s daughter, Kimberlee Ostheimer, was also put forth to serve on the board of National Amusements, the three people said. Mr. Jankowski and Ms. Ostheimer also could not be reached for comment. The weekend’s developments prompted immediate questions about whether or not Mr. Redstone, who is in poor health, was competent to make those decisions and what role Ms. Redstone might have played in influencing her father. In a statement on Saturday, Ms. Redstone said, “I fully support my father’s decisions and respect his authority to make them. ” Mr. Dauman called the moves “invalid and illegal” and said Mr. Redstone had lacked the capacity to have taken such steps. Mr. Lawrence disputed that Viacom directors had been restricted from seeing Mr. Redstone. In his statement on Sunday, he detailed how Mr. Redstone sent a letter through a lawyer to Mr. Dauman, Mr. Abrams and Frederic Salerno, another Viacom director, on May 16 to ask for details about Viacom’s business and share price, which has declined 40 percent over the past year, but received no response. Mr. Folta, the Viacom spokesman, said that two directors have “still been unable to meet with Mr. Redstone. ” “The Sumner Redstone we knew would never refuse a meeting about his businesses and he certainly would not want advisers to stand in for him,” Mr. Folta said. Mr. Lawrence attested to Mr. Redstone’s vitality. He said that over the past several days Mr. Redstone had hosted family and friends at his home and also met with lawyers and an executive from National Amusements. Mr. Redstone was also “looking forward to celebrating his birthday with family later this week,” Mr. Lawrence said. | 0fake |
Michigan lawmakers push forward $500 mln package for Detroit schools | (Reuters) - The Michigan House of Representatives approved on Thursday a $500 million spending package for Detroit’s cash-strapped schools, which could run out of money to pay employees at the end of June. The legislation, which still needs approvals from the state Senate and Governor Rick Snyder, was passed early Thursday morning after hundreds of Detroit teachers called in sick over paycheck concerns. The move closed nearly all of the district’s 97 schools on Monday and Tuesday. Detroit school teachers returned to their classrooms on Wednesday following the “sick-out” after receiving assurances from officials that they will be paid for their work. The Detroit public school system, or DPS, has nearly 46,000 students. It has been under state control since 2009 because of a financial emergency. “This is the right plan to fix Detroit’s schools and give the city a good, working school system for the long term,” said House Speaker Kevin Cotter in a statement. The DPS, the state’s largest public school system, will run out of money to pay employees after the fiscal year ends on June 30, the school system’s state-appointed transition manager, former federal bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, has said. The spending package, which provides $500 million in aid to the school district, is less than the $715 million requested by Republican Governor Snyder and approved by the Republican-controlled Senate as part of a different plan. In a joint statement, the leaders of the city, state and national teachers’ unions called the legislation “some of the most despicable anti-student, anti-public school, anti-teacher provisions we’ve seen in America.” They called on Snyder to veto the bill passed by the Republican-controlled House if it reached his desk. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a Democrat, said in a statement that previous state Senate bills aimed at funding the schools were “a thoughtful attempt,” but the House legislation will repeat past mistakes that included a lack of clear planning. Republican state Senator Goeff Hansen, lead negotiator on the Senate bills, said in a statement he had serious concerns with many aspects of the House legislation, but would work toward a bipartisan solution that he said must include compromise. Hansen spokesman Peter Wills said in an email that a schedule for reconciling the Senate and House bills has not been set. Rhodes called the passage of the legislation “an important step in the right direction” and said he supported talks between the House and Senate to resolve their differences. | 0fake |
