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U.N. rights boss urges Mexico not to enshrine army's role | GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights boss called on Mexico s Senate on Tuesday not to adopt a proposed law on internal security, saying it would enshrine the role of the military in law enforcement at a time when a stronger police force was needed. Zeid Ra ad al-Hussein, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that more than a decade after the armed forces were deployed in the war on drugs , violence had not abated and extrajudicial killings, torture and disappearances continue to be committed by various state and non-state actors . In a statement recognizing Mexico s huge security challenge and violence sown by powerful organized crime groups, Zeid said: Adopting a new legal framework to regulate the operations of the armed forces in internal security is not the answer. The current draft law risks weakening incentives for the civilian authorities to fully assume their law enforcement roles. | 0fake |
Singer Kaya Jones Shares Support for Trump, Thanks Joy Villa for ’Strength’ | Singer and DJ Kaya Jones took to social media this week to show off a Donald Trump she was “never able to wear” before for fear of being attacked, and thanked fellow singer Joy Villa for giving her the strength to openly share her support for the president. [In an Instagram post, the singer expressed her gratitude to Villa, who made headlines this week when she wore a dress emblazoned with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan to the Grammys. The shirt I never was able to wear in fear of being attacked. My friends @joyvilla @officialandresoriano changed that for me and 60 million other Americans at the #Grammys. Thank you! Stand up for what you believe in! In the name of love ❤🇺🇸❤#happyvalentinesday In honor of your strength you’ve given me the strength to say let’s change the narrative! #unitedwestand #bringjoytothewhitehouse #trump #maga #makeamericagreatagain #andresoriano #joyvilla #kaya #wearemorethenone, A post shared by KAYA — THE EDM PRINCESS (@kayajones) on Feb 14, 2017 at 9:32am PST, “In honor of your strength, you’ve given me the strength to say let’s change the narrative!” Jones captioned the photo. Jones, a former member of the pop group The Pussycat Dolls, later posted a photograph of her smiling alongside Villa at the Grammys. “There’s many of us in Hollywood that voted for @realDonaldTrump,” she wrote. “I’m just proud to stand by my friend and have her stand by me. ” There’s many of us in Hollywood that voted for @realDonaldTrump I’m just proud to stand by my friend have her stand by me. @Joy_Villa ❤🇺🇸❤ pic. twitter. — KAYA (@KayaJones) February 16, 2017, Jones’s initial photograph went viral on Reddit and supporters quickly flooded the singer’s Twitter account with positive messages, including to say they had purchased her latest album, The Chrystal Neria Album. Others expressed hope that more conservative artists might be inspired to share their beliefs. @KayaJones Hopefully what you and Joy bravely did will cause more Hollywood Conservatives to come out of the cloest. God Bless and Good luck, — Proud Conservative (@BeardyMcJ) February 18, 2017, @KayaJones purchased! !! ❤️ pic. twitter. — Kyra Reyer (@ReyerKyra) February 18, 2017, More of this bravery please. It’s obviously not easy in their climate, but the country needs it badly. @KayaJones @Joy_Villa https: . — Kevin D Jones (@Kevin_D_Jones) February 18, 2017, @KayaJones @iTunes @KayaJones @iTunes we gonna shoot u to the top of iTunes. Be patient 😉 — ՏLіӍ ӉѦԀЄՏ (@BoominTm) February 18, 2017, After her appearance this week, Joy Villa’s 2014 album I Make the Static shot up the Amazon and iTunes sales charts, overtaking albums from artists like Lady Gaga and Beyoncé. In an interview with Breitbart News after the show, Villa said she wore the dress in an attempt to “bring us together and start a dialogue. ” “Like hey, maybe if she is proud of what she believes in maybe I can leave her alone. Maybe I can leave my friend alone. Maybe I can leave my brother alone. Maybe I can actually still love them even though they disagree with my politics. That’s what we need. A little bit of tolerance,” Villa said. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 0fake |
OBAMA READY TO DO BATTLE With America: Will “aggressively defend” Bringing Muslim Refugees To U.S. | Thanks to the funding our GOP majority Congress approved at the end of the year, Obama plans to actually increase the number of refugees (Muslims) he will bring to the US. To hell with our national security. It s all about the votes White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on Wednesday said that the Obama administration is prepared to aggressively defend the United States plans to accept refugees from Syria as some American lawmakers demand that the government apply stricter background checks to refugees from Syria and Iraq.When asked at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington, D.C. how the administration will address some lawmakers calls for the government to apply greater scrutiny to certain refugees entering the country, McDonough said that the administration sees the resettlement of Syrian refugees as a priority and also as a policy it will have to defend. My hunch is that it will continue to be controversial, for the reasons the President pointed out in the speech last night, McDonough said.He said that the administration will continue to make the point that accepting refugees adds immeasurably to the national interest and is prepared to put up a fight against those who oppose current policies. We re going to get out there and aggressively defend that, he said. That will be tough to beat, as it was last year, McDonough said of the administration s focus on accepting refugees. And we ll see how it goes. But we won t shy from it. The chief of staff also said that the administration plans to expand the number of refugees the U.S. accepts overall and that he believes the budget passed by Congress allows them to do so.Via: TPM | 1real |
Argentina judges seek detention of Fernandez ally | BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Three Argentine judges ordered that a key official in former President Cristina Fernandez s government be detained on Tuesday as part of a probe into an alleged case of fraud. The request to detain former planning minister and current lawmaker Julio De Vido comes five days before the country s parliamentary elections in which Fernandez is seeking a Senate seat. De Vido, who as planning minister was in charge of running energy infrastructure projects, is under investigation in a case involving the Patagonian coal mine Rio Turbio, which prosecutors say is underproducing despite receiving multi-million dollar investments from the state. Reuters was not able to reach De Vido for comment. In July, he gave an interview to a radio station in which he denied any wrongdoing in the case. In an official ruling, the judges said De Vido should be jailed because of the risk of him fleeing or interfering with the case. His imprisonment is the only viable alternative for ensuring the success of the investigation, the ruling said. De Vido cannot be arrested unless Congress agrees to strip him of his parliamentary immunity. Past efforts to strip lawmakers of parliamentary immunity have mostly proved futile in Argentina. Fernandez, who governed the country from 2007 to 2015, remains the main force of opposition to center-right President Mauricio Macri. Polls show her coming a close second ahead of an Oct. 22 Senate race in Argentina s largest province of Buenos Aires, behind Macri s preferred candidate. That result would still guarantee her a Senate seat and immunity from arrest, but is seen lessening her chances of making a new run for the presidency in 2019. The former president s time in office has been peppered with corruption accusations, some of which have involved De Vido. Fernandez, the subject of corruption investigations herself, has acknowledged there was likely corruption during her government but denies personal involvement. | 0fake |
London Gets More N.F.L. Games. Too Bad About the Teams. - The New York Times | Hey, London! You love American football? Well, great news, we’re sending you the Browns! Don’t worry, you’ll be getting the Jaguars and the Rams, too. The N. F. L. announced on Tuesday the teams that will be heading to London next season for a record four games. The matchups are, well, not great. In Weeks 3 and 4, Wembley Stadium, the spiritual home of soccer, will get and . In Weeks 7 and 8, Twickenham, rugby’s iconic stadium, will get and . Fans in Britain have shown little discernment over the N. F. L. fare served up to them over the years, generally selling out every game in no time. Perhaps that explains why the league isn’t bothering to send over Tom Brady or Dak Prescott next season. This lineup will test even the most enthusiastic Briton’s patience. The Jaguars have become a virtual home team for London, and they will play a game there for the fifth consecutive season. That may be in part because they have not had a winning record since 2007. At they are staggering to another disastrous year. The Jaguars have been rumored to be the team most likely to move to London if the N. F. L. decides to put a franchise there. Their opponents, the Ravens, at least have a winning record. But after losing to the Patriots on Monday night, the Ravens are uncertain for a playoff spot. Next fall is a long way away, but right now this quarterback matchup would be Blake Bortles vs. Joe Flacco. Perhaps the most unpredictable game on the London schedule is . After a run of mediocrity, the Dolphins have sprung to life this year at although the playoffs are by no means secured. The Saints, expected by many to bounce back this year, are a sad . There is no telling what these teams will be like come September. The Cardinals have been one of the season’s biggest disappointments, slipping from Super Bowl contenders to afterthoughts. Carson Palmer will be 37 next season, so it is hard to see a huge improvement. But at least they are not the Rams: in their new home, Los Angeles, having just fired their coach, Jeff Fisher. And, of course, the Browns. On pace to be the second team in N. F. L. history, they are perhaps the worst advertisement possible for the American game. The Vikings, their opponent, are but two games behind the Lions — the Lions! — and looking at a season as well. The N. F. L. points out that after the coming season, 26 of its teams will have played in London since the games began in 2007. That does include the Patriots, twice, including a game in 2012, a year after they were in the Super Bowl. This year’s schedule included the Redskins, coming off a playoff season, and the Giants, a strong possibility for this year’s playoffs. The teams that have not played in London include some of the league’s most popular: the Seahawks, the Packers and the Eagles. The Panthers, the Texans and the Titans have also not made the trip. The N. F. L. must deal with television networks, who prefer that the good teams play at good hours, not early in the morning on United States time. And popular teams that pack their stadiums are reluctant to give up home games. Teams with less devoted fan bases are happy to do so because they make more money selling tickets in London. With eight slots to fill next season, the league has not rolled out its best, to say the least. At some point, football, because it is football, will lose its sheen for fans in Britain. They may start demanding better matchups, or even a team of their own. Until then, we may not see much meaningful football in London. | 0fake |
If This Missouri Senate Candidate Is For Real, He’s A Real Subhuman Scumbag | Add this name to the list of people you ve never heard of, but are about to: Courtland Sykes.The Missouri Republican is a Navy Veteran, an impossibly good looking model-type, and a misogynist pig who s stuck in the early 1950 s. He s also running for the United States Senate in an uphill challenge against Democrat Claire McCaskill.The problem is, since he announced his run at the Senate, nobody s sat him down for an interview. He has, however, released a headshot to reporters, along with an interview-style, 11-page document that outlines some of his positions:He also addressed whether he favored women s rights, in a way that beggars belief: Chanel (Rion), my fiancee, has given me orders to favor these rights, so I d better. But Chanel knows that my obedience comes with a small price that she loves to pay anyway I want to come home to a home-cooked dinner at six every night, one that she fixes.It s exactly the kind of family dinner that I expect one day my future daughters will learn to make after they too become traditional homemakers and family wives think Norman Rockwell here and Gloria Steinham be damned. Now, I m not sure if Sykes is aware of Rockwell s liberalism after he began seeing a psychotherapist for his severe depression (likely brought on by the fact that his art was hijacked by Cold War politics), but he should probably check out some of Norman s later work before he starts citing him as an influence, la Saturday Evening Post.That headshot, though:Oh, I ve already Google reverse image-searched it. I ve been through his whole Facebook profile, and it appears to be legit. He even has pictures with his mom from when he was younger.It s not that I don t believe that Courtland Sykes is a real person. I just have a hard time believing this guy is for real.Featured image via Facebook | 1real |
Donald Trump’s Remarks Show He’s Mistaken on Sexual Assault in Military - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Sexual assault in the military has plagued the Pentagon in recent years as a series of cases, and new data, revealed the extent of the problem. In response, President Obama and members of Congress demanded that military officials more aggressively address the threat and its causes. Yet few military experts went as far as Donald J. Trump did Wednesday, when he suggested that the integration of women into the armed forces was an underlying cause of sexual assault. Speaking at a candidates’ forum, Mr. Trump defended one of his Twitter posts from 2013 concerning the high number of sexual assaults in the military, and said that he had been “absolutely correct” in posting a message that said, “What did these geniuses expect when they put men women together?” The remarks drew criticism on Thursday from lawmakers and military experts, who said Mr. Trump had displayed ignorance of the Pentagon’s struggle to curb such assaults and the military justice system that is in place to prosecute them. “That’s more than victim blaming, and it misunderstands the historical role of women in the military,” said retired Col. Don Christensen, a former chief prosecutor of the Air Force. American women in the military have taken on expanded roles in recent years as the Pentagon has integrated them into more combat positions. But they have worked alongside servicemen since the Revolutionary War, and in significant numbers since World War II, something Mr. Trump did not acknowledge. Their roles have grown over the centuries from nurses, cooks and seamstresses, who maintained the camps of the Continental Army, to fighter pilots, soldiers, sailors and Marines who are battling the Islamic State in the Middle East and Afghanistan. “We couldn’t run a military without women,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He noted that an argument that the proximity of women was to blame for sexual assault could be applied to women on college campuses and in workplaces, where they are also assaulted. “Quite frankly, it’s absurd,” he said. As the Pentagon has released more detailed records on the problem, the statistics reveal that sexual assault in the military is not just a problem faced by women. In 2014, the latest numbers available, the Pentagon estimated that 20, 300 servicemen and servicewomen were assaulted that year. “Over half the victims are men,” said Colonel Christensen, who is now the president of Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group. Of the estimated 20, 300 attacks in 2014 recorded by the Pentagon, roughly 10, 600 of the victims were men, though women faced a higher rate of assault given their lower overall numbers in the armed forces. Mr. Trump’s proposed solution of creating a military justice system to deal with sexual assault also puzzled national security experts. A military justice system has been in place in some form since the 1774 British Articles of War. It is an essential and distinct part of the military. “George Washington beat him to it!” said Mr. Graham, who has worked as a military lawyer. That system and its laws, known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, have in fact been at the center of a protracted battle in Congress over its role in adjudicating such crimes. One solution was first proposed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York. She has pressed for a measure, opposed by top Pentagon leaders, that would take sexual assault cases outside the military chain of command and give military prosecutors the power to decide which cases to try, rather than keeping that authority with the accuser’s own commander, as is the policy now. Ms. Gillibrand’s logic — and that of her supporters, including a number of victims’ groups — is that more men and women in the military would come forward to report crimes if they did not fear retaliation by those supervising them. The Pentagon’s newest statistics also showed that a majority of victims did not report attacks. The Defense Department said that in 2014, only 6, 131 — under — of attacks were reported. The 2014 statistics, which were based on a study conducted for the Pentagon by the RAND Corporation, a think tank, found that 62 percent of women who reported sexual assault said they had faced retaliation for doing so. The study, released in May 2015 and endorsed by the Pentagon, offered no comparable statistic for men. Ms. Gillibrand’s efforts have been rebuffed in favor of more modest measures, including those written by Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, that stripped commanders of their ability to overturn jury verdicts and mandated dishonorable discharge or dismissal for anyone convicted of sexual assault. Other recent legislation guarantees that every sexual assault victim in the military receives an independent lawyer, known as a special victims’ counsel, and assures a civilian review of any case in which a commander overrules a prosecutor seeking to an accused offender. “Donald Trump displayed a stunning lack of knowledge about how the military justice system works, the nature of sexual assault in the military or the dozens of systemic reforms that Congress has made to curb such crimes,” Ms. McCaskill said on Thursday. Mr. Trump, pressed on Wednesday about whether his 2013 Twitter post was meant to suggest that women should not serve, said the solution was “not to kick them out. ” “Right now, part of the problem is nobody gets prosecuted,” he said. “You have the report of rape, and nobody gets prosecuted. ” Mr. Trump’s remarks on sexual assault in the military, like so many he has made on other topics, became instant campaign fodder. Matt Heinz, who is challenging Representative Martha E. McSally, Republican of Arizona and a former Air Force combat pilot, issued a news release on Thursday morning that said, “Voters deserve to know if McSally will stick to her principles and denounce Donald Trump and his campaign. ” | 0fake |
France REJECTS Far-Right Fascist In LANDSLIDE Victory For Democracy (DETAILS) | All over the western world, we have seen a wave of nationalistic, xenophobic fascism take hold in the last year or so. It is what gave Great Britain its exit from the European Union, or Brexit. It is also what gave the United States Donald Trump. However, as the rest of Europe sees the results and suffering of these tragic mistakes, the tide is turning away from fascistic nationalism and back toward democracy. The Netherlands rejected Geert Wilders, a staunchly nationalistic, far-right candidate who wanted to ban Islam outright from The Netherlands, and who was also endorsed by U.S. Congressman Steve King (R-IA), he of the infamous somebody else s babies tweet. The same happened in Austria, where the voters there rejected another right-wing nut. Now, France has become the latest to prove that democracy trumps fascism, as their voters rejoice in the election of centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron over far-right, anti-immigrant lunatic Marine Le Pen.This was no squeaker, either. This was firm rejection of Le Pen s fascistic, bigoted rhetoric and anti-immigrant, nationalistic policies. Macron won with 65% of the French vote, and will hopefully now go quietly into the night now that the she can clearly see that the French people did not want her craziness to become law.There is another side to this, though. Perhaps the French people are seeing what the change election has done to us here in America? After all, Marine Le Pen has often been referred to as the French Donald Trump. Hell, Le Pen herself has admitted that Trump s election here in America has given her legitimacy, and she was spotted at Trump Tower in New York City earlier this year. Therefore it should come as no surprise that Trump endorsed her candidacy. They are two of a kind.However, Le Pen s sound defeat should give us all hope. As Trump s disastrous presidency unfolds and his failures mount, perhaps America will come to her senses in 2020 if we happen to survive this, and reject this nationalism and xenophobia. It s the only sensible thing to do.Featured image via video screen capture from Twitter | 1real |
Remember Why Your Soul Chose This Life | Leave a reply “Love Sun & Mother Earth” – photographer Makiko
Juliet Tang – Prior to birth, just like an artist who is selecting which paints will go onto the blank canvas, our souls choose a set of colors to work with which determine our parents, ethnicity, country of birth, etc. We also choose a number of possible paths that would allow us to experience certain aspects of our being. For instance, if courage is one of those aspects of ourselves we wish to experience, we would collaborate with other souls in this physical realm so circumstances would arise in our lives where we are required to invoke courage within us. Likewise, we choose a certain mission, or a calling that would allow us to maximize our full potentials on this live stage called earth.
In order to fully step into our calling with power and consciousness, we must first elect to forget what it is at birth so we may, after years and decades, and for some, lifetimes of soul searching, arrive at a point in our lives where we must make a choice to remember who we truly are and deliberately call forth what gives us highest joy.
Personally, I see the long years of painful searching as nothing more than a rite of passage with intended experiences and divinely placed circumstances that fully prepares us to be who we came here to be. The second we reunite with our soul’s calling, the universe registers our seriousness and we come to the realization that nothing can and will stand in our way.
At that moment, all fears and obstacles begin fading as the path unfolds in front of us. At that moment, we will move mountains and cross oceans just so that we can become one with our highest intention and commit to our divine mission. At that moment, our body, mind and soul become aligned with one single purpose – to experience ourselves as our own grandest creation in this life.
Funny enough, once we remember our mission, we often realize the mission has very little to do with us and everything to do with everyone else. It is a mission that allows us to serve humanity and to light the paths for others through servicing, healing, inspiring, teaching and empowering.
It is no coincidence that for many, in order to remember that mission, we must first experience the pains and turmoil in life so we may later not only decide to transcend what limits us, but also use our life journey as a tool to inspire and encourage others to do the same. Some of the most influential teachers from Hay House such as Louise Hay, Anita Moorjani and the late Wayne Dyer are but a few who had journeyed to the darkness and back so they may light the way for others.
Know that wherever you are in life is exactly where you need to be . You are not bound to any fate and you have the power to change and create anything in life. It is my hope that by sharing the following 3 reminders that are embedded in your soul blueprint, you will begin manifesting your calling. You came here with something to do. You are part of a universal consciousness, and there are no accidents in it. In your true essence—not the false self, not the ego part of you, but in the true essence of who you are—you are infinite and you have something very profound to accomplish while you’re here. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Find it. Pay attention to it. Listen to the callings. See the clues, the cues. See the alignments, whatever they might be, no matter how absurd or bizarre they might seem to everyone around you…if you have a calling inside that says there’s also something else, don’t ignore that. Don’t die with your music still in you. Don’t die with your purpose unfulfilled. Don’t die feeling as if your life has been wrong. Don’t let that happen to you. ~ Wayne Dyer Identify Your Highest Joy
As beings of energy, we ourselves are literally the creation tools we are born with and our feeling is the direct line of communication with our soul, or the higher self. At any time when our thoughts, words and actions are aligned with the soul’s vision, we know it immediately by the way we feel which is usually identified as harmony, inner-peace, joy, gratitude and love.
Whenever we feel good, our vibration is instantly higher which easily leads to inspired action; and by committing ourselves to inspired action, it leads to more joy which expands the breeding ground of inspired action. The more we can get in touch with the “feel good” component within ourselves and listen to it, the easier it will be for us to define our mission in life.
For the longest time, I had not a clue what my calling was and I spent the majority of my time complaining and wishing I could do something else with my life while holding onto the belief that a job and a passion are mutually exclusive. I did have many passions and since I felt miserable with my job, I indulged myself with activities I enjoyed whenever I had free time. Being a spiritual seeker since birth, one of my passions was alternative healing. For many years, I heard and read about Reiki and there was always that little voice in the back of my head whispering, “Take a Reiki class.” Like many, I brushed aside the little voice with as many excuses as I could find but eventually, the voice became so persistent that I decided to just go for it.
As someone who was also obsessed with doing the due diligence for everything I stepped into, I spent hours researching for an experienced teacher. I already signed up for a course elsewhere when the name of my first Reiki teacher popped up in my search, and for reasons unknown to me at the time, I made a last minute decision to go with this class.
During the two days of training, I met someone whom I became friends with. Fast forward to years later, we currently share an office space doing healing work in Midtown Manhattan. Within the same year after the initial training, the same friend introduced me to another Reiki teacher who is the very reason why I eventually became a recovery and wellness coach as well as Reiki master. During those years, every time when I was guided by inspiration , life rewarded me with more people, events and circumstances that helped me remember my true essence and carry out my mission.
Do not despair if you do not yet remember what you came here to be. Your only duty in this life is to follow your highest joy. Believe me, it is much more than just a cliché line that we use as a bumper sticker.
Once we follow the first inspired idea, we are sending out the energy with the intention of “I am my highest joy at this given moment” into the universe which slowly intensifies and magnifies as we become more accustomed to singing our heart’s song. What has started as a seed is given more opportunities to grow and flourish every time when we follow our highest feelings because the energy behind that intention is literally snowballing and creating more and more movement in the quantum field in bringing us what make us happy.
What inspires you? What makes your heart sing? What’s that one thing you’ve been wanting to do but have been putting off forever?
It’s time. Allow Your Being to Guide Your Doing
One of the most frustrating things we do to ourselves is we get stuck envisioning the million tasks we must do to accomplish anything, that can also be the very thing that keeps us from moving forward.
Answering our calling is very much a process like everything else. The end result may look nothing like what we started off with or what we planned, and that is completely ok. Sometimes what we think we want only serves as a stepping stone that leads us closer to fulfilling our mission. The universe does not care about what we do that makes us radiate with joy, it can be taking a Reiki class or a baking class, going on that spontaneous vacation or calling an old friend we haven’t seen for years. The universe only cares about the vibrational signature we give off when we are being that joy.
By giving ourselves into inspired action, we may be meeting a teacher for life who becomes our source of inspiration, or be welcoming an opportunity that otherwise would not be there had we not chosen to follow our heart and arrive at that exact location and time.
The only decision we have to make on a daily basis is to start following whichever things that give us whatever amount of joy out of all the available daily activities in front of us rather than coming up with a huge plan of action to get ourselves from point A to B because “it is the right thing to do” or “ everyone else does it .”
If your only daily activities are comprised of chores such as house cleaning, meeting deadlines and cooking for a family of six, then invite yourself to do some (or all) of those things with as much joy and presence as you can , and to squeeze in a couple of little activities that bring you peace and make you come alive. They can be as simple as having quiet time to read for 15 minutes or working on that hobby when everyone goes to sleep. You just never know what may come out of them!
Do not ever underestimate the power behind these little activities as they are what make the energy accumulate. Remember, it is always about being the “I am my highest joy at this given moment” energy rather than flooding ourselves with tasks and running around aimlessly for the simple reason that we cannot find our calling outside of ourselves, but we can remember or create it within us. The more we can allow that energy to flow to us and from us, the more the universe can bring us everything that resonates on the same energy level to help us remember and create our destinies.
Is the path of committing ourselves to remembering, and eventually embodying our calling always peachy? The answer is no. It is a journey that is made of a thousand little steps of learning and choosing. Along the way of building my healing practice, I was constantly discouraged by my lack of knowledge and tools to run a business as well as overwhelmed by the millions of tasks I was constantly bombarded with.
I invested a great deal of energy on training courses from learning how to write my about page to polishing up the content of my website so I can reach a larger audience. No matter how much I tried to tweak my writing while working with business coaches and alike, I was unable to meet their standards of using “simple and client friendly” language where I could explain what I do in a couple of sentences to an eight-year old.
One day, exactly one year from the day I resigned from my last job, it finally hit me. While I will always remain grateful of the knowledge and support I have taken away from the courses, my writing reflects my true essence, and who I am at the core is someone who thinks, feels and speaks like the spiritual geek that I am proud to be. By giving myself endless tasks of to-do’s that do not align with my inspired actions, I am neglecting who I came here to be – someone who helps others heal, awaken and create through spiritual writing, healing and coaching.
In fact, this article was entirely inspired by hours of staring at weeks worth of unfinished homework documents from my latest course with the sudden realization that the content of my website may never appeal to everyone, and that is perfectly ok. I was faced with two choices, to continue doing the daunting task of sounding like someone I am not, or being immersed in the joy of writing. The moment I chose the latter, a stream of inspiration poured in and gave birth to these words.
At the end of the day, it isn’t about what we do, how we do it, what our titles are, how polished our website looks, how many credentials are displayed in our bios and how many award-winning books we’ve published. It is about whether we can allow ourselves to step into who we truly are, and boldly and lovingly declare our authenticity to the world. No vibration in the universe is more powerful than our energy when it becomes an extension of our divine calling.
What are some things on your daily to-do list? Which ones of those give you any amount of joy? How can you insert more “feel good” activities into your life? How can you replace the aimless “to-do’s” with more inspired action? Your Calling is Your Own Creation
Our souls have chosen a certain mission prior to birth, but the moment we become fully conscious of who we are and awaken to the creator within, we are no longer bound to any predetermined paths we laid out for ourselves before coming into this physical body. The more we are aware of our true essence and our connection with the divine source , the more empowered we become and the more we can claim the gift of free will which ultimately allows us to exercise our birthright as the conscious creator to Be, Do, and Have anything our soul desires.
To achieve that, we must first free ourselves from everything that limits us. Limitations can take the form of fear such as fear of uncertainty/change, fear of lack, or even fear of success. Limitations can also manifest as endless excuses ranging from “I have a full time job with no time or money” to “I’m too old to do this.” In addition, limitations show up as disempowering beliefs including, “There isn’t enough for everyone” or “I am not special enough.”
There is no one way to initiate that journey of liberation, there is only what works for you. Personally, I’ve found spiritual practices such as energy healing, Kundalini yoga, meditation, working with a spiritual coach, being in nature, journaling and reading inspirational books are all great ways to awaken.
I used to be the queen of “what-if’s.” “What if I failed?” “What if I lost it all?” “What if I became a laughingstock?” One day, I grew sick of my negative what-if’s and decided to do a 180. “What if I succeeded?” “What if I learned something from this?” “What if I could help others?” I made a point to do this every day for months and it made a remarkable difference in my ability to exercise my free will.
Prior to tapping into our true creator role, many of us feel like powerless victims who take whatever life throws at us. We may be passionate about answering our calling as an artist but end up working at a bank because we are afraid we won’t make ends meet. We feel limited, even enslaved by the conditions in our lives. We submit ourselves to our so-called fate and tell stories of how we aren’t fortunate enough to be one of those who seem to have it all .
When we awaken, we become aware that we are who we say we are, and what we create as well as how we wish to experience everything in life depends on one thing and one thing only – our choice.
Your calling is something you soul chose in the realm of the formless before it took on a body, and you can choose again at any time in this life because the truth is, your soul remains who you truly are while your body and mind are only additional tools for you to carry out your mission so you may experience your own creations physically in this 3D time and space dimension. That power of choice has never left you. Once you decide, allow the universe to bring you the rest of the co-creators to make it happen.
It is time to unleash your free will and write your own destiny. There is nothing written in the stars that are foreshadowing who you are and what you can become. Once every part and every cell within you is aligned with this inner-knowing, you have awakened to the divine power of creation you have inherited. That power lives in you and patiently awaits for you to call upon it.
You are neither your past, your birth conditions, your roles, your accomplishments, your credentials, your awards, your bills, your bank statements, your 9-5 job that makes you cringe every morning upon waking up, nor are you your body, your mind, your beliefs, your thoughts, your baggage, your limitations, your past relationships, even your soul contract. Deep down inside, you are a being powerful beyond your imagination. Once you remember all this, you will remember your sacred ability to create anything you wish and your joyous vibration will make the world just a little brighter.
It matters not one bit if you do not know your calling. If you could start from a blank slate and create anything you wanted in life without limitations from this moment on, who would you be? What would you create?
What is one small step you can take today to be that?
Follow your heart.
Juliet Tang is a Usui/Holy Fire Reiki Master, certified hypnotist and founder of Jewel’s Healing Garden , a holistic practice in New York that combines energy healing, hypnosis and intuitive coaching to help others achieve healing and personal transformation. Juliet empowers her clients to tap into the power of their unconscious to access the infinite wisdom and inner resources that can be utilized to carry out their visions. With her psychology background and a decade of teaching experience, in addition to the healing work conducted, Juliet also teaches her clients simple and powerful techniques to rewire old habits to reinforce desirable patterns in all areas in life. Her hypnosis/coaching packages can be found here . SF Source Wake Up World | 1real |
Trump tower in Canada close to sale, future of name in question | TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto’s Trump tower is close to being sold, a lawyer for its owner said on Friday, adding that the buyer could choose to drop the name, which has become more controversial since billionaire Donald Trump became the presumptive U.S. Republican presidential nominee. The Trump organization disagreed, saying the building must continue to carry the name. Symon Zucker, who represents Talon International Development Inc, said the 65-story hotel and condominium tower in the city’s financial district has found a potential buyer and the sale will conclude “hopefully shortly.” The building is operated for Talon by the Trump Hotel Collection, presided over by Trump and his children. Zucker said the current contract with Trump Hotel is “exclusive with Talon” and that “the new owner can if he wishes retain a different manager and change the name of the hotel.” Zucker declined to comment on the potential new owner’s intentions or the specifics of the deal. Trump Organization general counsel Alan Garten disagreed, saying the agreement is valid for “another 16 years” and calling Zucker’s view “100 percent false.” “The management’s agreement between Trump and the condos would remain in full force and effect,” he said in an email. “We are not going anywhere.” Garten said if the new owner wants to change the name of the tower, the Trump Organization would take “swift and appropriate action to prevent it and hold them liable for damages.” Talon Chairman Alex Shnaider has been trying to change the building’s name through arbitration, though the sale is unrelated to that effort, said Zucker, who called the sale a routine business decision. “Alex is moving on to other deals,” he said. “This is just one more thing he’s bought that he’s going to sell.” Zucker said the deal was done through the real estate firm CBRE, which declined to comment. The luxury building has had problems, and the intersection around it has been closed several times due to falling or unstable glass. The tower is also the subject of a Canadian lawsuit against Trump and associates by disgruntled investors who say they were misled in their deals. A judge ruled against the investors, and a Toronto court is scheduled to hear their appeal in June. Zucker called their case “frivolous.” | 0fake |
Swedish 'laser man' killer stands trial for murder in Germany | FRANKFURT (Reuters) - One of Sweden s most notorious criminals appeared in a court in Germany on Wednesday, charged with a murder he is accused of having committed in Frankfurt more than 25 years ago. The man, John Ausonius, went on a racially motivated spree in Sweden in 1991 and 1992 in which he killed one person and injured 10 others in attacks in the Stockholm area, for which he is currently serving a life sentence in Sweden. Dubbed the laser man by Swedish media for his use of a laser sight and rifle for some of the shootings, he is thought to have inspired anti-immigrant attacks such as the 2011 massacre by Norwegian Anders Breivik and shootings by Peter Mangs in Sweden. Ausonius, now 64, is suspected of having shot dead a woman in broad daylight in Frankfurt in 1992 while on the run from the authorities after the shootings in Sweden. He had accused the 68-year-old woman of stealing an electronic notebook from his coat pocket in the cloakroom of the Frankfurt hotel in which she worked, a spokeswoman for the Frankfurt prosecutor s office said on Wednesday. The prosecution believes that the defendant thought the woman had his electronic notebook in her handbag, she told Reuters TV outside the courthouse. Ausonius has denied killing the woman but has not objected to being transferred to Germany for the trial on condition he serves any possible jail sentence in Sweden. After the murder trial ends, he is to be returned to Sweden where a court sentenced him to life in 1995 for the Stockholm shootings as well as a string of bank robberies. | 0fake |
California lawmakers pass rape bill inspired by Stanford case | LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California lawmakers, responding to outrage over the six-month jail term given to a former Stanford University swimmer after his conviction for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, passed legislation on Monday closing a loophole that allowed the sentence. The bill now goes to Democratic Governor Jerry Brown for his approval. He has not indicated whether he will sign it into law. Trump hovers over McCain, Rubio senate races U.S. job market 'very close' to full strength: Fed's Fischer North Carolina, Florida brace for brewing tropical storms The measure was introduced in response to the sentence given to 20-year-old Brock Turner by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky in June, which was widely condemned as too lenient. Prosecutors had asked that Turner be given six years in state prison. He is scheduled to be released on Friday from jail in Northern California. “Sexually assaulting an unconscious or intoxicated victim is a terrible crime and our laws need to reflect that,” Democratic Assemblyman Bill Dodd, a co-author of the legislation, said in a written statement following its passage. Turner was convicted of assault with intent to commit rape, penetration of an intoxicated person and penetration of an unconscious person in the January 2015 attack. Under California law, those charges are not considered rape because they did not involve penile penetration. The uproar over the sentence, fueled in part by the victim’s harrowing letter in which she detailed the assault in graphic terms, comes amid growing outrage over sexual assault on U.S. college campuses. “This bill is about more than sentencing, it’s about supporting victims and changing the culture on our college campuses to help prevent future crimes,” Dodd said. The case has also led to efforts to remove Persky from the bench. Earlier this month, the judge asked for a transfer to civil court. According to the legislators, current California law calls for a mandatory prison term in cases of rape or sexual assault where force is used, but not when the victim is unconscious or severely intoxicated and thus unable to resist. The bill, which faced no serious opposition in the Democratic-controlled legislature, would eliminate a judge’s discretion to sentence defendants convicted of such crimes to probation. Under its provisions, Turner would have faced a minimum of three years behind bars. | 0fake |
Proof of Past Life? Teen Wakes From Coma Speaking Fluent Spanish | Sean Adl-Tabatabai in Sci/Environment // 0 Comments
A U.S. teen has shown doctors compelling evidence that reincarnation exists after awaking from a coma and speaking fluent Spanish – a language he was never taught.
