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Ackman, Valeant pledge reforms after spiking drug prices | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Activist investor William Ackman promised U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday that he will urge the board of Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX.TO) to reduce the high prices of four life-saving drugs that are now at the heart of two congressional probes. Speaking before the Senate Special Committee on Aging, Ackman revealed that Valeant’s board will hold a conference call on Thursday to discuss the costs of heart medications Isuprel and Nitropress, as well as Cuprimine and Syprine, two drugs that are used to treat a genetic disorder that causes copper to build up in the body’s organs. Valeant raised the price of Isuprel by about 720 percent and Nitropress by 310 percent, after acquiring them in 2015. The other two were raised by 5,878 percent and 3,162 percent, respectively. “My recommendation is going to be to reduce the prices,” Ackman testified. The Senate Special Committee on Aging is one of two U.S. congressional panels investigating sky-rocketing price increases of certain decades-old drugs acquired by companies including Valeant and Turing Pharmaceuticals, a company founded by Martin Shkreli. Ackman, a major Valeant shareholder, appeared Wednesday alongside the company’s outgoing Chief Executive Michael Pearson and Howard Schiller, a board member and former chief financial officer. Ackman joined the board last month as Valeant faced mounting scrutiny by members of Congress, prosecutors and regulators over its drug pricing, business practices and accounting - issues that have caused its share price to plummet almost 90 percent since August. Valeant has about $30 billion of debt and has been negotiating with creditors, some of whom issued notices of default after it missed a deadline for the filing of its financial results. Ackman said Wednesday that one of his top priorities is to protect the company from bankruptcy. Later, in response to a question from Reuters, he expressed confidence that the company will recover. “There is not going to be any bankruptcy of Valeant,” he said. “We were in a death spiral, and we have taken steps to deal with the banks. We are going to file our 10K on time. We brought in a new CEO.” Pearson, Ackman and Schiller all told lawmakers on Wednesday they regretted Valeant’s pricing decisions. “The company was too aggressive and I, as its leader, was too aggressive in pursuing price increases on certain drugs,” he said. But many lawmakers on the panel appeared skeptical. They questioned Valeant’s business model of investing little in research and development, and the company’s practice of acquiring decades-old drugs and raising the prices. Senator Claire McCaskill, the panel’s top Democrat, angrily asked each of the panelists at one point if they could recall one drug that Valeant didn’t raise the price on. “Not in the United States,” Pearson responded, while Schiller was only able to come up with the name of one drug Valeant acquired after its purchase of Salix. “That is not social good, that is social bad,” McCaskill said. Lawmakers also questioned whether Valeant’s patient assistance and rebate programs are truly helping patients and hospitals afford the medications. Senator Susan Collins, the panel’s chairman, said her committee’s investigation has thus far been unable to find a single hospital that has received a discount. “I can assure you that many of the large hospital systems are getting discounts on the heart drugs,” Pearson said. Pearson is expected to step down in the coming weeks to make way for the incoming CEO, Joseph Papa, previously of Perrigo Company (PRGO.N). Wednesday’s hearing also featured testimony from doctors and a patient with Wilson’s Disease who was forced to stop using Syprine because of the price spike. Dr. Frederick Askari of the University of Michigan told the panel that the cost of Syprine is now so high that it has become less expensive to get a liver transplant and a life-time supply of anti-rejection medications. The patient, Berna Heyman, testified that Valeant refused to help her when she called to complain about the prices. Later, after speaking with the media, the company changed its tune, offered to help, and even sent flowers. “I refused the flowers,” she said. | 0fake |
MUSLIM REFUGEES DUMP GARBAGE In Streets To Protest Insufficient Wi-Fi In Housing | Complaints over lack of wi-fi, no professional cleaning service in their villas and even a refusal to be fingerprinted in Greece upon their exit to other European countries. It s almost as if they re not really grateful for the generosity of the taxpayers who are funding their existence African and Middle-Eastern migrants in an Italian town are protesting insufficient Wi-Fi at their settlement by dumping their garbage into the streets.According to The Local, which cites the Italian-language La Repubblica, a group of two dozen Sub-Saharan African migrants in the town of Ceranova are outraged that a lack of free Wi-Fi at the villa they live in is preventing them from using Skype to communicate with family members back in Africa.The protesters are also angry that the villa doesn t have a professional cleaner to keep things tidy.At first, the protest took the form of migrants marching in the streets and blocking traffic, but now things have escalated and the migrants have begun dumping their trash into the streets to make their point. The stunt led to a confrontation between townsfolk and the migrants, which may have become violent if not for the intervention of the local mayor along with three police officers. Afterwards, a 24-year-old migrant who led the demonstration was kicked out of the refugee facility.The migrants have been living in Ceranova, a small town of about 1,000 people located about 15 miles south of Milan, since July. They are just a small portion of over 120,000 migrants who have arrived in Italy this year, mostly by boat from Africa.At least one Italian is sympathetic to their demands. Obviously it s very important for refugees to have access to the Internet and not just so they can stay in touch with their families, refugee center manager Barbara Spezzi told The Local. The Internet helps refugees keep up to date with what s going on at home and in Italy which helps them integrate into Italian life. It s also a great learning tool too: we had a case of a girl who was following her university lectures on YouTube. The stunt has become fodder for Italian politics, with members of the regionalist, anti-immigration Northern League party using it to bolster their arguments against generous refugee policies. They wan t someone to clean their homes can you believe it? said party leader Matteo Salvani. He joked that Laura Boldrini, a socialist and president of the Chamber of Deputies (Italy s parliament), should be sent to do the cleaning.There have been assorted cases of migrants reacting badly to their conditions or to the actions of European authorities. Last week, for instance, Eritrean migrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa (a hub for migrants arriving from Africa) marched in protest against requirements that they be fingerprinted before being allowed to leave the island. Some have apparently even launched a hunger strike against the requirement.Via: Daily Caller | 1real |
WHILE #UnFitHillary Rests And Parties With Donors…Key Swing State Polls Show Trump’s HARD WORK Is Paying Off | Wow! These are not good numbers for Hillary in states where Democrats have been winning for decades!Heading to Youngstown, Ohio now- some great polls. #AmericaFirst pic.twitter.com/cGwDLSOFUt Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2016 | 1real |
7 Wikileaks Hillary Revelations The Media Won’t Cover | 7 Wikileaks Hillary Revelations The Media Won’t Cover Trump should win based on Hillary's corruption alone David G. Brown | Return of Kings - October 27, 2016 Comments
The recent Wikileaks revelations about the Clintons, the Clinton campaign, media collusion, and the various hypocrisies of the Democratic Party are groundbreaking in both their scope and depth.
The sheer number of hacked emails covering so many topics, combined with the shadiness of the activities involved, should have already handed Donald Trump the election.
Alas, the media, whose collusion with the Clinton campaign is laid out in many of the emails, will not have a bar of reporting them in a professional, ethical fashion. The following seven email exchanges have either been deliberately suppressed by mainstream outlets or given the slimmest coverage to feebly ward off accusations that they are in the de facto service (or pocket) of Hillary Clinton.
1. “Women’s advocate” Hillary Clinton admits that Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund ISIS, but refuses to rebuke them for it
After rounding on Donald Trump for very tamely calling former Miss Universe Alicia Machado “Miss Piggy,” one might think that Hillary Clinton has the interests of women at heart. Her admission that Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund female-enslaving ISIS tells another story. | 1real |
Mexico to cut share of refined sugar sent to U.S., minister says | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico will reduce the proportion of refined sugar it can export to the United States to 30 percent under a new agreement likely to be announced later today, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said on Mexican radio on Tuesday. Currently, the proportion of refined sugar exports from total sugar exports Mexico can send to the United States is 53 percent. | 0fake |
Kenyan President Kenyatta wins 98 percent of vote in repeat election | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta won 98 percent of the vote in a repeated election in which an opposition boycott helped lower turnout to 39 percent, the electoral commission said on Monday. The announcement touched off small protests in a few opposition strongholds but also celebrations in pro-Kenyatta areas. Veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga said the Oct. 26 election was a farce. Civil society groups also cited problems with the vote. The violence has for the most part seen protesters clash with police but some Kenyans fear it is starting to take on ethnic overtones after two deaths in clashes between rival groups at the weekend. At least 66 people have died in overall election violence. On Monday, the U.S. ambassador said Washington was profoundly concerned by the outbreaks of violence since the re-run. Kenya is east Africa s richest economy and a key security ally of the West against militant Islam. It also a key regional trade, logistics and trade hub. In his victory speech, Kenyatta repeated his belief that his victory in the original Aug. 8 election was legitimate and said dialogue would have to wait if the opposition was going to lodge court cases again. The Supreme Court nullified the Aug. 8 vote on procedural grounds. My victory today is just part of a process that is likely to once again be subjected to a constitutional test through our courts ... I will submit to this constitutional path regardless of the outcome, Kenyatta said. Those who are going to ask me: Are you going to engage in dialogue? ... Let them (the opposition) first and foremost exhaust all their constitutional options. Kenyatta took 98 percent of the vote, results from 266 out of 291 constituencies showed. The electoral commission said 7,616,217 valid votes were cast, representing 39 percent of the 19.6 million registered voters. Protests by Odinga s supporters prevented polling stations from opening in 25 constituencies. The election commission said poor security prevented voting in those areas but the final announcement could go ahead as it would not materially affect the result. In the pro-Kenyatta area of Dagoretti North in Nairobi, cars honked and crowds of supporters in red T-shirts ran through the streets. I m so happy the president has got his seat back, said Peterson Njau. Now the economy is going to lift up again. Another resident, Kennedy Okeyo, said he cared more about football than politics but that ethnic clashes in his home this weekend had unnerved him. You can t get to work, and even if you get to work, you can get attacked because of who you are, he said. But just down the road in Nairobi s Kawangware slum, around 100 youths listening to the results on mobile phones chanted No Raila No Peace . They lit a bonfire in the middle of the street and began taunting riot police with cries of the people want teargas . Earlier, police dispersed protesters there with teargas when they tried to block a visit by Interior Minister Fred Matiang i. Another Nairobi shanty town, Mathare, the scene of deadly clashes between police and protesters immediately after the August vote, was largely calm although a handful of protesters lit a small fire. And in the western city of Kisumu, Odinga s political heartland, around 50 youths began to block the road at the Kondele roundabout, the epicenter of protests, while others banged metal poles together. But the protest was small. What can I do? They ve already announced it. Even if I burn tires, nothing will change, said 25-year-old laborer Kennedy Omondi as he watched young men set a barricade alight. Odinga pulled out of last week s vote, saying the electoral commission had failed to institute reforms to forestall the kind of illegalities and irregularities that scuppered Kenyatta s victory in the August election. Kura Yangu Sauti Yangu, a coalition of civil society organizations with 2,000 election observers, said there were multiple cases where results from polling stations differed from results on the forms posted on the election portal after last week s vote. In a report, they supplied a photo taken by their observers of the tally sheet for Bashaal market center in Garissa. It showed 133 votes for Kenyatta while the form displayed online showed 433 votes. Another form posted on the election website, from Tumbeni primary school in Kakamega, showed four votes for Odinga and two for another minor candidate but recorded the total number of votes cast was 77 votes cast. | 0fake |
Still battling for independence, Lebanon to mark national day | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon marks its independence on Wednesday with its sovereignty as compromised as ever by the agendas of foreign states that have shaped its history since the French mandate ended in 1943. The crisis ignited by Saad al-Hariri s sudden resignation as prime minister is unprecedented even by the standards of a country where loyalties have been split between countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia regionally and the United States, France and Russia globally. Hariri is due back in Lebanon on Wednesday for the first time since his resignation in a televised broadcast from Riyadh. Many believe Saudi Arabia made him quit and held him in Riyadh because he was not serving its objectives. Riyadh denies this. He will take part in independence day celebrations in Beirut after an intervention by Lebanon s former colonial power France led to him leaving Saudi Arabia for Paris last week. Can Lebanese people act the way they want? Are they free to take a decision and follow it? No they cannot. Because there are foreign powers who decide the way things go, said Antoine Mouawad, a 65-year old charity employee. We do not feel independent, said George al-Basha, 58, an unemployed barber in Beirut s Achrafiyeh district. For some Lebanese, the latest chapter in their turbulent history carries echoes of its independence in 1943, when France arrested the president and prime minister. International pressure and popular protests eventually forced their release. The parallel with Hariri s situation was drawn by one of Lebanon s major TV stations at the start of the crisis. Foreign states have often regarded tiny Lebanon as a theater for their rivalry, exploiting the fissures between Muslim and Christian sects who have also courted foreign intervention to help them in their struggles with each other. For years it was the tussle between Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon from 1982-2000, and Syria, which maintained a big military presence across much of the country from 1976-2005, that played out on Lebanese soil. The Palestine Liberation Organisation also controlled much of the country prior to 1982. Reflecting today s biggest Middle East rivalry, it is competition between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi ite Iran that lies behind many accusations of foreign meddling. Critics of the heavily armed Lebanese Shi ite group Hezbollah view it as a tool of Iranian policy. Opponents of Hariri, who was thrust into politics by the 2005 assassination of his father, Rafik, have similarly labeled him as an instrument of Saudi policy. But the demand for his return has united Lebanese across the political spectrum. Politicians close to Hariri say Riyadh held him against his will and forced his resignation to bust a coalition government that suited Hezbollah. Posters of Hariri demanding his return to Lebanon, even in areas dominated by his biggest political opponents, reflect widely felt anger at the perceived foreign intervention. The most important thing in a country like Lebanon is to understand that independence is a battle that does not stop, Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk, a member of Hariri s Future Movement, said on Tuesday as he laid a wreath on Rafik Hariri s grave. Saad al-Hariri has also denied being held by Saudi Arabia, and in his resignation speech instead blamed Iran and Hezbollah for Lebanon s present difficulties. Wednesday s independence parade will be held near the central Martyrs Square, where reconstruction from Lebanon s 1975-90 civil war continues. In the nearby seaport are moored naval vessels belonging to the U.N. peacekeeping force UNIFIL which was established after Israeli s first invasion in 1978, and expanded after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. What we have seen in the last 10 days or two weeks, this is really crude intervention, said Sami Atallah of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies, a thinktank in Beirut. When you have a prime minister who resigns in a capital not his own, it tells you that someone else is giving the orders. Syria s military presence in Lebanon was brought to an end in 2005 by a wave of popular protests and international pressure following the Hariri assassination. A U.N.-backed court has charged five Hezbollah members over the killing. The group denies any role. Lebanon is tied either to Saudi Arabia or to Iran. It doesn t have the ability to take actions by itself and politicians are to blame for this, said Nohad Chelhot, a retired business owner. | 0fake |
Puerto Rico needs urgent Congress action: U.S. Treasury, Health chiefs | (Reuters) - The secretaries of the U.S. Treasury and Health and Human Services called for fast congressional action to help Puerto Rico out of its economic mess, and said a bipartisan task force report failed to go far enough on recommending a low-income tax credit for the commonwealth. In a letter to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell reaffirmed calls to step up healthcare funding for Puerto Rico. “We write to underscore the need for additional legislation early in this (congressional) session to address the economic and fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico,” the letter said. They noted that 900,000 Puerto Ricans could risk losing healthcare unless Congress took action by April. The U.S. territory is hampered by $70 billion in debt, unemployment more than twice the U.S. average, a 45 percent poverty rate and a decreasing population as locals flock to the U.S. mainland. A congressional task force of U.S. senators and congressmen in December recommended several fixes for Puerto Rico, including boosting healthcare funding and exploring giving the island access to the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. The benefit for low- to moderate-income workers has been used to combat poverty, and the Obama Administration has proposed expanding it to Puerto Rico. If the credit exceeds a worker’s income tax liability, the government will refund the balance. The report did not go far enough with the tax credit, Lew and Burwell said, calling the benefit a “powerful economic driver.” The task force report described healthcare in Puerto Rico as “a serious and urgent issue,” but did not agree on solutions. For decades, the United States offered lower payments to most island residents under the federally sponsored Medicare and Medicaid insurance programs. Funding for the Medicaid program for the poor, for example, has been capped by Washington, spurring island officials to borrow heavily through municipal bonds. Read the Special Report here: reut.rs/2e4T00o | 0fake |
GOP’s demonic new crusade: Right-wing zealots look for even crueler ways to treat the poor like garbage | Happy Memorial Day! But if you’re in Wisconsin, and relying on food stamps, remember that Republicans don’t want you to have ketchup on your hamburger. They’d probably rather you didn’t have a hamburger at all, but Wisconsin farmers and ranchers have clout, and so proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program made room for Wisconsin products. But they still don’t want you to have “crab, lobster, shrimp, or any other shellfish.” Or ketchup. Or spaghetti sauce. Really.
For now, that’s all grandstanding. SNAP is a federal program, and the Obama administration hasn’t allowed states to restrict food purchases that way. But that hasn’t stopped GOP legislators from trying. Maine and Missouri want to ban SNAP “junk food” purchases. Wisconsin and 16 other states are also trying to drug test recipients.
And Wisconsin has nothing on Brownbackistan, I mean Kansas. The state has already outlawed the use of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program debit cards at a range of businesses, including movie theaters, college sports games (?) and cruise ships. (There goes the welfare cruise ship business!) Kansas TANF recipients also are unable to withdraw more than $25 a day from their accounts. That means to withdraw $100, they’ll pay five bank fees (since ATMs only dispense $20s). Banks win, the poor lose.
All this is happening against the backdrop of GOP policy failure. We’ve had a 30-plus year experiment in Republican approaches to the problems of poverty and declining economic opportunity – and it’s turned out abysmally. Ronald Reagan convinced a lot of people that “we fought a war on poverty, and poverty won,” so Democrats came together with Republicans and slashed the largest welfare program for families with children, first in the states, then federally. Bill Clinton signed the federal bill into law, thinking he could get the issue of the lazy poor behind him, and then concentrate on the supports low-wage workers might need to climb.
Of course, Clinton never completed that part of his agenda; he got distracted by the GOP witch hunt known as impeachment. Republicans still didn’t want to make friends even after Clinton gave them punitive welfare reform; go figure.
Then George W. Bush became president, and we got a lesson in the way tax cuts create jobs – as in, they don’t. In eight years of the Clinton administration, which raised top tax rates, 23 million jobs were created, compared with 3 million in the eight low-tax Bush years. It might be time to try a whole new approach to fighting poverty – raising the minimum wage; strengthening workers’ ability to bargain; investing in infrastructure to shore up our roads, bridges and rail system but also to create jobs; expanding access to college. Instead, red state GOP legislators are pushing ever crueler ways to treat the poor like garbage. Sam Brownback’s Kansas is becoming an ever more awful dystopia. It’s an absolute laboratory for tax-cutting, welfare-slashing schemes, and it’s circling the drain economically. Scott Walker is an amateur compared to Brownback, but he’s working hard to make sure Wisconsin ties Kansas for the most dysfunctional economy. The Wisconsin GOP’s bogus health claims for the SNAP cuts are belied, the Huffington Post observes, by the fact that the amended law now allows the purchase of any and all dairy products, thanks to the power of the state’s dairy lobby. Theoretically, a SNAP recipient could spent the whole month’s allotment on “Dippin’ Dots,” one legislator notes. “The ‘ice cream of the future’ is now on the list of what’s acceptable to pay for, but a bottle of ketchup is not,” he noted. But of course this isn’t about the keeping the poor healthy; it’s about punishing them. The fact that the cuts almost certainly won’t be enacted makes them more cynical, in a way. This is how you tell the Kochs, and scared white people, that the slackers and moochers are being punished. It accomplishes nothing, but it’s good politically. That’s still the core premise of Republican politics, and it will remain so through the 2016 election, at least. | 0fake |
SHOCKER! CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR On Trump’s First 50 Days: ‘The business community could not be more enthusiastic’ | 1real | |
A Better (Smelly) Mosquito Trap, but With Caveats - The New York Times | A new type of mosquito trap running on solar electricity and using human odor as bait has cut mosquito populations by 70 percent in a test on a island in Kenya, according to a new study. The study, published in The Lancet last week, also found 30 percent fewer malaria victims in houses that had traps than in those that did not. The total number of malaria cases was so small during the testing period, however, that the researchers did not conclude that the traps were only 30 percent effective. Although the traps appeared quite effective at lowering mosquito populations, they had some significant drawbacks. Because they need power from rooftop solar panels, they are relatively expensive. Still, the panels appealed to residents who could also use them to power a light bulb or charge a cellphone. Also, the traps — which resemble lampshades and hang just outside the house — lured in Anopheles funestus mosquitoes, which are the most important malaria vector on Rusinga Island in Lake Victoria, where the test was conducted. But they did not attract Anopheles gambiae or Anopheles arabiensis, which are much more important malaria vectors in most of Africa, where more than 400, 000 children die of the disease each year. Also, the traps needed regular rebaiting with a blend of five chemical constituents of human odor along with a chemical that mimicked the carbon dioxide plume created by human breath. Mosquito traps releasing carbon dioxide are available in the United States, but they can cost hundreds of dollars can sometimes require propane tanks, electricity or dry ice and may not be effective. The test was led by scientists from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, along with Kenyan and Swiss scientists. An editorial accompanying the study praised the traps as a “groundbreaking lead technology,” that nonetheless has “obvious shortcomings. ” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently tested simple bucket traps that caught females by using only water and hay as bait and sticky paper to kill. The traps lowered mosquito populations by 80 percent in the four Puerto Rican towns where they were tested, and they appeared to cut chikungunya transmission by almost half. But the millions that would have been needed to fight the Zika epidemic there were not ready in time. | 0fake |
WATCH: Netanyahu Thanks House For Condemning UN Resolution | TEL AVIV — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the U. S. House of Representatives on Friday for disavowing the UN Security Council’s resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity as a “flagrant violation of international law. ”[“After the outrageous resolution at the UN, the U. S. House of Representatives voted yesterday resoundingly to support Israel and reject this resolution,” Netanyahu said. “I want to thank the U. S. House of Representatives, which reflects the tremendous support Israel enjoys among the American people. They voted to either repeal the resolution at the UN or change it — and that’s exactly what we intend to do. ” “Democrats and Republicans alike know that the Western Wall isn’t occupied territory,” he added. A similar measure is expected from the Senate this week. House Resolution 11 called on the U. S. — which abstained from the Security Council vote — to “oppose and veto future United Nations Security Council resolutions that seek to impose solutions to final status issues, or are and . ” “The passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 undermined the longstanding position of the United States to oppose and veto United Nations Security Council resolutions that seek to impose solutions to final status issues, or are and reversing decades of bipartisan agreement,” the resolution continues, in reference to President Barack Obama’s decision to abstain from the vote. The resolution echoes Israel’s view that the UN vote will make peace even more elusive, saying it “undermines the prospect of Israelis and Palestinians resuming productive, direct negotiations, contributes to the politically motivated acts of boycott, divestment from and sanctions against Israel and represents a concerted effort to extract concessions from Israel outside of direct negotiations. ” House Speaker Paul Ryan urged the entire House to support the resolution. “I am stunned — I am stunned at what happened last month,” Ryan said in a statement on the floor. “This government, our government, abandoned our ally Israel when she needed us the most. ” State Department spokesman John Kirby said over the weekend that the Obama administration’s decision to abstain from the vote “was about preserving the solution, which we continue to believe is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and a democratic state — living in peace and security with a viable and independent Palestinian state. ” However, many Republicans have expressed the view that the solution is no longer viable. “The solution has run its course,” said Rep. Steve King ( ) who is a close confidant of the incoming Trump administration. Israel is concerned that Obama may seek more resolutions defining parameters for a peace framework at the UNSC during his final days in office. However, the president’s foreign policy adviser, Ben Rhodes, has denied this and said the administration intends to use its veto. Meanwhile, Israel announced on Friday that it was cutting funding as “an act of protest” against UN agencies that are considered to be . “It is unreasonable for Israel to fund bodies that operate against us at the UN,” Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said. “The UN must end the absurd reality in which it supports bodies whose sole intent is to spread incitement and propaganda. ” | 0fake |
George Lopez Rips Female Heckler: Shut Up or ’Get the F*ck Out’ | Comedian George Lopez lashed out a female audience member who was apparently offended by his jokes. [“There are only two rules in the Latino family,” Lopez said Saturday night during a live show in Phoenix. “Don’t marry somebody black and don’t park in front of our house. ” Video posted by TMZ shows a woman in the audience giving Lopez the middle finger and appearing to be offended by the comic’s pun. Lopez apparently saw the woman protesting his set and proceeded to offer her some pointed advice: “Sit your f*ckin’ ass down! Sit your f*ckin’ ass down! I’m talking, b*tch. You paid to see a show. So sit your f*cking ass down!” [Warning: Explicit Language] But the former ABC star’s harsh demands appeared to enrage the woman even more. Determined to take back control of his show, he doubled down: “You can’t take a joke, you’re in the wrong motherf*cking place,” he said as the crowd cheered him on. “Sit your f*cking ass down or get the f*ck out of here,” Lopez warned. Toward the end of the clip, Lopez apparently had the woman removed from the building. “I tell you what, I’ll make the choice for you. Get the f*ck out of here,” he said as the woman was escorted from her table. “Four seats just opened up front. ” The comedian appeared to address the controversy on his Twitter account Tuesday morning. “You have 2 choices have a good day or get the f*ck out,” he tweeted. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 0fake |
Rep. Duncan on Deep State: We Need to Fire ’Entrenched Bureaucrats’ Who Leaked Information | Congressman Jeff Duncan ( ) spoke Tuesday with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow about the deep state, as well as the administration’s new executive order on immigration and travel, which he supports. [“I honestly think there’s something to it,” Duncan said when asked about the notion of a deep state. “You go back to October. The New York Times reported that there were wiretaps. There were transcripts of things that were said in private conversation. ” Added Duncan, “In broader context, we need to think of the entrenched bureaucrats and whether they can be fired once they’re ratted out for leaking information, how we fire folks that have worked for the government for a long time — career or not. ” Shifting to immigration, Duncan said, “We are a very benevolent country. We have always taken refugees. ” Paraphrasing the Statue of Liberty inscription, he said, “Give us your tired, your poor, your hungry. ” “But folks had to go to Ellis Island,” added Duncan, “and wait to be screened before they were able to come into the country. And then once they came, they were required to assimilate. ” “We have thrown assimilation out the window,” he stated. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. | 0fake |
Italy lower house passes new electoral law, moves on to Senate | ROME (Reuters) - The Italian Chamber of Deputies on Thursday gave its final approval to a contested electoral law that is likely to penalize the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement in next year s election. The bill, which is supported by the ruling Democratic Party (PD) and mainstream center-right opposition parties, was approved in a secret ballot by 375 votes to 215, and will now move to the upper house Senate for further debate. The so-called Rosatellum law favors parties which group together ahead of the election. The 5-Star refuses to join any alliance and says the reform could cost it at least 50 seats in the next parliament, hobbling its chances of taking power. | 0fake |
Trump hails 'great' cooperation with South Korea, vows to address trade | CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump praised cooperation with South Korea during a visit to a U.S. base there on Tuesday and said he planned to address trade issues in discussions with President Moon Jae-in in Seoul. There is great cooperation, he said. We have a terrific meeting scheduled on trade in a little while with President Moon and his representatives. And hopefully that will start working out and working out so that we create a lot of jobs in the United States which is one of the reasons that I m here. Moon met briefly with Trump before he toured the sprawling U.S. military base Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, which lies about 100 km (60 miles) from the border with reclusive North Korea. | 0fake |
Novak Djokovic Loses to Sam Querrey in Third Round of Wimbledon - The New York Times | WIMBLEDON, England — Having won the first two sets against the Serbian star Novak Djokovic before the rain came, Sam Querrey had a long night at Wimbledon to consider the prospect of one of the biggest upsets in recent tennis history. He now has a lifetime to savor it, while Djokovic can ponder the Grand Slam that got away. Querrey, a Californian with a thunderclap serve and forehand, handled the mounting pressure and a total of four rain delays with surprising aplomb to close out his stunning (6) (5) victory in the third round on Saturday. Above all, he handled the Djokovic, who has been in the deepest of grooves, having won 30 straight Grand Slam singles matches and four straight Grand Slam tournaments, including, last month, the French Open for the first time. “Definitely the biggest win I’ve ever had,” Querrey said. “But there’s another match after this, so hopefully I can keep it going, make a quarterfinal of a Slam, which I’ve never done before. ” And yet this was not the same Djokovic who has deflected power and cruised through many a draw in the past two seasons. “It’s an amazing feeling, obviously, to be able to hold four Grand Slams at the same time,” Djokovic said. “Coming into Wimbledon, obviously, here I knew that mentally it’s not going to be easy to kind of remotivate myself. But the importance of this tournament is so immense that you always find ways to really get inspired and prepare and try to give your best. Obviously, my best wasn’t good enough this year. ” Last year, Djokovic dodged a similar sort of danger in the fourth round at Wimbledon when he rallied from a deficit over two days to win against another tall, and opponent: Kevin Anderson of South Africa. But the Querrey, relaxed enough between big points to keep flipping his racket in the air and catching it by the grip, was able to slam the escape hatch that Anderson had left ajar. Querrey finished with 31 aces against Djokovic, the world’s premier returner, and dominated in the short rallies, winning 124 points out of 220 in exchanges of fewer than five strokes. “I think Sam has got a really, really tricky game for anybody to play against,” said his coach, Craig Boynton. “He serves huge, and when he’s taking his full cuts at the ball, he’s not going to give you any rhythm. ” Boynton’s other pupil, Steve Johnson, also reached the fourth round, earning a shot at a major upset of his own against Roger Federer. Querrey is scheduled to face the unseeded Frenchman Nicolas Mahut. “It seemed to me Novak was a little bit off, a little edgy,” Boynton said. “A lot of people don’t understand how hard it is for these top guys. What they have to do, day in and day out, is incredible, but look: Novak is going to lose at some point. He’s human. ” Djokovic looked particularly mortal in the early and closing stages of this match, which stretched over two days because of the rain that has continued to rewrite the Wimbledon schedule. Djokovic had not lost before the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament since the 2009 French Open, where Philipp Kohlschreiber beat him in the third round. But on Friday, Djokovic appeared listless and tactically adrift in the second set before play was called off. Though he came back stronger on Saturday, jumping out to a lead in the third set before play was again stopped because of rain, he faltered with a fifth set in plain view. Djokovic served for the fourth set at and was unable to close it out. He then lost a lead in the tiebreaker with a series of uncharacteristic errors as Querrey reeled off six of the next eight points, including the one that mattered most when Djokovic made an unforced forehand error on Querrey’s second match point. Querrey, hardly the most demonstrative of men, celebrated with a leaping scissor kick and a fist pump and then hustled to the net to shake the hand of Djokovic, the champion who had beaten him in eight of their nine previous matches and had blown past him, in the third round of the 2014 United States Open. Djokovic classily flashed him a before the handshake. “What makes him so good is he wins those matches where he isn’t playing his best,” Querrey said of Djokovic. “Definitely, yesterday in the second, he lost some momentum. He wasn’t playing like he usually does. Today, I mean, he made me earn it. He’s not a guy that goes away. He made me come out and win those big points. Probably not the best he’s ever played, but not the worst he’s ever played. ” Wimbledon used to be a garden party away from home for the American men. John McEnroe won three titles here in the 1980s, and Pete Sampras won seven in the 1990s and 2000. Andy Roddick reached three finals in the 2000s. But the current generation of American men, led by John Isner and Querrey, has not had nearly that sort of success at Wimbledon — or at any other major tournament. The Querrey, for all his big weapons, was only in Grand Slam singles matches before his match with Djokovic on Court 1 on Saturday and had to rally from a deficit in the first round here before beating Lukas Rosol, in the fifth set. But he has a winning record now, along with a victory for the time capsule. “It’s not career defining, but it’s really exciting,” he said. “It’s something that I’ll always get to have, which is great. ” Djokovic had played no official tournaments on grass this season before arriving at Wimbledon, but then he had played no official tournaments on grass before he won the titles in 2011, 2014 and 2015. But winning a title like the French Open can be draining in an unexpected way, and there is clearly a cumulative effect on any great champion from all the pressure resisted and upset bids thwarted. In this case, there was also the pressure of a potential Grand Slam — winning all four major titles in the same season — which no man has done since Rod Laver in 1969. Djokovic won the first two legs, at the Australian Open and the French Open, but the suspense did not last past the first week at Wimbledon. “I don’t think it played as big of a factor, to be honest,” Djokovic said. “Coming into this match, I knew that it’s going to be very close, not easy to break his serve. If he’s on a roll, as he was, it’s really hard to read his serve. He hits his spots really well. And whenever he had a chance from the rally, he was going for the shots. ” But Djokovic has snuffed out many a huge server in his career. The problem against Querrey was that he was not effective enough on his own serve. His and speeds are down significantly from a year ago. His winning percentage on his second serve — 54. 3 percent for the tournament — was his lowest at Wimbledon since 2008, and he was able to win only 65 percent of the points on his first serves against Querrey. He finished with 34 winners to 31 unforced errors and a drawn face that perhaps reflected deeper concerns. Asked if he was 100 percent healthy, Djokovic answered: “Not really, but you know, it’s not the place and time to talk about it. Again, the opponent was playing on a very high level, and he deserved to win. ” Acknowledging that you are not 100 percent healthy is not quite giving full credit to the man who just ended your Wimbledon hopes. Querrey, a mellow man in a fraught microcosm, did not complain. He has had his own share of injuries and missed opportunities. At age 19, he reached the third round in his first Australian Open in 2007. Bigger Grand Slam success seemed only a matter of time. But the path has been more arduous than he might have suspected, and there have been major roadblocks in the form of Djokovic, Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray. “Those guys are just really good,” Boynton said. “It’s not that our guys aren’t good, but you’re talking to me right now because Novak lost, and it doesn’t happen that often. And there’s a reason it doesn’t happen. To get through that bubble has been very difficult, but Sam got through it today. ” | 0fake |
