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TUCKER CARLSON Demolishes Business Owner Who Won’t Do Business With Trump Supporters [Video] | 1real | |
BREAKING: Clinton Bests Sanders In Nevada Caucus In Dead Heat Race | The Hill is reporting that in a very tight Nevada Caucus race, Hillary Clinton has pulled out ahead of Bernie Sanders for the win. In the end, the tie in the 10th precinct was settled with a nod to Las Vegas by drawing cards. Clinton had an ace, while Sanders had a 10. Wall Street Journal reporter Reid J. Epstein tweeted the tie-breaking result, complete with a photo of the 10th precinct s chair, Peggy Rhoads, showing the card result.Pahrump precinct chair Peggy Rhoads with the cards drawn in tied Precinct 10. Hillary's ace beat Bernie's six. pic.twitter.com/7RZMF9IOVH Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) February 20, 2016There are sure to be people who don t like this win, just as there were regarding the situation in Iowa, but the winning card draw gave Clinton an extra delegate, thus handing her the win over Sanders.The race has been a dead heat right up until the end, and was too close to call for the entire Nevada Caucus process. Either way, fair is fair, and Hillary Clinton wins Nevada.Featured image via AI archives | 1real |
How Crooked Hillary’s “Fixer” Destroyed Bill Clinton’s Women | How Crooked Hillary’s “Fixer” Destroyed Bill Clinton’s Women
“I arranged a meeting for Hillary and a woman in an exclusive Beverly Hills hotel,” the man, who was hired by the Clintons, via a Hollywood executive, to cover up their scandals, told The ENQUIRER. PHOTOS: Revenge! Donald Trump Fighting Back Against Hillary Clinton’s Smear Campaign “She had come to the studio to see the filming of a movie in 1994.” “While I was there, I helped her slip out of a back exit for a one-on-one session with the other woman. It was made to look casual, leaving quietly [rather] that being caught up in the melee … but really it was for something presumably more sordid.” What’s more, it wasn’t just Hillary’s flings with women that the shadowy Mr. Fix It helped to orchestrate!– Clinton’s Top 5 Debate Whoppers Hillary’s former bagman finally confessed to The ENQUIRER just how he helped her to cover up her affair with married lover Vince Foster, too! The shadowy figure — who provided PROOF of his employment for the Clintons — also revealed 12 fixes he covered-up, including: + How Hillary secretly plotted to a counter-attack on Bill’s mistress Monica Lewinsky — via a document buried for two decades! + What crooked reporters were on the take from the Clinton camp! + How he covered up Bill’s seedy romp with hookers! + Which A-list celebrity had a secret affair with Bill during his presidency!
Bill Still is a former newspaper editor and publisher. He has written for USA Today, The Saturday Evening Post, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, OMNI magazine, and has also produced the syndicated radio program, Health News. He has written 22 books and two documentary videos and is the host of his wildly popular daily YouTube Channel the “Still Report”, the quintessential report on the economy and Washington. | 1real |
WOW! IS MEGHAN MCCAIN FINISHED With The Hateful Hags of “The View” After Today’s Blow Up With Joy Behar? [VIDEO] | It s pretty common knowledge for anyone s who s tortured themselves by watching The View, that it s really nothing more than a liberal, think-tank for dummies with too much time on their hands. Only one month ago, Meghan McCain left her job at Fox News as a co-host on The Five to plant herself at the end of the table, where anywhere between 4-6 angry women spend one-hour every weekday telling their viewers why they re angry, and why they hate President Trump and anyone who supports him. Thankfully for Meghan, she s the daughter of RINO Senator John McCain, one of the angriest men in politics, so she knows a thing or two about how to handle angry, and irrational people, who are driven by hate, and inspired by their desire to seek revenge. She also knows that her position at the end of the table (where the token conservatives are seated on The View), was likely offered to her because she was already on the anti-Trump train and didn t need any coaching.Every day, it becomes more and more obvious to the viewers that the pressure cooker relationship between unhinged co-hosts, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin, and their hated opponent Meghan McCain won t last. If I was a betting woman, I d bet McCain is packing up her dressing room and heading back to Fox for another attempt at more intellectual discourse and meaningful dialogue by the end of this year.Watch [Fireworks start at about the 3:30-minute mark]: There s a lot of Democrats asking for [Franken] to step down if you can believe it I don t just watch Fox, McCain said, looking at Behar. Fox is sex harassment central, Behar interrupted. You know what. That s so cheap. I m trying to talk about the fact that I watch other networks and people in your party are calling for the stepping down of Al Franken because of this investigation being a distraction, a frustrated McCain shot back.Whoopi attempted to interject, before losing her words and simply exclaiming, Well, shoot. I was responding to Joy. I just don t think that saying Fox is X, I know, I used to work there, McCain continued. We re talking about the present. This is what s exhausting about this conversation. I totally agree with you that it s absolutely disgusting at this point that we re still having conversations about Roy Moore. He should step down. but right now we re talking about another senator. We re also talking about hypocrisy, which is what provoked my outburst, Behar explained. Trump s hypocrisy, Fox s hypocrisy, Breitbart, Sean Hannity, all of them. What about the hypocrisy of Bill Clinton right now? McCain asked, prompting Joy to ask, Why bring up Bill Clinton at this point? It was at this point Whoopi stopped the conversation in its tracks, saying, We re doing and we ll be right back, before the show went to commercials. TooFabDo you think Meghan McCain will last another month on The View? We d love to hear your thoughts below. | 1real |
Breaking/Exclusive: Comey Lied: FBI “Synced” Weiner Laptop Under Misused Terror Warrant – Updated | By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor on October 30, 2016 Constitutional Crisis: FBI used prohibited FISA domestic terror warrant in Clinton-Weiner email search …by Gordon Duff, with Ian Greenhalgh , Editors – Veterans Today
In a surprise announcement, the Department of Justice just admitted that there was no legal authorization in place to access email accounts of Hillary Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, estranged wife of accused sex offender former Congressman Anthony Weiner.
The government admitted that no warrant had been requested and that discussions to seek a warrant had not yet begun, making the letter FBI Director James Comey wrote to Congress on Friday a potentially criminal act, if it can be proven that Comey was aware of this fact and of the actions of his subordinates in “planting” Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop.[14]
(CNN)Justice Department and FBI officials are working to secure approval that would allow the FBI to conduct a full search of top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s newly discovered emails, sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.
Government lawyers haven’t yet approached Abedin’s lawyers to seek an agreement to conduct the search. Sources earlier told CNN that those discussions had begun, but the law enforcement officials now say they have not.[14]
FBI Director James Comey is under assault for what is being perceived as more than simply partisan behavior. Former presidential advisor, Lanny Davis writes for The Hill:
“Comey as FBI director — an investigative agency, not a prosecution agency — (does not) have any authority to send a report to Congress in the middle of an investigation about the past or present subject of an investigation. He appears to be in violation of the limits on his authority as FBI director by disclosing investigation information — or possible investigation information — directly to Congress with obtaining permission from the attorney general or someone else delegated authority by her. His decision to reveal the results of an ongoing investigation, before a published criminal indictment, violates due process principles and pre-indictment secrecy rules and guidelines of the Justice Department.”[16]
Through court challenges to FBI search tactics under FISA and other counter-terror legislation, accessing “cloud” based emails and either representing them as “found” in a warranted search of a hard drive or in “syncing” a computer to place emails on a drive under a warranted search, clear prohibitions have been established.[Addendum I]
In this case, with no warrant in place at all, there are no possible interpretations of FBI actions that could be consistent with admissibility.
In what has been seen by most a the long expected “October Surprise,” the highly controversial letter written by FBI Director James Comer, something more far reaching has developed, a constitutional crisis that may well exceed that of Watergate or even Iran/Contra. Like the Federal Reserve, the FBI itself lacks a clear constitutional authority. There is no mention of nor authorization given, in the constitution, for a national police force. In fact, the Constitution, in the 10th Amendment ratified in 1791 states:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”[12] More often than not, this has been ignored, a “stepchild” of the Bill of Rights. Here, however, the FBI, created initially as the “sex police”[11], created to enforce the Mann Act[13], has assumed not only “powers not granted” under the constitution, but has exponentially expanded its reach, well beyond constitutional limitations on rights of privacy and against unreasonable search and seizure, assailed by laws like the Patriot Acts.”
Behind the current controversy, that of an FBI director being accused of interfering in an election and acting against policy, procedure and advice of the Attorney General, is something more. The FBI has crossed into the area of possible criminality, violating clear cut Federal Court restrictions, not only through an illegal search but by actually planting evidence and then channeling misleading information into the press with a clear intent to subvert constitutional authority.
Another issue is the kind of language Comey has been using to mollify critics who have kept a flurry of investigations going and who have subjected him to hostile interrogation for endless hours in front of highly partisan committees. Colonel Jim Hanke (ret), former US attache to Israel and ranking NATO military intelligence planner commented on the nature of Comey’s assertions of Hillary’s classified emails:
“Take the text of any of the emails we have seen. Anything here could have been said in a press conference or on a television interview and, in those formats, would not have been considered classified. There would have been fallout, for sure, not from disclosing policy or in endangering operations, real issues that get high level classification. Hillary’s emails, were they made public, and there was reason to expect this might well happen, are revealing and reflect on her personal judgement and, at times, demonstrate a lack of grasp, particularly when it comes to Russia or Syria. These are issues of public confidence, not criminality nor are they areas of real security classification.
Conversely, what we have seen Comey do may well rise to the level of something serious, certainly he undermines the FBI and attacks the American system of government. As to what his intent was or to what laws apply, this is not my area of expertise but I would like to think that criminal code could deal with this kind of threat.”
One additional consideration to put into the mix is Wikileaks. During recent weeks while Wikileaks has released two dozen batches of emails, the Clinton campaign has mirrored earlier charges made against Wikileaks by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinsky, that Wikileaks “sexes up” and even fabricates documents that are, according to Brzezinsky, when speaking to Judy Woodruff of National Public Radio, “seeded” into a virtual deluge of material.
The FBI used FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) powers when it downloaded and “synced” Clinton emails into former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s computers, according to legal experts.[1,4,6,7] The FBI knowingly violated the law in applying terror statutes when they illegally expanded their search into Weiner’s computers and downloaded emails from a 3rd party account. With only days before an election, the term “October Surprise” has never been more applicable.
The question people are asking is; “Why did Director Comey choose to ignore legal advice and, more importantly, was he aware that he was upsetting an American presidential election based on a pattern of criminal-level misconduct by his own agency?”
The FBI lied when it claimed the it found Clinton emails when it searched Anthony Weiner’s computer. Sources now tell VT that the FBI in fact “synced” the email account of Weiner’s estranged wife, Huma, downloading the emails “from the cloud” and falsely claiming they were discovered as part of a legal search warrant. However, there is no case law supporting the expansion of such warrants to spouses or others whose email accounts may be accessible through devices but were not stored on hard drives and not by any stretch of the imagination, legally accessed under any possible search warrant tied to Weiner’s sexual indiscretions.
What did in fact happen here was planting of evidence, by the FBI, illegally accessing a “cloud based” email account not included in a search warrant and downloading to a hard drive that was included in a warrant. This is a common FBI/DHS practice used in terror investigations, making use of a single warrant to follow cloud accounts for multiple users.
In an article in today’s Washington Post, the issue of how the FBI found emails that should not been on Weiner’s computer were brought to light.
“Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin has told people she is unsure how her emails could have ended up on a device she viewed as her husband’s computer, the seizure of which has reignited the Clinton email investigation, according to a person familiar with the investigation and civil litigation over the matter.
The person, who would not discuss the case unless granted anonymity, said Abedin was not a regular user of the computer, and even when she agreed to turn over emails to the State Department for federal records purposes, her lawyers did not search it for materials, not believing any of her messages to be there.