Je Suis HYPOCRITES: FREE SPEECH IS EMBRACED WHEN INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE MURDERED IN FRANCE…Free Speech Is Condemned (BY EVERY MEDIA OUTLET INCLUDING FOX NEWS) When Muslim Terrorists Are Killed In America [VIDEO] | Sooo when terrorists attack Je Suis Charlie, a French newspaper (who makes a living mocking religion) and kills innocent people working for the publication, the world stands tall in support of free speech. When an American hosts a Draw Muhammed contest in Texas and two terrorists (who were plotting to kill innocent Americans) are killed just before their plot to kill innocent Americans exercising their free speech rights, the organizer and attendants are criticized for inciting and even inviting violence. Can someone explain how this is not hypocrisy?In truth perhaps I was not Charlie . After all, I wasn t a religion-attacking atheist. Truth to tell, in the story of Charlie Hebdo, many left out that the cartoon magazine was something that we might call a liberal rag . It was often offensive and frequently unfunny with attacks on religion, and it didn t limit its criticism to Islam, actually attacking Christianity more. Some even believed it anti-Semitic. Deliberately, purposely provocative.And yet, even though I was none of those things, I was Charlie . Not because I agreed with any of it. But precisely because I didn t. Because even the provocative offensive speech by assholes, to paraphrase Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, is protected. Especially the provocative speech, the minority speech, that which offends, that which many may not like. Because the government doesn t have the right to shut down offensive speech for being offensive and neither do terrorists with AK-47s. You do not have the right to kill over a cartoon.Much of the world seemed to agree, leaders linking arms in Paris, being Charlie. Media in the U.S was also generally sympathetic, many pieces running Je Suis Charlie in headers.Yet here we are today, a few months later. A similar situation, where Americans exercise their First Amendment right to draw offensive cartoons of Muhammad. Yet where are the crowds of media saying Je Suis Garland ? Where are the crowds of media condemning the attack on free speech? Where are the crowds of media, highlighting even just the fact that this was immediately apparent ISIS-endorsed attack on the United States?WATCH FOX NEWS MARTHA MacCallum ATTACK EVENT ORGANIZER PAMELA GELLAR FOR ORGANIZING AN EVENT THAT MAY HAVE BEEN CONTROVERSIAL:https://youtu.be/mnMRFSg8i2sInstead, what we have is some, like NY Times reporter Rukmini Callamachi and even McClatchy News, in scary fashion, asking when is provocative speech too much and attacking the people who held the event in Garland, more than calling out the terrorists.McClatchy even discusses whether charges should be brought against the organizers of the Garland event.So why the difference here for media? Because the group was one they didn t like in a state for which they didn t care with a better result than Paris because of, well, guns?And where has the Federal government s response been to an ISIS-claimed attack on American soil? President Obama hasn t even mentioned it. The press secretary made a fairly perfunctory comment about violence not being the proper response to expression even if offensive. One might have thought he was speaking of a video, rather than an Islamist terror attack on the United States. Again, no mention of ISIS, Islamists or terrorism. Meanwhile the President has managed to go on Letterman, to golf and to attend Democratic fundraisers.In the words of Mr. Goldberg, who gets to define what is provocative?I don t know if I would agree with everything Mr. Goldberg writes, but I would defend his right to say it, even if he were provocative. Vox calls the Garland event hate speech . I think much of what Vox says is hate speech. Who gets to decide? I have multiple options to object to the content by protest and by pen, that is the benefit of being an American. As Mr. Goldberg notes, Iran has a Holocaust cartoon contest every year, basically catering to Holocaust deniers. Are they attacked? No, they are laughed at, they are belittled.Either we are all in or we are not. Either we believe in what we say we do, or we do not. But if we do not, if we allow offense or political difference to limit that protected speech, if we start to suggest as some of these writers do, what speech should or should not be allowed , we move down the slippery slope to the rule of the mob, to the rule of the despot. In an ever-growing media state, where already, even the slightest offense is often seized on and may result in the prevailing view hounding a person from his/her job for differing, this is a frightening thought.Via: Weasel Zippers | 1real |
Worst job in Washington: Obama's SCOTUS pick | Washington (CNN) It might be the best job in town -- at the worst possible time.
President Barack Obama is suddenly searching for a new Supreme Court justice after the death of conservative icon Antonin Scalia left a rare vacancy at the pinnacle of U.S. jurisprudence.