CA DEMOCRATS HAVE SOLUTION TO MASSIVE Health Care Costs…Assisted Suicide | When a state has legislated themselves into an unrecoverable financial crisis, and they re offering health care to 170,000 illegal immigrants the only solution is to find a way to start eliminating costs. While most people would turn to cutting unnecessary government programs, compassionate Californians instead, turn to finding ways to eliminate humans who are a drain on the system.The Democrats appear to have found a solution to the massive costs of caring for humans. If you re living outside of the womb (we already know you have no rights if you re living inside the womb in CA) and are a burden on society, you might want to consider packing your bags and making a quick exit out of Communist California Democrats in California might have found a solution for the burgeoning costs of Medi-Cal which still doesn t provide any palliative care and offers only one in every three a chance of getting cancer treatments. The solution they ve come up with is doctor-assisted suicide also known as euthanasia. That s right, they re going to end the lives of some people on the program.They are willing to put their money where their mouths are and Governor Moonbeam Brown, in addition to putting it in the budget, will allow this expansion to take place before the new proposed law even takes effect.It s hard to remember a case where they were this enthusiastic and worked this fast.The lethal drugs will cost $5400 per patient but it s a lot cheaper than keeping them alive and providing care.The proponents claim it has nothing to do with saving costs but they said it during the session called to address the ever-growing deficit in Medi-Cal.Enthusiastically, Governor Moonbeam put $2.3 million into the budget to off 443 Medi-Cal patients. The doctor of death only has to visit twice and only nine of the planned 443 targeted patients will be sent for mental health evaluations.The proponents want another quarter million to hire staff to help with the Euthanasia regulations and DHCS wants another $323,000 to set up a database.One of the original authors of the bill, Senator Bill Monning (D-Carmel), has proposed a toll-free number for the public to find out how to arrange suicide with the help of a doctor.No effort will be too small to get this sure-fire deficit buster going. Liberals love this sort of thing.Leftist Robert Reich on assisted suicide:Dr. Kevorkian once went to jail for this.California just extended Medi-Cal to 170,000 illegal immigrant children and they want to extend it to all illegal immigrants. They will have to end a lot of lives to cover the costs. Liberals don t worry about costs until after the program is implemented. Now that Daddy Government is in charge of your healthcare, he s also in charge of your death. Weasel Zippers Via: Independent Sentinel | 1real |
ABOVE THE LAW: OBAMA’S ‘HOPE’ ARTIST WANTED ON FELONY CHARGES IN DETROIT | Like Obama and his regime, this Occupier and Obama supporter believes he is above the law. The City of Detroit begs to differ, and would like Fairey to pay them back for the damage he has done to various buildings in the city. Shepard FaireyFamed street artist Shepard Fairey, who visited Detroit last month to create the largest mural of his career, faces felony charges of tagging other properties across the city on his own time.A warrant for his arrest was filed in 36th District Court on Friday. He faces two counts of malicious destruction of property, which carry a maximum penalty of five years in jail, plus fines that could exceed $10,000.Police, who accuse the artist of causing about $9,000 in damage, said that the next time he comes to Detroit, they will arrest him if he doesn t turn himself in first. Just because he is a well-known artist does not take away the fact that he is also a vandal, said Detroit Police Sgt. Rebecca McKay, who oversees the city s graffiti task force. And that s what we consider was done, in these instances, was vandalism. Fairey told the Free Press he intended to leave illegal marks in the city. He arrived in May to paint the 18-story mural on One Campus Martius for Dan Gilbert s Bedrock Real Estate Services and others, but before the work began, he said he would be doing more. I still do stuff on the street without permission. I ll be doing stuff on the street when I m in Detroit, Fairey said last month. His signature black-and-white Andre the Giant face has since appeared on several buildings downtown, in Eastern Market and along Jefferson Avenue.Fairey s legal troubles in Detroit open a window into the evolution of street art, from its illegal origins into its more professionalized genre recognized in museums and galleries. Fairey has always liked to play both sides of the street, accepting major commissions like the One Campus Martius mural but also retaining his street credibility by continuing to work in the shadows, tagging private property without authorization.An exhibition of Fairey s prints is also currently on view at the Library Street Collective in downtown Detroit. This is a whole genre that s become institutionalized, and you ll always have some outliers go back to where they started and where they get their inspiration, said Elysia Borowy-Reeder, executive director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.On another front, the crackdown on illegal graffiti suggests that the reputation Detroit has had for years among artists elsewhere as a kind of Wild Wild West of opportunity needs amending. While inexpensive studio space, a supportive artists community and the chance to help shape the future of the city remain powerful incentives to live and work in Detroit, the notion that anything goes, including illegal activities that have made the city a haven for unauthorized street art, is no longer true. That reputation lingers but change happens slowly and it s catching up, said Borowy-Reeder. The city is becoming more mature. Via: Detroit Free Press | 1real |
Ivanka Trump Sets Record Straight In Eye-Opening Interview: More Female Executives In Trump Organization Than Males [Video] | So much for the media s attempt to make Donald Trump out to be a woman hater Ivanka Trump plans on going out to campaign for her dad and after seeing this interview i think it s a great idea. Ivanka Trump is no Paris Hilton. She s a serious businesswoman who ll be a great asset to her dad s campaign. | 1real |
Ted Nugent Just Posted The Most Racist F*cking Thing You Have Ever Seen (SCREENSHOTS) | If you thought Trump supporters wered bad, wait till you get a load of oh, wait, Ted Nugent is a Trump supporter. Everyone s favorite draft-dodging, pants-pooping pedophile with a penchant for posting horrifically racist sh*t, NRA board member Ted Nugent, recently outdid himself to such a degree that he performed an action rarely seen on his hate speech-filled Facebook wall he hit delete. In a March 31 Facebook post now scrubbed from the annals of internet history Nugent said: Before all the braindead dishonest lying scum politically correct racist hatepunks get all goofball toxic on us here, I am simply promoting a brilliant entrepreneur in Detroit that created a clever bussiness. His words, not mine. Ya gotta luv this guy!! When in doubt whip it out! Whom does Nugent love? What sort of thing could get the hatepunks (read: reasonable people) riled up?It was probably the fact that Nugent posted a photo of a fake moving company van that frequents white supremacist message boards:While it s obvious why Ted Nugent loves it it does say n*gger, after all but contrary to assertions made by Nugent and his future hunting buddy in the comments that the vehicle is real, it s not. It s just more garbage that Donald Trump s fans, one-fifth of whom think it was a bad idea to end slavery, can pass around and enjoy as they discuss their plans to lynch black people.Last year, Nugent praised the use of the n-word in a column on World Net Daily titled Don t be niggardly with language. After the President used the word n*gger while speaking about how racism is still an issue in our society, Nugent wrote: Well, there you have it. The Honest Society is a rather large and growing club, clan if you will, that is not afraid of speaking honestly without fear of politically correct word nazi s going berserk. Nugent proclaimed that the use of n-word in place of the full thing is the epitome of political correctness gone mad, going on to explain that the word n*gger has historically been used in a powerfully positive way in some scenarios. He went on to proclaim that society shunning the word n*gger does nothing to help the criminality of blacks in Chicago and other urban hellzones. Besides, he says, black people use the word and it is the very definition of racism not to let white people spew it as much as they want with no repercussions.Nugent once adopted a 17-year-old girl so that he could have sex with her. This has no relation to anything current, but it seemed like a good note on which to end.Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S. - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — When Special Agent Adrian Hawkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the Democratic National Committee in September 2015 to pass along some troubling news about its computer network, he was transferred, naturally, to the help desk. His message was brief, if alarming. At least one computer system belonging to the D. N. C. had been compromised by hackers federal investigators had named “the Dukes,” a cyberespionage team linked to the Russian government. The F. B. I. knew it well: The bureau had spent the last few years trying to kick the Dukes out of the unclassified email systems of the White House, the State Department and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the government’s networks. Yared Tamene, the contractor at the D. N. C. who fielded the call, was no expert in cyberattacks. His first moves were to check Google for “the Dukes” and conduct a cursory search of the D. N. C. computer system logs to look for hints of such a cyberintrusion. By his own account, he did not look too hard even after Special Agent Hawkins called back repeatedly over the next several weeks — in part because he wasn’t certain the caller was a real F. B. I. agent and not an impostor. “I had no way of differentiating the call I just received from a prank call,” Mr. Tamene wrote in an internal memo, obtained by The New York Times, that detailed his contact with the F. B. I. It was the cryptic first sign of a cyberespionage and campaign devised to disrupt the 2016 presidential election, the first such attempt by a foreign power in American history. What started as an operation, intelligence officials believe, ultimately morphed into an effort to harm one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and tip the election to her opponent, Donald J. Trump. Like another famous American election scandal, it started with a at the D. N. C. The first time, 44 years ago at the committee’s old offices in the Watergate complex, the burglars planted listening devices and jimmied a filing cabinet. This time, the burglary was conducted from afar, directed by the Kremlin, with emails and zeros and ones. An examination by The Times of the Russian operation — based on interviews with dozens of players targeted in the attack, intelligence officials who investigated it and Obama administration officials who deliberated over the best response — reveals a series of missed signals, slow responses and a continuing underestimation of the seriousness of the cyberattack. The D. N. C. ’s fumbling encounter with the F. B. I. meant the best chance to halt the Russian intrusion was lost. The failure to grasp the scope of the attacks undercut efforts to minimize their impact. And the White House’s reluctance to respond forcefully meant the Russians have not paid a heavy price for their actions, a decision that could prove critical in deterring future cyberattacks. The approach of the F. B. I. meant that Russian hackers could roam freely through the committee’s network for nearly seven months before top D. N. C. officials were alerted to the attack and hired cyberexperts to protect their systems. In the meantime, the hackers moved on to targets outside the D. N. C. including Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, whose private email account was hacked months later. Even Mr. Podesta, a savvy Washington insider who had written a 2014 report on cyberprivacy for President Obama, did not truly understand the gravity of the hacking. By last summer, Democrats watched in helpless fury as their private emails and confidential documents appeared online day after day — procured by Russian intelligence agents, posted on WikiLeaks and other websites, then eagerly reported on by the American media, including The Times. Mr. Trump gleefully cited many of the purloined emails on the campaign trail. The fallout included the resignations of Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of the D. N. C. and most of her top party aides. Leading Democrats were sidelined at the height of the campaign, silenced by revelations of embarrassing emails or consumed by the scramble to deal with the hacking. Though by the public, confidential documents taken by the Russian hackers from the D. N. C. ’s sister organization, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, turned up in congressional races in a dozen states, tainting some of them with accusations of scandal. In recent days, a skeptical the nation’s intelligence agencies and the two major parties have become embroiled in an extraordinary public dispute over what evidence exists that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia moved beyond mere espionage to deliberately try to subvert American democracy and pick the winner of the presidential election. Many of Mrs. Clinton’s closest aides believe that the Russian assault had a profound impact on the election, while conceding that other factors — Mrs. Clinton’s weaknesses as a candidate her private email server the public statements of the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, about her handling of classified information — were also important. While there’s no way to be certain of the ultimate impact of the hack, this much is clear: A weapon that Russia had in elections from Ukraine to Europe was trained on the United States, with devastating effectiveness. For Russia, with an enfeebled economy and a nuclear arsenal it cannot use short of war, cyberpower proved the perfect weapon: cheap, hard to see coming, hard to trace. “There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s mind,” Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency and commander of United States Cyber Command, said at a postelection conference. “This was not something that was done casually, this was not something that was done by chance, this was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily,” he said. “This was a conscious effort by a to attempt to achieve a specific effect. ” For the people whose emails were stolen, this new form of political sabotage has left a trail of shock and professional damage. Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and a key Clinton supporter, recalls walking into the busy Clinton transition offices, humiliated to see her face on television screens as pundits discussed a leaked email in which she had called Mrs. Clinton’s instincts “suboptimal. ” “It was just a sucker punch to the gut every day,” Ms. Tanden said. “It was the worst professional experience of my life. ” The United States, too, has carried out cyberattacks, and in decades past the C. I. A. tried to subvert foreign elections. But the Russian attack is increasingly understood across the political spectrum as an ominous historic landmark — with one notable exception: Mr. Trump has rejected the findings of the intelligence agencies he will soon oversee as “ridiculous,” insisting that the hacker may be American, or Chinese, but that “they have no idea. ” Mr. Trump cited the reported disagreements between the agencies about whether Mr. Putin intended to help elect him. On Tuesday, a Russian government spokesman echoed Mr. Trump’s scorn. “This tale of ‘hacks’ resembles a banal brawl between American security officials over spheres of influence,” Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, wrote on Facebook. Over the weekend, four prominent senators — two Republicans and two Democrats — joined forces to pledge an investigation while pointedly ignoring Mr. Trump’s skeptical claims. “Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyberattacks,” said Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Chuck Schumer and Jack Reed. “This cannot become a partisan issue,” they said. “The stakes are too high for our country. ” Sitting in the basement of the Democratic National Committee headquarters, below a 2012 portrait of a smiling Barack Obama, is a filing cabinet missing the handle on the bottom drawer. Only a framed newspaper story hanging on the wall hints at the importance of this aged piece of office furniture. “GOP Security Aide Among 5 Arrested in Bugging Affair,” reads the headline from the front page of The Washington Post on June 19, 1972, with the bylines of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Andrew Brown, 37, the technology director at the D. N. C. was born after that famous . But as he began to plan for this year’s election cycle, he was well aware that the D. N. C. could become a target again. There were aspirations to ensure that the D. N. C. was well protected against cyberintruders — and then there was the reality, Mr. Brown and his bosses at the organization acknowledged: The D. N. C. was a nonprofit group, dependent on donations, with a fraction of the security budget that a corporation its size would have. “There was never enough money to do everything we needed to do,” Mr. Brown said. The D. N. C. had a standard email service, intended to block phishing attacks and malware created to resemble legitimate email. But when Russian hackers started in on the D. N. C. the committee did not have the most advanced systems in place to track suspicious traffic, internal D. N. C. memos show. Mr. Tamene, who reports to Mr. Brown and fielded the call from the F. B. I. agent, was not a D. N. C. employee he works for a contracting firm called The MIS Department. He was left to figure out, largely on his own, how to respond — and even whether the man who had called in to the D. N. C. switchboard was really an F. B. I. agent. “The F. B. I. thinks the D. N. C. has at least one compromised computer on its network and the F. B. I. wanted to know if the D. N. C. is aware, and if so, what the D. N. C. is doing about it,” Mr. Tamene wrote in an internal memo about his contacts with the F. B. I. He added that “the Special Agent told me to look for a specific type of malware dubbed ‘Dukes’ by the U. S. intelligence community and in cybersecurity circles. ” Part of the problem was that Special Agent Hawkins did not show up in person at the D. N. C. Nor could he email anyone there, as that risked alerting the hackers that the F. B. I. knew they were in the system. Mr. Tamene’s initial scan of the D. N. C. system — using his tools and incomplete targeting information from the F. B. I. — found nothing. So when Special Agent Hawkins called repeatedly in October, leaving voice mail messages for Mr. Tamene, urging him to call back, “I did not return his calls, as I had nothing to report,” Mr. Tamene explained in his memo. In November, Special Agent Hawkins called with more ominous news. A D. N. C. computer was “calling home, where home meant Russia,” Mr. Tamene’s memo says, referring to software sending information to Moscow. “SA Hawkins added that the F. B. I. thinks that this calling home behavior could be the result of a attack. ” Mr. Brown knew that Mr. Tamene, who declined to comment, was fielding calls from the F. B. I. But he was tied up on a different problem: evidence suggesting that the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Mrs. Clinton’s main Democratic opponent, had improperly gained access to her campaign data. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, then the D. N. C. ’s chairwoman, and Amy Dacey, then its chief executive, said in interviews that neither of them was notified about the early reports that the committee’s system had likely been compromised. Shawn Henry, who once led the F. B. I. ’s cyber division and is now president of CrowdStrike Services, the cybersecurity firm retained by the D. N. C. in April, said he was baffled that the F. B. I. did not call a more senior official at the D. N. C. or send an agent in person to the party headquarters to try to force a more vigorous response. “We are not talking about an office that is in the middle of the woods of Montana,” Mr. Henry said. “We are talking about an office that is half a mile from the F. B. I. office that is getting the notification. ” “This is not a delicatessen or a local library. This is a critical piece of the U. S. infrastructure because it relates to our electoral process, our elected officials, our legislative process, our executive process,” he added. “To me it is a serious issue, and if after a couple of months you don’t see any results, somebody ought to raise that to a higher level. ” The F. B. I. declined to comment on the agency’s handling of the hack. “The F. B. I. takes very seriously any compromise of public and private sector systems,” it said in a statement, adding that agents “will continue to share information” to help targets “safeguard their systems against the actions of persistent cybercriminals. ” By March, Mr. Tamene and his team had met at least twice in person with the F. B. I. and concluded that Agent Hawkins was really a federal employee. But then the situation took a dire turn. A second team of hackers began to target the D. N. C. and other players in the political world, particularly Democrats. Billy Rinehart, a former D. N. C. regional field director who was then working for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, got an odd email warning from Google. “Someone just used your password to try to sign into your Google account,” the March 22 email said, adding that the attempt had occurred in Ukraine. “Google stopped this attempt. You should change your password immediately. ” Mr. Rinehart was in Hawaii at the time. He remembers checking his email at 4 a. m. for messages from East Coast associates. Without thinking much about the notification, he clicked on the “change password” button and half asleep, as best he can remember, he typed in a new password. What he did not know until months later is that he had just given the Russian hackers access to his email account. Hundreds of similar phishing emails were being sent to American political targets, including an identical email sent on March 19 to Mr. Podesta, chairman of the Clinton campaign. Given how many emails Mr. Podesta received through this personal email account, several aides also had access to it, and one of them noticed the warning email, sending it to a computer technician to make sure it was legitimate before anyone clicked on the “change password” button. “This is a legitimate email,” Charles Delavan, a Clinton campaign aide, replied to another of Mr. Podesta’s aides, who had noticed the alert. “John needs to change his password immediately. ” With another click, a decade of emails that Mr. Podesta maintained in his Gmail account — a total of about 60, 000 — were unlocked for the Russian hackers. Mr. Delavan, in an interview, said that his bad advice was a result of a typo: He knew this was a phishing attack, as the campaign was getting dozens of them. He said he had meant to type that it was an “illegitimate” email, an error that he said has plagued him ever since. During this second wave, the hackers also gained access to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and then, through a virtual private network connection, to the main computer network of the D. N. C. The F. B. I. observed this surge of activity as well, again reaching out to Mr. Tamene to warn him. Yet Mr. Tamene still saw no reason to be alarmed: He found copies of the phishing emails in the D. N. C. ’s spam filter. But he had no reason, he said, to believe that the computer systems had been infiltrated. One bit of progress had finally been made by the middle of April: The D. N. C. seven months after it had first been warned, finally installed a “robust set of monitoring tools,” Mr. Tamene’s internal memo says. The United States had two decades of warning that Russia’s intelligence agencies were trying to break into America’s most sensitive computer networks. But the Russians have always managed to stay a step ahead. Their first major attack was detected on Oct. 7, 1996, when a computer operator at the Colorado School of Mines discovered some nighttime computer activity he could not explain. The school had a major contract with the Navy, and the operator warned his contacts there. But as happened two decades later at the D. N. C. at first “everyone was unable to connect the dots,” said Thomas Rid, a scholar at King’s College in London who has studied the attack. Investigators gave it a name — Moonlight Maze — and spent two years, often working day and night, tracing how it hopped from the Navy to the Department of Energy to the Air Force and NASA. In the end, they concluded that the total number of files stolen, if printed and stacked, would be taller than the Washington Monument. Whole weapons designs were flowing out the door, and it was a first taste of what was to come: an escalating campaign of cyberattacks around the world. But for years, the Russians stayed largely out of the headlines, thanks to the Chinese — who took bigger risks, and often got caught. They stole the designs for the fighter jet, corporate secrets for rolling steel, even the blueprints for gas pipelines that supply much of the United States. And during the 2008 presidential election cycle, Chinese intelligence hacked into the campaigns of Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, making off with internal position papers and communications. But they didn’t publish any of it. The Russians had not gone away, of course. “They were just a lot more stealthy,” said Kevin Mandia, a former Air Force intelligence officer who spent most of his days fighting off Russian cyberattacks before founding Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm that is now a division of FireEye — and the company the Clinton campaign brought in to secure its own systems. The Russians were also quicker to turn their attacks to political purposes. A 2007 cyberattack on Estonia, a former Soviet republic that had joined NATO, sent a message that Russia could paralyze the country without invading it. The next year cyberattacks were used during Russia’s war with Georgia. But American officials did not imagine that the Russians would dare try those techniques inside the United States. They were largely focused on preventing what former Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned was an approaching “cyber Pearl Harbor” — a shutdown of the power grid or cellphone networks. But in 2014 and 2015, a Russian hacking group began systematically targeting the State Department, the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Each time, they eventually met with some form of success,” Michael Sulmeyer, a former cyberexpert for the secretary of defense, and Ben Buchanan, now both of the Harvard Cyber Security Project, wrote recently in a published paper for the Carnegie Endowment. The Russians grew stealthier and stealthier, tricking government computers into sending out data while disguising the electronic “command and control” messages that set off alarms for anyone looking for malicious actions. The State Department was so crippled that it repeatedly closed its systems to throw out the intruders. At one point, officials traveling to Vienna with Secretary of State John Kerry for the Iran nuclear negotiations had to set up commercial Gmail accounts just to communicate with one another and with reporters traveling with them. Mr. Obama was briefed regularly on all this, but he made a decision that many in the White House now regret: He did not name Russians publicly, or issue sanctions. There was always a reason: fear of escalating a cyberwar, and concern that the United States needed Russia’s cooperation in negotiations over Syria. “We’d have all these circular meetings,” one senior State Department official said, “in which everyone agreed you had to push back at the Russians and push back hard. But it didn’t happen. ” So the Russians escalated again — breaking into systems not just for espionage, but to publish or broadcast what they found, known as “doxing” in the cyberworld. It was a brazen change in tactics, moving the Russians from espionage to influence operations. In February 2014, they broadcast an intercepted phone call between Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state who handles Russian affairs and has a contentious relationship with Mr. Putin, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the United States ambassador to Ukraine. Ms. Nuland was heard describing a American effort to broker a deal in Ukraine, then in political turmoil. They were not the only ones on whom the Russians used the strategy. The Open Society Foundation, run by George Soros, was a major target, and when its documents were released, some turned out to have been altered to make it appear as if the foundation was financing Russian opposition members. Last year, the attacks became more aggressive. Russia hacked a major French television station, frying critical hardware. Around Christmas, it attacked part of the power grid in Ukraine, dropping a portion of the country into darkness, killing backup generators and taking control of generators. In retrospect, it was a warning shot. The attacks “were not fully integrated military operations,” Mr. Sulmeyer said. But they showed an increasing boldness. The day before the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April, Ms. Dacey, the D. N. C. ’s chief executive, was preparing for a night of parties when she got an urgent phone call. With the new monitoring system in place, Mr. Tamene had examined administrative logs of the D. N. C. ’s computer system and found something very suspicious: An unauthorized person, with security status, had gained access to the D. N. C. ’s computers. “Not sure it is related to what the F. B. I. has been noticing,” said one internal D. N. C. email sent on April 29. “The D. N. C. may have been hacked in a serious way this week, with password theft, etc. ” No one knew just how bad the breach was — but it was clear that a lot more than a single filing cabinet worth of materials might have been taken. A secret committee was immediately created, including Ms. Dacey, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr. Brown and Michael Sussmann, a former cybercrimes prosecutor at the Department of Justice who now works at Perkins Coie, the Washington law firm that handles D. N. C. political matters. “Three most important questions,” Mr. Sussmann wrote to his clients the night the was confirmed. “1) What data was accessed? 2) How was it done? 3) How do we stop it?” Mr. Sussmann instructed his clients not to use D. N. C. email because they had just one opportunity to lock the hackers out — an effort that could be foiled if the hackers knew that the D. N. C. was on to them. “You only get one chance to raise the drawbridge,” Mr. Sussmann said. “If the adversaries know you are aware of their presence, they will take steps to burrow in, or erase the logs that show they were present. ” The D. N. C. immediately hired CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, to scan its computers, identify the intruders and build a new computer and telephone system from scratch. Within a day, CrowdStrike confirmed that the intrusion had originated in Russia, Mr. Sussmann said. The work that such companies do is a computer version of crime scene investigation, with fingerprints, bullet casings and DNA swabs replaced by an electronic trail that can be just as incriminating. And just as police detectives learn to identify the telltale methods of a veteran burglar, so CrowdStrike investigators recognized the distinctive handiwork of Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear. Those are CrowdStrike’s nicknames for the two Russian hacking groups that the firm found at work inside the D. N. C. network. Cozy Bear — the group also known as the Dukes or A. P. T. 29, for “advanced persistent threat” — may or may not be associated with the F. S. B. the main successor to the K. G. B. but it is widely believed to be a Russian government operation. It made its first appearance in 2014, said Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike’s and chief technology officer. It was Cozy Bear, CrowdStrike concluded, that first penetrated the D. N. C. in the summer of 2015, by sending emails to a long list of American government agencies, Washington nonprofits and government contractors. Whenever someone clicked on a phishing message, the Russians would enter the network, “exfiltrate” documents of interest and stockpile them for intelligence purposes. “Once they got into the D. N. C. they found the data valuable and decided to continue the operation,” said Mr. Alperovitch, who was born in Russia and moved to the United States as a teenager. Only in March 2016 did Fancy Bear show up — first penetrating the computers of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and then jumping to the D. N. C. investigators believe. Fancy Bear, sometimes called A. P. T. 28 and believed to be directed by the G. R. U. Russia’s military intelligence agency, is an older outfit, tracked by Western investigators for nearly a decade. It was Fancy Bear that got hold of Mr. Podesta’s email. Attribution, as the skill of identifying a cyberattacker is known, is more art than science. It is often impossible to name an attacker with absolute certainty. But over time, by accumulating a reference library of hacking techniques and targets, it is possible to spot repeat offenders. Fancy Bear, for instance, has gone after military and political targets in Ukraine and Georgia, and at NATO installations. That largely rules out cybercriminals and most countries, Mr. Alperovitch said. “There’s no plausible actor that has an interest in all those victims other than Russia,” he said. Another clue: The Russian hacking groups tended to be active during working hours in the Moscow time zone. To their astonishment, Mr. Alperovitch said, CrowdStrike experts found signs that the two Russian hacking groups had not coordinated their attacks. Fancy Bear, apparently not knowing that Cozy Bear had been rummaging in D. N. C. files for months, took many of the same documents. In the six weeks after CrowdStrike’s arrival, in total secrecy, the computer system at the D. N. C. was replaced. For a weekend, email and phones were shut off employees were told it was a system upgrade. All laptops were turned in and the hard drives wiped clean, with the uninfected information on them imaged to new drives. Though D. N. C. officials had learned that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had been infected, too, they did not notify their sister organization, which was in the same building, because they were afraid that it would leak. All of this work took place as the bitter contest for the Democratic nomination continued to play out between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders, and it was already causing a major distraction for Ms. Wasserman Schultz and the D. N. C. ’s chief executive. “This was not a bump in the road — bumps in the road happen all the time,” she said in an interview. “Two different Russian spy agencies had hacked into our network and stolen our property. And we did not yet know what they had taken. But we knew they had very broad access to our network. There was a tremendous amount of uncertainty. And it was chilling. ” The D. N. C. executives and their lawyer had their first formal meeting with senior F. B. I. officials in nine months after the bureau’s first call to the contractor. Among the early requests at that meeting, according to participants: that the federal government make a quick “attribution” formally blaming actors with ties to Russian government for the attack to make clear that it was not routine hacking but foreign espionage. “You have a presidential election underway here and you know that the Russians have hacked into the D. N. C. ,” Mr. Sussmann said, recalling the message to the F. B. I. “We need to tell the American public that. And soon. ” In on Mr. Sussmann’s advice, D. N. C. leaders decided to take a bold step. Concerned that word of the hacking might leak, they decided to go public in The Washington Post with the news that the committee had been attacked. That way, they figured, they could get ahead of the story, win a little sympathy from voters for being victimized by Russian hackers and refocus on the campaign. But the very next day, a new, deeply unsettling shock awaited them. Someone calling himself Guccifer 2. 0 appeared on the web, claiming to be the D. N. C. hacker — and he posted a confidential committee document detailing Mr. Trump’s record and half a dozen other documents to prove his bona fides. “And it’s just a tiny part of all docs I downloaded from the Democrats networks,” he wrote. Then something more ominous: “The main part of the papers, thousands of files and mails, I gave to WikiLeaks. They will publish them soon. ” It was bad enough that Russian hackers had been spying inside the committee’s network for months. Now the public release of documents had turned a conventional espionage operation into something far more menacing: political sabotage, an unpredictable, uncontrollable menace for Democratic campaigns. Guccifer 2. 0 borrowed the moniker of an earlier hacker, a Romanian who called himself Guccifer and was jailed for breaking into the personal computers of former President George W. Bush, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other notables. This new attacker seemed intent on showing that the D. N. C. ’s cyberexperts at CrowdStrike were wrong to blame Russia. Guccifer 2. 0 called himself a “lone hacker” and mocked CrowdStrike for calling the attackers “sophisticated. ” But online investigators quickly undercut his story. On a whim, Lorenzo a writer for Motherboard, the tech and culture site of Vice, tried to contact Guccifer 2. 0 by direct message on Twitter. “Surprisingly, he answered right away,” Mr. said. But whoever was on the other end seemed to be mocking him. “I asked him why he did it, and he said he wanted to expose the Illuminati. He called himself a Gucci lover. And he said he was Romanian. ” That gave Mr. an idea. Using Google Translate, he sent the purported hacker some questions in Romanian. The answers came back in Romanian. But when he was offline, Mr. checked with a couple of native speakers, who told him Guccifer 2. 0 had apparently been using Google Translate as well — and was clearly not the Romanian he claimed to be. Cyberresearchers found other clues pointing to Russia. Microsoft Word documents posted by Guccifer 2. 0 had been edited by someone calling himself, in Russian, Felix Edmundovich — an obvious nom de guerre honoring the founder of the Soviet secret police, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. Bad links in the texts were marked by warnings in Russian, generated by what was clearly a version of Word. When Mr. managed to engage Guccifer 2. 0 over a period of weeks, he found that his interlocutor’s tone and manner changed. “At first he was careless and colloquial. Weeks later, he was curt and more calculating,” he said. “It seemed like a group of people, and a very sloppy attempt to cover up. ” Computer experts drew the same conclusion about DCLeaks. com, a site that sprang up in June, claiming to be the work of “hacktivists” but posting more stolen documents. It, too, seemed to be a clumsy front for the same Russians who had stolen the documents. Notably, the website was registered in April, suggesting that the Russian hacking team planned well in advance to make public what it stole. In addition to what Guccifer 2. 0 published on his site, he provided material directly on request to some bloggers and publications. The steady flow of Guccifer 2. 0 documents constantly undercut Democratic messaging efforts. On July 6, 12 days before the Republican National Convention began in Cleveland, Guccifer released the D. N. C. ’s battle plan and budget for countering it. For Republican operatives, it was insider gold. Then WikiLeaks, a far more established outlet, began to publish the hacked material — just as Guccifer 2. 