That could be a significant oversight if Abedin’s work messages were indeed on the computer of her estranged husband, former congressman Anthony Weiner, who is under investigation for allegedly exchanging lewd messages with a 15-year-old girl. So far, it is unclear what — if any — new, work-related messages were found by authorities. The person said the FBI had not contacted Abedin about its latest discovery, and she was unsure what the bureau had discovered.”[8]
There is no evidence, of yet, that Director Comey was aware the “evidence” he took to congress was illegally planted on Weiner’s computer but Comey was aware of the practice. Typically, the FBI search warrants used can give access to cloud based emails as outlined below by FBI Special Agent James M. Cauthen:
“An alternative is for the investigator to search in the same manner as the user would—with the computer turned on and connected to the data. In this example, the investigator needs access to the subject’s computer with the relational database software and connection to the cloud. The investigator could consider combining two search warrants—one on the computer owner for the location being searched under Rule 41 and one on the cloud provider under §2703 for the content to which the computer is connected.
With this approach, the investigator will need to understand how to operate database software and make queries. These queries must comply with the search warrant. The investigator must conduct the search carefully as actions taken on a live system will change the data on the computer. Using this method, it may be possible to obtain a single search warrant combining the provisions of Rule 41 and §2703; however, it should be noted that there is no case law yet on implementing this strategy.” [7]
In light of the controversy over the handling of this issue by FBI Director Comey, an article in The New Yorker, dated October 28, 2016 cuts to the director’s state of mind. From that article: WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report )—James Comey, the embattled director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, presided over a special ceremony on Friday evening to commend the brave F.B.I. agents who had to touch Anthony Weiner’s computer. In awarding the commendations to the agents, whom Comey called “the bravest men and women this country has to offer,” the F.B.I. director criticized the political uproar that he said had overshadowed “their selfless acts of heroism.” “These agents have performed far and beyond the call of duty,” a visibly angry Comey said. “I know we’re eleven days away from an election and tensions are running high, but we shouldn’t let that subtract in any way from what these brave agents did with their own hands.” “Who among us could look at ourselves in the mirror and say, ‘I have what it takes to touch Anthony Weiner’s computer ’?” Comey asked. “I know I sure as hell couldn’t.”[15] A common way to hide ones train in Washington is to wrap whatever the smell is “in a bloody flag” or to hand out medals for heroism. This is “deception 101” and Comey wasn’t in the least bit coy about using his agents, who may be steeped in ethical or even criminal complicity, in that same “bloody flag” theatrics.
The Clinton/Weiner connection may well be an abuse of expanded counter-terrorism powers the FBI assumed during the Bush era. However, in 2008, these powers were curtailed by a Federal court decision. [Addendum I] From the New York Times, April 19, 2016:
“WASHINGTON — A federal judge has rejected a legal challenge to rules permitting F.B.I. agents, when working on domestic criminal cases, to search emails written by Americans that the government has intercepted without a warrant in the name of gathering foreign intelligence.
In an 80-page opinion that was issued in November and remained classified until being made public on Tuesday, Judge Thomas F. Hogan, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, ruled that what critics call “backdoor searches” of messages by the F.B.I. comply with both the Constitution and the FISA Amendments Act. That 2008 statute legalized a form of the government’s once-secret warrantless surveillance program.”[9]
There has been considerable controversy involving the FBI’s illegal expansion of search warrants in criminal cases. With the expanded powers under the Bush administration’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, covering the use of broad “single warrant” powers in domestic terrorism cases, the FBI has on numerous occasions misused FISA powers in criminal investigations.
This has been brought before the Federal Courts in 2008 [Addendum I] and the FBI should well consider itself forewarned not to attempt to apply questionable expanded powers under FISA legislation intended to apply to terror threats. That FISA was applied here, knowing a court challenge would take far too long to correct the damage, in this case a “rigged” presidential election, as claimed by Clinton campaign advisor, John Podesta. References:
[1] Elena Kagan: Supreme Court Hasn’t “Gotten to” Email , CBS News, August 21, 2013.
[2] Josiah Dykstra, “Seizing Electronic Evidence from Cloud Computing Environments,” in Cybercrime and Cloud Forensics: Applications for Investigation Processes , ed. K. Ruan (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2013).
[3] Tony Sammes and Brian Jenkinson, Forensic Computing: A Practitioner’s Guide , (London, UK: Springer-Verlag, 2000). Forensics was developed on the idea of copying data from a hard disk drive that was turned off or dead. Live recovery involves changes to the contents of a computer’s storage space, 18 U.S.C. §2510(15). Therefore, it is essential that someone competent to give testimony performs it, showing that the continuity and integrity of the evidence has been preserved.
[4] U.S. Department of Justice, Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, Criminal Division, Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigations 3d ed., (Washington, D.C.: Office of Legal Education, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, 2009), 84. Although the courts have not directly addressed the matter, the language of Rule 41 combined with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of “property” may limit computer searches to data that physically resides in the district in which the warrant was issued.
[5] For legal purposes, there are two classes of cloud providers: those who provide “electronic communication services,” and those who provide “remote computing service.” See 18 U.S.C. §2510(15) and 18 U.S.C. §2711(2) respectively.
[6] United States v. Gorshkov , 2001 WL 1024026 (May 23, 2001). In this case, the defendants moved to suppress the evidence, but the motion was denied. Nonetheless, the investigator was charged with hacking by foreign authorities who requested that the investigator be extradited for trial. U.S. authorities have not complied. | 1real |
Principal Bars Pregnant Teen from Graduation: ‘Best Way to Love Her Is to Hold Her Accountable for Her Immorality’ - Breitbart | The principal of a Christian school in Hagerstown, Maryland says that after “countless hours in prayer and discussion,” his board’s decision to bar a pregnant teen from walking at her graduation ceremony is holding her “accountable for her immorality” and is “the best way to love her. ”[The case of Maddi Runkles, an 18 senior at Heritage Academy, has taken the nation by storm over the past week. Runkles was interviewed Wednesday on CBS This Morning, and her story has been featured at media outlets such as the New York Times, the New York Post, and Cosmopolitan. The school’s principal, David Hobbs, released a statement regarding the situation of the teen, who has a 4. 0 gradepoit average and was president of the Student Council when she discovered she was pregnant in January. “Maddi is being disciplined, not because she’s pregnant, but because she was immoral,” Hobbs said in a statement posted on the school’s website, explaining that students at the school sign a pledge that states they will protect their bodies “by abstaining from sexual immorality and from the use of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs. ” “Heritage is also pleased that she has chosen to not abort her son,” he continued. “However, her immorality is the original choice she made that began this situation. ” In an interview with Breitbart News, Runkles said that while other students at Heritage Academy have broken some of the other rules of the pledge, “They’ve never suffered a punishment as severe as mine. ” Hobbs, she said, initially decided he would tell the entire school that she had broken the rule about sex. She was also stripped of her leadership positions and informed she would not be permitted to complete her senior year at school, but would finish her classes at home. Runkles said she decided, however, that she wanted to publicly confess to the school herself about her pregnancy. She made her confession with her father at her side. “I decided I wanted to confess what I did and ask for forgiveness from my school,” she continued, “but the other kids who had broken other rules — even when they were caught — they still lied about what they had done. It just seems unfair. I tried to make it right, but was still shot down. ” Subsequently, Runkles’ parents and about 25 classmates and other parents appealed to Hobbs, asking that she be permitted to remain in school and graduate with her classmates. Ultimately — after several days of suspension — she was told she could return to school to complete her classes, but would still be prohibited from graduating with her class. “A wise man told me that discipline is not the absence of love, but the application of love,” Hobbs says in his statement. “We love Maddi Runkles. The best way to love her right now is to hold her accountable for her immorality that began this situation. ” Runkles’s situation was brought to light by organization Students for Life of America (SFLA) which asserts the teen is being unfairly punished, since she already admitted her mistake, confessed it before the school, and accepted relinquishing her leadership roles. SFLA says Christians who claim to be should offer support to a teen who admits her error and accepts the consequences of going through with her pregnancy instead of having an abortion. “Disciplining Maddi is not the issue,” states SFLA president Kristan Hawkins. “Her discipline was decided, communicated, and executed. For the most part, this was done so with care for the family’s privacy and with fair response to the pledge broken (i. e. ‘abstaining from sexual immorality and from the use of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs’). ” Hawkins continues: However, my primary and continued complaint is that the disciplinary actions of the administration has extended far beyond accountability for the broken pledge regarding premarital sex. That accountability was served justly and humbly in Maddi’s confession, her suspension, and her removal from leadership positions. What was initially a punitive and learning moment has transformed into a public lesson (before this even was announced to the media). By banning Maddi from walking at graduation, the administration and board collectively decided on a disciplinary measure of an obviously public nature. From what we’ve learned thus far, no other student in the school’s history has been banned from walking at graduation for failing to abstain “from sexual immorality and from the use of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs. ” Maddi is the only student, past or present, banned from walking at graduation. In a class of only 15 students, her absence will be obvious and can only be explained in that her immorality is visible (unlike the errs of past and present students). In his statement, Hobbs does not address how the board handles the violations of other students, but states, “Each Heritage family deserves confidentiality. ” He indicates that the Runkles family chose “to make her behavior a public matter,” and that he would have preferred to handle Maddi’s “disciplinary situation” privately. Neither Heritage Academy nor Hobbs returned Breitbart News’s request for an interview or comment. Runkles’s story has launched a debate about how Christian churches handle the situation of unplanned pregnancies among single women. A study posted in November of 2015 at found that more than 40 percent of women who had an abortion regularly attended church. Vice president of LifeWay Research Scott McConnell said the results suggest a church culture that is lacking grace. Among those women who have had an abortion: (65 percent) say church members judge single women who are pregnant. A majority (54 percent) thinks churches oversimplify decisions about pregnancy options. Fewer than half (41 percent) believe churches are prepared to help with decisions about unwanted pregnancies. “Women are perceiving judgment from the church, and that’s probably partly because there are clear teachings in the Bible including about how and why we make judgments,” McConnell said. “However, if they don’t start experiencing something different than what they’ve seen in the past, these numbers aren’t going to change. ” The Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) — a national organization — states Runkles’s decision to have her baby “deserves compassion and support. ” “The decision to choose life is not always easy, and certainly not always popular with a culture that promotes convenience over personal responsibility,” the group says. “Maddi made a courageous choice to love and protect her unborn son and she deserves compassion and support, especially from fellow Christians. ” “We urge Heritage Academy to reconsider their decision not to allow Maddi, a 4. 0 student, to walk with her peers at graduation,” SBA List continues. “This extended punishment — doled out months after Maddi told her school she was pregnant and asked for compassion — sends a terrible message about the Christian community’s response to teen pregnancy and unexpected pregnancy. ” | 0fake |
