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A Painstaking Mission to Save Atlanta’s Colossal Civil War Painting - The New York Times | ATLANTA — What, exactly, do you do with a work of art, mythmaking and Civil War history that is longer than a football field, more than 40 feet tall and urgently in need of a new home? This city is finding out. After decades of deepening disrepair and disinterest in the painting commonly known as the Atlanta Cyclorama, workers this month are moving the panorama as part of a $35 million plan to rescue and maintain a titanic, deteriorating example of an art form that has mostly disappeared. Saving “The Battle of Atlanta,” which is among the largest oil paintings in the world, has proved to be an undertaking of remarkable complexity. It is rife with logistical tests, engineering quandaries, curatorial challenges and political and racial sensitivities that linger more than 150 years after Gen. William T. Sherman’s military campaign here. Yet after taxpayers spent years supporting an imperiled painting in a building troubled by leaks and temperature fluctuations, formal opposition to the effort, which is privately funded by multiple philanthropists, is strikingly scarce. “The fact that this painting has survived when so many others were left out to mold and rot and get burned up and whatever is nothing short of a miracle,” said Gordon L. Jones, the senior military historian and curator at the Atlanta History Center, which reached a license agreement with the City of Atlanta to display the cyclorama. “Everything that we know about Civil War memory, all of those stories, can in some way be described by using this painting as an example,” Dr. Jones said. Indeed. “The Battle of Atlanta,” prepared in Milwaukee by a team of German artists, was completed in 1886, when cycloramas — massive panoramic projects intended to give viewers the sensation of standing in the depicted landscape — were a leading form of entertainment, and the colossal works traveled the country. During its tour of the North, “Atlanta” was widely interpreted as depicting the 1864 struggle here for what it was: a decisive and pivotal victory for the Union that left an estimated 12, 140 people dead, most of them Confederate troops. Then the exhibition moved to the South, and in November 1892, The Atlanta Constitution newspaper printed a masterstroke of spin: an advertisement that said the cyclorama’s scene was the “only Confederate victory ever painted. ” The painting swiftly attracted large, and almost exclusively white, audiences and was donated to the city around the turn of the century. But the crowds dwindled, in part because motion pictures increasingly replaced cycloramas as entertainment, and generations of decline began. A major restoration that concluded in 1982 bought the Atlanta Cyclorama more time before the painting’s quality and appeal began to wane again. In recent years, elementary schoolteachers leading field trips were among the most loyal visitors to the cyclorama. “I remember that when I took my permission slip home, my mom and my dad had a conversation,” said Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta, 47, who is black. “I remember it not being a typical permission slip that was quickly signed. ” But it fell to Mr. Reed, who will leave office next year, to help solve the contemporary riddle of what to do with the cyclorama, which black residents, in an earlier time, were allowed to view only one day a month. The city announced the agreement with the Atlanta History Center in 2014. The center will display the relic on its campus, located in an upscale area of Atlanta that includes the Governor’s Mansion and some of the city’s finest restaurants. The plan comes — somewhat serendipitously, its organizers said — at a time of scattered efforts in the South to move beyond the traditional Old South narrative surrounding the Civil War. In 2014, for example, the Georgia Historical Society dedicated a marker that sought to undermine what it described as “popular myth” about Sherman’s cruelty during the war. “It helps to bring some emphasis to why what happened here was important and why it’s not your grandfather’s Civil War anymore,” Dr. Jones said of scholarship and presentation of the war. Mr. Reed said he was not bothered by the painting’s continuing prominence and possible resurgence. “As a black person, I’m quite comfortable with it because I know how the end of the movie turned out,” the mayor said. “The right result was reached. That doesn’t mean that we should not be privy to an expansive story of how we got to who we are today. ” But the deal that Mr. Reed helped to broker created the complicated task of moving the painting from the Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum, which closed in 2015 to prepare for a relocation that will cumulatively require about 200 people. Not long ago, a expert from the History Center’s insurer called Jackson McQuigg, the center’s vice president of properties, with a polite, terse request: “Walk me through it. ” Workers, Mr. McQuigg replied, will spend days rolling the painting, which is appraised at $7. 5 million, onto a pair of spools. A crane will slowly lift the spools — “We’re hoping goes faster,” Mr. McQuigg said in an interview — through holes cut in the roof of the nearly building. Then, once the painting is resting aboard two trucks, the workers will let the clock tick. “We’re going to wait until everybody goes home and the traffic dies down and there’s no more Atlanta rush hour,” Mr. McQuigg said in the musty room where the cyclorama has hung for generations. “Heck, it might be 3 in the morning. ” The cyclorama’s former home will be converted into an event space for Zoo Atlanta, a private nonprofit. The painting, once it has been relocated, will undergo extensive restoration efforts before its formal reopening, scheduled for fall 2018. Among panorama proponents, the project in Atlanta, more than eight years after a restoration of the “Battle of Gettysburg” cyclorama in Pennsylvania, is seen as a crucial effort to preserve the medium’s past. Fewer than two dozen cycloramas from the late 1800s and early 1900s are believed to have survived the last century. “It’s a chance to represent a really major and widely consumed art form that most people have really forgotten about,” said Sara Velas, the president of the International Panorama Council and the artistic director of the Velaslavasay Panorama in Los Angeles. “It’s still impactful and entertaining, even if our attention span has changed from what it was in the 19th century. ” And in Atlanta, a city that was a cradle of the civil rights movement but is within sight of a monument to the Confederacy at Stone Mountain, reviving the “Battle of Atlanta” cyclorama is also a means to clarifying history. “It’s been caught up in ‘the Lost Cause,’ and that made it a sore subject for a lot of people,” Dr. Jones said of the painting that stood nearby, shrouded in scaffolding. “We’ve got to unwrap that, and we’ve got to get past that, and we’ve got to be able to talk about ‘the Lost Cause’ objectively and talk about it for what it is and what it’s not. This is a way we can do that. ” | 0fake |
TREASURY DEPT Depicts Lady Liberty As A Black Woman On New U.S. Coin | Lady Liberty will be depicted as a black women on a coin the first time in the nation s history Lady Liberty has not been a white woman the U.S. Treasury Department announced on Thursday.The coin, worth about $100 face value, is part of a commemorative series to honor the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Mint.Treasury and @usmint have unveiled the designs for the 2017 American Liberty Gold Coin. Details here: https://t.co/i7jYMD8sRi #USMint225 pic.twitter.com/nNmJotF0Ab Treasury Department (@USTreasury) January 13, 2017 The 2017 American Liberty 225th Anniversary Gold Coin is the first in a series of 24-karat gold coins that will feature designs which depict an allegorical Liberty in a variety of contemporary forms-including designs representing Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Indian-Americans among others-to reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of the United States, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.The coin is part of a year-long celebration by the U.S. Treasury to celebrate the mint, and the theme will be Remembering our Past, Embracing the Future. KKTV | 1real |
The Dems’ lethal weapon: Elizabeth Warren is the only Democrat that can cut Donald Trump down to size | How do you solve a problem like Donald Trump? Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign team is trying to figure that out with an effort that can best be described at the moment as “throwing a forest full of mud at the wall and seeing what sticks.” Which is fine this far from the election, especially with Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic primary still out there campaigning hard for the nomination despite the math being against him. For Team Clinton, there is nothing wrong at the moment with trying out some different lines of attack on Trump, finding those that resonate, and then fine-tuning them.
But until either the campaign finishes fine-tuning or figures out a way to beam these moments from the 2011 White House Correspondent’s Dinner speech directly into voters’ brains 24/7 for the next six months, they have Elizabeth Warren. The senator from Massachusetts is already showing herself to be the most effective Clinton surrogate out there. This is partly by default, as there are not a whole lot of high-profile Democrats yet making the case against Trump. But does anyone think Harry Reid can make a more persuasive case to motivate voters to turn out in November?
It is hard to understate how smartly Warren is playing this game, even if you cynically assume her recent attacks on Trump are solely about positioning herself to become the leading candidate to run as Clinton’s vice president. (Which is not an assumption I’m making.) But so far, she is doing a better job of drawing a contrast between what the two parties stand for, or at least could stand for in terms of fighting for economic justice for working- and middle-class Americans, than any other public figure. Including Bernie Sanders, whose campaign in recent days seems to have devolved mostly into arguments about process and flipping superdelegates at the convention in Philadelphia this summer.
Warren’s genius lies in her ability to take big concepts and distil them down into simple goals for Americans, such as being able to buy their own homes, send their kids to college, and participate in what used to quaintly be called the American Dream. She’s not stoking anger in service of demanding we overturn the established order. What the people want, she seems to say, is their own share, for which they have worked and saved and fought. What they want is their own little corner within the system, with reasonable economic security and access to the tools that help make that possible.
Donald Trump can still have his penthouse in Trump Tower and his estate in Florida and who cares? Just so long as he’s abiding by the implicit social contract the nation has long followed, which says that we empower policies that ensure future generations can have it just as good, or even better, than we do. She seems incredulous that anyone could want otherwise. As she told the crowd in a speech at a gala honoring the Center for Popular Democracy on Tuesday: Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap. What kind of a man does that? Root for people to get thrown out on the street? Root for people to lose their jobs? Root for people to lose their pensions? Root for two little girls in Clark County, Nevada, to end up living in a van? What kind of a man does that? Watch the speech and you can nearly see the contempt dripping from her lips and splattering on the lectern. This could be a remarkably effective counter to Trump’s jingoistic, chest-pounding promises to “make America great again,” which explicitly tend to exclude certain groups and elide the fact that many of his policies, such as upper-end-heavy tax cuts and repealing the Dodd-Frank banking reforms, would really only make America great again for people in a certain racial and economic strata that have quickly recovered their equilibrium after the financial upheavals of the last decade and a half. It’s a call for community and justice that does not actually demonize any citizens except one: Donald J. Trump. Of course, Warren will want to be careful, to dole this stuff out in small bursts and avoid over-exposure. But she can weave the story of America’s economically left behind into a morality play that takes aim at the villain nominated by the GOP, and do so without demagogy better than anyone else on the Democrats’ shallow bench right now. Better than Sanders or Clinton or the Big Dog, or maybe even Joe Biden, who is going to stay on the sidelines until later in the summer anyway. She’s the party’s best weapon for harnessing the energy of the left wing and the disaffection of average citizens, if it can keep using her effectively. | 0fake |
The Daily 202: Many African Americans unenthusiastically ‘settle’ for Hillary Clinton | RALEIGH, N.C.—Ayana McAllister went to Hillary Clinton’s rally two weekends ago at St. Augustine’s University, the historically-black school where she’s a freshman. She watched the Democratic nominee speak alongside the mothers of Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland. But on the eve of the election, the 18-year-old is still not 100 percent sold.
“I don’t know,” said McAllister, a native of Largo, Md. “I feel like I’ve got to settle for Hillary. I feel like I’m going to vote because I know I need to, not because I want to. I feel like neither of them should be president, but I feel like Hillary will be better. Really, it’s like two children arguing back and forth.”
This was a common refrain during interviews at yesterday’s football game here between St. Augustine and crosstown rival Shaw University, another historically-black institution.
-- Early voting numbers and polling suggest that African American turnout is down nationally this year compared to 2012 and 2008. Though there are some signs that the gap has been closing in recent days, alarm bells have clearly gone off inside the Clinton high command.
-- Many students at the schools here in Raleigh regret that they never got to vote for Barack Obama. They are collectively disappointed that their first time forces them to choose between Clinton and Donald Trump, but they plan to vote nonetheless. In fact, teachers have told them that in lieu of class they will march to the polls on Tuesday.
“I am not a fan of either one, but of the two I will probably be voting for Hillary,” said Anoviua Rush, a freshman from Durham. “She’s just a liar. And Hillary is not even good at backing up her lies. Everyone makes mistakes, but when you try to cover them up it’s a problem.”
As a marching band performed behind her, under a cloudless sky on a perfect fall day, Rush explained that the prospect of electing the first woman president does not motivate her, but Clinton’s support for equal pay legislation does. “She’s more understanding of minorities and what we go through,” said Rush. “I’m not going to say he’s ‘racist,’ but he’s said some messed up stuff about minorities. … Donald’s main focus seems to be helping the wealthy and, I’ll say it, possibly Caucasians.”
-- “A lot of people are very discouraged. Very, very discouraged,” said Felishia McPherson, 47, who was wearing a “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt. “Really, it’s like you’re choosing between a liar and a clown. But who doesn’t lie? We all lie. … I’m a mental health counselor. I know that, psychologically, in order to want to be president, you’ve got to be a little narcissistic to start with. … Trump was never an option for me. I don’t love Hillary, but I don’t have to. She’s not coming to my house. She’s going to the White House.”
McPherson already voted early for Clinton. She brought her seven-year-old niece Malia, named after the president’s daughter, to Obama’s rally in Fayetteville on Friday. “I don’t know if I actually believe in the political system, as far as does my one vote count? But I’m not going to take a chance of it not counting,” she explained afterward. “If the system really does work, then I’m going to participate. If it doesn’t, then I still did the best I could by my ancestors. … I do believe, with Obama’s encouragement, even though we may not believe in the system, we know we need to do it.”
-- Several elderly African Americans expressed deep concern that millennials, including their grandchildren, do not sufficiently appreciate the importance of voting. Irene Hill-Thomas, 79, is a retired special education teacher who now spends most of her time volunteering at church and a food pantry in Sampson County. “If you’ve been around long enough, your eyes are open,” she said. “You appreciate it because you fought for it. The younger generation hasn’t been there. They don’t know. The younger generation doesn’t understand there was a time when we had to sit at the back of the bus and had no say so. … I remember the white and the colored fountains. They don’t.”
-- North Carolina was the closest state Obama won in 2008 and the closest state he lost in 2012. African Americans accounted for 23 percent of the electorate both times, and Obama won almost all of them.
Reflecting the importance of the 15 electoral votes up for grabs in North Carolina, and the strategic significance of the Research Triangle specifically, both candidates will return to Raleigh on Monday. Trump will give an afternoon speech at the state fairgrounds, and Clinton will hold the final rally of her campaign here -- at midnight.
-- Another very important explanation for why African American turnout is down in North Carolina: Republicans have worked to limit early voting locations and hours. The executive director of the state Republican Party persuaded GOP county officials to limit early voting in troubling emails that have been unearthed by public records requests. He pushed to limit the number of hours sites were open, especially evenings and Sundays, when many African Americans typically cast ballots (after church services).
In the Democratic-leaning county that includes Greensboro – the state’s third largest – there were 16 early voting sites in 2012 during the first week that polls were open. This year there was just one. So while 61,000 people voted during the first week four years ago, only 8,000 did this year. (After that first week, 25 voting sites were opened and turnout records were broken.)
-- I shadowed a field staffer from the AFL-CIO affiliate group Working America as she canvassed in a predominantly black section of Raleigh yesterday afternoon. Walking across lawns in a hilly neighborhood just off Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Andrea Vogler urged folks to go vote.
During a period of just one hour, though, half a dozen African Americans separately complained that they tried to vote early but the lines were too long. So they came home. They all said they hope to still go on Tuesday, but what if the lines are long then too? Will they stick around?
A woman in a nurse’s uniform said she went by the early voting site three times over the past week, but the lines were too long each time.
A younger man named Victor came to his door in red-checkered pajamas. He had gone earlier in the day too but said he was too tired to stand around. He works a night shift, so he said he’s going to try voting on his drive home from work at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday – which he hopes will be before a crowd forms.
“I’ve heard that on a couple of different days now,” Vogler, 32, lamented as she walked to the next house. “On the one hand, it is good people are trying to vote. On the other, I hope it doesn’t deter anyone from actually voting.”
A woman named Barbara, pulling out of her driveway in a Chevy Trailblazer with her infant son in the backseat, is one of the people who gave up when she saw the lines.
Damien, her husband, was who Vogler had come to talk with. Barbara warned her that he was sleeping. But every vote counts, so the canvasser went to knock on the door anyway. He was nonplussed. “I worked all damn night, 12 hours,” he said, his eyes bloodshot. “I just want to go back to my bed.” She tried to hand him a piece of paper with bullet points on why he should vote for Clinton. He grimaced and refused to take it.
Working America has about 700 field staffers farmed out across nine states. They have had 573,400 conversations with voters since launching this summer, including 45,500 in North Carolina. In the Raleigh area alone, the labor group had seven vans with five to seven people in each hitting doors on Saturday. The group largely targets African American and Latino voters, though some swing white Republicans are in their universe.
An older man sitting in his green Chevy Lumina, picking his teeth with a toothpick outside a row of ground-level studio apartments, told Vogler that he planned to vote later in the afternoon. She informed him that early voting had ended for the day, and that Saturday was the final opportunity until Tuesday. “Damn,” he replied.
“North Carolina is the most important state,” Vogler stressed over and over again. “You’ve got to get out to vote!”
-- In an interview late last night, I asked Democratic Senate candidate Deborah Ross – who is in a neck-and-neck race with Sen. Richard Burr that may decide which party controls the majority – about all these people who said they did not vote early because of the lines. “It’s by design,” she complained. But she argued that this will also galvanize many African Americans on Tuesday. “I don’t think anything is going to keep people from voting this year,” she said.
Ross, a former state representative who sponsored 2007 legislation allowing for same-day voter registration (which was pivotal to Obama carrying the state a year later), noted that, for every person who returned home when they saw the crowded early voting sites, many more waited around. “There were people who stood for hours in line,” she said.
The weather forecast for Tuesday looks good, and she believes this might make the difference in her “razor thin” race. “I think we’re going to see long lines on Election Day,” Ross predicted, with a southern twang. “We’re going to turn people out.”
A Clinton campaign official, speaking anonymously, said they were worried during the first week of early voting, but the fact that hundreds of additional sites wound up opening for the second week made the situation much better and led to a huge increase in turnout. But allies say Clinton may need to perform especially well on Election Day to offset votes that were lost over the past two weeks.
Surrogates have also streamed into the state to drive African Americans to the polls. Civil rights icon John Lewis headlined a march in Charlotte on Thursday. Cory Booker came Friday night. Other efforts are underway too. The national president of the Sierra Club was outside the St. Augustine’s football game handing out biscuits from Bojangles’ and urging young people to support Clinton in order to advance environmental issues.
-- The president himself has now spoken at five rallies for Clinton in North Carolina. Addressing a crowd of 2,500 that was probably 95 percent black in Fayetteville on Friday, he made a very explicit pitch. “Right now, Donald Trump is calling on his supporters to monitor ‘certain areas’ on Election Day,” Obama said. “I don’t know what ‘certain areas’ he’s talking about, but you do.”
He finished his speech with the story of a 100-year-old woman who was purged from the North Carolina voter rolls after a Republican challenged her registration status on flimsy grounds. Grace Bell Hardison was mentioned in an NAACP lawsuit that prompted a federal judge to issue an injunction on Friday. North Carolina election officials are now scrambling to restore the rights of thousands of voters – most black and Democratic -- who had been cut from the rolls under a so-called “individual challenge law.”
“So, young people, I want you to understand this,” Obama said. “It wasn’t that long ago when folks had to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar (or) the number of bubbles on a bar of soap. It wasn’t that long ago folks were beaten trying to register voters in Mississippi. … If you’ve been marching for criminal justice reform, that’s great. But you still need to vote! … If you vote, we’ll win North Carolina. And if we win North Carolina, Hillary Clinton will be president.”
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:
-- Trump was rushed offstage during a campaign rally in Reno last night after a man reportedly yelled “gun,” but the GOP nominee emerged back onstage after a brief period to finish his speech. Secret Service officials said agents apprehended the man but found no weapon. The man, who identified himself as Austyn Crites, 33, was reportedly released after the event, telling reporters that he was attacked for holding a “Republicans against Trump” sign. “When I pulled out the sign, people around me were trying to grab the sign,” Crites said. “And so all that was occurring was booing, of course. That’s what you would expect.” He said that the crowd tackled him, and began “kicking me and grabbing me in the crotch and just, just beating the crap out of me.” (Jose A. DelReal, Anne Gearan and Ed O'Keefe have more.)
-- Donald Trump Jr. and top campaign social media aide Dan Scavino immediately retweeted unsubstantiated claims that Trump had just survived an attack on his life: “Hillary ran away from the rain today. Trump is back onstage minutes after assassination attempt,” the tweet read.
-- Meanwhile, a man wearing a mask and carrying a gun was arrested near the White House following a struggle with authorities. Immediate details surrounding the incident are unclear, but the Secret Service says he's being charged with carrying a firearm without a license, carrying unregistered ammunition, resisting arrest and committing a crime while wearing a mask. (Martin Weil)
-- A press bus following Tim Kaine in Tampa was hit “at high speed" on Sunday evening, according to several people onboard. One reporter said the bus was hit by what appeared to be a police car. But there were no reports of injuries and the bus continued. Kaine was several cars ahead of the press bus, according to reporters in his motorcade.
-- Our WaPo/ABC News tracking poll finds Clinton leading Trump nationally by five points -- 48 percent to 43 percent -- widening last week’s tight race as she shows clear advantages on several personal attributes:
-- The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll finds Clinton up a similar four points (44-40). Clinton’s lead is less than half of the 11-point advantage she held in their mid-October survey, taken before the FBI email announcement. A wide swath of Trump’s support also comes from within his own party, as Republican voters rally around the nominee in the final stretch of the campaign.
-- A Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll shows Trump with a seven point lead in IOWA, up three points from last month.
-- A Columbus Dispatch poll shows Clinton eking out a single point lead over Trump in OHIO (48-47). Pollster Darrel Rowland says Clinton will “almost certainly” carry Ohio should enough young and minority voters show up to the polls. The same poll has Rob Portman crushing Ted Strickland by 21 points (58-37).LeBron James will appear alongside Clinton in Cleveland today on the final day of early in-person voting in OHIO.
-- The CBS News battleground tracker has Trump up 46-45 in OHIO and a 45-45 tie in FLORIDA.
THE FINAL SCHEDULES FOR BOTH CANDIDATES:
-- What's with the 11th-hour fluidity? Karen Tumulty and Dan Balz note that four states have dominated the Clinton campaign’s calculation throughout the fall: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. “Obama won those four in 2008 and all of them but North Carolina in 2012. Until recently, it appeared that Trump needed to sweep all four to overcome Clinton’s electoral-map advantage. But as the race has tightened, Ohio seems to have moved into the Republican column, and other states outside those four have potentially come into play. The GOP nominee is looking to states including Michigan (and) New Hampshire … to make up a potential deficit, should he not win Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. ... In Trump’s case, it is an effort to grab what he considers emerging opportunities in the sprint for the finish line; in Clinton’s, as insurance against surprises Tuesday in territory she has considered hers.” (The Post’s politics team lists the 15 states that will decide the election on Tuesday, breaking down the state of the race in each one.)
-- Why is Michigan getting so much late attention? Hillary campaigned in Detroit on Friday, and she’s coming back to Grand Rapids tomorrow while Barack Obama flies to Ann Arbor. Bill is stumping in Lansing at 1 p.m. today. Remember that HRC unexpectedly lost the state’s primary to Bernie Sanders in March, despite every poll putting her significantly ahead. Trump and Pence are also both going there. Fourteen percent of the electorate is African American.
-- The Clinton campaign is trying to downplay its late efforts in Michigan. “Look, if we hold onto Nevada (and) hold onto Michigan, then Hillary Clinton is going to be the next President of the United States,” John Podesta said on Meet the Press this morning. “Most people vote on election day in Michigan, so our schedule has been oriented to being in the early vote states, in the earlier period of time.” Stephen Neuman, a senior adviser to the Democratic coordinated campaign in Michigan, noted that the campaign already has 35 offices. A Washington Post average of recent polls in the state has Clinton leading Trump in Michigan just 43 percent to 41 percent. Mook acknowledged that polls have has tightened in Michigan, but added: “I feel very confident about how we’re going to do.” (John Wagner and Anne Gearan)
-- Trump seems to have given up on Wisconsin. Aides told me last week that he’d probably go back multiple times, including to the Milwaukee suburbs. He’s not even going to come back once to the Badger State. But now he’s going to Minnesota (where he has absolutely not a snowball’s chance). The campaign said it has done polling there, but Maggie Haberman of the Times tweeted that this is a lie.
-- The latest indignity for the Speaker --> "Trump cancels Wisconsin rally just as Paul Ryan says he would campaign with him," by Jessie Opoien in the Madison Capital Times: “For the second time in as many months, the possibility of a joint Paul Ryan-Donald Trump campaign appearance was floated and quickly yanked away. The Republican nominee earlier this week scheduled a Sunday afternoon rally in West Allis, just outside Milwaukee. It was to be Trump's sixth Wisconsin event since he lost the state's primary election. ‘We don't know if it's scheduled firm or not yet, but I intend to do it if he's here,’ Ryan told reporters Saturday when asked if he would attend the Trump rally. … ‘If our nominee comes, we'll campaign with him.’ … Seconds later, a spokesman for Trump's Wisconsin campaign alerted reporters that the event had been canceled.” (Ryan stumped alongside Mike Pence yesterday.)
-- But perplexingly Trump and Pence have not given up on VIRGINIA, adding several stops and deploying key surrogates. “Trump’s decision to appear in a populous, purple Washington exurb cuts against his broader strategy of running up the vote in heavily red, rural areas,” Laura Vozzella writes. “Much of his last-minute appeals have been in tiny burgs like Selma, N.C., population 6,000. His foray into Northern Virginia appears to be a bid to hold down Clinton’s margins in a region that, excluding the exurbs, leans heavily Democratic.”
-- Bigger picture: Trump’s schedule belies the biggest challenge facing him right now. It’s not clear where and how he would win. “Of all of [Trump’s must-win] states, the only one where Mr. Trump has really been close in the polls is Nevada,” writes The Upshot’s Nate Cohn. “But Nevada is also the state where we know the most about the results because of early voting, and it hasn't brought good news for Mr. Trump. … Perhaps Mr. Trump will mount a huge comeback in Nevada on Election Day. Or maybe Democrats are much weaker among registered Democrats or unaffiliated voters than most analysts believe. But if Mrs. Clinton does indeed have a big advantage in Nevada, then his chances start looking very bleak: He's at a disadvantage in the polls of all of the other states that could put him over the top. What's more, it's not really clear where he has his best chance — something reflected in Mr. Trump's unfocused pre-election push.”
-- A deep dive on the national mood: Fifteen of our reporters traveled the country talking to voters and report on "deep anxiety – and some lingering traces of optimism": “Only eight years after millions of Americans poured into the streets in spontaneous, joyful celebration of the election of the nation’s first black president, optimism seems to have been sucked out of the country’s marrow, replaced by a heavy anxiety, a sense that things aren’t right and can’t easily be fixed."
-- Early voting trends in FLORIDA appear to (narrowly) favor Clinton: “The Democrats’ lead of 7,280 ballots cast pales in comparison to their advantage of about 104,000 early and absentee votes four years ago, however the state’s voter rolls have shifted significantly and neither Republicans nor Democrats can lay claim to having a clear advantage,” Politico’s Marc Caputo writes.
“I think it's trending well for HRC, but it's definitely a toss up state,” says Democratic consultant Steve Schale, who helped lead Obama's efforts in the Sunshine State in 2008 and 2012. (Read his latest memo on the early vote.)
-- Jon Ralston, the dean of the NEVADA press corps, predicts a deep blue wave in the notoriously-hard-to-poll Silver State: “Trump may have been here this weekend, believing in the polls that show him ahead or competitive here. But like Bruce Willis in ‘The Sixth Sense’ (spoiler alert), he does not realize he is dead. The Democratic early voting effort, which was much more difficult with a nominee so many Democrats don’t like or trust, has been impressive — a valedictory statement from The Reid Machine. Yes, 2016 is not 2012. Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama. Plenty of votes will be cast Tuesday. But: About two-thirds of the votes already have been banked. If the past is prologue … The only real question, I think, is how deep the blue wave goes.”
-- The Supreme Court moved to allow an ARIZONA “ballot collection” law barring organizers from picking up ballots and delivering them to election stations. The move is an eleventh-hour blow to Democrats, who argue that the ruling could disenfranchise thousands of minority voters. (CNN)
-- Chris Christie canceled four NEW HAMPSHIRE stops on behalf of Trump yesterday, following the convictions of two former top aides for their role in the 2013 Bridgegate scandal. The New Jersey governor is doing an interview today with Charlie Rose to try cleaning up the mess. Imagine is Christie was the Republican nominee, and those convictions got handed down the Friday before the election? (WMUR)
-- Faithless elector alert: A WASHINGTON state Democratic elector said he is refusing to vote for Clinton even if she wins the popular vote, facing the potential of a $1,000 fine. He told the AP he “doesn’t care.” This could matter if the election is really close.
-- Some are still Bernie or Bust: Sanders went to Iowa State University in Ames yesterday to lead a rally for Clinton. One of the warm-up speakers was Kaleb Vanfosson, the president of the Young Democratic Socialists group at the school. He was supposed to give a speech about the need for unity, but instead he took the stage and started talking about how "terrible" Hillary is. "She is so trapped in the world of the elite," the sophomore in political science said. "She has completely lost grip of what it's like to be an average person." He added that there was no point in voting for the "lesser of two evils." It took about a minute of this before a Clinton staffer escorted him off the stage. Here’s the story from the student paper. And here’s the video:
-- Tim Kaine made headlines after suggesting that some inside the FBI are “actively working” to support Trump’s campaign. From Ed O’Keefe: In a Miami interview, Kaine called the FBI a “leaky sieve” and accused Jim Comey of breaking protocol by announcing his email investigation so close to an election. He also dismissed Trump ally Rudy Giuliani’s decision to back off claims that he, Giuliani, had been given advance notice of the FBI's plans to possibly reopen the Clinton investigation. “I don’t think Giuliani’s walk-back is credible,” the Virginia senator said, referring to Giuliani’s preemptive announcement that the FBI had a “big announcement” to come. “I think the FBI sadly has become like a leaky sieve,” he added.
-- New York Times, “If Clinton Moves to Oval Office, Aides’ Baggage May Be Heavy,” by Matt Flegenheimer and Mark Landler: “In the final sprint of her campaign, troubled by an F.B.I. inquiry and narrowing polls, [Clinton] has held tightly to a handful of advisers who have spent their careers protecting her interests, defending her reputation, and at times sullying it — and their own. And if she wins on Tuesday, the most telling test of Mrs. Clinton’s transition back to power will arrive quickly: After a campaign season often defined by voters’ weariness with and distrust of her, which old hands will — or should — follow her into the Oval Office? Almost no top adviser has been left untouched by the two central firestorms of Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy: the inquiry into her use of a private email server … and the WikiLeaks hack of [campaign chairman John Podesta]. The unvarnished view of infighting in the stolen documents is unlikely to bother Mrs. Clinton much, friends say. The political wisdom of importing excess baggage to the executive branch is another matter."
-- Boston Globe A1, “9 moments that molded the campaign,” by Matt Viser and Annie Linskey: “When planning the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, Clinton campaign officials didn’t initially include Michelle Obama as a featured speaker, according to a Democratic strategist familiar with the plans. … For Clinton’s campaign, it made sense to put her on the rostrum on the tumultuous opening day — when Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were both to speak. ‘We thought it would be hard for Sanders’ people to boo Michelle Obama,’ said the person, who isn’t authorized to talk about the first lady’s deliberations.” Another revelation: The Trump campaign was warned months in advance to be ready for Clinton’s attack over Alicia Machado but did nothing.
-- New Yorker, “Meet Maya Harris, Hillary Clinton’s Progressive Link,” by Emily Greenhouse: “To speak with those who have worked with Harris is to be bulldozed with superlatives. Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union, who worked with Harris recently on the Democratic Party platform, told me that ‘she lives her life on a moral crusade on all of those justice issues … She carries her peeps, our peeps, with her in everything she does.’ Beyond policy, Harris seems to offer, in her very person, solutions to some of Clinton’s image problems."
-- The owners of the National Enquirer reportedly paid to shield Trump from allegations of a former Playboy model who claims they had an affair, paying $150,000 for rights to her story before declining to publish it. From the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Palazzolo, Michael Rothfeld and Lukas I. Alpert: “The tabloid-newspaper publisher reached an agreement in early August with Karen McDougal, the 1998 Playmate of the Year. American Media Inc., which owns the Enquirer, hasn’t published anything about what she has told friends was a consensual romantic relationship she had with Mr. Trump in 2006. At the time, Mr. Trump was married to his current wife, Melania. Quashing stories that way is known in the tabloid world as ‘catch and kill.’ In a written statement, the company said it wasn’t buying Ms. McDougal’s story for $150,000, but rather two years’ worth of her fitness columns and magazine covers as well as exclusive life rights to any relationship she has had with a then-married man.” Trump and American Media Owner CEO David Pecker are longtime friends.
-- Melania stumped alongside her husband in North Carolina, calling him a "compassionate, giving ... loving" man, she said, who "cares so deeply about this country."
-- “In America’s democratic showcase, the world sees a model of what not to do,” by Griff Witte: “In the seaside cafes of Beirut, the whole thing looks ‘like a bad joke.’ To persecuted journalists in Burundi, it amounts to ‘a total loss of dignity.’ The government-scripted press of Beijing diagnoses ‘an empire moving downhill.’ And the spin doctors of the Kremlin see cause for pure and unambiguous delight. The U.S. presidential election — America’s quadrennial chance to showcase for the world how democracy works in the most powerful nation on Earth — has become instead an object lesson in everything that ails a country long seen as a beacon of freedom and hope. People in small and distant countries who count on the U.S. to stand up for democratic values have been astonished to see essential components … trammeled. Long-standing allies have been left to wonder … whether the U.S. can be relied on when it counts. And even though the campaign still has days to go — with the outcome very much in doubt — the damage to American moral standing may already be done.”
Quote du jour: “America always spoke to Arab countries as if they had so much to learn,” said a 27-year-old Beirut café worker, who says he has been closely watching the election ever since he read about Trump’s sexual assault boasts. “And now we see their own democracy involves choosing between a woman from a dynasty and a man who says the system is manipulated. If that’s democracy, then we don’t want it.”
-- The New York Times’ Farah Stockman and Nick Corasaniti explore how this loss of luster could affect the American brand: “In interviews, Americans who travel overseas and foreign observers say that tourists who once felt themselves the envy of the world now feel the sting of embarrassment. Businesses that once marketed their jeans and fleece jackets internationally as tiny pieces of the American dream are being advised to revamp their ad campaigns." An Australian public relations consultant noted that state lawmakers in Sydney recently adopted a resolution – by unanimous consent – describing Trump as "a revolting slug” unfit for office.
-- The idea that Tuesday will end our partisan rancor is a “naïve fantasy," writes Frank Bruni:“There’s no end here, just a punctuation mark, a measly comma between the rancor that has built until this point and the fury to come. And there’s no way to un-see what all of us have seen over these last 18 months, to bottle up what has been un-bottled. Election Day will redeem and settle nothing, not this time around. Whether balloons fall on [Clinton] or [Trump], there will be bolder divisions in America than there were at the start of it all and even less faith in the country’s most important institutions … Even putting Trump’s angry troops aside, it feels as if we’re coming out of this election with four parties: the Paul Ryan Republicans, the Freedom Caucus, the establishment Democrats and the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders brigade … Meet the new paralysis, same as the old paralysis. Potentially, worse. From elections past, I don’t recognize this terrain. How can I assume that it’s navigable?”
-- “If [Trump] loses, the party faces a daunting reconstruction challenge,” says conservative columnist Peter Wehner, who served in the Bush and Reagan administrations: “Policies that promote economic growth, social mobility and greater opportunity are important. But in some respects the party’s stance [here] is a secondary priority. Republicans need to wrestle with more fundamental questions first: Will their party choose as its leaders people who respect democratic institutions and traditions, or not; who conceive of America as a welcoming society or as one that is racially and religiously closed … who abhor ignorance or embrace it? In a post-Trump world, Republicans need to ask themselves if their party will be characterized by its aspirations or its resentments. Can it make its own inner peace with living in an increasingly diverse and nonwhite America? Does it conceive of its role as tamping down or inflaming ugly passions? Does it believe in a just social order or not? The next few months will tell us a lot about whether Mr. Trump and Trumpism were an anomaly or are now the new norm of the party that Lincoln helped create."