16-year-old Reuben Nsemoh survived a life-threatening head injury on the soccer pitch that put him in a coma after being kicked in the head whilst diving for a loose ball.
The English-speaking Georgia teenager left doctors utterly baffled when he awoke 3 days later speaking fluent Spanish
Could it be that Reuben was Hispanic in a past life?
Ksl.com reports:
Slowly, his English is coming back, and he’s starting to lose his Spanish fluency.
Foreign accent syndrome is an extremely rare condition in which brain injuries change a person’s speech patterns, giving them a different accent.
The first known case was reported in 1941, when a Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel injuries to the brain during a German bombing run, and started speaking with a German accent. | 1real |
HACK THE VOTE: BALLOT BOXES EASY TARGET | Every American should care about this no matter what party. A stolen vote is a vote taken away from YOU! With electronic ballots there could be larger numbers of votes manipulated remotely. Easy enough The recent cyber theft of millions of personnel records from the federal government was sophisticated and potentially crippling, but hackers with just rudimentary skills could easily do even more damage by targeting voting machines, according to security experts.Voter fraud is nearly as old as elections themselves, and different states and precincts use different voting systems and machines. But in many cases, even the electronic ballots could be manipulated remotely, according to a new report by the Commonwealth Security and Risk Management for the Virginia Information Technologies Agency. That report found that the AVS WINVote machines Virginia has used since 2002 have such flimsy security that an amateur hacker could change votes from outside a polling location. Our entire democracy depends on systems with minimal, easily bypassed security. Cris Thomas, Tenable Network Security, This means anyone could have broken into the machines from the parking lot, said Cris Thomas, a strategist with the Columbia, Md.-based Tenable Network Security, one of the nation s leading cyber and enterprise security firms. Our entire democracy depends on systems with minimal, easily bypassed security. Via: FOX News | 1real |
Votes Being Switched In Multiple States To Clinton | Votes Being Switched In Multiple States To Clinton Electronic voting machines switching votes across the country Owen Shroyer | Infowars.com
We now have reports in multiple states that a vote for Donald Trump is being switched to Hillary Clinton.
As reported by Infowars Friday, a woman in Hollywood, Maryland came forward this week to claim that her ballot was switched to Hillary Clinton after she had tried to vote for Donald Trump. Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles Download on your mobile device now for free. Today on the Show Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars crew. From the store Featured Videos FEATURED VIDEOS Victim Of Hillary Chicago Violence Speaks Out - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . Trump Responds To New FBI Investigation Of Hillary - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . ILLUSTRATION How much will your healthcare premiums rise in 2017? >25% © 2016 Infowars.com is a Free Speech Systems, LLC Company. All rights reserved. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Notice. 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force | 1real |
U.N. chief condemns N.Korea nuclear test, says it is 'profoundly destabilizing' | (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned North Korea s nuclear test on Sunday as profoundly destabilizing for regional security and called on the country s leadership to cease such acts, his spokesman said in a statement. This act is yet another serious breach of the DPRK s international obligations and undermines international non-proliferation and disarmament efforts. This act is also profoundly destabilizing for regional security, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. North Korea is also known as the DPRK. | 0fake |
“PRESIDENT TRUMP” IS STABBED TO DEATH In Central Park Production Of “Julius Caesar”…Where’s The Outrage? | Take a look at @PublicTheaterNY's first Shakespeare in the Park production of 2017, a Trump-inspired Julius Caesar https://t.co/iTPiJMSSaq pic.twitter.com/t5VfDfZVRe Playbill (@playbill) May 30, 2017In an interview with Mediaite, Laura Shaeffer who saw a recent performance of the play, which opened May 23 said that the character of Julius Caesar in the Public Theater adaptation wears a business suit and has his hair styled in a manner similar to Trump s.Sheaffer added that the character of Calpurnia, Caesar s wife, speaks with a Slavic accent similar to that of First Lady Melania Trump.As happens at the end of the original play, the (Trump-inspired) Caesar is brutally stabbed to death by his associates in the Senate. Sheaffer said Caesar s death scene was particularly graphic, with blood spewing everywhere, and an American flag hanging overhead. To be honest I thought it was shocking and distasteful, Shaeffer told Mediaite. If this had happened to any other president even as recently as Barack Obama or George W. Bush it would not have flown. People would have been horrified. The Trump connection in the Oskar Eustis-directed production was not intended to be subtle, though the president is reportedly never referred to by name during the show.The actor playing Caesar, Gregg Henry (who also happened to play a caricature of Trump in Shonda Rhimes ABC show Scandal), told Backstage in an interview last month that while the similarities between the Roman general and the current president don t always align exactly, there was still much to be gleaned from Trump s presidency and then injected into his portrayal of Caesar. The idea for me was to try and do some things that will represent and show you and I have great costumes and wigs that show you that this could be Trump, Henry told Backstage. But I m also trying to bring in the larger knowledge of tyrants. It s sort of a tyrant s greatest hits in [the way I play] the speeches and in the nature of the ego and belief that one man is more important, is above the law, is the law. Those tyrannical beliefs in terms of how to deal with power. For her part, Shaeffer told Mediaite that while she found the parallels between Trump and Caesar fascinating, the onstage murder of a character that so closely resembled Trump was a step too far. I don t love President Trump, but he s the president. You can t assassinate him on a stage, she told the outlet. BreitbartBy now, everyone knows how comedian Kathy Griffin expressed her opposition to our president, when she held his bloodied and decapitated head while making what turned out to be a career-ending video. So is this disgusting and violent behavior by the intolerant the left the new norm? Are Americans supposed to just accept this simply because the media refuses to report about it? | 1real |
Austria's conservatives want schools to make 'sufficient' German compulsory | VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria s conservative People s Party wants children who do not speak sufficient German to take compulsory language classes as a condition for being allowed to attend school, party leader Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday. Tens of thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa have arrived in Austria in the past two years. Their integration has become an important political topic and Kurz, whose party is the junior partner in a coalition government with the Social Democrats, has gained in popularity because of his hard stance on immigration. Though his proposal ostensibly applies to all children, public debate has centered around those from migrant backgrounds, most of whom are currently placed at school according to age. They receive separate language lessons but teachers have said that this is not enough to integrate them. One can only follow the curriculum if one s German is good enough, Kurz said at a news conference in Salzburg, where he presented his party s education program for parliamentary elections on Oct. 15. Who starts at school needs to understand the teaching language, the party chief said, echoing demands from the far-right Freedom Party. | 0fake |
Realities Faced by Black Canadians are a National Shame | Tweet Widget by Robyn Maynard
Canada, including its French-speaking regions, is home to much the same kind of systemic racism as its southern neighbor, according to a United Nations Working Group report. Black women’s poverty rates are “almost five times higher than that of white Canadian women.” In Montreal, “a 2008 study found that black girls are three times more likely than white girls the same age to have been arrested two times or more.” Realities Faced by Black Canadians are a National Shame by Robyn Maynard
This article previously appeared in the Montreal Gazette .
“ Black Montrealers continue to experience dehumanizing treatment across institutions.”
After holding consultations in Quebec, Nova Scotia and Ontario last month, the United Nations Working Group on People of African Descent issued a statement that sheds light on realities, too-often invisible to most Canadians, that should be seen as a national shame.
The group’s preliminary findings confirm what is already well known in Canada’s black communities: that systemic discrimination has subjected black people to racial profiling by law enforcement, soaring incarceration rates, disproportionate poverty and poor health, the over-apprehension of black children by child welfare agencies and lower graduation rates. Black women, they note, face a rate of poverty that is almost five times higher than that of white Canadian women, and are one of the fastest-growing groups in federal prisons.
Underlying these injustices, the UN Working Group has made clear, is systemic racism.
The UN is right to be concerned, and Montreal is by no means exempt from this criticism: Both its historical and contemporary realities are defined by a systemic anti-blackness that goes too frequently un-named. The enslavement of black (and indigenous) persons was not an uncommon practice in New France, and indeed was legal until 1834. The fact of slavery remains all around us: acclaimed art historian Charmaine Nelson reminds us that many present-day Montreal streets, buildings and institutions are named after white businessmen like James McGill and John Redpath who traded in plantation crops worked by slave labor.
Enslavement may be over, but centuries later black Montrealers — the largest visible minority in the city — continue to experience dehumanizing treatment across institutions. A 2010 study by sociologists Léonel Bernard and Christopher McAll found that it was over-surveillance, and not the rates of so-called “black crime,” that accounted for up to 60 per cent of the over-incarceration of black youth in Montreal.
“The enslavement of black (and indigenous) persons was not an uncommon practice in New France, and indeed was legal until 1834.”
A report commissioned by the Montreal police, leaked to La Presse, found that in St-Michel and Montréal-Nord, up to 40 per cent of black youth were stopped in 2006-2007, a rate that indicates a high degree of racial profiling by police officers. Much of this heightened policing was justified to the public as curbing “gang activities,” when in reality, in 2009, only 1.6 per cent of crimes were gang related. High profile cases of police abuse of black Montrealers and alleged abuse continue to surface, including the recent case of Veckqueth Stevenson, a legally blind black man in his 50s, who has accused the police of using excessive force and unjustly arresting him, ironically, while he was at Nelson Mandela Park.
Black women and girls are not exempt, though we hear even less about their experiences locally; the case of Majiza Philip, a black woman who says she had her arm broken by police in 2014, is one example, however. A 2008 study found that black girls in Montreal are three times more likely than white girls the same age to have been arrested two times or more.
Beyond the criminal justice system, numerous studies have demonstrated that black children are apprehended from their homes by child welfare at alarming rates in Montreal, and this, too, can be attributed to racism.
The UN Working group is not the first to point out these injustices, nor are they the only ones proposing solutions. Black Lives Matter-Toronto and other black activist groups in Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal have been steadily mobilizing to address anti-black racism. Across cities, black communities have denounced, among other issues, the recent deaths of Abdirahman Abdi in Ottawa, and Bony Jean-Pierre in Montreal, both at the hands of police in 2016.
If Canada intends to genuinely reckon with its still-living legacy of black enslavement, the injustices brought to light by the UN — alongside those highlighted by black activists around the country — need to be both addressed and redressed. Robyn Maynard is an activist and writer living in Montreal, author of the forthcoming book Policing Black Bodies (2017). | 1real |
The Billion-Dollar Jackpot: Engineered to Drain Your Wallet - The New York Times | If you’ve noticed that colossal lottery winnings are becoming almost common this year, it’s no accident. Four of the 10 biggest jackpots in United States history have already occurred in 2016, an engineered outcome intended to generate big winners. That’s thrilling if you are the rare winner of hundreds of millions of dollars. But whether it’s a good thing for scores of millions of other people who play lottery games is highly questionable, as a close look at the numbers reveals. What is immediately evident, though, is that the high frequency of enormous jackpots results from skillful planning, says Salil Mehta, an independent statistician. “This was deliberate,” Mr. Mehta says. “The jackpots are growing very rapidly, and at a certain point when the jackpot rises into the hundreds of millions of dollars, there is a buzz, and people start betting much more. ” Consider that on July 30, an unnamed person in New Hampshire won a $487 million Powerball jackpot. That would be a big deal on its own, but in the same year, we’ve also seen jackpots of $429 million, $536 million and $1. 586 billion. That’s according to a tally kept by Mr. Mehta, formerly director of research and analytics for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program and the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. He says that the rapid buildup of enormous prizes resulted from redesigns of the nation’s two big multistate lotteries — Mega Millions in 2013 and Powerball in October 2015. The idea was to stimulate gambling and increase revenue for state governments after the financial crisis by generating enormous jackpots while also making it easier to win smaller prizes. It’s worked. Overall sales of lottery games in the United States increased to $73. 9 billion last year, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, from $70. 1 billion the previous year. Sales appear to be rising in 2016. How was this done? For those of a wonky disposition, Mr. Mehta provides elegant analyses on his blog. Basically, the infinitesimally small odds of winning the big jackpots became even worse — they are now one in roughly 292 million for Powerball and one in 259 million for Mega Millions. There are many smaller prizes for these multistate games, as well as myriad local lottery games that help keep interest alive when drawings for the big games fail to produce a winner. Each time that happens — and, given the odds, it will happen frequently — the jackpot swells. Those gigantic jackpots set people dreaming. I’m not immune to lottery fever. I hadn’t bought a lottery ticket of any kind for years, until last January, when the Powerball jackpot amounted to nearly $1. 6 billion. That was one awesome number. We began talking about it at work. Two colleagues and I split a few tickets. We understood that we had almost no chance of winning, and didn’t care: It was fun. Behavior like ours seems to account for the rapid surge in lottery sales, bringing jackpots to a higher and higher level, Mr. Mehta suggests. Once the jackpot reaches a certain threshold — somewhere in the hundreds of millions, these days — people begin talking and rushing to buy tickets, including people who don’t typically buy lottery tickets, and the jackpot soars even higher. I have no problem with that on a personal level. In fact, if the lottery exceeds $1 billion again, I’ll probably buy a ticket again. I have dreams, too. But Mr. Mehta persuaded me to crunch the numbers to see what effects the lotteries are having on people who buy tickets regularly. The results are troubling. Consider that for lotteries as a whole, only about 60 cents of every dollar goes back to ticket buyers in the form of winnings, an analysis of United States Census Bureau data shows. The flip side is that in the long run, players as a group lose about 40 percent of the money they put into the lottery, and the chances of a big win are vanishingly small. For the July 30 Powerball drawing, for example, the lottery sold roughly 74 million tickets across the country, the data indicates. In addition to the $487 million jackpot winner, lottery statistics show that one ticket won a tidy $2 million. Other people won money too, but they didn’t win much: Just under 4 percent of tickets — fewer than one in 25 — produced any winnings at all. And for 78 percent of those winning tickets, the prize was only $4. If you won one of those little prizes and had bought two tickets, you broke even for the day. For more than 96 percent of tickets, though, you simply kissed your money goodbye. In short, if your goal was actually to win money, your chances would be much better at the blackjack table in a casino. How much are people losing at lottery games? For some of us, it’s a paltry sum, $10 or $20 a year. And a handful of people win pots. But for the millions of regular lottery players, it’s a different story. It takes a while to figure this out. But using publicly available lottery and census data, I estimate, very roughly, that millions of adults, perhaps as many as 50 million, are swallowing net losses that average $1, 000 a year. (I used lottery estimates suggesting that roughly 20 percent of all players account for about of all sales, and proceeded from there. Mr. Mehta does an elaborate version of this on his blog.) That’s a lot of money for a lot of people, and over a lifetime it could make the difference between a comfortable retirement and utter penury. In fact, if you were to invest that money in a diversified mutual fund every year from the age of 20 until 65, and it returned 5 percent annually, you would have a nest egg of about $150, 000. When you realize that households in the United States had only a median net worth of $68, 828 in 2011, according to the Federal Reserve, it’s clear that this forsaken nest egg is a significant amount of money. (I calculated the nest egg for an individual statistically speaking, the Fed says, a household typically includes 1. 8 adults, so the comparable nest egg would be about $270, 000.) These numbers don’t take into account the impact on poorer people, who truly cannot afford to forgo such sums of money. And they don’t include the effects of taxes, which subtract from winnings. Money spent to play the lottery has already been taxed, while winnings, which are still subject to tax, are worth less than their face value. I’m not a puritan. I have no problem with gambling as a form of entertainment. If anybody wants to spend money this way, fine. But few people run these numbers themselves or, really, are equipped to do so: A recent study suggests that most Americans are not really financially literate. I suspect that few people fully understand the they are making. At a minimum, the government ought to be doing no harm to its citizens, yet it appears to be promoting and benefiting from activities that are surely harming the life prospects of many people. It’s true, lottery revenue may help the government finance education and other programs, many of them quite worthwhile. Yet policy levers could be used in other ways. Local and state governments could instead engage in aggressive and creative marketing schemes that would actually improve our odds of attaining a decent financial future. | 0fake |
Authorities Allowed NYC Chain Migration Terrorist To Stop Interrogation Several Times To Pray After Admitting He Was Triggered By CHRISTMAS Posters | The poor little ISIS-inspired, chain migration, snowflake, terrorist can t even walk by a Christmas poster without being triggered. How long before Mayor DeBlasio starts the dialogue about removing triggering signs of Christmas from NYC, so as not to offend non-Christians? The taxi driver behind the failed terror attack in a New York City told investigators he meant to detonate his homemade pipe bomb in the busy subway station after seeing the walls festooned with Christmas posters in revenge for violence against Muslims all over the world.While initial reports suggested the crude pipe bomb, made from a pipe, a 9-volt battery, match heads, sugar, Christmas tree lights and screws, had detonated prematurely, suspect Akayed Ullah, 27, insisted he set off the bomb deliberately.Ullah, who was arrested and taken for questioning after the bomb only partially detonated, told police he was walking through the underground tunnel at 7.20am, between the Port Authority station towards Times Square, when he saw the Christmas-themed posters on the wall, which reminded him of ISIS calls last month for militants and lone wolves to attack holiday markets. He acknowledges he purposely set it off then and there, a senior law enforcement official told the New York Post.The Bangladeshi immigrant added that he was specifically inspired by ISIS, not Al-Qaeda .Authorities say that if the explosive had fully detonated in the busy Midtown Manhattan subway station, there would have been more injuries and doubtless loss of life.The attack came days after Ullah s Brooklyn neighbors say they heard a huge row coming from his home, reporting yelling and screaming over the past two nights.Ullah, who was allowed to stop and pray multiple times during his interrogation, was taken to Bellevue Hospital to be treated for serious burns and lacerations to his abdomen and hands but is expected to survive. At the hospital, the Brooklyn resident told investigators that he was inspired to carry out the attack by the recent flare ups between Israelis and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.Monday s attack was the first terror attack on U.S. soil since that proclamation, but only one of many violent demonstrations across the world since the controversial move was announced last Wednesday. It was also the second time in two months that New York City was the target of a terrorist attack.President Trump said in a statement that lax immigration policies were to blame for the attack, and urged Congress to enact legislative reforms to protect the American people .Authorities say Ullah took the A train subway to the Port Authority Bus Terminal stop Monday morning, and started walking east towards Times Square via an underground terminal when a pipe bomb hidden underneath his clothes prematurely exploded. Law enforcement officials don t believe the passageway was the intended target since the low-tech bomb attached to Ullah with Velcro and zip ties did not explode fully.The chemical explosive appears to have ignited but the pipe itself did not burst. Screws were found at the scene, indicating that they may have filled the pipe and were intended to be used as shrapnel.In the end, Ullah was the only one seriously injured by the explosive (three others reported to hospitals for ringing in the ears and headaches). Daily Mail | 1real |
PRIORITIES: Who Does Obama Invite To White House…The Muslim “Briefcase Clock” Boy Or Slain Cops Families? | Hey Barack Hussein Obama America is still waiting for statement about any of the recent violent murders of innocent cops. But you can t be bothered right? God forbid you address the war on law enforcement (that you started), because it s not nearly as important to you as shining a spotlight on supposed racial inequality is it? President Barack Obama issued a personal invitation via Twitter to a Muslim high school student who got in trouble last week in Texas for bringing a home made briefcase clock to school, touching off a terrorism scare.Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great. President Obama (@POTUS44) September 16, 2015Fourteen year-old Ahmed Mohamed was taken in handcuffs by police from MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas after he brought his invention to school the Monday after the fourteenth anniversary of the 9/11 Islamist terror attacks on the U.S. An alarm for the briefcase clock went off in class, prompting a teacher to observe the devise looked like a bomb. Police investigated and on Wednesday announced no charges would be filed. Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It s what makes America great.At Wednesday s press briefing held right after Obama tweeted his invitation to Mohamed, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest attacked the teachers at Mohamed s school for erring on the side of caution in an era of Islamist terror attacks and troubled student school massacres.Earnest also announced Obama was inviting Mohamed to the White House Astronomy Night on October 19. (Quotes assembled from transcribing and various sources.) I think the president like many of us was struck by the news reports of this particular incident. The fact is that America s best teachers in our schools, in our best schools at least, nurture the intellectual curiosity of all of our students. In this instance it is clear that at least some of Ahmed s teachers failed him. That s too bad (It s not) too late for all of us to use this as a teachable moment. This episode is a good illustration of how pernicious stereotypes can prevent even goodhearted people who have dedicated their lives to educating young people from doing the good work they set out to do. This is an instance where you have people who have otherwise dedicated their lives to teach our children who failed in that effort, potentially because of some things in their conscience and the power of stereotypes. The White House was pleased to extend an invitation to Ahmed to participate in Astronomy Night. We ll bring together NASA scientists, others to spend time with young people. It will be an opportunity to talk about science, the solar system. It should be a good event. We re hopeful he ll feel right at home. Ahmed Mohamed has become an instant celebrity and sees his case as one of racial inequality rather than about his poor judgment for bringing to school a device that looked like a bomb.Here he is bragging about getting ready to sue the school:Going to meet my lawyer. pic.twitter.com/YCxOOeOz3Z Ahmed Mohamed (@IStandWithAhmed) September 16, 2015Here are some of the tweets that offering Ahmed Mohamed support:@IStandWithAhmed @IBJIYONGI @anildash I hope someone from @MIT reaches out to Ahmed with a full scholarship. He deserves it! @POTUS Tony Silva (@silva1982) September 16, 2015 | 1real |
More Republicans expect Clinton, rather than Trump, to win U.S. election | NEW YORK (Reuters) - More Republicans now think Democrat Hillary Clinton, rather than Donald Trump, will win the presidency, as their party’s candidate struggles with difficulties including allegations of sexual misconduct and his suggestion he may not honor the outcome of the election. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday and conducted from Oct. 20 to Oct. 24 found that 41 percent of Republicans expected Clinton to win the Nov. 8 election, versus 40 percent who picked Trump. That reflected a sharp decline in confidence from last month, when 58 percent of Republicans said they thought their party’s nominee would win, versus 23 percent who expected Clinton to prevail. Among Trump’s supporters, 49 percent in the latest poll said they believed Trump would win, down from 67 percent who felt that way at the beginning of the month. “There’s still hope, I guess. I just don’t have a great deal of faith in a good portion of the American public,” said Bert Horsley, 38, of Belgrade, Montana, who said he planned to vote for Trump even though he believed Clinton would win. Horsley said he felt the country was leaning increasingly socialist and that voters were more inclined to focus on Trump’s problems than on issues facing Clinton, including allegations she mishandled classified emails while secretary of state. “The nation’s willing to overlook certain things in some people and not in others,” he said. Despite the growing pessimism, Trump, who trails Clinton in national opinion polls, still enjoys overwhelming support from members of his party. Some 79 percent of likely Republican voters said they would vote for him. Many said their support was rooted in an expectation he would promote a conservative agenda in Congress and appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Democrats appear to be strongly anticipating a Clinton presidency. Some 83 percent of Democrats said in the poll they thought she would win, while only 8 percent predicted Trump would become president. Among Clinton’s supporters, 92 percent expected her to win, up from 83 percent a month earlier. Clinton held a commanding lead in the race to win the Electoral College and claim the presidency, according to results from the Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project released on Saturday. Trump, a businessman and former reality television star, has alarmed mainstream Republicans throughout his campaign by routinely bashing the political establishment and making a series of provocative statements. He aroused criticism for belittling the parents of a U.S. soldier killed in the Iraq war, calling for a ban on admitting Muslims to the country and accusing a judge of bias because of his Hispanic heritage. He has also asserted, without showing evidence, that the U.S. electoral system is rigged. But Republicans remained mostly confident in their candidate’s chances until this month, when a videotape from 2005 was released in which Trump could be heard bragging in vulgar terms about kissing and groping women. At least 10 women have since accused Trump of making unwanted sexual advances, including groping or kissing, from the early 1980s to 2007, according to reports in various news outlets. Trump has denied the women’s allegations, calling them “totally and absolutely false” and has promised to sue the women after the election. Trump has also deepened divisions within his party by refusing to promise to accept the outcome of the election. “I will keep you in suspense,” he said when asked about the issue during an Oct. 19 debate with Clinton. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English with American adults in all 50 states. The latest poll included 648 people who identified as Republicans and 771 people who identified as Democrats. It had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 4 percentage points. | 0fake |
U.N. tells Australia to restore food, water supplies to PNG refugees | GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights office called on Australia on Friday to restore food, water and health services to about 600 interned refugees and asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea, which Canberra cut off three days ago. The detainees in the Manus Island Centre have defied attempts by the governments of both Australia and PNG to close the camp, saying they fear violent reprisals from the local community if they are moved to other transit centers . We call on the Australian government ... who interned the men in the first place to immediately provide protection, food, water and other basic services, U.N. rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing. Australia has an obligation to do so under international human rights law and the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, he said. There was no immediate comment from Australia or its representatives in Geneva. Its government has said the camp had been ruled illegal by PNG authorities and it had committed to supply other sites for 12 months. Colville joined the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in warning of an unfolding humanitarian emergency in the center where asylum seekers began digging wells on Thursday to try to find water as their food supplies dwindled. The remote Manus Island center has been a key part of Australia s disputed immigration policy under which it refuses to allow asylum seekers arriving by boat to reach its shores, detaining them instead in PNG and Naura in the South Pacific. We repeat our overall concerns about Australian offshore processing centers which are unsustainable, inhumane and contradictory to its human rights obligations, Colville said. Around 500 of the men have still not had their asylum claims processed, he said. And obviously the sooner the better, some of them have been there I think for four years, Colville said. So that s a very long time to sit in effectively a detention center disguised as a regional processing center without your case being processed. The alternative accommodation being proposed is not finished or adequate to meet their needs, including security, he said. We have conveyed to the Australian government and to the local government of Papua New Guinea as well that until the time the accommodation is ready, refugees should not be moved there, UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said. But also we have urged Australia and PNG to de-escalate the situation, resume basic services - water, electricity, medical services as well, he said. The last food distribution was on Sunday, he said. Australia s policy of deterrence by rescuing people at sea, mistreating them and abandoning them has become a notion of cruelty, Baloch said. | 0fake |
Hundreds of U.S. Marines leave Australia after troop rotation | SYDNEY (Reuters) - Three hundred U.S. Marines flew out of Australia on Sunday as their troop rotation came to an end, the first of a 1,250-strong force to leave the Pacific nation after being stationed for six months in the country s far north. The sixth rotational group was the most advanced contingent to be sent since the program began after former U.S. President Barack Obama agreed to send troops in 2011 as part of a military pivot to the Asia-Pacific region. For the first time the rotation included an aviation combat section of 13 aircraft, including four MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, according to Australia s Department of Defence. Australian and U.S. troops also practiced disaster relief and humanitarian assistance as a combined force in a remote location for the first time. The rotational forces are stationed in Darwin, state capital of the Northern Territory, which is strategically located on the coastal doorstep of Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea. During the six-month deployment, the U.S. troops participated in 12 joint exercises with the Australian Defence Force, giving them an opportunity to interact with a range of countries including China, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Australia s alliance with the United States is our most important defense relationship and remains central to Australia s security, Captain Bryan Parker, deputy commander of Australia s Northern Command, said in a statement. The presence of the U.S. Marines across the Northern Territory plays a vital role in underwriting security and stability across the Indo-Pacific, he said, adding that force posture initiatives were essential to preserving stability over the coming decades. Marine rotation numbers were originally expected to reach 2,500 by 2017 but so far have not risen above 1,250, according to ABC News reports. | 0fake |
Japan’s Prime Minister Calls for ‘Free and Fair’ Trade During Trump Visit | Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for “free and fair” trade deals in Asia, echoing Donald Trump’s promise to America when he campaigned against the Partnership (TPP). [Abe, of course, was an active supporter of the deal drafted by former President Obama, but he signaled a different approach during his visit. “Free and fair common set of rules should be created for the free trade in the region,” Abe said, according to a translator during a press conference at the White House with Trump on Friday. The prime minister appeared optimistic that he could discuss the possibility of a bilateral trade deal with Trump. Trump hinted that he wanted to do something about China’s devalued currency to bring about a more level playing field, especially on trade issues. “That’s the only way that you can fairly compete in trade and other things,” he said. “And we will be on that field, and we will all be working very hard to do great for our country. But it has to be fair, and we will make it fair. ” After the press conference, the two leaders released a statement noting that they would continue discussing “a bilateral framework” as well as regional economic stability. Abe said he was looking forward to his weekend at with Trump and commented about golf. “We will play golf together,” he said. “My scores in golf are not up to the level of Donald at all. ” | 0fake |