Pakistan closes 27 NGOs in what activists see as widening crackdown | ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has ordered 27 international aid groups to shut down for working in unauthorized areas, spurring human rights campaigners to denounce swelling constraints on free speech and humanitarian work. The Ministry of Interior gave the 27 NGOs 90 days to conclude operations, according to a list seen by Reuters. Among those being expelled are Action Aid, World Vision, Plan International, Trocaire, Pathfinder International, Danish Refugee Council, George Soros Open Society Foundations, Oxfam Novib, and Marie Stopes. Talal Chaudhry, Pakistan s Minister of State for Interior Affairs, told Reuters the reason for shutting down the NGOs was because they were doing work in Pakistan which is beyond their mandate and for which they have no legal justification . He declined to give specific examples, but said the targeted NGOs spend all their money on administration, are not doing the work they said they were doing, and are working in areas where they were not authorized. The Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), which represents 63 international aid groups, said the ministry had issued 11 of its members letters of rejection . All of them said they will appeal. No reason for the rejections have been provided, the forum said. Plan International, which has worked in Pakistan since 1997, said it is supporting over 1.6 million children across Pakistan. Plan said it was given no reason for the ministry s decision and would appeal it. The organization is hopeful that the appeals process will make it possible for its work with vulnerable and marginalized children, especially girls, to continue in Pakistan, it said in a statement. All the other NGOs on the list who responded to queries from Reuters also said they had been given no reason for being forced to shut down. They must be having reasons for every (NGO) and those reasons should have been shared with the organizations, said a representative from one NGO who declined to be identified. Chaudhry said the number of NGOs in the country ballooned after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. Many organizations arrived to provide humanitarian assistance after Islamabad allied itself with the United States in what was then known as the global war on terror. But there were also a number of NGOs that are used, knowingly or unknowingly for activities that conflict with Pakistan s national interests, Chaudhry said, adding that registration procedures are commonplace in other countries. Pakistan has hardened its stance towards domestic and international NGOs in recent years, requiring them to undertake a painstaking registration process and clear multiple bureaucratic hurdles to continue working in the country. The Save the Children aid group fell afoul of the government in 2011, when it was linked to a Pakistani doctor recruited by the CIA to help in the hunt that led to the killing of al Qaeda militant leader Osama bin Laden in the town of Abbottabad. In January, the interior ministry ordered a dozen domestic groups working on women s issues and human rights to halt operations, a move later overturned in courts. Pakistan is hardly alone in cracking down on foreign charities. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi s government has since 2014 tightened surveillance of non-profit groups, saying they were acting against India s national interests. Thousands of foreign-funded charities licenses have been canceled for misreporting donations. In China, a law that went into effect on Jan. 1 this year grants broad powers to police to question NGO workers, monitor their finances, regulate their work and shut down offices. The clampdown on NGOs has come after a number of activists disappeared this year, some of whom have not been heard from. Reuters estimates at least 14 people have been picked up and interrogated from major urban centers including journalists, political workers, and social media activists. Three members of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) have also disappeared in the past year, chairperson Mehdi Hasan told Reuters. Human rights campaigners say the crackdown on NGOs and disappearances of civil society activists are part of a wider campaign to quell free speech. They both signify the shrinking space for free expression and activism in Pakistan and the diminishing tolerance the Pakistan state has, Saroop Ijaz, a representative for the Pakistan chapter of Human Rights Watch, told Reuters. Yusuf, who formerly served as HRCP chairperson, said Pakistan feels it has impunity in dealing with rights groups and activists. Its the repositioning of Pakistan as a security state and perceiving all forms of dissent as a security challenge, Yusuf said. It s creating a lot of fear in society. | 0fake |
Australia Will Close Detention Center on Manus Island, but Still Won’t Accept Asylum Seekers - The New York Times | SYDNEY, Australia — A detention center in Papua New Guinea where Australia has sent hundreds of asylum seekers will be closed, the governments of both countries said Wednesday. But neither side said when it would be shut down or what would be done with the people held there. The center, on Manus Island, a rugged, volcanic outcrop, is one of two such detention centers that Australia maintains in the Pacific to house migrants it has intercepted on the way to its shores, a policy that rights groups and the United Nations have criticized. In April, Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court declared the center illegal, and the governments have held discussions since then about how to proceed. But few details about the future of the 960 asylum seekers being held there were disclosed Wednesday. “A series of options are being advanced,” Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, Peter O’Neill, said in a statement announcing that both governments had agreed to close the center. Australia’s minister for immigration and border protection, Peter Dutton, said the move would not change his country’s refusal to accept asylum seekers who try to reach its shores by boat. “No one from Manus Island Regional Processing Center will ever be settled in Australia,” Mr. Dutton said in a statement. He has said in the past that asylum seekers granted refugee status could resettle in Papua New Guinea, though few have been allowed to do so, and that those denied asylum should be sent back to their home countries. Australia’s government, which has maintained a policy toward asylum seekers to discourage migrants from trying the dangerous sea voyage, has said it is for Papua New Guinea to decide what to do with the asylum seekers at the Manus detention center. A senator in the Australian Greens Party, Sarah said Wednesday that the asylum seekers should be resettled in Australia. “The government must ensure that these people are given a chance to rebuild their lives in safety in Australia,” Ms. said in a statement. The conditions at the center, and at another on Nauru, a tiny island nation, have come under scrutiny. The United Nations has said that Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers at the offshore centers is cruel, inhuman and degrading, and that it violates international law. Detainees on Manus Island have contracted malaria and typhoid, and there have been reports of a lack of toilet paper and running water. Guards there have also been accused of brutality and of failing to protect detainees. Conditions at the detention center on Nauru have also been described as harsh and dispiriting. The Guardian released documents this month from the Nauru center that detailed reports of child sexual abuse, assault and among asylum seekers. About 1, 000 asylum seekers are living on Nauru. “Australia’s international reputation has been enormously damaged by the establishment of offshore camps,” said Tim O’Connor, acting chief executive of the Refugee Council of Australia, which represents 200 groups that support asylum seekers. “It has done enormous damage to the thousands of individuals who have been trapped in this system. The refugees should immediately be brought to Australia. ” Leaders of Australia’s governing parties and the main opposition Labor Party have said the country’s policy has led to a steady decrease in the number of asylum seekers attempting to reach their shores, and the officials have shown few signs of wanting to change the policy. | 0fake |
TRUMP IN MEXICO: Outlines 5 Goals He Wants To Accomplish With Mexican Government [Video] | Donald Trump flew in an unmarked jet to a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto Wednesday. The meeting was hastily put together but we give huge credit to Trump for making the effort. Hillary chose to troll Trump. Trump laid out his 5-step plan to improve relations with Mexico, which includes a border wall.The meeting ended in a news conference with both men standing at podiums within a few feet of each other. Trump stood his ground and handled the press like a champ. It was really a great opportunity for Trump to show he can negotiate and meet with world leaders. Ending illegal immigration, not just from Mexico but from Central American countries Having a secure border, which Trump says is a sovereign right and mutually beneficial Dismantling of the drug cartels and ending the movement of illegal drugs, weapons and funds across the border Improving NAFTA Keep manufacturing wealth in our hemisphere Nieto said the US-Mexican border security must address illegal flow south of arms and cash, as well as immigration north. Trump said while he understands why some Mexicans have been offended by Trump s comments, he believes he can work with Trump to achieve goals that will improve the situation in Mexico as well. We recognize and respect the right of either country to build a physical barrier or wall on any of its borders to stop the illegal movement of people, drugs and weapons, said Trump. Trump said while the two men discussed the border, he said they didn t talk about who would pay for the wall. After the news conference, Pena Nieto said he told Trump that Mexico won t pay for a border wall, contradicting Trump.To wrap up his speech, Trump said his meeting with Nieto was excellent and it was a tremendous honor. Read more: kban | 1real |
Russian Olympic Chief to Step Down Putin Hints at Other Changes - The New York Times | President Vladimir V. Putin laid the groundwork this week for a possible of Russian sports leadership in the wake of a doping controversy that has implicated government officials. At a state sports meeting in Kovrov, Russia, Mr. Putin outlined a broad strategy to redeem the country with global Olympic officials five months after a former director of Russia’s antidoping laboratory detailed a cheating scheme executed by the Russian state. Mr. Putin said that Alexander Zhukov, head of the Russian Olympic Committee since 2010, would step down two years before his term was set to expire, to focus on a new role in the Russian parliament. Before naming his successor, Mr. Putin said, the government would consult with the International Olympic Committee, which has established a disciplinary commission that is set to consider penalties for Russia ahead of the next Winter Games, in 2018. Pointing to Russia’s finish in the medal standings at this year’s Rio Games — behind the United States, China and Britain — Mr. Zhukov and Mr. Putin on Tuesday praised Russia’s Olympic delegation for its “ability to take a punch” amid “an aggressive information campaign against Russian athletes. ” Noting that Russia won no medals in diving in Rio, Mr. Zhukov suggested the country recruit specialists from China, given its dominance in the sport. Mr. Putin also hinted at possible changes in Russian sports leadership, announcing a new government position to oversee sports, tourism and youth policy. It was not immediately clear whether that expanded portfolio would be taken on by Vitaly Mutko, Russia’s sports minister. “Importantly, these are the first steps on the path of reform in the sports sector,” Mr. Putin said, denouncing the “prejudice against our athletes” and doping in sports while assuming hazy responsibility for “a number of errors and miscalculations in this important and very sensitive area. ” He said government authorities and a newly created antidoping commission were focused on redeeming Russia’s standing in global sports. Russia’s track and field team remains barred from global competition, its Paralympic team suspended and its national antidoping agency decertified by the global antidoping regulator. Mr. Putin emphasized the government’s financial support of Russia’s antidoping activities, including its annual contributions to the World Agency, which has made Russia the subject of several investigations over the last year. He suggested a change in the structure of Russia’s antidoping system, proposing to distance it from the sports ministry and instead have it managed by Russia’s Olympic committee. Since the country’s former lab director, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, outlined in May the precise contours of a doping system in an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Putin and the country’s top sports officials, including Mr. Zhukov and Mr. Mutko, have been publicly defiant. They called Dr. Rodchenkov, who fled to the United States, a traitor and insisted that his account was fabricated while obliquely acknowledging doping was a “black spot” on the country. But an investigation commissioned by WADA produced proof of Dr. Rodchenkov’s claims, along with evidence establishing Mr. Mutko’s deputy minister, Yuri Nagornykh, as critical in covering up the use of drugs by top athletes at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, as well as in the years before and after. Mr. Nagornykh disputed The Times’s report in May. After the antidoping regulator published the results of its inquiry in July, Mr. Putin suspended him. Although Mr. Mutko was named in the report as having been complicit in the system, his status as minister has remained steady. Still, the revelations left Russian sports officials scrambling to defend the country’s participation in the Rio Olympics mere weeks before they began. Mr. Zhukov was a key ambassador in that crusade, maintaining that the Russian Olympic Committee was independent of the government and unaffected by any shadows cast on the country’s sports ministry. (Mr. Nagornykh, however, had occupied overlapping roles as deputy minister and a Russian Olympic Committee official.) In the days before Russia’s Olympic roster was completed, Mr. Zhukov politicked at a hotel in Rio and pledged that his country’s delegation would be the purest of any at the Games, given the level of scrutiny applied to it. Mr. Mutko, however, was refused admittance to the Olympics and did not travel to Rio with Russia’s team, which was cut by nearly a third after sports officials deemed athletes tainted unless they proved a rigorous history of drug tests. Now, with Olympic officials anticipating the results of a second investigation this fall — which is expected to identify Russian athletes who benefited from the doping system — Russia is bracing itself for disciplinary action. Beyond jeopardizing the 33 medals Russia won at the Sochi Games — at least 15 of which Dr. Rodchenkov said were won by athletes who had used his cocktail of anabolic steroids — possible penalties could extend to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in February 2018. Some antidoping authorities who lobbied that the Russian flag not fly in Rio have called on Olympic officials to penalize Russia more severely. Joseph de Pencier, chief executive of the Institute of National Organizations, said last week that he hoped “the reception of Russian athletes in Pyeongchang is very different than the one in Rio,” adding, “The I. O. C. can redeem itself. ” Mr. Putin also publicly waded into the nuances of antidoping protocols in sports this week, criticizing the practice of allowing athletes to use prohibited drugs for legitimate medical reasons. That topic has received global attention this fall, after Russian hackers breached WADA’s athlete database and published the private medical records of top athletes. Of the records the hackers have chosen to release, roughly half relate to American, British and Canadian athletes. The hackers identified themselves as Fancy Bear, a Russian cyberespionage group that forensics specialists have tied to breaches against government agencies, nonprofit organizations and corporations. The I. O. C. and WADA have denounced the hacks, which law enforcement authorities are investigating. | 0fake |
CNN, Deutsche Welle could be hit by Russia's 'foreign agents' media law: RIA | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Media outlets such as CNN, Radio Free Europe and Deutsche Welle could be affected by Russia s new foreign agents media law, Andrei Isayev, a senior lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party, told RIA news agency on Monday. Russia s parliament warned last week that some U.S. and other foreign media outlets could be declared foreign agents and obliged to regularly declare full details of their funding, finances and staffing. | 0fake |