-- “When historians write about this bizarre, ugly and dispiriting campaign … the epic dark saga will unfold this way: A man, filled with fear and insecurity, created a hatemongering character and followed it out the window. And a woman, filled with fear and insecurity, hunkered down and repeated bad patterns rather than reimagining herself in an open, bold way,” Maureen Dowd writes. “Before he jumped into the presidential race, Trump was seen as bombastic, vulgar, a bit of a buffoon and a cave man, but [also] ‘a cheeky brio.’ He was not regarded as a bigot or demagogue. He was seen as a playboy, not a predator … But he created another character for the Republican primaries, playing to the feral instincts of angry voters, encouraging violence at his rallies, hatred toward journalists and disrespect for democracy itself. ‘He’s so used to playing a role in different areas of his life,’ said [TV personality] Donny Deutsch … ‘He saw the crowd’s adulation and it drove him. He started to get the biggest cheers for saying the most offensive things.’”
-- The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin dubbed this election “Clinton investigation mania, part two”: “Bill Clinton’s Presidency was defined, for the most part, by criminal and congressional investigations,” he writes. “The subjects of those probes sound like entries in a nineteen-nineties time capsule: Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate … It may be that Republicans spent so much time in pursuit of Bill Clinton’s scalp because things were mostly going well otherwise. The economy boomed, and the nation was at peace. So Congress took a vacation from its responsibilities to investigate a decade-old Arkansas land deal in which the Clintons lost money. But real dangers abound in the unstable world of today. The economy is only tenuously prosperous. And a warming planet, notwithstanding the lack of interest among debate moderators, threatens apocalyptic change. A politics based on pursuit and accusation, rather than on reason and compromise, will address none of these problems. And the prospect of four years of governance that resemble the last days of this campaign is one that would drive anyone to drink.”
-- “Averting the worst starts with electing Hillary Clinton,” says the New York Times’ Editorial Board. “For many voters that will mean defying Republican efforts to jam the electoral machinery through lies, legal obstructions and the threat of violence. We hope the voters hold out, however intimidating the process and long the lines. For Americans who may feel unmoved or unwilling to vote for Mrs. Clinton, here is a question from the future: In 2016 we were closer than ever to electing an ignorant and reckless tyrant — what did you do to stop him? There’s no sense complaining anymore. The hurricane is three days from landfall. The urgent thing now is to avert the worst, minimize the damage, save the foundations, clear the mess.”
-- "The Wall Street Journal hasn’t endorsed a presidential candidate since 1928, and if we didn’t endorse Ronald Reagan we aren’t about to revive the practice for Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump," the Journal’s board declares. “A broken Washington needs to be shaken up and refocused on the public good, and who better to do it than an outsider beholden to neither political party? If only that reform possibility didn’t arrive as a flawed personality who has few convictions and knows little about the world.”
-- South Korean prosecutors arrested two former aides of President Park Geun-hye on Sunday, widening an investigation into the bizarre “shadow president” scandal that has stoked outrage across the country. On Saturday, tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital to demand she step down. (AP)
-- A Kurdish-led, U.S. backed force in Syria launched an offensive to retake control of Raqqa, seeking to drive out Islamic State militants from their northeastern stronghold. The operation with the U.S.-supported military effort to seize the Mosul from ISIS militants, Hugh Naylor writes. And the impending assault represents an “intensified international effort” to increase pressure on the extremist group as it loses control of territory in the countries.
-- As Chicago battles its highest rate of homicides in nearly 20 years, police are solving fewer cases than they have in decades. Officers today clear just 26 percent of cases – a drastic reduction from years such as 1991, where levels averaged 80 percent. (Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery and Steven Rich)
-- A South Carolina real estate agent accused of kidnapping a woman and keeping her chained up by the neck “like a dog” inside a storage container may be responsible for the deaths of at least seven people, authorities said. Police said they discovered at least one body on the man’s property, and he confessed to a string of other homicides. The gruesome revelations come as a stark contrast to the man’s professional image – appearing to be a successful realtor who ran his own firm upstate. (Amy B Wang)
-- Two men in D.C. were arrested for allegedly spray painting the Trump Hotel and the FBI building on Saturday. Police said the incidences occurred during the Million Mask March demonstration. Both men were charged with defacing government property and resisting arrest. (Joe Heim)
-- Great profile --> “Founding Fervor,” by Kevin Sullivan: “More than 250 people, mostly conservative Christians, clap and whoop as [KrisAnne] Hall takes the stage in the ballroom of a suburban Minnesota hotel … Hall, a radio host, former Florida prosecutor and Army veteran, tells the crowd that the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group that tracks extremism, has included her on its list of 998 anti-government groups in the U.S. She just loves that. Hall, 47, started firing up rage at the federal government six years ago, driving around the southeast in her old Saturn car … [Now] in this era of [Trump], her message fits the moment, and her popularity has exploded. She is a chief circuit rider for liberty, spending more than 260 days a year preaching against federal government overreach. She says those who disagree with her reading of history are either ignorant of the founders’ intentions or ‘federal supremacists’ who ignore the Constitution. ‘The problem with her approach is that it ignores 240 years of history,’ said Georgetown professor David Cole.”
-- “Big government is the new West Coast craze,” by Jim Tankersley: “Voters up and down the West Coast are quietly poised to extend a massive economic experiment this Election Day, probing the limits of how much states can soak the big guys to help the little guys. Their efforts — in three of the hottest state economies in the country — defy decades of conservative arguments about cutting taxes to spur economic growth. The new West Coast Model is higher taxes on the rich, higher spending by the state and wide-scale efforts to lift the working poor. … It is on the ballot in three states: Californians are set to essentially make permanent an income tax surcharge on millionaires in order to fund education. Washington voters appear likely to raise their minimum wage statewide to $13.25 an hour … In Oregon, it will be a down-to-the-wire battle to see if voters will bolster their state budget by taxing large corporations. Advocates are already planning how to export them to the rest of the country.”
-- “Islamic State tunnels below Mosul are a hidden and deadly danger,” by William Booth and Aaso Ameen Shwan “’They’re everywhere,’ said the Iraqi intelligence officer, sweeping his arm from this ancient Christian village toward the horizon. The Iraqi captain was searching for tunnels dug by Islamic State fighters. The officer stomped on the ground. ‘Here. We found one, then three, now six. Right here.’ … Villages recaptured from ISIS over the past three weeks … have been honeycombed with tunnels, many of them booby-trapped. In the past three days, commanders say Iraqi forces have faced the hardest fighting of the offensive as they entered Mosul, made worse by extensive tunnels that are allowing ISIS fighters to appear seemingly out of nowhere, attack, then retreat to the hidden bunkers. An Iraqi armored commander who drove his Abrams tank into eastern Mosul recalled seeing dozens of fighters scrambling on the street in front of his guns. ‘Then they disappeared,’ he said. Into the ground. ‘It’s like we are fighting two wars in two cities,’ said Col. Falah Al-Obaidi of the Iraqi counterterror forces. ‘There’s the war on the streets and there is a whole city underground where they are hiding.’"
-- “Senate majority may hinge on NEVADA candidates unable to break through noise,” by Paul Kane: “The battle for the Senate might well come down to a contest in which neither candidate has broken through the much-louder noise of other political fights. For months, U.S. Rep. Joseph J. Heck and former state attorney general Catherine Cortez Masto have slugged it out in the most expensive Senate race in this state’s history, locked in a tight contest that gives Republicans a chance to steal a Democratic crown jewel: the seat of Senate Minority Leader [Harry Reid]. A Heck victory would make the tenuous path for Republicans to hold the Senate majority easier to navigate. Democrats need four seats to capture the majority if [Clinton] … wins the White House. Yet despite those high stakes, the Senate race here has often felt like an undercard boxing match on the Las Vegas Strip as everyone awaits the main event between the presidential candidates, Clinton and [Trump], who have campaigned and spent heavily in this key swing state.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.:
-- The Capital Weather Gang forecasts another gorgeous fall day ahead: “Our spectacular weekend weather continues today. You’ll want to get out and enjoy every minute you can, before the sun sets in the District at 5:02 p.m.! Morning temperatures rise through the 50s and, by afternoon, it doesn’t feel much like November, as highs climb to around 65-70.”
Here's the final "Saturday Night Live" cold open before the election, with Cecily Strong as Erin Burnett:
It's been a long election season, but there were some great moments; here are a few of our favorites:
Clinton quickly ended her rally in Florida when it began pouring rain:
The Clinton campaign released an 8-minute "mini documentary" about her campaign:
In Denver, Trump said he "doesn't need" celebrity supporters like Beyoncé and Jay Z:
In light of Trump, Bill Maher said maybe he was too tough on George W. Bush and Mitt Romney:
NH1 asked Elizabeth Warren what she thought about a possible 2018 race with Red Sox legend Curt Schilling: | 0fake |
Wealthy Teen Gets Homeless Man To Pour Coffee Over Himself For $5, Then Karma Calls (VIDEO) | A New Jersey teenager thought it would be funny to pay a homeless man $5 to pour coffee over himself. But after the story went viral, the homeless man is now being crowdfunded out of poverty, and that teen is facing the consequences of his actions.65-year-old Ronald Leggatt has been facing the east coast ice storms from a vantage point that most of us couldn t even imagine. While people shiver next to fires in their homes, Leggatt is on the streets, in sub-zero temperatures. Surviving each day is a miracle.On Monday, he was approached by a local teen. He might have hoped for some kind words, or some cash towards extra clothing or food.Instead, the teen offered the desperate man $5 to pour coffee over his own head. So he obliged. 22-year-old local Carlos Mejia posted images of the incident to Facebook, saying: At first I thought it was an act of kindness but I was wrong, The poor man s eyes and face were red because of the burning coffee, In the image, the teen can be seen shaking the hand of a clearly injured Leggatt.After Mejia s post went viral, Lakewood Police investigated the incident and verified that it did take place. But sadly, no charges can be filed against the teen. They said in a statement: After further investigation it was determined, that although the incident occurred in poor judgement, it did not rise to a criminal act, Evidence in the case revealed that both parties were willing participants and no one was injured. But the local community were so outraged by the incident, that they located Ronald Leggatt and decided to provide him with as much assistance as they could muster. First, they got his hair cut, provided him with a decent washroom, and bought him new clothes.They then set up a crowd fund campaign to provide reparations to Leggatt in behalf of the entire community. More than $3,000 has already been raised to help get Laggatt back on his feet.Ari Boyer, a Lakewood resident, told the New York Daily News: The truth is that I saw the thing on Facebook and thought it was a horrible thing to do, I just don t like to see people hurt. Leggatt is almost unrecognizable in his new clothes, clean and trim.But while Laggatt s life has turned around, the teen who abused him in his hour of need has been shamed publicly. So excruciating was the embarrassment, he made a video apology for Ronald Leggatt, offering him $20 and to pour coffee over his own head.Laggatt politely declined the offer.The case is a reminder of the very worst, and the very best, any community of human beings has to offer. Thank goodness that the better angels of Lakewood came together to stand for Ronald Leggatt.Featured Image via YouTube Screengrab | 1real |
Thai tour guide arrested for inappropriate behavior at Buddhist temple | BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai authorities have arrested a local tour guide for indecent behavior at a temple after she posted a photograph online that showed her standing on a pagoda, police said on Saturday. The arrest came as photographs of Naranon Narakamin 44 circulated on social media earlier in the week, including one that showed her standing behind a tourist with one of her foot placed on a pagoda at Bangkok s iconic Temple of Dawn. It is unclear when the photograph of Naranon was taken but it has outraged many conservatives who say her behavior was disrespectful to Buddhism. Tourist Police Deputy commissioner Police Major General Surachet Hakpal told a press conference on Saturday that the tour guide has exhibited inappropriate behavior at a Buddhist temple, and set a bad example for Thais and foreign tourists. Naranon, who has publicly apologized for her action, will be charged with breaching the national archaeological site act and could face up to one month jail term and a fine of up to 10,000 baht ($307.50), the police said. In Thailand, using feet to point at people or objects, particularly sacred objects is considered very rude. Revealing clothing and inappropriate action at places of worship is also considered offensive in the predominantly Buddhist country. Last month two American tourists were arrested and fined for public indecency after posing for a butt selfie at a temple in Bangkok. | 0fake |
House Speaker Ryan: all options on table over Democrats' gun sit-in | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday “all options” were being considered over the possible discipline of House Democrats for protests they held on the House floor to call for action on gun-control measures. With Democrats already rejecting a Republican gun bill and warning of further protests, the Republican-controlled House appeared to be heading for renewed discord over gun restrictions following the June 12 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Ryan, who was speaking at a news conference, had previously said the House would vote this week on a measure intended to keep guns out of the hands of people the government suspects of involvement in violent extremism. But it is no longer clear when a vote might be held. Democrats say the Republican-backed legislation is inadequate because authorities would have only three days to convince a judge that a gun sale should be blocked. | 0fake |
Nobel Peace Prize winners critique Trump's immigration policy | BOGOTA (Reuters) - Nobel Peace Prize winners meeting in Colombia criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies on Thursday, accusing him of xenophobia and discrimination. Last week Trump issued an executive order that put a 120-day halt on the U.S. refugee program, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely and imposed a 90-day suspension on people from seven predominantly Muslim countries - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The measure, which Trump says is aimed at protecting the country from terrorist attacks, has drawn protests and legal challenges. “We need to fight to find peace and civil justice. We want to end this discussion of violence, of racism,” said Tawakkul Karman, a Yemeni journalist who won the 2011 prize for her work on women’s rights. “We can’t isolate Muslims because they are from a different religion, Mr. Trump,” she said at the opening of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Bogota, Colombia. Some 30 winners of the prize are attending the two-day event. “It’s with great incredulity that we’re seeing how leaders of the biggest democracy in the world lack respect for human rights and international diplomacy,” said former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who won the 1987 prize for his work in putting an end to the civil wars in four Central American countries. Arias said he was worried about growing xenophobia and hate in the United States. Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who won the 2003 prize for efforts to improve democracy and human rights, criticized Trump for calling citizens from her country “terrorists,” while U.S. activist Jody Williams, the 1997 winner for her work against land mines, said Trump was “racist and sexist.” Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, the 2016 Nobel winner for his work on a peace deal with Marxist rebels, did not name Trump in a speech to attendees, but said the current rhetoric around terrorism, war, discrimination and refugees should be changed. | 0fake |
European nations condemn detention of lawyer in slain Italian student investigation | CAIRO (Reuters) - Several European countries have criticized the detention of an Egyptian human rights lawyer who is helping investigate the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni. For the first time, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Britain and Canada said they were deeply concerned at the ongoing detention of human rights lawyer Ibrahim Metwaly Hegazy. We are concerned at the detention conditions that Ibrahim Metwaly Hegazy is reportedly enduring, and continue to call for transparency on prison conditions in Egypt, a joint statement published on the British government website said late on Friday. Metwaly, who founded the Association of the Families of the Disappeared after his son disappeared in suspicious circumstances four years ago, went missing while heading for his flight to Geneva to attend a U.N. conference on enforced disappearances on Sept. 10. Members of Metwaly s group said he was taken from Cairo airport by airport security and he was not heard from until three days later when a state security prosecutor ordered his detention. Asked about the case, two judicial sources told Reuters that Metwaly had been detained on charges of spreading false news and joining an illegal group, and that his pre-trial detention was in accordance with the law. The sources said all prisoners are guaranteed the right to fair treatment without discrimination. Rights activists say Egyptian security forces resort to kidnapping government opponents and keeping them in secret jails where they can spend weeks, months, or years without charge. The authorities deny the accusation. Italian graduate student Giulio Regeni, who was conducting research on Egyptian trade unions, disappeared in Cairo in January 2016. His body was discovered in a ditch on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital on Feb. 3, showing signs of extensive torture. Metwaly has been assisting lawyers working on the Regeni case as an expert on enforced disappearances, according to one of the lawyers. | 0fake |
Factbox: How will Britain's EU referendum work on the night? | (Reuters) - Britain holds a referendum on membership of the European Union on June 23. Following are details of how the referendum will work on the night. Sources: Electoral Commission, Reuters reporting. Voters will be given one piece of paper with the question: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” They will be asked to put a cross beside either: “Remain a member of the European Union “Leave the European Union” All those who are entitled to vote in a UK parliamentary general election can vote in the referendum, including British, Irish and qualifying Commonwealth citizens over the age of 18 who are resident in the UK. UK nationals resident overseas who have appeared on a parliamentary election register in the past 15 years will also have the right to vote, as do Irish citizens who were born in Northern Ireland and registered to vote in Northern Ireland in the last 15 years. In addition, Peers and citizens of Gibraltar who were able to vote at a European Parliamentary election can vote. The deadline for registering to vote is midnight on June 7. Polling stations open at 0700 BST on June 23 and close at 2200 local time. There are currently no plans by broadcasters for an exit poll as the margin of error is deemed to be too large. Votes will be counted by hand and the count will begin as soon as polls close (apart from in Gibraltar when counting will begin at 2300 local time, or 2200 UK time). Each of 382 local counting areas will count the number of ballot papers and announce local turnout figures in each of the areas. Then each counting area will count the votes and announce local totals for each of the 382 areas. These will be collated into regional totals, and then a final, national, result. A final result will be announced in Manchester by Jenny Watson, who is the Chief Counting Officer. Reuters will provide full coverage of the results. | 0fake |
Democrats to sue Arizona officials over primary voting problems | PHOENIX (Reuters) - The Democratic National Committee will file a federal lawsuit over the actions of Arizona election officials during the presidential primary that caused long waits at the polls and critics said disenfranchised voters, especially minorities. Officials said the lawsuit, to be filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona on Friday, will target the decision to sharply reduce polling locations in Maricopa County, which caused up to five-hour waits for voters casting ballots in the March 22 primary. The lawsuit will also question the state’s “arbitrary rejection of provisional ballots at alarming rates,” with a large number coming from minority voters, according to a DNC statement. “Republicans are using every tool, every legal loophole and every fear tactic they can think of to take aim at voting rights wherever they can,” the DNC chair, U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, said in a statement. Joining the suit will be the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Arizona Democratic Party, former Navajo Nation leader Peterson Zah, the Ann Kirkpatrick for Senate campaign and affected voters, the statement said. The Democratic nominating contest for the Nov. 8 presidential election was won by Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Their campaigns both said they would join the lawsuit. Named as defendants in the legal action are Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell. A spokesman for the secretary of state declined to comment on the specifics of the case, saying: “The secretary welcomes any inquiry.” A spokeswoman for Purcell declined to comment but told CNN last week there were no intentional efforts to keep people from voting. The election became mired in controversy from the outset as county voters spent hours to vote at one of 60 polling sites, a reduction from 200 sites in 2012. Officials said the move was an effort to cut costs. County officials immediately took the blame for the decision, saying they misjudged voter turnout based on recent history and increasing mail-in votes. The election, called unacceptable by the state’s governor and a fiasco by the Phoenix mayor, has prompted questions by the U.S. Department of Justice over its handling by county officials. The county, Arizona’s most populous, has said it will comply with an April 22 request for information from the head of the voting section of the department’s civil rights division. A county spokeswoman had no comment on the lawsuit. | 0fake |
POLICE CALLED TO GRISLY MURDER SCENE: Find Decapitated Blow Up Sex Doll In City Overrun By Muslim Immigrants | Better a blow-up doll than an actual citizen, in the city of L beck, Germany where the Muslim migrant population has exploded.Police were called out on Wednesday to the scene of what seemed to be a grisly murder. But they were soon able to put the finder s mind to rest.It must have been quite the shock.A street cleaner in the picturesque town of L beck near Germany s Baltic coast called police early on Wednesday morning to tell them he had found a female corpse lying on the street next to a paper recycling container.The lifeless body was wrapped in a blanket with a foot jutting out of one end.Officers from L beck s 2nd police district jumped into action, rushing to the scene as fast as they could. After more exact criminal observation, it was ascertained that we were dealing with a so-called sex toy which had no head, the police report reveals. Via: Local de | 1real |
Trump says wants defense buildup to project U.S. power abroad | NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wants a U.S. military buildup of more ships and planes to “project American power in distant lands,” making his case for a proposed $54 billion increase in defense spending that has U.S. lawmakers squabbling. Wearing an olive military jacket and hat aboard a new aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, in Newport News, Virginia, Trump said he wanted the U.S. military to have the finest equipment in the world. Trump this week proposed a $54 billion increase over last year in defense spending, boosting the Pentagon budget to $603 billion, and said he wanted to launch the biggest military buildup in American history to make up for what he called a depleted armed forces. Some Republican lawmakers want more money for defense and others, along with Democrats, are opposed to his option for offsetting the cost of the buildup in the U.S. budget. He would cut foreign aid and other non-defense programs by $54 billion. Trump said he would like to get the U.S. Navy back up to having 12 aircraft carriers. The Navy currently has 10. “I just spoke with Navy and industry leaders and have discussed my plans to undertake a major expansion of our entire Navy fleet, including the 12 (aircraft)-carrier Navy we need,” Trump said, receiving applause. “We also need more aircraft, modernized capabilities and greater force levels,” he said. “Additionally, we must vastly improve our cyber capabilities.” There are questions about how the increase in the budget will be spread across the different service branches and which weapons programs will get priority. During the campaign, Trump said he would increase the Army’s troop strength and increase the number of ships in the Navy to 350 from about 275 ships. The timeline and the exact cost of the buildup is unclear. Trump said the Navy will “soon be the largest it’s been.” The U.S. Navy peaked at 6,768 ships in 1945 at the end of World War Two and by 1990 it still had 570 ships, even though the ships now are more advanced and capable. “We are going to have very soon the finest equipment in the world,” he said. “We will give our military the tools you need to prevent war and, if required, to fight war and only do one thing. You know what that is? Win. Win.” Trump said the Gerald R. Ford and other new ships “project American power in distant lands.” “Hopefully, it’s power we don’t have to use. But if we do, they’re in big, big trouble,” he said. | 0fake |
The Collectivist Election | When Henry Adams wrote in the early 20th century that "politics, as a practice whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds," there was ample reason to take him literally.
The world back then was on the verge of a cataclysmic war that would kill 17 million people and help incubate both communism and fascism. Adams had come of age in London as the son of the American ambassador under President Abraham Lincoln, a man who knew all too well how political disputes can turn bloody. And Adams' great-grandfather, the second president of the United States, was accused by Thomas Jefferson's supporters during the famously acrimonious 1800 election of having, among many other unpleasant things, a "hideous hermaphroditical character."
So maybe the one positive of the 2016 version of American political hatred is that it probably won't make people work double shifts down at the morgue. But everything else about this repellant contest between the two most reviled major-party nominees in modern history points to an alarming resurgence of that foul and dangerous defect of judgment known as collectivism.
When we hear the c word nowadays it's usually in the context of Stalin's agricultural five-year plans or the rah-rah slogans on 1930s posters. But there's another, more personal meaning of the term that has dwindled in usage, even while its application to major-party politics seems to ratchet up each cycle. And that is: treating the disparate individuals within any given bloc as sharing a collective set of characteristics, intentions, and pathologies. It's what Hillary Clinton meant with "basket of deplorables," it's what Donald Trump has done with "Mexican heritage" and its variants, and it's all too often the nightstick that our friends and loved ones grab for when talking about politics in a presidential year.
What makes the Democratic version of collective antipathy particularly noxious is the fact that it often comes disguised as a treacly appeal to unity. Trump "wants to divide us," Clinton lamented at the Democratic National Convention. "We have to heal the divides in our country.…And that starts with listening, listening to each other. Trying, as best we can, to walk in each other's shoes."
Unless, of course, you have or work with large amounts of money. "Wall Street, corporations, and the super-rich are going to start paying their fair share of taxes," Clinton thundered later in the same speech. "If companies take tax breaks and then ship jobs overseas, we'll make them pay us back."
Clinton's vanquished Democratic opponent, the democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, is even more tin-eared about his own hypocrisy. "This election is about which candidate understands the real problems facing this country and has offered real solutions," Sanders said in his convention speech. "Not just bombast, not just fearmongering, not just name calling and divisiveness." But a few minutes later, Sanders engaged in some bombastic fearmongering of his own, bemoaning that "the wealthiest people in America, like the billionaire Koch brothers…spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying elections and in the process undermine American democracy." (David Koch is a trustee of Reason Foundation, which publishes this magazine.)
Clinton's most controversial instance of Othering during this season came at a September fundraiser in New York, where she said, "to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it.…Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America." While the irredeemable and un-American twists were new (as was the memorable metaphor), Clinton's behind-closed-doors sentiment only mirrored what the Democratic nominee has said routinely throughout this dreary campaign.
At an October 2015 Democratic presidential primary debate, Clinton was asked by moderator Anderson Cooper, "Which enemy are you most proud of?" Her reply, after some throat-clearing: "Probably the Republicans." Some people laughed, but it wasn't really a joke. When Vox Editor in Chief Ezra Klein asked Clinton nine months later whether she regretted the remark, she said, "Not very much," adding: "You know, they say terrible things about me, much worse than anything I've ever said about them. That just seems to be part of the political back and forth now—to appeal to your base, to appeal to the ideologues who support you. We have become so divided." Do tell.
The best that you can say about Hillary Clinton's collectivism—and the Democratic habit of mind that accepts and repeats such formulations unblinkingly—is that at least the deplorables chose their own status, whether through true bigotry or mere party membership. Donald Trump's Others, by contrast, are often born that way.
In June, Trump told The Wall Street Journal that District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was presiding over a case involving the failed Trump University, should have been disqualified by his "Mexican heritage." "I'm building a wall," the eventual GOP nominee explained. "It's an inherent conflict of interest."
In a follow-up interview, Face the Nation's John Dickerson asked Trump to clarify what exactly the Mexican parents of an Indiana-born judge had to do with Curiel's adverse rulings in the case. "Excuse me, I want to build a wall," Trump shot back. "I mean, I don't think it's very confusing.…Has nothing to do with anything except common sense. You know, we have to stop being so politically correct in this country."
Gross generalizations and shorthand stereotypes often make sense—until they don't. On the playgrounds and in the popular culture of my youth, Mexicans were lazy, Poles were stupid, and "queers" were people who you'd "smear" on a football field because they were so weak. Now, Mexicans are uniquely industrious, Poles win Nobel prizes, and the buffest guy at the gym is probably gay. The same thing Donald Trump now says about the Chinese, the entire political and journalistic class was saying about the Japanese in the 1980s. Yes, facts on the ground change, but stereotypes often recede when the dominant culture recognizes them as reductionist, shameful, even ridiculous.
Reverting to that kind of collectivism, assigning negative value indiscriminately across an entire population, feels retrograde in a country so steeped in individualistic ethos. Once we start dismissing 20 percent of the population (or 47 percent, as with Mitt Romney), particularly in a discussion involving politics, we are playing with fire. Determinism, when wedded to state power, has produced some of the worst moments in American history.
Ayn Rand's writing on this is hard to top. "Like every form of determinism," Rand wrote in The Virtue of Selfishness, "racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man's life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination."
The problem isn't just racism's malign effects on the recipient. It also has rotting effects on the intellect of the originator: "Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned," Rand wrote. "It is a quest for automatic knowledge—for an automatic evaluation of men's characters that bypasses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment."
American political discourse in 2016 too is about bypassing the responsibility of judgment and trying to bludgeon people into line through insult comedy. Here's hoping that more and more of our fellow citizens will refuse to take the politicians' bait. And that Hillary Clinton starts reading some Ayn Rand. | 0fake |
U.S. will only talk to North Korea about freeing U.S. citizens: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration will not hold any talks with North Korea at this time, except for possible conversations about freeing U.S. citizens who have been detained there, the White House said on Monday. We ve been clear that now is not the time to talk, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters, amplifying on a tweet from President Donald Trump over the weekend that had been seen as undercutting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The only conversations that have taken place, or that would, would be on bringing back Americans who have been detained, Sanders said. Beyond that, there will be no conversations with North Korea at this time. | 0fake |
McCarthy withdraws from speaker race, vote postponed | House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who was considered the front-runner to replace John Boehner, stunned his Republican colleagues Thursday by abruptly withdrawing from the race, throwing the leadership battle into chaos.
McCarthy's decision, announced moments before Republicans were set to nominate their candidate, will postpone the vote for speaker. McCarthy had been running against Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Daniel Webster, R-Fla., before he dropped out, and it's unclear whether other candidates will now step forward.
While McCarthy, R-Calif., faced vocal opposition from some conservative members and groups, he was thought to have more than enough support to win the party's nomination in the vote initially set for Thursday. Fox News is told McCarthy, in revealing his choice, simply told colleagues it was not his time.
His withdrawal rattled fellow lawmakers, particularly allies in leadership. But addressing reporters afterward, McCarthy said he thinks the party needs a "fresh face."
"If we are going to unite and be strong, we need a new face to help do that," McCarthy said. "We've got to be 100 percent united."
He said he will stay on as majority leader.
Chaffetz, speaking shortly afterward, said McCarthy's withdrawal was "absolutely stunning." Chaffetz said he would remain in the race. "I really do believe it is time for a fresh start," he said.
While Boehner originally was set to resign at the end of the month, the speaker said in a statement Thursday afternoon he "will serve as Speaker until the House votes to elect a new Speaker." He added, "I'm confident we will elect a new Speaker in the coming weeks."
Practically speaking, Republicans' overriding interest is to find a candidate who can muster an absolute majority on the House floor in a full chamber vote, originally set for Oct. 29. While McCarthy was likely to easily win the nomination, it was unclear whether he could muster a majority -- of roughly 218 members -- once lawmakers from both parties vote for speaker.
McCarthy gave no indication of dropping out earlier in the day. "It's going to go great," McCarthy said Thursday morning. But he later suggested he was concerned he'd only be able to win narrowly in a floor vote.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said McCarthy actually felt he couldn't reach 218. Still, he said McCarthy's backing will be the "most important endorsement" for whoever seeks the post.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the party's vice presidential nominee in 2012, swiftly put out a statement saying he would not run, while saying he's "disappointed" McCarthy dropped out.
Conservative groups, meanwhile, cheered the decision. FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon said in a statement that McCarthy "dropped out of the Speaker race because of the House Freedom Caucus and grassroots pressure. ... This is a huge win for conservatives who want to see real change in Washington, not the same go along get along ways of Washington."
He was referring in part to a decision Wednesday by the conservative House Freedom Caucus -- with its 30-40 members -- to back Webster as a bloc.
The speaker's race already has seen several curveballs since Boehner suddenly announced his retirement and McCarthy swiftly positioned himself as the presumptive next in line.
Shortly after announcing his candidacy, McCarthy was seen to stumble in a Fox News interview where he appeared to link Hillary Clinton's dropping poll numbers to the congressional Benghazi committee. His comments fueled Democratic charges that the committee is merely political, which GOP leaders deny.
Amid the backlash over McCarthy's Benghazi remarks, Chaffetz entered the leadership race over the weekend.
Republicans have nearly 250 members in the House and on paper have the numbers to win against the Democrats' nominee, likely Nancy Pelosi. But if the eventual Republican nominee comes out with a tally short of 218, he or she will have to try to rally support to get to that number.
In a curious development, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., also sent a letter to House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., urging a full vetting of all leadership candidates to avoid a repeat of 1998, when the conference selected then-Rep. Bob Livingston in November to succeed outgoing House Speaker Newt Gingrich. It then emerged Livingston had been conducting an affair. Jones asked that any candidate who has committed "misdeeds" withdraw.
Asked by FoxNews.com to elaborate, Jones said he doesn't "know anything" specific about any of the candidates, but, "We need to be able to say without reservation that 'I have nothing in my background that six months from now could be exposed to the detriment of the House of Representatives.'" He said he wants to make sure the candidates have "no skeletons."