0 had promised. On July 22, three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks dumped out 44, 053 D. N. C. emails with 17, 761 attachments. Some of the messages made clear that some D. N. C. officials favored Mrs. Clinton over her progressive challenger, Mr. Sanders. That was no shock Mr. Sanders, after all, had been an independent socialist, not a Democrat, during his long career in Congress, while Mrs. Clinton had been one of the party’s stars for decades. But the emails, some of them crude or insulting, infuriated Sanders delegates as they arrived in Philadelphia. Ms. Wasserman Schultz resigned under pressure on the eve of the convention where she had planned to preside. Mr. Trump, by now the Republican nominee, expressed delight at the continuing jolts to his opponent, and he began to use Twitter and his stump speeches to highlight the WikiLeaks releases. On July 25, he sent out a lighthearted tweet: “The new joke in town,” he wrote, “is that Russia leaked the disastrous D. N. C. which should never have been written (stupid) because Putin likes me. ” But WikiLeaks was far from finished. On Oct. 7, a month before the election, the site began the serial publication of thousands of private emails to and from Mr. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager. The same day, the United States formally accused the Russian government of being behind the hackings, in a joint statement by the director of national intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, and Mr. Trump suffered his worst blow to date, with the release of a recording in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women. The Podesta emails were nowhere near as sensational as the Trump video. But, released by WikiLeaks day after day over the last month of the campaign, they provided material for countless news reports. They disclosed the contents of Mrs. Clinton’s speeches to large banks, which she had refused to release. They exposed tensions inside the campaign, including disagreements over donations to the Clinton Foundation that staff members thought might look bad for the candidate and Ms. Tanden’s complaint that Mrs. Clinton’s instincts were “suboptimal. ” “I was just mortified,” Ms. Tanden said in an interview. Her emails were released on the eve of one of the presidential debates, she recalled. “I put my hands over my head and said, ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me. ’” Though she had regularly appeared on television to support Mrs. Clinton, she canceled her appearances because all the questions were about what she had said in the emails. Ms. Tanden, like other Democrats whose messages became public, said it was obvious to her that WikiLeaks was trying its best to damage the Clinton campaign. “If you care about transparency, you put all the emails out at once,” she said. “But they wanted to hurt her. So they put them out 1, 800 to 3, 000 a day. ” The Trump campaign knew in advance about WikiLeaks’ plans. Days before the Podesta email release began, Roger Stone, a Republican operative working with the Trump campaign, sent out an excited tweet about what was coming. But in an interview, Mr. Stone said he had no role in the leaks he had just heard from an American with ties to WikiLeaks that damning emails were coming. Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and editor, has resisted the conclusion that his site became a for Russian hackers working for Mr. Putin’s government or that he was deliberately trying to undermine Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy. But the evidence on both counts appears compelling. In a series of email exchanges, Mr. Assange refused to say anything about WikiLeaks’ source for the hacked material. He denied that he had made his animus toward Mrs. Clinton clear in public statements (“False. But what is this? Junior high? ”) or that the site had timed the releases for maximum negative effect on her campaign. “WikiLeaks makes its decisions based on newsworthiness, including for its recent epic scoops,” he wrote. Mr. Assange disputed the conclusion of the Oct. 7 statement from the intelligence agencies that the leaks were “intended to interfere with the U. S. election process. ” “This is false,” he wrote. “As the disclosing party we know that this was not the intent. Publishers publishing newsworthy information during an election is part of a free election. ” But asked whether he believed the leaks were one reason for Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Assange seemed happy to take credit. “Americans extensively engaged with our publications,” he wrote. “According to Facebook statistics WikiLeaks was the most referenced political topic during October. ” Though Mr. Assange did not say so, WikiLeaks’ best defense may be the conduct of the mainstream American media. Every major publication, including The Times, published multiple stories citing the D. N. C. and Podesta emails posted by WikiLeaks, becoming a de facto instrument of Russian intelligence. Mr. Putin, a student of martial arts, had turned two institutions at the core of American democracy — political campaigns and independent media — to his own ends. The media’s appetite for the hacked material, and its focus on the gossipy content instead of the Russian source, disturbed some of those whose personal emails were being reposted across the web. “What was really surprising to me?” Ms. Tanden said. “I could not believe that reporters were covering it. ” Inside the White House, as Mr. Obama’s advisers debated their response, their conversation turned to North Korea. In late 2014, hackers working for Kim the North’s young and unpredictable leader, had carried out a attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment intended to stop the Christmastime release of a comedy about a C. I. A. plot to kill Mr. Kim. In that case, embarrassing emails had also been released. But the real damage was done to Sony’s own systems: More than 70 percent of its computers melted down when a particularly virulent form of malware was released. Within weeks, intelligence agencies traced the attack back to the North and its leadership. Mr. Obama called North Korea out in public, and issued some sanctions. The Chinese even cooperated, briefly cutting off the North’s internet connections. As the first Situation Room meetings on the Russian hacking began in July, “it was clear that Russia was going to be a much more complicated case,” said one participant. The Russians clearly had a more sophisticated understanding of American politics, and they were masters of “kompromat,” their term for compromising information. But a formal “attribution report” still had not been forwarded to the president. “It took forever,” one senior administration official said, complaining about the pace at which the intelligence assessments moved through the system. In August a group that called itself the “Shadow Brokers” published a set of software tools that looked like what the N. S. A. uses to break into foreign computer networks and install “implants,” malware that can be used for surveillance or attack. The code came from the Tailored Access Operations unit of the N. S. A. a secretive group that mastered the arts of surveillance and cyberwar. The assumption — still unproved — was that the code was put out in the open by the Russians as a warning: Retaliate for the D. N. C. and there are a lot more secrets, from the hackings of the State Department, the White House and the Pentagon, that might be spilled as well. One senior official compared it to the scene in “The Godfather” where the head of a favorite horse is left in a bed, as a warning. The N. S. A. said nothing. But by late August, Admiral Rogers, its director, was pressing for a more muscular response to the Russians. In his role as director of the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, he proposed a series of potential . While officials will not discuss them in detail, the possible counterstrikes reportedly included operations that would turn the tables on Mr. Putin, exposing his financial links to Russia’s oligarchs, and punching holes in the Russian internet to allow dissidents to get their message out. Pentagon officials judged the measures too unsubtle and ordered up their own set of options. But in the end, none of those were formally presented to the president. In a series of “deputies meetings” run by Avril Haines, the deputy national security adviser and a former deputy director of the C. I. A. several officials warned that an overreaction by the administration would play into Mr. Putin’s hands. “If we went to Defcon 4,” one frequent participant in Ms. Haines’s meetings said, using a phrase from the Cold War days of warnings of war, “we would be saying to the public that we didn’t have confidence in the integrity of our voting system. ” Even something seemingly straightforward — using the president’s executive powers, bolstered after the Sony incident, to place economic and travel sanctions on cyberattackers — seemed too risky. “No one was all that eager to impose costs before Election Day,” said another participant in the classified meeting. “Any retaliatory measures were seen through the prism of what would happen on Election Day. ” Instead, when Mr. Obama’s national security team reconvened after summer vacation, the focus turned to a crash effort to secure the nation’s voting machines and rolls from hacking. The scenario they discussed most frequently — one that turned out not to be an issue — was a narrow vote in favor of Mrs. Clinton, followed by a declaration by Mr. Trump that the vote was “rigged” and more leaks intended to undercut her legitimacy. Donna Brazile, the interim chairwoman of the D. N. C. became increasingly frustrated as the clock continued to run down on the presidential election — and still there was no broad public condemnation by the White House, or Republican Party leaders, of the attack as an act of foreign espionage. Ms. Brazile even reached out to Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, urging him twice in private conversations and in a letter to join her in condemning the attacks — an offer he declined to take up. “We just kept hearing the government would respond, the government would respond,” she said. “Once upon a time, if a foreign government interfered with our election we would respond as a nation, not as a political party. ” But Mr. Obama did decide that he would deliver a warning to Mr. Putin in person at a Group of 20 summit meeting in Hangzhou, China, the last time they would be in the same place while Mr. Obama was still in office. When the two men met for a tense Mr. Obama explicitly warned Mr. Putin of a strong American response if there was continued effort to influence the election or manipulate the vote, according to White House officials who were not present for the meeting. Later that day, Mr. Obama made a rare reference to America’s own offensive cybercapacity, which he has almost never talked about. “Frankly, both offensively and defensively, we have more capacity,” he told reporters. But when it came time to make a public assertion of Russia’s role in early October, it was made in a written statement from the director of national intelligence and the secretary of homeland security. It was far less dramatic than the president’s appearance in the press room two years before to directly accuse the North Koreans of attacking Sony. The reference in the statement to hackings on “political organizations,” officials now say, encompassed a hacking on data stored by the Republicans as well. Two senior officials say the forensic evidence was accompanied by “human and technical” sources in Russia, which appears to mean that the United States’ implants or taps in Russian computer and phone networks helped confirm the country’s role. But that may not be known for decades, until the secrets are declassified. A week later Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was sent out to transmit a public warning to Mr. Putin: The United States will retaliate “at the time of our choosing. And under the circumstances that have the greatest impact. ” Later, after Mr. Biden said he was not concerned that Russia could “fundamentally alter the election,” he was asked whether the American public would know if the message to Mr. Putin had been sent. “Hope not,” Mr. Biden responded. Some of his former colleagues think that was the wrong answer. An American counterstrike, said Michael Morell, the former deputy director of the C. I. A. under Mr. Obama, has “got to be overt. It needs to be seen. ” A covert response would significantly limit the deterrence effect, he added. “If you can’t see it, it’s not going to deter the Chinese and North Koreans and Iranians and others. ” The Obama administration says it still has more than 30 days to do exactly that. As the year draws to a close, it now seems possible that there will be multiple investigations of the Russian hacking — the intelligence review Mr. Obama has ordered completed by Jan. 20, the day he leaves office, and one or more congressional inquiries. They will wrestle with, among other things, Mr. Putin’s motive. Did he seek to mar the brand of American democracy, to forestall activism for both Russians and their neighbors? Or to weaken the next American president, since presumably Mr. Putin had no reason to doubt American forecasts that Mrs. Clinton would win easily? Or was it, as the C. I. A. concluded last month, a deliberate attempt to elect Mr. Trump? In fact, the Russian scheme accomplished all three goals. What seems clear is that Russian hacking, given its success, is not going to stop. Two weeks ago, the German intelligence chief, Bruno Kahl, warned that Russia might target elections in Germany next year. “The perpetrators have an interest to delegitimize the democratic process as such,” Mr. Kahl said. Now, he added, “Europe is in the focus of these attempts of disturbance, and Germany to a particularly great extent. ” But Russia has by no means forgotten its American target. On the day after the presidential election, the cybersecurity company Volexity reported five new waves of phishing emails, evidently from Cozy Bear, aimed at think tanks and nonprofits in the United States. One of them purported to be from Harvard University, attaching a fake paper. Its title: “Why American Elections Are Flawed. ” | 0fake |
Congress must raise debt ceiling by mid-October: CBO | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress will need to raise the nation’s debt limit by early to mid-October to avoid defaulting on loan payments, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report on Thursday. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has suggested his agency could hit the debt ceiling in September, and has encouraged Congress to raise the limit before the lawmakers go on their August recess. Republican leaders in Congress have begun having bipartisan discussions on the matter in the House. The U.S. government has a statutory limit on how much money it can borrow to cover the budget deficit that results from Washington spending more than it collects in taxes. Only Congress can raise that limit. The updated deadline will do little to diminish the urgency in Congress to act on the debt ceiling. Lawmakers will be still be pressured to tackle the increase before September, when funding the government will become their primary focus. The CBO report pointed to slower-than-expected tax receipts this year, a factor that Mnuchin has cited as a reason to raise the debt ceiling sooner. Lower tax payments were cited also as a factor in an increase in the deficit estimate. The CBO increased the deficit estimate for the current fiscal year to $693 billion, a $134 billion increase from its January estimate. The report factors in only current law that has been approved by Congress, and does not include proposals that have been made by President Donald Trump in his budget proposal released earlier this year. Congress continues to struggle with completing its hefty to-do list. In addition to raising the debt ceiling, Congress must pass a government spending bill before the end of September or face a government shutdown in October. This aligns the deadlines for the debt limit and the spending bill, creating the potential for them to become intertwined. Congressional leaders have expressed a desire to see the two kept separate to avoid getting the debt ceiling increase caught up in the politics of government spending. Congress also is trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act healthcare law and to overhaul the tax code – two efforts that have stalled and consumed more time than was initially expected. And there still are forces pushing against the effort to find agreement on the debt ceiling, including some Republicans who say an increase in the limit should accompany a cut in spending. And there are Democrats who have warned they will not contribute votes to legislation increasing the level if tax cuts for the rich add to the deficit. | 0fake |
Still short on healthcare votes: Republican whip team member | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A member of the House Republican team trying to win support to pass a bill dismantling Obamacare said on Friday the “next few votes” needed would be the toughest to secure. “The next few votes that we need to get are going to be the toughest,” Representative Rodney Davis told MSNBC. Asked if Republican leaders might pull the bill if they do not get enough votes for passage, Davis said: “That’s not something that we’re discussing right now. We fully intend to have that vote today and we fully intend to make sure that vote passes.” | 0fake |
The media needs to stop telling this lie about Donald Trump. I’m a Sanders supporter — and value honesty | Back in June, I first saw Mr. Trump announcing his candidacy for president. What he said about unauthorized immigrants seemed ridiculous so I laughed. I showed the video to friends, and I laughed again. His words were poorly chosen.
But something worse happened. People interpreted Trump’s words in the most awful and offensive ways.
In one of my courses, at the University of Texas at Austin, I asked my students: “What has Donald Trump said that you found most offensive?” One student raised her hand high: “He said that all Mexicans are rapists.” I asked a coworker the same question. He replied: “He said that all Mexican immigrants are rapists.”
I explained that Trump said no such thing. This is what Trump said:
You might well dislike Trump’s words. I did. But let’s not make it worse. He did not say that all Mexicans are rapists. Yet that’s what many commentators did. For example, Politico misquoted Trump by omitting his phrase about “good people.” They said he was “demonizing Mexicans as rapists.” They argued that Mexicans do not really commit more rapes in the U.S. than whites. But that’s not what Trump claimed.
Similarly, other news sources misrepresented his words in offensive ways:
Compare such words with Trump’s words. Which is worse? Writers excerpted the phrase: “they’re rapists,” as if it were about all Mexican unauthorized immigrants, or worse, about all Mexican immigrants, or even worst, about all Mexicans. But that’s not what he said. That’s not what he meant. It was just a remark about some of the criminals crossing the border.
The trick for misrepresenting Trump’s words can be used against anyone.
For example, on October 7, at a Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton answered the question: “Which enemy are you most proud of?” She replied: “In addition to the NRA, um, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, um, the Iranians.”
If you do to her what the media did to Trump, then you should believe that Hillary Clinton is proud to be the enemy of 77 million citizens of Iran, plus millions more living outside Iran, including mothers, children, and disabled people. But that’s not what she meant.
On November 6, at the MSNBC Democratic Candidates Forum, Bernie Sanders said: “we have to pass a constitutional amendment that everyone in America who is 18 years old or older is registered to vote.” He said everyone. Someone might then write: “He proposed that everyone who is in the U.S. should vote, everyone who is 18, even illegal immigrants, tourists, and terrorists.” But that’s not what he meant.
It is no wonder that many people think the media is grossly dishonest. No wonder Mr. Trump’s critiques of the media make his followers cheer.
Trump was discussing crimes committed by unauthorized immigrants. Is it true that some people who illegally cross the border from Mexico are good? Yes. Is it true that some others commit crimes? Yes. Is that a problem? People disagree. Some conjecture that unauthorized immigrants don’t commit more crimes than U.S. citizens. But crimes by unauthorized immigrants, even murders, would not have happened if those individuals had not entered the U.S.
Time for a disclosure. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Spanish is my first language. I voted for Obama. I live in liberal Austin, Texas, where I work as a tenured professor of history. I’ve never voted for a Republican. My preferred candidate for U.S. president would be Elizabeth Warren. Since she is not running, my preferred candidate is Bernie Sanders.
Anyhow, discussions about illegal immigration are ruined by lack of data. I asked my friends, university faculty: “How many people do you think are deported per year in the U.S.?”
There are two kinds of deportations: some are caught near the border and “returned,” others are “removed” by a court order. Consider the border patrol agents, personnel, the bureaucracy, the lawyers, the resources needed to find people and deport them. How many were deported in 2014?
One of my friends guessed 3,000. Another guessed 10,000. Another guessed 50,000—which would really be a lot of people, imagine.
Actually, in fiscal year 2014, the U.S. deported a total of 893,238 foreigners! That’s a huge number. It includes 577,295 deported by the Department of Homeland Security, plus 315,943 deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Among the latter, 2,802 were classified as suspected or confirmed gang members.
Since 1990, the average is 1.2 million deportations per year. The highest in U.S. history was 1.86 million foreigners deported in the year 2000. That’s astonishing.
How many were criminals?
We don’t know because most criminals are not caught. Plus, many who are accused are not convicted because of a lack of evidence. Still, in 2014, the U.S. deported 177,960 convicted criminals. Surprisingly, 91,037 were already convicted criminals before they even entered the U.S.
At the University of Texas at Austin, the football stadium can seat 100,119 people. I have seen it full. I’ve see more than 100,000 people at once—it’s an incredible sight. It’s a staggering swarm of people. I have seen them yelling all at once.
It is utterly astonishing to me that this stadium would fail to seat all the convicted criminals deported in a single year. Back to Mr. Trump. Did he unfairly single out Mexicans when complaining about crimes by unauthorized immigrants? By far, most Mexicans are good people. However, since Mexico shares a large frontier with the U.S., and many Mexicans face economic hardships, most of the reported illegal immigration into the U.S. is from Mexico. Accordingly, in recent years roughly 76% of criminal unauthorized immigrants are from Mexico. What kinds of crime? It is strangely difficult to find national statistics on homicides, sexual assaults, and thefts, by unauthorized immigrants. But there is relevant data for some states. The Texas Department of Public Safety identified 207,076 foreign aliens who were booked into Texas county jails from October 2008 through August 1, 2014. Their term “foreign aliens” includes both foreigners who are in Texas legally and foreigners who entered illegally. They were accused of 357,884 crimes in those 70 months, including these charges: 4,413 terroristic threats, 60,973 robberies and larcenies, 6,636 vehicle thefts, 78,682 assaults, 12,869 sexual assaults and offenses, 1,113 kidnapping, and 3,089 homicides. That includes, an average of 1,383 charges of sexual assaults per year, in Texas alone. The real number of rapes and sexual assaults is larger since many victims do not report these crimes. According to the National Crime and Victimization Survey, 2008-2012, approximately 68% of sexual assault crimes are not reported. So I estimate that foreigners commit roughly 4,000 sexual assaults in Texas each year. In Texas, roughly 529 foreigners per year were accused of committing murder. Plus, the FBI reports that 36% of homicides nationwide remain unsolved. These crime rates are staggering and offensive. None of the women and men who were killed in by unauthorized immigrants in Texas would have died if the murderers had not entered the U.S. illegally. These are not just words. Pause for a moment to think about a Texas woman whose husband was murdered one night. Think about parents who never saw their son again because he was murdered. Think of the thousands of families standing at the cemeteries. I’ve only summarized murders and sexual assaults. Consider drugs and drug violence. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, most illegal drugs come from Mexico, including most cocaine and heroine. Most methamphetamines also are smuggled from Mexico. The 2015 National Drug Threat Survey finds that methamphetamines are the drugs that most contribute to property crimes and violent crimes. You get the point. There are tremendous problems of drugs, murders, and rapes caused at the porous border. Without knowing the data, it was easy to be offended by Mr. Trump’s crude words when he announced his candidacy. However, seeing the data above, I understand his concerns. Here’s what Trump said right after his words quoted above: “And it only makes common sense, it only makes common sense: they’re sending us not the right people, and it’s coming from more than Mexico, it’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably, probably from the Middle East. But we don’t know because we have no protection, and we have no competence. We don’t know what’s happening. And it’s gotta stop. And it’s gotta stop fast.” We can disagree about some points. Is the Mexican government really sending criminals to the U.S.? On July 5, Trump said: “The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.” This claim might be false if Mexico does not intentionally send criminals to the US. At its best, this statement seems plausible if Trump meant that conditions generated in Mexico by its government lead some criminals to the U.S. In any case, Trump proposes to secure the southern border by implementing various security measures. His most recurring proposal is to build a wall, along areas of the border lacking natural barriers. His proposal has been widely criticized. Some people construed it as a sign of racism, xenophobia, etc. However, I can understand why many of Trump’s followers actually cheer: “Build the Wall! Build the Wall!” First, there are the worries about murders, drugs, crimes, and terrorism. Presently, countless many unauthorized immigrants walk into the country, unchecked. In fiscal year 2014, the Border Patrol made 468,407 apprehensions along the southwest border. By comparison, the Border Patrol only made 18,244 apprehensions in all other regions. But one point sticks in my mind. Namely this: there already exist a long series of fences and walls between Mexico and the U.S. These fences and walls span parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. As of early 2012, the Department of Homeland Security had completed 652 miles of fences and walls. Trump did not build all that. It was mandated by Congress. Walls are common along many countries’ borders, such as Spain, China, France, Greece, Pakistan, Israel, etc. The border between the U.S. and Mexico spans roughly 1,950 miles. Trump wants a wall that will be 1,000 miles long, including areas already covered. I’m not trying to convince you about a wall. My point is just that it’s neither impossible nor ridiculous. A main reason why many border areas have fences instead of walls is just that walls are more expensive. Trump says that everyone who didn’t enter the U.S. legally should return to their countries. “They have to go.” We might well disagree. But his view is closer to Immigration law. If you prefer amnesty then lawmakers have to create a law to that effect. Trump insists: “I want people to come in, but they have to come in legally.” Regardless, countless many people think that Trump is racist against Mexicans. I suggest that anyone who thinks that should count how many times Trump has praised Mexicans. Most unauthorized immigrants are good people. But still, the media wrongly blamed Mr. Trump for their own misrepresentations. | 0fake |
Warren, Kaine, Castro on Clinton running-mate short list: AP | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Julian Castro, the U.S. housing secretary, are on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s short list of vice presidential picks, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday, citing Democratic sources. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who waged a populist challenge to Clinton during an unexpectedly long primary campaign, was not on the list, the AP reported, citing one of several unidentified Democrats. | 0fake |
SWEDISH RESIDENT SPEAKS OUT ABOUT DECADES OF MUSLIM IMMIGRATION: “We all live in the same town, but not in the same world” | The Swedish identity will be wiped out in 20-30 years. This is sadly, a look into the future for all of Europe As a current resident of Sweden, I sometimes find myself questioning my own sanity. All these problems I blog about are right there in the open for anyone to see and getting worse by the year, yet media and politicians act as if everything is hunky-dory. Most people on the street also appears to be completely oblivious to details like the enormous increase of burning cars in the ghettos, the 1472% increase in rapes and the ever bolder gangs choking their enclaves with drugs and violence.So I find myself wondering, am I missing something? Why aren t people reacting? Is it really reasonable that so many are in a state of denial? Or am I somehow misinterpreting all this?That s why it s oddly reassuring that the neighboring Nordic countries are in the same boat. Denmark has voiced concerns about the utterly weak background check of immigrants from the middle east, fearing radical Islamists entering Sweden as asylum seekers with the intent of building Scandinavian terror cells. My very first post on this blog was about a Danish politician openly pleading for Sweden to come to its senses.Norway isn t too pleased either, and they dare speak openly about the problems brewing in the cities of their neighbor.In a new report called Oslo 2022, the Norwegian police explicitly use Sweden in general and the town of S dert lje as a warning example. This prompted Aftonposten, one of the major Norwegian newspapers, to do two articles on Sweden s out-of-control immigration.In the first part, Norwegian reporters traveled to S dert lje outside Stockholm. Entitled We all live in the same town, but not in the same world, the article chronicles a town in complete segregation where the immigrants gain ground every year and everyone who can escapes. Violence, drugs, lawlessness and decay eats away at the town like a cancer. Why is this allowed to happen? the reporter asks. Because the Swedes are weak, says 36-year old Simon Melkemichel. The Swedish identity will be wiped out in 20-30 years. The second part is called Sweden has lost control over their immigration and has representatives for the Norwegian government comment on the fact that, well, Sweden has lost control over their immigration. What makes it noteworthy is the difference in tone compared to the Swedish political debate.As in Denmark, the Norwegian leftist worker s party have a very different view on immigration than the Swedish sister party Socialdemokraterna (currently in power). In Norway and Denmark, they make a point of restricting the inflow and checking the backgrounds carefully.In Sweden, there are literally no limits, and any background check beyond scratching the surface is considered racist and shut down by management as has been repeatedly revealed by bloggers like Merit Wager.Not surprisingly, the police report and the articles have ruffled quite a few feathers in Sweden s political and medial elite. But equally predictably, the Swedish response is not to acknowledge the problems, but to whine about the mean Norwegian pseudo-fascists having the gall to criticize Sweden s enlightened stance.While it doesn t do squat to fix anything, it s at least reassuring that I m not the one losing my mind. Via: Sweden Report | 1real |
Trump EPA pick expresses doubts on climate, defends oil industry funding | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expressed doubt about the science behind global climate change during a contentious Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, but added he would be obliged for now to uphold the EPA’s finding carbon dioxide poses a public danger. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, 48, sued the agency he intends to run more than a dozen times on behalf of his state. This earned him strong support from petroleum companies and convinced both his opponents and supporters that he would aggressively carry out Trump’s campaign vows to slash EPA regulation to boost drilling and mining. “Science tells us that the climate is changing, and that human activity, in some manner, impacts that change,” Pruitt said during the hearing in front of the Environment and Public Works Committee. “The ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of that impact, and what to do about it, are subject to continuing debate and dialogue.” Responding to a question from Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Pruitt said he would be obliged as administrator to initially abide by the EPA finding that carbon dioxide and other gases scientists believe contribute to climate change pose a risk to the public. That is a premise for many of the regulations limiting carbon emissions imposed during President Barack Obama’s tenure. “There’s nothing that I know of that would cause a review at this point,” he said. Trump has called climate change a hoax and has promised to refocus the EPA on protecting air and water quality, while scrapping many of Obama’s initiatives to curb carbon dioxide emissions. That stance has triggered an international diplomatic backlash and cast a cloud of doubt over the future of a global pact to fight global warming, signed in Paris last year by nearly 200 countries. U.S. government agencies said on Wednesday that world temperatures in 2016 hit a record high for the third year in a row. “Why are folks so concerned?... We’re concerned that we won’t be fine with the environment,” said Democratic Senator Tom Carper of Delaware during the hearing. “That’s why you have the kind of concern you’re witnessing here today.” An overwhelming majority of scientists say the burning of oil, gas and coal is a driver of global climate change, causing sea level rise and more frequent violent storms. In prepared remarks that were interrupted by protesters shouting “There is no planet B”, Pruitt said he would seek to ensure rules imposed by the EPA were effective, but without hurting development. He added that he would seek to give states more authority to regulate their own environmental issues. “Environmental regulations should not occur in an economic vacuum. We can simultaneously pursue the mutual goals of environmental protection and economic growth,” he said. For weeks before the hearing, environmental groups campaigned to urge lawmakers to block Pruitt’s nomination, saying his litigation as Oklahoma attorney general may have been influenced by energy companies and industry groups that contributed to his election campaigns. Pruitt said during the hearing that he would recuse himself from any ongoing cases against the EPA that he is involved in, if the EPA’s ethics commission required him to do so. Among these cases is a multi-state effort to overturn the Clean Power Plan requiring states to cut carbon emissions, a centerpiece of Obama’s initiatives to counter climate change. During the hearing, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon showed a blown-up image of a letter Pruitt sent to the current EPA administrator several years ago opposing regulations limiting emissions from the energy sector. Merkley said it had been written by Oklahoma company Devon Energy (DVN.N). Pruitt responded by saying the letter was not sent on behalf of any one company but on behalf of an entire industry that is important to the state’s economy. New Jersey Democratic Senator Corey Booker later asked Pruitt if he had sent similar letters of behalf of Oklahoma citizens affected by pollution, citing statistics showing the major oil and gas producing state has among the highest asthma rates in the country. “Did you even file one lawsuit on behalf of those kids?” Booker later quipped: “There’s a pattern of you being on side of polluters, even when it restricts state rights you claim to promote.” Republicans on the committee focused their questions on how Pruitt will work to prevent pollution from causing serious public health problems like the lead contamination crisis affecting Flint, Michigan, and criticized the Obama administration’s climate regulations. Lawmakers from Midwestern states also asked about his views on biofuels, an important market for corn growers. Pruitt said he would support the U.S. renewable fuels standard, which requires biofuels like ethanol to be blended in gasoline, but said the program needed some tweaks. | 0fake |
Wilbur Ross, a Billionaire Investor, Is Confirmed as Commerce Secretary - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Wilbur L. Ross, the billionaire investor, as commerce secretary on Monday, installing a key leader for the Trump administration’s plans to overhaul trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. By a vote of 72 to 27, the Senate confirmed Mr. Ross, who has already been advising President Trump on economic policy and helping him to craft ways to rewrite the tax code. A renegotiation of Nafta is expected to be Mr. Ross’s top priority when he takes over the job. During his confirmation hearing in January, he warned that “all aspects” of the agreement between the United States and its northern and southern neighbors are on the table. With the confirmation of Mr. Ross, the most important members of Mr. Trump’s economic team are in place just in time for looming fights over the budget, health care and tax legislation. Compared with some of Mr. Trump’s other cabinet picks, Mr. Ross had his confirmation process move ahead with relative ease. He faced less resistance from Democrats than Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and Andrew F. Puzder, whose nomination to lead the Labor Department was derailed. A former Democrat, Mr. Ross, 79, divested a significant portion of his holdings to avoid conflicts of interest before taking the helm of the Commerce Department. He also tried to temper some of Mr. Trump’s views on trade, attempting to ease concerns that the United States is going to be engaging in trade wars. “I am but I am trade,” Mr. Ross declared at his confirmation hearing. But he takes the job with lingering questions about how his business experience will mesh with Mr. Trump’s “America First” trade agenda. As a private equity investor, Mr. Ross amassed a fortune by taking advantage of trade deals with countries such as China and Mexico. He sent jobs to Mexico when he was the head of a car parts company, benefiting from some of the Nafta provisions that he will most likely be looking to unwind. And he is maintaining a minority stake in a company backed by the Chinese government. Mr. Ross has said that he wants to use his knowledge of the global economy to help improve the fortunes of and Americans. He said last summer that he was attracted to Mr. Trump as a candidate because he believed that the country needed a “more radical, new approach to government. ” The appointment of Mr. Ross fulfills Mr. Trump’s promise to stock his cabinet with proven dealmakers. But it also opens the president up to criticism that he has veered away from his vows of populism by surrounding himself with plutocrats. Democrats have assailed Mr. Trump for assembling the wealthiest cabinet in American history, and on Monday they did not let up. “Wilbur Ross is practically a cartoon stereotype of a Wall Street fat cat with no interest in anyone but himself,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote on Twitter. On the Senate floor ahead of the vote, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, accused Mr. Ross of having questionable business ties to Russia. He said Mr. Ross and the Trump administration had failed to be forthcoming about the matter and described it as a troubling pattern. “This is just another example of this administration abandoning transparency and trying to jam nominees through,” Mr. Schumer said. “This is another black mark on this nation’s administration. ” Mr. Ross is set to be sworn in on Tuesday at the White House. The Senate was also holding a cloture vote on Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana, Mr. Trump’s nominee for interior secretary. A full vote is expected for Mr. Zinke later this week. | 0fake |
Donald Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star destroyed by vandals | Print
Donald Trump’s star took a beating Wednesday morning — literally.
The reality TV host’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star was destroyed by a vandal rendering the fixture completely unreadable, according to Deadline Hollywood .
The vandal was dressed in a city construction worker, taking his sledgehammer to the five-point brass star at approximately 5:45 am.
The man reportedly said he wanted to remove the souvenir so that it could be auctioned off, with the proceeds set to go toward helping the women who have come forward in recent weeks to accuse Trump of sexual assault.
The allegations all came out after a 2005 recording surfaced of Trump claiming that his “star” status allows him to grope and kiss women whenever he wants.