HERE’S WHY THE UN AND CLIMATE CHANGE GLOBALISTS Are FREAKING OUT Over The Trump Win | The U.S. Government spends $22 billion a year to fight the global warming crisis (twice as much as it spends protecting our border). To put that in perspective, that is $41,856 every minute going to global warming initiatives. But that s just the tip of a gargantuan iceberg. According to Forbes columnist Larry Bell, the ripple effect of global warming initiatives actually costs Americans $1.75 trillion . . . every year. The United Nations is not a friend of democracy, it s not a friend to freedom, it s not a friend even to the United States of America, Trump said during a speech in March to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.The election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president was met with disbelief and despondency on Wednesday among some United Nations officials and diplomats amid uncertainty surrounding his foreign policy and likely engagement with the world body.Trump, a Republican, has described the 71-year-old United Nations as weak and incompetent and threatened to pull out of a global deal to combat climate change a cornerstone of the legacy of U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, who steps down at the end of 2016 after serving two five-year terms as secretary-general. The United Nations is not a friend of democracy, it s not a friend to freedom, it s not a friend even to the United States of America, Trump said during a speech in March to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.The United States is a veto-wielding member of the 15-member U.N. Security Council and the largest financial contributor to the United Nations. Washington owes about $1.1 billion, the United Nations said. Republicans have long been reluctant to pay dues, accusing the world body of waste and bias.Ban said on Wednesday he hoped that the Trump administration would strengthen the bonds of international cooperation. People everywhere look to the United States to use its remarkable power to help lift humanity up and to work for the common good, Ban told reporters.Topping the United Nations agenda are conflicts in Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, Iraq and elsewhere, and a refugee and migrant crisis that saw a record 65.3 million people uprooted worldwide last year. More than ever, we need an America that is committed to world affairs, including at the United Nations, French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre said.A senior Security Council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump s foreign policy had so far not been very coherent and his victory did not bode well for the future effectiveness of the council. The assumption is that (a Trump administration) will be less engaged with U.N. than (President Barack) Obama s administration, which was more committed to working for collective solutions than previous U.S. administrations, the diplomat said.Several U.N. diplomats noted a lack clarity from Trump on foreign policy. We have not really heard a very clear indication of where he is going, Iraq s U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim told reporters on Wednesday, adding that he believed the United Nations would remain relevant.The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra ad al Hussein, last month warned that the world would be in danger if Trump was elected president. Zeid would continue to call out any Trump policies or practices that undermine or violate human rights, his spokesman said.Via: Reuters | 1real |
Argentina intensifies search for missing submarine with 44 crew | BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - An Argentine submarine with 44 crew on board was missing in the South Atlantic two days after its last communication, prompting the navy to step up its search efforts late on Friday in difficult, stormy conditions. The ARA San Juan was in the southern Argentine sea 432 km (268 miles) from the Patagonian coast when it sent its last signal on Wednesday, naval spokesman Enrique Balbi said. The emergency operation was formally upgraded to a search-and-rescue procedure on Friday evening after no visual or radar contact was made with the submarine, Balbi said. Detection has been difficult despite the quantity of boats and aircraft involved in the search, Balbi said, noting that heavy winds and high waves were complicating efforts. Obviously, the number of hours that have passed - two days in which there has been no communication - is of note. The navy believes the submarine, which left Ushuaia en route to the coastal city of Mar del Plata in Buenos Aires province, had communication difficulties that may have been caused by an electrical outage, Balbi said. Navy protocol would call for the submarine to come to the surface once communication was lost. We expect that it is on the surface, Balbi said. The German-built submarine, which uses diesel-electric propulsion, was inaugurated in 1983, making it the newest of the three submarines in the navy s fleet, according to the navy. President Mauricio Macri said the government was in contact with the crew s families. We share their concern and that of all Argentines, he wrote on Twitter. We are committed to using all national and international resources necessary to find the ARA San Juan submarine as soon as possible. Argentina accepted an offer from the United States for a NASA P-3 explorer aircraft, which had been stationed in the southern city of Ushuaia and was preparing to depart to Antarctica, to fly over the search area, Balbi said. A Hercules C-130 from the Argentine Air Force was also flying over the operational area. Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Britain and South Africa had also formally offered assistance. | 0fake |
BATTLE OVER PRIVACY: Why the FBI’s Case Against Apple is Falling Apart | Shawn Helton 21st Century WireThis week a House Judiciary Committee began overseeing details of a US Federal Court case between tech company Apple and the FBI.On February 16th, Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly rejected a court order to decrypt an iPhone said to be connected to the San Bernardino mass-shooting case from December of 2015.The House Judiciary Committee listened to the controversial case between tech titan Apple and the FBI a day after Magistrate Judge James Orenstein of New York, struck down a federal court order pressuring Apple to help access encrypted data in a separate case involving illegal drug trafficking.The landmark decision made by Judge Orenstein stated that the All Writs Act of 1789 (also used as the FBI s main argument in the Apple/San Bernardino case) does not permit a court to order companies to pull encrypted data off a customer s phone or tablet, according to a recent article from The Washington Post.The Post continued by discussing Orenstein s lengthy argument against the FBI s order against Apple in the drug related case: In a 50-page opinion disdainful of the government s arguments, Orenstein found that the All Writs Act does not apply in instances where Congress had the opportunity but failed to create an authority for the government to get the type of help it was seeking, such as having firms ensure they have a way to obtain data from encrypted phones. In addition, The Post outlined some of the social engineering aspects involved in the lead up to the FBI drug case overseen by Judge Orenstein, a case which has arguably been a part of an overarching back drop concerning the larger San Bernardino case: The Brooklyn case began last fall when Orenstein, one of a handful of magistrates across the country who are activists in the surveillance debate, received the government s application to issue an order to Apple. While Apple has previously helped the federal government with some 70 phone cases since 2008, Judge Orenstein examined several problems with the FBI s use of the All Writs Act: In an Oct. 9 ruling, Orenstein identified what he thought was a problem with the government s argument. Though prosecutors cited a 1985 decision that found that the All Writs Act is a source of authority to issue writs not otherwise covered by statute, he said they failed to cite another part of the decision that found that the act does not authorize the issuance of ad hoc writs whenever compliance with statutory procedures appears inconvenient or less appropriate. The new ruling in the FBI drug case will likely have a heavy impact on the eventual ruling in the San Bernardino/Apple court order, as it directly questions the heart of the government s argument to gain easier access to encrypted consumer data.It s also interesting to note, that it was the FBI who put themselves in this position regarding the San Bernardino phone as they reportedly ordered the password to be reset via iCloud shortly after the apparent mass shooting.You have to wonder why the agency would have ordered a new password almost immediately following the highly dramatic scene in San Bernardino INVENTIONS OF REALITY? Is this latest privacy crisis a manufactured drama or a legitimate battle for those in the tech industry? (Photo illustration 21WIRE)What s interesting here, is that ABC news reported on December 3rd, a day after the apparent shooting, Sources say mobile phones, hard drives, virtually anything with digital memory that was associated with the alleged shooters Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik was smashed. Adding to that, we ve mentioned a number of times here at 21WIRE, that none of the eyewitness testimony mentioned seeing a female shooter at the scene of the Inland Regional Center in the aftermath of the San Bernardino shooting.A Right to PrivacyIn our previous article detailing the ongoing encryption saga between Apple and the FBI, we stated that there are no guarantees in the security world, especially if a digital master-key were to be created, as this would potentially make it easier for invaders (either the government, or various hackers) mining for data moving forward into the future.In a recent Guardian article, some of those involved in the technology and security sector offered their thoughts regarding the government s continued encroachment on individual privacy:Dan Kaminsky, the security expert who made his name with the discovery that one of the most basic parts of the internet, the domain name system, was vulnerable to fraud disagrees: Feds want final authority on engineering decisions, and their interests don t even align with fighting the vast bulk of real-world crime. Kaminsky further explained why Apple s security measures already help law enforcement, If my iPhone is stolen, my emails stay unread, my photos stay unviewed, and I don t need to notify anyone that the secrets they entrusted me with are going to show up on the internet tomorrow. Continuing, The Guardian interviewed former FBI agent Michael German, currently at judicial think-tank the Brennan Center. The following is a portion of that interview: After 9/11, you had this concept of total information awareness. The intelligence community was very enamoured of the idea that all information was available. Much like the NSA, they wanted to see it all, collect it all, and analyse it all. Additionally, there are many who believe weaker encryption may pose an even bigger security risk globally.In many ways, it appears as though federal agencies are seemingly searching for the right crisis to push public opinion in favor of the state when it comes to security.This is at the core of the perpetual privacy and security battle post 9/11 TARGETING PRIVACY FBI Director James Comey speaking at the Brookings Institution in October of 2014 about Going Dark. (Photo link brookings)Shining a Light on the FBI Going Dark Last September, The Washington Post published an article entitled, Obama faces growing momentum to support widespread encryption, and within its contents, perhaps the true nature of the security/privacy issue was laid bare (hat tip saperetic): Privately, law enforcement officials have acknowledged that prospects for congressional action this year are remote. Although the legislative environment is very hostile today, the intelligence community s top lawyer, Robert S. Litt, said to colleagues in an August e-mail, which was obtained by The Post, it could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement. There is value, he said, in keeping our options open for such a situation. Interestingly, in October of 2014, FBI Director James B. Comey, explained while speaking at the Brookings Institution he was focused on trying to get the law changed so that tech companies would have to comply with law enforcement to unlock data on various devices.Continuing, he outlined the current security agenda concerning the FBI, We have the legal authority to intercept and access communications and information pursuant to a court order, but we often lack the technical ability to do that. The Brookings speech from 2014, appeared in stark contrast with a recent emotionally driven op-ed Comey wrote for Lawfare entitled We Could Not Look the Survivors in the Eye if We Did Not Follow this Lead. Here s a passage from that piece, that clearly displays the conflicting message of the FBI director: We simply want the chance, with a search warrant, to try to guess the terrorist s passcode without the phone essentially self-destructing and without it taking a decade to guess correctly. That s it. We don t want to break anyone s encryption or set a master key loose on the land. The Guardian refers to this as a two-pronged approach on the public s senses as one tone from the FBI comes across as caring and the other seems more focused on the greater, nationalistic implications of encryption.Think good cop/bad cop hovering over you in an interrogation room and you d be getting very warm.This is the kind of psychological drama that has prompted some in media to think that the law enforcement agency has been exploiting the public in the wake of tragedy, in order to increase security measures.This is absolutely something to watch.So, what are we to make of the FBI s claims of going dark in the digital age?It has long since been claimed that intelligence agencies fear going dark in the age of high-tech gadgetry. This idea is vastly overblown and not rooted in reality, especially when you consider the many revelations concerning NSA spying, collection of bulk metadata and other tracking programs such as the IMSI catcher, otherwise known as Stingray (Stingray acts as cell tower locking onto all devices in a certain area) intercepts phone calls, texts, as well as your location.The very notion that law enforcement will somehow be condemned eternally to outdated methods to catch criminals in the future is patently absurd.Furthermore, the concept and presentation of the FBI s going dark scenario is nothing more than a talking point used to increase a police state apparatus within the United States.Don t PanicOn February 1st, a group of experts published report regarding the current status of law enforcement and their ability to keep up with the demands of crime solving in the world today. The lengthy report entitled Don t Panic was compiled by The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Here s a passage below examining the FBI s catchy mantra, Going Dark :The U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities view this trend with varying degrees of alarm, alleging that their interception capabilities are going dark. As they describe it, companies are increasingly adopting technological architectures that inhibit the government s ability to obtain access to communications, even in circumstances that satisfy the Fourth Amendment s warrant requirements. Encryption is the hallmark of these architectures. Government officials are concerned because, without access to communications, they fear they may not be able to prevent terrorist attacks and investigate and prosecute criminal activity. Their solution is to force companies to maintain access to user communications and data, and provide that access to law enforcement on demand, pursuant to the applicable legal process. However, the private sector has resisted. Critics fear that architectures geared to guarantee such access would compromise the security and privacy of users around the world, while also hurting the economic viability of U.S. companies. They also dispute the degree to which the proposed solutions would truly prevent terrorists and criminals from communicating in mediums resistant to surveillance.While the report states that encryption is a difficult issue for law enforcement, all sorts of digital data is unencrypted and therefore can be accessed via a search warrant if there is cause not to mention the spying capabilities of a plethora of smart devices also available for review.Below is FBI Director (former Senior Vice President at Lockheed Martin) discussing the idea that the government is Going Dark In an article entitled Here s Why the FBI Went After Apple When It Did, Fortune magazine revealed that on February 9th, DOJ head Loretta Lynch requested an extra $38 million to help the FBI development workarounds on data encryption, bringing the total budget of what it calls project Going Dark to $69 million. Will the FBI continue to develop encryption workarounds in the event that they lose their battle with Apple over the San Bernardino case?In Summary Regardless of how you shape the court battle between Apple and the FBI, this is about the government wanting a more direct route into personal devices moving ahead.For Apple, this is a very important issue as a dip in consumer confidence, could be a crushing blow to the tech company s overall brand.It s important to remember anomaly ridden events such as the San Bernardino shooting and the suspicious events in Garland, Texas, of last year, in addition to other inconvenient truths concerning the government s role in manufacturing its own terror plots which have ironically prompted calls for greater national security, while continuing to appropriate large funds to federal agencies.You have to wonder, has the FBI s case against Apple fallen apart?READ MORE ENCRYPTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Encryption Files | 1real |