Fox News' Chad Pergram and FoxNews.com's Cody Derespina and The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 0fake |
U.S. pledges up to $60 million for security in Sahel region | UNITED NATIONS/ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The United States has promised up to $60 million to support the Group of Five Sahel States (G5 Sahel) Joint Force s counter-terrorism efforts, the State Department said on Monday. The force - which will eventually comprise nearly 5,000 troops units from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania - is meant to counter a growing jihadist threat in West Africa s arid Sahel region that includes groups linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State. The U.S. support for the G5 force falls short of an expectation by France and others that Washington would back direct funding from the United Nations. We believe that the G5 force must be, first and foremost, owned by the countries of the region themselves, said the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley in remarks to the Security Council, following news of the new cash commitment. We expect that the G5 countries will take on full regional ownership of the force within a period of three to six years, with continued U.S. engagement, she said. A non-U.S. Security Council diplomat said, however, the U.S. is keen on continuing to look for some kind of direct U.N. involvement in supporting the G5 force. An ambush by unidentified militants this month in Niger killed four U.S. Special Forces troops and threw a spotlight on American involvement in counter-terrorism operations in the region. The funds pledge, which must now be discussed with Congress, will bolster the U.S. s regional partners in their fight against Islamic State and other terrorist networks, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in the statement. Washington is wary of funding the G5 through the United Nations at a time when the Trump administration is aiming to cut U.N. expenditures on peacekeeping operations around the world, and has indicated it prefers to support the force on a bilateral basis. The G5 countries have set a first-year operating budget of just under $500 million, and about a quarter of that was committed before the U.S. announcement. A donors conference will be held in Brussels in mid December. | 0fake |
Zimbabwe's War Vets call for Western re-engagement after military seizes power | JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The leader of Zimbabwe s influential liberation war veterans called on Wednesday for South Africa, southern Africa and the West to re-engage with Zimbabwe after the military seized power from 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe. Chris Mutsvangwa hailed the military s overnight move as the correction of a state that was careening off a cliff and said the military administration would usher in a better business environment after years of disinvestment and economic decline. | 0fake |
Cenk Uygur Rages At White Apathy After CPD Murders Black Teen (VIDEO) | On December 26, the father of 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier called the police in hopes that they would help him deal with a situation he felt unqualified to handle.During an interview with CNN, the teen s father said that after hearing his son bang on the door, he grabbed the phone and called the police, because I wasn t equipped with being able to understand how to deal with my angry son at that time. The grieving father went on to say, I figured the police would know better how to handle an angry situation my teenage son was going through. During the call, LeGrier described his son s behavior as a little bit agitated. Far from assisting LeGrier s family, Chicago police shot and killed both the teen and a neighbor, a 55-year-old grandmother whose name was Bettie Jones.Contrary to police statements, we know from witness statements that the officer who killed Quintonio LeGrier opened fire from outside the house, shooting him seven times, from a distance of at least 20 feet away. We also know police made no attempt to talk to the teen. Instead, witnesses say they opened fire right away. LeGrier s father was still upstairs when his son was killed. His parents report that there are bullet holes in the front door of the family s home.The officer who pulled trigger, described as a former marine in his early twenties, whose name has not been released to the media, reportedly said, F , no, no, no. I thought he was lunging at me with the [baseball] bat. A neighbor who spoke to Mother Jones, identified as DeSean, also witnessed the murder of LeGrier s neighbor, Bettie Jones.One of the officers walked up the stairs and knocked. Then he ran back to the sidewalk and drew his gun like he was in position to shoot. The officer didn t say anything when he knocked on the door, DeSean said. Jones opened the door a few minutes later, he recalled. When [Jones] opened that door she was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa! Like, Slow down wait, wait, wait! That s what she meant. He said there had been 15 or 20 seconds between when Jones opened the door and when the officer opened fire.Police have referred to this shooting as an accident. It s clear from witness statements that there was nothing accidental about it.The police knocked on her door. Waited for her to open, then immediately shot her dead.According to the Chicago Sun-Times,Larry Rogers Jr., an attorney for the Jones family, said police need to be held accountable for how they treated Jones daughter. The insensitivity that was shown by the police after the shooting occurred is of extreme concern for the family. One of the daughters asked one of the police officers, Why did you shoot my mother? His response was Your mother s dead. Get over it, Rogers said Sunday. You know what s insensitive? said attorney Sam Adam Jr., who also represents the Jones family, gesturing to the presence of Jones two daughters, LaToya and LaTarsha Jones. They could at least send someone to clean up their mother s blood the day after Christmas. When the doorbell rang, she answered the doorbell and shortly after that she was shot to death, Adam said.No attempt was ever made by police or rescue workers to provide medical attention to the two victims.During an episode of The Young Turks, published on December 31, host Cenk Uygur expressed outrage over the killing and the apathy of white Americans, when it comes to brutal, officer-involved killings such as this one.Watch the video here, courtesy of The Young Turks on Facebook. // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>Heartbroken Father Speaks Out After Cops Murder SonHeartbroken Father Speaks Out After Cops Murder SonPosted by The Young Turks on Thursday, December 31, 2015Following the death of her son, Janet Cooksey, Quintonio LeGrier s mother, asked a very important question during a December 27th press conference. Who are we supposed to call? As Cenk Uygur points out in the video above, calling police for help is the last thing we should do if a family member is dealing with an emotional or mental health issue. Communities must come up with their own solutions to provide safe intervention services for families, that do not involve police.It seems one solution might be to organize community task forces, which would be made up of people who are trained to provide crisis intervention and mental health services to families. Community task forces could provide families with an alternative to police involvement, saving lives and preventing mentally ill family members from becoming victims of an unjust justice system, in which the only options are generally incarceration or execution.As TYT points out, people who are experiencing a mental health crisis are more likely to be killed by police than any other segment of the population.It s simply not safe to call police for help in the United States. It time for communities to come together to create alternatives that protect children and families in crisis, rather than causing them irreparable harm.As Uygur asks in the video, What if this were your kid and not a Black kid? Our society can not continue to look the other way while our police brutally murder other human beings. We cannot keep blaming the victims of these Gestapo-style executions, while excusing and defending the officers that kill in cold blood.Featured image via Facebook | 1real |
Senator Wyden pledges to fight limits on encryption | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Ron Wyden pledged on Wednesday to fight legislation expected shortly in Congress that would limit encryption protection in American technology products. The proposal by Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, would give federal judges authority to order technology companies to help law enforcement officials access encrypted data, according to sources familiar with the situation. “I believe weakening strong encryption puts at risk millions of Americans, families and communities from one end of the country to another,” Wyden told Reuters after his speech at the RightsCon digital rights conference in San Francisco. “This issue is as important as any that I’ve been involved in in my 15 years in the intelligence committee.” Asked if he would put a hold on the expected legislation, the Oregon Democrat, who is a leading privacy advocate, said: “I would do anything within my power as a United States senator to block any plan that weakens strong encryption.” His remarks followed a high-stakes confrontation between the U.S. Justice Department and Apple over a court order that the company provide access to an iPhone used by one of the assailants in a deadly shooting rampage last December in San Bernardino, California. The government said on Monday it unlocked the phone without Apple’s help and dropped its legal action. Apple and other technology companies strongly opposed the court order, saying anything that helps authorities bypass the security features of tech products will undermine security for everyone. Government officials have insisted that criminal investigations could be crippled without access to phone data, and both sides are gearing up for a fight in Congress. Wyden said he would revive a 2014 bill he introduced to block court attempts by U.S. law enforcement to undercut encryption as in the Apple case. Without such a measure, he said the FBI would try again to get a precedent allowing it to compel companies to hack their customers “as sure as night follows day.” Recalling his role in the successful fight to stop a copyright bill four years ago opposed by Internet companies, Wyden told the conference: “We can win this fight for security and liberty. I know it’s not going to be easy, but we have done it before.” | 0fake |
THE STUNNING LIST Of Barack Obama’s “Firsts” | Our first black President of the United States has quite an impressive list of accomplishments. Sadly, not one of his accomplishments has anything to do with helping the black community who believed him when he said he would help them find jobs. Many Americans in fact, believe that the former president actually set race relations back 50 years.While every first is probably not on the list below, most of them are. Please feel free to let us know what we missed in the comment section below.The list of Barack Obama s firsts :First President to pardon 78 pardon prisoners and commute 153 people in one day.First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.First President to spend a trillion dollars on shovel-ready jobs when there was no such thing as shovel-ready jobs.First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.First President to terminate America s ability to put a man in space.First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation.First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases.First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).First President to fire an inspector general of AmeriCorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.First President to surround himself with radical left wing anarchists.First President to golf more than 150 separate times in his five years in office.First President to hide his birth, medical, educational and travel records.First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.First President to go on multiple global apology tours and concurrent insult our friends tours.First President to go on over 17 lavish vacations, in addition to date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayers.First President to have personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.First President to fly in a personal trainer from Chicago at least once a week at taxpayer expense.First President to repeat the Holy Quran and tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earthFirst President to side with a foreign nation over one of the American 50 states (Mexico vs Arizona).First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences. First President to allow Iran to inspect their own facilities.First President to trade 5 terrorists for a traitorIn addition to Obama s firsts , here is a list of 10 records that were set while Barack Obama was President of the United States: | 1real |
DR GORKA EXPOSES THE COMMIES: One Word Susan Rice Cronies Used Is A Warning To Americans [Video] | The weaponization of the security services is what you expect in a banana republic and a police state or authoritarian state. And let s just look into one more piece of evidence. These individuals are politically appointed. I am politically appointed. I served as a commissioned officer of the president. So did she. We understand that. But you re supposed to be a professional I challenge your viewers right now to go to her twitter feed and read her tweets after January 20th and read her colleagues Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl. You will see who these people really are Just three weeks ago Colin Kahl used the word purge Purging is the kind of word Maoists use. These people have unmasked themselves PURGE Susan Rice and her cronies only want to destroy the Trump administration. Maoists all | 1real |
Trump Lawyer LITERALLY Argued That Muslim Ban Shouldn’t Be Based In Reality, And Twitter Is LOSING IT (VIDEO/TWEETS) | If you had it in your head that the only defense for Donald Trump s Muslim ban is that we should completely ignore reality, you were more right than you knew. On Saturday out borders reopened after Judge James Robert blocked President Asterisk s Muslim ban, correctly pointing out that there is no support for The Donald s argument that we have to protect the U.S. from individuals from the seven countries affected by the ban.Robert s decision, which also block the Trump administration from enforcing its limits on refugees, was celebrated nationwide as Trump and his allies stewed and our so-called President unleashed a ridiculous attack on the so-called judge who foiled his evil scheme. After learning about checks, our unbalanced President whined:The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017But here s the thing: even the Trump administration doesn t believe that their fear and bigotry-based attempt to keep members of an entire religion out of our country. I m also asked to look and determine if the executive order is rationally based, Robart told Trump s attorney. Rationally based to me at least implies to some extent I have to find it grounded in facts as opposed to fiction. Trump s attorney s baffled the world, responding that the facts simply do not matter: Well Your Honor, we don t think you re supposed to look at whether it s rationally based. We think that the standard is facially legitimate. Seriously, she said this:The moment Trump lawyer tells judge Robart of travel ban: "We actually don't think you're supposed to look at whether it's rationally based" pic.twitter.com/u9PRy4cKGT Rob S Silver Surfer (@RobPulseNews) February 5, 2017Robart is correct, as no one from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan or Yemen has committed a terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11. I m sorry, there s no other way to put it, Robart said of the order. It s Keystone Kops. It really is. And that s not just me speaking, that s Republican members of Congress. Robart was referencing incompetent 20th-century cops who appeared in silent films early last century.Naturally, she is now the subject of widespread mockery.@spencerwoodman @EnterElysium where did that women get a law degree out of a cereal box Resender (@Resender2be) February 4, 2017@spencerwoodman @KipperBedwas She's a career DoJ lawyer. She's forced to defend the indefensible. The judge confirmed 2x she did her job. Bob Blaskiewicz (@rjblaskiewicz) February 4, 2017@spencerwoodman The administration would like to crack down on all rationally based thought, words or actions. Citizen (@kathylun) February 4, 2017@spencerwoodman there you have it folks Trumps not interested in anything being RATIONAL which is why he is so irrational judy (@endhomelesnes) February 4, 2017Amazing. Trump has Gov't arguing that his EOs do not have to be rationally based. Trump's next EO: Cows must say Bah instead of moo https://t.co/L8wJtnAeoA (((ProfessingProf))) (@Professing_Prof) February 5, 2017Now that we have seen this, we know for certain that Donald Trump and his administration don t care about facts (or reality) at all and Trump s policies reflect that.You can see more of the exchange below:Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Donald Trump Gives $10,000 To Pastor’s Family | CHILLING: What Netanyahu Is Bracing for Obama to Do During Last Days in Office
“And most amazingly, I can vote for someone that I know fought for me and called my name so many times,” he continued. “He met my family and gave them a $10,000 gift.”
He added that unlike Trump, Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton had never once either mentioned him or contacted his family.
“As a woman who says she stands for women’s rights when she was foreign minister, she never contacted my mom, wife, sister or my daughter,” he wrote. “She never did anything to help when I was in prison as an American pastor who was detained in Iran as a hostage.”
Read his full post below:
In another post published two days later, this one about the relation between King Cyrus of Persia and Trump, the pastor added these three powerful words: “Vote for Trump.”
He also explained how God had chosen King Cyrus to “save Israel” (see the Old Testament book of Ezra) — and how he was now doing the same with Trump. | 1real |
Comey testimony disturbing, Trump appears to threaten job: Warner | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Thursday that testimony by fired FBI Director James Comey showed President Donald Trump appeared to threaten his job and asked him to drop an investigation into a senior aide, violating clear guidelines designed to prevent political interference into FBI probes. “The testimony that Mr. Comey has submitted for today’s hearing is disturbing,” Mark Warner will say in his opening statement at a committee hearing, according to excerpts obtained by Reuters. (Refiles to corrects day of week in first paragraph.) | 0fake |
LOL! “BLACK STUDENTS UNITED” Demands “Racist” Cornell University Stops Recruiting Blacks That Aren’t Like Them | EAG Black Students United which represents people of the African diaspora penned a letter to university administration recently in response to allegations that a white student from the Psi Upsilon fraternity severely beat a black student from the Kappa Sigma fraternity in mid-August.Cornell closed down the Psi Upsilon fraternity as it works to develop and implement steps to be a more equitable, inclusive and welcoming university, according to The Washington Post.John Greenwood, the 19-year-old student accused of the beating, faces a third-degree assault charge and possible hate crimes. Greenwood apologized for using abhorrent language during the dispute, but his attorney has maintained that Greenwood was in no way involved in any physical altercation of any kind, according to The Cornell Daily Sun.Black Students United want more to be done, and they re using the unfortunate incident to pressure school officials into a list of 12 demands at least some of which target other black students.The demands are prefaced with a diatribe on Cornell s inherently white supremacist system that allegedly perpetuates a daily assault of racism against black students on campus. We attend a university that s obsessed with the optics of our black and brown faces but is indifferent to the justice we week. This is not an indictment of white people; this is an indictment of a system that perpetuates white supremacy and shelters our peers under the warm blanket of white privilege all the while, we are left to freeze in our frigid reality of racist epithets, essentialist curriculum, and apathetic governance, the letter read. In post-racial America, our classmates call us niggers from their pickup trucks in broad daylight. In post-racial America, we are berated by airborne bottles on our own campus. In post-racial America, we are told we have a chip on our shoulder. We are called everything but our name. Above all else, in post-racial America we are bombarded by the deafening silence that allows the centuries-old hum of white supremacy to grow louder, it continued. Silence is violence. Because Cornell is racist, and its Interfraternity Council is an alleged arm of the white supremacist system, Black Students United drew up a list of 12 demands that will help set things right.They include a system of mandatory coursework for all students that s focused on race, gender, discrimination, white privilege and other social justice causes from the perspective of oppressed people, as well as mandatory training for staff on the same issues.Black Students United want Psi Upsilon shut down and to use the building as an adequate and appropriate space for the people of the Africa diaspora to utilize for programs of any kind, in perpetuity. The group also demands mandatory diversity and inclusion training for all greek members on campus, a special minority liaison position on the University Assembly, Cornell Health to hire at least two black psychologists and one black doctor in coming years, a new student-led dispute resolution process, and a limit on different types of black students admitted to the Ivy League school. We demand that Cornell Admissions to come up with a plan to actively increase the presence of underrepresented Black students on this campus. We define underrepresented Black students as Black Americans who have several generations (more than two) in this country, the letter read.The problem is there are too many black students from other places outside of the U.S., Black Students United argued. The Black student population at Cornell disproportionately represents international or first-generation African or Caribbean students, BSU wrote. While these students have a right to flourish at Cornell, there is a lack of investment in Black students whose families were affected directly by the African Holocaust in America. Cornell must work to actively support students whose families have been impacted for generations by white supremacy and American fascism. The demands also include a call for an Anti-Racism Institute to educate the campus and community about the horrors of white supremacy and political education, among other things. | 1real |
‘Don’t Breathe’ Tops the North American Box Office - The New York Times | LOS ANGELES — “Don’t Breathe” became the latest in a string of hit horror movies over the weekend, while the indie romance “Southside With You” bested the boxing drama “Hands of Stone. ” Between activities and vacations, August can be a time for studios to offload dreck. (See: “ . ” Or don’t.) But “Don’t Breathe,” released by Sony Pictures Entertainment, received reviews from top critics that were 94 percent positive, according to Rotten Tomatoes, expanding the movie’s appeal beyond the core horror crowd. “Don’t Breathe,” from the Uruguayan Fede Alvarez, took in about $26. 1 million at North American cinemas. With a sales effort that started in March, “we really treated this film as an experience that you needed to see on the big screen,” Josh Greenstein, Sony’s president of worldwide marketing and distribution, said by phone on Sunday. Mr. Greenstein noted that Sony has now turned three summer films into moneymakers, with “The Shallows,” a horror movie, and the animated “Sausage Party” as the other two. (Sony’s “Ghostbusters,” on the other hand, not so much.) “Don’t Breathe,” which cost about $9. 8 million to make, pushed “Suicide Squad” (Warner Bros.) into second place, ending that supervillain film’s run at No. 1. “Suicide Squad” took in about $12. 1 million over the weekend, for a new domestic total of $282. 9 million, according to comScore, which compiles box office data. Worldwide, “Suicide Squad” has now taken in $636 million, according to Warner. The only other new movie in the United States over the weekend was “Mechanic: Resurrection” (Lionsgate) which collected an estimated $7. 5 million. While the sequel took in 34 percent less than its series predecessor did over its first three days in theaters in 2011, Lionsgate spent only about $9 million to acquire certain rights to the movie, which was produced by Millennium Films for a reported $40 million. Arriving in roughly 810 theaters apiece were “Southside With You,” which imagines Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date in 1989, and “Hands of Stone,” about the Panamanian fighter Roberto Duran and his trainer Ray Arcel. Costing a reported $1. 5 million to make and starring two relatively unknown actors, Parker Sawyers and Tika Sumpter, “Southside With You” (Roadside Attractions and Miramax) sold $3 million in tickets. On the other hand, “Hands of Stone,” starring Robert De Niro and Édgar Ramírez, collected $1. 7 million it was released by the Weinstein Company and financed by an outside group for an estimated $20 million. “For this kind of movie, a true story that is also a relatively unknown story, you’ve got to give audiences time to find it — to let word of mouth kick in — and we think that is happening here,” David Glasser, Weinstein’s president, said by phone, noting that “Hands of Stone” received an A grade from ticket buyers in CinemaScore exit polls. Mr. Glasser said plans are for the film to move into wide release starting Wednesday. | 0fake |
Putin Hacked Emails Reveal That Clinton Threatened Sanders Wife
| Home News Putin: Hacked Emails Reveal That Clinton Threatened Sanders Wife
Putin: Hacked Emails Reveal That Clinton Threatened Sanders Wife
Posted on July 29, 2016 by Baxter Dmitry in News, US // 0 Comments
The Kremlin claim the Clinton campaign
Kremlin sources say the Clinton campaign sent their goons to give Jane Sanders the shakedown, in order to end the Bernie Sanders campaign before the convention, citing evidence from one of 10,000 Hillary emails Putin has in his personal possession.
The Clinton campaign needed Bernie Sanders on board before the emails were leaked as they contained evidence that confirmed his suggestions of Democratic establishment bias and would have given him unstoppable momentum heading into the convention had he chosen to play that game.
The Kremlin have threatened to release 20,000 emails that Russia have hacked from Hilary Clinton's email server.
Kremlin To Release 20,000 Hacked Hillary Clinton Emails
However after the meeting with the Clinton team Sanders unexpectedly suspended his previously gung-ho campaign, and although he refused to wholeheartedly endorse her, he signalled to his supporters that his run for President was effectively over.
Kremlin sources have denied the DNC claims that Russian state-sponsored hackers are behind the email leaks, with Julian Assange also stating the DNC claim is a politically motivated lame conspiracy smear.
Despite the FBI asking the Kremlin for copies of any emails they have in their possession, it is understood the Kremlin has not released anything to anyone, including Wikileaks.
According to Kremlin sources, the source of the Wikileaks email trove could have come from a huge number of possible sources, as intelligence communities around the whole world have copies of Hillarys emails. Everybody is talking about them.
Senior staff in the Kremlin have been allowed to see the emails, however Putin alone has access to them and keeps them on his personal laptop, under lock and key. He has been heard staying up until 2am, reading their contents out loud, roaring with laughter.
President Vladimir Putin is said to be amused by Democratic Party attempts to portray him as the villain, when their own failings are on display for all to see. They always need a babayka [boogeyman] to frighten people with. I am the Eastern boogeyman, it seems.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump reached out to the Kremlin, promising them rewards if they release Hillary Clintons missing emails.
Russia, if youre listening, I hope youre able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing, Trump said on Wednesday.
I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Lets see if that happens. That will be next.
President Vladimir Putins spokesman, while not directly denying Russian involvement in the hack, said Moscow would never interfere in another countrys election.
President Putin more than once has said that Russia would never interfere and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, especially in the electoral process, Dmitry Peskov told journalists Wednesday in a conference call.
Peskov also criticized the willingness to accuse Russia of wrongdoing. If we talk about some sort of suspicions against a country, then it is necessary at a minimum to be precise and concrete, the spokesman said.
He said speculation in this case does not show a constructive attitude. | 1real |
MSNBC BRILLIANTLY Smacks Offended Trumpkins Who Want Colbert Fired For A Joke (VIDEO) | By now, everyone knows that Stephen Colbert laid into Donald Trump in spectacular fashion on Monday night with a tirade that culminated with the Late Show host declaring that the wannabe president s mouth isn t good for anything but serving as Russian President Vladimir Putin s cock holster. Now, considering all the vulgar language Trump has used and continues to use, and his cavalier attitude toward said language and, in some cases, even actions one would think this sort of thing would be accepted as par for the course in this administration. But, alas, common sense is scarce here, so of course Trump and his supporters are offended. Hell, even the Federal Communications Commission is trying to go after Colbert for the joke. Well, an MSNBC panel has just about had enough of the double standards and hypocrisy on this one, and they let Trump and his cronies know it on Saturday.Dean Obeidallah, Scott Blakeman and Judy Gold appeared on Saturday s edition of Joy Reid s weekend show, AM Joy, and lit into the people going after Colbert for making fun of Trump in a crude way. First, Obeidallah railed against the idea that GOP types could ever think much less care that joke was homophobic. He also alluded to how it is Trump who took our politics into the gutter, and therefore he is not immune to being the subject of such crude jokes: Nothing is off limits with this guy. I think comedians are playing a role in preventing him from being normalized. Too bad little snowflakes. We re going to make as many jokes as we want. You need a safe space, go hide. Put on your big boy pants because it s just beginning. Judy Gold then chimed in, reminding everyone that right-wingers bitched about Ann Coulter being too nasty to speak at Berkeley, and how right-wingers reacted to that. Either they like free speech or they don t. Gold said: The outrage that we had to listen to about Ann Coulter and her hate speech at Berkeley that the conservatives were, Oh, you know, there s too much political correctness, too much of this and too much of that. Colbert is a comedian. He is telling a joke. Funny is funny. This panel is correct. The Right wants to cry foul if someone shuts down one of their speakers, but they want a late night comedian fined if he says something that is a little too off color for their tastes about their great orange leader. Get used to it, conservatives. Elect a clown, expect a circus. And expect the people who realize what a clown he is to make fun of said clown and its circus.Watch the video below:Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Kenyan opposition leader withdraws from repeat presidential poll | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga withdrew on Tuesday from a court-ordered re-run of the presidential election due on Oct. 26, saying the vote would not be free or fair and leaving President Uhuru Kenyatta as the only candidate. Kenyatta said the election would proceed as planned, promising to get more votes than he did in August and saying his party had no time for empty rhetoric and divisive politics . The election board said on Twitter it was meeting and would communicate the way forward. But the announcements could further prolong nearly three months of political uncertainty that has worried citizens and blunted growth in Kenya, East Africa s biggest economy and a staunch Western ally in a region roiled by conflict. An ally of Odinga called for nationwide protests from Wednesday, raising the prospect of more clashes between police and demonstrators. For now though there was little sign that the demonstrations could boil over into ethnic clashes. Protests and ethnic violence killed 1,200 people after a disputed 2007 election. In his announcement, Odinga repeated previous criticism of the election board, called the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), for not replacing some officials, who he blamed for irregularities in the Aug. 8 poll. On Sept. 1, the Supreme Court nullified incumbent Kenyatta s win due to procedural irregularities and ordered a new election between Kenyatta against Odinga to be held within 60 days. There is no intention on the part of the IEBC to undertake any changes to its operations and parts of the personnel to ensure that the illegalities and irregularities that led to the invalidation of 8th of August do not happen again, Odinga told a news conference in the capital of Nairobi. Indications are that elections scheduled for the 26th of October will be worse than the previous one, he said. In the interest of the people of Kenya, the region and world at large, we believe that all will be best served by (opposition alliance) NASA vacating the presidential candidature of elections. Since the Supreme Court ruling, police have repeatedly used teargas to disperse small protests by the opposition demanding the election board change some officials. Senator James Orengo, a key Odinga ally, called for countrywide protests after Odinga spoke. Tomorrow all over the country there are going to be demonstrations the basis will be no reforms, no elections, Orengo said. Kenyatta told a political rally the election would proceed as planned and he was sure he would win again, citing the majority that his party won in both houses of parliament and among the country s 47 governors. We have no problem going back to elections. We are sure we will get more votes than the last time, Kenyatta said in the southern town of Voi, speaking in Kiswahili in a speech carried on local television. Among a series of comments later on Twitter, he said: We don t have time for empty rhetoric and divisive politics. Our agenda is to fulfill our promises to the Kenyan people. Murithi Mutiga, a senior Horn of Africa analyst for the global thinktank International Crisis Group, said the country looked headed for a protracted political stand-off that could rapidly escalate if there was a miscalculation by either side. The economy has already been battered by months and months of endless electioneering and now we see a protracted stalemate. Kenyatta will try everything to make sure the election goes ahead and Odinga might go back to the Supreme Court, he said. The political elites have really squandered the opportunity to consolidate the countries democracy ... both sides will inevitably try to assert themselves, including on the streets. We may see clashes between protesters and police. It looks grim. On Monday, a Kenyan rights group said 37 people had been killed during protests immediately after the Aug. 8 election. Almost all of them had been killed by the police. On Tuesday, legislators from the ruling party were debating proposed amendments to the election laws, which said if a candidate boycotted an election, the remaining candidate automatically wins. Opposition legislators boycotted the session. The draft amendments require another reading and a presidential signature before they become law. Ruling party legislators told Reuters on Monday that the amendments were designed to head off a constitutional crisis if Odinga pulled out of the election. The uncertainty, combined with a regional drought and a slowdown in private sector credit, led the Kenyan government to trim this year s growth forecast from 5.9 percent to 5.5 percent last month. We are not talking about a prolonged period of violence like we saw in 2007 and 2008 but more about a prolonged period of uncertainty about getting a government in place and the fiscal outlook, said Kevin Daly, a member of the Aberdeen Standard Investments investment committee. As a fixed income investor you worry not only about the growth story but also the fiscal outlook. | 0fake |
House approves Syrian refugees bill | Top Dems want White House to call off Part B demo — The next cancer drug shortage | 0fake |
Trump Aides Scramble, Say Donald Trump’s Threats Weren’t Serious, ‘Just His Mood’ | After news broke that Kim Jong Un might be capable of launching a nuclear attack on American soil, Donald Trump escalated the ongoing conflict between the United States and North Korea when he threatened to respond with fire and fury. The North Korean leader responded by threatening to attack the American territory of Guam, possibly preemptively.But Trump s aides say that we are making a mountain out of a molehill and there is really no need for all of us to be scared shitless. According to the White House, Trump didn t really mean it when he threatened nuclear war and we shouldn t take his threats seriously because he was just in a bad mood."Fire and fury" from yesterday was not carefully vetted language from Trump, per several ppl with knowledge. "Don't read too much into it." Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) August 9, 2017So, see folks? Nothing to worry about here. He wasn t serious about blasting the whole world to smithereens. He was just cranky.The New York Times reports:Among those taken by surprise, they said, was John F. Kelly, the retired four-star Marine general who has just taken over as White House chief of staff and has been with the president at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., for his working vacation.The president had been told about a Washington Post story on North Korea s progress in miniaturizing nuclear warheads so that they could fit on top of a ballistic missile, and was in a bellicose mood, according to a person who spoke with him before he made the statement.But here s the thing. Donald Trump is at least supposed to be the President of the United States dammit. It doesn t matter what mood you re in when you re the leader of the free world dammit. You can t just start World War III because somebody peed in your cornflakes that morning. It doesn t work that way. Trump s moods and lack of any sort of discipline or self-control are going to get a lot of people killed if he doesn t learn when to shut his big mouth.Read more:Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
Debate: Washington's Syria policy | The Debate Washington's Syria policy
In this episode of The Debate, Press TV has conducted an interview with Brian Becker, with the ANSWER Coalition, and Michael Lane, the founder of the American Institute for Foreign Policy, both from Washington, to discuss recent revelations by Virginia State Senate Richard Hayden that the war in Syria would have been over by now if the US had put an end to its intervention when Russia entered the war-ravaged country. Loading ... | 1real |
2015: It's time to fire the IRS | Imagine what would happen if a retail store or company like Best Buy or Home Depot announced it has plans to slash customer service, that it will make people stand in lines for at least a half hour, and that any customer due a refund will have to wait several weeks.
Oh, and it may not be able to prevent identity theft.
That company would probably soon find itself in chapter 11 bankruptcy as shoppers fled to other banks or stores or restaurants where they can get first class service. That's what America is about and every businessman and woman knows the customer always comes first.
But the Internal Revenue Service now says that taxpayers had better get used to shabby service from the tax collection agency. And the IRS is hardly an agency known for warm and friendly service to begin with.
Complaining about belt tightening budget cuts, this week IRS Commissioner John Koskinen lectured: "People who file paper tax returns could wait an extra week—or possibly longer—to see their refund. Taxpayers with errors or questions on their returns that require additional manual review will also face delays.” It says it will cut enforcement efforts to root out identity theft.
Another IRS official went even further, suggesting wait times of at least half an hour to get through on the 1-800 help line. She warned that people who call in might want to bring some knitting, and that by the time you get through to a live human being, "you might be able to knit a sock." And they call this a "help" line!
There's not much taxpayers can do about this because after all, the IRS is a government monopoly. You can't file your tax return or have it processed by anyone else. Though it is interesting that the president of H&R Block, one of the nation's largest tax preparation firms, said on Fox News on Wednesday that "this is a story that will obviously help our business."
Congress needs to hold the IRS accountable and demand the firing of Mr. Kostiken because he has he admitted openly he can't do his job. The IRS is nearly an $11 billion a year agency with some 100,000 employees. Congress wants to cut its budget by less than 4 percent and the agency says it can't function. During the recession many businesses took cuts of 30 and 40 percent and they did it by becoming more efficient and cutting waste.
Meanwhile the IRS has spent millions of dollars on conferences at exotic resorts for its employees with some suites costing $3,000 a night. And Mr. Koskinen says he can't find places to cut.
The IRS has been rocked by scandals of targeting, abusing and financially harming individuals and conservative groups it doesn't agree with. Maybe it could shut down that division and use those resources to help taxpayers. Instead of showing signs of remorse the agency brass is petulant. The attempt to extort more tax dollars out of taxpayers is the so-called Washington Monument ploy and Congress should demand an immediate private audit of the agency's spending habits.
What is amazing is that Washington demands full accountability and accuracy from tax filers, but the tax collection department is the least accountable agency of government. If the IRS can't administer the tax code with 100,000 employees - it sounds like we need a new IRS and a new tax system.
Stephen Moore is a Fox News contributor. Moore is the Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Project for Economic Growth, at The Heritage Foundation. He is also an economic consultant with Freedom Works. Prior to joining Heritage he wrote on the economy and public policy for The Wall Street Journal. | 0fake |
BREAKING BOMBSHELL: Wikileaks Exposes Hillary’s Campaign “Remain Close” with Convicted Serial Child Molester – TruthFeed | BREAKING BOMBSHELL: Wikileaks Exposes Hillary’s Campaign “Remain Close” with Convicted Serial Child Molester BREAKING BOMBSHELL: Wikileaks Exposes Hillary’s Campaign “Remain Close” with Convicted Serial Child Molester Breaking News By Amy Moreno November 5, 2016
We’ve learned a great deal from the Wikileaks Podesta emails.
From pay to play scams run by the Hillary to vile, nasty name-calling by the campaign chiefs to macabre occult “spirit cooking” ceremonies and the ongoing attempts to hide Hillary’s emails from FBI investigators and the public.
Now, we’re finding out a VERY DISTURBING fact.
John Podesta, Hillary’s CAMPAIGN CHAIR has CLOSE family ties to CONVICTED SERIAL CHILD MOLESTER Denny Hastert .
From Wikipedia…
In the email below, Podesta’s brother mentions Denny, saying he’s remained “CLOSE” to him.
Denny Hastert was a wrestling coach, and he molested the boys on his team and then paid “hush money” to cover it up.
These are the people who the Hillary campaign, and their family members call friends and keep in “close touch with.”
It’s disgusting.
This is why the word is out that the FBI and NYPD are absolutely disgusted by the content of the new Clinton emails being investigated which may involve child sex trafficking. This is a movement – we are the political OUTSIDERS fighting against the FAILED GLOBAL ESTABLISHMENT! Join the resistance and help us fight to put America First! Amy Moreno is a Published Author , Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here . Support the Trump Movement and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 1real |
Putin accuses U.S. of plotting to break landmark arms control pact | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused the United States of plotting to withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty, which bans short and intermediate-range land-based nuclear and conventional missiles. Both Russia and the United States have accused each other of breaking the landmark arms control treaty that helped end the Cold War and have said its existence is now under threat. | 0fake |
Treat Kidney Infection With These Home Remedies | Back pain Pain in the side
It is important to treat properly to reduce risk of severe conditions such as: kidney abscess, blood poisoning, severe infection, kidney failure and more. Causes of kidney infection
Many reasons lead to kidney infection like weakened immune systems, anatomy of urination, toilet hygiene, kidney stone, sexually active females…
Here are some home remedies which can help you treat effectively. Stay hydrated
Drink enough of fluid is the best way to keep your body hydrated. In addition, it is important to prevent kidney stone. Water helps reduce risk of salt and minerals which probably form stone. Try to drink a glass of lemon juice to refresh your kidney. You can look at other benefits from lemon: Top 10 Natural Benefits of Lemon Diet
What you eat and drink can affect to your kidney condition. Otherwise, here are some recommended foods which researchers showed you should put it into your daily diet such as: apples, onions, cabbage, and cauliflower. These foods reduce inflammation and ease kidney infection symptoms. However, be caution with amount of phosphorus in your diet. Because of phosphorus can cause serious situation and calcification. Lifestyle
There are a large of number bad habits which might push your condition more severe and prolong your healing process such as drinking too much alcohol, smoking and lacking of sleep. Therefore, try to stop smoking, alcohol and sleep enough to help your body healthy. Apple cider vinegar
Apple cider vinegar is great to treat infection inside the body. Kidney infection is be treated by apple cider vinegar. There are some acids in this remedy which can reduce inflammation. To get the most effective from apple cider vinegar you should combine with honey. Mix 2 teaspoon of honey with 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar then drink several times per day. To know more health benefits of apple cider vinegar you can visit here: 16 Ways That Apple Cider Vinegar Benefits You Herbal tea
There are many types of herbal teas which are good for our body such as chamomile tea, marshmallow tea and parsley tea. These herbal reduce infections and prevent kidney stone. What’s more, it eases your symptoms and shortens the duration. You should use at least twice a day to get effectively. Baking soda
This is probably the first time you heard about baking soda which may treat kidney infection but it is true. Baking soda replenishes bicarbonate levels in the kidney. Put one teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water and drink it several times per day. Garlic
Garlic is related to passing salt in the urine. Therefore, it is good for diuretic properties. Potentially, garlic can help your body prevent heart disease and skin problems. Garlic contains allicin that avoid bacterial and infection.
Resources: | 1real |
Republican convention’s ‘non-conventional’ list: Model, astronaut and Trump clan | Donald Trump’s convention will feature an eclectic mix of cultural figures, including the first woman to command a space shuttle mission, survivors of the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 and an underwear model.
But while several Republican Party establishment figures will take the stage next week in Cleveland, the national convention to officially make Trump the party’s presidential nominee will be devoid of some of the GOP’s most seasoned leaders and brightest new stars.
Republican officials on Thursday released a long-awaited list of convention personalities billed as “non-conventional speakers” who emphasize “real world experience.”
The convention’s theme will be Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” with a core focus on national security, immigration, trade and jobs.
The program includes more than a dozen current and former elected officials, including the leaders of the party’s congressional wing, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).
[Analysis: The stumbling blocks for an anti-Trump mutiny]
A handful of governors and other lawmakers are scheduled to give addresses, including former primary opponents Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
“There’s going to be a unified convention,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller told reporters Thursday, adding that the announced agenda was only a partial list of speakers. “People are going to be united behind Mr. Trump.”
The unusual collection of nonpolitical speakers seems designed to broaden Trump’s appeal. Roster names include retired astronaut Eileen Collins, the first female space-shuttle pilot and mission commander; Mark Geist and John Tiegen, two survivors of the 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi; and Antonio Sabato Jr., a former Calvin Klein underwear model, soap-opera actor and reality-television star.
Some sports figures will take the stage here, including pro golfer Natalie Gulbis and Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White.
Tim Tebow, a 28-year-old former National Football League quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner, was expected to speak at the gathering, according to GOP officials. Tebow is admired by many conservatives because of his outspoken evangelical Christian beliefs.
But Tebow said Thursday night in a Facebook video that he would not be speaking: “It’s amazing how fast rumors fly. And that’s exactly what it is, a rumor.”
But some sports heroes of decades past whom Trump has said he would like to see at the convention — such as former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight and boxing promoter Don King — are not listed as speakers.
Also notably absent from the list of speakers was Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who was identified by Trump allies Thursday as the candidate’s likely vice presidential pick. If chosen, Pence would deliver an acceptance speech after being formally nominated for vice president.
Two other vice-presidential finalists, Christie and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), are listed on the program, as is Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), who also was vetted as a vice-presidential prospect.
Not speaking in Cleveland are the GOP’s past two presidential nominees, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), as well as its only two living former presidents, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush. None will be in Cleveland for the week-long festivities.
Also excluded from the speakers list are many of the party’s more diverse rising stars, including South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Tim Scott (S.C.), and Rep. Mia Love (Utah).
By contrast, the Democratic National Convention the following week in Philadelphia is expected to feature a full assortment of party stars — past, present and future — including President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Biden, former president Bill Clinton, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.).
The disparity in political star power between the conventions speaks volumes about the state of the two parties, with Republicans divided over their controversial new standard-bearer.