While this is the first time a star has been completely defaced, Trump’s has been vandalized at least twice since he announced his presidential run a year and a half ago. | 1real |
Katie Ledecky Smashes World Record in the 800-Meter Freestyle - The New York Times | In 1968, a teenager in North Dakota watched transfixed as Debbie Meyer won the and freestyle races at the Mexico City Olympics. The next time the teenager, already a competitive swimmer, got in the pool, she cut through the water repeating to herself, “I am Debbie Meyer. ” That teenager would grow up to become the mother of Katie Ledecky, who on Friday night became the first Olympian since Meyer to complete the 200, 400 and 800 trifecta. Ledecky lowered her world record in the 800 freestyle by two seconds with a time of 8 minutes 4. 79 seconds. Her 400 split of 4:01. 98 would have won the bronze in the 400 final last Sunday. She finished 11. 38 seconds ahead of the Jazz Carlin of Britain, who clocked an 8:16. 17. That was of a second better than the bronze medalist, Boglarka Kapas of Hungary. The slim margin separating second and third threw into sharp relief the dominance of Ledecky, who owns the 13 fastest performances in history. Four years ago, a Ledecky won the 800 freestyle in 8:14. 63. She and Hungary’s Krisztina Egerszegi are the only swimmers to win gold medals in consecutive Olympics as teenagers. Ledecky started crying as she talked about completing this Olympics cycle by hitting all her goal times. “It’s the end of a journey,” Ledecky said, adding, “It’s been so fun. ” Before the Games, Ledecky was asked if breaking the barrier was within her reach. She said she did not believe so. “I don’t know if that’s achievable,” Ledecky said. And then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “I still say anything is possible. ” Before the 800, Ledecky did not have the best night’s sleep. She woke up on Friday with a sore throat that she kiddingly blamed on her roommate, Simone Manuel. After Manuel’s upset victory in the freestyle on Thursday, Ledecky stayed awake to congratulate her. Manuel said she was shocked when she cracked open the bedroom door around 2 in the morning and was swallowed in an embrace by Ledecky. “She said I’m not going to sleep until I give you a hug,” Manuel said. “That really meant a lot to me. ” Ledecky, 19, typically expresses more excitement about other people’s success than about her own. After her teammate Leah Smith finished the 800 in 8:20. 95 for sixth, Ledecky her way over to Smith’s lane and embraced her. “Normally I think a lot of people have to be superdominant, but Katie wants other U. S. girls to be up there on the podium with her,” Smith said. “She wants challenges. She’s always setting high goals for herself. I think it’s amazing you can want someone who’s racing you to go low. ” Ledecky’s coach, Bruce Gemmell, isn’t surprised. “Her biggest internal motivator is getting better, it’s raising the bar,” he said about Ledecky. “It’s not winning an Olympic medal, it isn’t setting a world record, it wasn’t becoming the best in the world. It’s about setting goals and going after them. ” Where does Ledecky go from here? To Stanford, to begin her freshman year, which she put off to train for the Meyer milestone. Her growing legion of admirers includes Kevin Durant, who asked to take a photograph with her after her 200 freestyle victory, and the Olympian with the most medals of all, Michael Phelps. | 0fake |
INSANITY! HARRY REID CLAIMS Putin And Comey Conspired To Make Trump President [Video] | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWbYpIj7CQ8 | 1real |
Watch: Mets Prospect Snags Flying Bat with One Hand - Breitbart | Major League Baseball’s spring training is underway again, and New York Mets shortstop prospect Luis Guillorme is already making an impression on the big league club. Thursday, Miami Marlins shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria swung and lost the bat. The bat flew towards the Mets dugout, and the players scrambled to get out of the way. Guillorme, however, did not leave his spot and instead caught the bat as it flew by his head. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 0fake |
Exclusive: Super PACs backing Republican Cruz buy $2.4 million in ads in eight states | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Making a final push toward the crucial Super Tuesday vote, Super PACs backing Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz bought $2.4 million in advertising supporting him in eight states, the groups told Reuters. The ads purchased by Keep The Promise and its various offshoots include radio, television and online and are the latest effort by supporters of Cruz, a U.S. senator of Texas, to dislodge Donald Trump from the front-runner position in Tuesday’s critical 11-state Republican nominating contests. Should Trump sweep the contests, it could make stopping his path to the Republican nomination impossible. The outside groups supporting the presidential candidates have already spent more than $5.5 million on advertising in Super Tuesday states, according to analysis by Reuters of the spending reports filed with Federal Election Commission as of Friday morning. Super PACs are permitted to raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals and corporations, but are prohibited from coordinating with the campaigns they are supporting. Most of the Super PACs have been used to fund expensive advertising budgets, while the campaigns themselves are responsible for staff and ground organization. Cruz’s backers are hopeful the ads will pull him ahead of Trump. Cruz is locked in a tight battle in his home state of Texas, where 155 delegates to be sent to the Republican National Convention are at stake, out of almost 600 delegates total in the states voting on Super Tuesday. “On Super Tuesday, voters can both send a message to Washington AND send a serious, proven conservative to the White House by voting for Cruz,” said Kellyanne Conway, president of Keep the Promise I, one of the groups backing Cruz. The groups spent $393,500 on radio ads in seven states. They also purchased more than $990,0000 in television ads that will run in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma - the most crucial states for Cruz to narrow the margins with Trump. The groups also spent $1 million on digital ads in eight states, including Minnesota, where so far none of the outside groups have bought advertising. (Reporting by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Leslie Adler) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 0fake |
Two Florida nuclear plants likely to shut if Irma stays on path | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Energy firm Florida Power & Light (FPL) said on Wednesday it could shut its four nuclear reactors in the path of Hurricane Irma before Saturday if the storm stayed on its current path. Based on the current track, we would expect severe weather in Florida starting Saturday, meaning we would potentially shut down before that point, spokesman Peter Robbins said in an email. The company, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Inc, is watching the weather and would adjust any plans as necessary, Robbins said. The trajectory of Irma, a Category 5 storm with winds of 185 miles per hour (295 km per hour), is uncertain. Irma, which the U.S. National Hurricane Center said was the strongest Atlantic storm on record, was expected to pass near or just north of Puerto Rico on Wednesday before scraping the Dominican Republic on Thursday. FPL operates the St. Lucie nuclear power plant on Hutchinson Island, a barrier island on the Atlantic about 55 miles (88 km) north of West Palm Beach. Two reactors generate 2,000 megawatts of electricity, enough power to supply more than 1 million homes. It also operates Turkey Point nuclear power station on Biscayne Bay, about 24 miles south of Miami. That has two reactors that generate about 1,600 megawatts of electricity, or enough for about 900,000 homes. Robbins said the plants were designed to withstand extreme natural events including hurricanes and serious floods. | 0fake |
Slowing Down, Finding Hidden Paradise on St. John - The New York Times | Idleness is generally not something visitors to remote corners of the Caribbean need to seek out. It is forced on you. Your rental car breaks down on a Saturday morning, stranding you at a beach parking lot, for instance, and you call the number on your key to find out that a) they are closed Saturdays, and b) the person answering the line says they might — just might — be able to get you a working car sometime. Eventually, you realize that the reason your calamity is being treated as a mere inconvenience is that that is what it is. And, in my case, such inconveniences might be reminders to follow the advice of an acquaintance who has lived on St. John for more than 20 years: Slow down. St. John unfurls itself in unexpected ways if you just give it time. Slowing down was how I found a little path near a lookout point called Peace Hill that led down to a deserted beach most tourists walk right past it on the way to the main attraction, an old windmill ruin. Slowing down was how I saw sea life dart in and out of mangroves when I went snorkeling on St. John’s East End at first the crustaceans and tiny fish are invisible but if you move as little as possible and wait, they slowly come to life. It was how I discovered a great restaurant in town that was easy to miss unless you knew the way in: through a minimart, past the junk food aisle. Unless you slow down, you might miss St. John itself. There is no airport or cruise ship dock, which keeps the tourist hordes down. Many people do not even realize that it is part of the United States, as one of the country’s three major Virgin Islands. It is a short ferry ride from St. Thomas, which is accessible by several direct flights a day from major mainland cities like New York, Atlanta and Miami. What really keeps St. John feeling so remote and unhurried is the fact that it is largely off limits to developers. More than half the island is taken up by one of the parks in the national park system, Virgin Islands National Park. You won’t find the kind of garish development that chokes other parts of the Caribbean. There are no hotels, no strip malls filled with and tchotchke shops, no barking beach vendors asking to braid your hair or sell you a drink in a coconut. I was no stranger to St. John. What I always remembered about it — and what drew me back there after more than a decade since I moved back to the United States mainland from St. Thomas, where I was a reporter just out of college — was that it was the place Virgin Islanders went when they needed a little vacation. I would visit every couple of months when I was living in St. Thomas, usually for a weekend getaway or to impress my family and friends when they came down for a visit. And every time I navigated the island’s steep, serpentine roads in my Jeep and stopped at the first overlook outside town, I would take in the 180 degrees of sparkling azure water and lush virgin mountainsides and catch myself: “I can’t believe this place is part of the United States. ” When I returned there last year, I realized I’d never really taken the time to get to know St. John as well as I thought. This time, with my partner, Brendan, I would take it slow. Over four days we took our rented Jeep Wrangler on as many of the passable roads on St. John as we could, stopping at all the beaches, bars, scenic lookouts and trails we had time for. Here is everything you might otherwise miss. I should know, because I did the first time. Caneel has a reputation as one of the most luxurious resorts in the Caribbean. But it, too, is hidden from people in a rush. When passing it on a boat you have to look hard to notice its green and tan buildings, which disappear into the surrounding hillsides. There are few resorts in the Caribbean as suited to their surroundings. Everything there, it seemed, was designed to be inoffensive to the eye. The taxis that run guests around the sprawling property are painted a pale green, as are the landscaping trucks and housekeeping golf carts. The beach chairs are a sandy brown. Locals tell a story about the time the former owner of the property, Laurance Rockefeller, went sailing by and saw that the staff had set out new turquoise chairs. Horrified, he ordered them banished. The resort auctioned them off, and soon many of the homes on the island had turquoise deck chairs of their own. There is something almost intangible about how refined Caneel is, beyond those carefully golf carts, the astronomical thread counts and the sumptuous bath products. Being there feels like being a resident of an exclusive, republic. An army of staff members tends to the 166 rooms, seven beaches and 170 acres of meticulously maintained grounds. From the moment we set foot on the private dock that receives guests arriving from St. Thomas, we were free from worry. We were met by a smiling, waving welcoming committee of a workers, who handed us cool towels and whisked us off to our room on a golf cart. One morning, as we headed to the beach on one of the resort taxis, I muttered to Brendan that I had forgotten our towels. All of a sudden our taxi came to a halt and the driver hustled away. Perplexed, we watched as he ran over to a housekeeping cart and grabbed two fresh towels for us. The resort is so big that you may feel the need to be transported everywhere on one of its frequently running shuttles. But roaming on foot is far more rewarding. There are trails that run through the property, like Mary’s Trail, named for Mr. Rockefeller’s wife, which winds for a half mile over some cliffs along the water. It deposits you at my favorite of the resort’s seven beaches, Turtle Bay Beach. Tucked into a small cove book ended by rocks, the beach is a wide but fairly short strip of soft white sand with few people ever on it. There is also a swimming pool on the property. But its presence seemed purely ornamental. It is a hike from most of the rooms, and I never saw anyone in it. Caneel may not come cheap, but it’s not off limits or unwelcoming for those who have other uses for $800 a night. Virgin Islands law provides for public access to almost all beaches. So have breakfast at Caneel’s Beach Terrace one day and bring your bathing suit and towel so you can hit a beach when you’re done. Just remember: You have to know what you’re looking for. Caneel’s entrance off North Shore Road is unmarked. Only a stone gatehouse alerts you to the fact that something special lies inside. As St. John’s busiest harbor and a hub for ferries coming from St. Thomas and the British Virgin Islands, Cruz Bay is the closest thing St. John has to a city. It is easy to think that you’ve covered Cruz Bay after walking its narrow grid of streets for 20 minutes or so. But the best thing to do is to ask the locals where to go. Had we trusted our own instincts and not asked around, we never would have found lunch at the Little Olive food truck, which sells Greek dishes like chicken gyros, spanakopita and fiery feta fries — sweet potatoes dappled with Sriracha, feta and oregano. They are all generously portioned, if a bit messy. So ask for extra napkins. And make sure you get directions before you go. Little Olive can be a little difficult to find in its unassuming location — a parking lot next to the town tennis courts. Two of our best finds for food and drinks were also off the grid, though easy enough to locate by asking around. The first was the Bowery, a little respite of a bar where we stopped for happy hour one evening. It is peacefully removed from the clamor of the beachfront bars along the water in Cruz Bay, sealed off by a glass door. “It keeps the drunks out,” our bartender said, sounding quite pleased. We ordered a crisp, dry rosé and a generously sized plate that more than held us over until dinner. Another bonus our bartender took pride in: The Bowery has no blender for frozen drinks. If the Virgin Islands had an unofficial state song, it would be the rattling whir, buzz and chop of a bar blender — a bit of noise pollution that is inescapable in most bars. Our other find was a funky restaurant and bar called Rhumb Lines, inside the Bayside Mini Mart. Just walk past a few aisles of potato chips, toiletries and soft drinks, step past the cash register — and a dinner of shrimp pad thai, grilled or Sichuan tuna is waiting for you. Cruz Bay has become a little hub of culinary experimentation and innovation over the last few years. And we had great meals at other places like La Tapa, which has a nightly changing menu of seafood, meats and greens that were so fresh I asked the waiter if they were picked that day. He said they were indeed — by a woman named Josephine who provides her signature peppery arugula mixes to many of the restaurants in town. One of our favorite places was by no means hidden. The Longboard, a bar and restaurant, announces itself as the new hot spot on the block with its fresh white paint job and slick signage. In this case, I was grateful for its conspicuousness, which drew us in and rewarded us with dishes like ahi tuna poke, sliders and fish tacos, which we washed down with the restaurant’s signature gin and tonic. St. John’s north shore beaches — Hawksnest Bay, Trunk Bay, Cinnamon Bay and Maho Bay, among others — are its most stunning attractions, but they are often congested during high season. Some of the best, most deserted beaches require a hike. Those extra steps are an effective deterrent to large crowds. Closer to Cruz Bay are Honeymoon and Solomon beaches, which are adjacent to Caneel Bay but also accessible on the Lind Point Trail from the Virgin Islands National Park visitor center in Cruz Bay. If you want even more isolation, try to find Denis Bay. The trailhead that leads down to Denis is a little farther up North Shore Road, just past the entrance to Caneel. You have to pass Hawksnest and then look for the signs for Peace Hill, where the main attraction is a ruin on a windswept perch overlooking the water. (The vista is definitely worth the short hike up before you start your trek down to the water.) Just as you start the trail that climbs up to the mill from a small parking lot, look right. A narrow, unmarked path leads to a steep descent that flattens out closer to the water. The beach has perfect white sand that is not so fine and soft that it sticks to you everywhere like wet flour. And it’s not so coarse that it scrubs your feet raw. We hung our towels and bags on one of the trees that provide ample shade along the beach and waded in. As we were floating on our backs, we noticed a little commotion down the beach. A small crowd had gathered around a surprise visitor: a lone flamingo that had wandered onto the beach, most likely a deserter from the colony that Richard Branson maintains on his nearby private island. This bird certainly had good taste in beaches. Maho Bay, at the eastern end of North Shore Road, was quite a different beach experience. Since it’s right off the road, it tends to get crowded. The strip of sand is narrower than those of other beaches on the north shore, like Cinnamon. But the bay is more protected and the water calmer. Many visitors flock to it for the sea turtles, which use the underwater grass beds as a feeding ground. Chances are you will see plenty of them if you strap on a snorkel and mask. Most people, including many who live on St. John, never get all the way out to the East End. It’s not that far, about a ’s drive from Cruz Bay. But in a lot of ways, the East End is its own island. The last census found only 51 people who lived there, on a little finger of rock and beach close to British waters. The beaches are smaller here. The vegetation is drier, with more cactuses. The most distinctive feature is the mangroves, which line some of the bays along the south shore. From the road, they look like ordinary brush growing alongside the water. But with a snorkel and a mask, you can see an underwater forest come to life. Tip: Leave the fins in your rental car because they will just stir up sediment and cloud the water. We parked our car on the side of the road just a few steps from the water and got in. Then we made our way slowly along the shoreline, stopping every couple of feet to look closely at what was stirring inside the intricate network of roots before us: lobster, fish of different sizes and colors, fringed coral that danced in the current. It was unlike any snorkeling experience I’d ever had. After all that patient waiting and looking, we needed a drink. We had a couple of options. The first was the Shipwreck Landing in Coral Bay, a small development that doesn’t quite pass for a town. We had good fish tacos and beer for lunch there and managed to snag a table looking out onto the water. There was also a place I had heard about but never seen. And it was a little less conventional. Angel’s Rest isn’t always in the same spot, as it’s a pontoon boat. But usually you can find it and its captain, Peter, anchored somewhere in the water near Hansen Bay. We parked our car along the side of the road (there is only one road that far east) and walked through an opening in a fence onto the beach. We seemed to be crossing private property, but no one was there to hassle us. We swam up to Peter’s boat, climbed aboard and ordered. He was out of beer that day. Tequila, vodka or rum punch, or shots of Fireball were all that was on the menu. Brendan apologized to Peter as he handed him a soggy bill. “If you hand me dry money, you’re getting back wet change anyway,” Peter said. I forked over more of that wet change for a second round, and Brendan dove in the water after a sea turtle. I was still taking it slow. Caneel Bay, on North Shore Road in Cruz Bay. Expect to pay at least $650 for an room. Rooms not overlooking the water are cheaper but not ideal caneelbay. com. Rhumb Lines, in Cruz Bay. Entrees, $23 to $37 rhumblinesstjohn. com. The Longboard, in Cruz Bay. Small plates, sushi, $15 and up thelongboardstjohn. com. La Tapa, in Cruz Bay. Entrees, $36 and up latapastjohn. com. Little Olive food truck, near the tennis courts in Cruz Bay. Sandwiches, gyros, salads, $8 to $12. Angel’s Rest, floating in Hansen Bay, East End. Drinks, shots, $5. | 0fake |
Factbox: Trump to meet with retired General Petraeus, Mitt Romney | (Reuters) - U.S. Republican President-elect Donald Trump holds more meetings on Monday and Tuesday as he continues to form his administration before taking over from Democratic President Barack Obama on Jan. 20. He was scheduled to meet with the following people, according to his transition team: * A former adviser on homeland security to former U.S. President George W. Bush * A former commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission * Member of Trump’s transition team overseeing independent agencies, including the SEC. * A former head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, now with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a free-market think tank. * Has been mentioned as a possible chief of the Environmental Protection Agency. * Retired four-star general and former director of the CIA under President Barack Obama until his resignation in 2012 over an extramarital affair, after which he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for mishandling classified information * Has been reported as a possible pick for secretary of state. * Chairman of World Wide Technology Inc, an information technology and supply chain logistics firm described as one of the largest African-American-owned businesses in the United States. * Republican attorney general of Oklahoma* Reported to be a possible candidate to head the Environmental Protection Agency. * Sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin * A strong Trump supporter, Clarke, who is black, had criticized protests that erupted in Milwaukee after a 23-year- old man was shot and killed by police in August. * Former CEO of regional bank BB&T and former CEO of the Cato Institute. * Reported to be under consideration to head the U.S. Treasury Department. * Chief executive officer of Chicago-based real estate investment firm General Growth Properties Inc * Republican congresswoman from Tennessee. * Veterans advocate who was formerly executive director of Vets for Freedom and a former counterinsurgency instructor in Afghanistan. * President and CEO of Rolls-Royce North America and former CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association, a defense industry trade group. * Former Federal Aviation Administration administrator under President George W. Bush * Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Tennessee Republican * House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security chairman, Texas Republican * Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, member of the House Committee on Homeland Security * Republican presidential candidate in 2012 who was highly critical of Trump during the election * Considered a potential pick for secretary of state | 0fake |
Trump FREAKS OUT About Deleting His Anti-Semitic Tweet: ‘We Shouldn’t Have Taken It Down!’ (VIDEO/TWEET) | It is literally impossible for Donald Trump to let America forget about what an awful person he is for one day.Trump s campaign has been getting wrecked over the past week thanks to a blatantly anti-Semitic tweet he sent out a few days ago. The tweet was a meme with the Star of David slapped over an anti-Hillary Clinton graphic a meme that was traced back to a website frequented by white supremacists and neo-Nazis. It doesn t seem possible, but Trump has managed to make the situation even worse.At a rally in Ohio on Wednesday night, Trump went on an insane rant about how unfair it was that his offensive tweet had to be taken down and is getting so much negative attention. The Donald repeatedly insisted that the Star of David is actually just a regular star (or a sheriff s star) and that the dishonest media are actually the ones who are profiling not him. Trump went out of his way to go after CNN, or the Clinton News Network, for rightfully calling him out on the anti-Semitic tweet, labeling the network and the rest of the media sick. Then, Trump complained that he d had to alter the meme (by putting a circle over the Star of David) and pull the original off of social media. He whined that his social media director, Dan Scavino, shouldn t have taken it down. TwitterYou can watch Trump throw a temper tantrum about not being able to show his true bigot colors freely below:It s clear that Trump doesn t give a sh*t if his meme carried a super offensive or oppressive message. All that matters in Trump s mind is that he s right, everyone else is wrong, and he can do whatever the hell he wants without being called out on his bigotry.Featured image via Gage Skidmore / Flickr | 1real |
LAME EXCUSES! CRYBABY DEMOCRATS To Skip Inauguration For FAKE Reasons [Video] | Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia says he doesn t view Donald Trump as a legitimate president and will be skipping next Friday s inauguration.Lewis tells NBC s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd that the Russians helped Trump get elected.It will be the first inauguration Lewis has missed since he began serving in Congress three decades ago. Lewis says, You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right. Lewis testified this week against Trump s attorney general nominee, Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama.Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona also says he will stay home to protest what he calls disrespect shown to Americans by the incoming administration and by actions in Congress. He says the majority of voters rejected Trump, and they deserve respect. JOHN LEWIS: | 1real |
Will Michelle Obama Be The Replacement Nominee If The FBI Email Investigation Ends Hillary Clinton’s Campaign? | Posted by Michael Snyder
I realize that this headline must sound extremely bizarre, but in this article I will explain why this could actually happen. We have just learned that the FBI has obtained a search warrant that will enable the agency to examine approximately 650,000 emails that are sitting on electronic devices owned by Huma Abedin and her estranged husband Anthony Weiner. Now that the FBI is going through these emails, it is unlikely but still possible that a decision about whether or not to charge Hillary Clinton with a crime could be made by November 8th. Of course the most likely scenario is that Hillary Clinton will not be indicted before election day and that Americans will be voting with this scandal hanging ominously over the Clinton campaign. But if the FBI does quickly take action, it is possible that Hillary Clinton could be forced from the race before election day, and that would require the Democrats to come up with a new candidate.
In fact, there are already calls in the mainstream media for Clinton to willingly remove herself from the race. For example, the following comes from a Chicago Tribune article entitled “ Democrats should ask Clinton to step aside “…
So what should the Democrats do now?
If ruling Democrats hold themselves to the high moral standards they impose on the people they govern, they would follow a simple process:
They would demand that Mrs. Clinton step down, immediately, and let her vice presidential nominee, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, stand in her place.
Democrats should say, honestly, that with a new criminal investigation going on into events around her home-brew email server from the time she was secretary of state, having Clinton anywhere near the White House is just not a good idea.
But what the author of that article does not understand is that Tim Kaine would not automatically take her place if Clinton steps down before the election. In a previous article , I included a quote from a U.S. News & World Report article that explained what would happen if Hillary Clinton was removed from the Democratic ticket for some reason prior to November 8th…
If Clinton were to fall off the ticket, Democratic National Committee members would gather to vote on a replacement. DNC members acted as superdelegates during this year’s primary and overwhelmingly backed Clinton over boat-rocking socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
DNC spokesman Mark Paustenbach says there currently are 445 committee members – a number that changes over time and is guided by the group’s bylaws, which give membership to specific officeholders and party leaders and hold 200 spots for selection by states, along with an optional 75 slots DNC members can choose to fill.
But the party rules for replacing a presidential nominee merely specify that a majority of members must be present at a special meeting called by the committee chairman. The meeting would follow procedures set by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee and proxy voting would not be allowed.
So if this email scandal forced Hillary Clinton to exit the race at the last minute, a majority of the members of the Democratic National Committee would gather to select a new nominee.
Who would they choose?
Let’s take a look at the top five options…
#1 Tim Kaine
He would seem to be an obvious choice since he is Hillary Clinton’s running mate. But to win a national campaign you need to have name recognition, and most Americans outside of the state of Virginia have very little familiarity with him.
And at this point he has proven to have very little popularity on the campaign trail. In fact, attendance at many of his rallies in key swing states can be measured in the dozens.
So to me it seems unlikely that the DNC would select Kaine as the replacement nominee.
#2 Joe Biden
Vice-President Joe Biden has far more name recognition than Tim Kaine does, and in recent days he has been touting how he believes that he would have actually won the nomination if he would have decided to run …
Vice President Joe Biden said in a recent interview that he believed he could have beat former secretary of state Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination had he pursued it.
Biden was asked in an interview with CNN Saturday if news that the FBI was re-opening their criminal probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state made him second-guess his decision last year not to run.
But according to the vice president, the short answer is “no.” The only thing that kept him from running, Biden said, was the recent death of his son, Beau.
Unfortunately for Biden, he suffers from many of the same things that Kaine does.
Biden is boring, he is not very good on the campaign trail, and he doesn’t have the sort of charisma that would motivate people to go to the polls in large numbers.
Biden would probably represent the “safest” choice for the Democrats, but he might not be a winning choice.
#3 Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders would seem to be a logical choice since he was the runner-up to Hillary Clinton, but the truth is that there are a lot of things working against Bernie Sanders.
First of all, he does not have any real loyalty to the Democrats. He has previously operated as an independent, and he expressed a desire to return to independent status once the campaign was over.
Secondly, the Democratic establishment very much dislikes him, and that plays a huge role in decisions such as this.
Thirdly, Democratic insiders fear that he would be “another McGovern” and would get absolutely wiped out in a general election.
So even though he is very popular with the radical left, it appears that Sanders would be the least likely choice on this list.
#4 Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren would be very popular with the “Bernie Sanders” wing of the party, and she would enable the party to replace Hillary Clinton with another woman.
So she is definitely a possibility.
But she does lack name recognition, and just like Sanders there would be concern that the Republicans would frame her candidacy as “another McGovern” because of her far left policies.
#5 Michelle Obama
One recent survey found that 67 percent of all Democrats would rather have a third term for Obama than a first term for Hillary Clinton.
And these days Barack Obama’s approval rating is running anywhere from +9 to +11.
So the thought of another Obama in the White House is not as far-fetched as you might think.
Michelle Obama has better name recognition than anyone else on this list, and she is generally very well-liked by the American people. And she has received a tremendous amount of praise for her work on the campaign trail recently. For instance, her recent speech in New Hampshire was lauded as “the most influential speech of the 2016 campaign” in a recent MSN article entitled “ In this campaign, Michelle Obama became more than just another political voice “…
The speech, amplified by timing and met with an enthusiastic response, cemented Obama’s place as a star of the presidential race and put a defining stroke not just on how women view Trump, but also on herself as a voice of moral authority. Three months before leaving the White House, she already is among the ranks of public figures who transcend politics and title.
“When you rise to a level like that, you see how much weight your words carry,” said Anita McBride, former chief of staff to Laura Bush and executive in residence at the School of Public Affairs at American University. “We know she didn’t like politics. But she was impassioned by the language that was used, and she feels compelled to speak out. People listen to her.”
If I were the Democrats, Michelle Obama is the one that I would select if a replacement nominee was needed, because she would give them the very best chance of winning against Donald Trump.
Of course the Obamas are just as radical as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but the American people have become quite comfortable with them at this point.
And I certainly hope that Michelle Obama does not become the nominee if Hillary Clinton has to step aside, because Donald Trump would have an exceedingly difficult time defeating her.
In the final analysis, none of this is probably going to matter anyway because it is unlikely that the FBI will move quickly enough to force Hillary Clinton out before election day, but there is still a small chance that it could actually happen.
And if it does happen, it is going to turn politics in America completely upside down.
Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and End Of The American Dream . Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. Don't forget to follow the D.C. Clothesline on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks. Share this: | 1real |
Dentist Waiting Room Contains Disproportionate Number Of Boating Magazines | We Use Cookies: Our policy [X] Dentist Waiting Room Contains Disproportionate Number Of Boating Magazines November 11, 2016 - BREAKING NEWS , LIFESTYLE Share 0 Add Comment
PATIENTS waiting for treatment in a Waterford dental clinic have informed WWN of the curious ration of magazines about boats to magazine about any other topic in the waiting room.
Maguires Dental on St. Kenneth’s street in Waterford city appears to have four magazines about maritime affairs in it’s 9-strong pile of reading literature, with the remainder of the browsing material consisting of 5-year-old issues of Heat, Bella, and an Argos catalogue from 2012 with the back cover ripped off.
Declan Hanlon, in for a filling, spoke exclusively to WWN about the difficulties in passing the time in the waiting room when one hasn’t got much interest in yachting or yacht maintenance.
“I’m here over an hour like, and I’ve read up on Ashton Kutcher getting divorced from Demi Moore, the price of an electric shower, and how to make sure you’ve hired the right people to de-barnacle the side of your boat” said Hanlin, sounding kinda funny because his jaw is sore.
“Whoever puts out the magazines, take a bow. I’ve seen some terrible reading material in waiting rooms in my time, but Jesus Christ this stuff is the worst. Trust me, if you’re coming to this place, you sure as fuck don’t need to learn about boat maintenance”.
When pressed for better magazines in the waiting room, staff at Maguire Dental said they’d have a root around in a skip at the weekend, if they had time. | 1real |
OOPS! HOMELAND SECURITY CANDIDATE Accidentally Shows Plan For Border And Illegal Criminals…You’ll Love It! | One of President-elect Donald Trump s potential cabinet picks showed photographers more than he intended over the weekend, revealing part of an aggressive plan to change the Department of Homeland Security s approach to combating illegal immigration.Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who was rumored last week to be on an attorney general short-list, emerged as a contender for the DHS job and interviewed with Trump on Sunday. When the two posed for pictures beforehand, however, Kobach was clutching his proposal and photographs captured the parts that his left hand didn t obscure.Here are the portions revealed by a photo enlargement: DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY / KOBACH STRATEGIC PLAN FOR FIRST 365 DAYS I. Bar the Entry of Potential Terrorists 1. Update and reintroduce the NSEERS screening and tracking system (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System) that was in place from 2002-2005. All aliens from high-risk areas are tracked. 2. Add extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens; question them regarding support for Sharia law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution. 3. Reduce intake of Syrian refugees to zero, using authority under the 1980 Refugee Act. [II. Deport] Record Number of Criminal Aliens in the First Year. [4. Reinstate] 193,000 criminal removal cases dropped by the Obama Administration. [5. ICE guidance memoranda adopted by Obama Administration; issue new guidance [to redefine ]criminal alien as any alien arrested for any crime, and any gang member. [6. ] to repatriate their citizens who have committed crimes in the United States. [7. ] expedited 287(g) agreements with at least 70 cities and counties to enlist state and alien criminals. in addition to the 386 miles of existing actual wall within entire 1,989 miles planned for rapid build. under the PATRIOT Act to prevent illegal aliens immediately to forestall future lawsuits. V. Stop 21. Issue regulations voter rolls. Direct 22. Direct the Department of Justice 23. Draft Amendments to National Voter Read more: Daily Mail | 1real |
Obama not ruling out Clinton pardon | Obama not ruling out Clinton pardon Will Clinton go free after White House pardon? By Shepard Ambellas - November 9, 2016 WASHINGTON D.C. ( INTELLIHUB ) — The pardoning of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not out of the question, sources say.
This comes after heaping mounds of evidence of criminal wrongdoing have been publicly released via the Wikileaks platform over the past weeks leading up to Election Night.
Hillary Clinton and her foundation are under active federal investigation at this time, but as of yet no charges have been made after the Director of the FBI James Comey has cleared Hillary twice publicly. Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist, filmmaker , radio talk show host and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics. Established in 2013, Intellihub.com is ranked in the upper 1% traffic tier on the World Wide Web. Read more from Shep’s World . Get the Podcast . Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter . Featured Image: WhiteHouse.gov/Pete Souza | 1real |
Iran says to ban U.S. visitors in retaliation to Trump move | DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran said on Saturday it would stop U.S. citizens entering the country in retaliation to Washington’s visa ban against Tehran and six other majority-Muslim countries announced by new U.S. President Donald Trump. “While respecting the American people and distinguishing between them and the hostile policies of the U.S. government, Iran will implement the principle of reciprocity until the offensive U.S. limitations against Iranian nationals are lifted,” a Foreign Ministry statement said. “The restrictions against travel by Muslims to America... are an open affront against the Muslim world and the Iranian nation in particular and will be known as a great gift to extremists,” said the statement, carried by state media. The U.S. ban will make it virtually impossible for relatives and friends of an estimated one million Iranian-Americans to visit the United States Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said it was no time to build walls between nations and criticised steps towards cancelling world trade agreements, without naming Trump. Trump on Wednesday ordered the construction of a U.S.-Mexican border wall, a major promise during his election campaign, as part of a package of measures to curb illegal immigration. “Today is not the time to erect walls between nations. They have forgotten that the Berlin wall fell years ago,” Rouhani said in a speech carried live on Iranian state television. “To annul world trade accords does not help their economy and does not serve the development and blooming of the world economy,” Rouhani told a tourism conference in Tehran. “This is the day for the world to get closer through trade.” The protectionist-minded Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal on Monday, fulfilling a campaign pledge to end American involvement in the 2015 pact. Rouhani, a pragmatist elected in 2013, thawed Iran’s relations with world powers after years of confrontation and engineered its 2015 deal with them under which it curbed its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from sanctions. | 0fake |
2,700-year-old Hebrew mention of Jerusalem found | 2,700-year-old Hebrew mention of Jerusalem found Rare papyrus from 7th century B.C. refers to consignment of wineskins Published: 26 mins ago
(Times of Israel) A rare, ancient papyrus dating to the First Temple Period — 2,700 years ago — has been found to bear the oldest known mention of Jerusalem in Hebrew.
The fragile text, believed plundered from a cave in the Judean Desert cave, was apparently acquired by the Israel Antiquities Authority during a sting in 2012 when thieves attempted to sell it to a dealer. Radiocarbon dating has determined it is from the 7th century BCE, making it one of just three extant Hebrew papyri from that period, and predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by centuries.
The IAA’s Eitan Klein said the dating of the papyrus had been confirmed by comparing the text’s orthography with other texts from the period. | 1real |
BREAKING: We Caught Obama Spending 30 Million Dollars Against Trump To Rig This Election | It’s no secret that Obama and his puppets are doing everything they possibly can to rig the election against Trump. Positive Trump polls are coming all the time, so it’s all hands on deck from the Democrats to do whatever it takes to hand the election to Hillary.
Obama’s latest move involves registering immigrant voters who will most likely be voting for Hillary in November and he’s spent TONS of your taxpayer money doing it.