Normally, an open spot on the exalted bench -- complete with a lifetime tenure and a boatload of benefits -- would have those who labor in the law's dusty obscurity salivating at the chance to crown their careers in the black robes of the nation's highest court. And candidates with political inclinations have extra incentive to covet this particular seat, as it comes with a chance to tilt the ideological balance of the court and shape the nation's future for decades.
Scalia speaks at the University of Minnesota as part of the law school's Stein Lecture series on October 20, 2015, in Minneapolis.
Scalia speaks at the University of Minnesota as part of the law school's Stein Lecture series on October 20, 2015, in Minneapolis.
U.S. President Barack Obama greets Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Sonia Sotomayor, Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts at Obama's inauguration for his second term of office.
U.S. President Barack Obama greets Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Sonia Sotomayor, Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts at Obama's inauguration for his second term of office.
Scalia conducts a naturalization ceremony for 16 new U.S. citizens during the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's historic Gettysburg Address on November 19, 2013, at Gettysburg National Military Park in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Scalia conducts a naturalization ceremony for 16 new U.S. citizens during the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's historic Gettysburg Address on November 19, 2013, at Gettysburg National Military Park in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Scalia and his wife, Maureen, arrive for a state dinner in honor of British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House on March 14, 2012, in Washington.
Scalia and his wife, Maureen, arrive for a state dinner in honor of British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House on March 14, 2012, in Washington.
Scalia testifies during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 5, 2011. The justice testified on "Considering the Role of Judges Under the Constitution of the United States."
Scalia testifies during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 5, 2011. The justice testified on "Considering the Role of Judges Under the Constitution of the United States."
Scalia listens as U.S. President George W. Bush speaks at the the Federalist Society's 25th Anniversary Gala Dinner at Union Station in Washington, on November 15, 2007.
Scalia listens as U.S. President George W. Bush speaks at the the Federalist Society's 25th Anniversary Gala Dinner at Union Station in Washington, on November 15, 2007.
Heather Myklegard, Scalia, Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. President George W. Bush walk through the Rose Garden before Kempthorne is sworn in as the new interior secretary at White House on June 7, 2006, in Washington.
Heather Myklegard, Scalia, Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. President George W. Bush walk through the Rose Garden before Kempthorne is sworn in as the new interior secretary at White House on June 7, 2006, in Washington.
Scalia calls on people during a question-and-answer period at the American Enterprise Institute on February 21, 2006, in Washington. Scalia delivered the keynote address about foreign law and the debate about how it is used in American Law during the seminar called "Outsourcing Of American Law."
Scalia calls on people during a question-and-answer period at the American Enterprise Institute on February 21, 2006, in Washington. Scalia delivered the keynote address about foreign law and the debate about how it is used in American Law during the seminar called "Outsourcing Of American Law."
Surrounded by security, Scalia walks in the annual Columbus Day Parade on October 10, 2005, in New York City.
Surrounded by security, Scalia walks in the annual Columbus Day Parade on October 10, 2005, in New York City.
Members of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice David Souter, Justice William Kennedy, Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice John Paul Stevens file out of the U.S. Supreme Court Building to attend funeral services for Chief Justice William Rehnquist on September 7, 2005, in Washington.
Members of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice David Souter, Justice William Kennedy, Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice John Paul Stevens file out of the U.S. Supreme Court Building to attend funeral services for Chief Justice William Rehnquist on September 7, 2005, in Washington.
The casket of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist lies in the Great Hall of the U.S. Supreme Court as Scalia and Sandra Day O'Connor, left, walk past on September 6, 2005, in Washington.
The casket of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist lies in the Great Hall of the U.S. Supreme Court as Scalia and Sandra Day O'Connor, left, walk past on September 6, 2005, in Washington.
Scalia shakes hands with U.S. Marines Corps Maj. Gen. Robert C. Dickerson, commanding general, upon Scalia's arrival at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, for an official visit on March 12, 2004.