[Cleveland braces for spillover on the streets]
Looking ahead to Philadelphia, Republican strategist Rick Wilson said of the Democrats, “Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren — they’re all going to be out there swinging for the fences. But the Republicans, it’ll be like a hostage video of people forced on stage.”
The Cleveland convention will be orchestrated to help expand Trump’s appeal to the general electorate. To that end, several members of his family are expected to give speeches, including his wife, Melania, and his four oldest children: Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric and Tiffany.
In addition, other speakers who have known Trump and his family through the years plan to take the stage. They include Haskel Lookstein, a rabbi in New York who converted Ivanka Trump to Judaism; Tom Barrack, a wealthy California-based investor who has worked with Donald Trump on real-estate deals; and Kerry Woolard, the general manager of Trump Winery in Virginia.
With the public on edge following a spate of shootings by police and last week’s killing of five officers in Dallas, Trump has sought to brand himself as the law-and-order candidate. Some speakers at the Cleveland convention could help him make that case, including Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a Democrat who is an outspoken critic of the Black Lives Matter movement and is a frequent Fox News Channel guest; former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; and two female attorneys general, Pam Bondi of Florida and Leslie Rutledge of Arkansas.
Several early Trump backers are being rewarded with convention speaking slots, among them Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, a college founded by his late televangelist father. Falwell campaigned frequently at Trump’s side leading up to the Iowa caucuses.
But one especially prominent Trump surrogate is not listed as a speaker: Sarah Palin, a former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee, who has garnered mixed reviews for her campaign-trail appearances supporting Trump.
Here in Cleveland, the Republican National Convention’s Rules Committee convened early Thursday and met late into the night to review the 42 rules governing the party structure and the selection of a presidential candidate. The big undecided issue remains whether or not to continue binding convention delegates to the results of caucuses and primaries or to unbind delegates and allow them to vote however they want.
Another subject of talks, which eventually collapsed with no resolution, centered on whether to return the party to closed contests — meaning that only Republicans could vote in presidential caucuses and primaries. A group led by Ken Cuccinnelli, the former Virginia attorney general, also wanted to make other changes to party operations.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and several members of the party’s leadership generally support the idea of reverting back to closed contests by awarding more convention delegates to states that hold closed contests.
Cuccinnelli said he proposed giving 20 percent more delegates to states that opted to hold a closed contest. Priebus and his team considered the offer, cut ultimately declined, according to people familiar with the talks.
Ed O’Keefe and Dan Balz contributed to this report. | 0fake |
Beard trend nature’s response to female waxing. More soon. | Posted: Nov 16th, 2016 by Guest Click for more article by Guest .. More Stories about: Ticker | 1real |
Study: More Than Half of Car Crashes Involve Drivers Distracted by Cell Phones - Breitbart | A new study found that 52% of roadside accidents involved drivers distracted by their phones. [Apparently, being in sole control of one of the aluminum shells hurtling at high speed on America’s roads isn’t enough to hold drivers’ attention. Traffic deaths have jumped by 14% since 2014, according to Cambridge Mobile Telematics, which conducted the study. The research firm found that 52% of accidents involved drivers who were distracted by their phones. phone use while driving laws have done little to curb the habits of its citizens. Only fourteen states have banned handheld use of phones while driving, and only twenty prohibit phone use by school bus drivers a single state bans bus drivers from texting. But Cambridge Mobile Telematics’ Chief Technology Officer, Hari Balakrishnan, has hope: Distracted driving due to smartphone use is intuitively blamed for the increase in road crashes and claims. What’s less intuitive is that smartphones hold the solution to the problem they created. Drivers now have access to tools that analyze their driving and achieve real behavioral change through immediate and ongoing feedback. Balakrishnan called distracted driving “one of the most urgent public safety problems facing our communities today” and stressed the importance of taking a “critical look at how we can most effectively reduce the danger that drivers face. ” CMT is working to do their part. Their DriveWell app both monitors drivers and encourages safer driving habits. The site claims that “users see an average reduction of 35% in phone distraction, 20% in hard braking, and 20% in speeding all within less than 30 days of using the program. ” Their goals are best summed up by Balakrishnan himself: “By harnessing the very technology that threatens driver safety, and using it to help drivers understand and improve their behavior, we’re making the world safer by the day. ” Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both. | 0fake |
Donald Trump Signals DACA Policy Within Next Four Weeks - Breitbart | President Donald Trump has a plan to deal with former President Obama’s executive amnesty for children of illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally. [“We’ll be coming out with policy on that over the next period of four weeks,” Trump explained when asked about the “DREAMers” in an interview with ABC News anchor David Muir. In 2012, Obama instituted DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) allowing these children to stay in the country legally. During the campaign, Trump vowed to repeal DACA and DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents) a promise that activists are watching closely. During the ABC interview, however, Trump urged the “DREAMers” not to worry. “They are here illegally. They shouldn’t be very worried. I do have a big heart. We’re going to take care of everybody,” he said, promising to restore a strong border. “Where you have great people that are here that have done a good job, they should be far less worried. ” Trump added that his administration would focus on criminal illegal immigrants first. “Those people have to be worried ’cause they’re getting out,” he said. “We’re gonna get them out. We’re gonna get ’em out fast. ” | 0fake |
Explosion damages Swedish police station, none injured | STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - An explosion overnight in the southern Swedish town of Helsingborg caused extensive damage to the entrance of a police station, authorities said on Wednesday. Nobody was injured in the explosion, which occurred shortly after midnight local time and also shattered windows in a neighboring building, police said in a statement. It is unclear what caused the detonation, police said. Police said they were carrying out checks in the Helsingborg area but had not made any arrests. Gang-related violent crime in southern Sweden has been in the spotlight in recent years with several shootings in the region. | 0fake |
Charlie Hebdo attack: Suspects' names, photos released | (CNN) French police say two suspects in Wednesday's terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine are still on the loose after escaping onto the streets of Paris.
In a statement on their website, French national police ask for information on the whereabouts of suspects Cherif Kouachi and Said Kouachi, warning that both could be armed and dangerous.
Police released photos of the two men, who Paris Deputy Mayor Patrick Klugman told CNN are brothers in their 30s.
Cherif Kouachi, left, and Said Kouachi, right, are suspects in the Paris attack.
Police found an ID document of Said Kouachi at the scene of the shooting, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported. "It was their only mistake," said Dominique Rizet, BFMTV's police and justice consultant, reporting that the discovery helped the investigation.
Citing sources, the Agence France Presse news agency reported that an 18-year-old suspect in the attack had surrendered to police. CNN has not independently confirmed whether the suspect has surrendered.
Police fanned out across France in an intense manhunt for the suspects, who were masked and dressed in black when they burst into the satirical magazine's office Wednesday, killing 12 people.
A tactical unit was deployed in an operation about a 144 kilometers (about 90 miles) from Paris in Reims, France, following the attack, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported. Authorities haven't revealed details about the target of the operation, but speculation surged in French media that investigators could be closing in on the suspects.
French authorities vowed to step up security and apprehend those responsible.
"Everything will be done to arrest (the attackers)," French President Francois Hollande said in a speech Wednesday night. "... We also have to protect all public places. Security forces will be deployed everywhere there can be the beginning" of a threat.
It's too soon to say whether the suspects were operating alone, CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said.
The gunmen said they were avenging the Prophet Mohammed and shouted "Allahu akbar," which translates to "God is great," Molins said.
A witness who works in the office opposite the magazine's told BFMTV that he saw two hooded men, dressed in black, enter the building heavily armed.
"We then heard them open fire inside, with many shots," he said. "We were all evacuated to the roof. After several minutes, the men fled, after having continued firing in the middle of the street."
The men reportedly spoke fluent French with no accent.
One unsettling video, posted to YouTube, shows two men shooting on a Paris street, then walking up to and firing point-blank at a seemingly wounded man as he lay on the ground.
Video shows a gunman approaching his getaway car and raising his finger in the air in what appears to be a signal, possibly to another vehicle or other people who might have played a role in the attack, a Western intelligence source briefed on the French investigation told CNN.
'Parisians will not be afraid'
At an event in Paris' Place de la Republique, demonstrators held up pens in honor of the slain cartoonists and chanted, "We are Charlie!" Pictures posted online showed similar demonstrations in other cities, including Rome, Berlin and Barcelona.
"Parisians will not be afraid," Klugman said. "We will fight terrorism with our common values, freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. ... We are at war, but we still want to behave as a leading democracy."
Armed soldiers could be seen standing guard outside monuments, in transit stations and elsewhere in well-trafficked spots around France by Wednesday evening.
Police impounded a black Citroen in northeastern Paris similar to the one purportedly used by the attackers as a getaway car. Video from CNN affiliate BFMTV shows the vehicle being towed from Porte de Pantin, in Paris' 19th district.
Investigators will do a complete DNA work-up on the Citroen, including soil signatures that might suggest where the gunmen came from, a Western intelligence source briefed on the probe told CNN.
The same source said that French authorities are searching all travel records from the past 17 days to see whether any of the attackers entered the European nation over the holidays. This includes checks at Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, as well as whatever limited information is available from train stations.
Thursday will be a national day of mourning for those killed in the attack, Hollande said. He asked for a moment of reflection Thursday and said flags will be at half-staff for three days.
Its last tweet before Wednesday's attack featured a cartoon of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Earlier cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed spurred protests and the burning of the magazine's office three years ago.
A year later, in an interview with Le Monde newspaper, Charbonnier gave little indication that he planned to change Charlie Hebdo's ways.
"It may sound pompous," he said, "but I'd rather die standing than live on my knees."
The attack on the magazine spurred a wave of support for the publication and its practices around France and the world. | 0fake |
What The Trump Skeptics Got Wrong | Home This Month Popular What The Trump Skeptics Got Wrong What The Trump Skeptics Got Wrong FitzRoy Sommerset
FitzRoy is a British and American Nationalist who refuses to apologize for the British Empire. As a young man, he "took a President's shilling" and served in the U.S. Army. In his free time, he enjoys studying history and destroying the SJW revisionist narrative. November 12, 2016 Politics
There have been few true upsets in our history: Caesar crossing the Rubicon, Wellington’s victories at Assaye and Waterloo, and Washington’s victory at Yorktown over the most professional army in the world. It is often said that when General Charles O’Hara (who had the dubious distinction of surrendering to both George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte) surrendered Cornwallis’s sword, the band played “The World Turned Upside Down.”
Today, the establishment and the intellectuals cannot help but share a similar sentiment as Cornwallis or O’Hara did at Yorktown. And I fully admit: In spite of my vote for Trump, I fully expected him to lose. The polls, his 60% negative approval rating, and the sheer forces of the media, the FBI and even some Republicans were arrayed against him. My skepticism of Trump was not his ideas, but his chances of winning the election. Myself, and other conservative intellectual skeptics who voted for him, were wrong.
I am one of the intellectuals who expected a Trump defeat. I’ve been studying politics, history and economics for years, reading countless books on the matter from The Prince to Freakonomics to The Wealth of Nations.
And I was wrong. It was a Canadian housewife and an Iranian pickup artist who called it correctly for Trump. Trump beat the odds, he beat the intellectuals, and made the establishment “babies in the hands of a giant” as was said after Napoleon’s resounding victory at Austerlitz in 1806.
The left is currently in panic-mode in an attempt to explain how they lost. They are calling Trump supporters racist, sexists, homophobic and even sex offenders! But in the end, it was this same blindness that made them psychologically incapable of defeating Donald Trump. Trump was immune to almost all conventional political weapons. Trump won because of the following
1. The left seemed far more interested in calling Trump and his supporters racist than saying something of substance.
2. Outlets such as the New York Times did blatantly stupid crap like try to blame the NRA for the Orlando Shootings, and even tried to call them terrorists. In this, they beat even Trump in outrageousness: they thought the American people were stupid, so they just lied to them and said “fuck it, those peasants will believe anything we write.”
3. All Trump had to do was call them on their bullshit, and call them liars. And he was 100% right: the MSM has lied to the American people this entire election cycle. Subsequent to every terrorist attack perpetrated by a Muslim, the MSM continued to push the narrative that “home grown right-wing terrorism is the real problem.” Trump called them on their lies, and the American people, who are tired of being lied to by the MSM, cheered him on, even if he had a few issues with the truth himself.
4. The Democrats ran the absolute worst candidate possible. Hillary Clinton had negative approval ratings that rivaled Trump’s own. And she was bland. And she couldn’t decide if she was a moderate or a firebrand progressive. And she is corrupt, and lied about it, stupidly thinking the American people were too ignorant to understand that putting classified information on a private email server is a recklessly irresponsible thing to do.
5. Trump knew how to communicate with people. He knew that whites without a college degree were tired of being talked down to by progressives on the left and genuine intellectuals on the right (like myself). I freely admit I am guilty of this: when you study two thousand years of philosophy, economics and rhetoric (Cicero was particularly effective), it is sometimes frustrating when people don’t approach a situation in terms of axioms and proofs. The working class that built America go by what they feel in their gut, and often times, they are right.
All in all, the left failed because they failed to understand America. They bought into the idea that “Americans are stupid…haha!” Americans are not stupid: they may not be smart, but they sure as hell know when a liberal taking head is lying to them about now the NRA is basically the Taliban in an obviously biased hit piece. Hillary took working class Americans for granted, and she lost. This should stand as a parallel for black Americans whom the Democrats also take for granted.
I am pleased that Donald Trump is now President-Elect. He wasn’t just a candidate, he was the anti-candidate. He did everything a politician should not do. He used vulgar language. He talked freely about his ideas. He made no pretense about being polite to those who are destroying America. He turned weaknesses (such as his spotty track record) into strengths that would have ended any other candidate’s campaign. He was the un-candidate America needed.
I have high hopes for Trump’s presidency. In spite of my tepid support, I see Trump as a President who can do a lot of good, and has the potential to do more good than any President of recent memory.
First, Trump spat in the face of PC culture and won. Just as Scott Walker took on the Unions in Wisconsin and cucked them by winning the recall election by getting more votes than he did in the previous election, Trump defeated the SJW’s. If Trump can keep this up, we can achieve a major strategic victory in the war against political correctness, and get back to a concept called “actually being correct.”
Secondly, Trump is an unapologetic nationalist. He loves America, and doesn’t give a damn if you think Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is a great book. The Department of Cultural Guilt that has infected schools in America teaches children to hate their own country. I look forward to seeing Trump abolish the practice of teaching children that the Founding Fathers were evil racists, the British Empire did nothing good for the world, and that America is the greatest evil the world has ever seen.
Lastly, Trump is the antithesis of everything the Social Justice Warriors stand for: a successful alpha male who tells people to go fuck themselves and still gets elected. I hope to see a rise in masculinity in America: studies have shown that testosterone levels are down among the American male population. This should rise under Trump, as men embrace their masculinity instead of hiding it for fear of being accused of sexual assault.
I was a Trump skeptic. I underestimated him. I didn’t disagree with him on much (perhaps maybe 20% of his platform), but I had little faith he could pull it off. And I was vocal about my concerns regarding his elect-ability. But like the liberals, I was wrong. And a Canadian housewife and a former pickup-artist-turned-conservative-philosopher were 100% right.
I recall something I told a fellow soldier while on a long, boring convoy operation in Iraq: “When a genius says something, others say ‘wow, that is way above my head.’ But when a true genius says something, others say ‘wow, why didn’t I think of that before?!” Trump is a true genius: he stated the obvious to the American people and made them believe he wanted to Make America Great Again (and I think he genuinely does). He didn’t use fancy graphs or focus groups: he spoke the truth, without political correctness.
And now he is President-Elect. | 1real |
Trump voices caution on relationship with Putin | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump voiced caution on Wednesday on his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he would wait and see about future ties with Moscow. But Trump, at a White House news conference, said that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s meetings in Moscow this week, which included a meeting with Putin, went better than expected. | 0fake |
Major GOP Figure Won’t Rule Out Stealing Nomination From Trump | Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) refused to rule out accepting the Republican presidential nomination at a contested convention. The comments from the man who is second in line to the presidency were published on Tuesday night as Donald Trump swept to major wins in Republican primaries in Florida, Illinois, and other states.The story was broken by John Harwood of CNBC:Ryan, who ran in 2012 as Mitt Romney s vice presidential nominee, has taken no public actions to encourage the idea that he could become a candidate. To the contrary, a political committee set up to draft him into the 2016 race recently shut down at the urging of the speaker s aides. I actually think you should run for president if you re going to be president, if you want to be president, Ryan said in the interview. I m not running for president. I made that decision, consciously, not to. The Republican establishment is in a panic, as Trump has continued to march towards the 1,237 delegates he needs to win to earn the nomination. He crushed Senator Marco Rubio in his home state of Florida, winning all 99 of the delegates there up for grabs. Early projections indicated that Trump had about 260 more delegates than his closest competitor, Senator Ted Cruz.Cruz and Governor John Kasich remained in the race as Rubio dropped out, betting they could hold on until the GOP convention in Cleveland this summer and possibly earn the nomination at a contested convention.Those candidates and the establishment are betting on the remote possibility that Trump would fail on the first convention ballot, after which the delegates are no longer bound to the candidate who won primaries and caucuses currently Trump.Ryan winning the nomination would also anger anti-establishment Republicans and conservatives, who opposed the Speaker in the internal fight over who would succeed then-Speaker John Boehner when he decided to retire.Featured image via Flickr | 1real |
Russian bombers hit militant targets in Syria's Deir al-Zor: agencies | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Six long-range strategic bombers took off from their bases in Russia to hit militant targets in the Syrian province of Deir al-Zor on Wednesday, Russian news agencies cited the Russian Defence Ministry as saying. The Tu-22M3 planes flew over Iran and Iraq to hit the targets which included terrorist strongholds and depots with weapons and ammunition, TASS news agency reported. | 0fake |
Suspect in British Lawmaker’s Killing: ‘My Name Is Death to Traitors’ - The New York Times | LONDON — The man charged with murdering the British lawmaker Jo Cox made his first court appearance on Saturday, telling the court when asked his name, “My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain. ” Thomas Mair, 52, had been charged earlier Saturday with murder and several other offenses, including inflicting grievous bodily harm and possession of a firearm. Mr. Mair, of the town of Birstall, appeared briefly at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London. Once charges have been brought, British media law prohibits any reporting about the case that might prejudice a trial. Ms. Cox, 41, a member of Parliament who advocated for immigrants’ causes, was gunned down on Thursday outside a library in Birstall, a town near the city of Leeds in northern England, as she was wrapping up a meeting with constituents. A man was also slightly injured in the attack. Her death came just days before a referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union, and it led to an immediate suspension of campaigning on both sides out of respect for her memory. But Vote Leave, which supports Britain’s departure from the bloc, said Friday that it would resume campaigning over the weekend. Issues of immigration and national identity have been central to the occasionally bitter clashes over the referendum, and critics say the tone of the debate has verged on racism and xenophobia. The killing of Ms. Cox — the first of a sitting member of Parliament since the Irish Republican Army assassinated Ian Gow, a Conservative lawmaker, in 1990 — elicited an outpouring of sympathy in Britain, where gun ownership is strictly regulated. Ms. Cox, a member of the opposition Labour Party, was elected to Parliament to represent the area of Batley and Spen only in May 2015. But she had already established a strong reputation. Prime Minister David Cameron and his rival Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, both praised her as a rising star in British politics. President Obama was reported to have called Ms. Cox’s husband to offer condolences. “The president noted that the world is a better place because of her selfless service to others, and that there can be no justification for this heinous crime, which robbed a family, a community, and a nation of a dedicated wife, mother, and public servant,” Sky News reported, citing the White House. | 0fake |
Chinese ambassador to U.S.: Sovereignty not a 'bargaining chip' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a veiled warning to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, China’s ambassador to the United States said on Wednesday that Beijing would never bargain with Washington over issues involving its national sovereignty or territorial integrity. Ambassador Cui Tiankai, speaking to executives of top U.S. companies, said China and the United States needed to work to strengthen their relationship. “The political foundation of China-U.S. relations should not be undermined. It should be preserved,” Cui said. “And basic norms of international relations should be observed, not ignored, certainly not be seen as something you can trade off,” he said. “And indeed, national sovereignty and territorial integrity are not bargaining chips. Absolutely not. I hope everybody would understand that.” He did not specifically mention Taiwan, or Trump’s comments last weekend that the United States did not necessarily have to stick to its nearly four-decade policy of recognizing that Taiwan is part of “one China.” Cui’s remarks were in line with recent protests from China’s Foreign Ministry, which regards the “one China” principle as the “political basis” for U.S.-China ties.. Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under its control. China considers Taiwan independence a red line issue. On Thursday, China’s influential state-run tabloid the Global Times said China needed to take the lead in deciding the island’s future. “It is hoped that peace in the Taiwan Straits won’t be disrupted. But the Chinese mainland should display its resolution to recover Taiwan by force. Peace does not belong to cowards,” it said in an editorial. Trump, in an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” suggested that the U.S. position on Taiwan could become part of his pledge to negotiate more favorable trade terms with China. “I fully understand the ‘one China’ policy, but I don’t know why we have to be bound by a ‘one China’ policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade,” Trump said. Trump’s comments came after he prompted a diplomatic protest from China over his decision to accept a telephone call from Taiwan’s president on Dec. 2. U.S. corporate executives are increasingly pessimistic about their business prospects in China in light of tough restrictions on foreign investment in the country’s vast service sector, new cyber-security regulations that favor domestic technologies and weak enforcement of intellectual property protections. Earlier on Wednesday, news that Chinese officials may penalize a U.S. automaker for monopolistic pricing behavior pushed down shares of General Motors Co (GM.N) and Ford Motor Co (F.N). Cui did not mention the autos case, but said: “China will ensure that there is a level playing field, for all companies, in China, both domestic and foreign.” | 0fake |
Liberty Report talks to Vanessa Beeley: ‘Everything the US media says about Aleppo is wrong’ | 21st Century Wire says Why are western media lying and producing a fictional narrative regarding the situation unfolding in Aleppo, Syria?Ron Paul Liberty Report co-host Daniel McAdams talks with 21WIRE special contributor Vanessa Beeley about what is really happening in Aleppo right now. Beeley also reveals new information about the western covert creation, a pseudo NGO called the White Helmets in Syria.What s really going on in Aleppo? Are Assad and Putin exterminating the population for sport? Is it a war against US-backed moderates ? That is what the mainstream media would have us believe. Watch: SUPPORT 21WIRE and its work by Subscribing and becoming a Member @ 21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Republican Outrageously Slanders Hillary By Calling Her A ‘Founding Member Of ISIS’ (VIDEO) | Hillary Clinton should file a lawsuit against Fox News and Rudy Giuliani for this lie.During an appearance on Fox News with Bill O Reilly, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani blamed Hillary Clinton and President Obama for the rise of ISIS and actually had the gall to claim that Clinton is a founding member of the terrorist organization. If you re talking about doing what she wants to do, which is to rally our forces against ISIS, you gotta come back to the White House, you gotta sit in the Situation Room, and you can t leave until you come up with a plan, Giuliani said.O Reilly then whined about President Obama not dropping everything to go back to Washington once news broke of the terrorist attack on Brussels.Ever since the attack, which killed over 30 and injured hundreds, conservatives have been unfairly criticizing President Obama for not canceling his trip in Cuba to hole up in the Situation Room.The problem is that President Obama can t really do anything beyond offering condolences and assistance if Belgium asks for help. Obama offered both in the aftermath of the attack. Conservatives have also said President Obama should go to Belgium, but that would only distract the first responders and police officers from doing their job since security of the president would require lots of preparation and man power.Giuliani then went off the rails into accusations that are nothing short of slander. She helped create ISIS, Giuliani bellowed. Hillary Clinton could be considered a founding member of ISIS. When asked how Clinton created ISIS, Giuliani told O Reilly that she did so by being part of an administration that withdrew from Iraq and by being part of an administration that allowed Maliki to run Iraq into the ground. O Reilly really didn t do much to challenge Giuliani either, which is yet another example of the lack of journalistic ethics that he and Fox News are known for.In the end, Giuliani said Clinton should have resigned as Secretary of State because that s what a patriot does. Here s the video via YouTube.The fact is, however, that it was President Bush who signed the withdrawal of forces agreement with Iraq and helped install Nouri al-Maliki as the Iraqi Prime Minister in 2006.And let s not forget that Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in the first place, which destabilized the region by removing Saddam Hussein, a traditional enemy of Iran, from power. That alone caused a power vacuum in the region which allowed Iran to have more influence in the region while creating the conditions for ISIS to rise.Bill O Reilly ought to be ashamed of himself for allowing Giuliani to make such outrageous claims, and Hillary Clinton should smack Giuliani with a lawsuit because she clearly has a case against him for slander. Clinton is NOT a member of ISIS and she certainly did not create ISIS. Giuliani, however, is a lying asshole. Featured image via Screenshot | 1real |
Fed Raises Key Interest Rate, Citing Strengthening Economy - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate Wednesday for just the second time since the financial crisis of 2008, saying the American economy is expanding at a healthy pace and setting itself up as a counterweight to Donald J. Trump’s push for considerably faster growth. The Fed cited the steady growth of employment and other economic measures, and signaled that it expects to raise rates more quickly next year to prevent the economy from growing too quickly. “My colleagues and I are recognizing the considerable progress the economy has made,” Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s chairwoman, said at a news conference after the announcement. “We expect the economy will continue to perform well. ” The widely expected decision moves the Fed’s benchmark rate to a range of 0. 5 percent to 0. 75 percent, still very low by historical standards. Low rates support economic growth by encouraging borrowing and . The American economy has expanded by about 2 percent a year over the last six years, and the unemployment rate has fallen to 4. 6 percent. The Fed’s assessment that the economy is growing at a healthy pace — not too hot, not too cold — is starkly at odds with Mr. Trump, who has promised 4 percent growth and has described job creation as “terrible” and economic growth as anemic. Already on Wednesday, one Republican member of the House Financial Services Committee, Representative Roger Williams of Texas, criticized the Fed’s move. “Today’s decision by the Fed to raise the interest rate is entirely premature and will be burdensome to a nation already struggling to pull itself out of this Obama economy,” Mr. Williams said in a statement. “By making rates even higher, the Fed is effectively making our hardships even harder. ” Mr. Williams did not object when the Fed raised rates last December. In announcing the decision after a meeting of the Fed’s committee, the central bank gave little indication that Mr. Trump’s election had altered its economic outlook. The Fed said it still expected a slow economic expansion and a steady march toward higher rates. In separate forecasts also published Wednesday, Fed officials predicted three rate increases in 2017. For the first time in recent years, however, there is a real possibility of significant changes in fiscal policy. Republicans will control the White House and both chambers of Congress, and Mr. Trump has promised to increase economic growth and job creation through tax cuts and infrastructure spending. Those measures could spur faster growth after a presidential campaign in which Mr. Trump regularly disparaged the economy’s performance under President Obama. But the Fed reiterated Wednesday that the economy is already expanding at roughly the maximum sustainable pace. Fed officials also see evidence that the labor market is tightening. Several Fed districts reported labor shortages in the central bank’s most recent compilation of economic reports. In the Philadelphia district, construction workers are hard to find. Atlanta reported a shortage of nurses Kansas City, truck drivers Dallas, tech workers. Faster growth, in the Fed’s judgment, would probably lead to higher inflation. As a result, if Republicans succeed in invigorating growth, the Fed is likely to raise rates more quickly. The greater the stimulus, the faster interest rates are likely to rise. “Your expectation should depend very little on what you think that the F. O. M. C. is thinking and very much on your view of Trump policies and their macro effects,” said Jon Faust, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University and a former adviser to Ms. Yellen, referring to the Federal Open Market Committee. “Don’t focus on the Fed. As James Carville regularly reminded the other Clinton on the campaign trail: It’s the economy, stupid. ” Ms. Yellen emphasized that the Fed was not prejudging the likely course of events. She declined several times to comment on the merits of Mr. Trump’s plans or to predict their consequences for the economy. “We’re operating under a cloud of uncertainty at the moment,” Ms. Yellen said. Fed officials predicted that they would raise the Fed’s benchmark rate a little more quickly in the coming years, reaching 2. 1 percent by the end of 2018. In September, they had predicted that it would reach 1. 9 percent by the end of 2018. The new projections, however, reflect a significantly slower pace of increase than last December, when they expected the rate to reach 3. 3 percent by 2018. The combination of steady growth and faster rate increases indicates that some Fed officials expect the central bank to end up offsetting a modest increase in fiscal stimulus. But Ms. Yellen said most Fed officials were reserving judgment. “Changes in fiscal policy or other economic policies could affect the economic outlook,” she said. “Of course, it is far too early to know how those changes will unfold. ” The tensions between monetary and fiscal policy will develop slowly. Legislation takes time to write, and any economic impact would generally be felt in coming years. Political pressures, however, may build more quickly. Mr. Trump has made clear in the past that he likes low interest rates — and some of his plans, like infrastructure investment, will be much easier to fund if rates remain low. “The Fed is in a tricky place,” said Michael Feroli, chief United States economist at JPMorgan Chase. “They’re trying not to prejudge how Congress and the administration duke it out, but once they see that, I think they will respond. ” There is also uncertainty about the Fed’s leadership. Ms. Yellen’s term as chairwoman ends in February 2018, and Mr. Trump has said he would prefer a Republican. Ms. Yellen could remain on the board, a possibility she said Wednesday she had not ruled out. But the Fed, under different leadership, might well choose a different path forward. Some conservative economists, notably John Taylor of Stanford University, argue that the bank should already have raised rates above 1 percent. The economy, for now, keeps plodding along. Steady job growth has reduced the unemployment rate to a level the Fed considers healthy. A little unemployment is natural as people change jobs and businesses close. Ms. Yellen and other Fed officials have said they see some signs of stronger wage growth. Inflation, too, has picked up a little in recent months, although both wages and inflation continue to rise more slowly than the Fed would like to see. Ms. Yellen described the rate increase as “a vote of confidence in the economy. ” The decision was made by a unanimous vote of the 10 members of the Federal Open Market Committee, the first time in recent months the Fed has acted by consensus. Some economists argue that the Fed should wait until inflation strengthens before raising rates, to test whether a stronger economy would persuade some people sidelined during the downturn to start looking for jobs. That would expand the labor force. Unemployment remains particularly high among minorities. That view, however, has found little support among Fed officials, who worry that interest rates will have to be raised more quickly if they wait too long, increasing the chances of pushing the economy into recession. “Apparently, Fed officials think the economy is growing too quickly,” said Ady Barkan, the director of Fed Up, a coalition of liberal groups that has pressed the Fed to continue its stimulus campaign. “I doubt you can find many other Americans who share that opinion. And it’s a strange conclusion to draw in the wake of an election that was so heavily impacted by voters’ economic discontent. ” | 0fake |
Motive elusive in deadly San Bernardino rampage as FBI takes over probe | SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Authorities were still trying Thursday to establish a motive for the deadliest U.S. mass shooting in nearly three years, even as they revealed that the two attackers had amassed a large stockpile of explosives and ammunition.
The rampage killed 14 people, wounded 21 and locked down a swath of Southern California for much of the day Wednesday as investigators scrambled to determine whether they were looking at a terrorist attack or an extremely unusual and lethal case of workplace violence.
The killers were a young husband and wife who welcomed the birth of a daughter just six months ago and showed no outward sign of Islamist radicalization, psychological distress or a desire for mayhem. The couple were slain in a wild police shootout on a residential street four hours after the massacre.
The FBI, which has authority to investigate potential terrorism, announced Thursday that it had taken over the investigation. Authorities were carefully picking through three crime scenes: the Inland Regional Center, where the mass shooting occurred; the San Bernardino street where the couple died in the gun battle with police; and the couple’s rented home in Redlands, Calif., where robots helped investigators root out an arsenal of pipe bombs and thousands of bullets.
Police identified the shooters as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, a county health worker born in Chicago, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, his Pakistani wife, who was in the United States on a visa.
[‘I’ll take a bullet before you do': Scenes from the San Bernardino shooting]
Farook, who had a college degree in environmental health and a steady job as a health inspector, traveled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan last year and returned with Malik, whom he had met online. They were married in the United States, police said.
Authorities have said the two were not on any watch lists. A senior U.S. law enforcement official said that Farook was in contact with persons of interest with possible ties to terrorism but that these were not “substantial” contacts.
Farook’s supervisor, Amanda Adair, who also went to college with him at California State University at San Bernardino, said he “got along with everybody, but he kept his distance.” She said that she “can’t imagine [the shooting] was about work” and that she had no inkling that Farook had the capacity for such violence.
Without a firmly established motive, authorities said Thursday that they could not determine whether they were dealing with terrorists, a disgruntled worker who had enlisted his wife in his cause, or some kind of hybrid of those two scenarios.
“We do not yet know the motive,” David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said at a news conference. “It would be irresponsible and premature for me to call this terrorism.”
The case doesn’t fit any familiar template. If it was terrorism, why would the shooters target co-workers in a small city that many Americans couldn’t find on a map, rather than some more spectacular target? If it was workplace violence, why build up an arsenal of bullets and pipe bombs?
[“I’ve never witnessed something so sad in my life': Stories of the San Bernardino victims]
“It is possible this was terrorist-related, but we don’t know,” President Obama said Thursday in somber remarks in the Oval Office. “It is also possible this was workplace-related.”
Mark Pitcavage, director of the Center on Extremism for the Anti-Defamation League, said that “based on what is known now about the case, it certainly is unusual and does not fit neatly into any of the traditional models of violence that we’re familiar with.”
Police said Farook and Malik were dressed in tactical gear and armed with rifles, handguns and multiple ammunition magazines when, at about 11 a.m., they strode into a conference room where about 80 people were gathered for a staff training session that was transitioning into a holiday party.
They opened fire, spraying 65 to 75 rounds and hitting more than a third of the people. A bullet struck a sprinkler head, and the sprinklers began soaking the room as the fire alarms went off. The shooters fled in a rented black Ford Expedition, leaving behind a bag with three pipe bombs designed to be triggered with a remote-control device from the SUV. The device malfunctioned.
San Bernardino police Lt. Mike Madden, the first law enforcement officer to arrive at the center, described the fresh scent of gunpowder and a horrifying scene for which years of training had not fully prepared him.
“The situation was surreal,” Madden said Thursday. “It was unspeakable, the carnage we were seeing.”
Farook had been with his colleagues at the party earlier in the morning, police said. Authorities could not say conclusively whether there had been a dispute that led Farook to leave the party. But police said a survivor of the shooting told them that Farook slipped away before the massacre.
That tip led police to check Farook’s name, which led to the discovery that he had rented an SUV that matched the description of the getaway car.
Soon, authorities were staking out the couple’s home in Redlands, a suburb 15 minutes to the east. Several hours after the shooting, the SUV rolled by and then sped away, and police gave chase.
The SUV stopped on San Bernardino Avenue, a few miles from the massacre. Cellphone videos captured the furious gun battle that followed. Police said the couple fired 76 rifle rounds; police fired 380.
Farook and Malik died at the scene. Two officers were injured, but the wounds were not life-threatening. The SUV, so riddled with bullets that it looked as if it had been hit with a bomb, was due back at the rental agency that day, police said.
Police found more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition on or near the couple, suggesting that they were prepared for a long siege. Police recovered two assault rifles and two 9mm pistols, all legally purchased, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Two of the weapons were traced to one of the assailants, said Dannette Seward, an ATF spokeswoman, while the other two were traced to another person who has not been publicly identified.
[The striking difference between the San Bernardino suspects and other mass shooters]
“The FBI is chasing down any contacts these two may have had and whether those contacts are indicative of radicalization or external plotting or are purely incidental,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
Schiff, who was briefed Thursday on the attack, said that “on the basis of what I heard and where the [FBI] was, I wouldn’t conclude that there was radicalization here.”
The congressman said the shooting also did not appear to be “an act of spontaneous workplace violence.” But, he said, it could have been the culmination of a longer-term grievance.
“There appears to be a degree of planning that went into this,” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said. “Nobody just gets upset at a party, goes home and puts together that kind of elaborate scheme or plan.”