From Judicial Watch :
Months after the Obama administration spent $19 million to register new immigrant voters that will likely support Democrats in November, it’s dedicating an additional $10 million in a final push as the presidential election approaches. The money is distributed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Homeland Security agency that oversees lawful immigration, to organizations that help enhance pathways to naturalization by offering immigrants free citizenship instruction, English, U.S. history and civics courses. Officially, they’re known as “citizenship integration grants.”[…]
Judicial Watch went on to say… The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been aggressive in promoting its citizen integration grant program this year, offering large sums to recruit new groups that can offer immigrants the services they need to become citizens. Clearly, the ultimate goal is qualifying as many immigrants as possible to vote since they tend to cast ballots for Democrats. “We intend to award about $1 million to first-time recipients in the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program for fiscal year 2016,” the agency’s grant announcement states. “If you represent one of these organizations, or know of an interested organization, we strongly encourage that organization to consider applying. Additionally, another $9 million will fund programs that provide both citizenship instruction and instruction and naturalization application services.” Some might consider this a cash giveaway.[…]
Practically every federal agency is participating in the effort by contributing resources and creating programs to help immigrants. For example the Department of Labor (DOL) is implementing “new workforce programs” for the “new Americans” and the Department of Education is promoting “funding opportunities” to assure that the immigrants “are provided the tools they need to succeed.” The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is collaborating with other agencies to release a career and credentialing toolkit on “immigrant-focused career-pathways programs.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) and USCIS are making sure the new Americans have worker rights and protections and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is launching a two-year pilot to assure that non English speakers have “meaningful access to housing programs” subsidized by American taxpayers.
Obama likes to pretend that he’s doing this for the greater good of America, but the truth is it’s just part of the overall agenda to do whatever it takes to make sure Democrats run Washington and continue to drive our country into the ground.
Source: End the Fed
More from Breitbart… Schweizer: Obama’s DOJ ‘Transferring Money to Left-wing Groups’ ‘to Influence This Election’ By John Hayward
On Wednesday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM , Clinton Cash author and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer discussed the latest GAI report about the Obama Justice Department’s funneling of money to left-wing groups using fines levied against financial institutions. Breitbart Editor-in-Chief and SiriusXM host Alex Marlow described the report as exposing the Justice Department of “quite literally extorting companies to fund left-wing activists.”
“When I first joined Breitbart,” Schweizer recalled, “There was a scandal called Pigford where the federal government was basically taking taxpayer money and giving it to people who were claiming to be victims who were not victims and giving them billions of dollars. This is in that tradition.”
He explained:
What’s really happening here is simple. You’ve got large financial institutions on Wall Street, you’ve got banks like Bank of America, who have in some cases committed financial crimes. I think some of them are real, some of them may not be, but set that aside for a minute. The Department of Justice has gone after them and basically said, ‘You committed these offenses, you’ve got to pay restitution in the form of billions of dollars.’ Okay, they committed the crime, they ought to pay that.
Now, ostensibly that money, those billions of dollars, are supposed to go to the victims of their financial crimes. If your Wall Street broker committed fraud, you’re supposed to be made whole with this money, and the rest of it is supposed to go to taxpayers.
The problem is the Obama Justice Department has been diverting literally more than $650 million to left-wing groups. They do it under the guise of, “Well, you know, if this bank discriminated against lenders racially, we’re going to give this money to these left-wing quote-unquote housing groups to help deal with the problem.”
But that’s not what’s going on. These housing groups are advocacy groups. They’re left-wing organizations. They are registering voters and getting voters out to the voting booth. And they specifically target what they call quote-unquote progressive voters.
So this is taking the Department of Justice, which we’ve experienced so much in recent years has been politicized by this Administration, even further to where now the Department of Justice is transferring money to left-wing groups — in an effort, frankly I think, to influence this election.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
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Source: Breitbart
| 1real |
House panel to consider tweaks to healthcare bill before recess | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives panel will meet on Thursday to consider a change to the stalled Republican healthcare bill before lawmakers leave for a two-week recess, a spokeswoman for the House Rules Committee said. The change, proposed by the Trump administration, involves the provision of high-risk pools to subsidize insurance for the seriously ill, the Washington Post reported. Deep divisions in the Republican Party had appeared to dash hopes for a quick revival of legislation to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 healthcare law before the start of the recess on Friday. It remains unclear whether the tweaked bill could garner enough support from Republican House members to win passage, or when the full House might take up the measure. House Speaker Paul Ryan has cautioned it would take some time for Republicans to come together on a bill that could win wide enough support for passage. | 0fake |
‘Look at My African-American Over Here,’ Donald Trump Says at Rally - The New York Times | REDDING, Calif. — In a speech in which he promoted the backing of in Los Angeles and called protesters at a rally in San Jose “thugs,” Donald J. Trump on Friday sought to project support from for his campaign on a single man in the audience. Mr. Trump, at a rally here, began speaking about a previous rally in Arizona in which a black supporter was arrested after punching a protester. “We had a case where we had an guy who is a fan of mine,” Mr. Trump said of an event in Arizona in March. “In fact I want to find out what’s going on with him. ” As his voice trailed off, Mr. Trump noticed a man in the crowd. “Oh look at my over here,” Mr. Trump said. “Are you the greatest? Do you know what I’m talking about?” Mr. Trump then returned to speaking about the Arizona episode. The man he had pointed to, Gregory Cheadle, a local real estate broker running for a Republican nomination for a congressional seat, said in an interview Friday night that it was “surreal” to be called out by Mr. Trump. Mr. Cheadle said he was not offended by the remark, which he at first could not hear over the noise of the crowd. “I’ve had people come to me — and these were whites — tell me that they were offended,” he said. “And I appreciate them saying that, but I wasn’t offended by it. ” He also clarified that he is not actually a Trump supporter, saying that he went to a Bernie Sanders rally the night before. “I’d describe myself as someone who is searching for answers,” Mr. Cheadle said. At the Arizona rally Mr. Trump was referring to, a Trump supporter punched a protester wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit as the person was being escorted out. “As the this guy, and this guy never knew what happened, everybody thought the was against me, and it was the opposite,” Mr. Trump said at his rally Friday. “He was like this great guy, military guy. We have tremendous support. The reason is I’m going to bring jobs back to our country. ” Mr. Trump’s comments come as his campaign is fending off charges of racism over his remarks about Gonzalo P. Curiel, the federal judge presiding over a lawsuit against Trump University. Mr. Trump has suggested that he believes the judge is biased because he “happens to be, we believe, Mexican. ” Judge Curiel was born in Indiana he is of Mexican descent. | 0fake |
TUCKER CARLSON BLASTS Head Of White House Press Assoc: “Do you think it’s ok that there are zero registered Republicans in the WH Press Corp?” [Video] | Tucker Carlson had the Head of the White House Press Association on tonight .It was a slugfest!This was a tense exchange because it was a personal gripe from Carlson who was speaking about the business of journalism .Jeff Mason was a deer in the headlights:HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE INTERVIEW: Tucker hit him hard when he said he d never seen a lamer speaker at the event Ouch!He went on to say, The whole evening was arranged around a guy who wasn t there President TrumpThe best part of the interview was when he confirmed with a question that there a no Republicans in the WH press corp How many registered Republicans in the White House press corp? Zero! Let s just drop the pretense the press in Washington hates Donald Trump You ve gotta love Tucker s hard hitting interview style with people like this. He hammered home the truth and made the guy come clean about the bias in the Washington Press. | 1real |
The thinking behind Kim Jong Un's 'madness' | SEOUL (Reuters) - On an icy December day in 2011, North Korea s new leader Kim Jong Un was accompanied by seven advisers as they escorted the hearse that carried his father, Kim Jong Il, through the streets of Pyongyang. None of the men remain with the young Kim. This October, he demoted the last of his father s aides, both men in their nineties. They were among around 340 people he has purged or executed, according to the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank of South Korea s National Intelligence Service (NIS). Kim, obviously a madman in the eyes of U.S. President Donald Trump, has completed a six-year transition to what the South calls a reign of terror. His unpredictability and belligerence have instilled fear worldwide: After he tested a breakthrough missile earlier this week, he pronounced North Korea a nuclear power capable of striking the United States. But a closer look at his leadership reveals a method behind the madness. At 33, Kim Jong Un is one of the world s youngest heads of state. He inherited a nation with a proud history, onto which a socialist state had essentially been grafted by Cold War superpowers to create a buffer between Communist China and the capitalist South. Under Kim s father, the economy was mismanaged, and the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union eliminated an important source of support. Up to three million people starved. To consolidate a weak position, the young leader has been cultivating three main forces: military and nuclear power, a tacit private sector market economy, and the fear and adoration of a god. To this end, he has executed two powerful men and promoted one young woman Kim Yo Jong, his younger sister, who Korea-watchers say is also Kim s chief propagandist. She is Kim s only other blood relative to be involved in politics: His elder brother, Kim Jong Chol, was rejected by their father as heir. Over the five years to December 2016, Kim spent $300 million on 29 nuclear and missile tests, $180 million on building some 460 family statues, and as much as $1 billion on a party congress in 2016 including $26.8 million on fireworks alone, according to the Institute, which employs high-level defectors. Yes, he has replaced many top commanders and officials so easily and ruthlessly killed some of them, which could make you wonder if he s sane, said Lee Sang-keun, a North Korean leadership expert at the Institute of Unification Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. But this is a historical way of governing that can put you in power for a long time. (Graphic - Kim family tree: tmsnrt.rs/2AJM8F1) (Graphic - Purge and launch: tmsnrt.rs/2ApSfhC) In ancient days, Pyongyang was the capital of a mighty empire, Koguryo, the root of the modern word Korea. Going back through history, the Great Leader concept is a blend of several ideas handed down through time: an almighty god, the Confucian worship of a parent, and a king with the Mandate of Heaven, according to Lee Seung-yeol, a senior researcher at the National Assembly Research Service in Seoul. Lee, a leading North Korea leadership researcher, said the state s theory of succession means Kim the younger s rise should have been completed while his father was alive: Kim s father was anointed 20 years before he took over, giving him time to build allies and a leadership system. Kim Jong Un had just three years as leader-in-waiting. Born in 1984, he was third in line for power and a fractious, competitive child, according to Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese chef who worked for the family and one of the few people to recount meetings with the young Kim. In his memoirs published in 2010, Fujimoto, who now runs a sushi restaurant in Pyongyang, said Kim once snapped at his aunt Ko Yong Suk for calling him Little General. Kim wanted to be called Comrade General. When Kim Jong Il knew his young son would soon succeed him, researchers have said, the father took several measures to protect the boy. Lee said these included shifting the country s power base to create rivalry between the elites so Kim the younger could play one group off against another. Kim Jong Il had declared the military the country s supreme power a policy known as songun, which means military first. At a party conference in 2010, he changed the setup so the military had to compete with the party administration for the leader s favour. Military strategy was the first thing Kim changed. His father had used the promise of nuclear disarmament as a bargaining chip for aid, and in February 2012, young Kim started in his father s footsteps, promising to freeze North Korea s nuclear program in return for food aid from the United States. But weeks later he changed tack, saying North Korea would fire a long-range rocket. The negotiations were carried on as the legacy of Kim Jong Il, said Wi Sung-lac, a former South Korean envoy to talks in 2011 that contributed to the February deal. Since then his strategic thinking has shaped up. In Kim s view, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi of Libya were fatally weakened by not having nuclear weapons, North Korean media say. History proves that powerful nuclear deterrence serves as the strongest treasured sword for frustrating outsiders aggression, the official KCNA news agency said in an editorial in January 2016. North Korea is racing to achieve a nuclear deterrent because the state feels threatened, worrying particularly that Kim may face a fate like Gaddafi. The Libyan leader agreed in 2003 to eliminate his weapons of mass destruction; in 2011, he was killed by rebels that the United States and its allies had supported. Months after Kim s accession, North Korea updated its constitution to declare itself a nuclear weapons state. One leading pallbearer at Kim Jong Il s funeral was Ri Yong Ho, Chief of the General Staff of the Korean People s Army. Kim sacked him in July 2012. South Korean intelligence later confirmed that Ri had been executed. By December 2012, North Korea had carried out another, successful, rocket test. In 2013, Kim outlined a new policy: The byungjin line, or parallel development, to combine the nuclear buildup and economic growth. A nuclear deterrent is essential to that, says Thae Yong-ho, North Korea s former deputy ambassador to London, who staged a high-profile defection to South Korea in 2016. The threat of absolute destruction makes a nuclear bomb a poor man s weapon with which to tighten control of the country and ensure long-term rule, Thae said. Once he has assumed control of usable nuclear weapons, he has more room to allocate resources more flexibly, and allocate the military forces for civilian construction, said Thae. North Korea spends about a quarter of its GDP on defense: Russia s President Vladimir Putin has said Kim Jong Un would have his people eat grass rather than give up its nuclear program. But with a legacy of famine, Kim also says he wants to boost people s prosperity. The former chef, Fujimoto, said that on one summer break from school in Switzerland in 2000, the young Kim was preoccupied with a visit to Beijing his father had made. Let s talk, Fujimoto recalled the future leader saying over drinks on his father s private train. I hear from higher up that China seems to be succeeding on many fronts engineering, commerce, hotels, agriculture - everything, Kim said. In many ways, don t we need to take them as a model example for us? In 2012, shortly after taking power, Kim went a small way to mimic reforms China made in the 1980s. Farmers were allowed to keep most of the harvest. State enterprises were given the right to buy and sell at market prices and to hire and fire workers. Private entrepreneurs and traders were encouraged to invest in state projects or with party and military entities. Kim also began to turn a blind eye to informal markets a force his father tried in vain to contain. That April, Kim addressed the nation - the first time in 17 years North Koreans had heard the voice of their leader. It is the party s steadfast determination to ensure that the people will never have to tighten their belt again, he said. Outsiders hoped the reform signaled a new political openness as Kim drove to promote the North in the world: In 2012 Antonio Razzi, an Italian senator for Forza Italia who calls himself the only Italian to have met the leader, said Kim had asked him to find training facilities for soccer players in Italy. I have talked with many (North Korean) local leaders, Razzi said. They have no plan to attack anybody. North Korea is interested in nuclear only as a form of defense. Kim worked to ensure the economic freedom would not unseat him. Also escorting his father s funeral car in 2011 was Jang Song Thaek, an administrator at the vanguard of the reforms. He was married to Kim Jong Il s sister, was a special envoy to China and had overseen a host of new Special Economic Zones all over the country. In December 2013, Jang was hauled out of the Politburo in front of the cameras and accused of plotting a coup. Jang dreamed such a foolish dream, state media said, adding Jang hoped his reformist plans would help him get recognized by foreign countries. Jang was shot dozens of times by an anti-aircraft gun and his remains removed with a flamethrower, according to South Korea s National Intelligence Service (NIS) an account no one has confirmed. From that point on, Kim honed his personality cult. On the day Jang s purge was announced, North Korea s official daily the Rodong Sinmun unveiled a song dedicated to Kim Jong Un, titled We Know Nothing But You. More were to follow. The next year, Kim also ordered school textbooks be revised to focus on idolization of himself and include images of nuclear weapons and missiles, according to the NIS-affiliated Institute for National Security Strategy. The idolization campaign kicked into high gear in 2016, focused on pop culture and youth: Kim s chosen female singers, the Moranbong Band, staged a series of musical performances and plays calling for loyalty to the leader, while the Shock Brigade, a crew of young North Koreans in charge of major economic construction, produced about 1,200 poems and other literary works, the Institute said. He has linked his own legitimacy to improving the economic situation in the country, said John Delury of Seoul s Yonsei University. Kim Jong Un wants to become a development dictator. At home, he casts himself as a bringer of plenty. In 2015, almost half the times he was photographed were at economic events, data from Seoul s Unification Ministry shows. Only this year, as his weapons tests multiplied and met an angry response in the United States, have military appearances come back into prominence. Standing tearfully behind Kim Jong Un at their father s funeral was his younger sister, 28-year-old Kim Yo Jong. On the same October day that Kim dropped the last two of his father s aides, he included her in his Politburo. Kim Jong Chol, their elder brother, leads a quiet life in Pyongyang where he plays guitar in a band, according to former ambassador Thae. I think Kim Jong Un has been making good use of the existing system, while strengthening his power base and dictator regime in a very shrewd manner, said Lee Su-seok, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Strategy. | 0fake |
Ukraine president: reforms to get harder as elections approach | KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said at a meeting with businesses on Friday that it will become harder to muster votes in parliament for reformist legislation as elections approach. Ukraine is due to go to the polls by 2019 at the latest. Delays in implementing reforms to modernize the economy and tackle corruption have delayed billions of dollars of aid from the International Monetary Fund and other foreign backers. | 0fake |
null | There is the guy who can leaf Trump to the whitehouse , imagine the shock . Everything he says is true and isnt it strnge how the Swiss fund all the wars and get away with it including Hitler . If Trump was ever after someone to trust he would be 1st choice and he knows his way around . Imagine how much money theu have ripped off . That justice dept is as crooked as can be . Trump was right about Hillary and ISIS . So much for the Liberty party who has been higjacked by the looks of it . And where is the army ?? I think its what oath ?? All these people who did nothing are guilty of complicity in terror by their own laws . Truth should be rewarded not punished or you end up like the world is now as corrupt as can be , Notice Drudge wont even show this . | 1real |
Ghana and Ivory Coast act to implement ruling on maritime border dispute | ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana and Ivory Coast set up a body on Tuesday to implement an international tribunal ruling on their dispute over a border running through multibillion dollar offshore oilfields, they said in a statement. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea last month drew an ocean boundary that seemed to favour Ghana in a dispute with its neighbour Ivory Coast, ruling that Accra had not violated Ivorian rights in drilling for oil. Following last month s ruling, the two leaders have agreed to work together and this has culminated in the setting up of a joint commission to implement the ruling, Ghanaian foreign minister Shirley Botchwey said, reading a joint communique. The decade-old row between the West African neighbours has put the brakes on the development of Ghana s $6 billion offshore TEN field, run by Tullow Oil , one of the projects in the contested area of the Atlantic. The court ruling did not correspond with either Ghana or Ivory Coast s claim, but appeared closer to Ghana s, and it rejected the former s attempt to halt development. | 0fake |
Speed up Brexit transition talks or deal will be worthless, says UK's Hammond | LONDON (Reuters) - British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Wednesday the value of a transitional Brexit deal would decline rapidly if talks to agree it drag into next year, but said it was too soon to spend money on contingency plans. Negotiations on the terms of Britain s exit from the European Union have made slow progress before a March 2019 deadline. Talks on a transition period have not even begun. And while Hammond thinks it s too early to begin enacting contingency plans for a failure to reach an agreement, EU diplomats and officials are putting renewed focus on preparing for a legal limbo after March 2019. Their efforts have intensified as Brexit negotiations stall on issues like the bill Britain must pay to leave and the future of Northern Ireland s land border with the EU. If progress does not pick up, Hammond said, a transition agreement will rapidly diminish in value. It is self-evident to me ... that a transitional arrangement is a wasting asset. It has a value today. It will still have a very high value at Christmas, early in the new year, Hammond said. But as we move through 2018 its value to everybody will diminish significantly. And I think our European partners need to think very carefully about the need for speed in order to protect the potential value to all of us of having an interim period. British Prime Minister Theresa May has set out plans to seek a transition period after March 2019 with a set time limit. During that period, Britain wants to operate under the same rules as it currently does to provide certainty for businesses while allowing new arrangements to be put in place. Business leaders have repeatedly called for clarity on the trading conditions they will face during the transition period and beyond. Some - including banks in London s financial sector - are making arrangements to move overseas to ensure continued access to the EU market. Hammond said lack of direction to talks was hurting business investment and consumer confidence, and one of his top advisors said international banks would make decisions to move in the first three months of 2018. Britain had hoped EU leaders would agree to start talking about the future at a summit next week. But European Council President Donald Tusk poured cold water on that idea on Tuesday, saying he hoped it could happen in December. Hammond called on the EU to change their approach, warning of the possibility of a bad-tempered breakdown in talks which would see EU countries acting against their own interest. We have made the running in this and we really need our European Union partners to engage ... We are not asking them to sign up. We are not asking them to write blank cheques. We are simply asking them to start talking to us, he said. The limited progress in Brussels has drawn calls from some British lawmakers to walk away from the talks and start preparing for a clean break with the bloc. Hammond is considered one of the most pro-EU members of Prime Minister Theresa May s cabinet, and pro-Brexit lawmakers and campaigners have accused him of trying to water down or even halt Britain s exit. He said the government was planning for all possibilities, including Britain s leaving with no agreement on the terms of its departure or how the two would build a new relationship. He said 250 million pounds ($330 million) was being spent on planning for all scenarios. But he rejected the idea that Britain should begin putting no deal contingency arrangements in place, including a suggestion from a member of his own party that the government should start spending money to beef up border and customs capabilities. Some are urging me to spend money simply to send a message to the EU that we mean business. I think the EU knows that we mean business, Hammond said. I don t believe we should be in the business of making potentially nugatory expenditure until the very last moment when we need to do so. However, he warned that he would have to start spending in 2018 if there was no clear prospect of a transitional deal. There will be some areas where we need to start spending money in the new year if we can t tell ourselves that we are moving steadily and pretty assuredly toward a transition agreement, he said. ($1 = 0.7573 pounds) | 0fake |
Michael Eric Dyson Believes in Individual Reparations - The New York Times | Your forthcoming book, “Tears We Cannot Stop,” is subtitled “A Sermon to White America. ” Which part of white America do you envision reading it? I envision the audience to be that ocean of white folk I encounter who are deeply empathetic to the struggles of minorities — they are the ones who ask me, “What can I do, as a white person?” This is my attempt to address them in the most useful and, hopefully, edifying manner. What’s your strategy for getting through to the white people who may not be particularly sympathetic? What I’ve seen under the wonderful presidency of Barack Obama is the tendency to not tell white people the truth, for obvious reasons — they don’t vote for you. But I’m not a politician. I don’t have that power or influence, but what I do wield is a different kind of bully pulpit. We have to have enough belief in white people to tell them the truth. They are grown! There are a lot of areas within race relations that seem like less of a conversation and more of an attempt to prove to white people that these issues — police brutality, for instance — are a real and present danger. I open this book with horror stories about my engagement with the police. These are the stories that have shaped me, that join me to the mass of people who, regardless of our station in life, regardless of educational attainment and achievement, have felt this. The president of the United States has these stories, the former attorney general has these stories and a prominent black intellectual like me has these stories. The reality is that this is part and parcel of what it means to be black in America, and I wanted to spend time talking and thinking about it from a number of different perspectives to show white brothers and sisters that we aren’t making this up. This is not fabricated. I can’t help but think that if the same levels of police brutality were happening to white people, we would just disband the police. Police brutality would not be seen as the price of keeping our society safe. Recently, I was outside of Ben’s Chili Bowl in Washington at 3 a. m. and a young white kid is cursing the police, and I’m going, “Oh, my God, they’re going to shoot him. ” And then it occurred to me that they wouldn’t — he’s a white kid. And what did I hear the police say? “Now, son, you’re clearly inebriated. You need to go home and sleep this off. ” And I said to myself: “My God! This is what we want!” We can’t even afford a display of anger that many white people have. At the end of your sermon, you do a “benediction” section, in which you talk about making reparations on the local and individual level: donating to groups like the United Negro College Fund or a scholarship program, but also, to cite your example from the book, paying “the black person who cuts your grass double what you might ordinarily pay. ” That gave me pause! Good! I used to say in church, “If the sermon ain’t making you a little bit uncomfortable, it ain’t effective. ” Look, if it doesn’t cost you anything, you’re not really engaging in change you’re engaging in convenience. You’re engaged in the overflow. I’m asking you to do stuff you wouldn’t ordinarily do. I’m asking you to think more seriously and strategically about why you possess what you possess. I agree with reparations, but maybe this is my white privilege speaking: I can’t imagine actually doing that. That is what I meant by an I. R. A.: an individual reparations account. You ain’t got to ask the government, you don’t have to ask your local politician — this is what you, an individual, conscientious, “woke” citizen can do. But charity can’t be the end of it, right? The Koch brothers gave the United Negro College Fund $25 million, but I doubt you would consider them “woke. ” No. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that charity is a poor substitute for justice. But I ain’t turning $25 million down. | 0fake |
German court stops trial of paramedic who worked at Auschwitz | BERLIN (Reuters) - A 96-year-old former paramedic at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp is no longer fit to stand trial due to his dementia, a spokesman for the court said on Tuesday, bringing to an end one of Germany s last prosecutions linked to the Holocaust. Hubert Zafke worked as a paramedic in Auschwitz for one month starting on Aug. 15, 1944. He stood accused of being an accessory to the murder of at least 3,681 people at the concentration and extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. During his time at Auschwitz, at least 14 deportation trains arrived there from places as far away as Lyon, Vienna and Westerbork in the Netherlands. Although Zafke was not accused of having been directly involved in any killings, the prosecution s office said he was aware of the camp s function as a facility for mass murder. The trial against Zafke began in the northeastern town of Neubrandenburg in 2016 but was repeatedly delayed due to his ill health. Germany had faced criticism for not prosecuting those who were small cogs in the Nazi machine and did not actively take part in the killing of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. That criticism has abated thanks to many recent trials and convictions, such as the 2011 conviction of Sobibor extermination camp guard John Demjanjuk, which gave prosecutors new legal means to investigate suspects under accessory to murder charges. Former Auschwitz guard Reinhold Hanning and Oskar Groening, known as the bookkeeper of Auschwitz , have also been convicted of complicity in mass murder in recent years. Another case against a woman who worked as a radio operator at Auschwitz was dropped last year after a court in Kiel ruled she was unfit to stand trial. | 0fake |
POPULAR YOUTUBE PERSONALITY Goes Undercover With Violent Cowardly Antifa Terrorists…”Antifa Women Are The DOMINANT Ones” [VIDEO] | Tim Poole is citizen journalist who s done some really important work exposing Antifa, Black Bloc and the violent non-profit group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). He sits down with popular Youtube personality Joey Salads who went undercover with Antifa in Berkeley, CA during the riots on April 15th to explore what he found.One of the most interesting observations Salads makes is that the Women are the dominant ones in the group and that they mostly control everything. Considering how many cowardly men are walking around with masks over their faces while they grab one person from the free-speech side into their crowd, so the entire group could brutally beat one person with no interference from the other side, it shouldn t surprise anyone that the women are the aggressors.Salads also points out that the Antifa members aren t too smart. They talk about the bike groups he saw and how they use the bikes to wall themselves off. Salads also confirms Antifa members were throwing rocks, bottles and M-80 s into the crowd.Tim Pool frequently calls the Trump supporters the alt-right which according to the left (who made up the term to disparage Trump supporters) means that they are racists . Pool asks Salads if he believed any of the people who Antifa were attacking were racists ? Salads told him that while he did see a few racists at the event that it was a free-speech rally and that while most of the people were Trump supporters, the rally was about free-speech and that the point of free-speech in America is not about whether or not you agree with what the other person saying, but about their right to express their feelings and thoughts.Watch here:Here is Salad s video showing what he saw while he went undercover in Berkeley with Antifa on April 15th:Berkeley middle school teacher Yvette Felarca, a national organizer for militant left-wing activist group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), is clearly the aggressor in their group. Watch her interview with Tucker Carlson: | 1real |
Trump picks regulation opponents to lead FCC transition | NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of experts to focus on new policies at the Federal Communications Commission signals a regime that will have a “lighter” touch on regulation and be more likely to favor large mergers in telecoms industries, analysts said. Economist Jeff Eisenach and former Sprint Corp (S.N) lobbyist Mark Jamison were named by Trump’s transition team to oversee hiring and policy for the FCC. They both oppose some recent telecom industry regulations resisted by telecom and cable heavyweights such as Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) and AT&T Inc (T.N) and have voiced support for mega mergers in the past. The FCC is composed of five commissioners, including one designated as chairman, who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Only three commissioners can be from the same political party and Trump’s pick for FCC chairman would tip the balance in favor of Republicans. The addition of Eisenach and Jamison to Trump’s “landing team” on Monday come as the Republican president-elect puts together a team to staff various government departments and agencies after he succeeds Democratic President Barack Obama on Jan. 20. The two appointments are harbingers of “a more typical Republican FCC that is lighter on regulation and more focused on competition,” said Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics. “The focus will be more on reducing regulation than creating new ones.” That would be in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s FCC that enacted or proposed a handful of new industry rules and disapproved some proposed combinations, including Comcast’s bid for Time Warner Cable and AT&T’s attempt to buy T-Mobile (TMUS.O).The FCC under Chairman Tom Wheeler, a Democrat, has had a rocky relationship with large telecom companies, some of which strongly opposed the agency’s 2015 net neutrality or open internet rules. The rules, which require internet service providers to treat all data equally and bar them from obstructing or slowing down consumer access to web content, were seen as a major victory for internet businesses like Alphabet Inc’s Google (GOOGL.O) that offer services but do not own internet networks. ‘PRO-BUSINESS POLICY’ Eisenach has supported mergers such as AT&T and T-Mobile as well as Sprint and T-Mobile that were dismissed by regulators during Obama’s administration, according to analysts. He is known in telecom circles for having a “pro-business” mindset, New Street Research analyst Spencer Kurn said. “Whoever gets picked (as FCC chairman) is likely going to implement a similar pro-business policy,” Kurn said. Eisenach, who was previously tapped by the Trump campaign as an adviser on technology and telecom policy, is currently a managing director at consulting firm NERA Economic Consulting’s communications, media and internet practice. He previously held advisory roles at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the White House Office of Management and Budget. In 2014, he testified in the U.S. Senate against net neutrality rules, arguing there was no need for new regulation as existing antitrust rules, while “not perfect,” offered safeguards against concerns about the business practices of internet service providers. Jamison is the director of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida. Like Eisenach, he has strongly disagreed in his publications with Wheeler’s rules, including net neutrality and a proposal to open up the market for rented pay-TV set-top boxes. That measure was aimed at breaking the telecom and cable companies’ grip on the $20 billion market and bringing in players such as Google and Apple (AAPL.O) in an effort to lower prices for consumers. Some analysts said the appointments also raised questions over whether Trump would carry out his campaign pledge to kill AT&T’s $85.4 billion proposal to buy Time Warner (TWX.N). Matt Wood, policy director of the technology rights group Free Press, said that even as Trump opposes the deal, he picked the pro-business economist Eisenach, who was unlikely to want to block such a merger. | 0fake |
Merkel says Facebook, Google 'distort perception,' demands they 'reveal algorithms' - RT | Merkel says Facebook, Google ‘distort perception,’ demands they ‘reveal algorithms’ Published time: 26 Oct, 2016 20:53 Get short URL Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel © Francois Lenoir / Reuters German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched a broadside at internet media giants, accusing them of “narrowing perspective,” and demanding they disclose their privately-developed algorithms. Merkel previously blamed social media for anti-immigrant sentiment and the rise of the far right.
“The algorithms must be made public, so that one can inform oneself as an interested citizen on questions like: what influences my behavior on the internet and that of others?" said Merkel during a media conference in Berlin on Tuesday.
“These algorithms, when they are not transparent, can lead to a distortion of our perception, they narrow our breadth of information.”
Google uses an algorithm to decide which search results are first shown to a user, while Facebook arranges the order of the news feed, and decides to include certain posts from a user’s liked pages and friends, at the expense of others. Both sites also promote links to news articles, often based on a user’s own media interests. Read more Germany orders Facebook to stop collecting data on WhatsApp users
These algorithms are at the core of the intellectual property of any social media or search website, and comprise some of the most highly-protected trade secrets in the world, potentially worth billions. No internet giant has ever revealed its inner workings.
Merkel did not specifically name Facebook, Google or Twitter, but implied that the large platforms are creating “bubbles” of self-reinforcing views, and squeezing out smaller news providers.
"The big internet platforms, via their algorithms, have become an eye of a needle which diverse media must pass through to reach users,” warned Merkel. “This is a development that we need to pay careful attention to.”
The internet giants themselves have argued that the so-called social media bubble is largely a myth, and that online users have a wider access to differing views than under a pre-internet model, where most news would be acquired from just a handful of newspapers and one or two TV channels. German establishment raises ‘Sword of Damocles’ over social media
This is not the first attack on social media by Merkel and her Grand Coalition government, and while the German politician advocates diversity of views, she has previously accused it of perpetrating opinions that are most at odds with those of the establishment and traditional media. Read more AfD vows to become 3rd largest force in Germany as Merkel admits refugee crisis was ‘out of control’
Last month, Merkel accused AfD, the recently-established anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim party, which receives overwhelmingly negative coverage in most newspapers, of “spreading their lies” through social media, as it achieves breakthroughs in regional elections around the country.
A year ago, at the height of the refugee influx into the country, Merkel, who was first elected in 2005, was caught on a hot mic personally pressing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to clamp down on anti-migrant posts during a UN session in New York.