A War of Brothers in Iraq: ‘I Will Kill Him With My Own Hands’ - The New York Times | FALLUJA, Iraq — In the days leading up to the storming of Falluja by Iraqi forces, Brig. Gen. Hadi Razaij, the leading Sunni police commander in the campaign, sat on a cot in an abandoned house near the front line. He described the resistance that lay ahead: a determined force of hundreds of jihadists that had months to prepare. General Razaij’s presence on the battlefield shows that local Sunnis, and not just the Shiite forces that now dominate Iraqi politics, are fighting to liberate their own communities, and has helped tamp down fears that the battle for Falluja would heighten sectarian tensions. He was dispassionate as he described the challenges, but for him the fight was personal, too. General Razaij’s brother stands accused of being a member of the Islamic State and is in a prison cell after being arrested at a checkpoint with a car full of explosives. In northern Iraq, Nofal Hammadi, the of Mosul, is working with the United States to plan for that city’s liberation from the Islamic State. He, too, has family in the fight: Mr. Hammadi’s brother is an Islamic State official, having appeared in a video pledging his allegiance to the terror group and disowning his brother. Even as the central question of Iraq remains unanswered — whether the country’s Sunni minority and Shiite majority can ever peacefully coexist in a unified state — the experiences of General Razaij, Mr. Hammadi and others add a troubling corollary: It is not clear that Iraq’s divided Sunnis will ever be able to find peace among themselves after a conflict that in many ways is playing out as a war within families. After all, when Iraqi Sunnis talk about fighting the Islamic State, it is not a discussion of some shadowy and unknowable force. It is about sons and brothers, nephews and neighbors. “Today we don’t necessarily need reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites,” General Razaij said. “We need reconciliation among one sect. ” (General Razaij has given conflicting statements about his jailed brother, telling the local news media that he had disowned him. But in an interview with The New York Times, he said he believed his brother was innocent.) General Razaij was asked how many of his men were fighting against brothers or other close relatives who had joined the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “It’s so many,” he said. One of General Razaij’s men, Salih Ibrahim Sharmoot, is a policeman from Falluja who has been fighting along the city’s southern edge — a battle in which government forces made quick and surprising gains on Friday, capturing the main government compound. He said his brother Muwafaq joined ISIS in 2013. Antigovernment fervor was running strong in Falluja, in opposition to the sectarian policies of Nuri Kamal the prime minister at the time, who had ordered the mass arrests of Sunni men on often unsubstantiated terrorism charges. “If I catch him during the battles, I will kill him with my own hands because he is a criminal,” Mr. Sharmoot said about his brother. For Iraq ever to be at peace with itself after the end of the Islamic State, it will require reconciliation on a number of levels, especially within the Sunni community. That minority fell from power after the United invasion in 2003 and has witnessed its own decimation, with millions of its followers now displaced from their homes as fighting between government forces and ISIS rages across areas. The last time this happened, in 2006 and 2007, it took American money and influence to pacify Sunni areas then in the grip of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the forerunner of the Islamic State. With the Sunni Awakening, former insurgents were paid to switch sides and ally with the government. That required a measure of reconciliation, if not forgiveness, within the Sunni community. This time, most everyone agrees, will be different. Without the United States as a mediator, or its money to buy loyalty, and revenge are likely to rule the day. “Never,” General Razaij said when asked if peaceful reconciliation was possible among Sunnis. “For those who slaughtered Iraqis, it’s a crime for them to live. ” Iraq’s Shiites seem to recognize this, and have been keen to essentially outsource the business of determining who is or is not an Islamic State collaborator or sympathizer. When government forces liberate a village from ISIS, they often turn to local Sunnis to determine who should be arrested, according to interviews with officials and Sunni residents. And when allegations of militia abuses surfaced recently, including the torture and executions of men fleeing the fighting around Falluja, a prominent group of Sunnis came to the defense of the government, emphasizing the importance of taking a hard line. In a televised news conference, Abu Azam a leader of Sunni tribal fighters in Anbar Province, which includes Falluja, stressed the tribal traditions of Iraq. He said he would not “forget or forgive the killers from ISIS. ” More than a dozen recent interviews, with Sunnis from areas where the Islamic State has had a presence, revealed the extent to which the terror organization has divided families. In many cases, they described a familiar pattern of radicalization for their relatives — beginning not with any special interest in religion, but rather the 2003 invasion and the Sunni insurgency that followed. Many spent time in prisons in Iraq, where they studied the Quran and plotted jihad. In 2013, when Mr. Maliki’s policies sparked nationwide Sunni protests, there was a ready constituency of aggrieved and radicalized Sunnis the Islamic State could exploit. Alaa a Sunni from Salahuddin Province who has joined a militia, said that his uncle, a member of the Islamic State, was not religious before he spent time in an American prison in Iraq. “He used to not even pray or fast, and did not like religious subjects,” Mr. Jibouri said. In Diyala Province, a farmer who asked to be identified as Abu Anas said his younger brother, Hatim, was swayed in 2014 by politicians and clerics calling for an end to the unjust treatment of Sunnis carried out by the government. “The Sunni youth, among them my brother, were caught up in the swirl of sectarian tensions,” he said. At the time, Mr. Anas said, the movement felt like a tribal revolution against oppression, but was quickly subsumed by the Islamic State. “I never would have imagined my simple, naïve, brother would turn into a human monster,” he said. “He used to be afraid of even slaughtering a chicken, and would make excuses not to do so. ” Mr. Anas joined with government forces to fight the Islamic State, carrying a Kalashnikov rifle that had been in his family for almost two decades. He said he later had received a text message from his brother: “You chose the path of hell, and I chose the path of heaven. ” The Islamic State recently released a video from Mosul that purported to show a fighter executing his older brother, described in the video as a government spy. As the bearded ISIS fighter stood over his kneeling brother, who was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, he addressed his family and tribe and said he was acting in their name to “purify” the shame his brother brought to them. Then he shot him in the head. Thousands of Sunni tribal fighters and local policemen, partly motivated by revenge for the devastation the Islamic State has brought to their communities, have joined government security forces and Shiite militia groups in the fight for Falluja, the third major battle for that city since 2003. “This is the last time we are going to go into Falluja,” said Mouwafak a prominent Shiite politician and Iraq’s former national security adviser, who has predicted a bloody battle after the city was liberated. “There is not going to be any appeasement. The Sunnis who liberate Falluja are going to govern Falluja. ” He said that those men were more attuned to the traditional tribal rhythms of life in Anbar, and that their loyalty to Baghdad could be bought. “The tribal fighters don’t even know how to pray,” he said. “They like their booze and they enjoy life. They are motivated by two things: money and power. ” | 0fake |
Ted Cruz Mounts the Convention Stage in the Role of Brutus - The New York Times | CLEVELAND — Senator Ted Cruz of Texas did not come here this week to unite Republicans around their presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump. Armed with his usual arsenal of florid oratory, and blunt force, he came instead to rally them, someday, around Ted Cruz. He failed, at least for the moment. And in the process, he managed to do the unthinkable — make Mr. Trump look like a victim. Determined to be more than just another speaker and looking beyond the November election, Mr. Cruz worked with aides for weeks to fashion a speech that they hoped would define him beyond his failed 2016 quest for the White House and advance his image beyond Tea Party upstart to a modern version of his idol, Ronald Reagan. He offered lofty paeans on Wednesday to an America that included gays and atheists and where heroism was displayed not just by service members fighting terrorism on the front lines but also by the forgiving families of those killed last year at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S. C. He spoke to a broader audience of Americans that many have accused Republicans of ignoring. But then he twisted the knife in Mr. Trump’s back, suggesting that the leadership of that America should not fall to the man his party had come to nominate. Mr. Cruz is clearly gambling that Mr. Trump is likely to lose, perhaps embarrassingly, and that when he does Mr. Cruz will emerge as the strongest spokesman for the Republican Party’s core conservative principles. As the only contender to even put a dent in Mr. Trump’s support, and with a fully operational campaign apparatus still in place, he may be the best positioned out of the gate in 2020. But for now, it appears that Mr. Cruz’s raw ambition — which fueled his audacious 2012 Senate primary victory over his state’s lieutenant governor, the disastrous government shutdown he led a year later and his subsequent attacks on the Republicans who did not support it — has backfired. In the cold light of morning Thursday, Mr. Cruz found himself facing down furious delegates from his own state at a public breakfast, who told him he needed to back Mr. Trump now. “Do it!” one shouted during a blistering session. “Do it now!” Mr. Cruz resisted in his usual manner, saying he refused to be a “servile puppy dog. ” He put the blame for his disloyalty on Mr. Trump’s repeated attacks on his family during the primaries. Former admirers and his congressional colleagues took to television to criticize him, at times with profane language, the way his Senate colleagues have been doing for years behind closed doors. “Lucifer is back,” cracked the former House speaker, John A. Boehner, who was watching the convention with his wife and friends, according to an aide. “He really betrayed what our mission is here, which is to win in November,” said Nicholas A. Langworthy, a delegate from New York and chairman of the Erie County party, who helped lead the chorus of boos that followed Mr. Cruz off the stage. “He should just go back to Texas,” Mr. Langworthy said. “He slit his own throat. He is finished in national Republican politics. ” Representative Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican who has himself been critical of Mr. Trump, had harsh words for Mr. Cruz after his Wednesday remarks. “Senator’s Cruz’s opposition is not based in principle but entirely personal, which is interesting given his sniveling, obsequious and fawning defense of Trump early in the primary campaign,” Mr. Dent said. “I suspect many Americans learned a lot about Ted Cruz last night and now better understand why so many in Congress harbor bitter feelings toward the junior senator from Texas. ” Hours before Mr. Cruz’s highly anticipated speech on Wednesday evening, his former campaign manager, Jeff Roe, received a call from Jason Miller, a former Cruz aide now advising Mr. Trump. Mr. Miller informed the Cruz team that “Mr. Trump would really appreciate” and “would remember it” if Mr. Cruz endorsed him in the speech, Mr. Roe said. “I hear you,” Mr. Roe told him. When the speech was sent out a short while later, nothing had changed: There was still no endorsement. As Mr. Cruz prepared to address supporters at an outdoor bar that afternoon, Mr. Roe suggested that the Trump campaign would have little to object to. “I think they’ll be pleased with the speech,” he told reporters, interrupting his news conference briefly when a call from Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman, came in. Mr. Roe was asked if Mr. Cruz’s speech would focus more on himself than on Mr. Trump. “ is not really his shtick,” Mr. Roe said to the reporters. Mr. Trump’s aides were provided with a copy of Mr. Cruz’s remarks two hours before he gave them, both sides said, and were then outraged to see that not only would Mr. Cruz not endorse Mr. Trump, but that he would suggest pointedly that Republicans should feel no obligation to vote for Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump and his aides briefly considered bumping Mr. Cruz from the lineup, but quickly concluded that that would bring more controversy to a convention that had been battered enough. Mr. Cruz and Mr. Trump expected the speech to generate an angry reaction, but both sides were unprepared for its intensity. As Mr. Trump’s children looked on in silence, Mr. Cruz read from a teleprompter, at first in lofty phrases that referred to the civil rights movement, the killing of police officers in recent weeks and one victim of a police shooting. He spoke of the inherent constitutional rights of all Americans, including gays and atheists. But when Mr. Cruz used the code phrase “vote your conscience” — which in congressional terms means go against your leaders — he was met with boisterous boos and hisses from the crowd, led by the New York delegation a few feet away. One delegate said that some people on the floor were reduced to tears because of their disappointment and fury. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, sat watching the speeches from a skybox in the arena, realizing that prime time America was now watching an “Apprentice” style version of what he and his Republican colleagues had suffered through on the Senate floor, where Mr. Cruz once called him a liar. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan was backstage with Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, whom he would soon introduce as the Republican nominee for vice president, whose appropriate but mild remarks would be completely overshadowed by Mr. Cruz’s spectacle. As Mr. Cruz slunk from the stage and Mr. Trump’s son Eric took the lectern, Mr. Trump’s aides sought out Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who was slated to speak after Mr. Trump’s son. “I don’t think they realized how strong the reaction was going to be,” Mr. Gingrich said. “They came to me and said: ‘We need to get closure here. Let’s talk it through.’ ” They decided Mr. Gingrich would rebut Mr. Cruz by directly praising Mr. Trump. “I sat down with the senior editor of the teleprompter while Eric was speaking, and over those 12 minutes they were able to reload my remarks,” Mr. Gingrich said. Mr. Cruz tried to repair to the luxury convention suite of the Las Vegas casino magnate and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, but he was turned away like a freshman tossed out of a senior keg party. Andy Abboud, a top aide to Mr. Adelson, told Mr. Cruz he was not welcome there, according to two people in the suite who witnessed the exchange. “Nobody’s ever done in America,” Mr. Gingrich said. (He should know.) Mr. Cruz clearly agrees. After his dismissal from Mr. Adelson’s event, Mr. Cruz found a friendlier face. He went directly to the Ritz a few blocks away for drinks with Andrew F. Puzder, the chief executive of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. and a major Republican donor who raised cash for Mr. Cruz’s campaign. Before long, Mr. Roe said, Mr. Cruz retired to his hotel room, keeping a lingering eye on his Twitter feed. After 1 a. m. a email for his Senate campaign flooded email inboxes. Subject line: “Our fight goes on. ” | 0fake |
The Harvard Crimson: ’Hateful’ MILO Should Be Banned From College Campuses - Breitbart | Harvard University’s student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, declared “Universities must not grant figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos a platform to espouse their hateful and unsubstantiated claims,” during an article published by “The Crimson Editorial Board” on Sunday. [“Yiannopoulos does not deserve to be granted the platform of a university campus to espouse his hateful beliefs,” wrote the student newspaper on Sunday. “Institutions of higher education pride themselves on generating new knowledge and challenging old beliefs for the purposes of advancing our understanding of the world. Furthermore, these institutions are built on the principle of research. ” “In contrast, Yiannopoulos appears to challenge others’ beliefs simply for the sake of being a contrarian, and he does so with little tenability for his claims,” they continued. “Yiannopoulos is little more than a racist, sexist, and who encourages hate and fear rather than intellectual thought. ” The student newspaper also claimed “Yiannopoulos poses a tangible threat to the safety and of university students,” before adding that “This alone should be more than enough for administrators to bar him from campuses in the first place. ” You can read the full article at The Harvard Crimson. | 0fake |
Jason Whitlock on ESPN’s Struggles: Their ’Culture’ Is if You’re Conservative or Moderate, You’re Afraid to Express Opinions - Breitbart | Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Fox Sports 1’s Jason Whitlock weighed in on his former employer ESPN’s declining viewership over recent years. Whitlock acknowledged that many people have been cord cutting over the years, but said some of the “animosity” towards ESPN is “their lurch to the left and injecting progressive victimology into the sports conversation,” which he noted is not a mentality taught in sports. Carlson then asked how the company’s employees feel about ESPN’s move to the left. According to Whitlock, conservative and moderate employees are “afraid” to express their traditional values. “I think a lot of them are just now starting to figure out the ramifications of this, and I think there’s been some complaints from some of their employees like, ‘Hey, look, we’re afraid to express that we have traditional sports culture, traditional values,” Whitlock responded. He continued, “Their ombudsman has written about a culture within ESPN where if you’re slightly conservative or moderate, you’re afraid to express an opinion inside there. It’s a real problem at ESPN and within all of major corporations and everything has gone PC. Everything. Everybody’s afraid, ‘Oh, my God, we can’t upset anybody.’ You’re silencing people — it’s a very dangerous thing. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 0fake |
Jack Black: Meryl Streep Should Win an Oscar and Talk ’More Sh*t About That A**hole’ Trump | Actor Jack Black took the stage at the BOVET 1822 and Paul Haggis’s Artists for Peace and Justice inaugural “Songs from the Cinema” benefit concert and said he hopes Meryl Streep trashes President Donald Trump from the podium at Sunday’s Academy Awards. [“Is Meryl Streep in the audience tonight?” Black said. “I just hope she wins the Oscar and talks some more shit about that asshole. ” Streep used her Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech at the Golden Globes last month to urge media and Hollywood to stand up to Trump, “to hold power to account, to call to the carpet for every outrage. ” Black told the audience Thursday that Streep’s speech “took balls. ” “They will say, ‘That’s just liberals patting themselves on the back.’ I don’t agree. I thought it took balls,” the Kung Fu Panda 3 star said. “I was inspired by it. To get up there and tell the truth about the President of the United States, in front of a billion people. That takes courage. And it was very inspiring. ” Now this: Jack Black applauds Meryl Streep’s courageous @goldenglobes speech, hopes she wins Oscar, goes after @POTUS again. pic. twitter. — Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) February 24, 2017, Streep is nominated for Best Actress for her role in Florence Foster Jenkins. And while she is not expected to win — Emma Stone, for La La Land, is the frontrunner — the Oscars will likely be as politically charged as the Golden Globes and the Grammys. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson. | 0fake |
Canada, Mexico stocks, currencies fall as U.S. mulls quitting NAFTA | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mexican and Canadian stocks and currencies fell on Wednesday after reports that the White House was considering withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement, a long-standing trade deal between both countries and the United states. The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index .GSPTSE was down 0.11 percent and Mexico's IPC fell 1.17 percent after earlier touching a record high. The Canadian dollar CAD=D4 weakened 0.29 percent versus the U.S. currency while the Mexican peso MXN= touched its weakest in 6 weeks versus the greenback. The peso was last at 19.2397 per dollar, down 2.07 percent on the day. The iShares MSCI Mexico ETF (EWW.P) fell 2.8 percent to $50.59 and the iShares MSCI Canada ETF (EWW.P) was last down 0.4 percent at $26.66. A senior Trump administration official said and executive order on withdrawing the United States from NAFTA is under consideration. The story was first reported by Politico. | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders Meet as Their Battle Ends - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — With little affection or trust between them, Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders met privately for nearly two hours on Tuesday night to size each other up as they started exploring what kind of alliance they might build for the general election battle against Donald J. Trump. Yet Mr. Sanders chose to withhold his endorsement of Mrs. Clinton, several Sanders advisers said, because he wants her to take steps to win his confidence before the Democratic convention, where his supporters expect him to speak and Clinton advisers hope he will give her his backing. Aides to Mrs. Clinton said she had never expected his endorsement Tuesday night. A statement from the Clinton campaign after the meeting described it as “a positive discussion about their primary campaign, about unifying the party and about the dangerous threat that Donald Trump poses to our nation. ” They discussed issues like raising wages and reducing college costs, and “agreed to continue working on their shared agenda, including through the platform development process for the upcoming Democratic National Convention. ” The Sanders campaign released a nearly identical statement, though it emphasized that the two candidates also spoke about “how best to bring more people into the political process” — a reflection of the strong support for Mr. Sanders among young people and independents. Neither Democrat entered the meeting on sure footing, and both were a little tense, advisers in each camp said beforehand. At the end, they left the Capital Hilton through separate exits without speaking to the roughly two dozen reporters gathered there. Mrs. Clinton, who became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee last week, spent the meeting trying to deduce what it would take to earn Mr. Sanders’s endorsement and whether he would seek policy concessions or political promises, several advisers said. Mr. Sanders focused on gauging the depth of Mrs. Clinton’s commitment to progressive goals like a higher minimum wage and lower financial burdens on college students, and to making the Democratic nomination process more open in the future. The chemistry between the two candidates was strained, in part, because Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders had not had any real chances to air grievances or blow off steam with each other away from the television cameras during their fight for the nomination. Mrs. Clinton had a few such moments with Barack Obama before they sat down for their own in 2008, which made it a little easier for them to come together, unite their party and win that November. In a sign that they are still adjusting to each other, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders were joined in their meeting by Jane Sanders, Mr. Sanders’s wife Jeff Weaver, his campaign manager John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman and Robby Mook, her campaign manager. Two advisers to Mr. Sanders said he thought Mrs. Clinton had said many of the right things at the meeting, but described him as concerned that she might embrace more politically moderate positions later if she thinks it necessary to win states like Florida, Ohio and Virginia. The advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the campaign had not authorized them to speak, said Mr. Sanders felt no pressure to endorse Mrs. Clinton quickly. And he has leverage: He accrued about 12 million votes and nearly 1, 900 delegates, and in a New York News poll last month, 28 percent of his supporters said they would not vote for Mrs. Clinton if she was the Democratic nominee. Mrs. Clinton picked up nearly 16 million votes and 2, 800 delegates. Whether Mr. Sanders endorses her enthusiastically and campaigns for her, or recognizes her as the nominee but otherwise withholds his blessing, is a significant concern for some Clinton advisers. Others in her campaign think that Democrats will ultimately unite because the possibility of a Trump victory is too great to ignore. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders met on the day of the Democratic primary in Washington, D. C. the final contest of the nominating process. Mrs. Clinton won 79 percent of the vote. Mr. Sanders received a standing ovation when he dropped in at the Senate Democrats’ weekly lunch to speak about his campaign and pose for an official Senate photo with his colleagues. He has not been in the Capitol much of late according to his website, he has not cast a vote since Jan. 12. “It was very upbeat, very optimistic,” said Senator Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan. | 0fake |
Greece 'ready and determined' to exit bailout in 2018: PM | ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece is ready and determined to exit its international bailout next August, putting an end to years of crisis and uncertainty, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Thursday. Greece s third EU/IMF bailout since 2010 is due to expire in August 2018. We are absolutely ready and determined to move in this direction and I m certain our lenders have the same approach of avoiding hurdles and delays, Tsipras said during joint press conference in Athens with French President Emanuel Macron. It is important not only for Greece, it is important for Europe, Tsipras said. The final end of the Greek crisis will signal Europe s passage into a new era of less uncertainty. | 0fake |
Boiler Room EP #80 – Heads They Win, Tails You Lose | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along with Randy J and Stewart Howe from 21Wire, Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blogspot, and Jay Dyer of Jays Analysis for the 80th episode of BOILER ROOM. Dim the lights, dawn the headphones and indulge in some Boiler Room with the crew. This week we re boiling up some media maniac conversation with blend of topics that ONLY the Boiler Room can pull off.Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved!BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY!Listen to Boiler Room #80 Chaos, Clowns, Catastrophe & Collapse on Spreaker.Reference Links: | 1real |
Iranian commander issued stark warning to Iraqi Kurds over Kirkuk | SULAIMANIA/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A senior Iranian military commander repeatedly warned Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq to withdraw from the oil city of Kirkuk or face an onslaught by Iraqi forces and allied Iranian-backed fighters, Kurdish officials briefed on the meetings said. Major-General Qassem Soleimani, commander of foreign operations for Iran s elite Revolutionary Guards, traveled to Iraq s Kurdistan region to meet Kurdish leaders at least three times this month before the Baghdad government s lightning campaign to recapture territory across the north. The presence of Soleimani on the frontlines highlights Tehran s heavy sway over policy in Iraq, and comes as Shi ite Iran seeks to win a proxy war in the Middle East with its regional rival and U.S. ally, Sunni Saudi Arabia. Soleimani met leaders from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish political parties in northern Iraq, in the city of Sulaimania the day before Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered his forces to advance on Kirkuk, according to a PUK lawmaker briefed on the meeting. His message was clear: withdraw or risk losing Tehran as a strategic ally. Abadi has all the regional powers and the West behind him and nothing will stop him from forcing you to return back to the mountains if he decides so, the lawmaker quoted Soleimani as telling the PUK leadership. The Iranian general evoked late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein s massive attack on a Kurdish rebellion in 1991, when almost the entire Kurdish population fled northern Iraq to the mountains, the PUK lawmaker said. Soleimani s visit ... was to give a last-minute chance for the decision-makers not to commit a fatal mistake, said the lawmaker, who like others interviewed in this story declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. Commanders of the Iraqi Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga, have accused Iran of orchestrating the Shi ite-led Iraqi central government s push into areas under their control, a charge senior Iranian officials have denied. But Iran has made no secret of its presence in Iraq. Tehran s military help is not a secret anymore. You can find General Soleimani s pictures in Iraq everywhere, said an official close to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Now, beside political issues, Kirkuk s oil is a very key element for Iran, which is an OPEC member. Control of those oil fields by Iran s enemies would be disastrous for us. Why should we let them enter the oil market?. Kirkuk fell to Iraqi government forces on Monday. Their offensive followed a referendum last month in which the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region voted to secede from Iraq against Baghdad s wishes. Kurds have sought an independent state for almost a century, after colonial powers divided up the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and left Kurdish-populated territory split between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. But Iraq s two main Kurdish parties have been at odds over both the referendum and the approach to the crisis in Kirkuk, which the Kurds consider to be the heart of their homeland. The PUK, a close ally of Iran, accused its rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), of putting the Kurds at risk of military intervention and isolation by pushing hard for the vote, which won wide approval for independence. Soleimani has been allied to the PUK for years, but the referendum has drawn him even closer to Kurdish politics and expanded Iran s reach in Iraq beyond the Baghdad government. The Iranian general is no stranger to conflicts in Iraq, which fought an eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s. He has often been seen in footage from the frontlines, and Iran has long helped Baghdad to carry out its military strategy through paramilitary Shi ite militias which it funds and arms. Before the referendum, Soleimani suggested to Kurdish leaders that holding a vote on secession which Iran feared would encourage its own Kurdish population to agitate for greater autonomy would be risky. The Iranians were very clear. They have been very clear that there will be conflict, that these territories will be lost, said one prominent Iraqi Kurdish politician who met Soleimani ahead of the Sept. 25 referendum. On Oct. 6, barely a week after the vote, Soleimani attended the funeral of PUK leader Jalal Talabani. Again, he wanted to make sure even his closest Kurdish allies understood the dangers of not withdrawing from Kirkuk, officials said. A senior Iranian diplomat in Iraq and an official in Iran close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei s office said Soleimani met with Kurdish leaders after Talibani s funeral and urged them to withdraw from Kirkuk and in exchange Tehran would protect their interests. Soleimani met with one of Talabani s sons, Bafel, a few days after his father was buried, one of the PUK officials said. Soleimani said Abadi should be taken very seriously. You should understand this, the official said. An Iranian source in Iraq said Soleimani was in Kirkuk two nights before the Iraqi government offensive for a couple of hours to give military guidance. Iraqi intelligence sources said Tehran sent a clear signal to the PUK. We understand from our sources on the ground that neighboring Iran played a decisive role in making the PUK chose the right course with Baghdad, one Iraqi intelligence official told Reuters. Tensions over the referendum and Kirkuk have deepened divisions between the two main political parties in northern Iraq. The KDP accused the PUK of betraying the Kurdish cause by capitulating to Iran and striking a deal to withdraw. The Talabani clan were behind the offensive on Kirkuk. They asked Qassem (Soleimani) for help and his troops were there on the ground, said a source close to Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government and head of the KDP. It is becoming clear that Iran is directing the operations to destroy the KDP. The PUK strongly denies this. Talabani s son Bafel accused the KDP of missing a zero-hour chance to avoid losing Kirkuk by failing to reach a deal over a military base which Iraqi government forces had demanded to take back. Unfortunately we reacted too slowly. And we find ourselves where we are today, Bafel told Reuters. Two other Kurdish political sources gave a similar account. Iran and Soleimani offered early assistance to northern Iraq s Kurds in the fight against Islamic State, a rallying point for the Kurdish community. But after the devastating loss of Kirkuk, Iraqi Kurds have been left disillusioned. They (both PUK and KDP leaders) just make decisions on their own and play with people s lives. In the end, we pay the price, said pensioner Abdullah Ahmed in Sulaimania. This is a disaster for everyone. Everyone was united against Daesh (Islamic State). Now they are back just looking out for themselves. | 0fake |
Trump fires adviser Bannon | WASHINGTON/HAGERSTOWN, Md. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump fired chief strategist Steve Bannon on Friday, the White House announced, ending the turbulent tenure of a rabble-rousing conservative media entrepreneur and political activist who was a darling of Trump’s base. “White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.” A source familiar with the decision, which had been under consideration for a while, said Bannon had been given an opportunity to depart on his own terms. “The president made up his mind on it over the past couple of weeks,” the source said. Kelly had been evaluating Bannon’s role within the White House. “They gave him an opportunity to step down knowing that he was going to be forced to,” the source said. Bannon damaged his standing by giving an interview to the liberal American Prospect this week in which he was seen to be undercutting Trump’s position on North Korea. Bannon told associates he thought he was talking to an academic and thought he was off the record. He had told friends he could go back to the right-wing Breitbart News outlet, which he had headed before he took over as chief of Trump’s presidential campaign in August 2016. | 0fake |
President-elect Donald Trump eyes Ovala Office with plans to erase Barack Obama’s achievements | November 11, 2016 President-elect Donald Trump eyes Ovala Office with plans to erase Barack Obama’s achievements
President-elect Donald Trump was surprisingly gracious as he met President Barack Obama in the Oval Office on Thursday but make no mistake: He is already working to erase major parts of Obama’s legacy from the history books.
Trump will be able to change some of Obama’s policies with a quick stroke of the pen. Others will be much more difficult, requiring justification to pass legal hurdles or buy-in from lawmakers on Capitol Hill or foreign leaders.
“He can make a big difference at the outset of his administration, but it will take him years and support from dubious congressional factions and allies overseas to get a lot of other things done,” said Charles Tiefer, former solicitor and deputy general counsel of the House of Representatives and now a professor at the University of Baltimore law school. | 1real |
U.N. chief says two-state Mideast solution is the only way | CAIRO (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Wednesday against abandoning the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying there was “no alternative”. “There is no alternative solution for the situation between the Palestinians and Israelis, other than the solution of establishing two states, and we should do all that can be done to maintain this,” he said during a visit to Cairo. The idea of a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel has underpinned Middle East peace efforts for decades, though the last U.S.-brokered negotiations broke down in 2014. But a senior White House official said on Tuesday peace did not necessarily have to entail Palestinian statehood, and U.S. President Donald Trump would not try to “dictate” a solution. Trump, at a Washington news conference held after Guterres spoke, left the question open, saying he would work to bring about peace between Israel and Palestinians, but it would be up to the parties themselves ultimately to reach an agreement. Before the two leaders met, Palestinians warned the White House not to abandon their goal of an independent state. For Palestinians, who seek a state in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and in the Gaza Strip, even the notion of a U.S. retreat from the internationally backed goal of a future Palestine existing alongside Israel was alarming. “If the Trump Administration rejects this policy, it would be destroying the chances for peace and undermining American interests, standing and credibility abroad,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Speaking later in the day at Cairo University, Guterres stressed once again the need to pursue a two-state solution. “We should not forget the mother of all conflicts is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he said in a wide-ranging speech. “It is important to stress that, in my opinion... there is no plan B other than the two-state solution.” Guterres earlier this month condemned the Israeli parliament’s move to legalize thousands of settler homes in the occupied West Bank, saying it goes against international law and will have legal consequences for Israel. Under Israeli law, the move retroactively legalizes about 4,000 settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land. Guterres also defended this week the choice of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as the U.N. envoy to Libya, after the United States raised objections and said the United Nations was biased against Israel. | 0fake |
Rand Paul Supporters Walk Out Of Jeb Bush Speech | A few dozen Paul backers -- many of whom donned red "Stand With Rand" T-shirts -- quietly made their way down the middle aisle and out the door during Bush's speech. Once outside the main ballroom at the Gaylord National Convention Center, where Bush was speaking, they rowdily gathered and denounced the man many see as the Republican Party's leading candidate for president in 2016.
"We're here at CPAC, and I almost think it's a joke having Jeb Bush here because he doesn't stand for conservative principles," said Timothy Simons, 21, the Connecticut chairman of Young Americans for Liberty and one of the Paul supporters who walked out.
"I was part of the walkout, and I'll tell you why," said Allen Skillicorn, vice chairman of the Kane County Republican Party in Illinois. "If Jeb Bush is nominated, Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States. ... How is he any different?"
"I barely know any Jeb Bush supporters that are our age," said Charlton, who was decked out in Paul gear. "No one our age is getting out there and saying, 'Jeb Bush is the one who will help us bring freedom back to America.'"
Ben Levitt, 23, said he came to Washington all the way from Canada just to check out CPAC. He said he may live an hour from the U.S. border, but he has plenty of views about Jeb Bush and why he's no different than his brother and father.
"More wars, more debt, more government," Levitt said of what the Bushes are about. "I mean, a fiscal conservative can't really say, 'Oh, I really love George W. Bush.' You just can't. I loved it for eight years. I loved the Iraq war and all that. I finally saw the light, so to speak, and got really into Ron Paul and that message."
Inside the auditorium, Bush was well aware that many young conservatives were hostile to him, a fact that was underscored by the tough questions he got from moderator Sean Hannity. Bush refused to cede potential voters, however, saying of those who were booing, “I’m marking them down as neutral. I want to be your second choice."
His session was dedicated almost entirely to domestic policy, a departure from many of the other speeches by would-be 2016 presidential candidates at CPAC. Bush touted Florida's economic growth under his leadership from 1999-2007, and gave examples of policies he had enacted that would please conservatives.