[Hours before San Bernardino shooting, doctors urged Congress to lift funding ban on gun violence research]
At a morning news conference, authorities said they had gathered a number of items that were being analyzed to investigate the couple’s digital trail, including thumb drives, computers and cellphones. But the two had left behind remarkably little in the way of a digital record — no apparent criminal record, no Facebook page, no Twitter account.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, co-workers who knew Farook described him as a quiet, polite man who held no obvious grudges against people in the office. The office had recently held a shower for the couple’s baby, and the two seemed to be “living the American Dream,” Patrick Baccari, a fellow inspector who shared a cubicle with Farook, told the Times.
[It is incredibly rare for there to be multiple mass shooters — or for them to be women]
A number of families in this city were shattered by Wednesday’s violence. On Thursday, officials released the names of the 14 people slain at the holiday party. The eight men and six women ranged in age from 26 to 60. One ran the coffee shop in the building. Twelve of the 14 were county employees.
Shaken, too, were Muslims in Southern California. At the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco, Ray Abboud said Muslims were horrified by the shooting. He said he fears people will paint Muslims with one brush.
“It breaks our hearts to see 14 people die,” Abboud said. “We feel sorry for everything that happened, but we can’t blame ourselves for being Muslim.”
He said people in the community were keeping a close watch on their children “to make sure they don’t fall into any crazy stuff.”
Before the attack, Farook and Malik dropped off their 6-month-old daughter with Farook’s mother, saying they had a doctor’s appointment, according to Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles. The council organized a news conference late Wednesday featuring Farhan Khan, who is married to Farook’s sister.
“I have no idea why he would do something like this,” Khan said of his brother-in-law. “I cannot express how sad I am today.”
[The inspiring work done at the disability center]
Berman and Achenbach reported from Washington. Freelance writers Martha Groves and William Dauber in San Bernardino and staff writers Greg Miller, Brian Murphy, Adam Goldman, Lindsey Bever, Niraj Chokshi, Ann Gerhart, Sari Horwitz, Elahe Izadi, Wesley Lowery, Eli Saslow, Kevin Sullivan, Julie Tate, Justin Wm. Moyer, Yanan Wang, Sarah Kaplan and Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.
[This story has been updated. First published: 11:30 a.m.] | 0fake |
M.T.A. Shortens L Train Shutdown to 15 Months - The New York Times | The Metropolitan Transportation Authority had good news on Monday for subway riders worried about the shutdown of the L train: The closing will be shorter than expected. The authority’s board voted to approve a $477 million contract to close the L train tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan for 15 months to repair damage caused by Hurricane Sandy — instead of 18 months as originally planned. The work is set to begin in April 2019. After several board members raised concerns about a company that was awarded the contract, Judlau Contracting, officials assured the board that the company was the best choice for the project and would finish the work on time. “I expect this project to be completed in 15 months,” said Lawrence S. Schwartz, an authority board member. “I want to make sure that Judlau and everybody else who is going to be involved on this project understands that it will not be tolerated or accepted to be 15 months and one day. ” Brooklyn residents who rely on the L line have grown increasingly anxious over how they will commute during the closing. Officials at the authority have discussed several alternatives using nearby subway lines and buses, but they have not outlined a specific plan yet. About 250, 000 people take the line under the East River each day. The L train tunnel, officially known as the Canarsie Tube, was one of several subway tunnels inundated by floodwaters during the hurricane in 2012. Workers must demolish and replace thousands of feet of crumbling walls, tracks and cables. The agency awarded the contract to two companies, Judlau Contracting and TC Electric. Judlau Contracting had been criticized for delays on the Second Avenue subway and in rebuilding the Cortlandt Street subway station, which was damaged on Sept. 11. One authority board member, Charles G. Moerdler, said the company had done a “dreadful job” on the Second Avenue subway. “I am reluctant in the extreme to vote to give Judlau yet another chance,” Mr. Moerdler said at a board committee meeting last month. Stephen Plochochi, an official at the authority who oversees subway and bus procurements, said officials had looked at the company’s “full body of work,” including the rehabilitation of the Montague Tube, which was also damaged during the hurricane. If it takes longer than 15 months to fix the Canarsie Tube, the company will be fined $410, 000 per day, Mr. Plochochi said. Cesar Pereira, a vice president at Judlau Contracting, said in a statement that the company had a “long and successful history” of working with the authority. “With the help of its employees and subcontractors and the M. T. A. ’s very capable staff and designers, Judlau and TC will once again deliver a successful project to the M. T. A. and the riding public,” Mr. Pereira said. Transit advocates have urged the authority to provide robust bus service during the closing, including dedicated bus lanes on the Williamsburg Bridge, 14th Street in Manhattan and Grand Street in Brooklyn. A proposal for a “PeopleWay” on 14th Street would prioritize buses, bike lanes and wider sidewalks over cars. If people use Uber and other car services or private shuttles during the L train shutdown, street congestion will become even worse, said Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for pedestrians and cyclists that is campaigning for the PeopleWay. The authority should announce its plans for alternative service by this summer so that commuters can plan their lives, he said. “It’s going to completely gum up the streets unless some aggressive bus prioritization measures are instituted,” Mr. White said. “It will lead to catastrophic traffic congestion. ” | 0fake |
Obama praises Argentina's 'man in a hurry' Macri for reforms | BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday championed Argentina’s new center-right leader Mauricio Macri as an example for other countries in Latin America, praising the fast pace of reforms to strengthen the economy. Obama, on a two-day visit to Argentina that marks a detente after years of tensions, said Argentina under Macri was poised to play a more influential role on the global stage. In his first 100 days in office, Macri has distanced himself from South America’s leftist bloc, old allies of former President Cristina Fernandez, and sought a thaw in relations with Western capitals as he seeks new investment in Latin America’s No. 3 economy. “I can tell you President Macri is a man in hurry,” Obama told a joint news conference after the two leaders held talks. “I’m impressed because he has moved rapidly on so many of the reforms that he promised, to create more sustainable and inclusive economic growth, to reconnect Argentina with the global economy and the world community,” he said. Macri offers Obama a new ally in South America, a region where a strong leftist bloc turned its back on Washington over the past decade but where public opinion is now shifting toward the political center as governments grapple with graft scandals and an economic slowdown. “Argentina is re-assuming its traditional leadership role in the region and around the world,” Obama said. His trip to Argentina to forge a new friendship follows a historic visit to former Cold War foe Cuba that aimed to boost U.S. credibility across Latin America. For years, much of the region took a dim view of Washington’s longstanding policy of trying to force change on Communist-ruled Cuba by isolating it, a strategy that Obama has cast aside. Macri said Obama’s visit marked the start of new “mature” relations in which the countries would cooperate on issues ranging from trade to fighting international drug trafficking. Macri has lifted capital and trade controls, slashed bloated power subsidies and cut a debt deal with “holdout” creditors in the United States. But he still has to grapple with double-digit inflation, a yawning fiscal deficit and a shortage of hard currency, and has made securing new foreign investment flows a priority. The American Chamber of Commerce in Argentina said U.S. firms would invest $2.3 billion in Argentina over the next 18 months, including more than $100 million each from General Motors Co, Dow Chemical Co, AES Corp and Ford Motor Co. Argentine Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay urged business leaders, at a forum where the new investment flows were announced, to think long-term and said policies aimed at cutting inflation and reinvigorating growth would be felt in the second half of the year. “We’ve cleaned out the rubbish,” Prat-Gay said in reference to Fernandez’s protectionist policies that stunted investment. “Now we’re entering the starting gates.” Obama said the two governments would work to identify barriers impeding greater trade flows between the two economies, adding that a free trade agreement was something that might lie at the end of the process. “Right now there’s a lot of underbrush, a lot of unnecessary trade irritants and commercial irritants that can be cleared away administratively and that’s some of the work that we intend to do right away,” Obama said. Foreign companies operating in Argentina routinely complain about costly customs requirements, cumbersome red tape and strong workers’ rights. Obama said Argentina could be an effective partner in the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime and said both countries would work together in response to the Zika virus that has spread across parts of South America at lightning speed. The two countries announced an agreement on joint steps to fight climate change including working to cut carbon emissions from air flights and integrating solar and wind power into electricity grids. Crowds have cheered Obama’s motorcade as it travels along Buenos Aires’ tree-lined boulevards, handing the U.S. leader a friendlier reception than his predecessor George W. Bush, whose presence at a Summit of the Americas in 2005 was met with protests and snubbed by then President Nestor Kirchner. But left-wing political parties have promised protests on Thursday, which coincides with the 40th anniversary of the coup on March 24, 1976, that installed right-wing military rule. In an era when Cold War thinking often put Washington behind right-wing governments in the region, the United States initially backed the 1976-1983 dictatorship, during which as many as 30,000 people were killed. Obama said he would visit a memorial to victims of the “Dirty War” to pay tribute to the Argentines who stood up against human rights violations, and re-affirmed that his administration would declassify U.S. military and intelligence records related to the junta. “I hope this gesture also helps to rebuild trust that may have been lost between our two countries,” Obama said. | 0fake |
WHOA! DID OPRAH JUST THROW Her Hat In The Ring To Challenge Donald Trump In 2020? | Democrats have the perfect weapon to take down Donald Trump in 2020, according to a conservative columnist: Oprah. The famed black media proprietor and TV host was thrown into the political mix on Thursday when an op-ed in the New York Post suggested she is uniquely positioned, should she wish to commit herself, to seek the Democratic nomination for president and challenge Trump in 2020. John Podhoretz, a never-Trump advocate and former speechwriter for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, shared his essay on Twitter and Oprah answered. Thanks for your VOTE of confidence! she wrote back in a tweet.@jpodhoretz Thanks for your VOTE of confidence!Democrats best hope for 2020: Oprah | New York Post https://t.co/tvt82v8cMH Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) September 28, 2017Podhoretz replied: Give it a shot, what, would it kill you? Some of the replies to Oprah s response were less than positive:Oh hell no! I am a liberal Democrat. The last thing we need in the White House is another narcissist. Steve Tharp (@stharpus) September 29, 2017NO NO NO pic.twitter.com/sGRNm47oMw big water (@hannahtraining) September 29, 2017Winfrey starred Sunday in a 60 Minutes segment that had her conducting a focus group of Michigan voters, assessing the range of their political opinions.Asked about impressions of Trump, their answers ranged from every day I love him more and more to he s a horrible president. Oprah listened, reflected their answers, and tried not to judge.Podhoretz wrote that she is the Trump s mirror image. Daily MailWe re pretty sure that Trump and Oprah are not mirror images . For one, Trump is not a race-obsessed and gender obsessed Democrat. Watch:Who can forget the interview Oprah did with Donald Trump on her show when she asked him if he d ever considering running for President. At the time of the interview, Donald J. Trump knew more about the real world and how it works, than Oprah, whose knowledge about how things work in the world ended with her Chicago set, and her on-stage couch where she practiced amateur psychology for decades in front of adoring fans. | 1real |
Obama urges more consumer choices for cable TV set-top boxes | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Friday weighed in on the debate over allowing consumers to switch from pricey cable television boxes to less expensive devices, urging regulators to set an example for the rest of government on how to boost competition. Consumers can spend nearly $1,000 over four years renting cable set-top boxes. Allowing consumers to chose devices or apps they can own could mean quick savings, according to the administration. “Competition is good for consumers,” President Barack Obama said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. “And ultimately it’s good for business. The more competition we have, the more products, services, innovation takes place.” The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in February proposed a rule to open competition in the $20 billion television set-top box market. It set a 60-day comment period for the rule that could deal a financial blow to cable companies. The administration issued a rare filing on the rule by the FCC, an independent agency. The rule would allow consumers to obtain video services from providers such as Alphabet Inc’s Google, Apple Inc and TiVo In, instead of cable, satellite and other television providers such Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc. It was unclear if the rule will be implemented before Obama leaves office in January. Cable and television companies have lashed out against the proposal, saying it could stifle innovation. Under the rule, minority programmers would be damaged, consumers would lose privacy protections and be saddled with the costs of re-engineering networks, said Michael Powell, the head of trade group National Cable & Telecommunications Association. The companies also contended the White House is pressuring the FCC, which they said was inappropriate. “This action not only damages the only companies seriously investing to build broadband infrastructure for this country, it also does great harm to the confidence we should be able to have in the impartiality of the FCC’s proceedings,” said Jim Cicconi, a senior executive vice president at AT&T Inc. Obama will also sign an executive order on Friday calling on federal agencies and departments to report in 60 days on areas where additional measures can be taken to open competition. In a teleconference call with reporters, Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, would not speculate on what kind of pro-competition measures the order could spur. The administration is looking to add to consumer-friendly actions on cell phones, net neutrality and retirement advice. “This is going to be a whole of government effort to empower consumers, workers and small businesses,” Furman said. | 0fake |
Democrats set bills seeking to overturn Trump travel ban | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. senators tried to force a vote on a bill to rescind President Donald Trump’s order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority nations on Monday, but were blocked by a Republican lawmaker. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said she had 27 co-sponsors of a bill to rescind the order Trump signed on Friday, but under Senate rules it takes only one member to prevent a vote. Republican Senator Tom Cotton blocked consideration of the measure. It would have faced a difficult fight for passage in the Senate, where Trump’s fellow Republicans hold a 52-48 seat majority. Trump’s directive on Friday put a 120-day hold on allowing refugees into the country, an indefinite ban on refugees from Syria and a 90-day bar on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The president argues that his action will protect Americans, but critics say it illegally singles out Muslims, violating U.S. law, and defiles America’s historic reputation as a welcoming place for immigrants. More than 160 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced legislation in that chamber to defund and rescind Trump’s order. But that measure is unlikely to advance in the House, where Republicans hold a 240-193 seat advantage, larger than their advantage in the Senate. | 0fake |
Resignation Letter To Donald Trump Has Secret Message To Resistance | Ever since Donald Trump failed his test of moral leadership following the Nazi/white Supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, his administration has been bleeding.First, his business council collapsed when business leader after business leader said they wanted no part in Trump s sympathy with Nazis. The same is now happening with his Committee on the Arts and Humanities as 16 members of the group sent Trump a resignation letter that was just perfect if you re a member of the resistance.Here is a part of the resignation letter: Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville. The false equivalencies you push cannot stand. The Administrations refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions. We are members of the Presidents Committee on the Arts and Humanities (PCAH). The Committee was created in 1982 under President Reagan to advise the White House on cultural issues. We were hopeful that continuing to serve in the PCAH would allow us to focus on the important work the committee does with your federal partners in the arts and humanities for all Americans. Effective immediately, please accept our resignation Source: ViceHere s the full letter, signed by 16 members, including artist Chuck Close, author Jhumpa Lahiri, architect Thom Mayne and Jersey Boys actor John Lloyd Young and Minnesota Congressman Richard Cohen:JUST IN: In letter to Pres. Trump, a mass resignation from the presidential arts and humanities committee. pic.twitter.com/4Mor0vEoBK NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) August 18, 2017Do you see it? Probably not. Look at the first letter of each paragraph R-E-S-I-S-T.pic.twitter.com/mdNpjI35hy Hesiod Theogeny (@Hesiod2k11) August 18, 2017Naturally, Twitter had their opinions.pic.twitter.com/TxjAq6UxFg techiethomas (@techiethomas) August 18, 2017Not sure if would have gotten the irony of it. Trump s not wise or deep, he s just along for the ride. Marie (@SCMilitarybrat) August 18, 2017The FIRST letter of the FIRST word in each paragraph spells RESIST:Reproach Elevating Speaking Ignoring Supremacy Thank youSo cool! ? https://t.co/aCwtX9kip1 Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) August 18, 2017The President s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities was started under the Reagan administration in 1982.PCAH works directly with the three primary cultural agencies National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Institute of Museum and Library Services as well as other federal partners and the private sector, to address policy questions in the arts and humanities, to initiate and support key programs in those disciplines, and to recognize excellence in the field. Its core areas of focus are arts and humanities education and cultural exchange.It s also traditionally headed by the First Lady and this administration is no exception.Featured image via Matt Cardy/Getty Images | 1real |
SICK TREND: ‘SOLOGAMIST’ Describes What It’s Like To Be The Bride AND The Groom: “I’m Worth It!” [Video] | You might want to grab a barf bag before you watch the video below of Erika discussing marrying herself This is a sure sign that feminism has taken it too far and that our nation has sunk to a new low. What comes to mind for us is the old Saturday Night Live skit with Stuart Smalley aka Senator Al Franken Remember that? Well, this is a thing now marrying yourself because Sologamy, or marrying one s self, isn t illegal, but it s also not recognized as a legal union in any state.Sologamists like Erika Anderson of Brooklyn describes her decision to marry herself as women saying yes to themselves. WUSA reports: I would describe it as women saying yes to themselves, Anderson said. It means that we are enough, even if we are not partnered with someone else. In many ways, the 37-year-old bride looked like any other on her wedding day. She wore a white dress and had a bouquet. Anderson looked stunning with the Brooklyn bridge and New York City skyline behind her.Except when she walked down the aisle, no one was waiting for her. That s just the way she wanted it.Anderson married herself to celebrate independence and believes others should, too. You re worth it! Anderson exclaimed.Anderson just celebrated her one-year anniversary with a solo trip to Mexico. She said even though she s married to herself, she s dating and open to marrying another person. She s dating and open to marrying another person. Then why get married at all?Nadine explains why she married herself:Read more: Legal Insurrection | 1real |
Trump tax proposal would mostly benefit New York's wealthy: report | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly all of New York City’s millionaires would receive big tax cuts under President Donald Trump’s proposed tax overhaul, while more than one-third of moderate- and middle-income families would face increases, according to a government report issued on Thursday. City Comptroller Scott Stringer said Trump’s overall plan, as proposed during the Republican president’s campaign, would give more than $5 billion of tax cuts to city dwellers. But almost two-thirds of that would go to those earning more than $500,000, even though they bear just over one-half of the total tax burden. “We already have astounding wealth gaps across the city and across the country,” Stringer told a news conference. “The Trump tax code, if implemented, would only exacerbate it.” The lower taxes for wealthier residents would be achieved through lower marginal tax rates on ordinary and capital gains income and the elimination of the alternative minimum tax (AMT). Last week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Trump’s objective is a tax cut for the middle class, not the top 1 percent. He said he is aiming for passage of a comprehensive tax overhaul by the time Congress takes its August recess. Stringer’s office analyzed tax returns of 365,000 New York City households. It found that 92 percent of the city’s millionaires would receive, on average, a tax cut of at least $113,000. Nearly half of single parents who make $25,000 to $50,000 would experience a tax increase, it said. The tax cuts, which would reduce federal revenue by more than $2 trillion over 10 years, are driving proposed budget cuts that would leave the city, home to 60,000 homeless people, with a weakened social safety net, Stringer said. “I find it incredible that this guy, who comes from New York City, who has major investments here, can’t see what his proposal will do to his hometown,” he said. “And then when you scratch the surface, you realize that part of his agenda and who benefits from it is Donald Trump himself.” Based on the limited information available from Trump’s now-public 2005 federal tax return, his proposal to eliminate the AMT would have benefited him by $31 million that year. In contrast, under his tax plan, a single mother raising two children on less than $50,000 a year would face a tax increase of $464. | 0fake |
Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Is What New York Is All About | Millions of immigrants came to America through Ellis Island in New York City and were greeted by the Statue of Liberty. They came with hopes for a better life, to a place where big dreams are encouraged because with hard work, and determination, those dreams can come true in New York. These big dreams are emblematic of Bernie Sanders campaign message. Throughout his political career, he has demonstrated the honesty, integrity and work ethic required to turn ideas into reality. The story of a lower-middle class Jewish Brooklyn kid becoming mayor of a city in Vermont by ten votes after rigorous grassroots organizing, defying the odds stacked against him by getting elected to congress as an Independent, and managing to serve there for over 25 years shows the kind of tenacity that makes New Yorkers stand apart. New York is where the most ambitious and driven go to change the world, and that s what Bernie Sanders campaign is looking to do, not just continue with the status quo. New Yorkers are people who dared to take a risk or do whatever it takes to see their dreams come true. People still come to New York with the New York State of Mind, if they can make it here they can make it anywhere. Bernie Sanders campaign has grown from a point where most Americans had never heard of him to millions of Americans participating in the political process, many for the first time, through working with one another and talking to one another about the issues Bernie Sanders has been addressing. Rather than rely on wealthy corporate donors or the mainstream media to spread the message of the campaign, Bernie Sanders has relied on everyday Americans and their resiliency to keep fighting despite the odds stacked against them by the establishment. Popular consensus thought it was unrealistic to think Bernie Sanders could ever challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, but his campaign has overcome the adversity of those notions and is transforming the country s political landscape.New Yorkers know all about resiliency and coming together in the face of adversity. After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, New York led the way in bringing Americans together, helping to rebuild what was lost, banding together to move forward to a better, safer future. New Yorkers showed the world their resiliency once again in response to Hurricane Sandy, when New Yorkers who still had electricity and water unabated, lent a helping hand to their neighbors.In a world where violence and tragedy are covered daily in mainstream media, New Yorkers have shown the world time and again good prevails against evil. In 2010, New Yorker s stories began to be encapsulated by the Humans of New York project, cataloging the diversity and beauty of New Yorkers for the world to see. It s known as the greatest city in the world because of its history, diversity, and character, which all attest to the greatest achievements of mankind.Many of the nation s historic battles with the labor movement took place in New York. Samuel Gompers, a New York native, was the American Federation of Labor s first president, called New York City, the cradle of the American Labor Movement. That labor movement brought America the 40-hour work week, and drastically improved working conditions and labor laws. Today in New York, labor unions maintain more membership and power than any other state in the country. No other presidential candidate has been fighting for workers rights to the extent Bernie Sanders has.In October 2015, Bernie Sanders was the only candidate who took time off from campaigning to join a picket line with Verizon workers and union members in New York City who were fighting for a fair contract and to have an employee who was fired for leading an organizing campaign reinstated. He is the only presidential candidate who supports a $15 minimum wage, and only his economic policies go far enough to help rebuild the working and middle classes in this country. The average American has not had an increase in pay in 15 years, but things have cost more in the marketplaces. He has been in a recession for 15 years, nothing has changed for him. Up at the top, we re not in a recession, but 80 percent of the Americans have been in a recession for at least 15 years, said New York native and Godfather of Wall Street, Asher Edelman, in an interview on CNBC Fast Money.Edelman endorsed Bernie Sanders on the show: If you look at something called velocity of money, that means how much gets spent and turns around, he said. When you have the top 1 percent getting money, they spend five to ten percent of what they earn, when you have the lower end of the economy they spend 100 or 110 percent of what they earn. As you ve had a transfer of wealth and income to the top, you have a shrinking consumer base basically and a shrinking velocity of money. Bernie is the only person out there who I think is talking at all about both fiscal stimulation and banking rules that will get the banks to generate lending again as opposed to speculation, so from an economic point its straight forward. Bernie Sanders campaign is what New York is all about. New York is dubbed the Empire State not because of its millionaires, billionaires, and corporations, but because its wealth lies in its diversity, character, ambition, and resources which are all quintessentially American.Bernie Sanders popularity has manifested in the form of record attendances at his campaign rallies and an overtaking of the internet by his supporters because his campaign has that same addictive energy as New York. The people are what are driving Bernie Sanders campaign, and the people are what make New York so great. Hard working Americans have been devoting both contributions and their free time to the campaign because the ideology behind Bernie Sanders campaign is a future Americans can believe in, and millions of Americans are willing to put in the work to achieve it.Featured image via Flickr | 1real |
Escaped killers' ride backed out, source says | (CNN) Investigators think a woman who worked with Richard Matt and David Sweat at the Clinton Correctional Facility planned to pick the convicted killers up after they escaped but changed her mind at the last minute, a source familiar with the investigation tells CNN.
Joyce Mitchell went to a hospital this weekend because of panic attacks, the source said.
Mitchell is one of several prison employees who has been questioned in the case. She has given a statement and is being "somewhat cooperative," a source said. She has not been charged.
Her cell phone was used to call several people connected to Matt, another source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. It's unclear who made the calls or when the calls were made. Authorities are trying to determine whether Mitchell was aware her phone was being used.
Her son, Tobey Mitchell, has come to her defense.
He told NBC that she wouldn't "risk her life or other people's lives to help these guys escape." He said his mother was in a hospital with severe chest pains about the time of the escape.
Authorities scoured farms and fields around an upstate New York town Tuesday, looking for the pair who escaped from a prison days earlier, a local official said.
The search was prompted by someone who spotted two "suspicious men" walking down a road in Willsboro in the middle of a "driving rainstorm" overnight "in an area that's all ... large farms and fields and wooded lots," Town Supervisor Shaun Gillilland said. As the citizen's car approached them, they took off.
"They were walking down the road, not dressed for the elements," Gillilland said. "They ran into the fields, from what I understand. So this behavior ... was suspicious."
Given the meticulous detail involved in the escape, there were concerns fugitives Richard Matt and David Sweat put a similar level of planning into their getaway, including transportation.
Local, state and federal authorities set up a search perimeter there. As of 2 p.m., Gillilland wasn't aware that any clothes, vehicles or other evidence had been found, but it was still relatively early in the process.
The stormy overnight spotting in Willsboro, a town of 2,000 people on Lake Champlain, is one of the first big potential breakthroughs since prison guards found Matt and Sweat's beds empty at 5:30 a.m. Saturday.
Until then, the closest might have been an account from two Dannemora residents about two men, whom they now believe to be the escaped killers, walking through their backyard shortly after midnight Friday.
"I go look at him (and) I say, 'What the hell are you doing in my yard? Get the hell out of here,' " one of the residents told ABC's "Good Morning America" of that encounter.
The two men complied, one apologizing that he'd been on the wrong street. It wasn't until the next day that the resident, who asked not to be named, and his female friend realized who the trespassers probably were.
They are killers whom authorities fear could do so again to evade capture.
Elizabeth Ahern, who lives in Plattsburgh, about five miles from the prison and 25 miles south of the Canadian border, isn't taking any chances. The North Country, she says, is a place where people usually don't bother securing their doors and have weapons to hunt, not to guard themselves against criminals.
"It's a scary situation," Ahern told CNN's "New Day." "We are now closing our doors and locking them, and making sure we have knives and guns ready to go, just in case."
Expert: 'They had to have help'
Finding the two fugitives is job No. 1 for authorities. Job No. 2 is figuring out how they got out -- and who, if anyone, helped them become the first inmates to escape Clinton Correctional in its 170-year history.
Matthew Horace, a law enforcement veteran who spent years with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said: "They had to have help. ... I wouldn't be surprised if, when this all pans out, there's more than one, two, three or five people that helped them on the inside."
Matt and Sweat cut through a cell wall that included steel a quarter-inch thick, maneuvered across a catwalk, shimmied down six stories to a tunnel of pipes, followed that tunnel, broke through a double-brick wall, cut into a 24-inch steam pipe, shimmied their way through the steam pipe, cut another hole so they could get out of the pipe and finally surfaced through a manhole.
If other people are proved to have played a role in Matt and Sweat's escape or their life on the lam, they'll pay a price. An accomplice could be convicted of a misdemeanor for helping introduce nondangerous contraband into a prison. Or they could get up to seven years in jail for the class D felony of "hindering prosecution" by providing "criminal assistance" to someone sentenced to 20 years to life for a violent crime.
Slain deputy's brother: 'I just hope he doesn't come back'
Matt and Sweat are convicted killers whose behavior is prison appears to have been good.
Matt was convicted on three counts of murder, three counts of kidnapping and two counts of robbery after he kidnapped a man and beat him to death in December 1997, state police said. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
In 1986, he escaped from an Erie County jail. Upon his capture, Matt was sent to a maximum security prison in Elmira, New York, on charges of escape and forgery. He was released from the Elmira Correctional Facility in May 1990.
Sweat was serving a life sentence without parole for killing sheriff's Deputy Kevin Tarsia in 2002.
It has been years since these murders. While at Clinton Correctional, they were in the prison's "honor block" for those who have gone years without significant disciplinary action, according to a state official briefed on the investigation.