A fortnight ago, the leader of Merkel’s parliamentary CDU faction, Volker Kauder, said that social media should be fined €50,000 for failing to remove “hate speech,” saying that a “Sword of Damocles” has to hang over social media. Kauder also called for warnings, similar to those on cigarette packs or before entering pornographic websites, to be given to those about to go on social media. FILE PHOTO: German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with Facebook founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg (C) and Google CEO Eric Schmidt (R) at the G8 Summit in Deauville May 26, 2011 © Philippe Wojazer / Reuters
Justice Minister Heiko Maas – who said that there had been a 77 percent increase in hate crimes following the arrival of 900,000 asylum seekers – has given internet media companies until February next year to comply with EU directives on xenophobia and racism, or face legal action. | 1real |
OBAMA’S DOJ LET Russian Lawyer Into U.S. WITHOUT A VISA Under “Extraordinary Circumstances” Before She Met With Donald Trump Jr…Lawyer Has Ties To Left-Wing Democrat Activist, Major Hillary Supporter | In July of 2016, Donald Trump, Jr. met a 42-year-old Russian attorney named Natalia Veselnitskaya who had promised him damaging information about then-candidate Hillary Clinton. One of his father s contacts, a music publicist named Rob Goldstone, had arranged the meeting as a favor to a client of his, the Azeri real estate developer and pop singer Emin. Goldstone had worked with the Trumps on the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. There were other reasons to take the meeting, too: Emin s father, Aras Agalarov, is the 51st-richest man in Russia and an instrumental figure in the President s aborted foray into Russian real estate: the Moscow tower he tried and failed to erect.Trump Jr. has said he knew absolutely nothing about Veselnitskaya before their meeting, not even her name. She turned out to use the promise of information that could help his father s campaign as a pretext to discuss reinstating a popular Russian-American adoption program, according to his version of events. What could be more harmless?In fact, Veselnitskaya was already a key figure for the defense in one of the most notorious money-laundering scandals in recent memory, encompassing $230 million in public funds allegedly stolen from the Russians by a network of corrupt bureaucrats and routed into real estate sales, including some in Manhattan, through ironclad Swiss bank accounts. And she was accused of lobbying U.S. officials for a Russian NGO that sought to overturn the Russian ban on U.S. adoptions, according to a complaint filed with the U.S. Justice Department and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).-TPMThe Hill -The Russian lawyer who penetrated Donald Trump s inner circle was initially cleared into the United States by the Justice Department under extraordinary circumstances before she embarked on a lobbying campaign last year that ensnared the president s eldest son, members of Congress, journalists and State Department officials, according to court and Justice Department documents and interviews.This revelation means it was the Obama Justice Department that enabled the newest and most intriguing figure in the Russia-Trump investigation to enter the country without a visa.Later, a series of events between an intermediary for the attorney and the Trump campaign ultimately led to the controversy surrounding Donald Trump Jr.Just five days after meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower with Trump Jr., Trump s son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Moscow attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya showed up in Washington in the front row of a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Russia policy, video footage of the hearing shows.Veselnitskaya also attended a dinner with the chairman of the House subcommittee overseeing Russia policy, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and roughly 20 other guests at a dinner club frequented by Republicans.Rohrabacher said he believed Veselnitskaya and her U.S. colleagues, which included former Rep. Ronald Dellums (D-Calif.), were lobbying other lawmakers to reverse the Magnitsky Act and restore the ability of Americans to adopt Russian children that Moscow had suspended.Daily Caller Radical left-wing icon former California Democratic Rep. Ron Dellums was a hired lobbyist for Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. June 9, 2016, the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.Dellums, who represented liberal San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., is a long-time darling of left-wing political activists. He served 13 terms in Congress as an African-American firebrand and proudly called himself a socialist. He retired in 1996.The former congressman is one of several high-profile Democratic partisans who was on Veselnitskaya s payroll, working to defeat a law that is the hated object of a personal vendetta waged by Russian President Vladimir Putin.Former Democratic Congressman and Oakland, CA Mayor Ronald Dellums endorsed Hillary Clinton for President against Barack Obama in 2008:Ronald Dellums endorsed Hillary again in 2016. I don t think this was very heavily lobbied at all compared with the other issues we deal with, Rohrabacher said.As for his former congressional colleague Dellums, Rohrabacher said he recalled having a conversation about the Magnitsky Act and the adoption issue: Ron and I like each other I have to believe he was a hired lobbyist but I don t know. Here s how Veselnitskaya is tied to the massive 2013 money laundering scheme and the controversial piece of legislation: 2012 s Magnitsky Act that involved Denis Katsyv, the son of Russian railroad baron Petr Katsyv and owner of the Prevezon group. It was the Magnitsky Act that Veselnitskaya allegedly discussed in her meeting with Donald Trump Jr.:TPM In 2013, Veselnitskaya agreed to represent Denis Katsyv, The younger Katsyv was accused of collaborating with corrupt Russian officials in the money-laundering scheme. Then-U.S. attorney and Sheriff of Wall Street Preet Bharara (who was appointed US Attorney in Manhattan by Barack Obama and was fired by President Trump in March) led the charge against Prevezon; the company, his office said, had used cash from the theft to buy condos in Bharara s jurisdiction.Katsyv had been Veselnitskaya s highest-profile client by far, and his defense would be a world-historic success not just for the wealthy real estate investor, but for the Russian establishment under President Vladimir Putin.Until this weekend, the closest Veselnitskaya had come to the public eye was as a footnote to the compounding scandal of the Prevezon affair. Veselnitskaya had come to the United States with Katsyv, who was to be deposed by Bharara s team. Not only wasn t she deposed herself, she didn t attend her client s deposition in person. But after the deposition, she moved to the Plaza Hotel for the remaining two nights of her stay at a cost of $995 per night. Her firm then billed the U.S. government for the entire stay, as well as a single meal for five that included eight grappas, two bottles of wine, eighteen dishes and a bill that came to nearly $800. The group s total expenses topped $50,000, and they promised to file more.The legal proceedings in which Veselnitskaya was enmeshed contain a spy novel s-worth of twists, turns and tragic, suspicious accidents. Sergei Magnitsky, a whistleblowing accountant who called attention to Russian bureaucrats alleged widespread embezzlement, was arrested and detained without trial for nearly a year until his death in 2009 from what prison staff described as pancreonecrosis, ruptured abdominal membrane and toxic shock, according to the U.S. government s suit against Prevezon. The Russian Interior Ministry later revised the cause of death to heart failure. When Magnitsky s family examined his body, they found bruises and that his fingers had been broken, according to an early draft of a report by then-president Dmitry Medvedev s own investigative committee.The incident led to a controversial piece of legislation: 2012 s Magnitsky Act, which sanctioned 18 Russian officials believed by the US to have been involved in Magnitsky s death. Five days later, the Russian parliament voted to ban adoptions of Russian children by Americans, a move understood to be retaliation for the Magnitsky Act. Putin, by that time president of Russia again, also began to compile an anti-Magnitsky list of his own, according to the New York Times. Bharara was among the prominent names on it.Magnitsky s death, and the original theft by Russian bureaucrats, are believed by many, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), to be the work of the Klyuev Group, a network of criminals working in the Russian government to enrich themselves at the expense of Russian citizens (its exploits are chronicled in English in a number of articles by reporter Michael Weiss). Magnitsky and others sought to expose what they believed was hundreds of millions of dollars worth of graft by the group.The suit against Prevezon never went to trial. On March 11, Donald Trump fired Bharara, and on March 21, Nikolai Gorokhov, the Magnitsky family s attorney and a key witness for the prosecution, fell from the fourth floor of an apartment building, apparently when a rope broke while he and others were trying to move a bathtub in through the window. He sustained head injuries. | 1real |
Lebanese woman shot dead by four-year-old son in gun accident | BEIRUT (Reuters) - A woman in south Lebanon was killed on Monday after her four-year-old son accidentally shot her with a hunting rifle, a security source and the state news agency NNA said. The incident followed another accidental death in which an 11-year-old boy shot his 8-year-old relative last week in another town in southern Lebanon, NNA said. Gun control is not strict in Lebanon. People have regularly been killed by stray bullets shot during celebrations political events. Lebanese officials have often called for restraint of gun use and celebratory gunfire. | 0fake |
BILL CLINTON’S RAPE ACCUSERS Speak Out: “We Are Terrified Of Hillary” [VIDEO] | Wow! These women are incredibly brave. Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey are role models for women everywhere who are afraid to demand justice for their rapists. I hope they never go anywhere alone. And I m not kidding! | 1real |
Major Venezuelan opposition parties to boycott local polls | CARACAS (Reuters) - Three of Venezuela s largest opposition parties vowed on Monday to boycott mayoral polls later this year in protest at an election system they say is biased in favor of President Nicolas Maduro s ruling socialists. The multi-party Democratic Unity coalition has had a tough 2017, first failing to bring down Maduro in four months of protests that led to 125 deaths, then losing surprisingly to the Socialist Party in a gubernatorial election earlier this month. That has left the opposition weakened and divided, and Maduro strengthened, despite growing foreign pressure on his government over alleged rights abuses and corruption, and an unprecedented economic crisis that has millions skipping food. Three heavyweight movements in the opposition - Justice First, Popular Will and Democratic Action - announced on Monday they did not trust the government-leaning election board sufficiently to participate in the municipal polls in December. Justice First leader Julio Borges, who also heads the opposition-led congress, said authorities cheated in the 2013 presidential election, denied Venezuelans a recall referendum last year, and rigged the Oct. 15 gubernatorial vote. So instead of going into another manipulated vote, the opposition should focus on demanding reforms to the election board in anticipation of next year s presidential poll, he said. The objective remains getting Nicolas Maduro out of power, and in this struggle, the world is with us, he told reporters. To the surprise of some, the Democratic Action party also joined the boycott. Its candidates won four governorships in October s vote and then infuriated many opposition supporters by swearing loyalty to a pro-Maduro legislative superbody. Opposition supporters have been split over participating in elections this year. Some say it is the only way to show they are a majority and undermine Maduro, while a growing number argue there is no point in fighting a dictator via a system rigged in his favor. They are pinning their hopes on international action, including U.S. sanctions against Maduro s government. Maduro, whose personal popularity has plunged since his 2013 election due to food shortages and runaway inflation, said sabotage and insurrection were being planned against the mayoral votes. I declare myself in battle, the 54-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez said in a meeting with governors on Monday. Those who attack the election system must pay. Opposition leaders say the government has long been rigging elections by gross abuse of state funds in favor of socialist candidates, and dirty tricks such the last-minute moving of vote centers in opposition areas for the October ballot. They have also presented some allegations of ballot-rigging. However, Maduro insists Venezuela s system is entirely trustworthy and impossible to hack. It has received international praise in the past, although it was slammed over July s vote for the Constituent Assembly superbody. Maduro says the street protests earlier this year were a mask for a U.S.-backed coup plot, and accuses opponents of wanting to oust him by undemocratic means. Venezuelans want ballots, not bullets, said Maduro. | 0fake |
President Trump Slams NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as ’A Stupid Guy’ - Breitbart | President Donald Trump is not a fan of National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell, according to a recent report. [The President entertained an opinion many people hold about the NFL chief, according to The New York Times. Trump’s quotes appear in yet another article attacking Tom Brady, coach Bill Belichick, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft for their support and friendship with the President. The Times unearthed comments from 2015 where Trump called Goodell a “dope” and a “stupid guy,” especially for how he handled Ray Rice’s domestic violence charges and Tom Brady’s “Deflategate” incident. “The commissioner is a weak guy,” Trump reportedly said of Goodell. “When he made the Ray Rice deal, everybody said: You’re stupid. You’re weak. And it was such a weak deal. So now he’s going overboard with their star, Brady. ” Trump’s opinion of Goodell is not all that unusual and reflects that of many NFL fans. The NFL commissioner earned a low 19 percent favorable rating with a corresponding 40 percent unfavorable rating from fans. His job approval rating comes in at 28 percent, 19 points less than the mark Americans give President Barack Obama late last year. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 0fake |
Ryan Lochte Is About To Be Rewarded For His Douchebaggery, And It’s Gonna Piss You Off | You d think we would no longer be surprised when an athlete or someone famous gets away with being in trouble, especially a white, male athlete. However, nope, this is still pretty damn awful.After Ryan Lochte s drunken douchebaggery vandalizing a gas station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, then subsequently lying about it, and then getting away with it, he s now likely about to join the ABC hit show Dancing with the Stars.According to US Weekly: Multiple sources tell Us Weekly that Ryan Lochte signed on for season 23 of Dancing With the Stars following his Rio robbery scandal, in which he said he overexaggerated his story about being robbed at gunpoint. Apparently, an insider has said: Doing DWTS will be great for Ryan s image! He will be able to show America that he s a good guy who made a mistake. He s still an Olympic champion! He will be great on the show. A good guy who made a mistake. Ha!It must be nice to be able to get away with that sort of behavior and then given the opportunity to make money with a reality television celebrity dance competition show.The cast for the upcoming season hasn t been announced but according to US, reps for the show never comment on casting rumors, but this season will likely include a few Olympic athletes. And unfortunately, a scandal always intrigues the masses and people would likely tune in to see a douchebag act like a fool on the dance floor. Who cares about principles, really?Lochte did apologize, saying: I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend for not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning and for my role in taking the focus away from the many athletes fulfilling their dreams of participating in the Olympics. So, basically, he s sorry he got caught. He also did a sorry, not sorry, because he added: It s traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country with a language barrier and have a stranger point a gun at you and demand money to let you leave You still lied about it, Lochte, and you re a 32-year-old man grow up.We, as a society, really need to stop rewarding those who do bad things. It perpetuates the dialogue, the very true dialogue, that some are above the law and not worth of condemnation, and in some cases, punishment.Hopefully, it s just a rumor that Lochte with appear on the ABC hit show, but if not, maybe they ll come to their senses and choose someone else who children can look up to.Featured Photo by Matt Hazlett/Getty Images | 1real |
EPA head seeks to avoid settlements with green groups | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a directive to his agency on Monday seeking to end the practice of settling lawsuits with environmental groups behind closed doors, saying the groups have had too much influence on regulation. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who sued the agency he now runs more than a dozen times in his former job as attorney general of oil producing Oklahoma, has long railed against the so-called practice of “sue and settle.” The EPA under former President Barack Obama quietly settled lawsuits from environmental groups with little input from regulated entities, such as power plants, and state governments, he argues. The directive seeks to make EPA more transparent about lawsuits by reaching out to states and industry that could be affected by settlements, forbidding the practice of entering into settlements that exceed the authority of courts, and excluding attorney’s fees and litigation costs when settling with groups. Most lawsuits by green groups on the agency seek to push the agency to speed up regulation on issues such as climate and air and water pollution, studies have shown. “The days of regulation through litigation are over,” Pruitt said. “We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the agency.” Pruitt’s order was supported by conservative groups. Daren Bakst, a research fellow in agricultural policy at the Heritage Foundation think tank, said sue and settle has led to “egregious antics” that have “effectively handed over the setting of agency priorities to environmental pressure groups,” and has led to rushed rulemaking by the agency. But Pat Parenteau, an environmental law professor at the Vermont Law School, said Pruitt’s directive would be “counterproductive” and costly because in the end courts could fine the agency if it does not meet compliance dates for issuing regulations. “He can fight it if he wants as long as he wants, and spend as much money as he wants,” Parenteau said. “But in the end if you’ve missed a statutory deadline, you are going to be ordered (by a court) to comply and then you are going to be ordered to pay fees.” | 0fake |
Bernie and the Sandernistas | Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Email check failed, please try again Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. MENU | 1real |
Lewd Donald Trump Tape Is a Breaking Point for Many in the G.O.P. - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Republican leaders began to abandon Donald J. Trump by the dozens on Saturday after the release of a video showing him speaking of women in vulgar sexual terms, delivering a punishing blow to his campaign and plunging the party into crisis a month before the election. Fearing that his candidacy was on the verge of undermining the entire Republican ticket next month, a group of senators and House members withdrew support for him, with some demanding that he step aside. Mr. Trump, however, vowed to stay in the race. The list of party figures publicly rejecting Mr. Trump included a host of prominent elected officials, perhaps most notably Senator John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 nominee. “I thought it important I respect the fact that Donald Trump won a majority of the delegates by the rules our party set,” Mr. McCain said in a statement. “But Donald Trump’s behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy. ” And in an rebuke by a running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, the Republican candidate, declined to appear on Mr. Trump’s behalf at a party gathering in Wisconsin and offered him something of an ultimatum on Saturday afternoon. Mr. Pence said in a statement that he was “offended by the words and actions described by Donald Trump” in the video, and cast Mr. Trump’s second debate with Hillary Clinton, on Sunday, as an urgent moment to turn around the campaign. “I do not condone his remarks and cannot defend them,” Mr. Pence said, adding, “We pray for his family and look forward to the opportunity he has to show what is in his heart when he goes before the nation tomorrow night. ” By Saturday evening, no fewer than 36 Republican members of Congress and governors who had not previously ruled out supporting Mr. Trump disavowed his candidacy, an unprecedented desertion by the institutional Republican Party of its own just a month before Election Day. The growing wall of opposition recalled the determination of the party establishment this year to deny Mr. Trump the nomination in the first place. He easily swatted away that effort, but Mr. Trump now finds himself in a far more precarious state. Facing a more vast and diverse electorate, his lightly organized campaign was already listing before the videotape was released. Aides described Mr. Trump as shaken, watching news coverage of the video with a mix of disbelief and horror. Shortly after midnight, he had released a videotaped statement, saying, “I’ve said and done things I regret, and the words released today on this more than a video are one of them. ” In a brief telephone interview on Saturday, he shrugged off the calls to leave, saying he would “never drop out of this race in a million years. ” “I haven’t heard from anyone saying I should drop out, and that would never happen, never happen,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s not the kind of person I am. I am in this until the end. ” Far from sounding rattled, Mr. Trump insisted that he could still prevail in November. “Oh, yeah, we can win — we will win,” he said. “We have tremendous support. I think a lot of people underestimate how loyal my supporters are. ” A couple of hours later, the campaign released a statement from his wife, Melania. “The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me,” she said. “This does not represent the man that I know. ” “I hope people will accept his apology, as I have, and focus on the important issues facing our nation and the world,” she said. But the situation had grown so dire that many in the party were all but pleading with him to withdraw and let Mr. Pence serve as the presidential nominee. On Saturday afternoon, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the chairman of the Republican Conference, became the most senior Republican to call on Mr. Trump to make way for Mr. Pence. The exodus began late Friday night when a handful of Utah Republicans who said they would support Mr. Trump indicated that they could no longer tolerate their nominee. But it was not until a pair of conservative women, Representatives Barbara Comstock of Virginia and Martha Roby of Alabama, implored Mr. Trump to withdraw that previously hesitant Republicans stepped forward to reject Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire was the first Republican senator facing a competitive to say she would no longer back Mr. Trump, announcing in a statement that she would write in Mr. Pence for president instead. “I’m a mom and an American first, and I cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women,” she wrote on Twitter. Ms. Ayotte was joined just hours later by Mr. McCain, who is also running for and Representative Joe Heck of Nevada, who is locked in a close race for the Senate seat now held by Harry Reid, the Democratic minority leader, who is retiring. It was an admission that Mr. Trump now posed an immediate threat to their own candidacies and that, to have any chance to survive, they had to risk angering his ardent supporters. At a party gathering on Saturday in Wisconsin, Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who had disinvited Mr. Trump and said he was “sickened” by the video, was greeted with a few boos, and Mr. Heck was both jeered and applauded when he announced to a crowd in Nevada that he was not backing the presidential nominee. Mr. Ryan told his crowd he would not be discussing “the elephant in the room,” the 2005 video showing a bus that had Mr. Trump aboard, and included an audio recording of him privately bantering with other men. Mr. Trump, then newly married to Ms. Trump, crassly boasted about groping women’s genitals, vulgarly commented on their bodies and generally described women as sex objects who could not resist his advances. In his video statement released early Saturday, Mr. Trump said: “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize. ” “I pledge to be a better man tomorrow and will never, ever let you down,” he added, before ending the message with a promise to bring up the sex scandals of Bill Clinton’s presidency and Hillary Clinton’s response to them. Inside Trump Tower, though, Mr. Trump’s defiant public responses belied the reality of a period in which he was alternately angry and distressed, according to two people with direct knowledge of his behavior who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. Mr. Trump and his Jared Kushner, initially expressed skepticism upon hearing that such a recording existed, saying those comments did not sound like him. When Mr. Trump heard the tape played, he acknowledged it was him, but he believed the fallout would not be dramatic. Mr. Pence, however, was dismayed, and called into Trump headquarters on Friday night to urge Mr. Trump to apologize. On Saturday morning, Mr. Pence called Mr. Trump and told him he had to handle the next 48 hours alone because he did not think he would be an effective surrogate. Mr. Trump, after monitoring television coverage, realized he was becoming isolated by his party. Mr. Trump’s aides did not explicitly ask top advisers and allies to do their usual defense of Mr. Trump’s comments, according to one person briefed on the discussions, but they did ask people to stand by his side. A few supporters did, including Ben Carson the conservative radio host Laura Ingraham and Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the wealthy father and daughter who are perhaps Mr. Trump’s most important backers, and who said in a statement that they considered the video “locker room braggadocio. ” “America is finally fed up and disgusted with its political elite,” they said. “Trump is channeling this disgust, and those among the political elite who quake before the boombox of media blather do not appreciate the apocalyptic choice that America faces on Nov. 8. ” Two of Mr. Trump’s most prominent supporters — Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York — went to Trump Tower around noon to huddle with Mr. Trump and try to get in some debate preparation. In the afternoon, more damaging news hit the web and cable television, with a CNN report on the numerous lewd and tasteless comments he had made over the years on “The Howard Stern Show. ” Just before 5 p. m. Mr. Trump emerged for about five minutes, briskly striding through his gilded lobby to a waiting crowd of supporters on the sidewalk. He pumped his right fist in the air as fans surrounded him. “Hundred percent,” Mr. Trump told reporters who yelled questions about whether he would stay in the race. Mr. Pence flew from Indianapolis to a event in Rhode Island, where he told supporters that the election was about more than “one man,” said Joseph A. Trillo, the chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign in the state. Over hors d’oeuvres in a Newport mansion, Mr. Pence offered a pep talk without making direct mention of the day’s dire events. “He used the terminology that it’s a movement and it’s bigger than Donald Trump,” Mr. Trillo said. At the same time, leading Republicans were demanding that the Republican National Committee, which has been helping the Trump campaign financially and organizationally, abandon Mr. Trump and turn its attention to salvaging other candidates down the ballot. Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania, said the committee should no longer “defend the indefensible. ” He called on Reince Priebus, the party chairman, to force Mr. Trump off the ticket — or face the consequences. “The chairman of the R. N. C. must look out for the good of the party as a whole, so he should be working to get him to step down,” Mr. Dent said. “If he can’t, then he should step down. ” The committee remained silent on Saturday as members of Congress began fleeing from Mr. Trump, not responding to news media inquiries and, senior Republican officials said, not coordinating with other campaign organizations. However, one senior Republican official said Mr. Priebus was deeply distressed. He went to Trump Tower in the afternoon to talk to Mr. Trump. Powerful donors and business interests signaled that they would redirect their attention to candidates. Republican power brokers had hoped until recently that Mr. Trump might make a credible showing in the presidential election, aiding the party in its other crucial races. But Republicans now say that their worst fears have come to pass, as Mr. Trump has unraveled in a series of missteps after his first debate with Mrs. Clinton. Even before Mr. Trump’s 2005 comments came to light, internal Republican polling showed him losing ground among three groups that had long been wary of his candidacy: independents, women, and voters with college degrees. That slide is likely to accelerate now, Republicans said, potentially sending voters fleeing toward Democrats or convincing them that they should stay home on Nov. 8. Either outcome would be ruinous for Republican candidates beyond the presidential race. “It will be difficult in the extreme for him to recover from this, but the biggest impact is likely to be its effect on all the races,” said Fred Malek, the finance chairman of the Republican Governors Association, who called Mr. Trump’s comments “beyond disgusting. ” “If they pull the plug on support for Trump,” he said, “the vast majority of voters will certainly understand that and most will respect it. ” | 0fake |
Putin Condemns Europe’s Handling of Migrants and Says the Child Rape in Austria Shows ‘a Dilution of National Values’ | Loading Posted on November 4, 2016 Putin Condemns Europe’s Handling of Migrants and Says the Child Rape in Austria Shows ‘a Dilution of National Values’ Jennifer Newton, Daily Mail, November 3, 2016
Vladimir Putin has waded into the migrant crisis condemning Europe’s handling of asylum seekers and saying a case of child rape in Austria ‘dilutes national values’.
The Russian president has largely kept quiet over the refugee crisis in Europe but has now spoken out of his disbelief over its handling claiming that a continent that ‘can’t protect its children’ has no future.
His comments come off the back of a case in Austria last week, which saw an Iraqi migrant have his conviction of raping a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Vienna overturned.
He was originally convicted of the crime but it was overturned because a court didn’t prove he realised the boy was saying no.
It came after the migrant, identified as 20-year-old Amir A., claimed that it was a ‘sexual emergency’ because he had not had sex for four months.
A second trial for the rape is expected to take place next year, but the attacker is likely to remain in custody until then.
And speaking at a press conference this week, Putin slammed Europe’s migration policy and cited the case, where the victim was from a Serbian family living in Austria.
He said: ‘In a European country, a child is raped by a migrant, and the court releases him.
‘It doesn’t fit into my head what on earth they’re thinking over there.
‘I can’t even explain the rationale–is it a sense of guilt before the migrants? What’s going on? It’s not clear.’
He also claimed that the case highlighted ‘the dissolution of traditional national values’ adding: ‘A society that cannot defend its children has no future.’
And Putin’s words appeared to have struck a chord, as he is extremely popular with Serbs.
In the rape case, the boy had arrived in Austria with his Serbian mother, who paid for him to go to the Theresienbad swimming pool, where he was violently attacked.
The boy was so badly injured that he needed hospital treatment but he will be forced to go back to court for the Iraqi man’s second trial, outraging the Austrian Serbian community.
Austrian media say the case has hardened the communities position against asylum seekers, who were previously divided about whether to vote for the left-leaning Green party candidate or the far right option Nobert Hofer in upcoming elections.
However, it is not the first time Russia has lashed out at the EU’s handling of the migrant crisis.
In March, Konstantin Romodanovsky, head of Russia’s Federal Migration Service accused leaders of willfully ignoring cultural differences that have caused such widespread friction and chaos across the Continent.
He also added that ‘multiculturalism has failed’ because Europe never formed a unified strategy to integrate refugees into Western society.
He said: ‘The European Commission left it up to individual nations to decide how they want to treat asylum seekers–despite the fact the policies and capabilities of member states are very different.
Romodanovsky also accused EU countries of ignoring the ‘differences in culture, religious traditions, and customs’ with the refugees, the vast majority of whom are Islamic. | 1real |
Donald Trump's GOP civil war | Panama City, Florida (CNN) Donald Trump is tearing the Grand Old Party apart.
The tension that has simmered in the Republican Party for years -- shutting down the government and nearly bringing the nation to default -- escalated into an outright civil war Tuesday. The conflict not only threatens the party's ability to make any realistic attempt at reclaiming the White House next month, but also previews the conflicts and divides that could consume the GOP for years to come if Trump loses.
On one side is Trump, who spent much of Tuesday lashing out on social media at his GOP foes, such as Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. John McCain, and lamenting the lack of party unity. He's backed by conservative lawmakers including Iowa Rep. Steve King and the throngs of loyal supporters who attend his rallies, including the one here in Panama City, Florida, Tuesday, where he renewed his call for a government investigation into his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Some are even raising the potential of denying Ryan the speakership after the election.
On the other side is Ryan, who is devoting the full resources of his stature to maintaining a congressional majority. That dominance of Capitol Hill is suddenly threatened -- and not just in the Senate, where there are many competitive races, but also in the House, where the GOP majority was considered untouchable until recently.
The infighting -- sparked by the release Friday of a 2005 video depicting Trump describing women in vulgar and sexually aggressive terms -- isn't likely to ease in the 27 days before Election Day. Trump made clear Tuesday that if he loses in November, he won't go down quietly -- or alone.
He began the day with a series of shots -- taken over Twitter -- at Ryan, saying it's hard to do well when the speaker isn't supportive. He followed up about an hour later calling Ryan a "weak and ineffective leader."
And nearly two hours after that, Trump posed his most explosive tweet of the day.
'Shackles have been taken off me'
Trump continued his attacks on Ryan Wednesday during a rally in central Florida, where he said he's at a disadvantage when "you have leadership not putting their weight behind the people."
He also complained about getting no credit from party leaders for his Sunday night debate performance.
"Wouldn't you think Paul Ryan would call and say good job?" he said. "It got just about the largest audience for a second night debate in the history of the country. You'd think they'd say great going, Don, let's beat this crook. No, he doesn't."
Trump's turn on his own party may seem counterproductive -- it hardly allows him to improve his chances of catching Clinton. But it does allow him the satisfaction of vengeance against party leaders he believes have never treated him fairly since his stunning outsider campaign captured the nomination earlier this year.
And by blaming Republican leaders for their failure to wholeheartedly endorse his campaign, Trump also opens up the possibility of a face-saving excuse if he crashes to defeat in November.
But the cost to the Republican Party of Trump's burn-it-down-around-him strategy is already high, could become more extreme and potentially leave the GOP badly damaged long after he has left the political scene.
To begin with, the estrangement between Trump and the party leaders is blowing open a gaping split between the party's grass roots and its establishment leaders that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and others worked so hard to bridge over the summer.
It is a divide that will be hard to overcome if Trump loses the election. Forging unity could be impossible if hordes of Trump voters blame party leaders for the defeat of a man who electrified the grass roots supporters in a way no other Republican has managed in decades.
King, the Iowa Republican congressman, warned Tuesday that a purge of party elites might be necessary, saying "the establishment wing of the party could simply be amputated out in this effort that's going on right now."
"They've gone so far out on this limb," King said on the Laura Ingraham radio show.
The meltdown in the GOP is the culmination of forces that have been building for years. Intense antipathy towards congressional leaders over their failure to more forcefully oppose President Barack Obama gave rise to the Tea Party and sent waves of anti-establishment lawmakers to Washington in successive elections.
Trump's adoption of a factually-challenged style of campaigning would have been impossible without the power of conservative media that has been building for decades and is now fused with the GOP presidential ticket through the role of Stephen Bannon, the head of Breitbart News, who serves as the CEO of the Trump campaign.
Trump's turn against his own party could also reverberate in down-ballot races. Republicans have long known that their hold on the Senate was tenuous -- whoever ran at the top of their ticket -- but Trump's slumping poll numbers now threaten to drag down vulnerable incumbents too.
At the very least, a Trump implosion that cuts deeply into Ryan's majority could complicate the Speaker's already tough task of corralling his volatile majority coalition. If an anti-Trump landslide sweeps away House GOP members in more moderate districts, it could hand more relative power to the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus and give him the same kinds of fits that it imposed on John Boehner, his predecessor.
The dilemma is especially difficult for Republican senators running for re-election. Some are rejecting Trump because of revulsion at his remarks among more moderate voters. But at the same time, they risk alienating Trump supporters in states's where the former reality star racked up high margins in the primary race.
New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte fits into this category and her desperate effort to walk the fine line between condemning and embracing Trump during this election has become a symbol of the wider GOP conundrum. Ayotte finally said she could not vote for Trump after the video emerged on Friday.
But another star of the GOP, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, said Tuesday he's not yet ready to back away from Trump. Rubio looks certain to need Trump voters to maintain his narrow lead in his re-election race. But at the same time, if more explosive video emerges about Trump, Rubio, who has presidential ambitions in his future, risks being tarnished by association with the Republican nominee.
Another lawmaker in a tough re-election race who is hedging his bets is North Carolina GOP Sen. Richard Burr, who said that while Trump's comments were "indefensible," he still plans to support him.
For her part, the turmoil consuming the GOP would seem to provide a substantial boost to Clinton's White House bid. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday found the Democratic nominee enjoying a 9-point lead among likely voters in a four-way race.
But her aides caution against excessive optimism. There's concern inside the campaign that an increasingly negative race -- which could only become darker in the days ahead -- could turn off voters and make them less likely to show up at the polls. In that instance, a lower turnout could create an advantage for Trump.
"This seems to be their strategy, disgust everyone with our democratic dialogue so that they won't come out to the polls," John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman, told reporters Tuesday. "I think it is very unbecoming a presidential candidate."
Clinton said as much herself during an interview with a Florida radio station Tuesday.