On immigration, Bush stressed the importance of securing the U.S. border, and he emphasized that immigration policy should be focused on "economic-driven immigrants" who bring specialized skills. He also spoke frankly about the need to create a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants currently in the United States. "The simple fact is that there is no plan to deport 11 million people," Bush said. "We should give them a path to legal status where they work … and contribute to our society.” Some in the crowd cheered, but there were plenty of boos, too. | 0fake |
As Hurricane Matthew Nears U.S., Residents Get Warning: Prepare - The New York Times | • Hurricane Matthew, a deadly storm with maximum sustained winds of more than 110 miles per hour, was forecast to start inflicting significant rain and wind damage in southern Florida beginning late Thursday, and in Georgia by late Friday, with the storm expected to strengthen to Category 4 from Category 3 as it approaches Florida. Coverage continues here >> • “Hurricane conditions” are expected in much of the Bahamas Lake Okeechobee, Fla. and a long coastal stretch of the United States that includes Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach and St. Augustine in Florida, and Jekyll Island off Georgia, the National Hurricane Center announced at 5 a. m. The eye of the storm was expected to pass near Grand Bahama Island late Thursday and move “very close to the east coast of the Florida peninsula” Thursday evening through Friday night. • The governors of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina declared emergencies, and more than 7, 800 National Guard soldiers were activated or placed on alert. • New York Times journalists assigned to cover the storm include Azam Ahmed, Mexico City bureau chief Lizette Alvarez in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Nick Madigan in Miami Frances Robles in Cocoa Beach, Fla. Les Neuhaus in Jacksonville, Fla. Alan Blinder in Atlanta Richard Fausset in Charleston, S. C. and Jess Bidgood in Wilmington, N. C. Gov. Rick Scott warned Floridians that the storm was expected to skim the state’s Atlantic coastline so closely that a direct hit could not be ruled out. “We have to be prepared to be hit by a catastrophic hurricane,” he warned at a news briefing at the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee Wednesday morning. Hurricane Matthew, he said, was packing enough strength to cause the kind of “massive destruction we haven’t seen in years. ” A hurricane warning was in effect for nearly 260 miles along the Interstate 95 corridor from the northern edge of County to the Daytona Beach area. Mr. Scott urged residents to drive inland. “It could be the biggest evacuation ever,” he said. Mandatory evacuations for the barrier islands in the hurricane warning areas were to begin Thursday at 8 a. m. The governor also pleaded with residents to start leaving early, before traffic backs up. “We have less than 24 hours left to prepare, evacuate and shelter,” he said. “Having a plan in place would be the difference of life and death. ” Up and down the coast, Florida residents raced to make final preparations. Lines at gas stations stretched far beyond the pumps. Supermarkets were depleted of bottled water, bread and canned goods as people waited patiently to pay up and get out. Planters and lawn furniture were being hustled inside. Flashlights were put within easy reach, and windows and glass doors were shielded by dusty hurricane shutters. Students, most of them too young to remember the danger of powerful hurricanes, celebrated the announcement that schools would close from along coastal counties from Miami to Jacksonville on Thursday and Friday. — LIZETTE ALVAREZ Jami Baker, 29, a Florida native who lives in a apartment in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood, a few blocks from the waters of Biscayne Bay, spent part of Wednesday stocking up on water, wine and crackers. “Everyone is in serious prep mode,” she said. Ms. Baker’s mother is 60 years old and her father is a decade older. “I’m concerned about my parents, who are in Boca Raton, where they’ll be getting the storm much worse,” she said. “I’ll be a nervous wreck if cell service goes out and I can’t reach them. ” Ms. Baker, a public relations executive, said she had two other concerns: losing electrical power, and the fact that in her neighborhood, several building projects are underway. “I’m surrounded by cranes and construction materials that are seemingly loose. I’m sure these construction firms have storm protocol, but it’s been a while since we had a major storm. ” — NICK MADIGAN Even people not directly in the storm’s path can be badly affected by its intensity, said Leanne Tellam, a resident of Palmetto Bay, a Miami suburb, who went through Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and what she called the “trifecta” of storms in 2005. “Hurricane Matthew does pose a tremendous threat to the entire east coast of Florida,” she said, “if not from direct winds or storm surge, then from the psychological factors at play that cause rational people to clear shelves of bottled water in areas where the tap water is safe to drink, or to empty out gas stations. The balance of being prepared and being rational are blurred when you have a storm this big. ” Ms. Tellam, who moved to Miami from New Jersey with her parents when she was 2, tends to take such storms somewhat in stride. “I have learned that I have enough in my house to withstand the loss of power for up to five days,” said Ms. Tellam, who lives with her husband, Douglas, their three children and two dogs. “I’ve spent a great deal of time in the Bahamas and am really worried about what the storm surge and waves will do to my friends on the places where there is no high ground when facing a storm like this,” she said. — NICK MADIGAN Gov. Nikki R. Haley urged people to evacuate Charleston, the state’s city, as the hurricane threatened millions of people along the East Coast. She said that the evacuation of Charleston and part of its surrounding area would begin at 3 p. m. Wednesday, and that the authorities would reverse eastbound lanes on Interstate 26. Other areas of the South Carolina coast will be evacuated on Thursday morning, the governor said. “For those of you that are wondering whether you should leave or not, I again will tell you that if you do not leave, you are putting a law enforcement officer or a National Guardsman’s life on the line when they have to go back and get you,” Ms. Haley said, She estimated that the evacuation would affect about 250, 000 residents and countless tourists. — ALAN BLINDER On Wednesday afternoon, the Walmart in North Charleston, S. C. was a predictable hive of commerce, of necessities purchased by the case. By 1:30 p. m. the water was almost all gone. There would be diapers enough for only a few babies more. The sound system played “A Horse With No Name. ” Shoppers and their carts jostled in the food aisles. Maynard Terry, 40, had five cases of bottled water in a cart, along with his girlfriend’s daughter. Mr. Terry said they could not leave town, because his girlfriend’s elderly grandmother refused. And someone needed to care for her. “She’s in poor health and she’s stubborn and she don’t want to go,” he said. He smiled, and said they were going to make the most of it. Soon everything would be closed. Soon there would be no distraction but the storm. “We’re just going to chill,” he said. “It’s going to be family time. ” — RICHARD FAUSSET Hundreds of yellow public school buses snaked around the massive complex housing the North Charleston Coliseum and the Charleston Area Convention Center in this suburb of South Carolina’s city, preparing to haul the elderly, the poor and those without cars — or without a friend to drive them — away from the Lowcountry before Hurricane Matthew struck. The buses were to leave at 3 p. m. and take the evacuees to Greenville, S. C. Jacqueline Holmes and her husband, Andrew, both 54, had come three hours early, with bags full of chips, water, deodorant and flushable wipes. Ms. Holmes’s previous trips to the coliseum were for leisure. She saw Barry White in concert here, and Luther Vandross, and LL Cool J. In 1989, she also saw Hurricane Hugo lay waste to large parts of the Charleston area. She rode out that infamous storm in her parents’ house. “It was the most terriblest thing I ever saw,” Ms. Holmes said, as she walked along the asphalt toward a staging area in front of the convention center. Ms. Holmes, who speaks with the almost Caribbean Gullah lilt that distinguishes the speech of many here, recalled, as if it were yesterday, the quiet before Hurricane Hugo hit, and the moment when the silence was shattered by a violent roar that sounded like a freight train coming. She remembers the trees yanked up along with their roots, strewn around her parents’ yard. — RICHARD FAUSSET President Obama urged people in coastal states to prepare. “We anticipate that not only is there still a chance that the core of the storm strikes Florida and some of the states further north, but even if you don’t get the full force of the hurricane, we are still going to be seeing tropical force winds, the potential for a storm surge,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday morning at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “And all of that could have a devastating effect. ” The president, who postponed a Wednesday visit to Florida as the storm’s path became clearer, said residents should be ready to flee with little warning. “Now is the time for you to prepare in the event that you have to evacuate,” Mr. Obama said. Even if residents are not ordered to leave, he said, “it still makes sense for you to figure out what kind of plan do you have, what kind of preparations and supplies do you have. ” — ALAN BLINDER In North Carolina, officials ordered the evacuation of Ocracoke Island, a popular destination for tourists in the Outer Banks. The storm is set to press through the Bahamas on Thursday, slowly passing over a large part of the islands with violent wind and rain, in addition to storm surges. It is expected to strike as a Category 3 hurricane, bringing a potential for to surge in water and more than a foot of rain, a combination that could lead to heavy flooding. “Over the coming hours, days, weeks and months, if the forecasts are correct, Hurricane Matthew may well become a defining event in our country’s history,” Prime Minister Perry Christie said. “It is rare that the whole country will have been impacted so directly by a storm of such magnitude and severity. ” Infrastructure in the Bahamas, thanks to the heavy tourism industry, is likely to fare better than that of Haiti and Eastern Cuba, where the storm devastated stretches of the island, leaving massive flooding or piles of rubble in its wake. Hotels and other structures are better equipped, in many cases, to withstand the battering of wind and rain. All the same, the State Department has issued travel warnings asking travelers to avoid visiting the Bahamas as well as Turks and Caicos. — AZAM AHMED Initial reports from the government of Haiti said that five people there had been killed, 10 people had been injured and one person was missing. The storm pummeled the southern coast on Tuesday, destroying homes and crops, sweeping away livestock and cutting off transportation as a large part of the Caribbean was pummeled by winds and torrential rain. The top United Nations official in Haiti, Mourad Wahba, described the storm as “the largest humanitarian event” in the country of 11 million since a devastating earthquake six years ago, with thousands scrambling for shelter. Haiti’s civil protection agency said a bridge collapse had severed the main highway connecting the south with the capital. Interior Minister François Anick Joseph said Tuesday night that 14, 530 people had been evacuated and that about 2, 200 homes were flooded or destroyed. As of Wednesday morning, the storm, which was downgraded to Category 3, from Category 4, had passed through Cuba, and the National Hurricane Center in Miami warned that a dangerous surge was beginning to spread over the Bahamas, to the north. — AZAM AHMED John Schwartz, a New York Times reporter who covers climate change and the environment, is answering reader questions about the storm. John rode out his first hurricane, Carla, in his hometown, Galveston, Tex. at the age of 4. He has covered the aftermath of Katrina, as well as other storms for The Times. Ask your hurricane questions here. When was the last big storm to hit Florida, and how does this compare? If Matthew hits Florida directly, it will be the first major hurricane to do so since Wilma in 2005, which caused damage estimated at $21 billion. How will Matthew compare? As the National Hurricane Center put it Thursday evening, “When a hurricane is forecast to take a track roughly parallel to a coastline, as Matthew is forecast to do from Florida through South Carolina, it becomes very difficult to estimate impacts this far in advance. ” But Florida, especially, has been warned to batten down, and much of the East Coast is preparing for powerful winds and storm surge as well as torrential rain. Hi, John. Is it safe to visit my mother in Chestertown, Md.? Will we have a problem finding gasoline? Will the roads be blocked with displaced people, flooding and debris? — Dan Wyatt Dan, I’ve heard of no evacuation order there yet, and with the storm likely to be turning to the east in the next few days, the risk to the town could be diminishing. But hurricanes often spread well beyond the edges of the cone, and so your mother could expect high winds, a ton of rain to deal with, and the usual run on supplies. If you do go, it’s a good idea to fill the gas tank before you head out. And keep an eye on the storm predictions from the National Hurricane Center. You can register to receive Kent County, Md. evacuation alerts and other emergency messages here. I live in Jacksonville, N. C. Should we be looking to evacuate anytime soon? — Jamelia Hello, Jamelia! The risk to coastal towns in North Carolina has lessened a bit in the October 5 forecast released at 2 p. m. which you can see here: As you can see, the National Hurricane Center is suggesting that a few days from now the storm will take a sharp turn to the east, which could still mean Jacksonville would avoid a direct hit but could still feel effects of storm surge and heavy rains. Your best bet is to look to local authorities for alerts about whether or not to evacuate. At the same time, it’s a good time to sit down and figure out what your evacuation plan would be, if necessary — know the local hurricane evacuation routes, and figure out where you’ll go while waiting for the storm to pass. And if a call for evacuation does come, take it seriously. Here’s a great page from Ready. gov with good advice about how to prepare for evacuation. The maps appear to show prediction that the hurricane will make a radical turn to the right, to the east, out to sea. Why is that predicted? Are probabilities given that instead it may follow a more common path up the coast? — Dick Purcell There are a number of factors at play here, Dick, including potential interactions with Tropical Storm Nicole over the weekend. A meteorologist, Ryan Maue, put out a lovely tweet earlier today showing the dance with Nicole: The National Hurricane Center notes in its 11 a. m. discussion of Matthew that the subtropical ridge over the western Atlantic could head east and push Matthew east and even south. But it’s too early to say where this thing is going with any certainty, so keep watching Matthew at the National Hurricane Center, or your favorite source of weather news. | 0fake |
Turkey urges U.S. to review visa suspension as lira, stocks tumble | ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey urged the United States on Monday to review its suspension of visa services after the arrest of a U.S. consulate employee sharply escalated tension between the two NATO allies and drove Turkey s currency and stocks lower. Relations between Ankara and Washington have been plagued by disputes over U.S. support for Kurdish fighters in Syria, Turkey s calls for the extradition of a U.S.-based cleric and the indictment of a Turkish former minister in a U.S. court. But last week s arrest of a Turkish employee of the U.S. consulate in Istanbul marked a fresh low. Turkey said the employee had links to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for a failed military coup in July 2016. Gulen denies any connection with the coup. The U.S. embassy in Ankara condemned Ankara s charges as baseless and announced on Sunday night it was halting all non-immigrant visa services in Turkey while it reassessed Turkey s commitment to the security of its missions and staff. Within hours, Ankara announced it was taking the same measures against U.S. citizens seeking visas for Turkey. The U.S. ambassador said the duration of the visa services suspension would depend on talks between the two governments about the reasons for the detention of local staff in Turkey. In a written statement late on Monday, Ambassador John Bass said the length of the suspension would also depend on the Turkish government s commitment to protecting our facilities and personnel here in Turkey . He noted that the move was not a visa ban on Turkish citizens, that valid visas could still be used and visa applications could be made outside of Turkey. The U.S. Embassy had been unable to learn the reasons for the arrest of its Turkish staff member last week or what evidence exists against the employee, Bass said, adding that he had not been allowed sufficient access to the employee s lawyer. Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul said that if Washington had serious security concerns about its missions in Turkey, steps would be taken to address them. But if it s an issue regarding the arrest of the consulate employee, then this is a decision the Turkish judiciary has made, Gul told A Haber television. Trying a Turkish citizen for a crime committed in Turkey is our right. The Turkish foreign ministry summoned a U.S. diplomat to urge the United States to lift the visa services suspension, saying it was causing unnecessary tensions , and President Tayyip Erdogan also criticized the U.S. move. For the (U.S.) embassy in Ankara to take such a decision and implement it, it is upsetting, Erdogan told a news conference during a visit to Ukraine. State-run Anadolu news agency said another U.S. consulate worker had been summoned to testify over his wife and daughter s suspected links to Gulen - which it said had emerged during the questioning of Metin Topuz, the employee arrested last week. The diplomatic spat spooked investors. The lira dropped 3.4 percent and stood at 3.7385 against the dollar after being quoted overnight as touching a level of 3.9223. The main BIST 100 stock index fell as much as 4.7 percent, closing the day down 2.73 percent at 101,298 points. Airline shares were particularly hard hit, with flag carrier Turkish Airlines falling 9 percent. The central bank said it was following developments closely. This looks like a really serious situation, said Blue Bay Asset Management strategist Timothy Ash. He added that the central bank would need to move quickly to calm market nerves and possibly hike interest rates - something Erdogan has resisted. Turkey s leading business association, TUSIAD, warned that the dispute would harm bilateral economic, social and cultural ties, and called for disagreements to be settled calmly. The row with the United States coincides with deep strains in Turkey s relations with Germany, another key ally, and with Turkish military activity at the Syrian and Iraqi borders, though their market impact has so far been limited. U.S.-Turkish tensions have risen in recent months over U.S. military support for Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria, considered by Ankara to be an extension of the banned PKK which has waged an insurgency for three decades in southeast Turkey. Turkey has also pressed, so far in vain, for the United States to extradite Gulen, viewed in Ankara as the mastermind behind the failed coup in which more than 240 people were killed. Friction with the United States has also arisen from the indictment last month by a U.S. court of Turkey s former economy minister Zafer Caglayan on charges of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran. Sinan Ulgen, an analyst and former Turkish diplomat, said those underlying disputes had created a crisis of confidence which made this latest fall-out particularly bitter. This harshness is a result of a build-up, he said. We should not consider this as solely a reaction to the detentions of consulate employees . | 0fake |
Mueller team lawyer brings witness-flipping expertise to Trump probes | (Reuters) - A veteran federal prosecutor recruited onto special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is known for a skill that may come in handy in the investigation of potential ties between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team: persuading witnesses to turn on friends, colleagues and superiors. Andrew Weissmann, who headed the U.S. Justice Department’s criminal fraud section before joining Mueller’s team last month, is best known for two assignments - the investigation of now-defunct energy company Enron and organized crime cases in Brooklyn, New York - that depended heavily on gaining witness cooperation. Securing the cooperation of people close to Trump, many of whom have been retaining their own lawyers, could be important for Mueller, who was named by the Justice Department as special counsel on May 17 and is investigating, among other issues, whether Trump himself has sought to obstruct justice. Trump has denied allegations of both collusion and obstruction. “Flipping” witnesses is a common, although not always successful, tactic in criminal prosecutions. Robert Ray, who succeeded Kenneth Starr as the independent counsel examining former President Bill Clinton, noted that Trump’s fired former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, has already offered through his lawyer to testify before Congress in exchange for immunity, suggesting potential willingness to cooperate as a witness. “It would seem to me the time is now to make some decisions about what you have and what leverage can be applied to get the things you don’t have,” Ray said, referring to Mueller’s team. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and others close to the president already have hired their own lawyers to help navigate Mueller’s expanding probe and ongoing congressional investigations. Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as White House counsel under former President Barack Obama, said Weissmann is willing to take risks to secure witness testimony that other prosecutors might not. Ruemmler worked with Weissmann on the Justice Department’s Enron task force that investigated the massive corporate fraud that led to the company’s 2001 collapse. Ruemmler recalled that Weissmann had a hunch that former Enron treasurer Ben Glisan would be willing to talk despite already having pleaded guilty without agreeing to cooperate. So Weissmann had U.S. marshals bring Glisan before the grand jury from prison, Ruemmler said. Other prosecutors might have feared Glisan’s testimony could contradict their theory of the case, Ruemmler said, but Weissmann’s gamble paid off when the former executive became a key witness. “He’s not afraid to lose, and that is sometimes an unusual quality,” Ruemmler said of Weissmann. Weissmann also led lengthy negotiations with lawyers for Andrew Fastow, Enron’s former chief financial officer and a star prosecution witness in the case, gaining leverage from the fact that prosecutors had indicted Fastow’s wife, also a former Enron employee, on tax fraud charges. Both pleaded guilty, and Fastow testified against former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who was convicted in 2006. Fastow declined to comment. Glisan could not be reached for comment. Representatives for Mueller and the Trump legal team declined to comment. Critics have said say Weissmann’s hardball approach can lead to prosecutorial overreach. A number of Enron convictions were overturned on appeal, and Skilling’s 24-year sentence was later reduced by 10 years. Defense lawyer Tom Kirkendall, who represented clients related to the Enron case, said the task force intimidated witnesses and misinterpreted the law. But Sam Buell, a former prosecutor who was a member of the Enron task force, called such criticism routine in high-stakes cases. Mueller has several other highly experienced lawyers on his team, including U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben. Trump has also been building a legal team led by New York lawyer Marc Kasowitz, with veteran Washington defense lawyer John Dowd recently coming aboard. Before his work relating to Enron, Weissmann served as a federal prosecutor in the organized crime bureau in Brooklyn. In 1997, he and trial partner George Stamboulidis brought down one of the country’s most powerful mob bosses, Vincent “the Chin” Gigante, with the help of turncoat witnesses. “We cut our teeth in the organized crime section,” said Stamboulidis, now in private practice. “And the only way you can make those cases is to get people to cooperate, even when the oath of Omerta (a Mafia code of silence and non-cooperation with authorities) was strong and in full play.” | 0fake |
For the Record: Iowa, why can't we quit you? | More debates! Fewer candidates! We're still talking about Iowa! It's your Thursday edition of For the Record ... let's get to it!
Two more Republican candidates dropped out of the race Wednesday, leaving eight candidates (nine if you count Jim Gilmore, but that's like counting Pluto as still being a planet). Senator Rand Paul is out, dealing a blow to anyone who wanted to make political donations solely in Bitcoin; 2012 Iowa Caucus winner Rick Santorum also suspended his campaign.
After careful consideration, Santorum threw his 0.4% worth of influence at Marco Rubio, while Paul says he won't make any endorsements in the primary — though he says he'll back the eventual Republican nominee.
For Paul, he returns to Kentucky to focus full-time on his re-election campaign for Senate. A few months back, Paul said he'd give up to $500,000 to help pay for an early Kentucky caucus, which would have enabled him to run both for president and senator for a few months longer (here's hoping he kept the receipt).
Rick Santorum, meanwhile, is heading home to binge-watch "Touched by an Angel" on Netflix.
On the Kübler-Ross model of grief, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are stuck on "denial" about the Iowa results. (You might say that Trump is on "anger" but no, he's just like that.) On the Democratic side, the official results say Hillary Clinton edged Sanders by 0.29%, one of the closest caucuses in Iowa history; still Team Sanders is looking into how coin-flipping in some precincts affected the ultimate outcome. (One question still unanswered: If a coin landed on its edge, did those delegates go to Martin O'Malley?)
On the Republican side, Donald Trump is calling for a complete do-over based on Ted Cruz staffers spreading rumors that Ben Carson was dropping out of the race, and encouraging Cruz's precinct captains to try to lure Carson supporters to their side. Trump is insisting actually won the caucuses based on his strong pre-debate poll numbers.
So why were the polls and caucus results different? Experts are suggesting it was a strong get-out-the-vote effort by Cruz, plus a number of last-minute deciders, plus the decline of land lines and the increase in cellphone use, which actually makes a lot of sense because "SORRY NEW PHONE WHO IS THIS" was pulling in 8% support in late January.
There's another Democratic debate tonight (9 p.m. EST on MSNBC), this time with only Hillary and Bernie on the stage. O'Malley, who dropped out of the race following the Iowa caucuses, will see no significant decrease in speaking time.
"But wait, this debate wasn't on the original schedule," said no normal person anywhere. It's true, this debate is one of four added to the Democratic debate schedule just as the race gets more heated. Yesterday the two campaigns argued over Twitter about the definition of "progressive," a debate that spilled over into last night's town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire. The tl;dr version: Sanders says Clinton is too moderate on military intervention, the financial industry and trade; Clinton says compromise is needed because "(a)n important part of being a progressive is making progress." The fun part will be during the general election, when the Democratic nominee will spend months telling the country how centrist and mainstream they are.
If the political gods formed a human out of campaign contributions and sadness and then made it run for president, this is what it would look like. | 0fake |
Eric Trump Gives DUMBEST Defense For His Brother’s Russia Scandal | The White House is getting really nervous today after Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out damning copies of an email chain of a discussion about setting up a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer in order to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton. Also at the meeting was Trump s son-in-law, Jared Kushner and the alleged president s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort. The meeting was held in Trump Tower in 2016, but the amateur president claims to know nothing about it even though he touts himself as a micromanager.Junior s brother, Eric Trump, stepped in to defend him on Twitter Tuesday. By the way, Junior s father has been strangely quiet on Twitter since the news broke but Eric put his juice box down and took to his Twitter account to defend his scandal-plagued brother. This is the EXACT reason they viciously attack our family! They can t stand that we are extremely close and will ALWAYS support each other, Eric Trump tweeted.This is the EXACT reason they viciously attack our family! They can't stand that we are extremely close and will ALWAYS support each other. https://t.co/1f7JqxScMr Eric Trump (@EricTrump) July 11, 2017Eric said that while retweeting a video clip posted by United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and Brexit leader Nigel Farage who was defending Donald Trump Jr., saying the amateur president s (OK, he didn t say amateur but still) eldest son is being attacked for supporting his father.Twitter users could see that Eric s whiny defense sucked.Eric Trump proclaims the 60% of Americans who dont support his father hate close families. Yah, that's it. (Eric shhhh! Ur not helping.) Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) July 11, 2017Supermodel Chrissy Teigen weighed in.What happens when you see garlic christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) July 11, 2017Tweeting out a discredited racist to defend your family is admirably on-brand. Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) July 11, 2017No, Eric. The reason we attack your family is that you're a bunch of corrupt imbecilities, driving our country like drunk monkies. Kelly Scaletta (@KellyScaletta) July 11, 2017While playing victim Eric doesn t seem to realize that his brother tweeted out his own emails, which, by the way, threw Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort under the bus. In fact, he threw the entire White House under the bus.The subject line of the emails was titled, Russia Clinton private and confidential. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government s support for Mr. Trump, Rob Goldstone, who set up the meeting, wrote. If it s what you say I love it, Trump Jr. said in response to the potential information on Hillary Clinton.Well now! Maybe Junior, Jared and Paul Manafort were attacking Hillary because they can t stand that her family is extremely close. Trump responded to the email dump by his own son in a statement Tuesday, saying that Don Jr. is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency. Except that the only reason Junior was transparent was because he was caught. Junior outed his emails before the New York Times could publish them.Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images. | 1real |
Judge Orders Trump-Owned Golf Resort to Pay Millions - The New York Times | In a highly unusual turn of events for a sitting president, a federal judge in Florida on Wednesday ordered a golf resort owned by President Trump to pay $5. 7 million for refusing to refund deposits to members who wanted to resign from the club. In his ruling, the judge said that Mr. Trump, by sending a letter in late 2012 denying access to members who wanted to resign from the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter — a process that could take years — had set off a contract clause that should have resulted in an immediate refund of their membership fees. Instead, the money was withheld. The decision is the first court judgment against a company owned by Mr. Trump since he became president last month, and underscores that while Mr. Trump has stepped away from the operations of his company, he is certain to remain dogged by legal controversies connected to his business. At his new hotel in Washington, Mr. Trump is suing two celebrity chefs for breach of contract. The two men backed out of the Trump International Hotel development in 2015 after Mr. Trump made inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants. Separately, the federal government owns the building that houses the hotel, and some legal experts have said that Mr. Trump may be in violation of his lease, which appears to prohibit federal elected officials from leasing the building. And last month, a lawsuit was filed in federal court in Manhattan contending that Mr. Trump had violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution by allowing his hotels and other businesses to accept payments from foreign governments. Mr. Trump has not sold any of his assets, which include golf courses, commercial real estate and marketing agreements. Rather he has handed the operations of his company over to his eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, a move he hopes will reduce the appearance of conflict of interest. Wednesday’s ruling — by Judge Kenneth Marra of Federal District Court in West Palm Beach, an appointee of President George W. Bush’s — calls for the club to pay $4. 85 million in withheld fees to 65 club members involved in the lawsuit, plus an additional $925, 000 in interest and other costs. As a result, those members will receive refunds of $35, 000 to $200, 000, depending on their level of membership in the club. Amanda Miller, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, said the company planned to appeal. “At the time Trump purchased the club, it was suffering financially, making it unlikely that these members would ever get back their deposits,” Ms. Miller said in a statement. “At trial, we presented overwhelming evidence that the plaintiffs’ memberships were never recalled and that the plaintiffs had waived this argument during the course of the litigation. ” The dispute at the Jupiter club centered on contracts signed by club members with the facility’s previous owner, . To join, members paid initiation fees as high as $210, 000, depending on the type of membership that they wanted. But under ’s rules those deposits were refundable when a member resigned. That process, however, could take years and while members on the resignation list waited for their turn to come up they could still use the club so long as they paid annual fees and other costs like food and beverage minimums. That all changed in 2012 when the Trump Organization bought the Jupiter club. Soon afterward, Mr. Trump sent a letter to members saying that those who wanted to resign were no longer welcome there. “I do not want them to utilize the club, nor do I want their dues,” the letter read. After club members sued, Mr. Trump testified in 2015 during a pretrial deposition that although he had signed the letter, it was his son, Eric Trump, who was in charge of policies at the family’s golf courses. “Eric is much more familiar with this club,” his father said. “He runs it. ” In his pretrial deposition, Eric Trump testified that nothing had changed and that club members seeking to resign had been allowed to use the club so long as they paid their dues. That claim, however, was disputed at trial last year. One member on the resignation list, Richard Slawson, testified that the club’s membership manager told him soon after the Trumps took it over that the club was . But he continued to receive $6, 000 bills for annual dues and thousands in minimum charges for food and beverages that were never consumed. “I couldn’t believe that we were charged that when we were not allowed to use the club,” Mr. Slawson, a Florida lawyer, said in a recent telephone interview. Confronted with such testimony, the younger Mr. Trump during his court testimony backed off his assertions and acknowledged he had been mistaken. “He made himself our strongest witness,” a plaintiff’s lawyer, Bradley Edwards, said about Eric Trump. “There was no way to reconcile his prior testimony with his testimony at trial. ” | 0fake |
Oregon Standoff Acquittal Sparks Fears of New Land Disputes | Oregon Standoff Acquittal Sparks Fears of New Land Disputes 11/01/2016
AGWEB
The stunning acquittal of seven people who occupied a federal wildlife sanctuary in Oregon during an armed standoff raised fears Friday that the verdict could embolden other militant groups in a long-running dispute over government-owned Western lands.
Meanwhile, a juror said the decision was a rejection of the prosecution’s conspiracy case, not an endorsement of the defendants’ actions.
Supporters of Ammon Bundy celebrated the verdict and said it could invite more confrontations. The government’s top federal land official, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, issued a statement urging all employees to “remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity.”
An activist from Boise, Idaho, who once camped by a memorial to occupier LaVoy Finicum at the site where he was shot dead by police, predicted that the verdict would encourage others to act.
“I think a lot more people will be revolting, rebelling and standing up against what we see as a tyrannical government,” William C. Fisher said in a telephone interview.
The 41-day takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge last January in remote eastern Oregon was part of a larger debate about the use of federal lands in the West. The militants led by Bundy, a small business owner from Arizona, wanted to hand the refuge over to local officials, saying the federal government should not have dominion over it.
The U.S. government owns nearly half of all land in the West, compared with only 4 percent in other states, according to the Congressional Overview of Federal Land Ownership.
One of the jurors in the case asserted Friday that the panel was not endorsing militancy to resolve those issues.
The juror, identified only as Juror No. 4, wrote in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive that the verdicts were a “statement” about the prosecution’s failure to prove a conspiracy charge “and not any form of affirmation of the defense’s various beliefs, actions or aspirations.”
The acquittal of the white occupiers came on the same day that officers in riot gear evicted protesters from private land in the path of the Dakota Access oil pipeline in rural North Dakota. Officers fired bean bags and pepper spray as they surrounded demonstrators, many of them Native Americans who have spent months fighting over tribal rights and the project’s environmental effects. At least 117 people were arrested.
“Are we going to look at these protests the same way?” asked John Freemuth, a public land policy expert at Boise State University. “I certainly think the tribes will have a point if they find themselves arrested and in jail and these Oregon guys get off.”
Bundy, his brother Ryan Bundy and five others were charged with conspiring to impede federal workers from their jobs at the refuge.
Chris Rasmussen, a defense lawyer in an armed standoff case that happened two years ago at Bundy’s father’s ranch in Nevada, said it is “obvious” that Oregon prosecutors gambled in seeking convictions on felony conspiracy charges instead of misdemeanor trespassing charges.
But prosecutors had few other options for serious charges because the defendants never attacked anyone, said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former federal prosecutor.
Rather than attempting to retake the refuge headquarters and risking a gunbattle, authorities took a cautious approach. They closed nearby roads and stayed miles away while urging the occupiers to abandon the land.
“The upside of not confronting them was it was less likely there would be violence,” Levenson said. “The downside was it was less likely that they could use the assault charge.”
The standoff finally ended when the Bundys and other key figures were arrested in a Jan. 26 traffic stop outside the refuge. That’s when Finicum was killed. Most occupiers left after his death, but four holdouts remained until Feb. 11, when they surrendered following lengthy negotiations.
Bundy remains in jail because he still faces charges in the standoff at his father’s Nevada ranch.
Joel Hansen, Cliven Bundy’s attorney, said Friday that he thinks the jury in Oregon “saw through the lies” of a government that “is trying to prove these Bundybrothers and their compatriots were some kind of terrorists.”
For Hansen and some others in the rural West, ownership of public land is a constitutional question that has not been settled.
“There is a seething anger among those who use the land,” he said, citing the feelings of ranchers, loggers, miners and Indians. “It’s all part of tyrannical oppression. Their goal is to manage them out of business to get them off the land.”
The Oregon occupiers had chosen, perhaps inadvertently, a part of Oregon where locals and the feds had a recent history of working together. Few who live near the sanctuary welcomed the occupiers, most of whom were from out of state.
Not long before the takeover began on Jan. 2, locals and federal officials had determined the fate of large swaths of land, Harney County Judge Steve Grasty, the top local administrative official, said last summer in an interview.
The High Desert Partnership in Harney County, a group that includes the Bureau of Land Management, the Nature Conservancy and timber business owners, had been working quietly to determine land stewardship, which Jewell credited in her statement on Friday. | 1real |
BOMBSHELL: Melania Trump Refuses To Believe Access Hollywood Tapes In BIZARRE Interview (VIDEO) | With the release of the 2005 Access Hollywood tape revealing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump saying lewd remarks that revealed him to be a sexual predator, there hasn t been anyone capable of defending him.However, now, in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN, Melania Trump is coming to her husband s defense and seemingly blaming Billy Bush, the other man on the Access Hollywood tape.According to Melania, Bush egged Trump on. Although, if you listen to the tapes it was clearly the other way around.Melania told Cooper: I said to my husband that, you know, the language was inappropriate. It s not acceptable. And I was surprised, because that is not the man that I know. She also said, now making excuses for his horrific behavior: And as you can see from the tape, the cameras were not on it was only a mic. And I wonder if they even knew that the mic was on. Then when asked if she s ever heard her husband speak like that, she said: No. No, that s why I was surprised, because I said like I don t know that person that would talk that way, and that he would say that kind of stuff in private. Melania seems to either be in complete denial that her husband does, in fact, speak that way, or she s been instructed by her husband and his campaign to shift blame to Billy Bush and away from Donald. Either way, it s very, very bizarre.In a statement after the tapes were released, Melania had said: The words my husband used are unacceptable and offensive to me. But now she s making excuses for them. Who knows what the hell is going on, really? Yet, what we do know is that Donald Trump said those horrific remarks and needs to be kept as far away from the Oval Office as possible.Watch the video here:Melania thinks Billy egged on Trump into saying dirty and bad stuff, like these two are school boys at recess. https://t.co/fCL9SgXhP3 pic.twitter.com/UfnTQrSMad Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) October 17, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
WATCH: Anderson Cooper Leaves Trump Supporter DUMBFOUNDED For Hypocrisy On Sexual Assault | Trump mouthpiece Jeffrey Lord got his a** handed to him by Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night for once again bringing up Juanita Broaddrick in response to sexual assault allegations against the Republican nominee.During the segment, Cooper and the panel were discussing the women who have come forward to tell their stories about how Donald Trump groped them when Lord interrupted to complain that the women didn t talk about Jaunita Broaddrick and her accusations against Bill Clinton, even though Broaddrick has nothing to do with Trump s own behavior.Lord called the women s accusations into question, but Cooper was quick to drop the hammer on his hypocrisy. Why do you believe Juanita Broaddrick and not these two women, Cooper asked, leaving a dumbfounded Lord to claim that the media isn t giving Clinton s accusers an equal forum. But Clinton s accusers have no bearing on this election because Bill Clinton is not running for president, as other panelists reminded Lord. Furthermore, Bill Clinton was never charged with committing any crimes. Juanita Broaddrick filed a sworn affidavit stating that the rape allegations against Clinton are untrue. And these accusations against Clinton are 20 years old and have received a ton of media coverage over the years, especially during Clinton s presidency. The allegations against Trump, meanwhile, are new and haven t received near as much coverage.But Lord whined that the New York Times hasn t interviewed Broaddrick and then brought up a ridiculous anecdotal claim about meeting a couple from Virginia who supposedly think the media the treating Trump unfairly.When it became clear that Lord and Trump s other surrogates were not going to win this fight they resorted to calling Hillary Clinton an enabler of Bill Clinton behavior who supposedly bullied the women accusing Bill of sexual misconduct.But the other panelists would have none of it and proceeded to smack them down.Here s the video via YouTube:[ad3media campaign= 1136 ]The accusations against Bill Clinton have nothing to do with this election. Hillary Clinton is running for president, not her husband. Trump, on the other hand, IS running for president and the allegations against him are new and should be covered by the media.Donald Trump is unfit to be president and the fact that his supporters have to resort to bringing up Bill Clinton and his accusers in a lame effort to distract from that proves it.Featured Image: Screenshot | 1real |
Over 9.2 million sign for Obamacare amid Trump repeal push | (Reuters) - More than 9.2 million U.S. consumers signed up for health insurance using the Healthcare.gov website during the open enrollment period between November and Jan. 31, the U.S. government said on Friday. Enrollment was down from 9.7 million a year ago but the decline was smaller than some had predicted amid President Donald Trump’s push to overturn former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform under which the plans are sold. With several insurers pulling out over rising costs, and Republican congressional efforts to scuttle the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known as Obamacare, the enrollment period was seen as a test of the program’s popularity. HealthCare.gov sells health insurance under the ACA for 39 states. The remaining states run their own exchanges. The total number of plan selections across all states for the entire open enrollment period will be released in March. Average premiums for the second-lowest cost silver plan rose 25 percent compared with the previous year. At the same time the number of insurance providers choosing to participate in the exchanges fell by 28 percent. Of the 9.2 million, about 3 million were new consumers while 6.2 million were returning consumers. The figures include any cancellations that occurred during the period. Trump’s surprise victory in early November as the enrollment period got underway created serious doubts about whether people would sign up for the insurance program. A move by the Trump administration to pull television ads reminding consumers that the enrollment deadline was approaching likely contributed to the dropoff. “This may have cost about 500,000 additional enrollments,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of healthcare consumer advocacy group Families USA, in a statement, calling the move an “attempt to sabotage enrollment.” “And despite all that, millions of consumers still got their insurance through the ACA,” Pollack said. Meanwhile, Republican efforts to repeal the healthcare law have stumbled over an inability so far to come up with a comprehensive replacement plan. Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee this week said changes to the law would be made in “chunks” and would be better labeled a “repair.” | 0fake |
J.K. Rowling and Her World of Magic | J.K. Rowling is best known for her magical world of Harry Potter, filled with ghostly Dementors, tricky house-elves, butter beer, and spells that enchant or dispel an opponent. Her spellbound books do not stop there. Rowling has written other books, which are geared toward adults, such as her crime novel, “The Cuckoo Calling,” currently being filmed for BBC adaptation. Rowling also wrote “The Casual Vacancy,” a drama novel that has already made its debut on the BBC network.
J.K. Rowling’s Bookcase of Magic Rowling went on to expand her extraordinary world of magic with “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” which is her next installment into a magical place young adults, children, and adults alike want to be in. The book was originally meant to be a textbook in the wizarding world of Hogwarts and centers around Newt Scamander.
In the year 1926, he has completed a global excursion to find and document all of the world’s magical creatures. Unfortunately, after Scamander decides to make a brief stop in New York, he misplaces his magical case of fantastic beasts. (Yes, the world of magic has come to America.) He also meets a No-Maj named Jacob Kowalski, who discovers the world of magic after meeting Scamander and causes a bit of mischief.
The immersive world of magic continues in Rowling’s “Quidditch Through the Ages.” Even though the book is not as magical as previous ones, it is still essential to the wizarding world. It is about Quidditch and was written by Kennilworthy Whisp, a renowned player of the sport. This book was read by Potter in the movie, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Severus Snape caught him reading it outside the school, and makes a bogus rule that library books are no longer allowed outside the school, before he takes from Potter.