Being in an honor block carries privileges such as having hot plates and refrigerators in their cells and congregating for hours in a central gallery area each evening with fellow inmates, said Rich Plumadore, who worked at Clinton Correctional for 35 years. About 250 to 300 inmates are in this unit at the prison. | 0fake |
WOW: Intercepted Communications Implicate Three Top Trump Advisors In Plot With Russia | By now, you have probably heard that the FBI and five other intelligence agencies have, for months, been investigating ties between many of Trump s top-level people and Russia. On Thursday, The New York Times told us who it is:The counterintelligence investigation centers at least in part on the business dealings that some of the president-elect s past and present advisers have had with Russia. Mr. Manafort has done business in Ukraine and Russia. Some of his contacts there were under surveillance by the National Security Agency for suspected links to Russia s Federal Security Service, one of the officials said.Mr. Manafort is among at least three Trump campaign advisers whose possible links to Russia are under scrutiny. Two others are Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign, and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative.The F.B.I. is leading the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and the Treasury Department s financial crimes unit. The investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said. One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House.Counterintelligence investigations examine the connections between American citizens and foreign governments. Those connections can involve efforts to steal state or corporate secrets, curry favor with American government leaders or influence policy. It is unclear which Russian officials are under investigation, or what particular conversations caught the attention of American eavesdroppers. The legal standard for opening these investigations is low, and prosecutions are rare.In short, it s unlikely that anyone will be charged, but we as Americans have every reason to be concerned with the people with whom Trump surrounds himself. Manafort, naturally, calls the allegations a Democrat Party dirty trick and completely false. I have never had any relationship with the Russian government or any Russian officials. I was never in contact with anyone, or directed anyone to be in contact with anyone, he adds. On the Russian hacking of the D.N.C., my only knowledge of it is what I have read in the papers. Politifact confirmed last year that Manafort has many relationships with pro-Putin politicians in Ukraine at minimum.While Trump will attempt to connect this to the 35-page pee pee dossier published by Buzzfeed the one handed to Trump and Obama by intelligence agencies the FBI says that the decision to open the investigation was not based on those in the least:The F.B.I. investigation into Mr. Manafort began last spring, and was an outgrowth of a criminal investigation into his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine and for the country s former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych. In August, The Times reported that Mr. Manafort s name had surfaced in a secret ledger that showed he had been paid millions in undisclosed cash payments. The Associated Press has reported that his work for Ukraine included a secret lobbying effort in Washington aimed at influencing American news organizations and government officials.Mr. Stone, a longtime friend of Mr. Trump s, said in a speech in Florida last summer that he had communicated with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that published the hacked Democratic emails. During the speech, Mr. Stone predicted further leaks of documents, a prediction that came true within weeks.In a brief interview on Thursday, Mr. Stone said he had never visited Russia and had no Russian clients. He said that he had worked in Ukraine for a pro-Western party, but that any assertion that he had ties to Russian intelligence was nonsense and totally false. The whole thing is a canard, he said. I have no Russian influences. The Senate intelligence committee has started its own investigation into Russia s purported attempts to disrupt the election. The committee s inquiry is broad, and will include an examination of Russian hacking and possible ties between people associated with Mr. Trump s campaign and Russia.Investigators are also scrutinizing people on the periphery of Mr. Trump s campaign, such as Mr. Page, a former Merrill Lynch banker who founded Global Energy Capital, an investment firm in New York that has done business with Russia.In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Page expressed bewilderment about why he might be under investigation. He blamed a smear campaign that he said was orchestrated by Mrs. Clinton for media speculation about the nature of his ties to Russia. I did nothing wrong, for the 5,000th time, he said. His adversaries, he added, are pulling a page out of the Watergate playbook. What further details will the investigation reveal? Only time will tell but Donald Trump is now our President, and his cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin is terrifyingly clear. All you have to do is look at his Twitter account.Featured image via Getty Images (Chip Somodevilla/Win McNamee/Spencer Platt) | 1real |
A Rare Pacific Islander Captivates Its Neighborhood - The New York Times | TAVEUNI ISLAND, Fiji — In Fiji, flowers can take on a spiritual, magical significance. They are strung together as garlands for ceremonies and festivals or worn as an ornament behind the ear on any given day. The South Pacific archipelago is home to about 800 species of plants found nowhere else in the world. But the most special is the tagimoucia, a crimson and white flower that hangs down in clusters like a chain of ruby raindrops. Because of its beauty and rarity, it has attained a kind of celebrity status. “Just to touch it and see it with my own eyes,” said Lina Sena, 41, her sentence trailing off as she held a clipping recently. “See how we are treating it? It is history. ” Except for scattered sightings on a neighboring island, the flower grows only on a single mountain ridge on Taveuni, one of the northern islands. The tagimoucia is the unofficial floral emblem of Fiji and has a prime position on the nation’s $50 bill. But to Fijians, its significance stems from several legends of romance and heartbreak. Seeing the flower “was on my bucket list,” said Ravi Kumar, 31, who grew up in Fiji but later moved to Australia. Mr. Kumar spent a recent day on Taveuni, traipsing through the forest before finally sighting the flower atop its woody vine. Taveuni, known as the Garden Island for its rich volcanic soil and farming, is crowned with dense, dark rain forest that is often shrouded in mist. Mr. Kumar said he made the trek because the flower’s legend was “one of the tales you grew up with” in Fiji. Those tales can vary depending on whom you ask. The song “Tagimaucia ga” by Percy Bucknell, a traditional composer, describes how an outsider seized power on Taveuni and made the flower a symbol of his chieftainship. Another tells of a young girl whose tears became tagimoucia flowers when her parents scolded her for not doing her housework. According to Emori Tokalau, a governmental liaison to Taveuni’s clan leaders, only the flower’s custodian can tell the true legend. That is Ratu Viliame Mudu, the chief of Somosomo village on the island’s western side. Mr. Tokalau described the custodianship “as a form of copyright,” giving the holder authority to grant permission for outsiders to visit the flower or use its likeness. He had to get the chief’s approval before using the tagimoucia on his office letterhead, he said. To receive permission, one must arrive at the village with a sevusevu — a gift or offering — often the traditional root drink kava. A small ceremony is performed, with men in sarongs and women in long skirts gathered around. On a visit to the village in November, the chief’s son, Akuila Cavuilati, spoke about the flower’s history. “When I was growing up, it was the legend that my carried and gave to us,” he said. The tagimoucia already existed before the legend, but only as a simple white flower, Mr. Cavuilati said. That changed when a young princess fell in love with a man from another village, a union her parents vetoed. She ran away in despair. Village warriors searching for the princess could hear her crying in the forest (tagimoucia can be translated as “crying tears,” Mr. Cavuilati said). However, all they could see were tagimoucia flowers with a mysterious new addition: the ruby red petals. Those petals are the girl’s tears, Mr. Cavuilati said. As a boy, Mr. Cavuilati often climbed the mountain with his brothers to pick tagimoucia flowers, sometimes sending them into the capital, Suva, for display at festivals. “During that time there were so many flowers,” he said. “Nowadays, it is very hard to find. ” Until about 30 years ago, access to the flower came only by foot. But then a cellphone tower went up on the mountain’s peak, along with a service road. Now people can drive the pass more easily. Mr. Cavuilati said rarely did anyone come to him to hear the legend or receive his blessing for their journey to the flower. The path up the mountain is a hike that starts near Somosomo. Along the way, it was easy to see why the forested mountain was the tagimoucia’s natural protector before the access road was built. The trail is littered with felled trees and craters from giant root systems that were ripped out of the ground by cyclones. After several hours of hiking, the grandson of Somosomo’s chief, Viliame Mudu, spied a small cluster of flowers halfway up a tree. That was the sole sighting of ruby red petals by our group that day. The tagimoucia’s peak flowering season of November and December coincides with school’s end, so the flower is a “hot commodity” for graduation garlands, said Lin, an anthropologist who completed his Ph. D. thesis on conservation in Taveuni. During that period, local hotels bring flowers down for their guests. One morning, Alfred Lewenilovo, 26, headed up the mountain carrying a sugar cane knife and an empty backpack. He said his sister in Suva requested tagimoucia flowers for her 21st birthday garland. The flower’s popularity worries some on Fiji. “People are going there to see it and put it around their necks, then they come down. After two days they throw it into the rubbish bins,” said Marika Tuiwawa, a botanist with the University of the South Pacific. The fragility of the flower’s existence has always been a concern because of the small areas, or microhabitats, where it grows. While the opinion that the flower is now overpicked is widely held, no research has been done to confirm that, said Dick Watling, from . The conservation group had investigated the possibility of a Taveuni National Park that would provide more protection to the tagimoucia as well as the forest it inhabits. But its Taveuni office closed in 2014, from a lack of interest and funding. The area where the flower is found is currently a forest reserve, but it is often encroached upon by farmers, Mr. Watling said. “The real issue is that we have this enormous area of almost pristine forest, the last in Fiji,” he said. Unless the government realizes the value of that “it will become increasingly fragmented. ” For now, the tagimoucia continues to inspire Fijians. On a ferry that sails from Taveuni to Suva, I held a tagimoucia clipping given to me by the village chief of Tavuki. The flower turned heads. A young boy whispered “tagimoucia” as he walked past. A woman pointed and mouthed the flower’s name before breaking into a smile. And Ms. Sena indulged in a mini photo shoot. “Take another one — a good one,” she said as her daughter repositioned her camera to capture the flower, now perched behind Ms. Sena’s ear. | 0fake |
Trump Just Claimed He Beat Obama In The Election And Got RIPPED APART By Twitter (TWEETS) | Donald Trump can t let it go. A broken and antiquated system that exists solely to benefit slave-owning states by increasing the value of their residents votes while devaluing everyone else s the Electoral College allowed him to become President despite his opponent trouncing him in the popular vote, and he still isn t satisfied because he failed to travel back in time and vanquish his true nemesis: President Obama.Ever since he recently claimed that he could have beaten the President if he ran against him, Trump has been the subject of mockery but on Tuesday, his delusion came to a head when he claimed he had actually beaten Obama, who could not and did not run in 2016. President Obama campaigned hard (and personally) in the very important swing states, and lost, Twitler tweeted. The voters wanted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President Obama campaigned hard (and personally) in the very important swing states, and lost.The voters wanted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 27, 2016Now sure, he actually ended up with a historic popular vote loss among people who have become President while Obama enjoyed a record-shattering popular vote win while also managing to win via the Electoral College, but The Donald is confident that he could beat Obama in a head-to-head matchup. Naturally, the mockery intensified to match this new level of stupidity:.@realDonaldTrump Honey honey shhhh. It's over. You did it, baby. You have to be President now. Stop catastrophizing into imaginary spirals. Bess Kalb (@bessbell) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump My nephew tweets 3-4x a day too. He's 12. david nuzzy nussbaum (@theNuzzy) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump obama wasn't running this year Tuesdave (@redletterdave) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump delete your account Brad Sams (@bdsams) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump OMG get over it, you "won", we all KNOW, believe me Mike Denison (@mikd33) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump I love that it's always going to eat you alive, that you lost the popular vote. You're a sore winner, and a sore (popular vote) loser. Trey Pearson (@treypearson) December 27, 2016@treypearson @realDonaldTrump He lost the popular vote in HISTORIC FASHION! Long after he's dead & gone, that HISTORIC LOSS will remain. LOL Hadus A. Goodrun (@ochutup) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump How is you being a bitch on twitter making America great again? Tommy Campbell (@MrTommyCampbell) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump you're lucky he couldn't run for a third term. pic.twitter.com/y8bwsGGLIw Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump You lost the popular vote by 2.9 million just sayin' Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump Reminder: Obama wasn't running this year. You're claiming to have won against an imaginary opponent. Anirvan Ghosh (@anirvanghosh) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump president Obama won both times. Release your tax returns. Molly Knight (@molly_knight) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump You are a child. No, that's an insult to children. Children love life, & are full of wonder & happiness. That's not you. Larry Sullivan (@larrysullivan) December 27, 2016Good God @realDonaldTrump. It's over you won (sort of). Have a nice conjugal cuddle with your "charity" funded portrait, and move on. Steve Blum (@blumspew) December 27, 2016 @realDonaldTrump Oh dear, it must be time for your pills, grandpa Trump. Obama didn't run in 2016, remember? It was Hillary. HILL-LA-REE! RJ Palacio (@RJPalacio) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump President Obama campaigned in 2008 and 2012, and unlike you, he won the electoral college AND the popular vote. #resist Nicky Jay (@BrooklynSun76) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump you are a bit of a goose. Obama is far more popular than Hillary and wasn't the candidate, if you hadn't noticed. Stephen Mayne (@MayneReport) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump Obama wasn't running. I'm honestly not sure you realize that. You may have legit mental issues. Get checked out. Scott Springer (@scott_springer) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump} You really are senile aren't you,President Obama didn't loose, Hillary Clinton lost ,to a cheater named Donald Trump Larry Martin (@LarryGeneMartin) December 27, 2016@realDonaldTrump The voters had no choice. We couldnt vote Obama in for a third term. LisaL.A.?? (@LisaBBFF) December 27, 2016At this point, Trump should be working on unifying the country (as though that is possible with him in charge). Unfortunately, it seems that he is more focused on being a Twitter troll than on being President. Even more unfortunately, our country will suffer for it.Featured image via Getty Images (Ethan Miller)/screengrab | 1real |
(VIDEO) UN CLIMATE CHANGE FREAKS: “We should make every effort to decrease the world population” | What an evil bunch of freaks! The agenda is so important to them that they can t see the forest for the trees. Overpopulation is a problem in itself but connecting it to the scam that is global warming is just crazy. These people have such a twisted view of everything that it s really scary. I m 100% FED Up! with the UN climate freaks and their agenda.Climate One founder Greg Dalton and the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Christiana Figueres, held a discussion in 2013 on the role of women in fighting Global Warming.During the interview Secretary Figueres stated, We should make every effort, to reduce the world s population in an effort to fight Climate Change:DALTON: A related issue is fertility rates in population. A lot of people in energy and environmental circles don t wanna go near that because it s politically charged. It s not their issue. But isn t it true that stopping the rise of the population would be one of the biggest levers and driving the rise of green house gases?FIGUERES: I mean we all know that we expect nine billion, right, by 2050. So, yes, obviously less people would exert less pressure on the natural resources.DALTON: So is nine billion a forgone conclusion? That s like baked in, done, no way to change that?HERE S THE VIDEO-IF YOU WANT TO SKIP THE BS THEN JUST GO TO THE 4:20 MARK: A LITTLE MORE ON CHRISTIANA FIGUERES-THE 70 S CALLED AND THEY WANT THEIR RADICAL HIPPIE BACK! AT THE 2:40 MARK SHE SAYS WE NEED A TRANSFORMATION (SOUND FAMILIAR) AND A REVOLUTION TO CHANGE OUR WAY OF LIFE: FIGUERES: Well there again, there is pressure in the system to go toward that; we can definitely change those, right? We can definitely change those numbers and really should make every effort to change those numbers because we are already, today, already exceeding the planet s planetary carrying capacity, today. To say nothing of adding more population that is really going to overextend our capacity. So yes we should do everything possible. But we cannot fall into the very simplistic opinion of saying just by curtailing population then we ve solved the problem. It is not either/or, it is an and/also.Via: Progressives Today | 1real |
France to make armed street patrols more random, nimble | PARIS (Reuters) - France will make the armed soldiers patrolling its streets against jihadi attacks more mobile and their deployment less predictable but will not cut their numbers, ministers said on Thursday. Some 10,000 soldiers, including 3,000 reservists, have been patrolling the streets of Paris and other French cities since the Islamic State attacks in early 2015 in what is known as Operation Sentinelle . But although opinion polls show people are reassured by soldiers on show at home, military chiefs said the operation has overstretched the army, soldiers have become targets for militants and some critics see it as no more than a PR exercise. There is no change in the size of the Sentinelle force, Defence Minister Florence Parly said in a news conference. What is changing, is the way we will organize these troops. We have to become more unpredictable, she said. Soldiers will continue to patrol the most sensitive sites such as airports, stations and areas popular with tourists, and will intervene during specific sport or cultural events. But other patrols will become more random and reactive, ministers said. Making the soldiers less static will reduce the risks of them becoming targets and improve troops morale, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said. In February last year, a French soldier who was part of Operation Sentinelle shot an Egyptian man armed with machetes who attacked him near the entrance to the Louvre museum shouting Allahu Akbar. | 0fake |
FLASHBACK! PRESIDENTS BEING “COLORFUL”…Yes, Two Can Play This Game! [Video] | 1real | |
Nasralla practically assured of Honduras election win-official | TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - With 70 percent of ballots counted in the Honduran presidential election, opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla maintains a five point lead over President Juan Orlando Hernandez, and is set to win, an election official said on Monday. The technical experts here say that it s irreversible, said Marcos Ramiro Lobo, one of four election tribunal magistrates. (Nasralla) is practically the winner. Speaking to Reuters, Lobo said Nasralla had kept up a five point advantage over the incumbent Hernandez, who had been widely expected to win before the election took place. | 0fake |
U.S. isolated on climate at summit of world leaders | HAMBURG (Reuters) - Leaders from the world’s leading economies broke with U.S. President Donald Trump on climate policy at a G20 summit on Saturday, in a rare public admission of disagreement and blow to multilateral cooperation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, keen to show off her skills as a mediator two months before a German election, achieved her primary goal at the meeting in Hamburg, convincing her fellow leaders to support a single communique with pledges on trade, finance, energy and Africa. But the divide between Trump, elected on a pledge to put “America First”, and the 19 other members of the club, including countries as diverse as Japan, Saudi Arabia and Argentina, was stark. Last month Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of a landmark international climate accord clinched two years ago in Paris. “In the end, the negotiations on climate reflect dissent – all against the United States of America,” Merkel told reporters at the end of the meeting. “And the fact that negotiations on trade were extraordinarily difficult is due to specific positions that the United States has taken.” The summit, marred by violent protests that left the streets of Hamburg littered with burning cars and broken shop windows, brought together a volatile mix of leaders at a time of major change in the global geo-political landscape. Trump’s shift to a more unilateral, transactional diplomacy has left a void in global leadership, unsettling traditional allies in Europe and opening the door to rising powers like China to assume a bigger role. Tensions between Washington and Beijing dominated the run-up to the meeting, with the Trump administration ratcheting up pressure on President Xi Jinping to rein in North Korea and threatening punitive trade measures on steel. TRUMP-PUTIN Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in Hamburg, a hotly anticipated encounter after the former real estate mogul promised a rapprochement with Moscow during his campaign, only to be thwarted by accusations of Russian meddling in the vote and investigations into the Russia ties of Trump associates. Putin said at the conclusion of the summit on Saturday that Trump had quizzed him on the alleged meddling in a meeting that lasted over two hours but seemed to have been satisfied with the Kremlin leader’s denials of interference. Trump had accused Russia of destabilizing behavior in Ukraine and Syria before the summit. But in Hamburg he struck a conciliatory tone, describing it as an honor to meet Putin and signaling, through Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, that he preferred to focus on future ties and not dwell on the past. “It was an extraordinarily important meeting,” Tillerson said, describing a “very clear positive chemistry” between Trump and the former KGB agent. In the final communique, the 19 other leaders took note of the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and declared it “irreversible”. For its part, the United States injected a contentious line saying that it would “endeavor to work closely with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently.” French President Emmanuel Macron led a push to soften the U.S. language. “There is a clear consensus absent the United States,” said Thomas Bernes, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. “But that is a problem. Without the largest economy in the world how far can you go?” Jennifer Morgan, executive director at Greenpeace, said the G19 had “held the line” against Trump’s “backward decision” to withdraw from Paris. On trade, another sticking point, the leaders agreed they would “fight protectionism including all unfair trade practices and recognize the role of legitimate trade defense instruments in this regard.” The leaders also pledged to work together to foster economic development in Africa, a priority project for Merkel. Merkel chose to host the summit in Hamburg, the port city where she was born, to send a signal about Germany’s openness to the world, including its tolerance of peaceful protests. It was held only a few hundred meters from one of Germany’s most potent symbols of left-wing resistance, a former theater called the “Rote Flora” which was taken over by anti-capitalist squatters nearly three decades ago. Over the three days of the summit, radicals looted shops, torched cars and lorries. More than 200 police were injured and some 143 people have been arrested and 122 taken into custody. Some of the worst damage was done as Merkel hosted other leaders at for a concert and lavish dinner at the Elbphilharmonie, a modernist glass concert hall overlooking the Elbe River. Merkel met police and security force after the summit to thank them, and condemned the “unbridled brutality” of some of the protestors, but she was forced to answer tough questions about hosting the summit in Hamburg during her closing press conference. | 0fake |
Catalan independence vote divides region's mayors | BARCELONA (Reuters) - Barcelona s mayor has asked for reassurances that municipal staff would not face legal action or lose their jobs if they helped to organize an Oct. 1 referendum on Catalonia seceding from Spain. However, some of the region s nearly 1,000 mayors have already said they would go ahead with the vote, despite it being declared illegal by Madrid. Having originally offered to allow premises across the city to be used as polling stations, Barcelona mayor Ada Colau has asked the Catalan government for further reassurances that civil servants involved would be protected, her office said. We support the right to participate and protest completely but we will repeat what we have said many times before: we will not put at risk institutions or civil servants, Barcelona s deputy mayor, Gerardo Pisarello, said on Friday. Catalonia s parliament voted on Wednesday to hold an independence referendum on Oct. 1, setting up a clash with the Spanish government that has vowed to stop what it says would be an illegal vote. Polls in the northeastern region show support for self-rule waning as Spain s economy improves. But the majority of Catalans do want the opportunity to vote on whether to split from Spain. As of Friday night, 674 of Catalonia s 948 municipal districts had informed the government of their intention to allow city spaces to be used for the vote, according to the Municipal Association for Independence (AMI). In a video posted on Twitter, the mayor of the Cerdanyola municipality tore in half a letter from the Constitutional Court warning of the legal repercussions of participating in the referendum to applause from the crowd watching. Pro-independence groups protested on Friday outside the offices of several mayors across Catalonia who announced they would not allow municipal spaces to be used for the vote. On Saturday, Spanish police searched the offices of a weekly newspaper in the town of Valls in search of ballot papers, according to newspaper La Vanguardia. On Friday, the Civil Guard police searched a printing company near Tarragona, reportedly in search of materials to be used in the independence vote. Spain s Civil Guard police was unavailable for comment but a court statement said the searches were related to charges brought by the public prosecutor in relation to the referendum. | 0fake |
GERMAN COURT RULES “Sharia Police” Patrolling City Streets Did NOT Break Law…INSANE Video Shows Muslim Men Patrolling Streets | These videos are very disturbing. Americans are headed down this path if we don t fight back against the Left who put political correctness before our national security A German court has ruled that Islamists who patrolled a city s streets as Sharia police did not break the law and will not be prosecuted.Here is what a Sharia Patrol looks like:Nine were arrested in September 2014 after patrolling streets in Wuppertal, western Germany. They wore bright orange jackets with the words Sharia police . They told passers-by not to frequent discos, casinos or bars.The court said they had not violated laws on uniforms and public gatherings.Prosecutors have now lodged an appeal.The group of Salafists ultra-conservative Islamists included Sven Lau, a preacher whose passport was seized this year after he visited Syria and a photo surfaced, showing him posing on a tank, with a Kalashnikov rifle slung around his neck. He is suspected of trying to recruit Muslims to join jihadists fighting in Syria or Iraq and has spent some time in prison previously. He said he had gone to war-torn Syria in 2013 on a humanitarian mission.Sharia, the revealed, sacred law of Islam, governs all aspects of a Muslim s life.The group s appearance at night in Wuppertal, in the industrial Ruhr region, triggered sharp criticism in Germany. A film of their patrol appeared on YouTube:The action was condemned by the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, who said it was harmful to Muslims .The group also carried notices proclaiming in English a Sharia Controlled Zone . The notices spelled out prohibitions like those in force in some Gulf Arab countries, outlawing alcohol, drugs, gambling, music and concerts, pornography and prostitution. Activists in the anti-Islam Pegida movement campaigning to stop immigration to Germany demonstrated in Wuppertal last year. They have staged regular marches against the Islamisation of Germany nationwide. Via: BBC | 1real |
LOL! ONE HILARIOUS CARTOON Perfectly Illustrates How Embarrassingly Politically Correct The NFL Has Become | Watching sports on TV or going to a football stadium to watch a game, used to be a great way to unwind and forget about your troubles at home or at work. Watching sports used to be a stress reliever for many. That was before the NFL and the NBA was hijacked by the politically correct police, and social justice warriors, and morphed into something most fans don t even recognize anymore.One of the worst cases of political correctness was when liberals insisted that the Washington Redskins change their name so as not to offend Native Americans. The left got very little support from Redskins fans and surprisingly, many in the Native American community were unwilling to join the fight to demand a name change for the team. Eventually, the left was forced to walk away from that fight, and accept that the owners of the Redskins were focused on playing football, and were not interested in their foolish game of political correctness.Today, the NFL is facing a huge backlash from fans, as players are being asked to choose activism over their allegiance to their fans who couldn t care less about their political views, they re coming to escape the stresses of everyday life and to watch these professional athletes play football. They don t come to see professional athletes kneeling on the sidelines during our national anthem in support of the Black Lives Matter anti-cop group, who inspired the killings of several innocent cops, shut down major roads, threatened innocent people who got in their way, and looted and burned cities to the ground. Fans come to relax and to forget about their troubles. They come to get away from the divisive politics and challenges of everyday life. They certainly don t travel to stadiums to attend games or watch them on TV so they can be admonished or scolded for not holding the same politically correct views as the snowflakes on the field.This hilarious cartoon by BenGarrison is a perfect example of who fans are paying to see on the field today:It won t be long before fans stop supporting these snowflakes, and politically correct crybabies, and maybe then, they ll remember why we came | 1real |
Factbox: Issues at stake in Trump-China summit in Florida | (Reuters) - President Donald Trump faces his biggest test as a world leader when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping Thursday and Friday for a summit that will set the tone for perhaps the most consequential of U.S. foreign relationships. The two leaders are expected to struggle to find common ground on the main issues that divide them when they meet at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The main agenda items are: North Korea is perhaps Trump’s most pressing national security challenge. Pyongyang has been working to develop nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States. Trump is expected to repeat his call for China to do more to rein in its ally and neighbor and has warned that Washington might deal with Pyongyang’s weapons programs alone if need be. China says it is doing all it can and has said it is up to the United States to de-escalate with Pyongyang. A White House strategy review focuses on options for pressuring Pyongyang economically and militarily. Among measures under consideration are “secondary sanctions” against Chinese banks and firms that do the most business with Pyongyang. A long-standing option of pre-emptive strikes remains on the table, but the review “de-emphasizes direct military action,” a senior U.S. official said. Any military action would likely provoke severe North Korean retaliation and massive casualties in South Korea and Japan and among U.S. troops stationed there. TRADE Trade is one of the biggest hot-button issues, given Trump’s charges in his presidential campaign that Chinese trade practices were killing U.S. jobs and his vow to impose 45 percent tariffs on Chinese imports. The administration has not acted on unilateral tariffs but is targeting a reduction in China’s $347 billion goods trade surplus through tougher enforcement of trade laws and anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has also demanded “reciprocity” in the U.S.-China economic relationship, saying that U.S. companies do not enjoy the same access to China’s vast market as Chinese firms get in the United States. China says Washington should create better conditions for Chinese investment in the United States if it wants to correct the imbalance. Neither side wants a trade war, but it may be hard to do much more than lower the temperature in Mar-a-Lago. Some analysts believe Xi may bring a package of job-creating Chinese investments and the prospect of a more open services sector that Trump could tweet as tangible achievements. Relations are also clouded by China’s expansive claims in the disputed South China Sea, where Beijing has been building artificial islands and installing military facilities on them. U.S. officials see this as part of a long-term Chinese bid to deny U.S. forces access to the strategic sea, a key global trade route. They say Washington plans more robust naval operations to challenge Chinese claims and assert the right to freedom of navigation, though months have passed since the last one in October under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama. The situation in North Korea has appeared to push the South China Sea issue onto the back burner for now, but Trump is expected to air U.S. concerns. Trump has repeatedly charged that China manipulates its yuan currency to keep its exports cheap, and he is likely to raise the issue with Xi. But Trump did not make good on his promises to formally declare China a currency manipulator on the first day of his presidency. While economists believe China pushed down the value of the yuan in the past, China’s central bank for much of the past two years has been working to prop up the yuan amid capital outflow pressures, spending more than $1 trillion in the process. This would make it very hard to justify a manipulator designation under the U.S. Treasury’s current foreign exchange analysis, due one week after Xi’s visit. The summit would not be happening if Trump had not reaffirmed the “one China” policy that has underpinned bilateral relations for decades. Trump infuriated Beijing when, as president-elect, he took a call from Taiwan’s president and suggested he might not abide by the policy. He backtracked in a call with Xi in February. Xi may now be looking to head off a big new weapons package to Taiwan that U.S. officials have told Reuters is being crafted. For its part, Taiwan will be watching anxiously for any sign that Trump is using it as a bargaining chip. | 0fake |
[VIDEO] RINO STRATEGIST KARL ROVE HAS SOLUTION TO GUN VIOLENCE: Repeal Second Amendment | Why does FOX News even give this guy a microphone? He lost his relevance about a decade ago, and yet FOX News still thinks Americans care about anything he has to say. He was against gun control before he was for it Republican strategist Karl Rove said on Fox News Sunday the only way to stop gun-related violence, like the Wednesday massacre at Emmanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston S.C., was to repeal American citizens Second Amendment rights.When Chris Wallace asked Rove how we can, stop the violence, the long-time gun-rights advocate stated that we have made great strides as a nation in empathizing with the victims of these types of shootings, but the only way to guarantee they will stop is to remove guns from society. What do you think?WALLACE: How do we stop the violence?What do you think? ROVE: I wish I had an easy answer for that, but I don t think there s an easy answerWhat do you think? We saw an act of evil. Racist, bigoted evil, and to me the amazing thing is that it was met with grief and love. Think about how far we ve come since 1963. The whole weight of the government throughout the South was to impede finding and holding and bringing to justice the men who perpetrated the [Birmingham] bombing.What do you think? And here, we saw an entire state, an entire community, an entire nation come together, grieving as one and united in the belief that this was an evil act, so we ve come a long way.What do you think? Now maybe there s some magic law that will keep us from having more of these. I mean basically the only way to guarantee that we will dramatically reduce acts of violence involving guns is to basically remove guns from society, and until somebody gets enough oomph to repeal the Second Amendment, that s not going to happen.Via: Daily Caller | 1real |
Case Study in Chaos: How Management Experts Grade a Trump White House - The New York Times | For someone who promoted his management skills and campaigned as an “organizational genius,” as Anderson Cooper of CNN put it, it has been a rocky White House debut for Donald J. Trump, the first president to go directly from the executive suite to the Oval Office. “Chaos” seems to be the word most often invoked, closely followed by “turmoil. ” (One exception: the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, who said he preferred “ . ”) In less than two weeks, Mr. Trump created upheaval at the nation’s borders, alienated longtime allies, roiled markets with talk of a trade war and prompted some of the largest protests any president has faced. The conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal bemoaned a refugee policy “so poorly explained and prepared for, that it has produced confusion and fear at airports, an immediate legal defeat, and political fury at home and abroad. ” Even the top House Republican, Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who had released a statement praising the immigration order, later distanced himself, saying, “It’s regrettable that there was some confusion with the rollout. ” All new presidents undergo a learning curve. But Mr. Trump promised a seamless transition and, with a real chief executive in charge as opposed to a career politician, an administration that would function as a machine. So it doesn’t seem premature to ask some leading management experts for an assessment of Mr. Trump’s first weeks, purely from the viewpoint of organizational behavior and management effectiveness, as I did this week. The unanimous verdict: Thus far, the Trump administration is a textbook case of how not to run a complex organization like the executive branch. “This is so basic, it’s covered in the introduction to the M. B. A. program that all our students take,” said Lindred Greer, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. By all outward indications, Mr. Trump “desperately needs to take the course,” she said. Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford and the author of “Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t,” said Mr. Trump’s executive actions as president “are so far from any responsible management approach” that they all but defy analysis. “Of course, this isn’t new,” he told me. “His campaign also violated every prudent management principle. Everyone including our friends on Wall Street somehow believed that once he was president he’d change. I don’t understand that logic. ” Wall Street did take notice. After months of cheering the prospect of tax reform and infrastructure spending, investors sold stocks after a weekend of chaos at the nation’s airports connected to the president’s executive order on immigration. On Monday, the Dow industrials experienced the biggest decline since the election, fueled by worries that a dysfunctional White House wouldn’t be able to execute Mr. Trump’s policies. “If you thought immigration was bad, just wait for health care,” Mr. Pfeffer warned. The White House did not respond to requests for comment. There is an enormous amount of literature and data exploring what constitutes effective management of complicated organizations. “The core principles have served many leaders really well,” said Jeffrey T. Polzer, professor of human resource management at Harvard Business School. “It’s really common sense: You want to surround yourself with talented people who have the most expertise, who bring different perspectives to the issue at hand. Then you foster debate and invite different points of view in order to reach a solution. ” This is often easier said than done. It “requires an openness to being challenged, and some and even humility to acknowledge that there are areas where other people know more than you do,” Mr. Polzer continued. “This doesn’t mean decisions are made by consensus. The person at the top makes the decisions, but based on the facts and expertise necessary to make a good decision. ” Mr. Trump has already violated several of these core principles. The secretary of Homeland Security, John F. Kelly, was still discussing a proposed executive order restricting immigration when Mr. Trump went ahead and signed it. Nor was Jim Mattis, the defense secretary, consulted he saw the final order only hours before it went into effect. Not to consult thoroughly with top cabinet officers before deciding on the order “is insane,” since they “have the expertise and should be on top of the data,” Ms. Greer said. “Ignoring them leads to bad decisions and is also incredibly demoralizing. ” And there’s another reason to consult, Mr. Polzer said: “When people are genuinely involved in a decision and their input is heard and valued and respected, they are more likely to support and buy into the decision and be motivated to execute to the best of their abilities, even if the decision doesn’t go their way. ” Conversely, people who aren’t consulted feel they have no stake in a successful outcome. Far from encouraging and weighing differing views as part of the process, Mr. Trump appears to view dissension as disloyalty. After career State Department officers circulated a draft cable questioning the effectiveness of the immigration ban, Mr. Spicer responded, “They should either get with the program or they can go. ” “Debate and dissent are essential to reaching any thoughtful outcome,” Ms. Greer said. Comments like Mr. Spicer’s “will discourage anyone from speaking up. You end up with group think, an echo chamber where people only say what they think the president wants to hear. ” And while it’s understandable that the president was eager to act swiftly to follow through on his campaign promises — he had made a long list of actions to be carried out on “Day 1” — his directives came across as needlessly hasty and poorly thought through. Some had to be reframed (talk of a Mexican border surcharge) or significantly modified and clarified after the fact (immigration policy). I asked the management experts to ignore their views about the merits of Mr. Trump’s policies, but all said that execution and substance are inextricably linked. “When you’re on the receiving end of a policy decision, the merits of the decision and the execution go hand in hand,” Mr. Polzer said. “If either one is done poorly, the outcomes will be bad. Even good plans that are poorly rolled out aren’t going to work well. ” For many people, the Affordable Care Act was indelibly tainted by the computer malfunctions that plagued its start. Similarly, for many Americans, the enduring image of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy will be that of a tearful Iraqi immigrant who was detained at Kennedy International Airport after risking his life working as a translator for the American military over a period. (He was released after lawyers intervened on his behalf.) That prompted even Mr. Ryan to say, “No one wanted to see people with green cards or special immigrant visas, like translators, get caught up in all of this. ” Some Trump defenders have said that the president thrives on chaos, and it has proved to be an effective management approach for him in the past. But every expert I consulted said there is no empirical data or research that supports the notion that chaos is a productive management tool. “I’m not aware of anyone who advocates that,” Mr. Polzer said. “I don’t really know what’s going on in the White House, so I don’t feel comfortable commenting on that specifically. But I can say in general that in organizational settings, less chaos is a good thing. ” Everyone agreed that there was still time for Mr. Trump to right the ship. Other administrations have had course corrections and personnel . But having to reorganize only weeks into a first term is not promising. If this were the private sector, “someone would be fired,” Ms. Greer said. That seems highly unlikely, since Mr. Trump has not even acknowledged a problem, instead blaming the media for an impression of upheaval in the White House. That is a fundamental problem, Mr. Pfeffer said. “No good business makes decisions that are based on falsehoods,” he said. “My sense is that Trump takes no one’s counsel but his own. That’s bad management, period. ” | 0fake |
BOILER ROOM – EP #51 – Social Rejects & Political Pessimists Club | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. 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, & Spore along with Randy J of 21Wire, Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blogspot and Daniel Spaulding of Soul of the East. Tonight the Boiler Gang brings the internet show with more twists and turns than Space Mountain! Listen in as we discuss the absurd social agendas rampant in universities that project the concept of inanimate objects being racist. We break down Andy Nowicki s hypothesis that the Ted Cruz sex scandal could actually be a PR stunt to improve his alpha male cred and talk about the CIA influence in movements like the 60s counter culture and a thought provoking conversation about the perils of 3rd wave feminism. If you want to participate, bring something interesting to throw into the boiler Join us in the ALTERNATE CURRENT RADIO chat room.BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY! REFERENCE LINKS: | 1real |
Ousted Michigan lawmakers face felony charges for affair cover-up | DETROIT (Reuters) - Two former Michigan representatives forced out of the state legislature last fall for a scheme to cover up their extramarital affair face felony charges of misconduct and related counts, officials said on Friday. Todd Courser, who resigned from his seat in Lapeer County, was charged with three counts of misconduct while in office, each of which carries a five year prison term, as well as a perjury charge, which has a 15-year sentence, according to the Michigan attorney general’s office. Cindy Gamrat, who was removed from her Allegan County seat, faces two charges of misconduct while in office. Warrants have been served for both former lawmakers. “We are demonstrating to the citizens of Michigan that no one is above the law, not even those who walk in the hall of power,” Attorney General Bill Schuette told reporters. Schuette’s office and Michigan State Police launched an investigation into the two disgraced lawmakers last fall. Schuette said on Friday that Courser and Gamrat both lied to investigators, and that Courser asked his staff to send out false emails to cover up the extramarital affair. Courser had devised a plan to distribute an email falsely claiming he had sex with a male prostitute, according to the Detroit News. That claim, Courser said, would have blunted the political impact of an actual affair if it had come out. He was charged with perjury for allegedly lying while giving testimony to a House committee, Schuette’s office said. Both won seats in 2014 as Tea Party conservatives and devout Christians. They tried to regain their seats last year, but lost in the Republican primary. Courser and Gamrat were not immediately available for comment on Friday. | 0fake |
Obama seeks to end sequester cuts, raise spending caps in budget plan | President Obama called for an end to "mindless austerity" on Thursday as he announced his desire to end "sequester" spending cuts in his budget for 2015.
The across-the-board cuts, agreed to by both parties, have been in effect since 2013, after lawmakers were unable to produce a more strategic deficit-cutting plan. Members of both parties have problems with the cuts, which indiscriminately affect both domestic and defense programs.
Obama's proposed $74 billion in added spending — about 7 percent — would be split about evenly between defense programs and the domestic side of the budget. Although he's sought before to reverse the sequester spending cuts, Obama's pitch in this year's budget comes with the added oomph of an improving economy and big recent declines in federal deficits.
Taking a defiant tone, Obama vowed not to stand on the sidelines as he laid out his opening offer to Congress during remarks in Philadelphia, where House Democrats were gathered for their annual retreat.
"We need to stand up and go on offensive and not be defensive about what we believe in," Obama said. Mocking Republicans for what he called their leaders' newfound interest in poverty and the middle class, he questioned whether they would back it up with substance when it mattered.
Republicans promise to produce a balanced budget blueprint this spring even as they worry about Pentagon spending. The Senate's No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, dismissed the Obama proposals as "happy talk." And Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania chided the president for "abandoning spending discipline."
GOP lawmakers are focused primarily on reversing restraints on military spending, while Democrats and Obama are seeking new domestic dollars for education, research, health care and infrastructure. Republicans argue that spending more in so many areas would undo the hard-fought reductions in the country's annual deficit.
They also oppose many of the tax hikes Obama has proposed to pay for the increased spending.
Neither party has tender feelings for the sequester, which cut bluntly across the entire federal budget and was originally designed more as a threat than as an actual spending plan. With the economy gaining steam while deficits decline, both parties have signaled they want to roll some of the cuts back. A bipartisan deal struck previously softened the blow by about a third for the 2014 and 2015 budget years.
Both parties are generally inclined to boost spending for the military, which is wrestling with threats from terrorism and extremist groups and has been strained by budget limits and two long wars. "At what point do we, the institution and our nation, lose our soldiers' trust?" asked Gen. Raymond Odierno, the Army chief of staff, at a Senate hearing Wednesday.
Yet among congressional Republicans, there's no unanimity about where more Pentagon funds should come from — a division within the GOP that Obama appeared eager to exploit.
Some House Republicans want to cut domestic agency budgets to free money for the military — an approach that failed badly for Republicans two years ago. Some are eying cuts to so-called mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare, while others want to ignore the spending restraints altogether.
"Whatever it takes within reason to get this problem fixed is what I'm willing to do," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., adding that he would be willing to consider more tax revenue "just to get the damn thing done."
The budget constraints stem from the hard-fought budget and debt bill of August 2011 that both parties negotiated and Obama signed into law. The threat of across-the-board cuts to virtually every federal agency was supposed to force Democrats and Republicans to compromise on smarter, less onerous spending cuts, but the measure kicked in when a supercommittee failed to reach an overall fiscal deal.
The White House said Obama's budget would be "fully paid for" by cutting inefficient programs and closing tax loopholes — particularly a trust fund provision the White House has been eying. Spokesman Josh Earnest said that and a few other tax tweaks would not only pay for Obama's increased spending but also offset middle-class tax cuts the president wants to create or expand.
At the same time, Earnest was quick to concede, "No president has ever put forward a budget with the expectation that Congress is going to pass it in its current form."
Details of what Obama will ask for in his budget began to trickle out ahead of the budget's formal release Monday. The Interior Department announced Obama would seek $1 billion for Native American schools, while Vice President Joe Biden said the budget would call for another $1 billion in aid for Central American nations.
At the Pentagon, Obama's increases would help pay for next-generation F-35 fighter jets, for ships and submarines and for long-range Air Force tankers. On the domestic side, Obama has proposed two free years of community college and new or expanded tax credits for child care and spouses who both work.