"Despite all of the terrible things (Trump) has said and done, he is still trying to win this election," she said. "And we cannot be complacent, we cannot rest." | 0fake |
Sessions Controversy Heightens Trump’s Feeling of Being Under Siege - The New York Times | President Trump was still upbeat Wednesday night, as he settled into dinner in the White House residence with his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, some 24 hours after giving the most consequential speech of his brief presidency. But not long afterward, the glow from Mr. Trump’s best day in office began to fade with the breaking news that his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, had met with the Russian ambassador during the 2016 campaign. Mr. Sessions failed to mention those conversations in his Senate confirmation hearing, or, according to presidential advisers, to tell Mr. Trump at all. The story overshadowed Mr. Trump’s visit the next day to the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, a classic presidential opportunity to highlight his role as commander in chief. And by the time he got back to the White House on Thursday night, the president let his frustration show. In a statement repeating a familiar critique that Democrats were on a “witch hunt” over the administration’s ties with Russia, Mr. Trump offered a passing but pointed public jab at how Mr. Sessions had handled the matter. “He could have stated his response more accurately,” Mr. Trump said. For Mr. Trump, it was the latest unforeseen obstacle preventing him from gaining traction after a historically bumpy first month in office that has been marked by massive national protests, the dismissal of his national security adviser, and historically low approval ratings. The president was irritated that Mr. Sessions did not more carefully answer the questions he was asked under oath, according to people who spoke with him. His larger frustration, however, was not with Mr. Sessions, but with whoever revealed the meetings to reporters for The Washington Post. Mr. Trump, according to his advisers inside and outside of the White House, has felt besieged by what he regards as a mostly hostile bureaucracy, consisting in part of Democrats and people who opposed his election who are now undermining his presidency with leaks. He believes that they are behind the stories about confusion and dysfunction in his administration and, most of all, that they have made his relationship with Russia a recurring issue. “That is the real story,” said Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, when asked for comment on how the White House views the constant string of stories based on what they have called leaks. Several of those stories have raised questions about ties between the president’s 2016 campaign and Russian officials. Allies of Mr. Trump say his sense of being surrounded by hostile forces will be relieved once his own appointments fill the thousands of political jobs that have not yet been filled. But people close to Mr. Trump concede that the White House’s sluggish hiring process, in which insufficient work was done to tap people for key deputy roles at major agencies during the transition process, is a large part of the problem. “Any new administration takes a while to get their sea legs,” said Charlie Black, a veteran Republican lobbyist. But he added that for Mr. Trump’s administration, “a big part of it is the lack of personnel political appointees around the government. ” In the meantime, Mr. Black and other Republicans said that Mr. Trump had to avoid the trap of fighting all fights, no matter how small. “The Trump team needs to better stay on the offense with their reform agenda, take out the trash, and get on with governing,” said Scott Reed, the top political strategist for the United States Chamber of Commerce, in a typical critique. Mr. Trump’s aides were heartened by his relative calm even amid the flap around Mr. Sessions. And he stayed on message during his appearance on the Gerald R. Ford and on Friday in an appearance in Florida, declining to weigh in then as new reports emerged about previously undisclosed meetings between additional advisers and the Russian ambassador. Mr. Trump is not one to spare the blame when he has hit difficult patches in the past, and his rebuke of Mr. Sessions reflected that. So did his public jab at his press secretary, Sean Spicer, for his attempt to trace leaks from his communications staff members by examining their cellphones. Mr. Trump told Fox News that he personally would have done that type of search “differently. ” But the stories related to Russia are of a different order of magnitude. During the transition he publicly called out the intelligence community for being behind the leaks and at one point, he compared them to smears conducted by the Nazis in the 1940s. More recently, he has blamed Democrats bitter over the defeat of Hillary Clinton. But while Mr. Trump puts the blame on leakers for his administration’s rough start, it has not helped that the White House has been distracted by internecine skirmishes, partly dictated by lingering tensions between advisers and aides to the Republican National Committee, who came to work for the president after he tapped the committee’s chairman, Reince Priebus, as his chief of staff. In the midst of it, Mr. Trump, who has a famously short attention span, has at times had trouble staying on course. He is pondering a broader response to the Russia issue, people close to him say, but he is so far stymied by opponents he can’t see, but who have clearly knocked him off track. On Friday, Mr. Trump tried to go back on the offensive with two Twitter messages, one about Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and the other about Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, and their meetings with Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. Instead of the intemperate messages that Mr. Trump has often deployed, he had help from the White House social media team in crafting the Twitter posts. But in doing it, he ended the week by breathing more oxygen into the Russia issue. Such daily skirmishes might satisfy the need to fight back, but Republicans who want him to succeed caution that Mr. Trump’s fate as president will lie in his actual accomplishments. “If they get some legislative successes, they’ll be fine,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, “and if they don’t, that’s when the real trouble begins. ” | 0fake |
HAS THE SELF PROCLAIMED DEFENDER OF FREE SPEECH BANNED DONALD TRUMP FROM HIS CONSERVATIVE NETWORK? | Who exactly will Gray and Burguiere of Glenn Beck s Blaze see fit to cover? Will they double down on Lindsey Graham? Maybe they plan to focus more on Jeb Bush? No more Trump?Glenn Beck s program with Pat Gray and Stu Burguiere is taking HuffPost s stance on Donald Trump a giant step further they re going to pretend he doesn t exist. It s the Glenn Beck Program with Pat & Stu, now 100% Trump Free, with 100% Less Trump, Gray announced on Wednesday s program. I m sick of it, said Burguiere. So we re moving on. Can t do another show. Late last week, HuffPost declared that the site was moving the presidential frontrunner to its entertainment pages.Via: Daily Caller | 1real |
TRUMP SPOKESPERSON Delivers A Knockout Punch To Arrogant CNN Host [Video] | Trump Spokesperson Katrina Pierson: When was the last time you fact checked Barack Obama? I love her!!! | 1real |
Scholar: White People Acknowledge Privilege to Make Themselves Feel Good, Avoid Addressing Racism - Breitbart | Scholar Claire Lockard argues in a new work that white people who acknowledge their privilege are less likely to engage in actual efforts. [In her work, “Unhappy Confessions: The Temptation of Admitting to White Privilege,” recent Emory graduate and Elon University scholar Claire Lockard argues that acknowledgments of white privilege or racism are “pleasurable to enact but ultimately reinforce white people’s feelings of goodness and allow them to avoid addressing this racism. ” In the abstract for her work, Lockard explains how an admission of white privilege could lead to a complacency that leads individuals away from activism. I argue that because such admissions are conscious attempts to address unconscious habits, they are unhappy speech acts and contrary to their implied aims. Admissions of white privilege or racism can be conceptualized as Foucauldian confessions that are pleasurable to enact but ultimately reinforce white people’s feelings of goodness and allow them to avoid addressing this racism. I ground my argument in Shannon Sullivan’s analysis of white privilege and Sara Ahmed’s critique of confessions of to show that in addition to doing no work at the moment of saying, these confessions actually reify white privilege deeper into the unconscious and make it harder to address. Lockard, whose Twitter account has now been set to private, tweeted on March 1 that she frequently would interrupt white students in her courses to encourage minority students to speak up: “New favorite thing: interrupting white dudes in my classes to say ‘I think some other folks want to join the conversation. ’” Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about education and social justice for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com | 0fake |
Senate Judiciary Democrat says panel should hold hearings for Gorsuch | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Wednesday the panel should hold hearings on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch but that Democrats would seek a 60-vote threshold for his confirmation in the full Senate. President Donald Trump announced his nomination of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Gorsuch on Tuesday night to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year. The seat has remained vacant for nearly a year because Republicans refused to consider former President Barack Obama’s nominee. | 0fake |
GOP Chairman Freaks Out Over This Trump Decision That Will Lose The Election | Despite the racial outbursts, the insistence that he keep attacking his former primary rivals even though the primaries are over, and the overall haphazard way he is campaigning, Republican chairman Reince Priebus insists that all is well between him and nominee Donald Trump.Of course, like so much in this campaign, that isn t the truth. Behind the scenes, Trump is making a critical error that could doom his attempt to win the presidency more than a simple racist comment, and it is driving the party chairman nuts.Meanwhile, the Trump high-dollar fund-raising operation is showing signs of duress, people here say. A joint fund-raising agreement was hatched last month to split proceeds between the RNC and the Trump campaign. And while the first joint fund-raisers have gone well, RNC chair Reince Priebus has phoned some associates expressing frustration that Trump wants to direct dollars to his own ambitious plans, according to a person who has spoken directly with Priebus, which includes quixotic bids to win deep blue states like California and New York.The RNC did not respond to a request for comment.There isn t any data to indicate that a win in traditionally blue states is remotely possible for Trump to pull off. Most polling has shown that his best shot would come with a winning streak in so-called purple states, the same states that both John McCain and Mitt Romney tried to target against President Obama that have swung between both parties with a difference of one percentage point or less.By comparison, no Republican has won California and New York since Ronald Reagan s epic landslide victory in 1984, which was 32 years ago. Both states have delivered huge, lopsided victories to Democratic presidential candidates for decades, and both also consist of the diverse electorates Latino, black that are the most opposed to Trump.Republican insiders know and understand this. Trump s ego insists that he should contend in the blue states, especially his home state of New York, but using any money to campaign there is a fool s errand for the Republican Party, made even worse since the GOP is so far behind the Democrats and Secretary Clinton on raising money.It has all the ingredients for an election disaster.Featured image via YouTube | 1real |
Betsy DeVos’s Hiring of For-Profit College Official Raises Impartiality Issues - The New York Times | As chief compliance officer for a corporate owner of colleges, Robert S. Eitel spent the past 18 months as a top lawyer for a company facing multiple government investigations, including one that ended with a settlement of more than $30 million over deceptive student lending. Today, Mr. Eitel — on an unpaid leave of absence — is working as a special assistant to the new secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, whose department is setting out to roll back regulations governing the college sector. The Education Department says Mr. Eitel has conferred several times with its ethics officer to avoid conflicts. But it says he is not precluded from having a voice on general issues and regulations that affect the college sector. Ethics experts said Mr. Eitel’s position, which has not been announced publicly, could nonetheless bump up against federal rules involving conflicts of interest and impartiality, particularly given his position as a vice president for regulatory legal services at Bridgepoint Education Inc. an operator of colleges, during federal investigations into the company. “It raises considerable red flags, especially due to the fact that this company was under investigation,” said Scott H. Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan investigative group. Mr. Eitel, an Education Department lawyer under President George W. Bush, has been a stalwart critic of federal regulation of both colleges and education under the Obama administration. A department spokesman, who requested anonymity, said Mr. Eitel is part of a “beachhead” team, paid staff members who are temporarily helping to lead federal agencies as the Trump administration gets up and running but do not require Senate confirmation. The spokesman said Mr. Eitel would recuse himself from policy decisions or discussions related to Bridgepoint and another former employer, Career Education Corporation. While on unpaid leave from Bridgepoint, the spokesman said, Mr. Eitel has also volunteered to recuse himself from weighing in on the department’s “gainful employment” regulation, which is intended to hold career schools accountable for their job placement records and is particularly despised by the industry. The spokesman would not comment on the prospects for a role for Mr. Eitel, who served as deputy general counsel from 2006 to 2009. Some jobs he could potentially be a candidate for, such as general counsel, would require Senate confirmation. Mr. Eitel did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, and Bridgepoint declined to comment on his work and status at the company, citing privacy concerns. Guidelines from the Office of Government Ethics bar federal employees from engaging in decisions directly affecting a company in which they have any financial interest. Even former employees without direct financial ties are subject to impartiality rules when they join the government. They are supposed to avoid doing anything that — in the eyes of a “reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts” — creates “the appearance that they are violating the law or the ethical standards set forth,” and are advised to bring any potential conflicts to the agency’s ethics officer. Other industry insiders have also been brought into the agency, including Taylor Hansen, a former lobbyist for the sector’s trade association. “There’s no question that there’s a revolving door between the Education Department and the industries that it regulates,” said Rohit Chopra, former assistant director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a former special adviser to the secretary of education. “This is a bipartisan problem. ” higher education has repeatedly been tarnished by scandal. But since the election in November, stocks in the sector have soared — Bridgepoint’s has climbed more than 40 percent — as President Trump’s White House has made clear that it is undertaking a campaign to slash government regulations. Ms. DeVos and other administration officials have indicated that they do not plan to continue President Barack Obama’s regulatory crackdown on colleges. Last week, the Education Department extended the deadline for vocational schools to appeal the agency’s application of the rule. That provision has been criticized by the industry as unfairly taking aim at colleges focused on helping the most disadvantaged students. While many graduates credit for their training and better employment prospects, other students complain that deceptive marketing persuaded them to enroll and to take on staggering debt for programs that failed to deliver promised skills and jobs. Bridgepoint — a publicly traded company that operates Ashford University and University of the Rockies, enrolls roughly 50, 000 students, and primarily offers online degrees — has come under frequent scrutiny by federal and state watchdogs. The Justice Department, according to a Bridgepoint filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is investigating whether the company violated Education Department limits that bar it from receiving more than 90 percent of its revenue in federal student aid. If a college is in violation for two years in a row, the Education Department can cut off further access to funds, the college’s lifeblood. In addition, the S. E. C. itself has been investigating Bridgepoint’s accounting practices. Attorneys general in California and Massachusetts are conducting separate investigations. And last month, Ashford received a final audit from the Education Department that said the company owed the agency $300, 000 as a result of the university’s miscalculation of federal student aid eligibility dating to 2006, an S. E. C. filing noted. The university has 45 days to appeal. In September, Bridgepoint reached a settlement with the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to refund students $23. 5 million and pay an $8 million civil penalty to resolve an inquiry into whether students were deceived into taking out private student loans that cost more than advertised. Bridgepoint neither denied nor admitted the allegations. In 2014, before Mr. Eitel joined the company, Bridgepoint and Ashford agreed to pay $7. 25 million to settle charges by the Iowa attorney general that they had given students in that state incorrect information about the university’s program. Bridgepoint denied the allegations at the time. After leaving the Education Department in 2009, Mr. Eitel worked in private practice with Kent D. Talbert, who had been the agency’s general counsel. Mr. Eitel joined another education company, Career Education Corporation, in 2013, several months before it reached a $10. 25 million settlement with the New York attorney general over charges that it had previously inflated graduates’ job placement rates. He was also executive director of that company’s political action committee. He moved to Bridgepoint in July 2015. Mr. Eitel has written articles for conservative organizations like the Pioneer Institute and the Hoover Institution accusing the department of exceeding its authority. He opposed federal testing and standards for schools as a backdoor attempt at a national curriculum. Those views resonate on the right. In December, an article by Joy Pullman, managing editor of the conservative web magazine The Federalist, recommended that Ms. DeVos hire Mr. Eitel as part of a “ legal team. ” | 0fake |
MUSLIM OFFICIAL Stands By Nasty Memorial Day Tweet Criticizing US Troops | CAIR S Zahra Billoo is so hateful! She Tweets out a nasty message every year about our troops on Memorial Day weekend. The Council for Islamic Relations (CAIR) has had a bigger and bigger presence and influence on communities across America. Don t dare criticize Islam or you get hammered by CAIR. They re counting on people to fear being called Islamophobic or other things For this reason, they usually bully their way to victory. Americans aren t used to this boldness so we cower and let them shame us. It s way past time to stand your ground and call things what they are. Just say no to bullying from CAIR!CAIR S ZAHRA BILLOO TWEETED IN 2014:A top Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) official took time out of her Memorial Day weekend to stand by her opposition to honoring fallen U.S. soldiers on the holiday and specifically took aim at Muslim-Americans who serve in the U.S. military.For the third year in a row, the executive director of CAIR s San Francisco Bay Area chapter, Zahra Billoo, bashed the U.S. military on the holiday in which we are supposed to thank them for their sacrifices.CAIR is a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity that was designated as a terrorist group by the United Arab Emirates in November. FBI wiretaps in 1993 reveal that CAIR was established to deceptively push the Islamist agenda. You can read more about CAIR s background here.Billoo stepped in hot water in 2014 when the Clarion Project broke the story about how she and other CAIR officials were suggesting that fallen U.S. soldiers shouldn t be honored on Memorial Day. The result was major media attention and outrage from Muslims honoring Memorial Day.She responded by retweeting a comment about supporting U.S. troops who refuse service, tweeting about U.S. genocide, rape within the military and accusing critics of sexism, racism and anti-Muslim bigotry.On Memorial weekend last year, Billoo again slandered the U.S. military and said servicemen often murder innocent civilians. She also equated Israel with ISIS. | 1real |
Anti-Communist Group Makes Their First Ever Endorsement Toward The Donald.. Media Silent | UNREAL: Calif. Soldiers Billed for Thousands After Military Decides Not to Honor Decade-Old Enlistment Bonuses
He told the audience that he was “humbled by this endorsement from true freedom fighters.” He also referenced the Damas en Blanco (Ladies in White), a “ Cuban dissident organization composed of the wives, mothers, daughters and sisters of political prisoners.”
“They march quietly to church every Sunday and … are subject to physical and verbal violence and abuse by government-sanctioned mobs,” Trump told the audience. He added that his opponent “turns a blind eye to the human rights violations that occur every single day.”
As for the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, a representative from the group called their endorsement a “no-brainer.”
In his introduction, the representative said that the group was concerned that “corruption in our public life has become rampant and has to be stopped. He also derided the “socialist progressive agenda of Hillary Clinton .”
You can see Trump’s speech at the event here:
Trump has clearly shown that he’s on the side of the military, speaking out against Obama’s broken Department of Veterans Affairs, the shoddy treatment given to our veterans otherwise and the fact that our military gains have been reversed by administration policy. | 1real |
Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Mother Teresa: Your Friday Evening Briefing - The New York Times | (Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. The first hurricane to hit Florida in 11 years caused major storm surges and power losses from Tampa to Tallahassee, but only one fatality was reported. Now a weaker tropical storm, Hermine is inundating Georgia and moving into the Carolinas, and a watch is in effect from New Jersey to Rhode Island. Here’s our map of the storm’s path. _____ 2. companies still wield enormous clout in Washington. The and cigar industries are deploying an army of some 75 lobbyists to try to keep the Food and Drug Administration from examining their products for public health risks and possibly banning them. The battle comes nearly two decades after tobacco companies paid out $200 billion to compensate the public for health consequences of smoking. _____ 3. Email trouble continued to dog Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The F. B. I. released its July interview with her, along with a summary of the investigation into her use of a private server as secretary of state. Here are six things we learned, including new details of when some of her emails were deleted. _____ 4. Donald Trump shifted from his midweek focus on immigration to reaching out to black voters. He visited Philadelphia on Friday and will visit a church in Detroit on Saturday. The pastor will interview him for a cable show, but it remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump will follow the scripted answers laid out by his advisers. Moderators for the coming presidential debates were announced: Lester Holt of NBC on Sept. 26, Martha Raddatz of ABC and Anderson Cooper of CNN on Oct. 9, and Chris Wallace of Fox News on Oct. 19. _____ 5. President Obama is heading to China for his final G20 summit meeting this weekend. He’ll stress his determination to overcome congressional opposition to the Partnership trade accord. Above, he stopped en route at Midway Atoll, where he recently expanded a marine national monument into the world’s largest marine preserve. _____ 6. On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Catholics are expected as Pope Francis leads a service elevating Mother Teresa to sainthood. The nun, who served the sick and dying in Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, died 19 years ago. Here is a timeline of her life. Her work lives on, but her legacy is not without critics. _____ 7. Here’s a roundup of sports entertainment for the long weekend. There’s tons of tennis at the U. S. Open (ESPN2, the Tennis Channel) but it’s noisier than usual — the new retractable roof is wrecking acoustics at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Major League Baseball’s regular season has just a month to go, with the New York Yankees in surprisingly good shape. And college football begins in earnest. Here’s our forecast. _____ 8. Among the films opening this weekend, Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander play an Australian couple who find a baby in the War I romance “The Light Between Oceans. ” And our film experts found seven indies whose audiences just keep building, including “Southside With You,” “Indignation” and “Hunt for the Wilderpeople. ” Still hunting? Here’s what’s new for streaming. And our critics found two TV shows, four books and seven viral videos to distract you. _____ 9. Finally, if you happen to be in Midland, Tex. you can join in the Summer Mummers, a nearly tradition. On Friday and Saturday nights, thousands of people pack into the Yucca Theater to boo a raunchy, corny stage show — and fling popcorn at the performers and one another. Popcorn sales for the season? An estimated $110, 000. Have a great weekend. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 0fake |
Here Are The Right-Wing Scumbags The Bundy Militiamen Say They’ll Kill People To Protect | When the tense standoff between federal agents and a group of right-wing extremists at Cliven Bundy s ranch ended in a stalemate, it was only a matter of time before we heard from the emboldened patriots again. On January 2, they showed up unannounced and unwelcome in Oregon.Towing with them a large arsenal of weapons and vowing to die in a shoot out if police or federal agents removed them, Cliven s sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy seized a federal wildlife building and said they were prepared to stay there indefinitely until their demands the unconditional surrender of the United States government and the ceding of federal land to ranchers like the Bundy family are met. It s clear that Ammon Bundy, the ringleader, wants to build an army. In a statement, he begged fellow anti-government patriots to stand up and come to Harney County. We need your help and we are asking for it. And the Bundy family made no secret of the violence underlining the protest. I talked to Ryan Bundy on the phone again. He said they're willing to kill and be killed if necessary. #OregonUnderAttack Ian Kullgren (@IanKullgren) January 3, 2016While Ammon has framed the issue as one of freedom vs. tyranny, the real reason they showed up was to protect two Oregon ranchers, father and son Dwight and Steven Hammond. Like Cliven Bundy, the Hammonds had gotten used to abusing public lands to feed their livestock on and felt that it was now their right to do so.Who are the Hammonds? Based on their actions: A pair of scumbags who were willing to destroy a large area of federally protected land just to protect themselves from being exposed as criminals.In 2001, they purposely set a series of wildfires on government land in order to hide their poaching activities. The fires turned into a raging inferno that nearly killed a few local residents, destroyed 139 acres of public land and killed countless animals that were meant to be safe.The jury convicted both of the Hammonds of using fire to destroy federal property for a 2001 arson known as the Hardie-Hammond Fire, located in the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area. Witnesses at trial, including a relative of the Hammonds, testified the arson occurred shortly after Steven Hammond and his hunting party illegally slaughtered several deer on BLM property. Jurors were told that Steven Hammond handed out Strike Anywhere matches with instructions that they be lit and dropped on the ground because they were going to light up the whole country on fire. These are the people Bundy s armed militia group came to Oregon to defend. They would set a deadly wildfire to protect themselves and ruin the land for anyone else because freedom. If the definition of terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation to achieve a political goal, then let s call this what it is: Terrorism.Ironically, the Hammonds themselves want nothing to do with the standoff. Their lawyer disavowed the group from the start. The Hammonds are already facing jail sentences for their crimes. They ve correctly guessed that adding stoking an armed insurrection would only keep them in jail longer.From interviews Ammon Bundy has given while in Oregon, it s clear that he has an idea of himself as a right-wing martyr. As such, he and his fellow group of anti-government terrorists are clearly willing to die for their cause. They ve brought with them enough guns to see that they take down as many innocent people as they can before that happens.So far, federal agencies and the Harney County Sheriff s Department are taking a light approach the the occupation. Not keen to start another Waco, the authorities are trying to reason with the group rather than go in shooting. It remains to be seen whether a group that invaded a small wildlife reserve building while wearing camo fatigues and carrying rifles can be reasoned with.Feature image via CBC screengrab | 1real |
BAD NEWS For Trump: Memo Proves He Is Not Above The Law, Can Be Indicted | If Donald Trump thinks being president means he can t be prosecuted for his crimes, he should think again.As it turns out, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has the power to indict Trump if he has enough evidence proving that Trump committed a criminal act such as colluding with Russia in an effort to win the 2016 Election. Donald Trump s son Trump Jr. has already demonstrated that Trump s campaign met with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer and a former Soviet Intelligence officer in order to get dirt to use against Hillary Clinton, which is, indeed, the very definition of collusion.Mueller s power to indict is confirmed by a 56-page legal memo written by Ronald Rotunda, a conservative professor of constitutional law and ethics, who was hired as part of Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr s team during the Bill Clinton presidency.According to the 1998 memo, which was obtained by the New York Times,It is proper, constitutional, and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting president for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the president s official duties. In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law.That means no sitting president is above the law, including Trump.Watergate special counsel, Leon Jaworski, came to the same conclusion in 1974.The only reason why Jaworski and Starr declined to indict President Nixon and President Clinton is because they chose to let impeachment proceedings play out instead.Well, Republicans have thus far done everything they can to protect Trump from being impeached. So it appears Mueller may not have a choice but to indict Trump if Republicans continue to refuse to do their public duty.Even the Supreme Court has ruled that sitting presidents are not above the law by deciding in 1997 that a lawsuit against Clinton for misconduct prior to becoming president can move forward. And since Trump was not president when he and his campaign colluded with Russia, that makes his misconduct open to indictment, along with any other crimes he committed prior to taking office. That means if Mueller digs through Trump s finances and finds other crimes, Trump could face an indictment for those as well. If there is no recourse against the president, if he cannot be prosecuted for violating the criminal laws, he will be above the law, Rotunda further wrote. If public policy and the Constitution allow a private litigant to sue a sitting president for acts that are not part of the president s official duties (and are outside the outer perimeter of those duties), and that is what Clinton v. Jones squarely held, then one would think that an indictment is constitutional because the public interest in criminal cases is greater. In short, Trump is in deep shit and he can t blame Hillary Clinton to get out of it. Not even Republicans can dispute the Starr memo. Republicans not only supported Starr s investigation, it was a conservative legal mind who wrote the memo.So unless Republicans proceed with impeachment proceedings to get to the bottom of this once and for all, Robert Mueller must indict Trump. Because it is clear that Republicans won t punish Trump for breaking the law and violating the Constitution.Featured Image: Addicting Info Archive | 1real |
CUBA STILL A COMMIE HELLHOLE AFTER OBAMA’S “NORMALIZATION”: 4 YEARS IN THE SLAMMER FOR “SOCIAL DANGEROUSNESS” | Don t you know Obama would love to just throw those who disagree with him in jail. Well, the Cuban government has only increased their detention of political dissenters since the normalization of relations with the Communist country. Basically, we ve just given Cuba more money to oppress its people it ll all a big fat NOTHING-BURGER The Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission, or CCDHRN, said Thursday that Cuba s government detained 610 people for political reasons in March, the highest number in the past seven months. There is a noticeable trend toward increasing repressive activities of this kind, the CCDHRN said in its monthly report. At the same time, we also identify 95 cases of people who suffered other forms of political repression including physical attacks, police harassment and vandalism and hostile demonstrations. The exercise of all civil and political rights is still a crime, the group said, noting that the Cuban penal code still includes an offense called pre-criminal social dangerousness, which is punishable by up to four years in prison.The country is unlikely to see an improvement in respect for fundamental, civil and political rights as a result of the government s inflexible posture and its opposition to any effort or proposal leading to the urgent judicial, economic and political reforms that the Cuban people need and deserve, the commission said. Read more: Latin American Herald | 1real |
WOW! SARA HUCKABEE-SANDERS Drops Mother Of All Verbal Bombs On Media Over Hypocrisy On Comey Firing [VIDEO] | ABC s Jonathan Karl asked a very spunky Sara Huckabee-Sanders (yes, Sara is the daughter of the very funny and sarcastic former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee) if Vice President Pence was in the dark about the firing of FBI Director James Comey? Sara snapped back, Nobody was in the dark Jonathan! You wanna create this false narrative. If we want talk about ah contradicting statements and people that were maybe in the dark, how about the Democrats? Let s read a few of them. You wanna talk about em? Here s what Democrats said not that long ago about James Comey :Harry Reid said, Comey should resign and be investigated by the Senate. Senator Chuck Schumer, I don t have confidence in him anymore. Senator Bernie Sanders said, It would not be a bad thing for the American people if Comey resigned. Nancy Pelosi said, Comey was not in the right job. Former DNC Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz said that she thought Comey was no longer able to serve in a neutral and credible way. President Obama s advisor Valerie Jarrett reportedly urged him to fire Comey. Just yesterday, Representative Maxine Waters said that, Hillary Clinton would have fired Comey. You wanna talk about people who are in the dark? The people that are in the dark today are the Democrats.Boom!Earlier today, we posted a video that President Trump posted to his Twitter page pointing out the absurd hypocrisy of the Democrats and their allies in the liberal media. This video pretty much sums up how hypocritical Democrats and their media arm really are when it comes to anything related to Trump.Watch:The Democrats should be ashamed. This is a disgrace!#DrainTheSwamp pic.twitter.com/UfbKEECm2V Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2017 | 1real |
Trump's trade adviser says hopes to reach trade deal with South Korea | WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s top trade adviser expressed optimism on Tuesday about reaching agreement on a revised free trade pact with South Korea, days after Trump suggested scrapping the deal with a key American ally. Senior U.S. lawmakers and America’s biggest business lobby urged Trump not to pull out of the five-year-old U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), especially at a time of heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear missile tests. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, speaking in Mexico City after a second round of NAFTA talks with Canada and Mexico, said negotiations with Seoul were continuing. “We have a negotiation we’re in,” Lighthizer told reporters when asked whether KORUS would be terminated. “My hope is that we’ll have a successful discussion with the Koreans as things proceed and that the problems with that agreement from our perspective will be worked out.” Trump said on Saturday he would discuss KORUS’s fate with advisers this week, prompting widespread concern among lawmakers and the business community. The chairmen and senior Democrats on the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee said in a statement on Tuesday that North Korea’s sixth and largest nuclear bomb test on Sunday “underscores the vital importance of the strong alliance between the United States and South Korea.” The statement by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, senior Democrat Richard Neal and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and senior Democrat Ron Wyden said talks to improve South Korea’s implementation and compliance with the trade agreement were welcome. But it said the agreement itself was central to the U.S.-South Korean alliance. In a separate letter to Trump, Senator Joni Ernest, a Republican from Iowa in the U.S. corn belt, said the South Korean market was especially important for U.S. beef, corn and pork producers. “Terminating KORUS would leave our farmers at a competitive disadvantage to those in other countries that enjoy preferential trade access to Korea,” Ernst wrote. In a strongly worded statement the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents more than 3 million businesses, also opposed any “rash and irresponsible” withdrawal. “We do not believe this move would create a single American job — but it would cost many,” said Tom Donohue, who warned that it would damage relations between the White House and business community. “Ironically, states across mid-America that voted for the president would take the hit from withdrawal as their agricultural and manufactured goods exports fell in the wake of such a move,” Donohue said. | 0fake |
Report: ISIS Developing Undetectable Laptop Bombs to Smuggle Aboard Planes - Breitbart | ISIS has reportedly developed high powered explosives that can be hidden inside laptops and are entirely undetectable by regular airport scanners. [CBS News reports that following the discovery of equipment left behind by ISIS fighters at the University of Mosul in Northern Iraq, the US government believes that sophisticated new bombs could be concealed within laptop computers and may be much harder to detect by traditional airport security scanners. After Iraqi special forces recaptured the University of Mosul in January, it was discovered that ISIS had used the university’s equipment and laboratories to develop these new explosives. Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com | 0fake |
Trump heads to Japan with North Korea on his mind | HONOLULU (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump headed to Japan on the first stop of his five-nation tour of Asia on Saturday, looking to present a united front with the Japanese against North Korea as tensions run high over Pyongyang s nuclear and missile tests. Trump, who is on a 12-day trip, is to speak to U.S. and Japanese forces at Yokota air base shortly after arriving in Japan on Sunday and looked to stress the importance of the alliance to regional security. Ballistic missile tests by North Korea and its sixth and largest nuclear test, in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, have exacerbated the most critical international challenge of Trump s presidency. Aerial drills conducted over South Korea by two U.S. strategic bombers have raised tensions in recent days. In a display of golf diplomacy, Trump is to play a round of golf with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The two leaders also played together in Florida earlier this year. Trump will also have a state call with the Imperial Family at Akasaka Palace during his visit. Abe and Trump will meet families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea. Joined by his wife Melania on part of the trip, Trump s tour of Asia is the longest by an American president since George H.W. Bush in 1992. Besides Japan, he will visit South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. Trump departed Hawaii for Japan aboard Air Force One shortly before 7:27 a.m. Hawaii time (1727 GMT). En route to Hawaii s Hickham Air Force Base, Trump s motorcade stopped briefly at the Trump International Hotel Waikiki. It has been a tremendously successful project and he wanted to say hello and thank you to the employees for all their hard work, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. Trump extended the trip by a day on Friday when he agreed to participate in a summit of East Asian nations in Manila. His trip got off to a colorful start in Hawaii. He was taken by boat out to the USS Arizona Memorial, where lies the World War Two ship that was sunk by the Japanese during the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. The Trumps tossed white flower petals into the waters at the memorial in honor of those who died at Pearl Harbor. Trump s trip is to be dominated by trade and how to muster more international pressure on North Korea to give up nuclear weapons. We ll be talking about trade, Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. We ll be talking about obviously North Korea. We ll be enlisting the help of a lot of people and countries and we ll see what happens. But I think we re going to have a very successful trip. There is a lot of good will. Trump has rattled some allies with his vow to totally destroy North Korea if it threatens the United States and his dismissal of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a rocket man on a suicide mission. White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster, briefing reporters on Friday, defended Trump s colorful language. What s inflammatory is the North Korean regime and what they re doing to threaten the world, McMaster said. Trump will seek a united front with the leaders of Japan and South Korea against North Korea before visiting Beijing to make the case to Chinese President Xi Jinping that he should do more to rein in Pyongyang. Trade will factor heavily during Trump s trip as he tries to persuade Asian allies to agree to trade policies more favorable to the United States. A centerpiece of the trip will be a visit to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Danang, Vietnam, where he will deliver a speech in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, which is seen as offering a bulwark in response to expansionist Chinese policies. | 0fake |