Scalia shakes hands with U.S. Marines Corps Maj. Gen. Robert C. Dickerson, commanding general, upon Scalia's arrival at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, for an official visit on March 12, 2004.
Scalia speaks to a crowd gathered at the Religious Freedom Monument in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to celebrate Religious Freedom Day on January 12, 2003. Scalia complained that courts have gone overboard in keeping God out of government.
Scalia speaks to a crowd gathered at the Religious Freedom Monument in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to celebrate Religious Freedom Day on January 12, 2003. Scalia complained that courts have gone overboard in keeping God out of government.
U.S. Supreme Court justices pay their respects in front of the casket of former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger during a prayer ceremony in the Great Hall at the Supreme Court Building in Washington on June 28, 1995.
U.S. Supreme Court justices pay their respects in front of the casket of former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger during a prayer ceremony in the Great Hall at the Supreme Court Building in Washington on June 28, 1995.
Retiring Chief Justice Warren Burger, right, administers the oath to Scalia, as Scalia's wife, Maureen, holds the Bible on September 26, 1986. Scalia was the 103rd person to sit on the court.
Retiring Chief Justice Warren Burger, right, administers the oath to Scalia, as Scalia's wife, Maureen, holds the Bible on September 26, 1986. Scalia was the 103rd person to sit on the court.
Scalia, seen in a 1986 photo, was the first justice of Italian-American heritage and passed through confirmation with a unanimous vote.
Scalia, seen in a 1986 photo, was the first justice of Italian-American heritage and passed through confirmation with a unanimous vote.
Scalia appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings in Washington on August 6, 1986.
Scalia appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings in Washington on August 6, 1986.
Scalia works in his office in Washington on July 28, 1986. Scalia, who was appointed in 1986, was the longest-serving justice on the Supreme Court.
Scalia works in his office in Washington on July 28, 1986. Scalia, who was appointed in 1986, was the longest-serving justice on the Supreme Court.
President Ronald Reagan announces the nomination of Scalia to the Supreme Court on June 17, 1986, as a result of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger's retirement.
President Ronald Reagan announces the nomination of Scalia to the Supreme Court on June 17, 1986, as a result of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger's retirement.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was found dead on Saturday, February 13, was one of the most influential conservative justices in history. He was 79.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was found dead on Saturday, February 13, was one of the most influential conservative justices in history. He was 79.
But this time, things are different.
Whoever accepts Obama's nomination will walk into a wall of political fire. A pitched battle is already raging over Scalia's seat, embroiling the White House, Congress and presidential candidates eager to whip up grass-roots activists.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz insisted Monday that Obama will nominate a successor to Scalia.
But for all their troubles, whoever is chosen could very well not end up with the job.
Senate Republicans are warning that they may not even grant Obama's nominee a hearing, saying it should be up to the next president to fill the vacancy.
A nominee could be left hanging in limbo for a year with no guarantee that, even if a Democrat wins in November, they'll end up on the court. Of course, if a Republican wins the White House, they can forget it.
At worst, if the GOP relents and holds confirmation hearings, the nominee could emerge so damaged by the political tumult that their reputation could be shredded along with their hopes of one day reaching the Supreme Court.
For Obama's next nominee, the ordeal will be many times worse. And there doesn't seem any obvious way for Obama to shield his pick.
"It is possible that he could bend this like Beckham and get it through," Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University told CNN's Jim Scuitto. "But I wouldn't bet on it it. The fact is, you are replacing a conservative icon. Any moderate nominee is going to move this needle to the left on the court and it is going to be a battle royale."
The sudden opening on the court is emerging as a top issue in an already vicious White House campaign, and threatens to expose the eventual nominee to the full fury of the conservative political, legal and media machine.
So it would be no wonder if a candidate might choose to take a pass on the partisan anger that surrounded the likes of Clarence Thomas, who did make it to the court. Ronald Reagan's nominee, Robert Bork, and Harriet Miers, George W. Bush's White House counsel and Supreme Court pick, did not make it through the acrimonious process.