A Collection of Wizarding Tales for Children Who can forget Rowling’s collection of the popular wizarding fairy tales for children called, “The Tales of Beedle the Bard?” This book is featured in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Hermione Granger is bequeathed the book by Albus Dumbledore. It is a series of five stories:
“The Warlock’s Hairy Heart,” is a story about a young warlock who has been jilted by love and vows to never fall in love again. In order to do this, he uses The Dark Arts, which saddens his family. Consequently, servants start to whisper about him not having a wife. He decides he will find the most beautiful and talented woman to gain the envy of everyone. Soon, he meets a girl and invites her to dinner. She is fascinated and repulsed by him. She wants to know if he has a heart. The warlock shows her the crystal casket that holds his beating hairy heart. She then asks him to put the heart back in his chest, and he does so. However, his heart had been out of his body too long and developed savage tastes. It causes him to forcefully take her human heart. Unfortunately, he cannot magically remove the hairy heart from his chest, so he cuts it out with a knife. Thus, he and his love die, as he stands with both hearts in his hands. “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot,” is about an old man that is generous. He uses his pot to brew magical potions and antidotes for people in need. After his death, he leaves his son the pot. Unfortunately, he does not have his fathers virtues. Bitter from only receiving a pot, his son closes the door in the faces of those who need help. However, he feels awful for turning away those in need. Eventually, he starts to help the townspeople. “The Fountain of Fair Fortune,” is about a fountain, which a person can bathe in once a year. Doing so, helps that person gain answers to their problems. This is where three witches meet. Asha, who suffers from an incurable decease; Altheda, who is poor and powerless because she was robbed; and Amata is beside herself after her lover leaves her. On their journey to the fountain, they are joined by a knight named Sir Luckless, and they continue the journey together. Along the way, they face three challenges. The first is a giant worm who demands proof of pain. The second, a steep slope where they must bring the fruit of their labors. The third involves crossing a river, which requires them to pay with the treasures of their pasts. Amata passes all three challenges by using magic to withdrawl memories of her lover and dropping them into the water. Asha collapses at the fountain. Altheda saves her by brewing an invigorating potion, which also cures Asha of her disease. Altheda realizes she can use her skills to make money. Amata learns that removing the memory of her lover has removed her regrets. Thier need for the fountain was no more. Sir Luckless bathes in the water. After doing so, he falls at Amata’s feet and asks her to marry him. The moral of the story is the fountain never actually had magical powers. To solve one’s troubles in life, one must do so for themselves. “Babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump,” is about a king who wants to keep all the magic for himself. In order to do so, he has to capture all the sorcerers in the kingdom. Then, he has to learn magic. He creates an army of witch hunters. Then calls for an instructor of magic. Unbeknownst to him, the instructor is a charlatan. The instructor is called to perform, with the king, in front of people. He is told if he cannot so this, he will be beheaded. The charlatan blackmails Babbitty, who is magical, into helping him. The charlatan is asked, by a brigade captain, to bring his dog back to life. Babbitty, however, is unable to fulfill the request and is exposed by the charlatan. “The Tale of the Three Brothers,” is about brothers traveling together. Upon their journey, they reach a treacherous river. To cross it, they make a magical bridge. Halfway across they meet Death, who is angry from the loss of the three potential victims. Death tricks them into believing he is impressed with them and grants them three wishes. The oldest brother asks for an unbeatable dueling wand, known as the Elder Wand. The middle brother requests the ability to resurrect the dead and is given the Resurrection Stone. The youngest does not trust Death, so he asks Death to stop following him. With reluctance, Death hands him his Cloak of Invisibility. The brothers leave, in different directions. The oldest brags about the powerful wand he possesses and is murdered in his sleep. The middle brother brings back his lover, who died before they could marry. Regretably, she is not herself and is full of sadness. Inevitably, the brother kills himself to be with his beloved. The youngest brother can not be found by Death, due to the cloak he hides under. After many years of evading Death, he decides to take the cloak off and give it to his son. Pleased with all he has achieved, he willfully greets Death, and they leave together as equals. The Magical and Interactive World of Pottermore Rowling launched Pottermore, in April of 2012. In the immersive world, players can enter Hogwarts as though they are students, acceptance letter and all. Just like the books and movies, players are sorted into a house, before they can go any further. A series of questions are asked by the Sorting Hat. Then, players are placed into, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, or Raven Claw. Once a house has been selected, the player must go virtual shopping to obtain the items on the list, in the acceptance letter. First years must bring:
A Uniform:
Three sets of plain black robes.
One pointed black hat, for day wear.
One pair of protective gloves.
One black winter cloak.
All clothing must adorn name tags. Books:
“The Standard Book of Spells,” grade 1, by Miranda Goshawk.
“A History of Magic,” by Bathilda Bagshot.
“Magical Theory,” by Adalbert Waffling.
“A beginner’s Guide toTransfigurationn,” by Emeric Switch.
“One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi,” by Phyllida Spore.
“Magical Drafts and Potions,” by Aresnius Jigger.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” by Newt Scamander.
“The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection,” by Quentin Trimble. Other equipment:
1 Wand
a pewter, size 2, Cauldron
a set of glass or crystal vials
1 telescope
1 set of brass scales
Students can also bring an owl, cat or toad. After obtaining what is needed for classes, players were able to attend a potions class, duel with other students in the great hall, and interact in the common rooms. The journey also gives players exclusive information, not previously revealed by Rowling, that includes over 18,000 words of additional content.
However, as of 2015, players on the website were shut out, so it could be overhauled. Unfortunately, most of the fun features were removed. Now, the site is for informational purposes and interaction with class peers. However, visitors are still sorted into houses and matched with a wand.
The Magical Giving Side of J.K. Rowling Rowling dropped off the Forbes billionaire list in 2012, for two reasons; she donated an estimated $160 million to charity and Britain’s high tax rates. Moreover, Rowling’s reputation for bestowing her wealth is insurmountable and causes fans to wonder why she has given so much of her earnings to those in need. Her answer was simple and heartfelt:
I think you have a moral responsibility when you’ve been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently.
Rowling donated to the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Children’s High-Level Group, now known as Lumos, after the spell of light from her Harry Potter series. She has also helped finance the building of a regenerative neurology clinic, in Scotland. These are a few charities Rowling has helped financially.
Through her books, Rowling brought magical beings and creatures to the imaginations of children and adults, which in turn, allowed her to bring help to those in need through the proceeds. She is the light of inspiration to all of those around her.
By Tracy Blake
Sources:
Pottermore: Pottermore
Mirror: Filming begins on J.K. Rowling’s crime novel The Cuckoo Calling for BBC adaptation
IMDb: J.K. Rowling
Fandom: Supply List
Snopes.com: A popular Internet meme says ‘Harry Potter’ author J.K. Rowling dropped off the Forbes billionaires list because she gave so much money to charity.
Featured and Jeff Krause’ Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
First Inline Image Courtesy of groundpig.geo’s Flickr Page – Creative Common License
Second Inline Image Courtesy of pammielou’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Third Inline Image Courtesy of until_fullmoon’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License Fantastic Beasts , Harry Potter , rowling , spot | 1real |
Turkeys vote for Christmas | Gobbles addresses an angry crowd
In a shock election result, turkeys have voted in favour of Christmas for the first time since they gained the right to hold elections in 1845. In every year since then, turkeys have voted firmly against the Yuletide feast. However, this year a populist right-wing turkey called Steve "Paxo" has managed the impossible, and persuaded turkeys to vote for Christmas.
During the campaign, Paxo was helped by his sinister propaganda adviser, Gobbles, and made a series of promises to the other turkeys. He said that he would take back control of Christmas, and make it great again. He promised to ban the eating of turkeys at Christmas, although he has no power to enforce this. He also said that all the money spent on killing turkeys at Christmas could instead be used to provide free chocolate and HDTV to all turkeys.
The win seems to have surprised even Gobbles and Paxo, and they began to backtrack on their pledges almost immediately."Of course when we said we would take back control of Christmas we meant in a non-literal sense," said Gobbles. "It is likely that many turkeys will be slaughtered this year anyway."
Some turkeys were disappointed with the result. Mr Clucky voted for Christmas but is beginning to regret it. "I've had a rough year," he said. "My cage is a mess and I thought voting for Christmas would fix it all. They promised so much."
No turkey farmers are thought to be considering taking the result seriously. In any case, the turkeys voted in favour of Christmas, so there is actually less controversy this year than when the birds have voted against it. Farmer Arse of Norwich said, "Them turkeys is as dumb as chickens. They deserve everything they get." Make Sir Geoffroy Cockface's | 1real |
TENNESSEE: ARMED FUGITIVES Wanted For Murder Of 2 Prison Guards, One Who Was Working Overtime To Care For Sick Wife, Get Big SURPRISE When BRAVE Armed Citizen Nabs Them [VIDEO] | Feel good story of the day Two escaped inmates sought in the killings of two guards on a Georgia prison bus were captured after a chase and being held at gunpoint by a rural Tennessee homeowner whose vehicle they were trying to steal, authorities said.Donnie Rowe, 43, and Ricky Dubose, 24, were apprehended Thursday in the rural community of Christiana, Tennessee, ending a multi-state manhunt that began Tuesday morning. True bravery is what s caused us to stand before you tonight to talk about a successful capture instead of a tragic incident, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn said at a news conference. So I m totally grateful to everyone involved. Earlier in the day, police in nearby Shelbyville had responded to a call about a home invasion, where a couple had been held captive, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Nelly Miles said.The suspects fled in the couple s vehicle and fired on sheriff s deputies chasing them on Interstate 24 about 50 miles southeast of Nashville, Tennessee, Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Bill Miller said. Rutherford County Sheriff Michael Fitzhugh said his deputies did not return fire and none of them was injured.Rowe and Dubose crashed the car and bailed out, running into the woods, Miller said. They then came across a home set back on a long driveway.The trooper said the homeowner looked outside and saw the two allegedly trying to steal his car. The man held the two at gunpoint with a neighbor he called for help until the sheriff s department could get there to arrest the fugitives.The two were being held at the Rutherford County jail.Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Greg Dozier said in a news release that he was relieved the two inmates were captured and no longer a threat to the public.The two men had been on the run since early Tuesday, when they are accused of having killed Sgt. Christopher Monica and Sgt. Curtis Billue.Watch:The two inmates overpowered and disarmed the guards on a bus about 6:45 a.m. Tuesday as 33 inmates were being driven between prisons, authorities have said. One of them fatally shot both guards, and then they jumped out of the bus and carjacked a driver who happened to pull up behind them on state Highway 16 in Putnam County, southeast of Atlanta, authorities said.The two inmates then fled in the stolen Honda Civic and drove about 25 miles north to Madison, where they ransacked a home, stealing food and clothes and leaving their prison uniforms behind around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.Late Tuesday night, about 12 hours after the home burglary, the pair stole a Ford pickup truck from a rock quarry about 9 miles from the burglarized home when the trail had gone cold. Daily Mail | 1real |
Ted Cruz Bashes Michelle Obama In Lame Attempt To Be Student Body President (VIDEO) | You know things are getting bad on the campaign trail when you have to appeal to the child in everyone by offering French fries for everyone. Well, that s exactly what happened at a rally in Iowa over the weekend while presidential hopeful Ted Cruz was apparently trying to appeal to the future voters of America. This is the stuff you have to do when you don t really have any accomplishments to speak of besides shutting down the government and pissing people off.In a lame attempt at throwing First Lady Michelle Obama under the bus, Ted Cruz decided healthy food is for suckers, we need to bring back all the stuff that makes our kids fat and lazy, so Cruz says: Let me say something to the school-aged kids here. When Heidi s first lady, French fries are coming back to the cafeteria The last I checked the cardboard was supposed to be on the tray and not in the food! Yeah! When Ted Cruz is president, it ll be French fries and sugary soda for everyone!! Yeah!! Then recess all day! And no more homework!Cruz honestly sounded like he was running for student body president of the 6th grade. Which probably isn t completely dumb, considering that the average Republican voter hasn t gotten past that reading and maturity level.So, everyone a vote for Cruz is a vote for French fries YEAH!Video/Featured image from Vine | 1real |
John Pilger: Inside The Invisible Government: War, Propaganda, Clinton And Trump | John Pilger: Inside The Invisible Government: War, Propaganda, Clinton And Trump
The American journalist, Edward Bernays, is often described as the man who invented modern propaganda.
The nephew of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psycho-analysis, it was Bernays who coined the term “public relations” as a euphemism for spin and its deceptions.
In 1929, he persuaded feminists to promote cigarettes for women by smoking in the New York Easter Parade – behaviour then considered outlandish. One feminist, Ruth Booth, declared, “Women! Light another torch of freedom! Fight another sex taboo!”
Bernays’ influence extended far beyond advertising. His greatest success was his role in convincing the American public to join the slaughter of the First World War. The secret, he said, was “engineering the consent” of people in order to “control and regiment [them] according to our will without their knowing about it”.
He described this as “the true ruling power in our society” and called it an “invisible government”.
Freud had a cousin called Edward Bernays, who has since earned the title “father of Public Relations”. Bernays took Freud’s idea and applied it to consumers. If desire is our driving force, then appealing to emotions is the most powerful way to persuade consumers to act. The idea was to short circuit their rational conscious and get them where they were most vulnerable – the unconscious
Today, the invisible government has never been more powerful and less understood. In my career as a journalist and film-maker, I have never known propaganda to insinuate our lives and as it does now and to go unchallenged.
Imagine two cities. Both are under siege by the forces of the government of that country. Both cities are occupied by fanatics, who commit terrible atrocities, such as beheading people. But there is a vital difference. In one siege, the government soldiers are described as liberators by Western reporters embedded with them, who enthusiastically report their battles and air strikes. There are front page pictures of these heroic soldiers giving a V-sign for victory. There is scant mention of civilian casualties.
In the second city – in another country nearby – almost exactly the same is happening. Government forces are laying siege to a city controlled by the same breed of fanatics.
The difference is that these fanatics are supported, supplied and armed by “us”– by the United States and Britain. They even have a media centre that is funded by Britain and America.
Another difference is that the government soldiers laying siege to this city are the bad guys, condemned for assaulting and bombing the city – which is exactly what the good soldiers do in the first city.
Confusing? Not really. Such is the basic double standard that is the essence of propaganda. I am referring, of course, to the current siege of the city of Mosul by the government forces of Iraq, who are backed by the United States and Britain and to the siege of Aleppo by the government forces of Syria, backed by Russia. One is good; the other is bad.
Iraq War as portrayed on two popular American news magazines. Terrorists and hero savours are typical propaganda images
What is seldom reported is that both cities would not be occupied by fanatics and ravaged by war if Britain and the United States had not invaded Iraq in 2003. That criminal enterprise was launched on lies strikingly similar to the propaganda that now distorts our understanding of the civil war in Syria.
Without this drumbeat of propaganda dressed up as news, the monstrous ISIS and Al-Qaida and al-Nusra and the rest of the jihadist gang might not exist, and the people of Syria might not be fighting for their lives today.
Some may remember in 2003 a succession of BBC reporters turning to the camera and telling us that Blair was “vindicated” for what turned out to be the crime of the century. The US television networks produced the same validation for George W. Bush. Fox News brought on Henry Kissinger to effuse over Colin Powell’s fabrications.The same year, soon after the invasion, I filmed an interview in Washington with Charles Lewis, the renowned American investigative journalist. I asked him, “What would have happened if the freest media in the world had seriously challenged what turned out to be crude propaganda?”
He replied that if journalists had done their job, “there is a very, very good chance we would not have gone to war in Iraq”.
It was a shocking statement, and one supported by other famous journalists to whom I put the same question — Dan Rather of CBS, David Rose of the Observer and journalists and producers in the BBC, who wished to remain anonymous.
In other words, had journalists done their job, had they challenged and investigated the propaganda instead of amplifying it, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children would be alive today, and there would be no ISIS and no siege of Aleppo or Mosul.
There would have been no atrocity on the London Underground on 7th July 2005. There would have been no flight of millions of refugees; there would be no miserable camps.
When the terrorist atrocity happened in Paris last November, President Francoise Hollande immediately sent planes to bomb Syria – and more terrorism followed, predictably, the product of Hollande’s bombast about France being “at war” and “showing no mercy”. That state violence and jihadist violence feed off each other is the truth that no national leader has the courage to speak.
“When the truth is replaced by silence,” said the Soviet dissident Yevtushenko, “the silence is a lie.”
The attack on Iraq, the attack on Libya, the attack on Syria happened because the leader in each of these countries was not a puppet of the West. The human rights record of a Saddam or a Gaddafi was irrelevant. They did not obey orders and surrender control of their country.
The same fate awaited Slobodan Milosevic once he had refused to sign an “agreement” that demanded the occupation of Serbia and its conversion to a market economy. His people were bombed, and he was prosecuted in The Hague. Independence of this kind is intolerable.
As WikLeaks has revealed, it was only when the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2009 rejected an oil pipeline, running through his country from Qatar to Europe, that he was attacked.
From that moment, the CIA planned to destroy the government of Syria with jihadist fanatics – the same fanatics currently holding the people of Mosul and eastern Aleppo hostage.
Why is this not news? The former British Foreign Office official Carne Ross, who was responsible for operating sanctions against Iraq, told me: “We would feed journalists factoids of sanitised intelligence, or we would freeze them out. That is how it worked.”
Propaganda is most effective when our consent is engineered by those with a fine education – Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Columbia — and with careers on the BBC, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post.
These organisations are known as the liberal media. They present themselves as enlightened, progressive tribunes of the moral zeitgeist. They are anti-racist, pro-feminist and pro-LGBT.
And they love war.
While they speak up for feminism, they support rapacious wars that deny the rights of countless women, including the right to life.
Daily Mail 25 Oct 2011: reports that “A Libyan revolutionary fighter has bragged in a leaked video that he was the man who killed Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, that country’s despotic former ruler. The young man, who is pictured but has not yet been identified, said he killed the fallen dictator because he could not bear the thought of taking him alive.”
In 2011, Libya, then a modern state, was destroyed on the pretext that Muammar Gaddafi was about to commit genocide on his own people. That was the incessant news; and there was no evidence. It was a lie.
In fact, Britain, Europe and the United States wanted what they like to call “regime change” in Libya, the biggest oil producer in Africa. Gaddafi’s influence in the continent and, above all, his independence were intolerable.
So he was murdered with a knife in his rear by fanatics, backed by America, Britain and France. Hillary Clinton cheered his gruesome death for the camera, declaring, “We came, we saw, he died!”
The destruction of Libya was a media triumph. As the war drums were beaten, Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian: “Though the risks are very real, the case for intervention remains strong.”
Intervention – what a polite, benign, Guardian word, whose real meaning, for Libya, was death and destruction.
According to its own records, Nato launched 9,700 “strike sorties” against Libya, of which more than a third were aimed at civilian targets. They included missiles with uranium warheads. Look at the photographs of the rubble of Misurata and Sirte, and the mass graves identified by the Red Cross. The Unicef report on the children killed says, “most [of them] under the age of ten”.
As a direct consequence, Sirte became the capital of ISIS. Ukraine is another media triumph. Respectable liberal newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian, and mainstream broadcasters such as the BBC, NBC, CBS, CNN have played a critical role in conditioning their viewers to accept a new and dangerous cold war.
All have misrepresented events in Ukraine as a malign act by Russia when, in fact, the coup in Ukraine in 2014 was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and Nato.
This inversion of reality is so pervasive that Washington’s military intimidation of Russia is not news; it is suppressed behind a smear and scare campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first cold war. Once again, the Ruskies are coming to get us, led by another Stalin, whom The Economist depicts as the devil.
The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember. The fascists who engineered the coup in Kiev are the same breed that backed the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Of all the scares about the rise of fascist anti-Semitism in Europe, no leader ever mentions the fascists in Ukraine – except Vladimir Putin, but he does not count.
Many in the Western media have worked hard to present the ethnic Russian-speaking population of Ukraine as outsiders in their own country, as agents of Moscow, almost never as Ukrainians seeking a federation within Ukraine and as Ukrainian citizens resisting a foreign-orchestrated coup against their elected government.
There is almost the joie d’esprit of a class reunion of warmongers. The drum-beaters of the Washington Post inciting war with Russia are the very same editorial writers who published the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
To most of us, the American presidential campaign is a media freak show, in which Donald Trump is the arch villain. But Trump is loathed by those with power in the United States for reasons that have little to do with his obnoxious behaviour and opinions. To the invisible government in Washington, the unpredictable Trump is an obstacle to America’s design for the 21st century.
This is to maintain the dominance of the United States and to subjugate Russia, and, if possible, China.
To the militarists in Washington, the real problem with Trump is that, in his lucid moments, he seems not to want a war with Russia; he wants to talk with the Russian president, not fight him; he says he wants to talk with the president of China.
In the first debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump promised not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into a conflict. He said, “I would certainly not do first strike. Once the nuclear alternative happens, it’s over.” That was not news.
Did he really mean it? Who knows? He often contradicts himself. But what is clear is that Trump is considered a serious threat to the status quo maintained by the vast national security machine that runs the United States, regardless of who is in the White House.
Anti-Trump Boston Globe Sunday Edition Crosses the Line From News into Propaganda
The CIA wants him beaten. The Pentagon wants him beaten. The media wants him beaten. Even his own party wants him beaten. He is a threat to the rulers of the world – unlike Clinton who has left no doubt she is prepared to go to war with nuclear-armed Russia and China.
Clinton has the form, as she often boasts. Indeed, her record is proven. As a senator, she backed the bloodbath in Iraq. When she ran against Obama in 2008, she threatened to “totally obliterate” Iran. As Secretary of State, she colluded in the destruction of governments in Libya and Honduras and set in train the baiting of China.
She has now pledged to support a No Fly Zone in Syria – a direct provocation for war with Russia. Clinton may well become the most dangerous president of the United States in my lifetime – a distinction for which the competition is fierce.
Without a shred of evidence, she has accused Russia of supporting Trump and hacking her emails. Released by WikiLeaks, these emails tell us that what Clinton says in private, in speeches to the rich and powerful, is the opposite of what she says in public.
That is why silencing and threatening Julian Assange is so important. As the editor of WikiLeaks, Assange knows the truth. And let me assure those who are concerned, he is well, and WikiLeaks is operating on all cylinders.
Today, the greatest build-up of American-led forces since World War Two is under way – in the Caucasus and eastern Europe, on the border with Russia, and in Asia and the Pacific, where China is the target.
Keep that in mind when the presidential election circus reaches its finale on November 8th, If the winner is Clinton, a Greek chorus of witless commentators will celebrate her coronation as a great step forward for women. None will mention Clinton’s victims: the women of Syria, the women of Iraq, the women of Libya. None will mention the civil defence drills being conducted in Russia. None will recall Edward Bernays’“torches of freedom”.
George Bush’s press spokesman once called the media “complicit enablers”.
Coming from a senior official in an administration whose lies, enabled by the media, caused such suffering, that description is a warning from history.
In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor said of the German media: “Before every major aggression, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their victims and to prepare the German people psychologically for the attack. In the propaganda system, it was the daily press and the radio that were the most important weapons.”
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LEGENDARY DIRECTOR Shocks Liberal Elites With Comments On Trump Tax Overhaul | It s a rare occasion when a Hollywood legend defends President Trump. The director of blockbuster hits like Alien and Blade Runner just came out in support of President Trump s tax overhaul. It s ironic that it was during a presser for his new movie All the Money in the World . Is he just pandering to audiences who have turned away from Hollywood? Will he be shunned by the Hollywood elites now that he s gone against the grain? After five decades of directing, maybe he s oblivious to any blowback WFB reports:Ridley Scott defended the Republican tax overhaul during an interview about his new film, saying the bill will result in business owners reinvesting and generating economic growth.The topic came up as the legendary movie director spoke to the Denver Post about his latest movie, All The Money In The World, which is based on the true story of a kidnapping in Italy in the 1970s. There s a lot [sic] commentary in this film about the value of human life, class struggles and the role of wealth in society, interviewer John Wenzel said. Do you think there s anything to be learned from it at this moment in America? Well, let s take the tax bill, Scott said. People say (Republicans) are doing it for the wealthy class. What they forget is if you get a clever, un-selfish business person I don t care if it s a corner store or a big business who s suddenly saving 15 percent, they ll put it back in this business. | 1real |
From Fins Into Hands: Scientists Discover a Deep Evolutionary Link - The New York Times | To help his readers fathom evolution, Charles Darwin asked them to consider their own hands. “What can be more curious,” he asked, “than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern, and should include similar bones, in the same relative positions?” Darwin had a straightforward explanation: People, moles, horses, porpoises and bats all shared a common ancestor that grew limbs with digits. Its descendants evolved different kinds of limbs adapted for different tasks. But they never lost the anatomical similarities that revealed their kinship. As a Victorian naturalist, Darwin was limited in the similarities he could find. The most sophisticated equipment he could use for the task was a crude microscope. Today, scientists are carrying on his work with new biological tools. They are uncovering deep similarities that have been overlooked until now. On Wednesday, a team of researchers at the University of Chicago reported that our hands share a deep evolutionary connection not only to bat wings or horse hooves, but also to fish fins. The unexpected discovery will help researchers understand how our own ancestors left the water, transforming fins into limbs that they could use to move around on land. To the naked eye, there is not much similarity between a human hand and the fin of, say, a goldfish. A human hand is at the end of an arm. It has bones that develop from cartilage and contain blood vessels. This type of tissue is called endochondral bone. A goldfish grows just a tiny cluster of endochondral bones at the base of its fin. The rest of the fin is taken up by thin rays, which are made of an entirely different tissue called dermal bone. Dermal bone does not start out as cartilage and does not contain blood vessels. These differences have long puzzled scientists. The fossil record shows that we share a common aquatic ancestor with fish that lived some 430 million years ago. creatures with spines — known as tetrapods — had evolved by 360 million years ago and went on to colonize dry land. For over two decades, Neil H. Shubin, an evolutionary biologist, has investigated this transition in two radically different ways. On the one hand, he has dug up fossils that date back to the transition from sea to land. His discoveries include a 370 fish called Tiktaalik, which had fins. It developed endochondral bones corresponding to those in our arms, beginning at the shoulder with the humerus, then the radius, ulna and wrist bones. But it lacked fingers, and still had a short fringe of fin rays. When he is not digging for fossils, Dr. Shubin runs a lab at the University of Chicago, where he and his colleagues compare how tetrapods — mice, for example — and fish develop as embryos. Their embryos start out looking very similar, consisting of heads and tails and not much in between. Two pairs of buds then develop on their flanks. In fish, the buds grow into fins. In tetrapods, they become limbs. In recent decades, researchers have uncovered some of the genes that govern this development. In 1996, a team of French researchers studying mice discovered genes that are essential for the development of their legs. When the scientists shut down two genes, called and the mice developed normal long bones in their legs. But their wrist and ankle bones failed to appear, and they did not grow any digits. This discovery suggested that and genes tell certain cells in the tetrapod limb bud that they will develop into hands and feet. Dr. Shubin knew that fish have genes related to and . He wondered what those genes were doing, if anything, in developing fins. An experiment on fish might give him and his colleagues a clue. “But we didn’t have the means to do it until technology caught up with our aspirations,” Dr. Shubin said. In the 1990s, no one yet knew how to shut down genes in fish embryos. But that has changed in recent years, thanks to a new technology called Crispr. Scientists can use it to readily alter genes in virtually any species. In 2013, a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Shubin’s lab, Tetsuya Nakamura, started using Crispr to manipulate fish embryos. He chose zebrafish to study, because their transparent embryos make it easy to track their development. Dr. Nakamura inserted bits of DNA into the fish versions of the and genes. The inserted DNA garbled the sequence of the genes, so that the fish could not make proteins from them. Zebrafish with defective copies of both Hox genes grew deformed fins, the scientists found. But to their surprise, the fish failed to make fin rays. In the fish, their experiment showed, the Hox genes were controlling cells that became dermal bone rather than the endochondral bone found in our own limbs. Dr. Shubin got a similar surprise when he saw the results of a parallel experiment run by Andrew R. Gehrke, a graduate student. Mr. Gehrke engineered zebrafish so that he could follow individual cells during the development of embryos. In Mr. Gehrke’s altered fish, cells that switched on the Hox genes started to glow. They kept glowing throughout development, until they reached their final location in the fish’s body. Mr. Gehrke observed that a cluster of cells started making the Hox proteins early in the development of fish fins. When the fins were fully developed, Mr. Gehrke found that the fin rays were glowing. In a similar experiment on mice, the digits and wrist bones lit up. “Here we’re finding that the digits and the fin rays have some sort of equivalence at the level of the cells that make them,” Dr. Shubin said. “Honestly, you could have knocked me over with a feather — it ran counter to everything that I was expecting after working on this problem for decades. ” The new study was important because it revealed that the development of fins and limbs follows some of the same rules, said Matthew P. Harris, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School. In both cases, the Hox genes tell a clump of embryonic cells that they need to end up at the far end of an appendage. “The molecular address is the same,” said Dr. Harris, who was not involved in the study. In zebrafish, the cells that get that molecular address end up making dermal bone for fin rays. In tetrapods like us, the research indicates, the same cells produce endochondral bone in our hands and feet. The new discovery could help make sense of the intermediate fish with fins that Dr. Shubin and his colleagues have unearthed. These animals still used the molecular addresses their ancestors used. But when their cells reached their addresses, some of them became endochondral bone instead of fin rays. It may have been a simple matter to shift from one kind of tissue to another. “This is a dial that can be tuned,” Dr. Shubin said. | 0fake |
TWO RICH WHITE GUYS Who Made A Fortune Selling Ice Cream To Rich People Introduce NEW FLAVOR To Highlight BLACK VOTER SUPPRESSION | Two white guys living in a state where 96% of its residents are white, and who have become extremely wealthy by selling ice cream to the rich, want everyone to know how much they support diversity by marketing over-priced ice cream with diverse labels to more rich people Ben & Jerry s announced Tuesday that proceeds from its newest flavor of ice cream, Empower Mint, will help benefit the North Carolina NAACP s campaign to repeal the state s voter ID law. Ben Cohen, Jerry Greenfield and North Carolina NAACP President Rev. William Barber kicked off a voter registration drive at North Carolina Central University in Durham on Tuesday to help marshal support against a new North Carolina law requiring voters to present a photo ID before they vote.Proceeds from the sale of the new flavor will also go toward the organization s effort to get big money donations from corporations and wealthy elites out of politics. This flavor will benefit the North Carolina NAACP, an organization dedicated to ensuring the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons and eliminating racial hatred and discrimination, the ice cream company wrote in a statement on its website. It just felt really good to be working with all these people here in North Carolina, who ve been struggling to get back their right to vote for them and other people of color, said Ben Cohen.Campaigning against voter suppression is not something we get to do in Vermont, because they re so white, he added, chuckling. This flavor, Jerry Greenfield said, helps us connect with Ben & Jerry s fans as we work nationally on trying to help reauthorize the voting rights act. Right now we have a government that represents rich white people, Cohen added. That s not what s it s about. We ve got to overturn these laws. Ben & Jerry s Ice Cream was founded in 1978. Cohen and Greenfield sold the company they co-founded to British-Dutch corporation Unilever for $326 million in 2000. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
U.S. Justice Dept seeks to scale back scope of warrant on anti-Trump site | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is scaling back its request to obtain a broad swath of data in connection with an anti-Trump website, after critics accused the department of trampling the free speech rights of political dissidents. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia had previously issued a broader search warrant in July to DreamHost, a Los Angeles-based web hosting company, to obtain data about visitors to website disruptj20.org. Disruptj20 is home to a coalition of political activists who organized disruptive protests during President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The Justice Department said it sought the records connected to the site amid concerns that it helped facilitate the planning of violent riots on Inauguration Day in which more than 200 people were arrested for rioting and vandalizing businesses in downtown Washington. DreamHost resisted the request, saying the scope of the warrant was too broad and trampled on the rights of 1.3 million visitors to the site, many of whom were simply exercising their First Amendment rights to express their political views. The Justice Department on Tuesday proposed amending the scope of its warrant in a filing with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia Criminal Division, which is slated to hold a hearing over the dispute on Thursday morning. “The warrant - like the criminal investigation - is singularly focused on criminal activity. It will not be used for any other purpose,” it wrote. “The government has no interest in records relating to the 1.3 million IP addresses that are mentioned in DreamHost’s numerous press releases and opposition brief.” The department proposed asking the court to amend the warrant, and said that DreamHost “should not disclose the contents of unpublished draft publications” or “HTTP request and error logs.” An attorney for DreamHost called the Justice Department’s action “a tremendous win for DreamHost, its users and the public.” But in a statement, DreamHost counsel Raymond Aghaian added: “There remains, unfortunately, other privacy and First and Fourth Amendment issues with the search warrant, which we will address in a separate filing and at the hearing Thursday morning.” | 0fake |