In his meeting with House Democrats, Obama also insisted that Republicans must not be allowed to use a funding bill for the Homeland Security Department to try to quash his executive actions on immigration. The White House has called that approach a "dangerous view" that would risk national security.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 0fake |
Trump Moronically Claims Entire Russia Investigation Is A Lie Because CNN Responsibly Retracted One Story | Donald Trump went on another uncontrollable rant against the media on Tuesday morning.Days after three CNN employees resigned over a minor story about the Russia investigation that turned out to be incorrect, Trump took to Twitter to gloat about it and claimed that because this story was wrong all the other news about Russia is fake, too.Wow, CNN had to retract big story on Russia, with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2017CNN responsibly retracted a story that alleged a connection to Russia by Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci. Scaramucci even called the move classy and called for moving on. Well, Trump didn t move on. He seized the situation as an opportunity to attack the media, with the exception being Fox News, as usual, arguing that because CNN got a story wrong that it must mean every other story in the media about Russia is wrong as well. Seriously.Fake News CNN is looking at big management changes now that they got caught falsely pushing their phony Russian stories. Ratings way down! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2017So they caught Fake News CNN cold, but what about NBC, CBS & ABC? What about the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost? They are all Fake News! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2017Trump even retweeted Fox hosts who parroted his claim that the Democrats are the ones who committed collusion.Mark Levin: The collusion is among the Democrats https://t.co/Qrca7r01BI FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) June 27, 2017Hannity: Russia allegations boomeranging back on Democrats https://t.co/lvdrpxpcp9 FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) June 27, 2017Keep in mind that these CNN staffers actually resigned over an insignificant error. Meanwhile, Sean Hannity has been lying for weeks about the death of Seth Rich and he still has a job.Trump is apparently so desperate to stop the Russia investigation that he will do or say anything.Trump is also a hypocrite because most of what he has said since taking office is false, yet he refuses to resign.Twitter users even pointed out this hypocrisy and proceeded to mock him.Hmm, pot, kettle President Trump s Lies, the Definitive List https://t.co/6vqAmJlTTf pic.twitter.com/Ogwy1wuXnl Michael Vine (@mpvine) June 27, 2017Wouldn t a true fake news network not retract the story and keep the fake story going? Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) June 27, 2017Something like taping Comey or Obama s birth certificate or crowd size at the 2017 inauguration? Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) June 27, 2017The @nytimes isn t failing, Donald. Digital subscriptions up by MILLIONS. Stock near a 52 week high. Not failing at all, Donald. SOARING. pic.twitter.com/TpGXONOtK3 MatthewDicks (@MatthewDicks) June 27, 2017You re spewing the fake news. The 1st Amendment is there, in part, so the media can explain that.Attacking ALL media is what dictators do David Pepper (@DavidPepper) June 27, 2017Donald Trump must be truly insane if he really thinks one retracted story means he is vindicated.Featured Image: Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1real |
Swedish Mother KICKS Daughter Out Of Her Room To House Refugee…Refugee Promptly Sexually Assaults 10 Year Old Daughter | A tale of a mother and the dangerous religion of progressivism Putting her radical liberal ideology before the safety and well-being of her own children A Swedish mother decided it would be a good idea to open up her home to a male refugee from Eritrea, and so she kicked her daughter out of her room to make space. That refugee then decided to sexually assault her 10-year-old daughter.In the summer of 2015, a mother of three children in Sweden brought two third world asylum seekers into her home. To make space, she decided to move her daughter Emma into her own room.On the eve of Aug. 18, 2015, Emma awoke to find Isaac squeezing her chest. She suffered breast pain after the incident and didn t want to tell anyone, as she was afraid her mother would get in trouble. Emma couldn t even look at Isaac because he looked scary to her. The story came out after Emma finally told a friend of hers, and eventually after several people became aware of the situation, Isaac was confronted.He protested he would never sexually assault Emma, since he has a girlfriend back in Eritrea. But after further questioning, he finally admitted to groping Emma s breasts. When the police questioned him, Isaac changed his testimony and denied he had ever touched her.Isaac meanwhile maintains he s only 15, since he started school in Eritrea when he was 10 and then went to school for an additional seven years. He finished school two years ago, which according to him, makes him only 15.The Lund District Court finds this sort of calculation bizarre, but the judge has decided to move forward with the case under the assumption that he is, in fact, just 15. The judge sentenced Isaac on Friday based on the charge of juvenile sexual assault, which means he ll be sent to counseling.In the counseling process, he ll apparently learn to control his impulses and process through past experiences in his life that may have caused him to act out the way he did.Meanwhile, Emma s brother says he s never seen his sister so distraught. She cries often, even though according to her brother, she s very strong.Yet, despite what Isaac did, he ll be able to stay in Sweden.Via: Daily Caller | 1real |
It’s Children Against Federal Lawyers in Immigration Court - The New York Times | TUCSON — After a long, scary trek through three countries to escape the gang violence in El Salvador, a boy found himself scared again a few months back, this time in a federal immigration court here. There was an immigration judge in front of him and a federal prosecutor to his right. But there was no one helping him understand the charges against him. “I was afraid I was going to make a mistake,” the boy said in Spanish from his uncle’s living room, in a modest house on the south side of this city. “When the judge asked me questions, I just shook my head yes and no. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. ” Every week in immigration courts around the country, thousands of children act as their own lawyers, pleading for asylum or other type of relief in a legal system they do not understand. Suspected killers, kidnappers and others facing federal felony charges, no matter their ages, are entitled to lawyers if they cannot afford them. But children accused of violating immigration laws, a civil offense, do not have the same right. In immigration court, people face charges from the government, but the government has no obligation to provide lawyers for poor children and adults, as it does in criminal cases, legal experts say. Having a lawyer makes a difference. Between October 2004 and June of this year, more than half the children who did not have lawyers were deported. Only one in 10 children who had legal representation were sent back, according to federal data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group connected to Syracuse University. “We have looked for any legal system in the United States where children are required to represent themselves against a government lawyer — child welfare proceedings, juvenile delinquency proceedings. We have not yet found one, and the government hasn’t found one either,” Stephen Kang, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Right Project, said in an interview. “What we have in immigration court is an system,” Mr. Kang said. “Children face federal prosecutors at adversarial court hearings that can have consequences for the children involved. ” A lawsuit, filed by the A. C. L. U. and other civil rights organizations, is trying to change that. In a brief filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where the federal government is contesting the court’s authority to hear the case, Justice Department lawyers insisted that “aliens in civil administrative removal proceedings have the privilege of being represented by retained counsel, but do not possess either a constitutional or statutory right to appointed counsel at taxpayer expense. ” Yet the government has also spent millions of dollars paying for lawyers to represent unaccompanied children in immigration courts — from modest programs in Baltimore and Tennessee to a $55 million effort by the Department of Health and Human Services in cities throughout the United States. In remarks to the Hispanic National Bar Association in 2014, General Eric H. Holder Jr. said, “Though these children may not have a constitutional right to a lawyer, we have policy reasons and a moral obligation to ensure the presence of counsel. ” Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Immigration Review, a part of the Justice Department that oversees the nation’s immigration courts, reiterated the position in an interview this month, saying in an email, “In general, legal representation enhances the effectiveness and efficiency of immigration proceedings. ” Most of the children appearing in immigration courts are from Central America, escapees of the poverty and street violence that make El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras some of the most dangerous countries in the world. Two summers ago, the children captured headlines when they surged across the United border, surprising the authorities and overwhelming a system that was not prepared to absorb them. They were detained in a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Tex. and a warehouse in Nogales, Ariz. sleeping side by side behind fences, on thin mattresses spread on the concrete floor. A crackdown by the Mexican authorities stemmed the flow, but the numbers are rising again, especially in the Big Bend region of Texas and around Yuma, Ariz. as smugglers have adjusted their routes to evade the authorities. The 37, 714 Central American children apprehended along the southern border between Oct. 1 and July 31, or the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, was 33 percent higher than the 28, 387 children caught during all of the 2015 fiscal year and not far from the 2014 record of 51, 705, according to Border Patrol statistics. The number of children in shelters changes daily, said Victoria Palmer, a spokeswoman for the Office of Refugee Resettlement. As of Aug. 1, 7, 900 unaccompanied children were under federal government supervision, with 2, 300 beds still available in the shelters, she said. The challenge has been helping these children once they go to court. “Our waiting list got to be so long, it wasn’t fair to put anyone else on a waiting list,” said Sara Van Hofwegen, a lawyer who represents unaccompanied children for Public Counsel, a law firm in Los Angeles. “We tell the kids, ‘Sorry, call in six months, call some other time.’ It’s pretty common they’ll call five, six places and none of them is accepting new cases. ” In 2014, Matt Adams, legal director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project in Seattle, joined Public Counsel, the A. C. L. U. and other civil rights groups in suing the federal government on behalf of nine Central American children, ages 10 to 17, who were representing themselves in deportation hearings. Earlier this year, a judge gave one of the children, an indigenous boy from Guatemala, an ultimatum: Find a lawyer or come to his next hearing prepared to petition for asylum on his own. (The lawsuit gained status in June.) The boy from El Salvador — whose family allowed him to be interviewed only if his name was not used, because they did not want to jeopardize his pending asylum case — tried to hire his own lawyer. His uncle and legal guardian said one lawyer had offered to take the case for $6, 000 the family decided against paying when the lawyer seemed hesitant about the boy’s chances of success. The uncle took the boy, his dark hair styled in a mohawk that droops along the nape of his neck, to his first immigration hearing in April, hoping to stand up and speak for him. But, the uncle said, the judge did not let him. So the boy plopped himself in the defendant’s chair, slipped on the headphones that piped in the translation, and shook his head as much as he could until the judge told him he had to speak. On their way out, a lawyer from the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, which has been representing young people facing deportation for years, handed the uncle a business card. “Our overall goal is to represent every child that comes through immigration court,” said Lauren Dasse, the project’s executive director. The lawyers gave 7, 500 presentations to children in Arizona shelters last year, she said. Lawyers tell the children about the role immigration judges play and what happens in court. They also handed the children business cards, at the shelters and outside courtrooms, and encouraged them to call. The uncle said he was suspicious when the lawyer approached his nephew, and wondered why anyone would want to do this for free. Still, his nephew made an appointment. On Aug. 5, the judge gave the boy an extension so that his application for relief could be prepared and presented. He will be back to court in October. This time, with a lawyer. | 0fake |
Georgia Father Is Convicted of Murder in Toddler’s Death in Hot Car - The New York Times | ATLANTA — With local television programming interrupted and a camera trained on the defendant’s emotionless face, an father was convicted of murder on Monday for causing the death of his young son by deliberately leaving him in a hot car more than two years ago. A jury in southeast Georgia, where the case was tried because of intense pretrial publicity here, returned guilty verdicts against the man, Justin Ross Harris, 35, on eight counts, including malice murder and cruelty to children. Mr. Harris, who sometimes glanced downward as the verdict was read in Brunswick, could be sentenced to life in prison for the death of his son, Cooper. The verdict, announced on the jury’s fourth day of deliberations, ended the suspense of a trial that began on Oct. 3, and it capped nearly 29 months of sordid allegations and scrambled loyalties. The cause of Cooper’s death was undisputed — Mr. Harris left him in a Hyundai Tucson while he worked as a software engineer at Home Depot on June 18, 2014 — but it fell to jurors to decide whether he had been malicious or merely . The manner of Cooper’s death is a heartbreakingly familiar one: At least 39 children in the United States have died of “vehicular heatstroke” this year, according to statistics compiled by a San Jose State University researcher. But the case against Mr. Harris was striking because of the severity of the charges and the state’s argument that he was eager to end his responsibilities to his family. “This killer’s heart abandoned this child long before he died,” Charles P. Boring, an assistant district attorney, said during his closing argument. “This defendant’s heart abandoned this child when he left him to die a terrible death in that car. ” In a statement after the verdict, the district attorney’s office noted a message that Mr. Harris sent minutes before he left his vehicle, Cooper still in his car seat: “I love my son and all, but we both need escapes. ” But near the end of a trial in which Mr. Harris was vilified as a man with a compromised marriage, one of his lawyers, H. Maddox Kilgore, argued that moral failings did not make a motive for murder. “There is no evidence of any kind of hatred or bad feelings or anger,” Mr. Kilgore said. “Whatever term you want to come up with, any term you come up with, there’s no evidence that Ross expressed that toward his son. ” In the end, Mr. Harris was convicted on all eight counts for which he was indicted. Three of the charges were not connected to Cooper’s death and instead focused on Mr. Harris’s electronic communications with at least one underage girl. He will be sentenced next month. Although Mr. Harris’s former wife, Leanna Taylor, filed for divorce after Cooper’s death, she testified in her husband’s defense. Ms. Taylor’s lawyer, Lawrence J. Zimmerman, said she was “deeply disappointed” by the verdict. | 0fake |
Back Story Of FBI’s Hillary Cover-Up | Back Story Of FBI’s Hillary Cover-Up FBI corruption exposed Infowars Nightly News - October 28, 2016 Comments
Angry law enforcement investigators are talking about corruption at the top of the FBI’s “investigation” of Hillary.
Here’s how it went sideways. NEWSLETTER SIGN UP 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 A Vote For Hillary is a Vote For World War 3 - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . The Most Offensive Halloween EVER! - 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 |
Colin Kaepernick’s Mother Fires Back At Trump For Calling Him A ‘Son Of A B*tch’ | On Friday, Donald Trump attacked NFL players such as Colin Kaepernick at a rally for Alabama Senate candidate Luther Strange (R). The amateur president called on NFL owners to fire players for taking a knee rather than standing during the national anthem. Wouldn t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, Trump said, adding, He is fired. Colin Kaepernick s mother wasn t having any of it. Do not mess with her son. Guess that makes me a proud bitch! Teresa Kaepernick tweeted.Guess that makes me a proud bitch! Teresa Kaepernick (@B4IleaveU) September 23, 2017While Puerto Rico remains devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the so-called president is busy attacking black athletes.Stephen Curry, a Golden State Warriors guard and two-time NBA MVP, said that he wasn t interested in visiting the White House to celebrate the team s 2017 championship. He added that he would wait to see how the team feels as a group. Curry said his reasons for not wanting to visit the White House were that we basically don t stand for what our president has said, and the things he hasn t said at the right time, according to SF Gate. By not going, hopefully, it will inspire some change for what we tolerate in this country and what we stand for, what is accepted and what we turn a blind eye toward. So, Trump tweeted a response. Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team. Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn! Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017That s right, he can t break up with Trump. Trump is breaking up with him first, so there!NBA star LeBron James fired back at Trump over his tweet, calling him a bum on Saturday. You bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain t going! So therefore ain t no invite, James tweeted. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up! James tweeted.U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up! LeBron James (@KingJames) September 23, 2017LeSean McCoy, running back for the Buffalo Bills tweeted, It s really sad man our president is a asshole. It's really sad man our president is a asshole Lesean McCoy (@CutonDime25) September 23, 2017Mrs. Kaepernick retweeted that.After a backlash, Trump took to his Twitter account. If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem, he tweeted. If not, YOU RE FIRED. Find something else to do! Welp, if a president disrespects our country then he should be fired.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty images. | 1real |
Ukraine drops tax probe of finance minister: finance ministry | KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian prosecutors have ended an inquiry into Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk over alleged tax evasion after failing to find any evidence of wrongdoing, his press service said on Tuesday. The investigation was launched in July at the request of lawmaker Tetiana Chornovol, a member of former Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk s People s Front party. Danylyuk, who became finance minister after Yatseniuk s ouster in April 2016, denied the charges and hinted they were linked to his efforts to crack down on corruption. In a statement his press service said the case has been closed due to a lack of circumstances constituting a breach of law. The General Prosecutor s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Since becoming finance minister, Danylyuk, a former investment manager who has also served as a deputy head of President Petro Poroshenko s administration, has backed reforms required under a $17.5 billion bailout program from the International Monetary Fund. | 0fake |
Black Woman SHUTS DOWN Hundreds Of Marching Neo-Nazis With One Powerful Message (VIDEO/IMAGES) | Never underestimate the impact a single person can have. Just last weekend, one of the most powerful stands against racism we ve seen this year was performed by a lone black woman.Tess Asplund, who is a 42-year-old anti-racism activist in Sweden, took a courageous stand against hundreds of neo-Nazis from the far-right group Nordic Resistance Movement. As she saw the group of 300 white men marching down the street, Asplund protested by standing in front of the advancing group of men, looked them dead in the eyes and raised her fist in an act of defiance. The group pushed her out of the way, but not before the iconic moment was captured on camera. This photograph has now been shared around the world.Twitter#TessAsplund sfida i nazisti svedesi con un pugno chiuso. Immagine simbolo dell antifascismo. pic.twitter.com/vQ7X3nb4Sm Antonio Sicilia (@siciliantonio) May 5, 2016Even famous author J.K. Rowling was inspired by Asplund s message.TwitterTwitterWhat Asplund did was more than courageous, and the impact of her protest was felt around the world. In an interview with the Guardian, Asplund shared what inspired her to take such bold action: It was an impulse. I was so angry, I just went out into the street. I was thinking: hell no, they can t march here! I had this adrenaline. No Nazi is going to march here, it s not okay. Although Asplund said she s been overwhelmed and extremely embarrassed by the amount of attention the photo has gotten, she hopes that it will inspire others. Asplund said: I have fought against racism for 26 years. I am 42 now. And if this is a thing that makes people pay attention to the fight against racism and xenophobia, then that s very good. But I don t want people to see me as a symbol. There were a lot of others who were there against the racists in Borlange. Because of all the attention the photo has gotten, Asplund reveals that her friends are concerned for her safety, but it is a small price to pay if it gets more people to stand up to racism and hate. Now it s a circus. I am in shock. The Nazis are very angry, so I am a little Oh shit, maybe I shouldn t have done that, I want peace and quiet. These guys are big and crazy. It s a mixed feeling, but I am trying to stay calm. If this picture of me can get more people to dare to show resistance, then it s all good. The people must unite and show that it is not okay that racism is becoming normalized and that fascists are running around on our streets. The image was captured by David Lagerlof, who happened to be the only photographer at the scene. Even he was incredibly moved by what Asplund did. He said: I happened to be at the right place. What I think people are reacting to in this photo is that she can t really pose a threat to them, but she puts herself in a very dangerous situation, because this group is violent, and she stands there all alone and faces them. It s like David and Goliath. Although this incident with the Nordic Resistance Movement happened it Sweden, it might not be too far from something that could happen in the United States. With the rise of presumptive Republican nominee Trump and his massive following of racists and white supremacists, we can only expect that the bigotry and hate is going to ramp up as we get closer to the general election. Asplund is an inspiration to all of us, and a brilliant reminder that we should never let hate win. One person can have a massive impact, so there is no excuse not to stand up to Trump s divisive rhetoric.Featured image via Twitter | 1real |
Discrimination and Condemnation: Australia’s War on Boat People | Email
The boat, along with other means of travel, are often undertaken as matters of freedom. Movement keeps one alive in times of peace, and in conflict. The Australian government, and those backing its practices, have wished over the years to limit, if not halt such movement altogether.
Since the last decade, extreme measures have been implemented that effectively qualify Australian sovereignty while singling out a particular breed of asylum seeker. The former aspect of that policy was specifically undertaken to excise the entire mainland from being qualified as territorially valid to arrive in.
The entire policy effectively assumed a military character, most conspicuously under the Abbott government’s embrace of a creepily crypto-fascist border protection force, equipped with uniforms and patriotic purpose. Operation Sovereign Borders effectively meant that the refugee and asylum seeker were fair game – not to be processed and settled equitably with a minimum of fuss, but to be repelled, their boats towed back to Indonesia, and people smugglers bribed.
An entire intelligence-security complex has also been created, fed by private contractors and held in place by the promise of a two-year prison sentence for entrusted officials in possession of “protected” information.
Such statements as those made today by Prime Minister Turnbull, announced with note of grave urgency at a press conference, tend to resemble a typical pattern in Australian politics since the Howard years.
The borders, even if supposedly secure, are deemed to be in a permanent state of siege, forever battered by potential invaders keen to swindle Parliament and the Australian people. Yes, boasted the Abbott, and now Turnbull government, the boats laden with desperate human cargo have stopped coming. Yes, all is well on the sea lanes in terms of repelling such unwanted arrivals. But for all of this, the island continent is being assaulted by characters of will, those keen to avail themselves of desperate people and their desire for a secure, safe haven.
The policy has also received international attention from such establishment institutions as The New York Times. “While that arrangement,” went an editorial this month, “largely stopped the flow of boats packed with people that set off from Indonesia weekly, it has landed these refugees – many from Iran, Myanmar, Iraq and Afghanistan – in what amounts to cruel and indefinite detention.”
As the editorial continued to observe, “This policy costs Australian taxpayers a staggering $US419,000 per detainee a year and has made a nation that has historically welcomed immigrants a violator of international law.”
While this obscenity has been powdered and perfumed as humanitarian, designed to halt the spate of drowning cases at sea, the latest announcements have abandoned the stance. “They must know,” claimed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, “that the door to Australia is closed to those who seek to come here by boat with a people smuggler.”
Finally, an honest statement twinning two perceived demons in Australian refugee policy: the people smuggler and the asylum seeker, both equivalently horrible to Australian authorities. To that end, not a single asylum seeker arriving by boat will be permitted to settle in Australia. This policy will also affect arrivals from July 2013.
Such a stance of finality seems little different to pervious ones made by Abbott’s predecessor, Kevin Rudd. What is troubling about it is the element of monomania: never will any asylum seeker, who had arrived after a certain date, will be permitted to settle in Australia.
The intention there is to make sure that those designated refugees on Manus Island and Nauru, facilitated by Australia’s draconian offshore regime, will have the doors shut, effectively ensuring a more prolonged, torturous confinement. Absurdly, they will then be permitted to slum away indefinitely in such indigent places as Nauru, with a population hostile to those from the Middle East and Africa.
Turnbull’s stance may also suggest a degree of desperation. Not all has gone swimmingly with the offshore detention complex. The PNG Supreme Court rendered an aspect of the Australian refugee policy redundant in finding that detaining individuals indefinitely on Manus Island breached constitutional rights.
Peter Dutton, the hapless Minister for Immigration, has struggled in managing what can only be described by the border security obsessives as an administrative disaster. Rather than admitting to the realities that searching for refuge over dangerous routes will always find a market, the Australian government persists in a cruel delusion that continues to deny international refugee law while punishing the victims. | 1real |
Clinton Campaign In FULL PANIC After Bill’s Alleged Son Makes DEMAND That Would HUMILIATE Them | Clinton Campaign In FULL PANIC After Bill’s Alleged Son Makes DEMAND That Would HUMILIATE Them Oct 27, 2016 Previous post
The man claiming to be the son of former President Bill Clinton told Breitbart News Wednesday he wants his father to step up and be man enough to acknowledge him. “I have always wanted him to step up–for 30 years–you know? I have really been trying to figure this out–my whole life, you know? It is time for him to step up to the plate,” said Danney Williams, 30, who traveled from his Arkansas home to Las Vegas for Wednesday’s third presidential debate between GOP nominee Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The Arkansas man is not trolling the Democratic nominee’s husband. He said he is formally requesting that the former president submit to a paternity test and put the matter to rest–once and for all.
“It is up to him now, ” he said.
“I’ve proven who I am, let him step up and prove me right or prove me wrong,” he said.
Williams’ mother, Bobbie Ann Williams, is quoted in media accounts describing how, as a prostitute in Little Rock, the then-governor met her while out on a jog. The two became close and shared several intimate encounters, according to those accounts.
After Williams was born, his mother allegedly told the governor about his son and although Clinton was reluctant, she said in interviews, Arkansas state troopers would pay her child support every month with seven $100 bills.
The payments stopped however after he announced Clinton was running for president, according to her media accounts.
Williams said he has a good relationship
FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK | 1real |
Trump STUNS An Entire Room Into DUMBFOUNDED Silence With His ‘Proof’ Of Voter Fraud | Trump won the electoral college on Nov. 8. The electoral college formally voted for him on Dec. 19. Congress certified that vote on Jan. 6. And he was sworn in on Jan. 20. He won the election so why is he still beating his I only lost the popular vote because millions voted illegally, drum? He s so obsessed with it that he s promised to open up a major investigation into the massive voter fraud that supposedly denied him his rightful popular vote win:I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017Where the hell is President Asterisk getting his info? It seems he s certain that voter fraud is rampant because he saw something in a polling place once. He supposedly saw Bernhard Langer, a famous golfer, down in Florida sometime after Election Day. Langer told him a story of how he was turned away at the polls, but others were allowed to cast provisional ballots and he was frustrated.The first glaring problem here is this: Langer is a legal permanent resident, but a German citizen, and is therefore barred from voting in national elections. If he did try to vote on Election Day, an official would have been legally obligated to turn Langer away.But still, according to The New York Times: Ahead of and behind Mr. Langer were voters who did not look as if they should be allowed to vote, Mr. Trump said, according to the staff members but they were nonetheless permitted to cast provisional ballots. The president threw out the names of Latin American countries that the voters might have come from. Because someone s appearance is totally how you can tell whether they re legally allowed to vote here. Of course Trump would focus on how people look. It seems that, in his mind, if they appear to be Latino, they re obviously in the country illegally.And people with more than half a brain cell know that s stupid. Trump told the story to a room full of Congressional leaders at a get to know you gathering in the State Dining room. The Times says that this little anecdote was greeted with silence. Then Reince Priebus tried to nudge Trump onto a different topic.This is where Trump is getting his proof that millions of people vote illegally in this country? Anecdotes like this, that might not even be true, are why we re going to waste time and effort on a claim that s been debunked repeatedly, just so he can make people stop pointing to numbers that show he s a loser?ABC News is reporting that the White House has started working on an executive order to open just such an investigation. With all of this, one would think Trump has at least some solid evidence that there s widespread voter fraud. He doesn t.He is way out of hand and he hasn t even been in office for a week.Featured image by Andrew Harrer via Getty Images | 1real |
Virgil: On This Memorial Day, Breitbart Readers Remember and Look to the Future - Breitbart | I. Memorializing the Greatest Generation, Memorial Day is the day in which we remember, with solemn gratitude, all those who gave their lives in military service to our country. Elsewhere here at Breitbart News, others have recollected the fallen as Abraham Lincoln said in eulogizing those who died at Gettysburg in 1863, “It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. ” Interestingly, Memorial Day was once known as Decoration Day. After all, it was, and is, the virtuous custom to decorate the graves of the . And in the name “Decoration Day,” we see something important for the sake of our civic life: the ability of each patriot to offer appropriate honors in his or her own way. That is, with flowers, cards, notes, or perhaps a bit of memorabilia. Today, such personalized displays of devotion are particularly common at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC. Why? Most likely, because that war is relatively recent plenty of people alive now still feel a close connection to warriors. Yet the passing of the years has meant that other American wars are rapidly receding from our personal memory. For instance, we might point to World War II. During that conflict, from 1941 to 1945, the population of the US was about 133 million. And yet in 2010, less than 5. 5 million Americans were over the age of 85 that is, born in 1925 or earlier. Which is to say, the number of Americans today who could have had any adult participation in the war is small — and rapidly getting smaller, as old age takes its toll. Yes, it’s painful to think that all the heroism of that era is no longer with us, at least not in a personal way. To be sure, there are many museum displays, history books, movies, and TV shows about World War II. And yet still, there’s nothing like the power of a personal reminiscence, as anyone who has ever sat at the knee of a revered elder knows full well. It will indeed, be a sad moment when the last voice from that era is stilled. So the least that each of can do is help to make sure that every one of those vital voices is archived in some form. Moreover, perhaps on this Memorial Day we can recall more of the voices from World War II, reaching beyond the ranks of the heroes who died in uniform. That is, for the sake of the enlarging the historical record, we can recollect some of the memories about those who served, too, on the homefront, namely, in war production. If their personal risk and sacrifices were less than those who fought in battle, their contributions were nonetheless enormous: As Virgil has argued many times, America’s greatest comparative edge in World War II was its industrial production. For instance, in a March 17 piece, “Donald Trump, Rosie the Riveter, and the Revival of American Economic Nationalism,” Virgil took note of President Trump’s speech, two days earlier, recalling the plant at Willow Run, Michigan. That was the plant that built 9, 000 bombers that we used to flatten enemy targets. And that piece brought forth an outpouring of WW2 memories from Breitbart readers, many of them recording what they had heard, over the years, from fathers, mothers, and other loved ones who lived, worked, and fought in that era. Virgil sifted through all the comments, more than 1800 of them these left him inspired, informed, amused, and, okay, sometimes bemused. For starters, Virgil enjoyed the comments specifically about a key theme of the article, which was war production in World War II these postings were often from descendants of workers and veterans. Let’s take a look: Reader “MadMen” said simply, “It makes me really miss my grandparents who both worked in those factories. ” Meanwhile, reader “NHnative” reported that one family’s inheritance from WW2 includes, to this day, a devotion to sewing: My grandmother was sewing parachutes . . . She moved on to sewing the uniforms. She’s still sewing daily at age 91 on her 1953 Singer. . . . All the girls in my family are accomplished seamstresses and it all started with those parachutes. Reader “Last Ride” recalled a father who is, shall we say, particularly close to the Liberators made at Willow Run, Michigan, and other parts of the country: My dad started his career in the USAF as a pilot just as they were being retired from service, and ended his career as a pilot. He loves the and moved to Ohio to be near the USAF museum to be able to visit one of the last ones around. He told my mom she should feel lucky that the plane could not say “I do” or she would have been replaced, I believe him. Meanwhile, the legendary Rosie the Riveter received much attention. Reader “Feet2Fire” reminded fellow commenters that there’s plenty to learn about Rosie from the website Diaryofarosie. Yet reader “53Skylark” raised a point of personal privilege — or, more precisely, Pittsburgh privilege — when he asserted: The iconic Rosie the Riveter was based on a woman riveter employed by Westinghouse in Pittsburgh. In the original iconic picture she is wearing a Westinghouse employee badge. She did NOT originate at Willow Run. And, all of the steel for the planes, ships, tanks, bullets, etc. was made in Pittsburgh. The former steel capital of the world. To which reader “Jonsen” replied: Rosie became a symbol of more than one woman, though. She was a symbol for all women working at home to help the cause. (As Virgil noted, while the actual Rosie the Riveter worked at Willow Run, the larger story of “Rosie” is complicated: The immortal “We Can Do It!” image does, indeed, come from Pittsburgh. Yet the great artist Norman Rockwell, too, added his own image of Rosie — and his model was from Vermont.) Indeed, Rosie was more than just an individual she was, and is, an archetype. Reader “TexanForever” recalled: My mom was a “Rosie the riveter” at the North American plant in Grand Prairie, Texas. While I was in grade school in Dallas she was riveting together ’s. Being by nature very modest, she hated wearing slacks, but she did it for the war effort. Or as reader “Sam Houston” put it: This hits home to me as my Father and Uncle were WWII Vets. My Step Mom was a Rosie the Riveter on the Liberator, tail section, at Consolidated Air Force Plant #4 at Carswell Army Airfield in Fort Worth, Texas. She left the dairy farm in Yantis (East Texas) for the War Effort. . . . I am so proud of her and our Greatest Generation! The actual Rosies, of course, are mostly departed by now, which makes commenters wish all the more to savor their memory. As reader “william couch” recalled, “In the early ’70’s, I worked with 2 Rosies. It was @ the plant in Rosecrans, CA. ” And reader “Gary Eaker” offered a strong summary lesson: Great image. Rosie the Riveter. Americans joining together to do what needs to be done to PROTECT AMERICA. We must join together. Of course, Rosie will always live on in spirit. Indeed, as reader “Vypurr” explained, she holds up well: “Rosie had more Moxie and balls than any liberal crybaby Beta male today. ” Yes, the Rosies had spunk reader “backhome1999” recalled this anecdote of female feistiness: My Mom was one of those women. The story she tells, she was responsible for of the airplane to connect everything to the pilot’s area, and she would finish in a few days while her male counterpart doing the same job on the other of the airplane took up to 2 weeks finishing his side. She asked for a raise . . . she finally made as much as a man during that time, which was unheard of. But she did her job in the time (and they knew it). Other commenters compared and contrasted two very different women named Rosie, often adding observations about how things have changed, for the worse, since the 40s. One such was reader “Cindy”: Now instead of Rosie the Riveter, we have the likes of Rosie O’Donnell and Amy Schumer making more for doing worse than nothing than most of us make in a lifetime. Long before the celebs showed their true colors, America made the yuge mistake of placing people who don’t contribute to our society in a meaningful way on a high pedestal so kids would dream of becoming THAT. And speaking of popular culture, reader “chicodon” added: Every young person should see this. Glenn Miller was the hottest musical act on the scene for young people in 1942. The entire country was patriotic, including Hollywood. It’s from before my time but it was America. . . . Can you picture ANY act today doing this? Rooting for the military? Indeed, the lyrics to the Glenn Miller song “chicodon” links to, “People Like You And Me,” are stirring: Say, get a load o’ those guys, High in the skies, Wingin’ to victoryUp and at ’em in the fight forPeople like you and me! Hey, get a load o’ those gobs, Doin’ their jobs, Keepin’ the sea lanes freeJust to make the future bright forPeople like you and me! “Gobs,” we might note, was affectionate slang for “seamen. ” At the same time, in that song, the vital work on the homefront was also not forgotten: We’ll have to roll up our sleeves, Tighten our belts, But through the dark we’ll seeThe lady with the liberty light forPeople like you and you and you, And people like me, People like you and me! Miller, we might recall, joined the US Army during WW2 at the peak of his career — and at age 38. He died on December 15, 1944, when his airplane crashed into the English Channel he had been preparing the next leg of his famed orchestra’s tour for the troops. Of course, Miller’s sacrifice was common many celebrities joined the armed services, and many more pitched in — and more than a few died. For his part, reader “Euclid” took note of the visual elements of Virgil’s article, for which the author can claim no credit: LOOK AT THOSE PHOTOS! Black and white American men and women all working together in harmony. . . . Look at us now! The most divided ever among race, gender, class, age, etc! Yes, everyone found a way to pitch in back then as Trump likes to say, the blood of patriots is all the same color. Without a doubt, we were mostly inspired by patriotism back then, and yet for some, the production effort was personal. Here’s how reader “Katherine” recalled the war work of her grandfather please note the kicker at the end: My grandfather was a tool and die maker for Ford, and was asked to be a foreman at the Pratt and Whitney plant in Highland Park, Michigan, which built the engines for the . He didn’t want to be a foreman, but he did it because one of his three sons who were in the service was a bomber pilot, and he wanted to be sure his son had good engines to fly. So it’s little wonder that even today, many remember the good work that was done. For instance, reader “Havegunwilltravel” wrote: My father was a pilot in WW 2. He flew from England over Germany and he often told me that it was his airplane that brought him back every time. The was hard to fly, no pressurization but she was tough not like what we have today, “MADE IN CHINA” crap. I would like to thank all the people who worked at Willow Run who took pride in their work and built one of the greatest airplanes in the world. Another commenter, reader “Jake Manchester,” added: I love stories about America’s exceptionalism. Imagine building one every hour. Now that, my friends, is American exceptionalism. Yet in those days, as reader “sally forth” recalled, just about everyone was exceptional: It wasn’t just Rosie, it was everyday citizens with victory gardens, scrap metal drives. Those that sold war bonds those that bought war bonds. It was rationing of food gas. Farmers entire families produced more food. Every PATRIOTIC American was somehow involved to win the big one bring the boys home. And yes, Virgil will say it again, a great led us to victory. As reader “backhome1999” remembers: My Mom worked in a factory building planes for the WWII effort, and the photo of FDR reminds me of her story about FDR driving through the plant one day on her way into work and waved at her. She helped build ’s, Douglas plant, Long Beach, Calif. Virgil recognizes that not every Breitbart commenter, including reader “Crazycatkid,” is a fan of Franklin D. Roosevelt. And yet we all might recall that his fellow Americans thought so highly of FDR that they elected him to the White House four times indeed, each of his presidential victories was a landslide. Moreover, the fact that his image has been on the US dime for the last 70 years tells us something about his enduring popularity even two Republicans, Nancy and Ronald Reagan, revered him. Yet in addition to the warm glow of nostalgia from those days, there’s also the chill pang of loss. Reader “Texan Forever” wrote: We were a nation united. . . . During this period my favorite cousin, T. J. Morrow, was a left waist gunner on a . In 1943 while over Germany he was killed instantly by flak. The crippled bomber managed to limp to Belgium where the remaining crew bailed out. T. J.’s body went down with the plane and was buried by a Belgian farmer. His remains were later brought back to America. Indeed, we never forget those who gave all. And if personal memories are now flickering out, well, the rest of us will have to step up our game and keep the remembrance going. As reader “HandsomeRogue” added, “It’s our American history. It’s a legacy our lived and we have — largely — failed to share. ” Those who hear the call to remember our history should, of course, visit grave sites and battlefields. Yet in addition, there are other ways to gain perspective. As reader “WTP1776” noted, “Every year they fly the WWII planes right over my house . . . I love hearing the dishes shake in the cupboard . . . they look so swell. ” In fact, learning about the winged marvels that brought victory in WW2 can be fun, as well as informative. As another reader posted: If you EVER have the opportunity to ride in a WWII warbird and have the money, do it. It’s an experience of a lifetime. Not just for the flight experience itself, but for at least getting a hint first hand what those young kids crewing them must have gone through in combat conditions. II. The Task Ahead, The point of Virgil’s article was not only to take note of President Trump’s celebration of Rosie and the Greatest Generation, but also to observe that the outlines of an American manufacturing revival — which is to say, a revival of American greatness, including military greatness — can now be seen. And plenty of readers see it, too: Virgil lost track of the number of “MAGAs” scattered through the comments. Yet some Michiganders had a more immediate reaction. For instance, one Michigan reader wrote, “I have seen President Trump mention us in Michigan more (in a good way) in the past 3 months, than my entire life (since 1960). ” Yet at the same time, there are lessons for all Americans to learn. For example, one reader connected the success of the national effort during WW2 to earlier American team efforts: This is truly the American way. It has always been our way. It is only a short distance in time and space from the in farm country to the factory at Willow Run. From that to Willow Run to today we are Americans who work and succeed together. As reader “Vypurr” observed, “Nationalism is what kept America alive in WWII. ” And reader “Tiger Kitten” turned that point into a larger sentiment: Nationalism is a good thing, it keeps cultures intact, countries strong, and morale high, whereas globalism does nothing but destroy cultures. Without borders you not only have no country, you have no culture, either. Meanwhile, reader “FLGibsonJr” added valuable historical perspective, linking Trump’s ideas on trade today with the American tradition — as described by Virgil — of Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay: America was famous around the world for its Protectionism. In fact it was Protectionist Tariffs that paid for essentially our entire government including all of our military. Furthermore, it was Bismarck who looked at the American System of high tariffs and the British System . . . of free trade and chose the American System of high tariffs and then went about building one of the great economic powers in the world. “FLGibsonJr” continued by urging a fellow commenter not to be seduced by “globalist corporate propaganda. ” The policies stemming from such propaganda, he added, might enrich companies, but they will be “devastating for countries like the United States. ” Meanwhile, reader “American Worker’s Warrior” put the matter in even starker terms: We couldn’t win a war like WW2 today, not after the uniparty’s NAFTA decimated our industrial base, and now we have to rely on China and Asia to make the microchips for all our smart missiles and tech. Others added policy prescriptions, connecting past to present. One such was reader “newsies2”: The Willow Run Bomber Plant was as example of what our great Country was capable of doing, when the need arose. This plant went up in the space of less than a year, and was capable of producing an airplane that helped win the war. One has to admit that it was a great success. In my thinking, the article, as it mentioned, is about ! . . . Trump is talking about our People working together to be strong and self sufficient once more. Today, some are already doing their part. For instance, reader “JRG” has a personalized trade policy: During WW2 my mom worked in a factory making piston rings while my dad was in the Pacific doing what Marines do. I go out of my way to purchase products that are made in the USA even though I know it will cost me more. Still, many commenters made the point that automation will change the factory of the future and factory employment in the future. And this is undoubtedly true. Indeed, some, such as reader “greg,” went out of their way to make the point, sharply, at Virgil’s expense: This article is ridiculous. It would have you believe that there is some chance that there will be manufacturing jobs coming back to the US. To which reader “Jonsen” riposted, “It’s about the can do spirit. ” “Jonsen” added, quoting Virgil, “before WWII ‘we had the resources in place. ’” And those resources, as Virgil noted, included a quality workforce. As reader “Kris Johnson” wrote of those we’ days: Tears fill my eyes at the thought of the America of my grandfather. . . . To imagine a time when management was proud to provide good people with good jobs. Good American companies built excellent American products that worked and lasted beyond expectation. Indeed, as reader “AngelHorseMomMD223” pointed out, even today, labor is still important: If automation was THE issue in regards to employment, they’d be importing machines, not highly skilled H1B visa workers or unskilled laborers. Indeed, the issue of trade came up often in the comments. For instance, reader “MechMan” wrote, “We must be careful not to become trade. Free trade is a good thing. ” To which reader “Mbekos” responded, “There is no free trade, none. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Germany, all of them had ways to win the trade war with US. ” And reader “GSR” added, “Free trade can benefit a company, but too much of it can destroy a nation. ” Meanwhile, reader “GahD of Socialism,” the name notwithstanding, made a powerful point about capitalism: “When a country has a economy, it thrives. ” Yet at the same time, reader “Franco” added a point that was widely understood in the 40s, and less widely understood today: “Can’t have a manufacturing sector without strong consumption and demand. ” That is, people need the money in their pockets to buy the things that are being made too much concentration of wealth at the top means too little demand for products — and so the economy stalls. Thus reader “Tyler’s” point on the distribution of wealth, then vs. now, deserves to be taken seriously: “During those years CEO and leadership pay was 80 times the median worker. Now it’s 900 times the median worker. ” In addition, reader “Gregory Brittain” added another good point about the value of widespread prosperity: In addition to the economic effects, the social effects of good jobs are at least as important. Good jobs leads to more marriage, families, more children, more stable communities, less crime and more social harmony as a bigger piece of pie is available to all who work for it. Another reader took note of a line from Virgil’s article, describing corporate culture back then: “A employee was loyal to a company, and the company, in turn, was loyal to the employee. ” Then the reader added a crucial observation about corporate practices today: THIS is what has fallen by the wayside with the infection of the globalist mindset. Billionaires see themselves as countries unto themselves, and have no loyalties to anyone or anything else. For his part, reader “Lew Ross” was even more blunt: I wish there was some way to prosecute politicians who purposely hurt American wages [by] assisting globalists in cheap labor and higher profits abroad and south of the border. For almost two decades average household earnings have been stagnant for the and nobody has paid any price for betraying the nation. Not surprisingly, President Trump figured in many of the comments. Reader “Stella S” posted, “I listened to that speech. It was heartfelt from an American President to American workers. ” Or as reader “NYPATRIOT” declared, “Make America Great Again, and the manufacturing powerhouse of the world!” And reader “Buckeye Ken” wrote: President Trump bringing the globalists to heel is a good thing. Lord knows that he is not opposed to anyone making money, but the overall good of the nation must be considered first. To be sure, Trump had critics, too, among the commenters. One such was reader “Stever Collette,” who jibed: “ALL of Dishonest Donald’s products are made overseas. His hotels and clubs continue to use foreign workers on temp visas. ” Okay, in American everyone can have his or her own opinion, and more than a few of those opinions seem to end up in the Breitbart comments section. And reader “ConfidentSpaceman” put all these diverse options into a useful context, saying of this site,“It has become the modern equivalent of the public square. ” And so maybe that’s a good place to stop. WW2 was fought, in part, for freedom, and so those who fought — on the battlefront and on the homefront — would be gratified to know that freedom is still a cherished value. Finally, Virgil is grateful to the following readers for their nice comments: “aha! ,” “Alexa,” “AngelHorseMomMD223,” “Brick Wilson,” “DesertSun59,” “DJTWILLWIN,” “HandsomeRogue,” “Jake Manchester,” “larry king,” “Lizzy,” “MadMen,” “Marianne,” “NHnative,” “NK210,” “Sam Houston,” “Texan Forever,” and “Tiger184. ” And thanks to all the other commenters, too, even those who were not so nice Virgil learns from all of them. And more to the point, thanks to those who shared their personal histories, the overall canon of American history has thus been enriched. Listen to Breitbart’s Rebecca Mansour discuss this article on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM: | 0fake |
UK economy running as mysteriously as a 1993 Vauxhall Nova | UK economy running as mysteriously as a 1993 Vauxhall Nova 16-11-16
INFLATION has dropped because Britain’s economy is running with the same fingers-crossed uncertainty as a Vauxhall Nova with 200,000 miles on the clock.