Hypocrite Republicans Refuse To Investigate Flynn Scandal | After years of investigating Hillary Clinton over Benghazi despite her resignation, Republicans are hypocritically refusing to investigate Michael Flynn.Donald Trump s national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned late on Monday night after getting busted for negotiating with the Russians while President Obama was still in office.Flynn s actions violated the Logan Act, which bars citizens from negotiating with foreign powers. Flynn s connections with Vladimir Putin run deep, and the Justice Department warned Trump last month that Flynn was at risk of being blackmailed by the Russians. Still, Trump kept Flynn on his team and even let him continue participating in meetings.Flynn, the national security adviser, was literally a national security threat and Trump refused to act.This comes months after an election that was tainted by interference from the Russians, and Republicans have yet to investigate that.And they are not going to investigate the Flynn scandal either.GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz told reporters on Tuesday, I think that situation has taken care of itself. I think he did the right thing stepping down. By that logic, the Benghazi investigation should have ended after Clinton stepped down as Secretary of State in February 2013. But Republicans continued the investigation into December 2016.Chaffetz then passed the buck by claiming that the House Intelligence Committee is responsible for investigating Flynn, not the Oversight Committee.When asked by reporters if he would launch an investigation, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said he doesn t plan to do so and even went on to praise Flynn in the hope that the scandal will be swept under the rug.Here s the lawmaker who should be investigating Flynn and Trump s Russia ties, House Intel Chair Devin Nunes.Really taking this seriously. pic.twitter.com/ygfiajpYq3 Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) February 14, 2017And so, Republicans once again demonstrate that they are complete hypocrites.Republicans like Chaffetz spent years and wasted millions of taxpayer dollars to investigate Hillary Clinton over Benghazi. It was a witch hunt that went beyond the amount of time Congress spent investigating 9/11 and in the end it found nothing.Republicans literally accused Clinton of national security malpractice even though it was their cuts of diplomatic security funding that played a role in the lack of security at the consulate.Nothing Hillary Clinton could have done in response would have saved the four Americans who died in the attack. Furthermore, there have been even deadlier terrorist attacks against American embassies overseas that did not result in investigations, especially when such attacks occurred under Republican administrations.But Michael Flynn broke the law, lied about his phone calls with the Russian ambassador, and was a national security threat because of his closeness to the Russians, particularly Putin, and was at risk of being blackmailed.This is a major scandal of the Trump administration and the American people are demanding a lengthy and thorough investigation by Congress. The fact that Republicans don t want to do it shows how little credibility these lawmakers have. They don t really care about our national security. They only care about launching investigations for political gain.They are hypocrites and they should be ousted from office in favor of people who will conduct a proper investigation into this matter. And when that investigation exposes Trump s collusion with Russia we ll all know why Republicans didn t want to investigate Flynn. Because protecting the party is more important to them than protecting America.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
PROBLEM: Trump vs. The US Intelligence Machine | 21st Century Wire says The intelligence agencies of the US and the UK were chartered to serve the government and protect national security by gathering information, analyzing data and making recommendations to government officials. At least that is how it was sold to the public in the beginning.But what do we see now? We see intelligence agencies in both the US and the UK being used to serve as a political sledge hammer in the realms of foreign policy, media subversion, disinformation operations, regime change, assassination, domestic wiretapping, full spectrum surveillance and all things dirty in the political black bag of tricks. The report below raises some major questions that citizens of the US and UK should be asking themselves about their intelligence services.Are the CIA and MI6 protecting national security at all anymore?Why are these intelligence agencies actively involved in the creation and dispersal of false documents and reports?Is their end game to subvert the inauguration a democratically elected government official in the United States?Who is cheering on these intelligence agencies?Will Trump be victorious against the intelligence apparatus?One thing is certain: no functioning democracy can survive for long if its intelligence agencies feel they are more important than our elected officials Consortium News Exclusive: President-elect Trump is in a nasty slugfest with U.S. intelligence agencies as they portray him as a Russian tool and he blasts their attempt to delegitimize his election, says ex-British intelligence officer Annie Machon.Annie Machon Consortium NewsThe clash between plutocratic President-elect Trump and the CIA is shaping up to be the heavyweight prize fight of the century, and Trump at least is approaching it with all the entertaining bombast of Mohammed Ali at the top of his game. Rather than following the tradition of doing dirty political deals in dark corners, more commonly known as fixing the match, Trump has come out swinging in the full glare of the media.In that corner, we have a deal-making, billionaire man of the people who, to European sensibilities at least, reputedly espouses some of the madder domestic obsessions and yet has seemed to offer hope to many aggrieved Americans. But it is his professed position on building a rapprochement with Russia and cooperating with Moscow to sort out the Syrian mess that caught my attention and that of many other independent commentators internationally.In the opposite corner, Trump s opponents have pushed the CIA into the ring to deliver the knock-out blow, but this has yet to land. Despite jab after jab, Trump keeps evading the blows and comes rattling back against all odds. One has to admire the guy s footwork.So who are the opponents ranged behind the CIA, yelling encouragement through the ropes? The obvious culprits include the U.S. military-industrial complex, whose corporate bottom line relies on an era of unending war. As justification for extracting billions even trillions of dollars from American taxpayers, there was a need for frightening villains, such as Al Qaeda and even more so, the head choppers of ISIS. However, since the Russian intervention in Syria in 2015, those villains no longer packed as scary a punch, so a more enduring villain, like Emmanuel Goldstein, the principal enemy of the state in George Orwell s 1984, was required. Russia was the obvious new choice, the old favorite from the Cold War playbook.The Western intelligence agencies have a vested interest in eternal enemies to ensure both eternal funding and eternal power, hence the CIA s entry into the fight. As former British MP and long-time peace activist George Galloway so eloquently said in a recent interview, an unholy alliance is now being formed between the war party in the U.S., the military-industrial-intelligence complex and those who would have previously publicly spurned such accomplices: American progressives and their traditional host, the Democratic Party.Yet, if the Democratic National Committee had not done its best to rig the primaries in favor of Hillary Clinton, then perhaps we would not be in this position. Bernie Sanders would be the President-elect.Two-Party ShamThese establishment forces have also revealed to the wider world a fact long known but largely dismissed as conspiracy theory by the corporate mainstream media, that the two-party system in both the U.S. and the U.K. is a sham. In fact, we are governed by a globalized elite, working in its own interest while ignoring ours. The Democrats, openly disgruntled by Hillary Clinton s election loss and being seen to jump into bed so quickly with the spooks and the warmongers, have laid this reality bare.In fact, respected U.S. investigative journalist Robert Parry recently wrote that an intelligence contact told him before the election that the intelligence agencies did not like either of the presidential candidates. This may go some way to explaining the FBI s intervention in the run-up to the election against Hillary Clinton, as well as the CIA s attempts to de-legitimize Trump s victory afterwards.Whether that was indeed the case, the CIA has certainly held back no punches since Trump s election. First the evidence-lite assertion that it was the Russians who hacked the DNC emails and leaked them to WikiLeaks: then the fake news about Russia hacking the voting computers; that then morphed into the Russians hacked the election itself; then they hacked into the U.S. electric grid via a Vermont utility. All this without a shred of fact-based evidence provided, but Obama s expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats last month solidified this dubious reality in Americans minds.All this culminated in the dirty dossier allegations last week about Trump, which he has rightly knocked down it was desperately poor stuff.This last item, from a British perspective, is particularly concerning. It appears that a Washington dirt-digging company was hired by a Republican rival to Trump to unearth any potential Russian scandals during the primaries; once Trump had won the nomination this dirt-digging operation was taken over by a Democrat supporter of Hillary Clinton. The anti-Trump investigation was then sub-contracted to an alleged ex-British spy, an ex-MI6 man named Christopher Steele.The Role of MI6Much has already been written about Steele and the company, much of it contradictory as no doubt befits the life of a former spy. But it is a standard career trajectory for insiders to move on to corporate, mercenary spy companies, and this is what Steele appears to have done successfully in 2009. Of course, much is predicated on maintaining good working relations with your former employers.That is the aspect that interests me most how close a linkage did he indeed retain with his former employers after he left MI6 in 2009 to set up his own private spy company? The answer is important because companies such has his can also be used as cut-outs for plausible deniability by official state spies.I m not suggesting that happened in this case, but Steele reportedly remained on good terms with MI6 and was well thought of. For a man who had not been stationed in Russia for over 20 years, it would perhaps have been natural for him to turn to old chums for useful connections.But this question is of extreme importance at a critical juncture for the U.K.; if indeed MI6 was complicit or even aware of this dirt digging, as it seems to have been, then that is a huge diplomatic problem for the government s attempts to develop a strong working relationship with the US, post-Brexit. If MI6 s sticky fingers were on this case, then the organization has done the precise opposite of its official task to protect national security and the economic well-being of the UK. MI6 and its U.S. intelligence chums need to remember their designated and legislated roles within a democracy to serve the government and protect national security by gathering intelligence, assessing it impartially and making recommendations on which the government of the day will choose to act or not as the case may be.The spies are not there to fake intelligence to suit the agenda of a particular regime, as happened in the run-up to the illegal Iraq War, nor are they there to endemically spy on their own populations (and the rest of the world, as we know post-Snowden) in a pointless hunt for subversive activity, which often translates into legitimate political activism and acts of individual expression).And most especially the intelligence agencies should not be trying to subvert democratically elected governments. And yet this is what the CIA and a former senior MI6 officer, along with their powerful political allies, appear to be now attempting against Trump.Chances for PeaceIf I were an American, I would be wary of many of Trump s domestic policies. As a European concerned with greater peace rather than increasing war, I can only applaud his constructive approach towards Russia and his offer to cooperate with Moscow to stanch the bloodshed in the Middle East.That, of course, may be the nub of his fight with the CIA and other vested interests who want Russia as the new bogeyman. But I would bet that Trump takes the CIA s slurs personally. After all, given the ugliness of the accusations and the lack of proof, who would not?So, this is a world championship heavy-weight fight over who gets to hold office and wield power, an area where the U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies have considerable experience in rigging matches and knocking out opponents. Think, for instance, Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953; Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973; Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003; and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is wobbly but still standing, thanks to some good corner support from Russia Continue this story at Consortium News READ MORE ELECTIONS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
WATCH OUT! PUTIN FILLS THE LEADERSHIP VACUUM LEFT BY OBAMA IN THE MIDDLE EAST | Watch out America! Our President isn t looking out for America s best interests. Leaving a leadership vacuum in the middle east has allowed Putin to swoop in and fill it. President Obama has created an intentional leadership vacuum in the middle east.Intentional by design.The two most stable forces within the region, Egypt and Jordan, have been ignored by President Obama for several years. President Obama willingly allowing Turkey s Recep Erdogan free reign on what takes place inside Syria, while Erdogan simultaneously provides a safe-haven for the Muslim Brotherhood. The current events are not disconnected from this empirical truth.WASHINGTON Russia has sent a military advance team to Syria and is taking other steps the United States fears may signal that President Vladimir V. Putin is planning to vastly expand his military support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, administration officials said Friday.The Russian moves, including the recent transport of prefabricated housing units for hundreds of people to a Syrian airfield and the delivery of a portable air traffic control station there, are another complicating factor in Secretary of State John Kerry s repeated efforts to enlist Mr. Putin s support for a diplomatic solution to the bloody conflict in Syria.The Russians have also filed military overflight requests with neighboring countries through September.American officials acknowledge that they are not certain of Russia s intentions, but some say the temporary housing suggests that Russia could deploy as many as 1,000 advisers or other military personnel to the airfield near the Assad family s ancestral home. The airfield serves Latakia, Syria s principal port city.American intelligence analysts are also looking at ship loadings in Russia to determine what might be bound for Syria, and one official speculated that the Russian deployment might eventually grow to 2,000 to 3,000 personnel. There are some worrisome movements logistical, preparatory types of things, said an administration official, who added that there was no confirmation that large numbers of Russian soldiers, aircraft or heavy weapons had yet arrived. Officials asked for anonymity because they were discussing classified intelligence reports.Syria is one of Russia s major arms clients, and is also host to a Russian naval base at the port city Tartus. But the new concerns from intelligence analysts, as well as news and social media reports in the Middle East, led to warnings this week from the State Department and White House about Mr. Putin s intentions. We have regularly and repeatedly expressed our concern about Russian military support for the Assad regime, said John Kirby, the State Department spokesman. But we re also watching their actions very carefully. If these reports are borne out, it would represent a very serious shift in the trajectory of the Syria conflict and call into question any Russian commitment to a peaceful settlement. Mr. Kerry flew to Sochi, Russia, in May to meet with Mr. Putin to explore whether the two sides could cooperate on Syria. In August, Mr. Kerry followed up with an unusual three-way meeting in Qatar on the Syria crisis with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and their Saudi counterpart, Adel al-Jubeir.Stepped-up Russian military support for the Syrian government could pose a problem for the United States in several ways. If Mr. Putin s intention is to support not just the Syrian government but also Mr. Assad, that could undercut Mr. Kerry s contention that the Syrian president needs to leave power as part of any political solution to the conflict.And if Russian pilots carried out airstrikes, administration officials say, the choice of targets might further aggravate the growing chaos. Russian strikes on Islamic State militants could interfere with, or at least complicate, the air operations that the United States-led coalition is already conducting in Syria against the group. But if Russia targets rebel groups that are opposed to Mr. Assad, they might be striking some of the moderate Syrian fighters who have been trained by the C.I.A. and the Pentagon.Another possibility is that Russia is taking these steps to secure its own interests in the event that the Assad government collapses, reaches a power-sharing agreement with the opposition or is replaced. By expanding its military influence in Syria, Russia might be in a stronger position to shape the political outcome as the Assad government s military position weakens by encouraging it to share power with opposition members Moscow supports.READ MORE: NYTVIA: CONSERVATIVE TREEHOUSE | 1real |
Vietnam, China avoid quarrel over South China Sea during visit | (Reuters) - China and Vietnam avoided conflict over the South China Sea on Sunday when Chinese President Xi Jinping met Vietnam s General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump offered to mediate maritime disputes. Relations between Hanoi and Beijing have been particularly strained since July, when China put pressure on Vietnam to stop oil drilling in a disputed area in the South China Sea. Vietnam s state television said the Chinese president had told the Vietnamese leader he wanted to work with Southeast Asian nations on a code of conduct in the sea. China s Xinhua news agency said China and Vietnam had agreed to properly handle maritime issues and strive to maintain peace and stability. Reefs and islands in the South China Sea are disputed by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan as well as China and Vietnam. Since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has grown closer to China, Vietnam has emerged as China s main challenger in the area. China s move to pressure Vietnam to stop oil drilling in a disputed area in July brought relations between the Communist neighbours to a low. Xi and Trump both held bilateral meetings with Vietnamese officials in the wake of a summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in the Vietnamese city of Danang. Trump told Vietnam s President Tran Dai Quang that he was prepared to mediate between claimants to the South China Sea and said China s position was a problem. Trump and President Quang issued a joint statement underscoring the importance of free and open access to South China Sea, and saying parties should halt escalatory action. (This story has been refiled to fix reversed word order in paragraph one.) | 0fake |
FBI hints Iran now cooperating in hunt for missing former agent | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation hinted on Wednesday that authorities in Iran had recently been trying to help locate Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who disappeared exactly nine years ago after traveling to an Iranian resort island to meet a fugitive from U.S. justice. “We are encouraged by recent cooperation between the government of Iran and the United States, and believe that our ability to locate Bob and reunite him with his family requires a shared commitment by the Iranian government,” the FBI’s Washington Field Office said in a prepared statement. The statement quoted FBI Director James Comey saying that his agency was “doing everything in our power to investigate all leads.” The FBI statement did not elaborate further. The White House also said that finding Levinson “remains a top priority for the United States,” but added that the U.S. would “continue to call upon the Islamic Republic of Iran to provide assistance in his case, as agreed to as part of the prisoner exchange finalized earlier this year.” Five Americans were released by Iran in January to coincide with the lifting of economic sanctions in return for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program. The White House offered clemency to seven Iranians who were convicted or facing trial in the United States. Levinson’s family continued to urge the U.S. government to press Iran for his release. In a statement, Levinson’s wife, Christine, said: “We need the United States government and the country of Iran to work together to resolve what happened to Bob and return him safely to his family.” Levinson disappeared after flying from Dubai to Kish Island in the Gulf in March 2007. There he met with Daoud Salahuddin, an American Islamic militant who fled to Iran while facing charges in the murder of an Iranian embassy official based in Washington. Levinson, working then as a private investigator, was seeking information on alleged corruption involving former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his family, said sources familiar with his work. Months after he disappeared, U.S. government sources acknowledged that Levinson also maintained an unorthodox contractual relationship with the analytical branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. A handful of CIA officials were forced out of the agency and several more were disciplined after an internal agency investigation. The Iranian government has never publicly acknowledged any role in Levinson’s abduction, though at the time of his disappearance a government-affiliated media outlet broadcast a story saying he was “in the hands of Iranian security forces.” Some FBI investigators strongly believe Levinson is still alive, while officials at other U.S. agencies believe he died some time ago. | 0fake |
Merkel presses allies to cut funds for Turkey's EU bid | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European leaders agreed on Thursday to explore cuts in EU funds to Turkey that are linked to Ankara s stalled bid to join the bloc after German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed for action in response to what she described as unacceptable Turkish behavior on human rights. While praising Turkey for taking in Syrian refugees, Merkel stuck with the tougher tone she adopted during her reelection campaign last month, although she stopped short of calling for an outright end to Ankara s decade-long push to join the bloc. We asked the Commission to make recommendations on changing and reducing the pre-accession aid, Merkel told reporters after the first day of an EU summit. There is no majority for breaking off the talks immediately. On the other hand there is a great deal of scepticism about the current situation. I made the case tonight that we should seek dialogue with Turkey. Earlier she said that the rule of law in Turkey was moving in the wrong direction , in a reference to the large-scale purge that President Tayyip Erdogan has carried out following a failed coup attempt in July 2016. Other countries, including the Netherlands and Belgium, backed a diversion of the funds that EU candidate countries receive while they are in talks to join the bloc. Everyone knows that those negotiations are de facto frozen, are de facto almost dead, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel told a news conference. Launched in 2005 after decades of seeking the formal start of an EU membership bid, Ankara s membership negotiations were always sensitive for France and Germany because of Turkey s status as a large, mainly Muslim country. But the scope of Erdogan s response to last year s coup attempt, his detention of U.S. and European citizens including dual nationals, and his jibes at Germany and the Netherlands for what he has called Nazi-like behavior. Aside from money that the EU gives Turkey as part of its 2016 migration deal, Ankara is set to receive 4.4 billion euros from the EU between 2014 and 2020. Some northern countries say aid meant to help Turkey reform politically now makes no sense because Ankara has cracked down so dramatically after the failed coup. With 50,000 people jailed pending trial, including German-Turkish nationals, EU membership also looks more distant than ever, EU officials say. Turkey is set to receive almost 500 million euros next year for the EU s common budget and European governments are discussing how much to limit that while not hitting projects such as infrastructure and agriculture. The European Parliament has proposed reducing the transfer by 50 million euros next year, with another 30 million euros set aside for further cuts should the relationship with Turkey deteriorate even more. A vote is expected on Wednesday. Providing Turkey money for political reforms does not make sense given the situation, said Siegfried Muresan, a center-right EU lawmaker who is leading EU budget in the parliament. However, EU governments are divided, with Poland, Britain and Sweden maintaining their strong support for Turkey s EU membership and countries such as Austria demanding not just a freeze to accession funds but an end to membership talks. | 0fake |
UNIV Of GA PROFESSOR Allows Students To CHOOSE THEIR OWN GRADES To Help Alleviate Stress | A University of Georgia professor has adopted a stress reduction policy that will allow students to select their own grades if they feel unduly stressed by the ones they earned.According to online course syllabi for two of Dr. Richard Watson s fall business courses, he has introduced the policy because emotional reactions to stressful situations can have profound consequences for all involved. As such, if students feel unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course, they can email the instructor indicating what grade [they] think is appropriate, and it will be so changed with no explanation being required. If in a group meeting, you feel stressed by your group s dynamics, you should leave the meeting immediately and need offer no explanation to the group members, the policy adds, saying such students can discontinue all further group work with their remaining grade being based totally on non-group work. Similarly, when it comes to tests and exams for Watson s Data Management and Energy Informatics courses, all will be open book and open notes and designed to assess low level mastery of the course material (the Stress Reduction section has been removed from both syllabi, but an archived version of the Data Management syllabus has been provided here).Finally, for in-class presentations, Watson will allow only positive comments to be made, while comments designed to improve future presentations will be communicated by email. For entire story: Campus ReformPerhaps someone should give the good professor a ticket to Afghanistan so he can spend time with some of our young, brave, college-age troops who don t get to chose their next assignment because it might be too stressful for them.Parents of these students need to start speaking up. We are raising a generation of marshmallows who will have no idea how to handle stress in real life situations. We as a nation, will have no one to blame but ourselves for raising an entire generation of coddled snowflakes with absolutely no coping skills. | 1real |
Culchie Tries To Explain Rules Of 25 One More Time | 0 Add Comment
RATHER than relax and play Texas Hold ‘Em with his friends as they had a few cans after a recent night out, hardcore culchie Noel Kennelan desperatley attempted to explain the impenetrable rules of the card game ’25’, which he claims is ‘way better than poker, hi’.
25, also known as ‘that culchie game’, involves the dealing of 5 cards to each player and the reveal of a trump card, followed by at least 10 minutes of explaining how the 2 of spades can beat the 9 of diamonds if spades were lead with, and diamonds aren’t trump.
Kennelan, 28, made great efforts to explain to the 6 other men around the table of his Dublin flat the baffling rules of ‘stealing’ and ‘reneging’, but in the end had to concede that the game was too complex and the players were too drunk to fully wrap their heads around it.
“After the nightclub, back to the house, few cans, the cards come out,” said Kennelan, dealing himself a solemn hand of Patience.
“The lads all play poker, but 25 is where it’s at. Way more skill, you can win a hand with nothing if you play it right. But the lads just couldn’t get to grips with the fingers”.
Kennelan later went online to see if there were any culchies in the area who were looking to play 25, and is considering setting up a club or something where they can go and drink Smithwicks and play cards and complain about Dublin. | 1real |
Hillary has a question about Michelle Obama; Can you help her out? | — Jim Kearney (@JimboDKearney) October 27, 2016
As Twitchy told you , Hillary Clinton is so popular and beloved and popular that at her rally today, she turned the stage over to Michelle Obama. Now, you may wonder why Hillary would be giving Michelle the spotlight at her own rally, but as it turns out, there’s a very simple explanation: Michelle Obama is just so gosh-darn inspiring! “Seriously, is there anyone more inspiring than Michelle Obama?” —Hillary
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 27, 2016
Seriously, you guys. I get liking Michelle Obama, even admiring her. But the notion she's off the charts inspiring is lost on me. https://t.co/TdGvODBQUu
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) October 27, 2016
Don’t worry — it’s lost on a lot of other people, too: @JonahNRO @bennyjohnson can we honestly ask why she's inspiring at all? What has she done that my wife couldn't have given FLOTUS assets?
— Todd Lemmon (@toddlemmon) October 27, 2016 . @JonahNRO Michelle being the "most inspiring person ever" is like Clinton being the "most qualified candidate ever"
— Andrew Chouinard (@alchouin) October 27, 2016
Did someone wipe Hillary’s memory clean? Like, with a cloth? @JonahNRO @bennyjohnson the bar has been set really low this year
— John Allen (@JohnTAllen) October 27, 2016
OK, fair enough. But still. It’s not very hard to come up with a list of people more inspiring than Michelle Obama. @HillaryClinton yeah … how about the troops? | 1real |
Obama says transgender bathroom directive based on law | ELKHART, Ind. (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Wednesday the decision to direct public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice was based on the law and the best interests of the children. Speaking at a town hall event broadcast by the PBS television network, Obama, a Democrat, said the federal government waded into the controversial issue after school districts asked the Education Department for guidance. Republicans have blasted the directive as executive branch overreach, and more than a dozen states have sued the Obama administration to block it. “What happened and what continues to happen is you have transgender kids in schools. And they get bullied. And they get ostracized. And it’s tough for them,” Obama said. “My best interpretation of what our laws and our obligations are is that we should try to accommodate these kids so that they are not in a vulnerable situation,” he said. On May 13, the federal government told public schools they must allow transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. The non-binding guidance contained the implicit threat of cuts in federal funding if it was not followed. It relied on an interpretation of Title IX, which protects people from discrimination based on sex in education initiatives that receive federal financial assistance. The directive came as the Justice Department and North Carolina battled in federal court over a North Carolina state law approved in March that prohibits people from using public restrooms not corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates. Other states are weighing similar measures. “We should deal with this issue the same way we would want it dealt with if it was our child and that is to try to create an environment of some dignity and kindness for these kids,” Obama said. Obama said there “are a lot of things more pressing” than the transgender bathroom controversy, including Islamic State, the economy and jobs. “Somehow people think I made it an issue. I didn’t make it an issue,” he said. | 0fake |
The Eurasian Economic Union – a New Power in the Asia-Pacific Region | New Eastern Outlook | Region: Asian-Pacific region The Free Trade Zone Agreement between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) came into effect on October 5, 2016. It was signed by the heads of the governments of the SRV and all the EAEU Member States – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Russia in May 2015, but it could only come into effect after its ratification by the Parliaments of the countries listed above. The EAEU has been trading actively with Vietnam for many years. Over the period from 2010 to 2014, the trade volume increased by more than 60%, exceeding $4 billion. The establishment of the free trade zone is a logical step in this cooperation. According to the Eurasian Commission’s forecasts, it may lead to more than a twofold growth in trade turnover by 2020, and Russia will enjoy no less than 80% thereof. The total population of the EAEU is 183 million people and the total GDP exceeds $2 trillion. Privileged access to such an extensive market is surely a boon to Vietnam’s economy. The EAEU also stands to make gains: SRV’s population exceeds 95 million people and its GDP amounts to $192 billion. According to data gathered in recent years, the country’s economy is rapidly developing. Thus, the Free Trade Zone Agreement is advantageous for both parties. According to the document, most goods from both the SRV and the EAEU are subject to complete or partial exemption from import duty for the next ten years. This should lead to a reduction in their cost and rapid trade development. In addition, the Agreement also focuses on intellectual property protection, cooperation in e-commerce and in public procurement. It also covers competition protection. Alongside imports and exports, the Free Trade Zone Agreement will facilitate mutual investment. Vietnam’s leadership sees a lot of potential in the trade partnership with both the EAEU and Russia in particular. According to data as of 2016, Russian-Vietnamese trade turnover amounted to $3.7 billion. Owing to the establishment of Free Trade Zone, it is expected to exceed $10 billion by 2020. Alongside the provisions that are common to all the Members States, the Free Trade Zone Agreement primarily included sections related only to the SRV and Russia. They specify additional terms and conditions, which facilitate trade, investment, and the movement of individuals between the two countries. After the Agreement was signed, the Russian-Vietnamese “Intergovernmental Protocol on supporting motor vehicle production in the territory of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” came into effect. This document was signed in March 2016 by Vietnam’s Minister of Industry and Trade Vũ Huy Hoàng during a visit to Russia. D. Manturov, the Russian Minister of Industry and Trade, signed the Protocol on behalf of Russia. According to the document, joint ventures will be established in the SRV between Vietnamese firms and Russian companies such as the GAZ Group, KamAZ, Sollers, which will produce various types of automotive vehicles. Concluding the Free Trade Zone Agreement with Vietnam is beneficial to the EAEU and Russia in particular. However, its significance is greater than simply gaining a good trade partner. It may be posited that the Russian economy has reached a new level: Russia has not had such agreements with countries outside the former Soviet Union before. Furthermore, this is the beginning of the large-scale promotion of the EAEU and Russia in the Asia-Pacific Region. Since the EAEU’s inception in 2015, it has been trying to establish trade relations with countries in the Asia-Pacific Region. It is well-known that Vietnam is an important member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which unites a number of states in the Asia-Pacific Region. It is quite probable that the free trade zone with Vietnam is a step towards establishing free trade zone will all other Member States of the ASEAN. Many ASEAN Members are favourably disposed towards this idea. Negotiations are being held with Indonesia, the Kingdom of Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Furthermore, the possibility of establishing free trade zones with non-ASEAN states in the Asia-Pacific Region, such as India, China, and New Zealand is under consideration. Thus, it can be said that the EAEU’s position in the Asia-Pacific Region is gradually strengthening. This was also confirmed by Mongolia’s statement in November 2016 on its desire to join the EAEU. At first glance, it may seem that the EAEU’s presence in the Asia-Pacific Region will lead to the competition with China, now one of the major players in the region amid the weakening position of the USA. In fact, the growing influence of the EAEU is more profitable for China. It is well known that the opposition between China and the USA currently dominates the Asia-Pacific Region. America’s economic and political influence in the region has weakened considerably in recent years, but it is still great. America is trying to maintain its power as much as it can and win over as many countries as possible. For example, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was signed in February 2016. The TPP includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the USA, and Vietnam. All these states are united by a free trade zone and a number of common rules. It is undoubtedly difficult to compete with such a union as about 30% of global trade is undertaken by TPP Member States. Moreover, negotiations are under way regarding the creation of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). The USA hopes to attract the European Union’s involvement. The probability that these negotiations will be successful is small: the project is too disadvantageous for Europe. However, if this happens, major and rich unions may appear on both sides of Eurasia, which will account for about 80% of the global trade. What’s more, the USA will control each of them. Therefore, the TPP and T-TIP member states may considerably reduce the trade volume with the rest of the world, including the People’s Republic of China, which is currently the largest trade partner for most of them. In addition, one of China’s major projects, which it is laying high hopes – the New Silk Road – will be exposed to risk. It should connect Europe and Asia and become a free trade zone itself in the future. This scenario is surely unacceptable for both China and many other countries in Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific Region. In order to successfully compete with the TPP and T-TIP, the EAEU states and the states of the Asia-Pacific Region should put great effort into mutual integration. This integration would allow Russia, China, India, ASEAN and Central Asia to be more confident in the face of competition. However, many states that do not wish to cooperate with the USA have fears about a powerful and expansive China. This is an obstacle to regional unification. Perhaps, the emergence of a third power, such as the EAEU, will be a solution to the situation and will help establish a successful partnership. Dmitry Bokarev, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook. ”
| 1real |
Ellen Hilariously Goes Off On Those Telling Hillary To Smile, And It’s Beyond Perfect (VIDEO) | One thing you don t ever want to do is tell a woman to smile more. It s become this thing where people feel they are entitled to tell a woman how she should or should not behave or appear. As if a woman does this one thing, she ll appear more likable or more genuine or more pretty. Here s the thing no one is telling men to smile more, because when men don t smile they re being serious and responsible and down to business. God forbid it be the same thing for a woman.Pointing out this hypocrisy perfectly was none other than Ellen DeGeneres on her show. She said: She gave a very passioninate speech, and then someone, I don t want to say it was a man, because it was a bunch of men they said that Hillary needs to smile more Here s something you should never tell a woman smile, relax, calm down, or drink less. It s then brought up that no one is telling the male candidates to smile. Ellen then shows photos of all the men still running for office (sans Kasich). She also points out that it s lose-lose for women, because at the same time they re being told to smile more, they re told to wipe the smile off their face because they may look crazy. Meanwhile, the men can pretty much do as they please.Ellen said: I know Hillary, and I know there are plenty of things that make her smile like her daughter, her granddaughter, when there s a sale on pantsuits I m not against smiling. I think we should all do it more women, men, cats, Clint Eastwood But we should do it on our own terms. Which is exactly right. Telling a woman that they should smile is telling a woman what they should be doing with their body and image, and that s pretty much the epitome of misogyny. If you don t think it s sexist that likely says more about you than it does about anything else.Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Strikes kill 19 in rebel village in Syria's Idlib: Observatory, rescue service | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Air strikes killed 19 people in a village in Syria s rebel stronghold of Idlib overnight, a rescue service there and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday. The strikes pounded Maar Shureen in the northwestern Idlib province and injured 25 other people, the Britain-based Observatory said. The dead included seven children, it said. The war monitoring group added that Syrian government or Russian aircraft had struck the village. Russia s Defence Ministry denied involvement, saying in a statement carried by RIA news agency that its jets had not flown in that area. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military, which says it only targets militants. Idlib s civil defense, a rescue service known as the White Helmets which operates in rebel territory, said on social media that fierce bombing killed 19 people overnight. There were two consecutive strikes...The second strike came shortly before rescue teams arrived, Mustafa Youssef, who heads the Idlib civil defense, said. The Damascus government lost Idlib after insurgents took over the provincial capital in 2015. It has since become the only province fully under opposition control, and the most populated insurgent-held part of Syria. Hayat Tahrir al Sham, the Islamist alliance spearheaded by the former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, is the dominant rebel force in Idlib. This has raised fears among some civilians and other rebel factions that the province could come under attack and turn into a major battlefield. Thousands of civilians and fighters have poured into Idlib in the past year, bussed out of towns and cities which Syrian troops seized with the help of Russia and Iran-backed militias. Government forces and their allies stepped up air strikes against opposition towns in the Hama countryside and the southern part of Idlib, rebels said last week. The province, bordering Turkey, is part of Russian-brokered de-escalation agreements that seek to shore up ceasefires in parts of western Syria. Turkey, which had long backed some Syrian rebel factions, set up observation posts in Idlib in October under a deal with Russia and Iran to reduce fighting there. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said the military operation in Idlib was largely completed. The deployment was also seen partly aimed at containing Kurdish influence nearby in northern Syria. | 0fake |
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