Chinese spies steal from USA $100 billion a year | Chinese spies steal from USA $100 billion a year 31.10.2016 Print version Font Size The Chinese intelligence has challenged the US national security system. China recruits senior military officials and conducts cyber attacks against the United States. What is worse, the Chinese intelligence has stolen Pentagon's plans for the future conflict with China, a recent report to US Congress said. The annual report from the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has sounded the alarm with regard to the activities of Chinese security forces. The report said that despite extensive ties between Beijing and Washington, the US-China relations have remained tense during the current year, the Washington Free Beacon said. The relations between China and the United States have worsened primarily because of China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, permission from the United States to sell weapons to Taiwan, the deployment of the missile defense system in South Korea, Chinese cyber attacks and the US-led policy to "restore balance" in Asia.As for most serious threats, the report highlights cybercrime and the "involvement of the human factor" to gain access to objects of national security. The activities of the Chinese intelligence have increased significantly over the past 15 years. The work is carried out through the Ministry of State Security, the People's Liberation Army of China and military departments of the Communist Party, the report said. As for the "human factor", the report refers to the story of the recruitment of US Pacific Command Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Pierce Bishop. The man was in an intimate relationship with a Chinese woman, who eventually recruited him. Thus, the information about US military secrets in the field of nuclear weapons, secrets of the Reaper MQ-9 UAV and the secret US report about the Strategy of the Ministry of Defense of China was compromised. The report also mentions a few other recruited gentlemen: another senior official of the Pacific Command - James Fondren, who delivered "The National Defense Strategy of the USA" to China in 2010. Another man, Greg Bergerssen, delivered state secrets to China before he was arrested in 2008. US naval officer Edward Lin was caught for selling secrets of the US Navy to China. All this information may undermine the military superiority of the United States by promoting China's military modernization and providing China with understanding of the tactics of military operations and other operational approaches of the United States to potential developments in the region, the report said. Noteworthy, China spies even on members of government delegations. For example, British officials, before going to the G20 summit in Hangzhou, were instructed to avoid contacts with "Chinese spies who offer sex", The Irish Times said. The officials were instructed not to take any gifts, especially electronic devices containing memory cards, SIM-cards or chargers as they could serve as a basis for video and audio surveillance. All the members of the British delegation were given temporary mobile phones and e-mail addresses. The officials were even recommended to change their clothes under blankets to avoid any chance of taking their nude pictures. "Chinese intelligence has repeatedly infiltrated U.S. national security entities and extracted information with serious consequences for U.S. national security, including information on the plans and operations of U.S. military forces and the designs of U.S. weapons and weapons systems," the report said. "Among the information extracted were 5.6 million fingerprints, some of which could be used to identify undercover U.S. government agents or to create duplicates of biometric data to obtain access to classified areas," it continued. China uses a variety of "actors" for its cyber espionage - from "government contractor" to independent "patriotic hackers" and "criminal entities." These groups often interact with each other. The US Department of Justice paid attention to the arrest of US citizen Allen Ho, who was accused of stealing nuclear technology for China General Group. Ho enlisted as many as six American engineers for the purpose. In addition, the DoJ and the FBI accused Chinese nationals of the theft of know-how technology for the production of carbon fiber for submarines and compounds for bleaching materials.The FBI evaluated losses from industrial espionage at 19 billion dollars a year. In one outstanding incidence, former Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez had his laptop hacked into and copied in Beijing, even though Gutierrez was one of the key figures in international trade negotiations. The information from his laptop was subsequently used to break into US government computers.James Andrew Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said that the stolen intellectual property of the USA brings China the profit of up to 100 billion a year. Interestingly, only a few Chinese spies have been arrested so far, John R. Schindler wrote for The Observer. The potential of the Chinese intelligence is high: 300,000 Chinese students studying in American universities. Lyuba Lulko Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru USA watches China building new capitalism | 1real |
Congress’s Planned Parenthood Investigations Find Horrifying, Criminal Practices | There have been two recent congressional investigations into the Planned Parenthood selling baby parts scandal. [Both were prompted by the Centre For Medical Progress (CMP) undercover investigation, which caught Planned Parenthood officials discussing how to illegally profit from selling baby parts. The first report in December was by the Senate Judiciary Committee and now House of Representatives Select Investigative Panel has published its report. Neither investigation relied on the CMP undercover videos to come to their conclusions. They carried out their own investigations — interviewing officials and employees under oath and using the power of subpoena to get their records. What they found is horrifying and criminal. It’s disturbing that the results have been virtually ignored in the mainstream media. So to fill this gap, here are the top eight horrifying facts the mainstream media doesn’t want you know about aborted babies bodies being sold for profit. 1) It’s wrong to say the crowd don’t value the disabled. Advanced Biosciences Resources (ABR) had a “technician” embedded at a Planned Parenthood clinic who reportedly harvested and sold the skin of a Down Syndrome baby for $325. Yes, that’s correct, in America today, you can buy the skin of an aborted Down Syndrome child for $325. The same baby’s leg was sold for $325. 2) Selling baby parts is very profitable. To be clear, the law is unambiguous it is illegal to make a profit providing organs or any part of a human for research or medical treatment. But Planned Parenthood and their business partners made a lot of money selling aborted baby body parts, according to the report. The House investigation found one case where Stem Express harvested an intact aborted baby’s brain at a Planned Parenthood clinic. They reportedly paid Planned Parenthood $55 but sold the brain to a researcher for over $3000 — that’s a 2, 800% profit. Planned Parenthood reportedly made their money on volume sales and “charitable donations” from these body harvesting companies. The Senate investigation published invoices which showed in June 2014 ABR bought a fetus from Planned Parenthood for $60. From that one fetus ABR “sold its brain to one customer for $325 both of its eyes for $325 each ($650 total) to a second customer, a portion of its liver for $325 to a third customer its thymus for $325 and another portion of liver to a fourth customer and its lung for $325 to a fifth customer. ” Then, the report says, they piled on fees for “disease screening” and shipping. That one aborted baby reportedly brought the company $2, 275. The House Investigative Panel found Stem Express generally marked up the baby parts by 400% to 600%. 3) A bountiful harvest, And “harvesting” is exactly what they were doing. The House investigation uncovered how “technicians” would look at the patient list in advance and try to sell the baby parts before the abortion. After securing the advance sale (with its massive profits) the technician would then be allowed to go and ask the pregnant woman to sign a consent form. This is a huge ethical breach. The person seeking consent from a vulnerable patient is supposed to be neutral in the process. In a letter to HHS last June, the panel wrote: “The fact that StemExpress was attempting to interest a customer in fetal body parts before an abortion had taken place raises serious concerns that there may have been coercion or undue influence upon the patient to consent to procurement” (their emphasis). 4) Sticks and stones, And like any other business, there can be frustrations between buyers and sellers. The House Panel uncovered an email exchange between an excited Stem Express “technician” and a researcher who wanted to know if she could expect some parts the next day because she needed to book time at a very expensive research machine. But a baby’s body is a frustratingly fragile thing. Rather apologetically, the Stem Express employee told the researcher he had a body but: “The calvarium [skull] is mostly intact, with a tear up the back of the suture line, but all pieces look to be there. The limbs, one upper and one lower, are totally intact, with one upper broken at the humerus, and one lower broken right above the knee. Please let me know if these are acceptable. ” They were. The deal was done and a baby’s body, complete with a broken leg and arm, was shipped overnight to the researcher. 5) Kermit Gosnell was not alone. If there is one thing the abortion defenders agree on, it’s that mass murderer Dr Kermit Gosnell was a an aberration. In a Supreme Court judgment referencing Gosnell, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg described him as “rogue. ” Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic explained most people believe “Gosnell is an aberration that says nothing larger about abortion in America. ” And Slate writer William Saletan described Gosnell as an “outlier. ” But then you read the House Investigation Report. They have interviewed, taken evidence, and secured affidavits from employees and patients of a Texas abortion doctor (whose name they have redacted). I have made a movie and written a book about Kermit Gosnell and his killing spree, and the similarities with this Texas doctor are shocking. According to one employee, the doctor would perform around 40 late or abortions every week. Of these abortions, “three to four infants would show signs of life. ” And just like Gosnell, the doctor would immediately kill them, according to the testimony. The employee said he employed Gosnell’s techniques of “snipping the infant’s spinal cord with scissors. ” However, he reportedly also cut the neck with Sopher forceps: “twisting the infants head: using forceps … or his finger to crush the ‘soft spot’ of the infant’s head. ” Sometimes the doctor would also kill by crushing the stomach of the child or “inserting his finger down the throat,” according to the testimony. And just like Gosnell — the doctor reportedly would manipulate ultrasounds to make babies appear smaller so he could perform illegal abortions. And just like Gosnell, he had unqualified staff administering drugs and carrying out abortions, according to the report. 6) Planned Parenthood HQ accused of conspiring to break the law. After the baby selling scandal broke, Planned Parenthood told the media they had a policy that prevented their affiliates from profiting from the process. But they didn’t mention that they had brought the policy in just as the CMP scandal developed. In fact, this report suggests a “criminal conspiracy” over their failure to have guidelines before this. According to the Senate Judicial Committee report, in 2001 Planned Parenthood did have a policy stating its clinics had to have an independent accountant verify they were not profiting from the sale of body parts. Those who did not follow these guidelines could be thrown out of the Planned Parenthood network, they were warned. In 2011, when they found their clinics were ignoring the guidelines, Planned Parenthood quietly deleted the guidelines from its requirements. By doing so, Planned Parenthood headquarters made it quite clear they would not stand in the way of their clinics profiting from the sale of baby parts. Or, as the Senate Committee put it, by behaving “in a manner that facilitated the continuation of those fetal tissue payments. Planned Parenthood and the affiliates actions may implicate the federal criminal conspiracy statute 371. ” 7) Privacy for thee and not for me, Planned Parenthood and the companies it was selling baby parts to fought tooth and nail against the investigations. They claimed privacy was an issue. But the House Investigation states they never cared about privacy when there was a lot of money to be made selling the body parts of their patients’ babies. They would regularly give confidential information about their patients to help the companies plan their harvesting in advance, the report says. And Stem Express would reportedly share this information with clients so they could look at what might be available and place advance orders. The committee said: “the [Planned Parenthood] abortion clinics did not have a valid reason to provide, patients’ PHI [Protected Health Information]. Instead the abortion clinics shared patients’ PHI with Stem Express in furtherance of contractual agreements that financially benefited StemExpress and the clinics. ” They recommended an investigation “and, if OHRP agrees that [privacy] violations occurred, to take all appropriate actions. ” 8) Planned Parenthood falsely claimed to help cure AIDS. Yes, you read that right — in order to convince women to allow them to harvest their baby’s body parts, the Planned Parenthood consent form told the vulnerable women that the parts had been used to find a cure for AIDS. As a Planned Parenthood official admitted under oath to the House investigation, “there is no cure for AIDS. So that is probably an inaccurate statement. ” They also reportedly misled clients about what they were actually harvesting. The consent form only described “pregnancy tissue” — not a baby’s arms, legs, eyes, brains, and skin. Phelim McAleer is the author with Ann McElhinney of Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer published by Regnery on January 24th and available for on Amazon. | 0fake |
LOL! Lawless HS Snowflakes Try To Bust Out Of School For Anti-Trump Protest…School Locks Them In! [VIDEO] | It s about time an adult steps up and takes control of these lawless, out-of-control students. We all know 99% of them were just looking to break out of school early anyhow BUSTED: Students at MD High School Attempt Walkout, School Locks Them In pic.twitter.com/TFGf68eaLP Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) November 18, 2016You get a detention!And YOU get a detention!And YOU get a detention! https://t.co/KqdMMzeLP5 Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) November 18, 2016CONFUSED? Students at Northwestern High in MD Protest US Presidential Election with Flags of Foreign Countries pic.twitter.com/GZ6r6CcLkY Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) November 18, 2016https://twitter.com/AyyeeDanielle/status/799652287757090816 | 1real |
Jerry Brown Wishes He Ran for President in 2016 - Breitbart | Is California Governor Jerry Brown preparing to run for President against Donald Trump in 2020? Today, as I listened live to his State of the State address, I couldn’t help but thinking that Brown sure sounds like he wishes he ran in 2016. [After swearing in Xavier Becerra as the new California Attorney General, to replace the seat vacated by Senator Kamala Harris ( ) Governor Brown launched into what sounded much more like an opening bid for a presidential campaign against Donald Trump, rather than the bitterly tirade most expected after reading the title of his speech: “California is Not Turning Back, Not Now, Not Ever. ” Even though the word “Trump” was not in the speech, Brown’s focus was unmistakeable. Instead of addressing the real state of the state — the faltering economy in what has become one of the most unfriendly states to business owners — Brown bragged about how great California is, and threw down the gauntlet to Washington, D. C. He waxed poetic about how California is still the sixth largest economy in the world, and tied the future of the nation to California’s destiny: “When California does well, America does well … when California hurts, America hurts. ” The governor was surprisingly animated, upbeat and optimistic. Describing California as the “beacon of hope to the rest of the world,” his short speech revisited what he described as California’s successes of his past terms in office: All these items were received in the chamber with raucous cheers and loud applause that seemed more appropriate at a campaign rally than the august Assembly chamber. At one point, Brown went uncharacteristically off script and again sounded like he wished he were president when claiming he would fight to defend for “Planned Parenthood” funding. It is unclear how he plans to keep that promise, as leader of the state likely to have the least influence in the Trump administration. Gov. Brown went to great lengths to highlight and praise the role of immigrants in California’s success, erasing the line between legal and illegal immigrant. When it came to the epic battle so many California Democrats have picked with President Trump, Brown’s approach was more intellectual. He discussed how his family came to California, mentioned his father being governor 60 years ago, and ending that reverie with an exhortation to fight the federal government with a “spirit that will get us through the difficulties ahead. ” California’s governor reserved his toughest words for the “new oresident” over climate change. Brown acknowledged the “deep divisions,” stating that “alternative facts” and “attacks on science” were deeply disturbing. He warned that democracy is a system, and that in the massive protests over the weekend, we “witnessed vast, inspiring fervor” that represented the true heart of the people. In one moment that was classic Brown — and perhaps why he earned the name “Moonbeam” — he praised Trump for wanting to build roads, bridges and railroads (with a chuckle over the rail debacle) and said in a whimsical way, sounding more like a hippie than governor of the largest state: “Amen to that, brother!” And that wasn’t the only area where Brown sought to be seen as a leader of more than just his own party. At one point near the end of the speech, he called out his more vitriolic colleagues to accept “reality” and work to be more respectful of “Republicans” — who really are people, too. But that’s not likely to distract many Californians from the stark reality of what was once their California dream. Brown inadvertently revealed the true state of the state — overtaxed, and over committed to the point it cannot even repair the state highways or pay out pensions owed without levying yet another tax. Surprisingly, Brown acknowledged federal supremacy in the area of immigration, but then highlighted how California has staked out protections for “undocumented Californians,” reiterating his commitment to defy any enforcement of federal law that threatens illegal aliens in the state. Bragging that California had become a sanctuary state under the Trust Act — which allows no criminal aliens to be turned over to federal authorities for deportation — and granted drivers licenses for illegal aliens, as well as giving them free college tuition, Brown made it clear he will defend the state he described as the “Great Exception. ” By acknowledging that Covered California (the state’s version of ObamaCare) requires tens of billions in funding from the federal government, Gov. Brown gave President Trump an opening — and revealed the Golden State’s Achilles heel. By repealing ObamaCare, and ending this massive subsidy, California’s budget will fail. California may be an exceptional state in many ways, but it will not be the “great exception” when it comes to basic budget math. To borrow the governor’s own words, you can’t make 2 times 2 equal anything but 4 — not even in California. No wonder so many Americans are fleeing California for an “alternative reality” — one without Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown. Tim Donnelly is a former California State Assemblyman. Author, Patriot Not Politician: Win or Go Homeless, FaceBook: https: . facebook. . donnelly. Twitter: @PatriotNotPol | 0fake |
Clinton proposes 65 percent tax on U.S. billionaire estates | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Thursday proposed raising taxes on inherited property to 65 percent for the largest estates as she bolstered plans for tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans. Known by conservative opponents as the “death tax,” the estate tax, levied on property such as cash, real estate, stock or other assets transferred from deceased persons to heirs, currently is imposed only on inherited assets worth $5.45 million or more for an individual. Clinton’s plan, posted on her campaign’s website, would raise the estate tax from the current 40 percent to 45 percent, the rate that existed in 2009. But the biggest estates would face rates of up to 65 percent for property valued at more than $500 million for a single person or $1 billion per couple, under her proposal, an update of an earlier plan. Clinton’s proposed top rate of 65 percent would be the highest estate tax since the 1980s, and is in line with a proposal made during the Democratic primaries by her former rival for the party’s presidential nomination, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. Her campaign said the boosted estate tax and a change in the rules to tax capital gains associated with inherited assets would help pay for other proposals to benefit middle-class people, such as expanding a tax credit for working parents. Clinton’s campaign said the plan would hit only the wealthiest people. “Hillary Clinton has made a commitment throughout this campaign to make sure there is a plan to pay for the progressive policies we have laid out,” said Mike Shapiro, an economic adviser to Clinton. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group focused on budget issues, said Clinton’s new tax proposals including the estate tax changes, taxes on capital gains of inherited assets and other provisions would together raise $260 billion in revenue over a decade. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, a wealthy real estate developer, wants to eliminate the estate tax. Clinton’s proposal prompted criticism from conservatives ahead of her first debate with Trump on Monday night at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Jason Miller, a Trump spokesman, issued a statement decrying Clinton’s “dramatic hike in the death tax.” Republicans want to eliminate estate taxes altogether because they believe the system penalizes families who want to pass down businesses, said U.S. Representative Kevin Brady, chairman of the tax-writing House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee. Brady said in a statement that Clinton’s plan was “dead on arrival.” The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said this month that only the estates of the wealthiest 0.2 percent of Americans, about two out of every 1,000 people who die, currently owe any estate tax because the first $5.45 million per person is exempt. Clinton would lower that exemption to $3.5 million. | 0fake |
The Onion - America's Finest News Source | The storm before the calm before the storm • Stocks GMD -1.3% Groucho Marx Disguises (GMD): $47.05 (-.61) (-1.3%) The company's value plummeted after the unveiling of a newly retooled disguise featuring no mustache, an average-sized nose, and, in the place of this black glasses, stylish wire frames. America's Finest News Source AUSTIN, TX—Anxiously wondering what kind of impression he was leaving on university admissions officials, wealthy father Gordon Fring was said to be waiting restlessly for responses this week after mailing donations to his son’s top college choices. Related Topics Parenting The American Voter
Every four years, against anyone's better judgement, the American people are entrusted to elect the next president. The Onion lets them tell their stories. Trump Holds Strategy Meeting With Campaign’s Top Militia Leaders Ahead Of Election Day NEW YORK—Sitting down with his most heavily armed advisors to go over potential courses of action, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump reportedly held a strategy meeting with his campaign’s top militia leaders Thursday afternoon in order to map out their approach before November 8. FEC Extends Election By 7 Months To Give Nation Chance To Better Get To Know Candidates WASHINGTON—In an effort to help voters make an informed decision at the polls, the Federal Election Commission announced Thursday it would be extending the U.S. presidential election by seven months to give Americans the opportunity to better get to know the presidential candidates. Trump Campaign Training Poll Watchers To Spot Any Suspicious Skin Colors On Election Day HARRISBURG, PA—Instructing volunteers to remain alert and pay close attention to every individual who arrives at their voting location, the “Trump Election Observer” section of Donald Trump’s campaign website reportedly trains supporters to spot any suspicious skin colors they may see on Election Day, sources confirmed this week. Quick Jump To Series Page | 1real |
U.S. air strike kills 'several' Islamic State militants in Libya | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. air strikes killed several Islamic State militants in Libya earlier this week, the U.S. military said on Thursday, the second series of strikes in the country in recent days. In a statement, U.S. Africa Command said the strike took place 100 miles (161 km) southeast of Sirte on Tuesday in coordination with Libya s Government of National Accord. Islamic State militants in Libya set up a desert army composed of at least three brigades after they lost their stronghold of Sirte last year, a senior prosecutor said on Thursday. | 0fake |
Ex-FBI chief Comey to testify next week in Russia probe | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former FBI Director James Comey will testify next Thursday before a U.S. Senate panel investigating Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, in a hearing that could add to difficulties facing President Donald Trump. In his first public appearance since Trump fired him on May 9, Comey will address the Senate Intelligence Committee in both an open session and behind closed doors, which would allow him to discuss classified information, the committee said on Thursday. Comey was leading the FBI’s probe into the allegations, and his firing sparked a political uproar. Facing rising pressure, the Justice Department last month named Robert Mueller, another former FBI chief, as a special counsel to investigate the matter. The Justice Department and multiple U.S. congressional committees are investigating Russia’s actions in the 2016 presidential election and questions about possible collusion between Russian officials and Trump campaign associates. At next week’s hearing, Comey is expected to be asked about conversations in which Trump is reported to have pressured him to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, whose ties to Russia are under scrutiny. Controversy erupted again this week after the Republican head of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, approved subpoenas to the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency for information relating to the “unmasking” of the names of Trump campaign advisers inadvertently picked up in top-secret foreign communications intercepts. The White House and Nunes have alleged that former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration eavesdropped on Trump’s campaign, an assertion that Comey has disputed and current U.S. officials dismiss as absurd. Four current and former U.S. officials who have reviewed the materials told Reuters there was no evidence that political motives drove Obama’s aides to request the names be unredacted. “There is no substance to this, so the only way to look at it is as an attempt to distract the headlines and the public from Comey’s public testimony and Mueller’s investigation, both of which are serious,” said one of the U.S. officials familiar with the information Nunes subpoenaed. Committee aides complained Nunes had acted unilaterally, and the top Democrat on the panel, Representative Adam Schiff, said Nunes’ actions violated his earlier decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe. Democratic Representative Jackie Speier said it appeared that Nunes was “more concerned with pushing the White House narrative than seeking the truth.” Trump on Thursday renewed his allegation, without citing evidence, that his campaign communications were monitored, saying in a tweet: “The big story is the ‘unmasking and surveillance’ of people that took place during the Obama administration.” Nunes followed suit hours later, tweeting: “Seeing a lot of fake news from media elites and others who have no interest in violations of Americans’ civil liberties via unmaskings.” The names of U.S. citizens mentioned in foreign communications intercepted by U.S. intelligence agencies are normally redacted, or “masked,” in intelligence reports. The requests to unmask the names of Trump associates underwent the same stringent evaluations that U.S. privacy laws and intelligence regulations require for all such applications, and they produced nothing out of the ordinary, said the four officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. At most, only one of the requests related to Russia in any way, and the rest pertained to other countries, two of them said. The requests involved between 30 and 40 top-secret reports on intercepted communications in which foreign officials outside the United States mentioned the Trump campaign and people involved in it, the officials said. The reports contained no evidence that any Americans were targets of U.S. eavesdropping operations, they said. Russia has repeatedly denied any effort to interfere in the U.S. election, but Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday some Russians might have acted on their own without their government’s involvement. Trump has denied any collusion between Russia and his campaign. He has repeatedly questioned the U.S. intelligence finding that Putin directed an operation that included computer hacking, fake news and propaganda intended to swing the election in Trump’s favor against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. | 0fake |
Lafarge paid 13 million euros to armed groups to keep operating in Syria: rights group | PARIS (Reuters) - French cement group Lafarge paid close to 13 million euros ($15.2 million) to armed groups including Islamic State militants to keep operating in Syria from 2011-2015, human rights lawyers said on Tuesday. They were speaking at a news conference on the course of French prosecutors preliminary inquiry into Lafarge s operations launched in June on suspicion of financing of a terrorist enterprise . The lawyers for rights group Sherpa said a large part of the money went directly or indirectly into the pockets of Islamic State and that payments lasted until well after the closure of Lafarge s Jalabiya plant in September 2014. They were citing a figure pinpointed by prosecutors examining Lafarge s activities in Syria, in the throes of civil war since 2011, and drawn from an internal report by U.S. law firm Baker and McKenzie for Lafarge. As part of the inquiry, the precise figure retained is 12,946,000 euros paid by Lafarge between 2011 and 2015 to terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State, Sherpa lawyer Marie Dose said. Lafarge became LafargeHolcim, the world s largest cement maker, in 2015 after a takeover by Swiss Holcim. Former LafargeHolcim CEO Eric Olsen resigned in April after the company admitted it had paid armed groups to keep a factory operating in Syria. His lawyer has said Olsen will appeal against being put under investigation. Sherpa and other human rights groups in France as well as the French Finance Ministry have filed suit against Lafarge. Sherpa wants the company to be placed under formal criminal investigation, like Olsen, and also accuses Lafarge of not cooperating with authorities and trying to hide important elements from the investigation. A LafargeHolcim spokeswoman on Tuesday rejected these accusations but would not comment on the 13-million-euro figure. LafargeHolcim fully cooperates with the justice (authorities). Thousands of documents have been given by the group to magistrates or seized during a search, she said. We strongly contest that the company is trying in any way to limit the right of its employees or former employees to defend themselves...or (limit) their capacity to cooperate in a judicial inquiry, she added. Being placed under formal investigation in France means that prosecutors believe they have serious or consistent evidence that could result in prosecution. It is a step toward a possible trial, though the investigation can still be dropped. Last Friday the Paris prosecutor also placed Olsen s predecessor as CEO, Bruno Lafont, and his ex-deputy for operations under formal investigation as part of the inquiry into Lafarge activities in Syria, the two men s lawyers said. | 0fake |
Serial Plagiarist Does Victory Dance Over White People Dying, Trump Can’t Save You! | White people the only lives that DON T matter. Imagine the outrage if he were taking a victory lap over a study showing Muslims dying in increasing numbers Citing a study that shows Middle American whites are dying in increasing numbers, like a twisted and bitter eugenicist, serial-plagiarist Fareed Zakaria doesn t even attempt to contain his glee. By painting those who are supposedly dying as useless, drug-addicted ragers, he paints a picture of a weak, angry, and ultimately stupid ethnic group getting what it deserves.If this were any other group, Zakaria would not be using the pages of the Washington Post for a victory dance. Instead, he would be launching an emotional blackmail campaign to cure this epidemic with hundreds of billions of federal dollars. Like most of the elite media, though, Zakaria despises Middle America, so he joyously assumes the study is accurate and bloodlessly screams Told You So! The headline says it all: America s Self-Destructive Whites, and naturally the opening paragraph contains the words Donald and Trump. Why is Middle America killing itself? The fact itself is probably the most important social science finding in years. It is already reshaping American politics. The Post s Jeff Guo notes that the people who make up this cohort are largely responsible for Donald Trump s lead in the race for the Republican nomination for president. What does this epidemic mean to Zakaria?That it s time for compassion?Time for government action?Time for understanding?No. It means more rage from creepy Middle America:The key question is why, and exploring it provides answers that suggest that the rage dominating U.S. politics will only get worse.Zakaria hints that the study s numbers are a tad shaky, but that doesn t stop him from doing a happy dance around the fact that Middle America s Got It Coming .The main causes of death are as striking as the fact itself: suicide, alcoholism, and overdoses of prescription and illegal drugs. People seem to be killing themselves, slowly or quickly, Deaton told me. These circumstances are usually caused by stress, depression and despair.Middle America s a Bunch of Wussies .A conventional explanation for this middle-class stress and anxiety is that globalization and technological change have placed increasing pressures on the average worker in industrialized nations. But the trend is absent in any other Western country it s an exclusively American phenomenon. And the United States is actually relatively insulated from the pressures of globalization, having a vast, self-contained internal market.Stupid Middle America Should Stop Voting Against the Welfare State Deaton speculated to me that perhaps Europe s more generous welfare state might ease some of the fears associated with the rapid change.Middle America s Spoiled By White Privilege [O]ther groups might not expect that their income, standard of living and social status are destined to steadily improve. They don t have the same confidence that if they work hard, they will surely get ahead. In fact, Rouse said that after hundreds of years of slavery, segregation and racism, blacks have developed ways to cope with disappointment and the unfairness of life[.]They do not assume that the system is set up for them. They try hard and hope to succeed, but they do not expect it as the norm.Donald Trump Can t Save You!Mwuh, huh, huh, huh Donald Trump has promised that he will change this and make them win again. But he can t. No one can. And deep down, they know it. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