The Bank of England has confirmed that the UK economy is still running fine, that Christ alone knows how, and that nobody is allowed to mess with it.
Chairman Mark Carney said: “You know those cars where if you wind the window down, the radio suddenly comes on? That’s us right now.
“There is no way on earth inflation should have come down. Maybe there’s a short-circuit between that and the exchange rate. Maybe it just does it on its own now.
“Seriously it’s a miracle something this ancient and patched-together works at all. I’m afraid to look closely in case I disturb the magic elves and it suddenly collapses into a pile of rust and bright orange paint.”
He added: “Still, with the money we’ve saved running this thing on the cheap for so many years, I’ll bet there’s loads saved up to get a really nice new one.”
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Caitlyn Jenner: ‘Liberals Can’t Even Shoot Straight’ - Breitbart | Caitlyn Jenner fired a verbal shot at liberals this weekend, while calling into question their ability to fire actual shots. [Jenner spoke at the College Republican National Committee recently, during which time the speech turned to the shooting at the Republican congressional baseball game. While referencing the shooter, a man who had supported Bernie Sanders, Jenner said, “Fortunately, the guy was a really bad shot — liberals can’t even shoot straight. ” The video can be seen on the College Republican Federation of Virginia Facebook page. Jenner, speaking out for the victims of the shooting, also said, “First of all, nobody deserves what happened out there. There’s no justification. There are crazy people in the world. We have to minimize that type of stuff. ” Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter:@themightygwinn | 0fake |
Smart Cities, Androids, Technocracy, Kevin Spacey, Corey Feldman: Boiler Room EP #134 | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight 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 bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along side Jay Dyer of Jays Analysis, Andy Nowicki (The Nameless One.) Randy J & Infidel Pharaoh (ACR & 21Wire Contributors) for the hundred and thirty fourth episode of BOILER ROOM. Turn it up, tune in and hang with the ACR Brain-Trust for this weeks boil downs and analysis and the usual gnashing of the teeth of the political animals in the social reject club.On this episode of Boiler Room the ACR Brain-Trust is going over a flood of strange media as we witness the slippery downward spiraling slope of the deviant trans-humanist hopefuls, the degenerate culture crushing neo-leftists, the discredited main stream media, the Sodom and Gomorrah known as Hollywood and a crumbling politicization of engineered events.Direct Download Episode #134 Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved! Reference Links, for your consideration and research: | 1real |
null | They're going after Arpaio because he was one of the first politicians to support Trump, and their now going after vets because they're one of Trump's most supportive constituencies.
DC really fears opposition and is now taking punitive measures against those considered out of line. | 1real |
Can Kenya lead the African Union? | Tweet Widget by Horace G. Campbell
From championing impunity for suspected masterminds of crimes against humanity, to frustrating African liberation and unity by working in cahoots with Empire; from publicly supporting Israel's desire to join the African Union, to being a conduit for illicit financial flows from Africa; Kenya is fundamentally unfit to lead the AU. A deeply entrenched kleptocracy has ruined Kenya and actively undermined African interests for over half a century. Can Kenya lead the African Union? by Horace G. Campbell
This article previously appeared in Pambazuka News .
“ At every step of the way since 1963, Kenya worked against African independence.”
Introduction
The African Union will choose a new Chair of the AU Commission in January 2017. There are six candidates for this position, viz. Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi of Botswana, Farki Mahamat of Chad, Agapito Mba Mokuy of Equatorial Guinea, Amina Mohamed of Kenya, Abdoulaye Bathily of Senegal and Jakaya Kikwette of Tanzania. The post of Commission Chair became vacant after the expiration of the term of South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who had been at the helm since 2012 and did not apply for a second term.
At the last AU meeting held in July in Kigali, the election was suspended because, after seven rounds of voting, none of the top three contenders from Botswana, Equatorial Guinea and Uganda obtained the required two-thirds majority. Since the suspension of the process, Specioza Wandira Kazibwe of Uganda dropped out and three new candidates have appeared. Kenya has offered the Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs to lead the African Union. The government of Kenya has embarked on a multimillion-dollar diplomatic offensive to persuade Africans that Kenya should lead the African Union. Should Kenya lead the African Union?
Let’s begin this analysis by going back 53 years ago. At the dawn of independence in 1963, the political leaders in Kenya under Jomo Kenyatta and Oginga Odinga had agreed that, after independence, all British troops would leave Kenya. A few weeks after independence in December 1963, the so-called “Shifta rebellion” began and the political leaders of Kenya requested Britain to maintain their armed personnel in Kenya to assist in crushing the “rebellion.” The British troops have remained in Kenya since then.
Was Britain instrumental in fomenting this “Somali question” within Kenya? This and related questions have become pertinent as the records of the British are open and we know of the findings of the Northern Frontier District (NFD) Commission along with the debates within Britain over the future of Somalia. Fifty-three years later, Somali descendants who live in Kenya are still being used as political football as Kenya has vowed to close the largest refugee camp in the world, the Dadaab, that hosts mostly Somali refugees following the collapse of their state in 1991.
Kenya is fighting the so-called war on terror in Somalia and there are credible reports that this has been a very lucrative business venture for sections of the financial and sugar barons in Kenya.
“Kenya had been used as a base to foil genuine support for decolonization, and since the so called ‘War on Terror’ Kenya has been serving as an ally of the US.”
It is this section of the barons that leads Kenya that has now put forward the name of Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed to be the next head of the AU Commission. It is in this context of the lobbying by the Kenyan government that this author wants to put forward a number of reasons why Kenya cannot lead the African Union.
The political leadership of Kenya since President Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki and now Uhuru Kenyatta has been servants of imperial intrigue and skullduggery to undermine African independence and Unity. Kenya had been used as a base to foil genuine support for decolonization, and since the so called ‘War on Terror’ Kenya has been serving as an ally of the US providing the political support for the US Africa Command and activities of the West in the Indian Ocean region.
For a short while when the questions of the killings with impunity suggested the possibility of international justice, the present Kenyan leadership of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto (both indicted for crimes against humanity) embarked on an overheated campaign to represent themselves as African nationalists opposed to imperial machinations of the International Criminal Court. Kenyan diplomats, with Amina Mohamed in the vanguard, led a diplomatic offensive against the ICC and since the charges have been dropped against President Kenyatta and Ruto, the leadership has been going on overdrive to harness international support for the accumulation of prowess of the barons in Kenya.
These political forces hosted President Barack Obama for a global “entrepreneurship” conference in August, 2015, followed by Pope Francis’s visit in November. Kenya hosted the 10 th Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization in December 2015 and in 2016 hosted the meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). These latter meetings set back the agenda of Africans who had been struggling within the WTO for the rich countries to accede to the DOHA development round. While scuttling the African agenda in the WTO and without notice withdrawing its “peacekeeping” forces from South Sudan, the Kenyan leadership is asking Africans to support Amina Mohammed for the top position as AU Commissioner.
In light of the aggressive diplomatic forces of the Moroccan leadership to reverse the position of the African Union on the independence of Western Sahara, it will be important for progressive forces within the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) to raise their voices about the present diplomatic campaign of not only Kenya, but also the other countries, Botswana, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, and Senegal who have fielded candidates for the position of AU Commissioner. Below we detail the number of reasons for opposing the leadership of Kenya at this historical moment.
Illicit financial flows from Eastern Africa
The number one reason why Kenya cannot lead the African Union is that Kenya has been a base for illicit financial flows out of Eastern Africa. Most of the fraudsters that steal from their societies have a base in the real estate and financial sectors of Kenyan society. Two years ago the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) estimated that economies of Africa lost approximately US$1Trillion and about US $50 billion per year from illicit financial flows. The Report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa drew attention to the varying forms of fraud that had been employed to export capital from Africa, noting that,
“Some of the effects of illicit financial outflows are the draining of foreign exchange reserves, reduced tax collection, cancelling out of investment inflows and a worsening of poverty. Such outflows which also undermine the rule of law, stifle trade and worsen macroeconomic conditions are facilitated by some 60 international tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions that enable the creating and operating of millions of disguised corporations, shell companies, anonymous trust accounts, and fake charitable foundations. Other techniques used include money laundering and transfer pricing.”
This High Level Report went on to highlight the role of Kenya in illicit financial flows out of Africa: “Kenya is believed to have lost as much as $1.51 billion between 2002 and 2011 to trade misinvoicing. The role of IFFs and their adverse effect on the country’s GDP cannot be ignored. A recent study shows that Kenya’s tax loss from trade misinvoicing by multinational corporations and other parties could be as high as 8.3 per cent of government revenue, hampering economic growth and resulting in billions in lost tax revenue.”
It does not take rocket science to grasp the fact that all of the malfeasance of disguised corporations, shell companies, anonymous trust accounts, fake charitable foundations, money laundering and transfer pricing are present in Kenya. From the period of 1960 and the gold scandals from Eastern Congo, Nairobi has been the base for money laundering in Eastern Africa. Illicit funds from the Eastern DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Southern Sudan and Somalia all pass through the money laundering facilities of Kenya. Other illicit money grabbers from as far afield as Nigeria use the recourses and networks of the Kenya financial barons; the real estate boom in Kenya in the past fifteen years is directly linked to these fraudulent funds being laundered in Kenya.
“From the period of 1960 and the gold scandals from Eastern Congo, Nairobi has been the base for money laundering in Eastern Africa.”
Most recently, there was a report on the nexus of corruption and conflict in the Sudan, which brought out revealing figures on the extent of the real estate holdings in Nairobi and of the top officials of the South Sudanese state. Entitled War Crimes Shouldn't Pay [2] , the report found that "top officials ultimately responsible for mass atrocities in South Sudan have at the same time managed to accumulate fortunes, despite modest government salaries".
Kenyan bureaucrats and financiers have been implicated in the top four ways of draining valuable resources out of South Sudan: (a) extractive services, (b) the military state (c) state spending and (d) money laundering.
Questions on the complicity of Kenya in the debacle of the struggles between differing factions in South Sudan increased after Kenya decided to pull its troops out of South Sudan after the Secretary General of the United Nations sacked the Kenyan commander of the UN “peacekeeping” forces in South Sudan.
When the High Level Panel outlined the extent of illicit financial flows out of Africa, they had given clear recommendations as to how to stop these forms of drainage out of Africa. The Panel called for member states of the African Union to inter alia: (a) Determine the nature and patterns of illicit financial outflows from Africa; (b) Raise awareness among African governments, citizens and international development partners of the scale and effect of such financial outflows on development; and (c) Propose policies and mobilize support for practices that would reverse such illicit financial outflows.
It is the expectation of millions of the working poor in Africa that their representatives at the African Union would be at the forefront of calling for the return of stolen assets to African societies. One would have expected that because Kenya has been so prominent in the business of money laundering, the loudest calls for ending these forms of capital accumulation would come from inside the society. However, as one component of the disorientation of activists, the NGO mentality predisposes many to seek solutions from “donor agencies” without understanding that these so called “donors” form an essential link in the chain of draining resources out of Africa.
Instead of robust voices exposing the role of Kenya in money laundering, the Kenyan political leadership has invested millions of dollars to send Vice President William Ruto on a spirited tour proclaiming the candidature of Amina Mohammed. On these trips to other African countries, Ruto has been proclaiming the virtues of Kenya as a base for trade and investment.
War on terror as a business in Kenya
The second reason for objecting to the bid for Kenya to take over the position as AU Commissioner relates to the role of Kenya in Somalia and the fact that the so-called “Operation Linda Nchi” has for all intents and purposes been a business venture by the sugar and military barons of Kenya. The African Union had committed its reputation on the future of peace in supporting African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). However, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia have played geo-political games with the lives of the people of Somalia and there is credible evidence that this Kenyan mission has been using the peacekeeping mission as a business venture. For years the United Nations Monitoring Group for Somalia has been reporting on the scale of the involvement of AMISOM troops in the sale of charcoal and sugar using the port of Kismayo under the control of AMISOM.
When progressive forces in Eastern Africa did not take up the issue vigorously, a group named Journalists for Justice documented the reality that elements from the Kenyan army have been involved in a US$400 million sugar smuggling racket in Somalia and have also funded militants that they were supposed to be fighting. Far from fighting the Al Shabaab, the Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) are “in garrison mode sitting in bases while senior commanders are engaged in corrupt business practices.” This report [3] on Kenya’s Criminal Racket in Somalia has produced enough evidence to corroborate the information that has been produced for nearly a decade about how war is a business in Somalia.
Progressives have shirked from quoting from the reports of this organization in so far as the organizations also seek to use information on KDF involvement in racketeering in supporting the voices of those calling for the disbanding of the African Union.
Layering and the barons of Kenya
Apart from investigative journalists who have been documenting the war business in Somalia very few scholars have actually interrogated how the global war on terror feeds into the illicit global economy. It has been estimated by the World Economic Forum that the international illicit economy is valued at over US $3.8. trillion. This means that in terms of GDP, the illicit economy is among the top 10 economies in the world. It is in this global illicit economy where one finds the layering of barons with the financial barons at the top of the food chain. Next to the financial barons are the real estate barons, the land grabbers/barons, the sugar barons involved in smuggling and illegality, the drug barons – (see cases of cocaine smuggled as sugar), education and business of procurement, barons in hospitals and medicine – (see the Constant Gardner and Kenya as a place for fake drugs), military and security barons – war on terror as a business venture – ethnic and regional power brokers, political fixers and counterfeiting barons.
“If we do not fight the cartels, we become their slaves.”
These barons form the base for the Kenyan capitalist class and they have an agreement among themselves to divide the working peoples of Kenya on the basis of ethnicity, regionalism and religion. In the particular case of Kenya, there is public knowledge of the criminality of the cartels with the former Chief Justice Dr. Willy Mutunga raising questions of how these barons and cartels pose a threat to the wellbeing and security of the peoples of Kenya and East Africa. He had noted that, “The influence of the cartels is overwhelming. They are doing illegal business with politicians. If we do not fight the cartels, we become their slaves. But leaders who do take on the cartels must be prepared to be killed or exiled.”
The statement of the Chief Justice provides the context for better understanding the spate of killings that have been labeled as “terror” attacks since the Kenyan Defense Forces invaded Somalia in 2011. A series of high profile incidents such as the Al-Shabaab siege of the Westgate shopping center in Nairobi that left 67 people dead, ensured that there was international support for counter-terrorism in Kenya. This was followed by the killing of approximately 68 people in Mpeketoni, Majembeni and Poromoko at the coast in June 2014; the killing of 28 people in a bus in Mandera in November 2014; the killing of 36 people in a Mandera quarry in December 2014; and the killing of 147 students on the campus of Garissa University College in April 2015. It is these kinds of killing with impunity that disqualify Kenya fundamentally since the aggressive stand on the ICC was not accompanied by an equally aggressive stand to pursue the perpetrators of the post-election killings in Kenya in 2008.
Kenya undermining the African cause at the WTO
One of the supposed strong points of Amina Mohamed was her leadership of Kenya at the 10 th Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in December 2015. Prior to the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999, Kenyan intellectuals had been at the forefront of challenging the intellectual property rights claims of the pharmaceuticals. After the debacle in Seattle, the Global South had organized collectively to ensure that the rules of international trade did not continue to deepen the impoverishment of the billions of poor farmers in the South. Since 2001, there had been negotiations with the former colonized peoples over the future rules in a round of negotiations that had been named after the city of Doha, Qatar. From the moment of those negotiations in November 2001 until December 2015 there had been nothing but duplicitous back and forth between the North and the peoples of the South. The designation of these negotiations as the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) never seriously considered addressing the obstacles placed in the global trading system to foster real trading cooperation, which supports socioeconomic transformation in the South.
From the formation of the WTO the African members along with others from the Global South had taken a collective stand on the hypocrisy of the North in relation to trade and investment, intellectual property and agriculture. Since the WTO came into existence, the countries of the European Union and North America failed to live up to the expectations at the end of the Uruguay Round that they would liberalize their agriculture sector and significantly reduce their subsidies. In the particular case of farmers from Africa, there had been opposition to the subsidies granted to European farmers, while African farmers live in poverty.
In the particular case of African cotton exporters – Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali – collectively known as the Cotton 4 or C-4 – they had successfully urged fellow WTO members to stand with Africa on questions of food security and the outstanding questions of subsidies. At the Nairobi 10 Ministerial Meeting, Amina Mohamed as Chairperson of the meeting jettisoned the claims of the Global South and hurriedly agreed to exclude the “African Issues” before the WTO. The newspapers of the financial barons in Kenya then proceeded to publicize the outcome pointing to a nebulous “Nairobi package” that postponed real discussions of the trade war against the South by the North.
Somalia a political football: Question of oil and gas discoveries
Attention had already been drawn to how the question of Somalia has been manipulated for the past fifty years by the Kenya barons. The manipulation of the poor refugees reached new heights as the Kenyan leadership has threatened to close the largest refugee camp in the world.
The anti-Pan African position of the Kenyans reached new lows over the question of the demarcation of the land and sea boundaries. After Kenyans had agreed with the British to maintain the Northern Frontier District as part of Kenya in 1964, there were questions as to the real boundaries between Kenya and Somalia. These questions became more urgent after oil and gas companies began to explore the very large reserves of oil and gas from the Somalia coast through Kenya, Tanzania, down to Mozambique. Faced with differing maps from the colonial offices of Britain and Italy, the Kenyans and Somalians have been disputing a narrow triangle off in the Indian Ocean, about 100,000 square kilometers (62,000 square miles). Capitalists and speculators from Kenya, Somalia and their external supporters covet this area because it has a large deposit of oil and gas. Neither the political leaders of Kenya nor the possible leaders of Somalia offered a Pan-African vision of shared responsibility and cooperation to develop the resources in order to benefit the peoples of Africa. Instead, Kenya sought to use their legal, economic and regional muscle to start exploration and to begin discussions with foreign oil companies.
Faced with the aggressive position of the Kenyan barons, the Somalis decided to take the matter to the International Court of Justice. Kenya objected to legal arbitration of an area that should not be disputed if Kenya supported the goals of a future united Africa. The position of Kenya thus far on border issues in Eastern Africa goes against the spirit of the African Union’s position with respect to Delimitation and Demarcation of Boundaries in Africa.
Kenya ineligible to lead Africa at this point
From the above reasons, this author wants to remind readers of the role of Kenya in becoming the champion of Israel and hosting the Israeli Prime Minister in July of 2016. The Kenyan President proudly claimed that Kenya would be an advocate for Israel before the African Union. This leadership under Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto and Amina Mohammed has thus agreed to undermine the Pan African position of supporting the self-determination of the Palestinian peoples.
One can raise similar questions with respect to the real commitment of Kenya to continue to respect the rights of the peoples of Western Sahara. For the past two years the government of Morocco has been on an intense campaign to rejoin the African Union. In principle, progressive Africans welcome the return of Morocco to the African Union, but it must be spelt out clearly to Morocco that their return will be without conditions. That is, the political leadership of Morocco cannot demand that Africa drop recognition of the Polisario leadership. The summit of the African Union in January 2017 will be a testing ground to see how many societies of Africa will stand firm against Morocco and their supporters in France.
If not Amin Mohammed, then who?
Of the current six candidates to lead the African Union, the one candidate with a clear track record of commitment to the goals of Pan Africanism is Abdoulaye Bathily of Senegal. As a progressive historian, Bathily made his mark among a generation of intellectuals. Unfortunately, however, this position of the AU Commission Chair is being pushed by the government of Senegal with both France and Morocco dictating the foreign policy choices of Senegal. Without this subservience to France and Morocco by the Senegalese leadership, Bathily would be the obvious choice.
The candidacies of Chad, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea already foundered at the meeting of the African Union in Kigali. Like Senegal, the government of Chad fronts for western interests and Chad was one of the few countries to send troops to fight with NATO to destroy Libya. Africa needs to take an independent position on the question of the manipulation of the so-called war on terror and on this matter, Chad ranks with those who need to account for their relationship with Boko Haram.
Jakaya Kikwete has been a colorless leader of Tanzania for ten years. His friendship with leaders of the George W. Bush party in the USA will raise questions; however, with the arrival of Donald Trump, that faction of the US militarists, the Bush faction is no longer in the driver’s seat.
African intellectuals and activists cannot afford to be bystanders at this moment. In this short essay, this author has pointed out how at every step of the way since 1963, Kenya worked against African independence. During the anti-apartheid struggles, Kenya supported UNITA and the MNR and for good measure, western security established the banking infrastructure for illicit dealing through Bank of Credit and Commerce International. There was the formation of the “Safari Club” C France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Morocco and the conservative elements of the USA – to support the apartheid regime in South Africa and the conservative leaders of Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
“The one candidate with a clear track record of commitment to the goals of Pan Africanism is Abdoulaye Bathily of Senegal.”
Since the global war on terror, Kenya has participated in the rendition programs of the US intelligence agencies and stepped up their business operations by working with the CIA to fund groups such as the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (APRCT). ARPCT was a coalition of military entrepreneurs who understood war as a business and knew how to manipulate western intelligence agencies.
According to a report in the Washington Post in 2006, “Despite its name, the ARPCT probably does little to combat terrorism and is more interested in maintaining the lawless status quo in which the warlords thrive. Experts say the moniker is an attempt to make the group appealing to Western governments, highlighting their battle against the spread of an Islamic militia.”
Ten years after this exposure, organizations such as the Bell Pottinger group continue to wage information warfare against Kenyans and Africans on the so-called terrorist threats in Eastern Africa. If Kenya had spent every cent that it has been spending on Operation Linda Nchi on building schools, roads, hospitals and water supply systems in Somalia, then the issues before Africa and the African Union would be very different from the divisive questions of illicit trade in sugar, charcoal and the question of boundary demarcation.
That eastern Africa continues to be strategically important to western security interests can be gleaned from the patience that the British exhibited in ensuring that Kenya maintained a military agreement with Britain for Britain to base troops in Kenya. In this case, Britain is acting as a front for US military interest. Kenya is important strategically to the U.S. Access to Kenyan air and a seaport facilitates imperial capabilities to project air and naval power in the Indian Ocean.
The political leadership of China has bought into the idea that the Kenyan leadership is anti-imperialist because the leaders were taken to The Hague and the ICC. This kind of analysis by Chinese strategists exposes their limited understandings of class struggles in Eastern Africa and the history of Kenya selling out Africans. From time to time newspapers and journalists revisit the scandals after scandals [4] with respect to primitive accumulation in Kenya.
Conclusion
What needs to be understood is that Kenya’s Goldenberg or Anglo Leasing scandals and others are components of a model of capital accumulation in the illicit global economy. This illicit global economy is a legitimate component of the financialization forms of capital that diminishes real production and commerce.
When the AU was formed, the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) had been mandated to bring to the fore the questions that affect Africans in all six regions. It is in this context where there needs to be new focus of the AU. At the last meeting in Kigali, there were feeble efforts to raise revenues for the AU. None of the governments took seriously the illicit global economy and the recommendations of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows. The western “donors” dominate the discussions on how to stem financial flows and downplay the importance of the return of stolen assets. Kenya was quite willing to raise the question of reparative justice with respect to the crimes of Britain during the colonial wars, but that same Kenyan leadership refuses to support the reparative claims of the global African community. Horace G. Campbell is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University and the newly appointed Kwame Nkrumah Chair at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. | 1real |
Erdogan says Turkey working with Syria rebels to implement Idlib accord | ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday Turkey was implementing a deal agreed with Russia and Iran to reduce violence in Syria s northern province of Idlib, in cooperation with Free Syrian Army rebel fighters. Now we are applying the Astana decisions in Idlib, Erdogan said, referring to an agreement announced last month in the Kazakhstan capital. He said if Turkey had not acted bombs would fall on our cities . Our efforts in Idlib are going on, in cooperation with the Free Syria Army, without problems at the moment, he told members of his ruling AK Party at a meeting in the western Turkish province of Afyon. | 0fake |
Senator McCain says has 'concerns' about Tillerson nomination | VILNIUS (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, will have to explain his relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at his confirmation hearing, senior Republican senator John McCain said on Thursday. McCain, who is chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, also called President Putin “a thug and a murderer”. Speaking on a tour of the Baltic states, where there is widespread concern that Moscow wants to reassert its power across the region, McCain said he had concerns about Tillerson, who opposed sanctions on Russia after its annexation of Crimea. “I and several of my colleagues have concerns about Mr Tillerson, and some of his past activities, specifically his relationship with Vladimir Putin,” McCain told reporters. “I have concerns but at the same time I’m certain we will give Mr Tillerson an opportunity to make his case about why he is qualified to be Secretary of State.” Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Tillerson could face a rocky confirmation process, given worries among both Democrats and Republicans about his connections with Russia and possible conflicts of interest related to his business ties. Relations between Moscow and Washington have deteriorated following Russia’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014, with the two nations also at loggerheads over Syria. The Obama administration also plans a series of retaliatory measures against Russia for hacking into U.S. political institutions and individuals and leaking information. Trump has said that the United States should move on from the controversy. McCain, however, said the United States needed to reassure voters there and abroad that elections would not be influenced by foreign powers. “I agree with president elect that we need to get on of our lives - without having elections being affected by any outside influence, especially Vladimir Putin, who is a thug and a murderer,” he said. Fellow Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who is traveling with McCain, called for sanctions against Russia to be widened to target areas like energy and to be directly aimed at Putin. “I think the sanctions need to go beyond what it is today, they need to name Putin as an individual and his inner circle because nothing happens in Russia without his knowledge and approval,” Graham said. | 0fake |
GOP Congresswoman Destroyed In Her Own Poll On Repealing Obamacare (TWEETS) | Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (TN) decided to launch an online poll to ask, Do you support the repeal of Obamacare? RT if you do, and share what you want to see as the replacement. OK, we know online polls aren t for reals but conservatives tell us they are so we re just going to believe them this one time. And the survey says: 84 percent do not want Obamacare repealed. Only 16 percent called for a repeal.Do you support the repeal of Obamacare? RT if you do, and share what you want to see as the replacement. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) January 3, 2017Nearly 8,000 people took the poll.She was obliterated on Twitter.@MarshaBlackburn why do you hate Americans? Just curious. Fred Mertz (@S3nt13ntB31ng) January 3, 2017 No millionaire left behind. @S3nt13ntB31ng @MarshaBlackburn No millionaire left behind The Monster (@boris3324) January 3, 2017@boris3324 @S3nt13ntB31ng @MarshaBlackburn GOP obstruction caused the rates to go up. Put Congress on the plan the rest of us are on . Bob Schecter (@BobSchecter) January 3, 2017 Please don t take away my health care @MarshaBlackburn please don t take away my healthcare, which I pay for 100% myself, no subsidies. Stop the lies! Steven K (@Waorguy) January 3, 2017@MarshaBlackburn You don t care that 64 MILLION of us plus will lose our health care you are on OUR payroll lady WE PAY YOURS. iratesForResistance (@PirateWench) January 3, 2017@MarshaBlackburn No, I don t. And I suggest SINGLE PAYER, Mrs. Ebeneezer Scrooge! Rapunzel ? (@co_rapunzel4) January 3, 2017@co_rapunzel4 @MarshaBlackburn @Kris_Sacrebleu This is priceless, 83% DO NOT want to repeal Obamacare using a right wing poll! ?????? Vincent De Mello (@vincedemello) January 4, 2017Kicking 20+ million off insurance b/c you can t stand Obama doing what GOP couldn t do w/GOP own idea (individual mandate) @MarshaBlackburn lawhawk (@lawhawk) January 3, 2017 What time can I swing by for my pap smear? @MarshaBlackburn What time can I swing by for my pap smear? No doubt you have a doctor. What about us? They won t accept us w/o insurance. liberalgranny50 (@peppersandeggs) January 3, 2017No. @MarshaBlackburn Khary Penebaker (@kharyp) January 3, 2017@MarshaBlackburn My adult son has juvenile diabetes since age 3.ACA made possible 4him to buy health insurance 4first time in his life. Melinda? (@melindafla) January 4, 2017@MarshaBlackburn Repealing without a simultaneous replacement is deeply irresponsible. GOP has had six years to come up with a plan. Christopher Coleman (@ccineastnash) January 3, 2017In 2014, Blackburn said Obamacare is a failure because Medicaid expansion wasn t happening. So, a journalist pointed out to her that her own state blocked Medicaid expansion from happening. But she knew that already. Republicans could fix Obamacare, but it s the President s name they don t want attached to it.Photo by Scott Olson/Getty | 1real |
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