WATCH: Rob Reiner Accurately Describes Trump Supporters On Morning Joe, All Hell Breaks Loose | Some people just can t handle the truth, even if it s handed to them on a silver platter. So, when legendary filmmaker Rob Reiner told Joe Scarborough to his face that Donald Trump supporters are racist, it did not go over well. You see, Scarborough has pretty much given Trump an open platform to spew his fallacies and propaganda on his MSNBC show Morning Joe practically any time he wants. Reiner clearly kicked the hornets nest by being so honest directly to Scarborough s face.After being asked why people may support Trump, Reiner said: There are a lot of people who are racist. Which got the reply, Oh my God! Did you just say that? But Reiner didn t back away from the obvious truth. He added: That s true. They re not all racist there are a lot of people who are. There is racism in this country that has been submerged for a long, long time. And all of a sudden there s a man speaking He s then interrupted by Scarborough who tried to say Trump supporters may just be angry working class Americans, so Reiner responded: Let me say this to that. There are those that are following Bernie Sanders that feel the same way. Then when Mika Brzezinski insinuates Reiner is calling them racist too, Reiner says: No, do you see any racist people at the Bernie rallies? Do you see any skinheads? You can see when somebody s got a tattoo with a swastika and stuff. C mon Joe, be honest here. Reiner is then continued to be dismissed by pretty much everyone, because apparently the truth is too much for them to bear. He also makes the very good point that Trump is not doing a good enough job of dismissing his very racist base of voters. For goodness sake, he s been endorsed by white supremacists! Instead, Trump embraces support from pretty much anyone who tosses it his way, racist or not, and that s become very evident.Let s just put it this way, not all Trump supporters are racist, but if you re racist, you re probably voting for Donald Trump.Watch here:WATCH: How does director Rob Reiner explain the millions who voted for @realDonaldTrump? Here s his simple answer. https://t.co/HgFwRqhMoB Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) May 5, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Powell rose to top of Trump's list as safe, savvy choice for Fed | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jerome Powell was not on President Donald Trump’s early radar as a possible successor to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, and was angling instead for a job as the U.S. central bank’s vice chair for supervision. But when he was passed over for that position last summer, it was one in a chain of events that set the stage for the 64-year-old Fed governor and former investment banker to take over as head of the world’s most powerful central bank. Trump on Thursday nominated Powell to replace Yellen when her term expires in early February, saying at the White House that the 64-year-old lawyer and former investment banker has the necessary “wisdom and leadership.”[nL2N1N80D3] Other contenders for the job fell for different reasons, as Trump soured on top White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, decided against renominating Yellen despite largely approving of her policies and came to view two others as posing risks to the economy, according to current and former Fed and government officials familiar with the decision. In the end it was Powell, a Maryland native, avid cyclist, and guitar hobbyist, who checked all the boxes that mattered but carried none of the negatives. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Powell would become the first person without an advanced economics degree to hold the job since William Miller in the late 1970s. Powell, who lists personal assets of between $20 million and $60 million on government disclosure forms, has served on corporate boards as a managing partner at the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. But he has also burrowed deep over the last five years into the nuts and bolts of central banking, and schooled himself on broader monetary policy issues. “Jay does not come with baggage... He has never been at the extremes,” said Steve Bell, who worked with Powell at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank and when Powell was at the Treasury Department in former President George H.W. Bush’s administration. When compared to other possible nominees, some of whom called for sweeping but ill-defined changes at the Fed, Powell took “a straight tactical line” that offered a continuation of Yellen’s policies, a moderate approach to bank regulation and, perhaps most importantly, the prospect of no surprises, Bell said. Powell’s private-sector background appealed as well to Trump’s preference for business figures over those with Phds. A senior White House official on Thursday called his experience “unique” and “refreshing” at a central bank increasingly dominated by economists. Stanford University economist John Taylor, who developed the “Taylor Rule” for guiding monetary policy, and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, who resigned over the central bank’s massive bond-buying stimulus program credited by many with spurring the U.S. economy after the 2007-2009 recession, were also interviewed for the Fed job. They arguably had a head start, the backing of conservatives, and steady support from the Wall Street Journal’s influential editorial board. But they also carried the risk of financial market volatility, with investors regarding each as somebody who could tighten monetary policy at the central bank. That is something Trump has indicated he wants to avoid. The first two names Trump floated were Yellen and Cohn. But Cohn fell out of favor after he criticized Trump’s response to violence sparked by a white supremacist rally in Virginia in August. A former Fed official, contacted over the summer as part of the White House’s Fed chief search, said it was clear the administration wasn’t interested, for example, in Taylor and his reliance on “rules” that generally call for interest rates to be higher than they currently are. The administration officials vetting Fed candidates were “very much opposed to Taylor-type rules and systematic policy,” said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Warsh, meanwhile, became the target of an aggressive grassroots campaign that highlighted what some critics viewed as a history of bad calls on inflation during his tenure as a Fed policymaker, portending a tough confirmation fight. Powell also benefited from burgeoning relationships through his work on the technical aspects of markets, and his assumption of the role as the Fed’s regulatory point person after the resignation of former Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo in April. That prompted Powell to initially set his sights on the job of vice chair for supervision, though it soon became clear he would not get it, according to a person who had discussions with White House and Fed officials involved in the process. Yet Powell’s close work with the Treasury resulted in Secretary Steven Mnuchin becoming a strong advocate of his nomination to the top job, Fed and government officials said on condition of anonymity. Fed Governor Randal Quarles, a friend and colleague who got the vice chair job that Powell had wanted, was an additional ally in the mix. But it was Powell’s support of the Yellen Fed’s policies, often credited with paving the way for a 4.2 percent unemployment rate, steady economic growth and calm markets, that may have been his strongest advantage in the race. “Trump is savvy enough to look at the numbers and who is in the chair,” said Peter Conti-Brown, an assistant professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Powell solves the problem of a Republican administration that wants “the Yellen Fed without Yellen,” Conti-Brown said. | 0fake |
Clinton Emails: How Google Worked With Hillary to Try and Overthrow Syria’s Assad | 21st Century Wire says The Silicon Valley s technotronic oligarchy has been exposed as a mere extension of the CIA in terms of playing a role in Washington s state policy of regime change in Syria.This latest email release reveals how then US Secretary of State, and now Democratic presidential favorite Hillary Clinton colluded with executives at Google to launch a digital PR onslaught against the president of Syria, Bashar al Assad. This is all part of Google s color revolution business, and also part of the Smart Power Complex used to manufacture public consent for humanitarian interventions globally.The leak also reveals how Qatari network Al Jazeera played an active role in this plot too. Al Jazeera has already been caught repeatedly manipulating international news throughout the Middle East.In a just world, Hillary would be held to account by the mainstream media for this revelation, but it seems that it s just being ignored by the mainstream gatekeepers Rudy Takala Washington ExaminerGoogle in 2012 sought to help insurgents overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to State Department emails receiving fresh scrutiny this week.Messages between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton s team and one of the company s executives detailed the plan for Google to get involved in the region. Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from, Jared Cohen, the head of what was then the company s Google Ideas division, wrote in a July 2012 email to several top Clinton officials. Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections, which we believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition, Cohen said, adding that the plan was for Google to surreptitiously give the tool to Middle Eastern media.Hillary Emails: Google tried to boost Assad defections https://t.co/lyma4eJp9a More: https://t.co/ZUfh7WDAT5 pic.twitter.com/nvNG0lFJWt WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 19, 2016 Given how hard it is to get information into Syria right now, we are partnering with Al-Jazeera who will take primary ownership over the tool we have built, track the data, verify it, and broadcast it back into Syria, he said. Please keep this very close hold and let me know if there is anything [else] you think we need to account for or think about before we launch. We believe this can have an important impact, Cohen concluded The message was addressed to deputy secretary of state Bill Burns; Alec Ross, a senior Clinton advisor; and Clinton s deputy chief of staff, Jake Sullivan. Sullivan subsequently forwarded Cohen s proposal to Clinton, describing it as a pretty cool idea. Cohen worked as a low-level staffer at the State Department until 2010, when he was hired to lead Google Ideas, but was tied to the use of social media to incite social uprisings even before he left the department. He once reportedly asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to hold off of conducting system maintenance that officials believed could have impeded a brief 2009 uprising in Iran Continue this story at Washington ExaminerREAD MORE SMART POWER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Smart Power Files | 1real |
MUSLIM CLOCK BOY’S LIE EXPOSED [Video] Expert Proves Boy Who Received Invitation To White House And Thousands In Donations Story Was A Hoax | Everything about this muslim boy s story is a lie. From the first lie that he made the clock to the lie about him being unfairly targeted by the school. But in the Muslim faith, it s okay to lie (taqiya)as long as you re promoting your faith. In Shi a Islam, taqiya ( taqiyyah/taq yah) is a form of religious veil, or a legal dispensation whereby a believing individual can deny his faith or commit otherwise illegal or blasphemous acts, especially while they are in fear or at risk of significant persecution.Our President Barack Obama brazenly supported and promoted the persecution of this poor Muslim boy:Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great. President Obama (@POTUS44) September 16, 2015 Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It s what makes America great. President Barack Obama, September 16, 2015It was a Hoax.Ahmed Mohamed s claims that he assembled a clock at home that he took to school is starting to unravel.Two investigators who have studied the image of Mohamed s device provided by Irving, Texas police have concluded that Mohamed did not make the clock. Both conclude that Mohamed disassembled a manufactured clock and installed it in a large pencil box without its casing. And both say it is possible it was done to provoke suspicion or to resemble a bomb.Update: Clock has been identified as being sold in a 1986 Radio Shack catalogue by an Art Voice reader. The headline and text for this article has been changed to reflect the update.14-year-old Mohamed, a Muslim, was briefly arrested and investigated for bringing a hoax bomb to MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas on Monday. He was subsequently cleared.Thousands of dollars have been donated to Ahmed Mohamed in just the past few days, reported CNN. On Monday, 14-year-old Mohamed was arrested for taking a homemade clock to school that his teachers thought was a bomb. So crowdfunding platform LaunchGood started a campaign to raise $100,000 for the Muslim teen. In just one day, the site had raised over $10,000 from more than 200 backers. It s hoping to raise $100,000 by October 13. The support for it has been amazing, said Chris Abdur-Rahman Blauvelt, CEO of LaunchGood, which supports projects started by Muslims or ones that are tied to the history and study of Islam. Blauvelt said his campaign has the approval of Mohamed s family. He said half of the money donated will go toward a scholarship fund for Mohamed and the rest to efforts that foster creativity and inventiveness in kids. In addition to LaunchGood, crowdfunding platform Gofundme has also launched a campaign for Mohamed. It s raised more than $4,000 with a goal of $60,000 that will go toward Mohamed s future college tuition. Thomas Talbot posted a video to YouTube explaining the various parts in the photo of Mohamed s briefcase clock belong to a manufactured alarm clock. Anthony , writing at the blog Art Voice, detailed how Mohamed s device is actually a 1980s digital alarm clock sold by Radio Shack.Via: Gateway Pundit | 1real |
Bernie Sanders says private meeting with Pope Francis is not an endorsement | ROME — U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders met privately with Pope Francis on Saturday, the capstone to an unusual detour from the American election.
Sanders said the meeting was for personal reasons and does not constitute an endorsement from the Holy See.