It would be difficult to see, for instance, why one often-mentioned potential presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, the California Attorney General who is running for a Senate seat, would instead opt for a Supreme Court spot that might be a mirage.
There might also be a case for the President to take on a pass on someone like Sri Srinivasan, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who many see as a Supreme Court justice in waiting.
Srinivasan, who has historic potential as the first Indian-American on the high court, was confirmed unanimously by the Senate for his current post. But his supporters might see a nomination now as a waste, given the risk that he could be burned by a bitter confirmation process and left too stigmatized to be viable in future.
So what type of nominee might be willing to take on such a poisoned chalice?
For sure, whoever is picked would have to be a rare glutton for punishment. But some legal experts believe the White House will still have no trouble drawing up a list.
"Number One -- most judges, if they are not sitting on the Supreme Court, toil in relative anonymity," said Professor David Ryden of Hope College, Michigan, whose research focuses on the how the Supreme Court influences the electoral process. "They are human beings. There is the lure of the limelight and there is the honor of being named."
Daniel Franklin, a Georgia State University political science professor and author of the book "Pitiful Giants: Presidents In Their Final Term," said that for lawyers, the Supreme Court is the equivalent of the big leagues. That could mean that even a nomination as challenged as this one is special.
"If you say, you have a remote chance of playing center fielder for the Dodgers, I would take it," he said. "It is still a pretty big deal."
There are some potential ways out of the imbroglio for Obama that involve finding an unorthodox candidate who might be flattered by a nomination.
Since the effort to replace Scalia comes in the twilight of his presidency, Obama has much less leverage than when he picked Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in his first term.
That means he may have no choice but to settle on someone less palatable to liberals but who might increase his minimal chances of winning a confirmation.
"The president is on the ideological spectrum at one point and the Senate is on the ideological spectrum on another," said Franklin. "Even in a normal circumstance, the President has to meet the Senate somewhere in the middle with his preference while getting someone as close to his preference as possible."
Franklin added: "Now, he has to move that point closer and closer to the Senate's point of preference."
If Obama's priority is to get a justice confirmed at all costs, he could call Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's bluff and name a moderate, establishment Republican who GOP senators would feel forced to support -- perhaps someone like GOP Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah or Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi as the nominee, Franklin said.
But that approach -- effectively installing a pro-life nominee with big abortion cases looming -- would enrage Obama's liberal backers.
Still, it would move the court incrementally left on some issues from where it stood when Scalia was alive. And since Hatch and Cochran are 81 and 78 respectively, they would unlikely be a choice that would haunt the President for decades.
Such a scenario, however, seems remote given the political ire of the times. Obama seems more likely to take a more nakedly political route.
He could pick someone he knows is unlikely to be confirmed, but who would be willing to do a service for their party and become a cause celebre throughout election season.
A politician already locked in the heat of partisan battle might work in this case -- that's why the names of Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey have been floated. Neither have re-election races in 2016 and both are rumored to have presidential ambitions that might benefit from a spell in the national partisan spotlight.
And if for some reason their colleagues found it impossible to block them in the Senate's clubby atmosphere, there are worst places to end up than on the Supreme Court.
Another approach would be to choose a candidate who is a woman or a minority -- perhaps someone from the Hispanic community -- who could be crucial in driving up Democratic turnout in November.
Stalwart Republican opposition to such a nominee would enable Democrats to paint the GOP as prejudiced and motivated by considerations other than legal reservations -- and perhaps might embarrass some swing-state Senate Republicans up for re-election.
And even some judges already on lower courts might be willing to serve as a political placeholders for such a strategy, said Ryden of Hope College.
"Judges have their own political preferences and agendas and there are many on the federal court bench ... who would fit that label and be happy to collaborate on a strategy with the White House -- even if they weren't the ones who would immediately benefit from it," he said. | 0fake |
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