G.E., the 124-Year-Old Software Start-Up - The New York Times | It may not qualify as a eureka moment, but Jeffrey R. Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, recalls the June day in 2009 that got him thinking. He was speaking with G. E. scientists about new jet engines they were building, laden with sensors to generate a trove of data from every flight — but to what end? That data could someday be as valuable as the machinery itself, if not more so. But G. E. couldn’t make use of it. “We had to be more capable in software,” Mr. Immelt said he decided. Maybe G. E. — a maker of power turbines, jet engines, locomotives and equipment — needed to think of its competitors as Amazon and IBM. Back then, G. E. was returning to its roots and navigating the global financial crisis, shedding much of its bloated finance arm, GE Capital. That winnowing went on for years as billions of dollars in assets were sold, passing a milestone this summer when GE Capital was removed from the government’s short list of financial institutions deemed “too big to fail. ” But in 2011, G. E. also quietly opened a software center in San Ramon, Calif. 24 miles east of San Francisco, across the bay. Today one of San Ramon’s most important projects is to build a computer operating system, but on an industrial scale — a Microsoft Windows or Google Android for factories and industrial equipment. The project is central to G. E.’s drive to become what Mr. Immelt says will be a “top 10 software company” by 2020. Silicon Valley veterans are skeptical. “G. E. is trying to do this the way a big company does, by throwing thousands of people and billions of dollars at it,” said Thomas M. Siebel, a technology entrepreneur who is now chief executive of C3 IoT, a that has done work for G. E. “But they’re not software people. ” The San Ramon complex, home to GE Digital, now employs 1, 400 people. The buildings are designed to suit the working ways of software developers: floors, bench seating, whiteboards, couches for impromptu meetings, balconies overlooking the grounds and kitchen areas with snacks. Many industries see digital threats, of course. Yet the scope of the challenge is magnified at G. E. a company and the nation’s largest manufacturer, with more than 300, 000 employees worldwide. Employees companywide have been making pilgrimages to San Ramon for technology briefings, but also to soak in the culture. Their marching orders are to try to adapt the digital wizardry and habits of Silicon Valley to G. E.’s world of industrial manufacturing. G. E.’s success or failure over the next decade, Mr. Immelt says, depends on this transformation. He calls it “probably the most important thing I’ve worked on in my career. ” Apparently, there is no Plan B. “It’s this or bust,” he said. The march of digital technology — mainly inexpensive sensors, powerful computing and clever software — into the industrial world has been underway for years under the guise of “the internet of things” or “the industrial internet. ” It is the next battlefield as companies fight to develop the dominant software layer that connects the machines. It promises to be a huge market for new products, improved service and efficiency gains in industries like energy, transportation and health care. By 2020, the industrial internet market will reach $225 billion, G. E. executives predicted in a recent meeting with analysts. So far, a major application has been predictive maintenance. Software analyzes the data generated by a machine to identify early warning signals that it needs repair, before it breaks down. The data volumes are exploding as machines new and old spawn sensors. By 2020, G. E. estimates that the data flowing off its machines in use will jump a hundredfold. That should enable far more detailed analysis, giving G. E. a chance to sell its customers not machines but “business outcomes,” like fuel savings. Mr. Immelt sees this as a move up the industrial food chain. Yet all of this exposes G. E. to new competition beyond its traditional rivals like Rockwell Automation, Siemens and United Technologies. Tech giants, including Amazon, Cisco, Google, IBM and Microsoft also have their eye on the industrial internet market, as do a bevy of . There is precedent for trouble in other industries, of course. Google and Facebook transformed media and advertising, Amazon redefined retailing, and Uber applied an entirely new business model to taxis, which hadn’t changed much in generations. “The real danger is that the data and analysis becomes worth more than the installed equipment itself,” said Karim R. Lakhani, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “G. E. has no choice but to try to do that itself. ” Recently, G. E. has lured software engineers and data scientists from Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. Early on, though, it struggled simply to hire. Last year it began running television ads, featuring young hires, aimed at closing the company’s image gap of industrial giant but digital midget. (Applications at GE Digital jumped eightfold, the company says.) Until this year, Darren Haas hadn’t thought about G. E. certainly not working there. To him, G. E. meant little more than than kitchen appliances and light bulbs. “I had no idea,” Mr. Haas said. But he was intrigued after he met with Harel Kodesh, an expert in mobile and cloud computing who led teams at Microsoft and VMware, a maker of software. Less than two years ago, Mr. Kodesh joined G. E. and he is now chief technology officer of GE Digital. That someone of Mr. Kodesh’s caliber was a G. E. convert got Mr. Haas’s attention. Then, Mr. Haas started grasping the role that G. E. equipment plays across the economy — in transportation, in hospitals — “a whole world,” he said. “I found that really, really compelling. ” The other thing Mr. Haas, 41, found appealing was the big computing challenge that lies ahead for the company. In May, he joined G. E. from Apple, where he was a member of the founding team at Siri, the digital assistant Apple acquired in 2010. When he left Apple, Mr. Haas was head of cloud engineering, managing the computing engine behind Siri, iTunes and iCloud. At GE Digital, Mr. Haas has a similar title, head of platform cloud engineering, but in a different setting. He describes his job as applying modern software technology — machine learning, artificial intelligence and cloud computing — to the industrial arena. “I’ve got my work cut out for me,” he said. Mr. Haas is working on the centerpiece of G. E.’s software strategy, a product called Predix. Its evolution mirrors G. E.’s software ambitions. Predix began as little more than a brand of software used by G. E. to service the gear it sells. One showcase use was in jet engines to do predictive maintenance, saving downtime. Around 2013, William Ruh, a former Cisco Systems executive brought in to put together the San Ramon software center, started expanding Predix to other G. E. industrial businesses. But that soon felt too small. The issue was “outside disrupters,” Mr. Ruh said, citing the online lodging Airbnb as an example of rivals that can appear seemingly out of nowhere and that “bring greater productivity — but don’t own the assets they sell. ” G. E. Mr. Ruh notes, is the ultimate company. The other threat was rising interest among tech companies to take their internet connectivity expertise and try to apply it to industrial businesses. To get ahead of all this, G. E. reimagined Predix as a operating system for industrial applications. Mr. Kodesh leads that effort. He ticks off the looming competitors: Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and others. “Those companies are going to encroach on the territory,” Mr. Kodesh said. “Are we going to capitulate, or build something like Predix?” The basic idea is that G. E. and outside software developers will write programs to run on Predix. This software might, for instance, monitor the health and the operation of equipment like rigs and turbines, improving performance, reducing wear and adapting to changing environmental conditions. It amounts to software delivering the equivalent of personalized medicine for machines. Like any other computer operating system, Predix aims to take the complexity out of writing programs, so more people can create them. And while the instincts of the industrial world are proprietary, G. E. is following an model with Predix, providing a basic design, but one open to outside contributors — more like Android from Google than Windows from Microsoft. Predix, Mr. Kodesh said, will be improved using the software equivalent of Lego blocks. “Some will be G. E.’s, and some will be made by developers,” he said. G. E. is betting that its deep knowledge of industry will give it an edge in this software arms race. The stakes for this kind of programming can be high. For a regular consumer using the internet, a misfiring algorithm in the software — “a false positive” — might mean a person sees an irrelevant online ad, or a bad Amazon book suggestion or Netflix movie recommendation, Mr. Kodesh said. Useless, perhaps, but not necessarily costly. But a false positive that prompts an airline to take a jet engine off the wing, Mr. Kodesh said, is a $100, 000 mistake. “We really do need to have different technology, different algorithms and a different cloud, than in the consumer internet,” he said. G. E. has set an ambitious target for Predix. It hopes to attract $100 million in orders this year, on its way to $4 billion in revenue by 2020. By then, the company forecasts that its total digital business — more than 90 percent of it software — may reach as much as $15 billion, up from $6 billion now. For Predix to reach its potential, though, G. E. needs outside programmers to write software for it. The company, with its deep pockets, can start the parade, but will others follow? This will be a major test. And G. E.’s campaign to build an industrial operating system and create a flourishing ecosystem of software for it is just getting underway in earnest. In late July, G. E. hosted a Predix conference in Las Vegas, which attracted 1, 200 software developers. Such developer gatherings are part of the playbook of every major software company but unusual for an industrial corporation. G. E. has some advantages. Its installed base is huge. For example, the company says more than a third of the world’s electricity is generated on G. E. equipment. It can make progress simply by winning over the aircraft makers, oil companies, hospitals and utilities that now depend on G. E. machinery. G. E. is starting to attract a developer following. Tata Consultancy Services, for one, says it now has 500 programmers designing and developing Predix applications for customers in the aviation and health care industries. G. E. also promotes partnerships with Infosys, Wipro and Capgemini to help business write Predix software. When he joined in 2011, Mr. Ruh had no illusions that making software a strength at a company would be easy. At the time, he told Mr. Immelt that would be “a journey,” he said. “We’re in the middle of that journey. ” Part of that is an effort to change an engineering culture that stretches back generations. “If G. E. is truly going to be a company, we can’t be separate here,” Mr. Ruh said of his software division. Digital “tools and habits” need to be embedded “in how people do their jobs,” he said. In its factory in Greenville, S. C. G. E. produces both giant power generators and evidence that this metamorphosis might work. The building is crowded with immense cranes and milling, grinding and welding machines, overseen by manufacturing engineers and technicians. The finishing touches are being put on one of G. E.’s new gas turbines. It looks like the business end of a rocket ship lying on its side, a gleaming steel dynamo at rest. It weighs 950, 000 pounds. It fires up at nearly 2, 900 degrees Fahrenheit, and it can generate enough electricity to supply more than 500, 000 households. The gas turbine was brought to market in half the typical five years. That kind of accelerated product development is a performance that G. E. hopes to replicate across its industrial businesses. And it is a story of changes in design and manufacturing practices made possible by digital technology. John Lammas, the vice president for power generation engineering, started his working career 40 years ago, on the shop floor of a jet engine factory in Birmingham, England. He has been with G. E. for 31 years, moving up the ranks of the company’s jet engine and power turbine divisions. “I’m an old mechanical guy,” he said. But a couple of years ago, he issued an edict: no more paper drawings. In the past, a model of a new part would be made and then converted to detailed blueprints running to 70 pages or more. These would then be physically sent to G. E. manufacturing engineers and outside suppliers to begin setting up the tooling, casting and cutting for the part. This routine took up to eight weeks. Now, engineers use computer models, skip the prototype step and instantly send the models electronically. This goes a step beyond design, which is commonplace. In Greenville, the designers are for the first time linked directly with manufacturers and suppliers in real time, in what G. E. calls a “digital thread. ” This means they can collaborate in ways that have changed the work process while making it more likely that problems or defects are spotted sooner. Traditionally, one set of engineers designed a part, and only then passed it on to manufacturing. If a problem arose on the supplier side, the design was kicked back and the process started over. “Jobs are combining in this digital world,” Mr. Lammas said. Greenville’s own equipment has been a Predix guinea pig. The machinery and factory were retrofitted with sensors and the software. Matt Krause, the plant manager, said that last winter, when a snowstorm shut the factory for a day, the sensor network detected that the plant had consumed 1, 000 pounds of argon, an inert gas used in coatings for parts. The leak was fixed, saving $350, 000 a year. “We can see things we never did before,” Mr. Krause said. Over all, 60 of 200 steps in design and production have been automated or eliminated, reducing work time by 530, 000 hours over three years, G. E. estimates. Not all the ideas that G. E. is trying to breed translate comfortably to heavy industry. Lean proponents urge companies to come up with “minimum viable products,” particularly test versions of software programs. But no one wants a minimum viable jet engine or power generator. Yet in Greenville, engineers in the design stages are encouraged to move faster in smaller steps, conduct more experiments, and be willing to fail and try again. It amounts to a sea change in the engineering culture of heavy industry. “As an engineer, not getting it right the first time, I find painful,” said Bill Byrne, an engineering manager. “It’s uncomfortable. But it’s been incredibly liberating. ” The old ways, said Mr. Lammas, the engineering chief, had merit. Each step and rule was logical on its own. But the emphasis on flawless execution and perfection fostered a fear of failure. “Overcoming that culture was probably the biggest challenge,” he said. | 0fake |
Kerry says can't comment on content of Clinton emails | QUEBEC CITY (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday said he could not comment on private email chains of his predecessor Hillary Clinton, saying they were being withheld at the request of the U.S. intelligence community. “I can’t speak to the specifics of anything with respect to the technicalities, the contents ... because that’s not our job,” Kerry told a news conference in Canada. “We don’t know about it, it’s in other hands.” | 0fake |
South Africa's ANC decides on Israel embassy downgrade ahead of Jerusalem vote | JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa s ruling ANC decided to downgrade its embassy in Tel Aviv to a liaison office over a U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital, ahead of a U.N. vote on Thursday on a resolution urging Washington to drop the move. The decision was taken at the end of a five-day African National Congress conference, in which Cyril Ramaphosa was elected as its new leader and South Africa s likely next president after 2019 elections, following Jacob Zuma. Delegates endorsed the proposal that we must give practical support to the oppressed people of Palestine and resolved on an immediate and unconditional downgrade of the SA (South Africa) Embassy in Israel to a Liaison Office, new ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule said on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from Israel s Foreign Ministry. South Africa s ministry for international relations and cooperation said on its website that it was deeply concerned about Trump s move as it would undermine Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, which has been frozen since 2014. The South African Board of Jewish Deputies and the South African Zionist Federation jointly condemned the ANC s decision. The 193-member U.N. General Assembly will hold a rare special session on Thursday at the request of Arab and Muslim states to vote on the draft resolution, which Washington vetoed on Monday in the 15-member U.N. Security Council. Most countries regard the status of Jerusalem as a matter to be settled in an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, although that process has been frozen for over three years. Israel deems Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital and wants all embassies based there. Palestinians want the capital of an independent Palestinian state to be in the city s eastern sector, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed in a move never recognized internationally. The ANC s move comes at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pursuing closer ties with other African countries. Last month, on a visit to Kenya, Netanyahu announced that Israel was opening a new embassy in nearby Rwanda as part of the expanding Israeli presence in Africa and the deepening of cooperation between Israel and African countries . Israel is seeking to expel thousands of African migrants to Rwanda. On Thursday, Netanyahu described the United Nations as a house of lies on Thursday and said Israel totally rejects this vote, even before approval . Trump upended decades of U.S. policy on Dec. 6 when he recognized Jerusalem as Israel s capital, generating outrage from Palestinians and the Arab and Muslim world, and concern among Washington s Western allies. When under white-minority rule, South Africa was one of Israel s few allies on the continent. But after the 1994 demise of apartheid, relations cooled as the black-majority ANC took over. The ANC has condemned Israeli occupation of territories where Palestinians seek statehood, while maintaining full diplomatic and trade relations with Israel. | 0fake |
Mike Pence Breaks Silence, Responds To Being ‘Misled’ By Trump Team And Flynn (VIDEO) | After suffering the massively humiliating experience of being led on by the White House over former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn, Vice President Mike Pence has finally broken his silence and shared his feelings over being made to look like a total idiot in front of America.On Monday in Brussels, Pence spoke alongside the NATO Security General, where he was asked the one question he probably didn t want to answer. The Associated Press Ken Thomas flat-out asked Pence if he felt misled by the Trump administration over Flynn s communications with Russia, particularly after Pence viciously defended Flynn in January. Thomas asked: Do you feel like your were misled by members of the Trump administration or were you frustrated that you were left out of the loop on this situation, and what assurances have you received from President Trump that something like this will not happen again? He may be spending a lot of time with Trump, but Pence has not yet learned how to distract, lie, and bullsh*t his way out of answering questions like his boss yet. Pence gave a measured, careful response, but ultimately revealed that he had been let down. The former governor of Indiana said: Let me say I m very grateful for the close working relationship I have with the President of the United States and I would tell you that I was disappointed to learn that the facts that have been conveyed to me by General Flynn were inaccurate. Pence also addressed Flynn s resignation, where he gave another cautious response: We honor General Flynn s long service to the United States of America, and I fully support the president s decision to ask for his resignation I have great confidence in the national security team of this administration moving forward. You can watch Pence squirm below:Featured image via Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images | 1real |
‘Cases Upon Cases Of Beer’: GOP Organizes Booze Party To Celebrate Stripping 24 Million Of Insurance | Republicans haven t read their own bill, aren t waiting around to see it independently scored, and seem to have only a limited interest in what the devastating effects may be, but they do know one thing: After they vote to strip an estimated 24 million people of health insurance and bankrupt countless more they plan to get hammered.Paul Ryan once inexplicably boasted that he d been fantasizing about killing Medicaid since he was drinking at a keg in college. Now on the verge of destroying America s healthcare system more completely than Fratboy Ryan ever dared dream, he seems to be channeling that same impulse. Although going on a booze bender hours after signing the literal death warrants for many Americans tends to look pretty bad, which is why Republicans tried to hide the beers under a sheet. It didn t work.Cases upon cases of beer just rolled into the Capitol on a cart covered in a sheet. Spotted Bud Light peeking out from the sheet Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) May 4, 2017Even Roman Emperor Nero had enough sense not to be seen pounding Bud Light while the city burned.Speaking of historically bad world leaders, the White House is said to be hosting a party for Republicans to celebrate tonight:Beer being rolled into the Capitol & @LACaldwellDC reports that Republicans will also head to White House for a congratulatory celebration https://t.co/cAC3r5eVdJ Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) May 4, 2017Other Republicans were in an equally celebratory mood and equally tasteless. While congressional aides trickled into the Capitol building, someone started blasting the theme from Rocky. (The fact that Rocky actually doesn t win the fight at the end of the movie was lost on the Republicans in the room. Handshakes, smiles, and high fives were going around.)The celebratory way in which Republicans are treating this bill is in stark contrast to reality. The AHCA will almost surely mean millions lose health insurance. Those Americans with so-called pre-existing conditions can expect to either completely lose their coverage or find it so expensive that they may have no choice but to go without. A brand new study found that the ACA cut personal bankruptcies in the United States by half that progress will be erased.Politically, the bill, likely represents suicide for many Republicans. As statistician Nate Silver pointed out, Obamacare was divisive and unpopular when it first passed, but this bill is really, really unpopular orders of magnitude more so than the ACA. And unlike the ACA, the Republican plan doesn t have the benefit of actually working once it s passed. People won t even be able to grow to like it because as the CBO score on the initial bill found the legislation is a dumpster fire.All of this to say: Drink up, Republicans! Something tells me your hangover is going to last a while.Featured image via Eric Thayer/Getty Images | 1real |
Kenya’s Collective ‘Uh-Oh’: Another Election Is Coming - The New York Times | NAIROBI, Kenya — By 9 a. m. on Monday, clouds of black smoke blotted out the sky. A mountain of tires burned. Roads were blocked. Young men poured into the streets of a slum in Nairobi, gleefully carrying huge, jagged pieces of concrete. In Kisumu, a city on Lake Victoria, witnesses said police officers had fired on a crowd. A boy was in critical condition after being shot in the back. A demonstrator was killed. For the past several weeks, Kenya’s opposition leaders have turned Mondays into protest days. Now they are threatening to hold demonstrations twice, and soon four times, a week. Many Kenyans are shaking their heads with a sense of fatigue and dread, saying, Here we go again. Kenya is a relatively prosperous, developed and politically tolerant African nation. But elections have not been its strong suit. In the past 25 years, almost every presidential race has been marred by violence the worst one was in when ethnic rivalries cracked open and more than 1, 000 people were killed, many in deadly protests. Kenya spent years trying to heal its wounds and recover from the devastation, culminating in a tense but more peaceful election in 2013. Despite widespread distrust of the results, the country held together, helping it recapture its image as a bastion of stability in the region. Now, with another election scheduled for next year and the opposition already mobilizing thousands of people, many Kenyans are worried about recent economic gains’ being reduced to char blowing in the wind. “It’s getting very nervy,” said Satchu, an investment adviser in Nairobi. “The economy crashes and burns when we fumble these elections. What’s worrying is that this is happening so early, that we already have this degree of contestation. ” Each Monday, now known as Tear Gas Monday, many businesses close. Parents do not send their children to school. Motorists stay off the streets, afraid of rocks being thrown through their windshields. The opposition leaders are aware of this part of their leverage is the ability to slow down the economy. A watchman in Nairobi spoke of his “inside fear” of even coming to town on Mondays. The opposition’s rallying point has become Kenya’s election commission. Raila Odinga, a former prime minister who has been angling for president for much of the past two decades, has demanded that the government disband the commission, which is widely viewed as biased and corrupt. A British court recently convicted two British businessmen of bribing Kenyan election commissioners to get contracts for printing ballots. But in Kenya, those same commissioners have not even been charged. This is another problem in Kenya. Almost all corruption cases against powerful people languish for months. Then they quietly disappear. “The government needs to throw out that commission,” said Paul Shida, a welder in the Kibera slums in Nairobi, where the protests began Monday. “Street protest is the only language the government understands. ” The election commission controversy has progressed from an annoyance to a major crisis for Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta. He is not believed to be especially close to any of the election commissioners, but they were the same ones who validated his victory in 2013 amid allegations of rigging. He has refused to disband the commission, and his security services have threatened to crack down on protesters. But as the protests grind on, a game is being played between Mr. Kenyatta’s government and Kenya’s judiciary, which many Kenyans regard as independent. Last week, police officials banned an opposition rally in the city’s historic Uhuru Park a court promptly overturned that ban. This weekend, police officials declared again that it was illegal for the opposition to protest and warned that they were ready to use lethal force. They did so in Kisumu on Monday. Witnesses said the police fired indiscriminately at a crowd, hitting the boy and leaving him in critical condition, and killing a protester. Also on Monday, a court ruled that the opposition had a right to protest and that the police had a duty to protect demonstrators. Though the violence in the past few weeks has been nothing compared with the paroxysm of bloodshed that swept the country in 2007 and 2008, the dynamics are similar. The nation, and especially its economy, are being held hostage by the relationship between Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga, who will most likely face off in the election next year. Last week, tensions suddenly lifted after the two met and a picture of them walking together, smiling, appeared on the front pages of the leading newspapers. But the two were soon at loggerheads again, and the protests were back on. Mr. Satchu estimated that at least $5 million was lost every Monday because of interruptions, closed businesses, property destruction and petty crime. On Monday afternoon, Bharat Shah, who runs a Nairobi curio shop, held up a pad of paper with the number 360 scribbled on it, for 360 shillings, less than $4. “That’s what I’ve sold today,” he said with a wry laugh. “One packet of beads. ” Just as in business leaders have been discreetly meeting with government and opposition leaders, urging them to compromise, for the sake of the economy. “Among international investors, there remains a strong commitment to Kenya as a gateway to this region, and that hasn’t been shaken yet,” Mr. Satchu said. “But surely it will be shaken if this malarkey continues. ” | 0fake |
'Big Six' member says tax reform blueprint to follow Senate hearings | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Republican senator involved in U.S. tax reform negotiations said on Monday that he expects to share the Trump tax reform plan with other lawmakers after holding hearings on overhauling the tax code. “We’re going to have hearings first, and then we’ll go from there. We’ll share it at that time,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, a member of the “Big Six” tax reform policymakers, told reporters. “I want everybody to participate and to know what we’re doing. I don’t want anybody to feel like they haven’t been consulted,” he added. Hatch’s committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on individual tax reform on Thursday, and the lawmaker said more hearings could follow. The timeline suggests that members of Congress may not get a look at the emerging tax reform plan until the last week of September at the earliest. The House of Representatives is scheduled to be in recess next week. As recently as Friday, House Republicans had said they expected to learn as early as this week about a tax reform framework from the “Big Six” senior tax policymakers from Congress and the Trump administration. The six are Hatch, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn. They have been negotiating for months to hammer out a deal on tax reform. President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress campaigned last year on a promise to slash individual and business taxes as part of a tax reform package that would also simplify the sprawling U.S. tax code. Trump said over the weekend that he would call on Congress to speed up the process. But the Big Six have yet to finalize an agreement, and lobbyists say the group is still undecided on basic elements of a tax reform plan, including whether tax legislation should add to the federal deficit or be revenue-neutral. The lack of progress has eroded hopes of completing tax reform before the end of 2017 and frustrated efforts to pass a budget resolution containing a vital procedural tool needed to move tax legislation forward on a simple majority in the Senate, which Republicans control by only 52 to 48 seats. Mnuchin and Cohn are expected discuss the prospects for a budget resolution at a Tuesday meeting with members of the Senate Budget Committee. | 0fake |
WATCH: PEGGY HUBBARD Defends Trump…Talks About Being Attacked Because She Defended Confederate Statues: “Antifa and Black Lives Matter showed up with weapons, wanting a fight” | Here s a partial transcript of her rant about the black community blaming whites for racism: If you believe in what you re doing, why hide your face? The KKK came out swinging. They had a permit. They had a right to be there. I am not condoning what the KKK did. I do not condone what they stand for, not at all. But they had the right to be there like everyone else. Antifa and Black Lives Matter showed up with weapons, wanting a fight. We as black people, we have got to get off the plantation. We have got to stop believing the lies. We as black people, are just as complicit on slavery as the white people. Not alL white people own slaves. Not all black people were slaves. We are refusing to acknowledge that we as black people had a hand in slavery. 3,076 slaves were sold by black people during the civil war period. | 1real |
Europe dodges Trump's defense spending ultimatum | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump sent top U.S. officials to Europe with a familiar warning from Washington that allies must spend more on defense, this time with the ultimatum “or else”. But Europeans have tried to deflect the threats with the argument that a commitment to security is not just about spending targets, which diplomats said that U.S. officials did not challenge, suggesting that the stand-off will continue. “Things look very different if we add up our defense budgets, our development aid budgets and our humanitarian efforts all around the world,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the Munich Security Conference last week. By current standards, Washington funds about 70 percent of NATO spending. Standing beside U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Monday at the Commission, Juncker called for another measure of what counts. “We want ... a broader understanding that the word ‘stability’ in the world means defense expenditure, human aid and development aid,” said Juncker the EU’s chief executive, adding he was against Europeans being “pushed into” the targets. Allies who do not meet NATO targets to spend 2 percent of GDP on military budgets set out to show Pence and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis how Europeans are dealing with crises they trace back, in part, to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. “France has a readiness to deploy that is hard to match. Spain was leading NATO’s new spearhead force last year. Italy is in Afghanistan,” said one senior European NATO diplomat. “That isn’t already reflected by spending targets.” While Germany says Trump has a point about Europe’s drop in defense spending since the fall of the Soviet Union, Berlin and the European Commission also say Washington should take note that the EU is the world’s biggest aid donor, spending some 56 billion euros ($58.99 billion) a year. The United States spends about 1 percent of its federal budget on foreign aid, or about $50 billion, but that also includes running diplomatic missions and giving academic grants, according to the U.S. State Department. The European Union says most of its aid goes to the world’s poorest countries. Germany deserves recognition for the 30 to 40 billion euros ($32 to $42 billion) it is spending to integrate over a million refugees, many of whom were displaced as a result of failed Western policy, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said. At a NATO summit in Wales in 2014, months after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, allies agreed to end years of defense cuts that left Europeans without vital capabilities, such as refueling airborne fighter bombers. They agreed all allies should reach the target of spending 2 percent of economic output on defense every year by 2024, although the goal is not legally binding. It aims to reverse a trend that saw defense research spending in the European Union fall by a third, or more than 20 billion euros, since 2006. Only the United States, Britain, Poland, Estonia and Greece met the target in 2016, although the cuts have stopped and Latvia, Lithuania and Romania are close, NATO officials say. NATO’s 22 European allies and Canada will spend almost 4 percent more, or some 10 billion euros, on defense this year and Germany’s increases account for some 20 percent of that. There is no European push to change the NATO target and NATO officials say the 2 percent target will remain politically useful, if not economically viable. Reaching the 2 percent target could cost NATO’s European members $96 billion per year, according to think tank Bruegel. U.S. governments have been pressing Europeans to increase spending on their armed forces for decades, but Trump signaled a much tougher approach, suggesting on the campaign trail to make U.S. support conditional on meeting NATO commitments. He has since given his full support to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but complained this month that Europeans have “been very unfair to us”, for not spending more on defense. Pence maintained the pressure at NATO on Monday, telling allies they had until the end of this year to show “real progress” on spending. Pence cited his spending message as one of the successes of his debut Europe trip, diplomats said. Europeans say the biggest issue is how money is spent. Spurred on by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, Germany and France are leading plans to build a so-called European Defense Union that would allow countries to develop and share military assets together, as well as deploying troops. Collectively the European Union is the world’s second-biggest military spender. But fears in Britain of an EU army held back collaboration. Governments spent in isolation and missed out on savings worth 25 billion euros a year, according to EU data. Trump’s ultimatum is also still “hypothetical”, Pence said. Asked what if Europeans did not spend more, he said: “I don’t know what the answer is to: ‘or else’. But I know that the patience of the American people will not endure forever.” ($1 = 0.9493 euros) | 0fake |
Inner earth glows like in the movie Avatar | Can there be light below the surface of the Earth, without any exposure to the Sun? Surprisingly, the answer is YES. By Robert Sepehr
Bioluminescent organisms have the ability to glow almost like magic. Many organisms use their natural ability to produce light to trick predators, to attract mates and even to communicate.
The word for this seemingly magical ability is called “bioluminescence,” which comes from “bio,” meaning life, and “lumin,” meaning light.
Most of these organisms, such as plankton, glow blue, but a few glow red, green, or orange. Some tiny animal plankton (zooplankton) are big enough to see with the unaided eye.
Most bioluminescent zooplankton don’t glow in the dark themselves, but instead squirt globs of glowing chemicals into the water.
Some zooplankton use bioluminescence to attract a mate, or to form reproductive swarms. Not only is nature’s biochemistry fascinating, it can also be extremely beautiful, especially given the backdrop of a dark, misty cave.
Glow worm is the common name for various groups of insect larvae and adult larviform females that glow through bioluminescence. They may sometimes resemble worms, but are actually insects.
The glow they produce, through by a chemical reaction, is incredibly efficient; nearly 100% of the energy input is turned into light (Compare this to the best light-emitting diodes at just 24%).
Australia and New Zealand have some of the most spectacular caves, where one can go on guided tours to witness this natural phenomenon up close. (see video below)
Why do some mushrooms emit light? Making light isn’t common in fungi; scientists have described about 100,000 fungal species, and only 75 glow. Lab work has shown that the glow did not happen randomly or by accident.
Scientists found that these mushrooms made light mostly at night, so experiments were conducted to determine why.
According to studies ( referenced in the book ), in dark environments, bioluminescent fruit bodies may be at an advantage by attracting insects and other arthropods that could help disperse their spores.
Conditions that affect the growth of fungi, such as pH, light and temperature, have been found to influence bioluminescence, suggesting a link between metabolic activity and fungal bioluminescence.
The diversity of creatures with this ability is equally astonishing, from algae and the common firefly to deep-sea dwellers that are rarely seen by humans.
What’s also fascinating is that many of these creatures are not closely related, and bioluminescent traits have seemingly evolved separately at least 30 times.
With countless well lit subterranean caves and glowing caverns, it makes one wonder what could be dwelling in vast unexplored areas under the crust.
The idea that our planet consists of a hollow, or honeycombed, interior is not new. Some of the oldest cultures speak of civilizations inside of vast cavern-cities, within the bowels of the earth.
According to certain Buddhist and Hindu traditions, secret tunnels connect Tibet with a subterranean paradise, and they call this legendary underworld Agartha.
In India, this underground oasis is best known by its Sanskrit name, Shambhala, thought to mean ‘place of tranquility.’
Mythologies throughout the world, from North and South America to Europe and the Arctic, describe numerous entrances to these fabled inner kingdoms.
Many occult organizations, esoteric authors, and secret societies concur with these myths and legends of subterranean inhabitants, who are the remnants of antediluvian civilizations, which sought refuge in hollow caverns inside the earth.
Assuming that the myths are true, and the Earth is partially hollow, how could life survive underground? How would organisms receive the ventilation required to breathe miles below the surface?
Surface trees and rainforests are responsible for less than one-third of the Earth’s oxygen, while marine plants, such as phytoplankton, are responsible for between 70 to 80 percent of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere. The vast majority of our oxygen comes from aquatic organisms.
Phytoplankton, kelp, and algae produce oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis, a process which converts carbon dioxide and light into sugars which are then used for energy.
Phytoplankton is responsible for HALF of Earth’s oxygen
While the process of photosynthesis usually implies the presence of sunlight, the Sun is not the only available light or energy source able to power photosynthesis.
Before the discovery of hydrothermal vents, and their ecosystems, scientists believed that only small animals lived at the ocean bottom, in seafloor sediments.
They theorized that these animals received their food from above, because the established model of the marine food chain depended on sunlight and photosynthesis, just as the food chain on land does.
Mainstream academia taught that this was the only way life could survive in the darkness of the deep seafloor. The discovery of hydrothermal vents changed all that.
It became clear that vast communities of animals grew quickly and to larger than expected sizes in the depths without the aid of the Sun.
Instead of using light to create organic material (photosynthesis), microorganisms at the bottom of the food chain at hydrothermal vents used chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide (chemosynthesis).
At the seafloor, there are thriving ecosystems that receive energy not from the sun, but from the heat and chemicals provided by the planet itself.
For many thousands of species dwelling in the deep, the energy to sustain life does not flow down from above, but comes up from the interior of the earth.
Even in the unlikely scenario where every single tree were chopped down, we would still be able to breathe thanks to aquatic plant-life (ex. algae).
The Earth has a tremendous amount of water, and these oceans, rivers, and lakes are teeming with numerous species of biologically active, oxygen-producing organisms.
Are there any known sources of sustenance available that could provide for a large human population?
What evidence is there that a sustainable biosphere could exist miles below the surface, totally isolated from the nourishment and the established life cycle provided by the sun?
Where are the entrances to inner earth, and which races live inside?
Author and anthropologist, Robert Sepehr , explores these questions and attempts to unlock their riddles, which have eluded any consideration in mainstream academia.
Numerous endeavors have been undertaken to access the interior of the earth.
Polar expeditions and battles, such as Operation Highjump, still remain largely classified, and have been shrouded in secrecy for decades, but scientific revelations validating the rumors surrounding these covert events, and their implications, are finally being exposed to daylight.
What are the mysteries of inner Earth?
Robert Sepehr’s book, Gods with Amnesia: Subterranean Worlds of Inner Earth , is available on Amazon and all good bookstores.