"I am an enormous fan of the pope because I think he has played a transformative role in the world in talking about issues that very rarely get the kind of discussion they deserve," Sanders said in an interview aboard his chartered plane. "Whether it is income and wealth inequality, whether it is what he calls the dispossessed, the young people, the old people, the unemployed people who are on the sidelines of society, whether it is the ideology of greed, whether it is need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to save the planet, he has been a transformative leader.
"And he is a very beautiful man," Sanders continued. "When you meet him, you see something very, very special in his face. He is a man of peace, and you see that."
Some of Sanders's advisers, including his wife, Jane, also were at the meeting. He said that there was no discussion of his underdog candidacy or the election. There was no photograph of the brief meeting at the papal residence complex, in keeping with Vatican protocol and also, Sanders said, "to make clear that there is no endorsement here."
Francis, on Saturday, made it clear that his meeting with Sanders was not political, saying that those who thought it was should “look for a psychiatrist,” according to Reuters.
The pontiff met Sanders at the Vatican guest house, where the pope lives. “When I came down, I greeted him, I shook his hand and nothing more. This is called good manners and it is not getting involved in politics,” Reuters says the pope told reporters, during an answer to a question aboard the plane returning from the Greek island of Lesbos, where he visited a refugee camp.
[Pope calls for compassion for refugees, takes three families back to Italy]
“If anyone thinks that greeting someone is getting involved in politics, I recommend that he look for a psychiatrist,” he reportedly said while laughing.
Sanders was at the Vatican, participating in a seminar on income inequality and economic justice at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, where he was invited to attend as well as speak. He and other conference invitees spent the night at the Vatican after the conference.
The trip suggests that Sanders is looking ahead to how he would continue and expand the focus on very liberal social justice issues that has defined his candidacy. In a matter of months he moved from gadfly to serious challenger to the longtime Democratic favorite, largely on the strength of a set of ideas more common to liberal university campuses than the political debate stage.
"If elected president I certainly would look forward to working with the pope in trying to create a moral economy, which was the theme of this conference; an economy which challenges the idea that greed has got to be the dominant force in the world's economy," Sanders said.
And if he loses?
"Well, the ideas and the efforts remain the same. I'm a United States senator from Vermont. And I'll continue to fight the fights that I've always fought," with a larger platform to do so, Sanders said.
The Vatican invitation is symbolic of that platform, he agreed. But Sanders and the pontiff share many goals for social justice and economic restructuring, and Sanders suggested that, and not his candidacy, was the reason for the audience with Francis.
"The speech that I gave yesterday would have been the speech 10 years ago, long before I ever dreamed of running for president," he said in an interview with The Washington Post.
Sanders said the trip was "absolutely" a worthwhile diversion from campaigning in New York, where he trails front-runner Hillary Clinton by double digits in most polls.
"Look, we have campaigned extraordinarily hard in New York," Sanders said. He claimed he has addressed 96,000 people across the state at rallies and other meetings. "We have worked very hard and when we go back, we're gonna work hard. This was an invitation that I would never have forgiven myself if I had refused."
Sanders needs a solid showing in New York, which offers more than 200 delegates, to maintain a plausible argument that he can catch up to Clinton. His path to the nomination has grown narrower even as he has defeated Clinton in a string of contests over the past month.
"Uh, we got a shot," Sanders said when asked about his prospects for Tuesday's primary vote. "It's gonna be tough for us, not just because Clinton has won two elections there, but because of the nature of the voting rules."
New York, which Clinton represented as a senator for eight years, allows only registered Democrats to vote in the Democratic primary, meaning independents are cut out. Sanders has been regularly defeating Clinton among independents. The state also does not allow same-day registration. Sanders said he disagrees with both rules.
"Those are the rules. They don't work for us," Sanders said. "But nonetheless, if there is a large voter turnout, we got a shot to win this."
Sanders flew to Rome on a large, chartered airliner, largely paid with campaign funds, spokesman Michael Briggs said.
He said he did not know the exact cost of the trip. News organizations flying with Sanders pay for their passage, and the Secret Service also pays a share.
Sanders has taken some criticism earlier in his campaign for using chartered aircraft — a luxury for the privileged class as well as an addition to carbon emissions — while railing against the excesses of the wealthiest top 1 percent of Americans.
Several of Sanders’s advisers, along with his wife, their four children and four of their grandchildren, accompanied him for the overnight visit to Rome. While Jane Sanders attended the conference with her husband and joined him in meeting the pope, the rest of the family spent time sightseeing. The trip also included a stay at a posh hotel.
Sanders was back on the plane Saturday, as he plans to campaign in Brooklyn in the evening.
Stefano Pitrelli in Rome contributed to this report. | 0fake |
Taking Fish Oil During Pregnancy Is Found to Lower Child’s Asthma Risk - The New York Times | Women who took fish oil during the last three months of pregnancy significantly lowered the risk that their children would develop asthma, a study in Denmark has found. Among children whose mothers took capsules, 16. 9 percent had asthma by age 3, compared with 23. 7 percent whose mothers were given placebos. The difference, nearly 7 percentage points, translates to a risk reduction of about 31 percent. But in the study released on Wednesday, the researchers say they are not ready to recommend that pregnant women routinely take fish oil. Although the study found no adverse effects in the mothers or babies, the doses were high, 2. 4 grams per day — 15 to 20 times what most Americans consume from foods. Before doctors can make any recommendations, the study should be replicated, and fish oil should be tested earlier in pregnancy and at different doses, Dr. Hans Bisgaard, the leading author of the study, said in an email. He is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Copenhagen and the head of research at the Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood, an independent research unit. Doctors are eager to find ways to prevent asthma, a chronic disease that causes wheezing, coughing and breathing trouble, and that sends many families to the emergency room again and again. The incidence has more than doubled in developed countries in recent decades. More than six million children in the United States have asthma, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as do more than 330 million children and adults worldwide, according to the Global Asthma Network. Dr. Bisgaard said it was not possible to tell from the study whether pregnant women could benefit from simply eating more fish. Pregnant women are generally advised to limit their consumption of certain types of fish like swordfish and tuna because they contain mercury. But many other types are considered safe, especially smaller fish like sardines that are not at the top of the food chain and therefore not likely to accumulate mercury and other contaminants from eating other fish. The results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The scientists bought fish oil from a company that makes it, but they said the company had no role in the study. The research was paid for by the Danish government and private foundations. An editorial in the same journal by an expert who was not part of the study praised the research, saying it was well designed and carefully performed. The author of that editorial, Dr. Christopher E. Ramsden, from the National Institutes of Health, said the findings would help doctors develop a “precision medicine” approach in which treatment could be tailored to women who are most likely to benefit. But Dr. Ramsden also said it was too soon to put the new findings into practice, and he recommended further study. Previous research had suggested that fish oil might help prevent asthma. The idea is plausible, because inflammation in the airways and lungs plays a major role in asthma, and fatty acids in fish oil are thought to prevent inflammation. The richest sources in food include fish like herring, sardines, mackerel, eel and salmon. Because the earlier studies suggesting a benefit from fish oil were not conclusive, the Danish researchers decided to test the idea. They recruited 736 women. Starting in their third trimester, half the women took 2. 4 grams of fish oil a day and half took placebo capsules of olive oil, continuing until one week after birth. About a quarter of the mothers and a fifth of the fathers had asthma, and they were evenly distributed between the and placebo groups. The capsules were an product called Incromega a fish extract made by the British chemical company Croda Health Care. The extract contained the fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The researchers tracked the children’s health, finding asthma less common in those whose mothers had taken the fish oil, with the effect lasting at least through age 7, the longest . By age 3, the biggest difference had emerged from data on mothers who, before treatment, had the lowest levels of EPA and DHA in their blood. In that group, only 17. 5 percent of the children whose mothers took fish oil developed asthma, compared with 34. 1 percent whose mothers took the placebo — a difference of 16. 6 percentage points, and a risk reduction of about 54 percent. Low levels of EPA and DHA in the blood can be related to diet but also to genetics. The body normally converts another fatty acid, found in foods, to EPA and DHA. But some people — about 13 percent in the study — carry a genetic variant that impairs their ability to make the conversion. The researchers found that children born to women with little EPA and DHA in their diets, and to women with the genetic variant, were among those most likely to benefit from exposure to fish oil in pregnancy. Dr. Bisgaard said that, pending further study, the best way to apply the findings would probably be to test women for the levels in their blood, and for the genetic variant, to determine who might benefit from fish oil. He said that genetics could differ among different populations and that there might be ethnic variations in risk. | 0fake |
Turkish judge finds 42 soldiers guilty of trying to kill Erdogan | MUGLA, Turkey (Reuters) - A Turkish court on Wednesday found 42 former soldiers guilty of trying to kill President Tayyip Erdogan during last year s failed coup, and handed most of them life sentences in the highest profile case related to the attempted putsch so far. Judge Emirsah Bastog read out guilty verdicts for 42 of the 47 defendants, according to a Reuters reporter at the court in Mugla, southwestern Turkey. Mugla is near the luxury resort where Erdogan and his family narrowly escaped a team of rogue soldiers who stormed his hotel during the night of the coup. The trial, which started in February and included Erdogan as a co-plaintiff, is part of a sweeping security crackdown that followed the failed putsch of July 2016. It is the biggest such case to reach a conclusion so far. I hope the verdict today is beneficial to everyone, Bastog said as he sentenced 34 of the accused to aggravated life sentences, the harshest punishment possible under Turkish law because it lengthens the minimum sentence required for parole. Another six defendants were given life terms while two others were given lesser sentences. (Several) defendants have been found guilty on the charge of attempting to assassinate the president, Bastog told the packed courtroom. One was acquitted and another was transferred to another court. No verdict was given for three who were tried in absentia, including U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for orchestrating the coup. Demonstrators threw eggs and plastic bottles at the defendants as police escorted them from the courthouse. Others waved Turkish flags, blared a famous song praising Erdogan and called for a return to capital punishment. The court heard final statements from the defendants just before Bastog delivered his verdict. Some of the accused said they did not believe the court could deliver a fair verdict and had been under political pressure. From the moment I was arrested at the air base on July 16, I was treated like a criminal, Ergun Sahin, a former air force lieutenant, told the court. Pictures released in the aftermath of the coup showed some suspected coup plotters - including high-ranking military officers - stripped to their underpants, handcuffed and their faces bruised. Words don t mean anything here as we didn t have a chance of a fair trial, said another defendant, Gokhan Sen. We are just the grass that elephants trampled on during their fight. More than 240 people were killed on the night of July 15, 2016 when putschists commandeered tanks, warplanes and helicopters, attacking parliament and attempting to overthrow the government. Erdogan s lawyer, who was present at the case, said that justice had been served. Had these putschists succeeded that night in the attack against our president, history would have changed, we would be living in a different Turkey now, Huseyin Aydin told Reuters. My son has been avenged, said Nihat Eker, the father of a police officer who was killed during the coup. If our president were to present us with a choice, we d all agree to it. We say, execution, execution, execution . Erdogan has previously said he would be willing to restore the death penalty if parliament passed such a measure. Turkey abandoned capital punishment more than a decade ago as part of its bid to join the European Union. Restoring it would all but end its attempt to join the EU. While Turkey has seen a groundswell in nationalism since the coup, the extent of the government s crackdown has alarmed European allies and rights groups. More than 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs and some 50,000 jailed. Investors also worry about Erdogan s tightening grip on power and an erosion in the rule of law. The government blames the network of Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan, for orchestrating the failed coup. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement and condemned the coup. A total of 47 defendants were on trial, 43 of whom have been held in detention during the 7-1/2 month hearing. Gulen was being tried in absentia. Most of the defendants were soldiers. | 0fake |
Trump taps top Sessions attorney to lead civil division: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is nominating U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ top aide to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, the White House said in a statement on Friday. Joseph Hunt, now chief of staff and senior counselor to Sessions, previously led the division’s Federal Programs Branch handling various legal cases in federal district courts, according to the White House. | 0fake |
Congress inches closer to cliff | Notable names include Ray Washburne (Commerce), a Dallas-based investor, is reported to be under consideration to lead the department. | 0fake |