Source: Atlantean Gardens
Via: Humans Are Free
More from Robert Sepehr : Bioluminescent Glowing Organisms of Inner Earth Subterranean Worlds of Inner Earth New Swabia (Neuschwabenland) and Base 211 Hopi Indians claim that their ancestors emerged from the underworld | 1real |
WAS IRANIAN BUSINESSMAN FREED FROM JAIL After HUGE Payoff To Clintons? | Just before an Iranian-American businessman was freed from jail in Iran in Oct. 2010, his son met with Bill Clinton and also made the first of what would become more than $1 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation.Nima Taghavi, who owns businesses in California, grew impatient in 2010 with negotiations to secure his father Reza s release from an Iranian prison, and so he turned to the former president for help.To arrange the meeting with Clinton, Taghavi first contacted Doug Band, who worked as Clinton s body man, has counseled the Clinton Foundation, and co-founded Teneo Holdings, a consulting group that Clinton advised.Taghavi met with the former president in hopes that he would serve as special envoy to Iran, sources told TheDC. And through his personal charity, the Nima Taghavi Foundation, the businessman gave a $5,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation in 2010. He would go on to give more than $1 million over the next several years.The timing of the meeting and the first round of donations raises two questions: whether Clinton promised to help Taghavi in exchange for contributions to his family s organization and whether he violated an agreement not to personally solicit funds for his charity.As part of the deal to bring Hillary Clinton on board as secretary of state, the Clintons signed a memorandum of understanding in Dec. 2008 agreeing to the stipulation that Bill Clinton not raise money.It is unclear if Hillary Clinton knew of her husband s meeting with Taghavi. In an email informing Clinton that an unnamed Iranian-American businessman had been released from an Iran jail Clinton asked her aide Huma Abedin who the prisoner was. Abedin informed her it was Reza Taghavi.In an email with the subject Why Taghavi was released, a State Department official wrote I understand [Clinton] is asking. The theory of a Clinton-related quid pro quo whether Hillary Clinton knew about it or not is not unfounded, as it fits a pattern of the former first couple providing favors and access to donors to their charity and to their various political campaigns.Read more: Daily Caller | 1real |
Rebels close in on east Congo city amid gunfire | ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Rebels in eastern Congo advanced to the outskirts of the city of Uvira near the Burundi border on Wednesday, residents said, sowing panic and confining thousands of civilians to their homes. The fighting between the Mai-Mai Yakutumba militia and the army was the latest example of mounting insecurity in Democratic Republic of Congo since President Joseph Kabila refused to step down when his mandate expired last December. The violence in eastern and central Congo has displaced over 1.5 million in the past year and revived fears of civil war in a country where conflicts from 1996-2003 killed millions and spawned dozens of armed groups that continue to prey on local populations and exploit natural resources. Yakutumba fighters, who mostly oppose Kabila, advanced to hillsides about five km (3 miles) outside the lakeside city by mid-afternoon on Wednesday and army reinforcements deployed to try to push them back, according to Lubungula Dem s M Sato, a member of a peace-building advocacy group in Uvira. The Yakutumba elements started advancing toward Uvira this morning, M Sato told Reuters. The gunfire is still ongoing ... Everyone is at home. The Catholic bishop of Uvira, Sebastien Muyengo, said by telephone that heavy gunfire could be heard on-and-off in the hills throughout the day but that the shooting had mostly abated by early evening. Local army spokesman Dieudonne Kasereka said the military remained in control of Uvira, which lies about 25 km (15 miles) west of Burundi s capital Bujumbura, where low-level political violence erupts periodically. Mai-Mai Yakutumba, which was formed in 2007 by local militiamen opposed to integration in Congo s national army, says it is spearheading a coalition of armed groups committed to driving government forces from the area. It briefly seized several towns during clashes with the army in late June that forced 80,000 people to flee their homes [nL3N1JU48L}. The fighting has affected local gold mining operations. Canada s Banro Corp said on Tuesday it had temporarily suspended operations at its Namoya mine in a neighboring province due to road closures forced by armed groups, the latest in a series of security incidents to hit its mines in the area. U.N. peacekeepers, sharply criticized in 2012 for failing to prevent eastern Congo s largest city of Goma from falling to another rebellion, intervened in Uvira on Wednesday to drive off several purported militiamen who attacked the city s prison, a security source said. A U.N. spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for comment. | 0fake |
U.S. special envoy says Kurdish referendum has 'a lot of risks' | NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. presidential envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State insurgent group said on Friday that a referendum on Kurdish independence in northern Iraq carries a lot of risks. The envoy, Brett McGurk, told reporters: The (Kurdish) referendum just carries an awful lot of risks and that s not something the United States can control. ... In terms of the consequences of the referendum it s not something that we can fully control, (it) just carries a lot of risks. | 0fake |
Harvard Business Review: American Families Face Increasing Financial Instability - Breitbart | The financial situation of many middle class American households is strikingly unstable, according to a new report from the Harvard Business Review. [The Harvard Business Review finds that there is increasing trend of financial vulnerability for lower and middle class American households. According to the report, households experienced an average of five months per years in which household income increased or decreased by more or less than 25 percent. Our first big finding was that the households’ incomes were highly unstable, even for those with workers. We counted spikes and dips in earning, defined as months in which a household’s income was either 25% more or 25% less than the average. It turned out that households experienced an average of five months per year with either a spike or dip. In other words, incomes were far from average almost half of the time. Income volatility was more extreme for poorer families, but middle class families felt it too. The report’s authors, Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider, claim that income volatility is the result of shifts in the labor market, such an increasing amount of laborers who rely on income from commissions, tips, and hourly work. The study claims that household spending was just variable as income. Factors such as car repairs, college tuition bills, and healthcare contributed to the volatility of household spending. We found that monthly spending was just as volatile as income. On top of regular expenses, emergencies arose frequently: Cars needed repair, roofs needed fixing, tuition bills came due, and people got sick. In addition, the rising relative costs of health care, housing, education, and transportation stretched budgets and cut into the slack available to buffer shocks, especially with the stagnation of real wages for most workers. In 2015 and families devoted about of their earnings to housing, and they have seen housing prices rise 25% — 50% since the . The cost of a bachelor’s degree from a public college has risen by from 2003 to 2014. The Affordable Care Act, which was designed to reduce health care costs for lower and middle class Americans, has only further complicated spending. Health care costs have continued to grow, leaving lower and middle class households with plans with high deductibles, which means large expenses during their trips to the doctor. Morduch and Schneider argue that financially instability is in itself a form of economic inequality. They suggest that employers look to restructuring some of their practices, such as scheduling policies, so that lower and middle class American workers can ultimately find economic stability. Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com, | 0fake |
OOPS! NY GOV CUOMO Announces Statues of Confederate Generals “Will Be Removed Because NY Stands Against Racism”…IGNORES STATE Was Named After OWNER of African Slave Trading Company | Really Andrew? Does all of New York really stand against racism? Isn t Al Sharpton, one of the greatest race agitators of all time, a resident of New York? Wasn t he one of Barack Obama s generals in the race war he spent eight years orchestrating from our White House? Wasn t Al Sharpton behind the massive march in New York City where organizers held bull horns calling for the death of police officers? Where was your selective outrage when Al Sharpton was one of the most frequent visitors to our White House?Who could forget the infamous Beer Summit, where former President Barack Obama hosted Prof Henry Gates, a prominent black scholar, and Sgt James Crowley, a white police sergeant, for beers in the White House Rose Garden, that was actually a photo-op for Obama where he pretended to be working towards the goal of defusing racial tension in America.And now, as though the last 8 years of race agitating from the highest office in the land never happened, Governor Andrew Cuomo s joining the leftist mob in an attempt to erase American history, foolishly believing that if Democrats are seen as the party removing confederate statues, perhaps Americans will forget that the Democrat Party was in fact, the party who fought so hard to keep slavery alive in America.Here s the ridiculous tweet from Governor Andrew Cuomo:Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson will be removed from the CUNY hall of great Americans because New York stands against racism. Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 17, 2017Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist quickly schooled the leftist governor on the history behind the naming of the state of New York:New York is named after the head of a British slave-trading monopoly. https://t.co/edp3ZzYWyr Sean Davis (@seanmdav) August 17, 2017The Duke of York was the main shareholder in and the director of the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading in Africa; established at the time of the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. The shareholders in this Company were a combination of the Stuart Royal family along with a number of wealthy London merchants. The Company established London s monopoly of the English slave trade. It created slave ports on the West coast of Africa where British-produced goods were exchanged for Africans who were then transported as slaves to colonies in the Caribbean and the Americas.In 1664, the Duke of York, as Admiral of the Navy, annexed the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (it was then renamed New York in his honour). When the Duke took over New York one of the first actions of the new authority was to grant the colony port privileges and the right to use warehouses to ships engaged in the slave trade (1) ~ i.e. ships owned by the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading in Africa in which the Duke was the largest shareholder.Previously, under the Dutch West India Company, the African slaves of New Amsterdam had lived in what was known as half-freedom ; that is to say under the Dutch they had some rights and some, limited, independence. However, once under Stuart, British rule they became chattel slaves (i.e perceived as personal property of the slave owners in a way that was different from previous slave-systems. It was slavery used as labour under an emerging and consolidating capitalism). Though it is worth noting that these urban slaves of New York never accepted the complete servitude endured by their rural counterparts.President Trump took to Twitter this morning to denounce decisions being made by leftists in positions of authority to erase the history of our great nation:Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You .. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017 can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish! Also Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017 the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017 | 1real |
Charles Koch Does A Brutally Honest Interview The Republican Party Isn’t Gonna Like (VIDEO) | Charles Koch sat down with ABC News and did an interview, during which he said it was possible that Hillary Clinton could be a better president than some of the Republicans still left. It was in no way an endorsement of Clinton. It was a well-worded question that elicited a noteworthy and honest response. That 30 seconds of reporting dominated the already slow news cycle while the meat of the Charles Koch interview went largely ignored.Charles Koch doesn t come across as many people think he should. He shows up in sweaters and comfy shoes looking like Mr. Rogers and being extremely passionate about his policy positions. What many people don t understand is that the Koch Brothers, while massive and powerful beyond belief, are Libertarians. Libertarians want taxes gone. They want money out of politics because they think the government should be almost non-existent. In order to achieve this Libertarian Utopia, they first have to conquer the Republican Party, the only people who will give them a flat tax and deregulate everything.Charles Koch admits that he benefits from a rigged system. He admits to all the money that is spent on corporate welfare and tax shelters for the wealthy. He admits that cronyism runs our country and he knows that the rich are getting richer and the poor have no chance. If you were to attach Charles Koch s belief system to a liberal set of values you d have Bill Gates meets Warren Buffet. Unfortunately, what you actually end up with is a grandfatherly figure whose sheer power won t be stopped, it ll be chatted about nicely in the den.The Kochs lean to the right on enough issues that their money gets thrown at the Republican party. They want to eliminate the tax code, thinking it will put people on level playing field or maybe just to keep more profits. They want regulation out of business, so free markets could thrive and regulate themselves or maybe just to cut corners and save money. They want money out of politics, so they pour money into politics. The Kochs aren t in danger of being aligned with Democrats, but if you listen to Charles tell it, if the Democratic party would come around on just a few things, they would see more Koch money. Yes, that s a ridiculous notion. Charles Koch sits and talks about everyone taking care of one another while it was he and his brother who created the Tea Party and their bigotry and went to work in 2014 to see to it that everyone hated the poor and Ebola enough to vote red.The Kochs have always backed Republicans, an investment Charles calls disappointing. He remembers the one time he asked for a political favor to shoot down a bill that was nothing but corporate tax breaks and fewer than 10 percent of the people they backed on the campaign trail came through when it was time to vote. The one time. Somehow it seems unlikely that a man who just confessed to raising half a billion dollars for political purposes has asked for more than one favor, but we ll let Mr. Koch s good character speak for itself (wink, wink).They have apparently gotten tired of the Republican party, at least this time around. Charles is adamant that the mud-slinging ad-hominem festival of stupid that has been the GOP primary has not received a dime from their war chest. Not a single campaign on either side has reaped the benefits of Koch support. The only candidate Koch mentions by name is Bernie Sanders, who he says is at least addressing the issue of the two-tiered system and wealth inequality, though he can t understand his methods. It s difficult for a man who professes to be a classic liberal to consider putting the needs of the less fortunate first. If his barn is stocked with horses, his cupboards and refrigerator with food and his home stocked with creature comforts he ll be in a much better position to help those who have struggled.All in all, this interview doesn t bode well for the GOP. They re looking for almost a billion dollars from Koch s PAC, which by his own estimate has only raised $200 million so far this year. The Republican party has certainly shown that it knows how to screw up a free lunch. When you can t do something as simple as keeping your number one source of income in the game, you know the end is near. Featured image from screen capture | 1real |
Trump tells Republican lawmakers: Enough talk. Time to deliver | PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - President Donald Trump pushed Republican lawmakers on Thursday for swift action on a sweeping agenda including his planned U.S.-Mexican border wall, tax cuts and repealing the Obamacare law, despite tensions over timetables and priorities. Congressional Republicans were in Philadelphia for a three-day retreat to hammer out a legislative agenda, with the party in control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade. “This Congress is going to be the busiest Congress we’ve had in decades, maybe ever,” Trump said in a speech to the lawmakers at a Philadelphia hotel. “Enough ‘all talk, no action.’ We have to deliver,” Trump added. But Trump did not hold an expected question-and-answer session with the lawmakers, and his speech veered into side issues such as predicting crowd size for an anti-abortion march in Washington, alleging American voting irregularities and touting winning Pennsylvania in the Nov. 8 election. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who initially hesitated in endorsing Trump last year and has criticized him on some issues, disputed the notion that congressional Republicans were not in synch with the New York businessman who was sworn in less than a week ago having never previously held public office. “We are on the same page with the White House,” Ryan said during a joint news conference with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “This is going to be an unconventional presidency,” Ryan added. “I think you know this by now. ... I think we’re going to see unconventional activities like tweets and things like that. I think that’s just something that we’re all going to have to get used to.” Trump pressed the lawmakers for action on repealing and replacing Democratic former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, even as Republicans scramble to devise a replacement plan, and lowering taxes on “all American businesses” and the middle class. For weeks, Republicans talked about formulating an agenda for the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency. In recent days, the talk has turned into a 200-day agenda for passing major legislation before the lawmakers’ August recess. “It’s going to take more than simply 100 days,” Ryan said. Ryan said that it is “our goal is to get these laws done in 2017,” without guaranteeing that a replacement for Obamacare and a tax reform bill would be enacted by the end of December. McConnell said lawmakers will take up legislation to provide $12 billion to $15 billion to pay for Trump’s planned wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday for the wall to proceed, part of a package of measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration, although the action has tested already frayed relations with Mexico. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said the pace of legislative action may frustrate Trump. “President Trump comes from a different world,” McCarthy told reporters. “Out in the business community, he likes things done fast, and he’s going to continue to push them.” Thousands of anti-Trump protesters took to the streets in Philadelphia, a heavily Democratic bastion that is one of the cities that could be stripped of federal funds for protecting illegal immigrants under a Trump directive. Marchers carried signs including, “Fascist Pig,” “Protect My Health Care,” “Immigration Makes America Great,” “Planet Over Profit” and “Impeach Trump.” During his speech, Trump took time to explain his side of the story on Mexico’s president canceling a meeting next week because of Trump’s insistence that America’s southern neighbor eventually pay for the wall. Mexico has said it will not. Trump said a tax reform bill “will reduce our trade deficits, increase American exports and will generate revenue from Mexico that will pay for the wall, if we decide to go that route.” McConnell and Ryan did not say whether Congress would offset the wall’s cost by cutting other programs or simply add to huge budget deficits that Republicans have criticized for years. Ryan and McConnell also indicated congressional Republicans do not plan to modify U.S. law banning torture even as Trump considers bringing back a CIA program for holding terrorism suspects in secret overseas “black site” prisons where interrogation techniques often condemned as torture were used. “I think the director of the CIA (Mike Pompeo) has made it clear he’s going to follow the law. And I believe virtually all of my members are comfortable with the state of the law on that issue now,” McConnell said. “Torture’s not legal,” Ryan said. “And we agree with it not being legal. In a highly unusual move for a visiting foreign leader, British Prime Minister Theresa May, who will see Trump in Washington on Friday, addressed the retreat, calling herself a “fellow conservative who believes in the same principles that underpin the agenda of your party.” She was loudly applauded for praising Trump’s victory. “Because of what you have done together, because of that great victory you have won, America can be stronger, greater, and more confident in the years ahead,” May said. | 0fake |
PRESIDENT TRUMP Retweets 3 Videos Of Muslims Committing Disgusting Hate Crimes…The Left EXPLODES | The left woke up in a fury after they discovered President Trump retweeted 3 videos showing disgusting hate crimes committed against Europeans by Muslims. Was the President trying to prove his case about how the mass Muslim migration into Europe is destroying their cultures and making the citizens unsafe? President Trump didn t include any commentary with his retweets, he simply retweeted the videos. Should President Trump have retweeted these videos? We d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.On Wednesday morning, President Trump retweeted videos posted by a British nationalist, which showed Muslims committing crimes.Trump retweeted content posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, a far-right group that stands against theIslamisation of the United Kingdom.The first video purportedly shows a Muslim migrant beating up a Dutch boy on crutches.VIDEO: Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches! pic.twitter.com/11LgbfFJDq Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) November 28, 2017Twitter responded to the video with the boy on crutches by saying that the Muslim migrant who beat up the boy on crutches was arrested the next day and was actually a Dutch citizen. We have checked both Dutch (link and link) websites who claim that the boy was neither a Muslim or a migrant. We couldn t verify if either one of the sites we checked are legitimate sources of news.The fact that the president retweeted this bigot is disgusting. Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) November 29, 2017According to Dutch media, the culprit wasn't a Muslim. Also not a migrant. But a 16-year old Dutch boy from town of Edam-Volendam.He was arrested on May 13th 2017, one day after the incident happened. Edna Sullivan (@SumTomGoingOn) November 29, 2017 The second video shows a Muslim man speaking to the camera and then bashing a statue of Virgin Mary on the ground, shattering herVIDEO: Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary! pic.twitter.com/qhkrfQrtjV Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) November 29, 2017thats such a good point pic.twitter.com/vfF8eKPPy6 blablaa (@CeeTheHit) November 29, 2017The third video President Trump retweeted shows an Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death! VIDEO: Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death! pic.twitter.com/XxtlxNNSiP Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) November 29, 2017Not everyone disagreed with President Trump s retweets. Many applauded him for bringing these videos to the attention of the world:Europe is lost. THIS is the new setting of Europe. It's so sad. You can thank Angela Merkel. Joey Mannarino (@Realjmannarino) November 29, 2017It's already too late for the UK and much of Europe, but hopefully it can be at least managed. So much danger. Joey Mannarino (@Realjmannarino) November 29, 2017Last year, Fransen was found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment after accosting a Muslim woman.The charge stemmed from a January 2016 incident in which Fransen, wearing a political uniform and during a so-called Christian patrol, accosted a Muslim woman named Sumayyah Sharpe in Luton, England. Daily Mail | 1real |
VP JOE BIDEN To Make Appearance At Oscars To Introduce Song About Sexual Assault | Well, this is ironic Joe Biden is one of the worst when it comes to getting in your space if you happen to be female. Not sure he s the best person to introduce this song. This is yet another example of politicizing the Oscars a turnoff to viewers but loony Hollywood liberals will eat this up.Vice President Joe Biden will introduce Lady Gaga this Sunday at the 88th Academy Awards.The Los Angeles Times reports Biden, who will be in attendance for the ceremony with his wife Jill, will introduce the singer for a performance of her song Til It Happens to You, which will include a presentation aimed a combating sexual violence.After introducing the singer, the vice president will reportedly ask viewers and members of the audience to visit ItsOnUs.org and take a pledge to intervene in cases of sexual assault.Biden, who was main author of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act while he was in the Senate, has called for college presidents to help end campus sexual violence. You don t want to be a school that mishandles rape. Guess what? Step up. It s time. Its absolutely time because the moral disapprobation of society is the most powerful tool for effecting change in the cultural norms that doggedly hang on, Biden said in May 2014.Lady Gaga s song Til It Happens to You and an accompanying PSA aimed at warning young women of the dangers of campus sexual assault, was released last September.Read more: Breitbart News | 1real |
RESULTS ARE IN: New Post-Debate Poll Shows MAJOR Swing In Very Key Demographic (VIDEO) | It s been a couple days since the first presidential debate, but the results are finally in, and it s not looking too great for one of the two candidates, especially in regards to the women vote.According to the new post-debate NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll: Twenty-seven percent of likely women voters said the debate made them think worse of Trump. Meanwhile, nearly a third, or 30 percent, said their opinion of Clinton had improved, compared to 22 percent of men. Women were also far likelier to say Clinton won the debate, by a 10-point margin over men. It seems as if a lot of women are really put off by Donald Trump s temperament and not only how he treated Hillary Clinton during the debate, but women in general throughout his lifetime.One woman who was interviewed for the poll even admitted that she voted for Trump in the primary, but now is leaning towards Hillary Clinton.71-year-old Joan Hume of Fairfield, Ohio said: I m undecided, but I m leaning more towards Hillary than I ever have before because of the debate. Apparently, she wanted to see Washington shaken up, but she admitted: There s a side of him that s scary to me that I m seeing more of. I thought maybe he would change when he got the nomination, but he s getting worse. And while there are some women who apparently still think Trump is an acceptable choice despite his blatant misogyny and insults towards women, it s really not looking too great for the reality TV host considering if you want to win the White House, you need to win over women. And right now, it looks like Trump is losing while Hillary is gaining.The poll states this of independent women voters: Trump fared particularly poorly with independent women when they were asked if he has the temperament and personality to serve. Eighty percent of independent female voters said he does not. By contrast, independent women voters were more evenly split on Clinton s personality and temperament, with 51 percent saying she met the test for president. Yikes. That doesn t look so good for Mr. Trump.Here s the thing: Trump has a very, very long history of being absolutely horrible towards women, and the women who hadn t caught on yet are now finally starting to see the bigger picture. Chances are, more will jump ship to Clinton s side before November. At least if they re aware of the reality of the situation.Here s the take from MSNBC on the topic of women and Trump:Featured Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 1real |
HOUSE DEMOCRATS MAKE STUNNING Move To Implement Sharia Law In America | While US citizens are outraged over the removal of Christ from pretty much every aspect of our lives, including Christmas, Democrat members of Congress are working fast and furiously to implement America s first Sharia Law...If they get their way They will be stripping us of our basic rights, and we need to be prepared for their TERRIFYING hope and get Americans aware of what is happening!On December 17, Democrat Congressmen quietly sponsored House Resolution 569, a resolution that asks lawmakers to condemn violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States. The resolution specifically mentions Muslims, no other religious groups, and will serve as a test by which further criminalizing of Islamophobia may be introduced.Democrats have shamelessly lumped together hate speech with violence in an effort to compare criticism of Islam to physically harming Muslims. H. Res. 569 threatens to restrict our right to even report facts that tarnish Islam s reputation, a law that all Sharia-governed countries already have in place.According to Congress.gov, the resolution reads: Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the House of Representatives denounces in the strongest terms the increase of hate speech, intimidation, violence, vandalism, arson, and other hate crimes targeted against mosques, Muslims, or those perceived to be Muslim; urges local and Federal law enforcement authorities to work to prevent hate crimes; and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those perpetrators of hate crimes Muslims are slaughtering innocent people more than any other religious groups combined, all while refusing as a whole to condemn this barbaric Islamic terrorism, yet we are working to ensure these silent, consenting moderates have special protection protection that they have never allowed religious minorities in their own countries.In another passage, Democrats laughably purport that Muslims have contributed to the fabric of American society, but we re assuming they don t mean terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, countless frivolous CAIR lawsuits, whitewashed Islamic education in public schools, or whining about pork products and a lack of taxpayer-funded prayer rooms. Whereas this Muslim community is recognized as having made innumerable contributions to the cultural and economic fabric and well-being of United States society Still, the bill is purposefully vague in that it mentions prosecuting the perpetrators of hate speech, yet gives no definition for what it considers hate speech. Of course, we who have spoken out about the intolerant fundamentals of Islam understand that this means uttering anything critical of Islam or its followers, regardless of facts or relevance to the Quran.In conclusion, the bill ridiculously compares criticizing Islam as a violation of Muslims civil rights, as if disagreeing or even openly mocking someone s beliefs is unconstitutional. Our forefathers had exactly political and religious mockery in mind when they penned our amendments, having experience the violation of limited speech and worship by their own King George III.Indeed, free speech was never intended to defend inoffensive speech, because inoffensive speech needs no protection. Freedom of speech is solely for the offensive, meant to prevent those who would limit it because of their opposing beliefs. Via: RWN | 1real |
US Senate passes bill to fund government through April | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate passed legislation on Friday to fund the government through April and sent it to President Barack Obama for signing into law, after Democrats who sought more generous healthcare benefits for coal miners stopped delaying action on the measure. Many government services and operations would have been closed or suspended starting at midnight, when current funding authority expires, if the Senate had not approved the measure. The vote was 63-36. The House of Representatives passed the legislation on Thursday. | 0fake |
Dear President Moron: Since You Don’t Seem To Get How NATO Works, Please Allow Me To Educate You | Donald Trump doesn t like NATO. Much like the fact he doesn t understand NATO, this is clear. On the campaign trail, his common statement was that the alliance was obsolete. He has dozens of quotes trashing the alliance. Now, he endlessly rails against our allies not meeting financial obligations which do not exist. We ll explore why those obligations do not exist in a moment, but for now, a simple metaphor to explain why nobody owes NATO or the United States a dime:Imagine you re in a homeowners association, which collects small fees to run a neighborhood watch, and also, one of the bylaws deals with appearances a guideline states all members should spend two percent of household income on the yard, paint, etc. Imagine a neighbor fails to meet the two percent benchmark. Did they fulfill the guideline s obligation? No. Do they owe you, their neighbor, money? No, that s silly. You aren t paying for their yard, and the fees have already been collected for the collective spending on the neighborhood watch. You can be pissed their yard doesn t look as good as yours, but they re not costing you a dime, and they owe you nothing. That s why world leaders openly laughed at Trump s idiotic nonsense at his NATO speech. He has no understanding of how this works. NATO, as an organization, has its own funding:The North Atlantic alliance has its own military budget worth 1.29 billion ($1.4 billion), which is used to fund some operations and the NATO strategic command center, as well as training and research. But it is miniscule compared to overall spending on defense by NATO countries, which NATO estimates will total more than $921 billion in 2017.The alliance also has a civilian budget of 234.4 million ($252 million), used mainly to fund the NATO headquarters in Belgium, and its administration. (Source)Who pays how much is determined by the size of the economy of each country:The U.S. share is calculated on the basis of gross national income the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country and adjusted regularly. Currently that would be about 22 percent, compared to about 15 percent for Germany, 11 percent for France, 10 percent for the United Kingdom, 8 percent for Italy, 7 percent for Canada, and so forth.When conservatives say the United States pays 22 percent of the budget for NATO, and then list our own defense spending, that s extremely misleading. Let s examine the following paragraph from Fox Business:The United States contributed more than 22 percent of the organization s budget in 2016, according to White House data, far outpacing all other members. The government spent 3.6 percent of GDP, or $664 billion, on defense. The United States financial commitments to defense have fallen over recent years, down from more than $757.4 billion in 2009. However, President Trump s new budget looks to reverse that trend with a $54 billion injection into the defense sector.Despite the first two sentences being placed side-by-side, they are unrelated. We did pay 22 percent of NATO s budget. We also paid $664 billion for our own defense. Those two numbers are unrelated because we pay NATO less than $500 million per year (PDF). It s almost as if Trump never bothers to read anything, and that the outlets which support him are willing to publish any lie (or truth twisted beyond recognition, to the point of lying, such as in this case) to try and make his ignorant incompetence more palatable.And considering we are the largest member nation by orders of magnitude, and that the American empire has 300,000 soldiers stationed in 150 nations around the globe, it makes sense that we would be spending the most money on our own military. Other member nations do not have a global military force. We have a standing army three times larger than every other member except Turkey. NATO is not responsible for each nation s national defense; there is no collective spending pool for each nation s military. NATO is a military alliance that says I ve got your back if you get attacked. The alliance has guidelines not rules and advice on how to best allocate funding for national defense in order to prevent war in the first place. Deterrence through preparedness.So when Fox News or Donald Trump tell you our allies aren t paying their fair share for collective defense, or that the United States is spending far more to support NATO than they are, that s simply bullshit. That s not NATO s budget the numbers they are talking about are a guideline for national defense, not NATO. And they re just that a guideline. There is no penalty for spending less than two percent of GDP on the military. In fact, our bloated and wasteful military budget is not something to brag about. A certain quote by President Dwight Eisenhower comes to mind:Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.There is one point that I will begrudgingly give Trump our allies are over-reliant on the fact they have a military juggernaut in their alliance. They are meeting their financial obligations to NATO, despite what Trump says. However, there s a reason that NATO has a two percent guideline for spending on national defense as stated above, preparedness through deterrence. Right now, for many members, deterrence comes from big brother on the west side of the Atlantic. Yet Trump s misleading rhetoric on this subject is masking the reality they re already moving to expand their military budgets and have been for three years, thanks to the growing threat of Trump s buddy Putin, who has demonstrated in Ukraine and Georgia that he is willing to violate the sovereignty of and use force against his neighbors.Here s more, via CNN:At a summit in 2014, all members who were falling short promised to move toward the official target within a decade.That pledge appears to be holding: The alliance as a whole increased defense spending for the first time in two decades in 2015.So why don t more countries spend 2% of GDP? Many experts point out that the target is problematic.NATO has warned against a rush to spend for the sake of spending, emphasizing that budget decisions must be based on strategic planning. For example, it wants countries to spend 20% of their defense budgets on equipment.Some member countries simply don t have armies big enough to be able to absorb a huge increase in funding quickly that s why the 2014 summit pledge gave laggards until 2024 to do more.So, Trump s badgering is pointless. Latvia, for example, increased spending by over 40 percent last year alone. Almost every other member nation is steadily increasing military spending to be on track with the two percent of GDP guideline and the pledge made in 2014, which already solved this problem. In fact, his stance on this issue is somewhat more sinister than just military buildup: he is accomplishing nothing but seeding ill will among our closest allies. Between his blatant disrespect and refusal to directly endorse Article 5, it seems more like he is trying to sabotage NATO than improve it. And notably, we are the only nation to ever invoke Article 5 and call our allies to our defense. Soldiers from other nations fought and died for ours, and now when asked to state we will come to their defense, Trump won t say so. Instead, he demands money he isn t owed.And who benefits from all of this the most?Russia.Featured image via Stefan Rousseau Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
Senate GOP prepared to replace Obamacare subsidies | Killing Obama administration rules, dismantling Obamacare and pushing through tax reform are on the early to-do list. | 0fake |
Possible sale of Boeing C-17 aircraft to India approved: Pentagon | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department has approved the possible sale to India of one Boeing C-17 transport aircraft, with an estimated cost of $366 million, a Pentagon agency said on Monday. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement it notified Congress on Monday of the sale, which includes four turbofan engines, a missile warning system, a countermeasures dispensing system and an identification friend or foe transponder. | 0fake |
16 Arrested at North Dakota Pipeline Protest - The New York Times | Tensions continued in North Dakota on Monday afternoon as law enforcement officials arrested 16 people at a demonstration, one day after hundreds clashed with the police over the Dakota Access Pipeline. During a news conference on Monday, officials also defended their use of fire hoses against protesters the night before, despite the weather. “Some of the water was used to repel some of the protest activities that were occurring, and it was used at a time where they were aggressive towards the officers,” the Morton County sheriff, Kyle Kirchmeier, said at the news conference. In a statement late on Sunday, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department characterized the demonstration as an “ongoing riot,” releasing photos that it said showed protesters “setting fires and using aggressive tactics” while trying to dismantle a police barricade on Backwater Bridge, which has for months been the site of a protest against the pipeline. The statement did not address what dispersal methods the department had used against what it estimated to be a crowd of 400 protesters. Rob Keller, a spokesman for the department, told The Bismarck Tribune that water was being used for crowd control, adding that water cannons had also been used to douse the fires. The paper reported that protesters had started a dozen fires and that officers from the sheriff’s department had said that rocks and logs were being thrown at them. One officer was struck on the head, it said. The Associated Press reported that at least one person was arrested. Dallas Goldtooth, a spokesman for the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a phone interview on Monday that the Oceti Sakowin medical team, which had been working in tandem with medics from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, had reported that nearly 200 people were injured and 12 people were hospitalized for head injuries. One protester went into cardiac arrest and was revived by the medic team, he said. The medical teams attributed many of the injuries to rubber bullets, pepper spray and shrapnel from concussion grenades, according to Mr. Goldtooth, and said that water sprayed from cannons caused early signs of hypothermia. The air temperature in the area was about 23 degrees at 10:15 p. m. according to the National Weather Service. “I would love to emphasize here that this entire situation is ripe with irony,” Mr. Goldtooth said, adding that on Friday, Sheriff Kirchmeier had urged the protesters to leave their camps because they might be unfamiliar with the harshness of North Dakota winters. Late last month, tensions boiled over at a protest camp near Backwater Bridge when law enforcement officials forced demonstrators out of the area. That confrontation led to the arrests of more than 140 protesters and resulted in the setting of multiple fires. Reports coming out of the conflict have been highly contested, with law enforcement officials and protesters leveling substantive accusations of violence at each other. Dave Archambault II, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, said in a phone interview Monday that the measures law enforcement officials took on Sunday represented a clear escalation of violence. “The use of water in freezing temperatures just goes to show that they’re being more aggressive and they’re actually trying to hurt people,” he said. “This is far more threatening to human life than any other time of confrontation with law enforcement. ” A live video of Sunday’s protests was posted by a demonstrator named Kevin Gilbertt, who identifies himself on Facebook as a poet and videographer. Early Monday morning, the and unclear video had been viewed over three million times. Senator Bernie Sanders shared Mr. Gilbertt’s video on his Facebook page and called for President Obama to “take all appropriate measures” to protect the protesters. Senator Sanders also reposted a tweet that said that law enforcement officials were spraying Native Americans with water cannons in weather. The conflict over the $3. 7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline has lasted for months, as Energy Transfer Partners, a company, attempts to finish construction of the project In an interview with The Associated Press published on Friday, Kelcy Warren, the company’s chief executive, said that the company had no alternative but to stick to the plan for construction. “There’s not another way. We’re building at that location,” Mr. Warren said. Native Americans, environmental activists and others have said that the pipeline, which would carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois, threatens the local water supply and would also harm sacred Native American grounds. In an interview with NPR last month, Mr. Archambault, the tribal chairman, said that while protesters were asked to “remain prayerful and peaceful,” it was “hard to resist reacting” given the dual pressures coming from Energy Transfer Partners and law enforcement. “Our purpose is to protect the water,” he said. “And no matter what we do, nobody cares. They’re going to force this down our throats again. ” | 0fake |
Death toll from Somalia bomb attacks tops 300 | MOGADISHU (Reuters) - More than 300 people were killed by twin bomb explosions in Mogadishu, an official said on Monday, as locals packed hospitals in search of friends and relatives caught by Somalia s deadliest attack in a decade. The death toll has steadily risen since Saturday, when the blasts struck at two busy junctions in the heart of the capital city. One truck bomb detonated near a fuel truck, creating an enormous fireball. The bomb attacks were the deadliest since Islamist militant group al Shabaab began an insurgency in 2007. Al Shabaab has not claimed responsibility, but the method and type of attack - a large truck bomb - is increasingly used by the al Qaeda-linked organization. We have confirmed 300 people died in the blast. The death toll will still be higher because some people are still missing, Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of the city s ambulance service, told Reuters. Aden Nur, a doctor at the city s Madina hospital, said they had recorded 258 deaths and that 160 of the bodies could not be recognized. (They)were buried by the government yesterday. The others were buried by their relatives. Over a hundred injured were also brought here, he told Reuters at the hospital. Some of the injured were being evacuated by air to Turkey for treatment, officials said. Locals visiting their injured relatives or collecting their bodies filled every available space in Madina hospital. My last time to speak with my brother was some minutes before the blast occurred, Halima Nur, a local mother, told Reuters. I am afraid he was among the unrecognized charred bodies that were buried yesterday. I have no hope of getting him alive or dead. But I cannot go home. Abdullahi Aden, 56, said five of his cousins had died. The shop completely collapsed on them. I could not help them. I could not hear their screams and the nearby buildings were burning, he said. He was still searching for two other relatives. Al Shabaab stages regular attacks in the capital and other parts of the country. Although the group claims it targets the government and security forces, it has detonated large bombs in crowded public areas before. It has sometimes not claimed responsibility for bombings that provoked a big public backlash, like the 2009 suicide bombing of a graduation ceremony for medical students. The group is waging an insurgency against Somalia s U.N.-backed government and its African Union allies in a bid to impose its own strict interpretation of Islam. The militants were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 and have been steadily losing territory. But Al Shabaab retains the capacity to mount large bomb attacks. Over the past three years, the number of civilians killed by insurgent bombings has steadily climbed as al Shabaab increases the size of its bombs. In 2016, 723 Somalis were killed in 395 bomb attacks, according to Nairobi-based thinktank Sahan Research, up from 193 deaths in 265 attacks in 2015. Some of those seriously injured in Saturday s bombing were moved by ambulance to the airport on Monday morning to be flown to Turkey for further treatment. Workers unloaded boxes of medicine and other medical supplies from a Turkish military plane and Turkish medical teams attended to the injured moved from the hospital for evacuation. | 0fake |
Decorated ‘Hero’ Cop Caught Using His Authority to Steal $170,000 in State Fees | Home / Be The Change / Government Corruption / Decorated ‘Hero’ Cop Caught Using His Authority to Steal $170,000 in State Fees Decorated ‘Hero’ Cop Caught Using His Authority to Steal $170,000 in State Fees John Vibes October 28, 2016 Leave a comment
Detroit, MI – Disgraced Michigan State Trooper Seth Swanson was charged with embezzlement this week for pocketing thousands in false fees.
The 31-year-old trooper allegedly stole $170,100 in vehicle fees through an inspections scheme that he ran, where he would forge documentation on potentially stolen vehicles.
The Michigan Attorney General’s Office issued the following state ment detailing Swanson’s theft operation:
“Police officers are given great trust and responsibility, and for that reason are held to a higher standard. When you break the trust you are given and in the process break the law, there are consequences, no matter who you are or what your profession. I want to thank the Michigan State Police and FBI’s Detroit Area Public Corruption Task Force for their hard work on this investigation.”
According to investigators, Swanson was a state-certified salvage vehicle inspector since 2011. As an inspector, Swanson was responsible for overseeing salvage vehicle inspections, during which a $100 fee is collected. For over a year, Swanson allegedly pocketed these fees and forged the forms that authorized the salvage.
Swanson is accused of applying this scam to 1,701 vehicles, bringing in a total of $170,100.
After he was charged, Swanson was forced to resign from the police department.
Police spokesperson Andrea Bitely told reporters that “Our office , in conjunction with the Michigan State Police and Secretary of State, are working together to make sure that all vehicles involved in this case have, actually have a proper salvage vehicle inspection, and we’ll contact the registered owners of the vehicles to make sure we arrange for now inspection in a timely manner.”
Prior to his crimes as an inspector, Swanson was praised in the media as a “hero” in 2013 for being one of the first responders to a large pile-up.
Swanson and his lawyers are attempting to use his past media fame as a defense in this most recent case, despite the fact that it is entirely irrelevant.
Defense attorney John Freeman said that Swanson is still a “hero.”
“These charges don’t detract from the fact that Trooper Swanson was a real-life hero and was a good trooper. It’s easy for people to lose sight of that fact,” Freeman said.
Swanson was released on $10,000 bond and is currently awaiting trial.
Below is a video from 2013 in which Swanson was hailed as a hero. John Vibes is an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. He also has a publishing company where he offers a censorship free platform for both fiction and non-fiction writers. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. John is currently battling cancer naturally , without any chemo or radiation, and will be working to help others through his experience, if you wish to contribute to his treatments please donate here . Share Social Trending | 1real |
Senators to introduce bill to boost cyber defenses of voting systems | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators plans to introduce legislation on Tuesday seeking to boost the cyber defenses of state election systems, after warnings from senior U.S. officials that future elections may be vulnerable to foreign interference. The Securing America’s Voting Equipment, or SAVE, Act is the latest attempt by lawmakers to respond to what U.S. intelligence agencies say was a multi-pronged cyber operation, including hacking and online propaganda by Russia during the 2016 presidential election aimed at helping President Donald Trump. Moscow has repeatedly denied the accusations. The bill will be introduced by Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich and Republican Senator Susan Collins, a Heinrich spokeswoman said. It does not currently have other co-sponsors. “Until we set up stronger protections of our election systems and take the necessary steps to prevent future foreign influence campaigns, our nation’s democratic institutions will remain vulnerable,” Heinrich said in a statement. The SAVE Act would authorize the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to grant security clearance to the top election official in each state in addition to one other designee. It would also allow the DNI to share some classified information with the states about threats to their voting systems. Several state election officials have complained that they were left in the dark about Russia’s attempts to probe their voting systems during the 2016 campaign. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not notify 21 states it said had been targeted by Russian until last month, in part due to confidentiality and classification restrictions. The DHS in January designated voting systems as a critical part of the nation’s infrastructure, making state elections eligible for more federal protections. The legislation would write that designation into law, and also create a grant program for states to upgrade their systems to better fend off physical and cyber threats. It was not clear whether the bill would gain momentum in an otherwise gridlocked Congress. | 0fake |
Brazil government to rework controversial slavery decree | BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil s government will issue a new decree changing the country s definition of slavery following an earlier order that was widely criticized as a reversal in the fight against forced labor, a presidential aide said on Friday. In Brazil, forced labor has been defined as a form of modern-day slavery. This includes debt bondage, degrading work conditions, and long work hours that pose a risk to a worker s health or life, and violate their dignity. Human rights campaigners said a decree issued by the labor ministry on Monday changed the way slavery was defined, limiting it to a victim s freedom of movement but disregarding other abuses. The new decree, sought by Brazil s powerful farm lobby, would derail enforcement efforts that have freed 50,000 workers from slavery-like conditions since 1995, according to federal prosecutors and labor inspectors. Responding to the criticism, President Michel Temer said on Friday the decree would be modified but not revoked. In an interview with the Poder360 news website, Temer said the measure would be perfected with suggestions by prosecutors, among them the creation of a police department for slave labor crimes. A presidential aide later said the suggestions would be used to reissue a new decree. The president instructed the labor minister to study them and see which can be incorporated in a new decree, the spokesman said. Rights groups estimate hundreds of thousands of people work in slave-like conditions on farms, sugar cane plantations and cattle ranches across Brazil s remote and jungle areas, as well as in urban factories and construction sites. The government decree as issued would close 506 of 706 working conditions cases under investigation, which would no longer be considered slave labor, a spokesman for Brazil s federal prosecutors office said. Temer bowed to pressure from the farm lobby to modify the decree at a time when he is relying on the group s votes in Congress to block corruption charges next week. The farm lobby praised the decree for clarifying the definition of slave labor and eliminating excesses by inspectors. Temer told Poder360 the decree needed changing because it contained irrelevant details for defining slavery, such as the need for a soap bar holder or a ladder to a top bunk in workers sleeping quarters. | 0fake |
World Food Program seeks 75 million dollars for Rohingya crisis | COX S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) - The World Food Program (WFP) appealed on Sunday for 75 million dollars in emergency aid over the next six months to help alleviate the suffering of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar. Since August 25th, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled their homes in majority Buddhist Myanmar, overwhelming aid agencies in neighbouring Bangladesh. The bottom line? This is a deplorable situation. This is as bad as it gets. We need 75 million for the next six months, David Beasley, WFP executive director, told reporters after visiting refugee camps in Bangladesh near the Myanmar border. I say we can end world hunger with a few billion dollars. I tell donors, if you can t give us the money, stop the wars, added Beasley, whose U.N. agency is the main humanitarian organisation battling hunger worldwide. The United Nations is currently seeking 200 million dollars from donors to help tackle the crisis among the Rohingya Muslims. | 0fake |
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