Watch NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Get BULLIED Out Of The State Dept. For Asking About Russia (VIDEO) | If one thing has become abundantly clear, it s that Donald Trump and his administration don t like to answer questions, especially questions surrounding Russia.Trump seems to have set a clear standard for those who work with him that the press is not to be trusted. From his abusive and unconstitutional fake news attacks to the clear ignoring of questions that the American people want to know the answers to.Ignoring questions and treating the press like dirt has seemingly also spread to the State Department, and on Tuesday morning, NBC s Andrea Mitchell alongside several others from the press were herded up and bullied out, all the while no questions were answered.Mitchell tried to get a few pressing answers from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. She asked: Can you respond to the threats from China? Can you be sure the Trump administration will be strong against Vladimir Putin? Can you assure us that Russia will not be able to move further in Ukraine? You can then see Mitchell grabbed by the arms and escorted out while saying: We haven t had any time in here. This all begs the question, why doesn t the Trump administration want to answer any questions? What are they hiding?The more they remain elusive from the press, the more people will assume they are up to no good, so one would think they would want to remain transparent and respect the right of a free press.What this shows is that our press are disrespected, but it also shows that press, especially those like Andrea Mitchell, aren t about to be bullied around so easily and will still report the story.Good.Watch the confrontation here:You guys. This happened today.This is why we Andrea @mitchellreports. There is nobody more dogged, more tenacious. The best. pic.twitter.com/uINDWmOYEM Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) March 7, 2017Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
WATCH SUSAN RICE Lie About Spying On Trump: “I know nothing about this”…White House Computer Logs Say She’s Lying! [Video] | Intelligence sources said the logs discovered by National Security Council staff suggested Rice s interest in the NSA materials, some of which included unmasked Americans identities, appeared to begin last July around the time Trump secured the GOP nomination and accelerated after Trump s election in November launched a transition that continued through January.The intelligence reports included some intercepts of Americans talking to foreigners and many more involving foreign leaders talking about the future president, his campaign associates or his transition, the sources said. Most if not all had nothing to do with the Russian election interference scandal, the sources said, speaking only on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the materials.SUSAN RICE CLAIMS TO NOT HAVE A CLUE OF THE SPYING: I know nothing about this The question from Judy Woodruff is at the beginning of the video. The entire interview is interesting because of what we know now.Read more: Circa News | 1real |
Both pro and anti-Brexit lawmakers back ousting PM May: former Conservative chairman | LONDON (Reuters) - Former Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps said on Friday that both supporters and opponents of Brexit were among the 30 lawmakers who back a plot to topple British Prime Minister Theresa May. Divisions over May s future burst into the open on Friday after her conference speech was ruined by a comedian, coughing fit and even letters falling off the slogans behind her on stage. Shapps told BBC radio that there was a broad range of lawmakers urging May to step down. These are Remainers, they are Brexiteers. They would never automatically agree on a single candidate and this is not about promoting an individual, he said. | 0fake |
Clinton campaign calls Trump ISIS attack 'false claim' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In response to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s accusation that Democrat President Barack Obama and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton were “co-founders” of Islamic State, Clinton’s campaign called the remarks a “false claim.” “This is another example of Donald Trump trash-talking the United States,” senior policy advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement. “What’s remarkable about Trump’s comments is that once again, he’s echoing the talking points of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and our adversaries to attack American leaders and American interests, while failing to offer any serious plans to confront terrorism or make this country more secure.” | 0fake |
A College Application Guide for Gap Year Students - The New York Times | Applying to college is onerous enough. Asking to defer enrollment for a year can be even more intimidating. Here’s how to navigate the process. Delay freshman year, not your application. Students interested in a year off should still apply to college their senior year of high school, advises Michele Hernández, of Top Tier Admissions and a former admissions officer at Dartmouth. It ensures that you’ll have access to your school’s resources and won’t be bogged down with applications and standardized testing during a year that may include travel abroad. “You’d be surprised how quickly your high school forgets you,” Dr. Hernández said. “It’s really hard to go back and ask for teacher recommendations and the other materials you might need after a year has passed. ” It’s also a good idea to keep options open should plans suddenly change. You might not get that internship or job you were counting on, or you might get into a college with even better options for a bridge year, like the international program at Princeton or Tufts’ “1+4” program, offering both national and international service opportunities. Harvard has long encouraged applicants to consider a year off, but that won’t increase your chances of getting in. While more and more institutions are seeing value in a gap year, it’s better to inform them of your intentions after you’ve been accepted. “It might work against you because admissions’ priority is filling that year,” Dr. Hernández said. “They don’t know what the next year is going to look like. ” If your plans have merit — education, work or service components — they are likely to agree. But, she said, “depending on what you’re going to do, a gap year can be viewed as slightly frivolous. So that’s why I say, get in first and then propose an idea. ” If a college has no gap year program, write to the admissions director before deposits are due. Describe plans for the year ahead, and ask whether time off will affect any scholarships the school has offered for freshman year. USA Gap Year Fairs organizes events where students can hear about an array of programs and speak with professionals in the field: 39 were held this winter a list of locations for 2018 will be published in the fall (usagapyearfairs. org). The American Gap Association accredits independent programs that offer or learning experiences. It maintains lists of the programs, which run a few weeks to a year, and their scholarships, as well as university policies on deferring enrollment (www. americangap. org). The association tracked $2. 8 million in support for gap year programs in 2015. Some universities even provide funding for experiences. Florida State University offers $5, 000 gap year fellowships, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers fellowships of $7, 500, with a focus on students from rural school districts in the state. Chapel Hill is impressed with the results. “Students in the gap year fellowship don’t struggle like other freshmen do with the transition into college,” said Richard Harrill, who helped design the program. Instead, he said, participants “become even more intellectually hungry. ” | 0fake |
Why Was this Natural Medicinal Substance Just Banned by the DEA? | posted by Eddie If you’ve been keeping up with alternative media outlets the past couple weeks, you probably know that the DEA just classified kratom, a tropical deciduous tree with leaves used for various medicinal purposes (1) , a Schedule 1 substance. This puts it in the same class as heroin (2) . Vendors are already struggling to import it, and some have gone into hiding (2) . Kratom has been called a lifesaver for sufferers of mental or physical conditions made worse by pharmaceutical drugs. Despite this (and despite the harms caused by opiates), the scandal-ridden DEA has set its sights on fighting yet another helpful natural substance proven to work better for the treatment of various conditions than its pharmaceutical counterparts. An uprising began the moment the DEA announced the decision. Activists and kratom users everywhere are refusing to take it lying down and are working to correct the false image this classification paints of a misunderstood medicine. Blurring the Line By classifying it Schedule 1, the DEA is essentially telling us kratom is as bad as heroin. A little research reveals that not only is it nowhere near as bad as heroin or other opiates, but it can be used to treat opiate addiction. Anything that alters the mind is a drug, and by making classifications like this, the DEA is seriously blurring the line between beneficial and harmful drugs while confusing the public and proliferating ignorance. Nature produces countless mind-altering chemicals we’re supposed to use to heal the body and elevate the mind and soul. In this day and age, people are becoming aware of the power of nature to heal many of the problems created by man. This unjustified action against one of many beneficial natural substances serves only to expose the fact that the DEA is out of touch with the rest of the world. No Longer a Legitimate Authority Cassius Kamarampi writes that we have no reason to consider the DEA’s authority legitimate in the wake of their recent scandals (2) . One scandal, which broke wide open in the media, involved agents holding sex parties with prostitutes in Columbia supplied by local cartels (2) . This ultimately forced the head of the DEA, Michelle M. Leonhart, to step down (2) . It’s as if the agency wants to bring attention away from their misdeeds and onto the latest supposedly dangerous drug. Perhaps they intend for the backlash to make people forget their scandals and continue to bicker about which drugs the government should or shouldn’t let the masses use. If this is the case, there’s one thing they didn’t consider: activists don’t forget. You can’t expect independent thinkers to excuse the scandals of an agency that targets them with unfair laws. Ultimately, this classification will drive researchers and activists to expose more corruption within an agency that can no longer be taken seriously but is nonetheless dangerous to those who oppose it. It’s Up to Us The masses aren’t always quick to question the ulterior motives of government agencies they’ve been conditioned to believe exist for the greater good. This is one reason the backlash from the activist community is so strong: we know by this point that it’s up to us to make a change. The struggle against an unjustified classification of a natural medicinal substance has to be particularly coherent, well organized and founded upon a strong sense of cohesion to make up for the apathy in society. We won’t have much help and we may find ourselves in opposition to people who know no better than to believe what the government or DEA tells them, but it helps to know there are millions around the world who, like us, are fighting for the positive change we know we can have. We just have to strive for it together. Kratom’s Medicinal Uses Let’s take a look at some of kratom’s reported medicinal uses. The information below doesn’t paint a complete picture of what it can do, but the uses we’ll learn about are enough to convince anyone it shouldn’t be illegal or considered as dangerous as heroin. According to Natural Blaze , kratom isn’t an opiate but functions similarly by attaching to activating opioid receptors in the brain – without the harsh side effects (2) . Among other benefits, chewing on kratom leaves can alleviate chronic pain and anxiety as well as help in the struggle against addiction (2) . This is due to the leaves’ natural euphoric effects, which, again, come without the negative side effects of opiates (2) . According to OrganicFacts.net , kratom’s benefits include lowering blood pressure; boosting metabolism; relieving pain; improving the immune system; increasing sexual energy; easing anxiety; preventing diabetes; eliminating stress; and inducing a healthier state of sleep (1) . Kratom (or Mitragyna speciose) is native to Southeast Asia where it’s used for its medicinal properties (1) . It’s no stranger to being banned: it was banned in Thailand despite that it’s indigenous there and used regardless (1) . It’s described as a natural opium substitute with unique chemical compounds and nutrients found in its leaves (1) . It contains a wide range of alkaloids and other organic substances, and despite being banned it’s still widely used in Thailand; studies estimate that up to 70% of males in the country chew anywhere from 10-60 leaves daily (1) . As a less harmful substitute for opium, it exhibits no addictive qualities (1) . This in itself makes kratom a great treatment for addiction and other physical or mental health problems (1) , which is more than we can say about most of big pharma’s drugs. Organic Facts provides an in-depth description of each of kratom’s medicinal properties, paraphrased below. Pain Relief Kratom is best known for relieving pain in a way similar to opiates (1) . This is due to the analgesic properties of the alkaloids and nutrients in its leaves, which impact the hormonal system and relieve pain quickly (1) . The alkaloids and nutrients increase the amount of serotonin and dopamine released into the body; this can either mask or alleviate pain (1) . The alkaloids essentially dull the body’s pain receptors (1) , and this opium-like quality is considered kratom’s “most important application” (1) . Improving Immune System Health The alkaloids also have a “major” combinative effect on the strength and resilience of the immune system (1) , and research that’s still being checked suggests chewing on the leaves can prevent illness or reduce its severity (1) . If the DEA’s ban were lifted, research could continue unhindered and the truth could eventually reach a mainstream audience. Improving Sexual Drive Many see kratom as an aphrodisiac and fertility booster (1) . The extra energy and blood flow received from the leaves can help increase fertility, re-energize a tired libido, and improve duration as well as conception rates (1) . Treating Anxiety & Mood Swings The leaves are often chewed by sufferers of chronic stress, depression, anxiety and mood swings for their anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) properties (1) . Chewing them can also regulate hormones in the body, providing relief from symptoms of chemical imbalance without the need for dangerous pharmaceutical drugs (1) . Helping Recover from Addiction Kratom has been used to cure addiction to opiates and other harmful substances for thousands of years (1) . Opium addiction has been a major problem in countless cultures throughout history. Since chewing kratom leaves provides a similar sensation to opium without the comedown or other negative side effects, addicts trying to get clean consider it a “tolerable solution” that helps them cover and cope with symptoms of withdrawal (1) . Keeping the Heart Healthy Studies connect chewing kratom leaves with a drop in blood pressure; the leaves’ chemical components reduce inflammation throughout the body when they impact its hormones (1) . The affected areas include the arteries and blood vessels (1) . It can even prevent serious heart conditions such as stroke, heart attack or atherosclerosis by relieving tension in the cardiovascular system (1) . Treating or Preventing Diabetes Kratom’s effect on blood sugar levels isn’t as well-known as its treatment for pain or addiction (1) . Limited research suggests the leaves’ alkaloids regulate the amount of insulin and glucose in the blood, preventing the dangerous peaks and troughs often suffered by diabetics (1) . Because of this, kratom could potentially prevent diabetes or help those who already suffer with it to manage it (1) . Side Effects Any mind-altering substance comes with its share of side effects, but like cannabis, kratom’s lack of serious or dangerous side effects is one of its most remarkable qualities. The effects listed below are only common for first or second time users, and they diminish as the body acclimates to regular use (1) . They include fatigue, nausea and constipation, as well as a “kratom hangover” that can come with headaches or nausea the morning after the first or second use (1) . This pales in comparison to what opium addicts experience, and most would probably be glad to have a natural medicinal substance to help them through their recovery. Nature Can’t Be Outlawed The following is my opinion and may or may not reflect the ideals of those who are more involved in the fight against kratom’s criminalization. Kratom’s recent classification can be likened in many ways to the Marihuana Tax Act of the 1930s. The medicinal benefits of cannabis were well-known during that time, as it was used for medicine throughout the United States. The benefits of hemp were also well-known. As it became apparent to billionaires with control over the media that they couldn’t make as much money from hemp as they could lumber, cotton and other less easily replaceable resources, they deemed cannabis the evil Mexican marihuana and outlawed it with the help of heavily publicized propaganda campaigns. Kratom might not come with the array of industrial benefits provided by hemp (feel free to correct me if it does), but I’d imagine the government and DEA have a similar intention in outlawing it. The Struggle for Freedom As many have pointed out, this latest development is just another instance in the overall struggle between government agencies and the people they try to control through oppressive and intimidating laws. It represents the struggle for freedom; in this case, the freedom to use nature the way it’s intended without fear of persecution. This includes the use of substances with medicinal uses big pharma can’t market. The government’s efforts to stifle the use of these substances for the benefit of pharmaceutical companies (or other industries aligned against them) is futile. As Damian Marley put it, “people will always be who they want, and that’s what really makes the world go ‘round”. Rather than fight it, the DEA should accept that the masses are slowly embracing natural approaches to treating, curing and preventing disease. They should also accept that the effort to suppress the use of any natural substance with proven benefits for the mind or body is futile in the big picture. Conclusion The struggle between the DEA and sensible free thinkers is birthed from our resistance to their attempt to control or prevent the natural relationship between man and the psychoactive chemicals found in nature. Humans have interacted with natural mind-altering substances for centuries, and despite how hard any government agency tries to prevent this interaction, it will continue indefinitely because it exists for a reason. The truth about kratom is already spreading as a result of the backlash from the DEA’s decision. If we can make people aware of its medicinal properties and inspire them to take action, we can reverse a decision made out of negligence for the lives that will be affected by it. Criminalizing the innocent only creates crime where there was none, and at this pivotal point in mankind’s evolution, we should be past this kind of backward thinking. Sources: “Health Benefits of Kratom Leaves”, Organic Facts – https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/other/kratom-leaves.html Cassius Kamarampi, “Kratom Now Schedule 1: Cartel Sex Scandal Shamed DEA Suppresses Herb Imports”, Era of Wisdom , August 31, 2016 – http://www.eraofwisdom.org/kratom-now-schedule-1-herb-imports-suppressed-cartel-sex-scandal-shamed-dea/ From Around the Web Founder of WorldTruth.Tv and WomansVibe.com Eddie ( 8932 Posts )
Eddie L. is the founder and owner of WorldTruth.TV. and Womansvibe.com. Both website are dedicated to educating and informing people with articles on powerful and concealed information from around the world. I have spent the last 36+ years researching Bible, History, Alternative Health, Secret Societies, Symbolism and many other topics that are not reported by mainstream media. | 1real |
ABOVE THE LAW: Obama Goes Around Congress (Again) To Place Gag Order On Reporting About Firearms | Ultimate gun control is the end game of Barack Obama and his regime period.On June 1 Breitbart News reported on Obama s Spring 2015 Unified Agenda. The gun control measures contained therein which were to be passed by executive fiat.Since that time Representatives like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)91% (R-KY-4th) have placed riders on a DOJ appropriations bill to stop portions of the executive gun control push in its tracks. Now the NRA-ILA is revealing that the Obama administration is working behind the scenes to stifle reporting on firearms.From the NRA-ILA:Even as news reports have been highlighting the gun control provisions of the Administration s Unified Agenda of regulatory objectives, the Obama State Department has been quietly moving ahead with a proposal that could censor online speech related to firearms.How can this happen?Like this: The administration is reworking the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). One of the many things regulated by ITAR are technical data tied to defense articles. This includes, but is not limited to, detailed design, development, production or manufacturing information about ammunition and firearms.More specifically, this kind of technical data would be blueprints, drawings, photographs, plans, instructions or documentation related to ammunition and firearms.While ITAR and its regulations have not been a concern in the past, as far as constraining or limiting material posted on publicly available websites, there are some within the current State Department arguing that anything published online in a generally-accessible location has essentially been exported, simply by virtue of being posted, and is therefore under the purview of ITAR.Moreover, last week the State Department put forth a proposal clarifying how to handle releases containing technical data which are posted online or otherwise distributed into the public domain. Ultimately, the proposal would require those releasing technical data on ammunition or firearms to first seek government approval.Here s how the NRA-ILA summed it up:The proposal would institute a massive new prior restraint on free speech. This is because all such releases would require the authorization of the government before they occurred. The cumbersome and time-consuming process of obtaining such authorizations, moreover, would make online communication about certain technical aspects of firearms and ammunition essentially impossible.Public comments on the proposed changes to ITAR will be accepted until August 3, 2015. You can submit those comments at regulations.gov or e-mail them to DDTCPublicComments@state.gov with the subject line indicating the comments concern the ITAR Amendment Revisions to Definitions; Data Transmission and Storage. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Russian TV Host Just Admitted Russia Elected Trump | While in the United States, Special Investigator Robert Mueller is in the midst of making the case that Russia interfered with our election, there are apparently no questions about it in Russia. A television host for Russian state television admitted that they, as in Russians, elected Trump. The host isn t happy with the decision, either.#Russia s state TV host pours more gas on the fire, saying: So why did we elect such a President? Audience claps.https://t.co/SE8PZkkxup Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 1, 2017It gets worse for Trump. The host compared the reality star to a baby.#Russia s state TV: Trump is a political infant, who is being severely swaddled. Female host adds: and placed into geopolitical coffin. pic.twitter.com/xFx7Vn3Rd0 Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 1, 2017If you understand Russian, here s the entire show:Source: https://t.co/tAcnYuhNZz Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 1, 2017Twitter users were stunned at the admission:Yeah, I know, but confirmation of interference out in the open & on camera? Seriously wondering why anyone in RU would do that on purpose. Shelly (@Aargh4Shelly) September 1, 2017Sounds like buyers remorse. Eric Mullen (@emullensemperfi) September 1, 2017They know the bought a lemon ? Well in this case more like an rotten Orange ? Indigo1 (@Indigo1_) September 1, 2017 We . Susan Kimmel Wright (@SKimmelWrites) September 1, 2017If only Russia asked us before they put him in office. ? Destiny Reel (@DestinyReelly20) September 1, 2017hey trumpers, do you all believe in saintly russia still? they re turning on their pet project and you went along ignorantly, willingly #sad elizabeth (@ebishopphoto) September 1, 2017Did #Russians elect #Trump? Well, I understand what is going on. Popov is drunk. Zakir Zakirov (@zakir_zakirov) September 1, 2017There s a lot of dismay at the fact that Russian TV would admit to installing a puppet president, right in front of a potential world audience, but the fact is that they don t care. They have nothing to lose by the truth coming out, except for Trump s loyalty, which they are increasingly seeing as irrelevant, simply because he s such a doofus and completely ineffective. The worst that will be done to Russia is more sanctions.Featured image via Handout/Getty Images | 1real |
#YouveBeenTrumped…Journalist Who Tried To Nail Donald Trump Jr. On Russia Story For Over A Year Has Full-Scale Meltdown After Trump Jr. Releases Emails On Twitter | This is the dumbest and biggest crime in the history of American politics. There's not even a close second. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017It turns out little Jared was wrong. The Donald Trump Jr.-Russian collusion story is not only another nothing burger, it lends more credibility to the theory that the media is on an all-out witch hunt for President Donald Trump. Apparently, the hunt has now been extended to include members of the Trump family.Yates Sexton started his rant on Twitter by whining to his followers about chasing the story for a year, and how he got Trumped by Don Jr. when, much like his father, Jr. went around the media and took to Twitter to post the emails journalists were desperate to get their hands on.I chased this story for a year and he just tweeted it out. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017Whining journalist part 2:Like. I spent hours and days and weeks and months. And his son just, hit tweet. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017More whining:I tracked down sources. Followed so many dead leads. Labored over this. And then, he just, you know, tweeted out the proof. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017Still more whining:Like, so many people out there were trying to track this down. And it just got delivered on a tweet. What the hell. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017And you guessed it more whining!It's just so bizarre. As an independent journalist you work crazy hard hoping something will fall into your lap and he tweeted it? 2/ Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017And then, the fake relief over the release of the nothing burger emails by none other than Donald Trump Jr. himself:For the record, I'm beside myself in relief that this stuff is out there it's just my god. I cannot believe this. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017Yates Sexton then turned his ire on Trump supporters who apparently are (gasp!) laughing at the rabid leftist media who won t let the fake Trump-Russian collusion narrative go:The son of the president just released the smoking gun and the people are laughing about it on the news. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017Poor Jared he s, well, he appears to be baffled by the Trump s and how they don t follow the rules that have been put forth by the media:This is the most baffling day in a long, long stretch of baffling days. Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017And finally, in an appeal to his leftist fans who are surely as heartbroken as him, Yates Sexton suggests that if his followers like his style of dead-end reporting, perhaps they would enjoy paying $22.69 for his book. And now for the final test Will love Trump hate? Will liberals feel help poor little Jared feel better about wasting over a year of his life, while he chased his tail, pinning all of his hopes on being the one who finally found the Trump-Russia connection.If you do want to read my reporting, however, here's my book that's out in September.https://t.co/02qE5K9PFv Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) July 11, 2017 | 1real |
McCain: Trump’s Attacks on Press Are ’How Dictators Get Started’ - Breitbart | Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” while discussing President Donald Trump’s attacks on the press, Sen. John McCain ( ) said that was “how dictators get started. ” McCain said, “I hate the press. I hate you especially. But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital. If you want to preserve — I’m very serious now — if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started. ” He added, “They get started by suppressing free press. In other words, a consolidation of power when you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press. And I’m not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I’m just saying we need to learn the lessons of history. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
Comey Learned He Was Fired When Background TVs Flashed The News While He Was Giving A Speech | Trump is famous for his You re fired catchphrase, but when it comes to actually firing someone, he s shown nothing but cowardice. His inability to face the person he s about to get rid of led to an incredibly humiliating moment for James Comey.Standing in front of an audience of FBI employees, Comey was reportedly mid-speech when phones began lighting up and the televisions dialed into cable news in the background broke the news that Comey should have been the first to hear: Donald Trump just fired you.According to the New York Times, the moment was understandably sheer chaos in the room:Mr. Comey, who is three years into a 10-year term at the helm of the F.B.I., learned from news reports that he had been fired while addressing bureau employees in Los Angeles. While Mr. Comey spoke, television screens in the background began flashing the news that he had been fired. Shortly thereafter, a letter was delivered to the F.B.I. s headquarters in Washington.The sheer lack of professionalism was so inconceivable that Comey laughed when he saw it and told the crowd that it was a great prank they just pulled.In response, Mr. Comey laughed, saying he thought it was a fairly funny prank.Then his staff started scurrying around in the background and told Mr. Comey that he should step into a nearby office.Nobody at the FBI was reportedly told ahead of time that their boss was about to be terminated. People are freaking out even those within the White House.Another administration official described that the decision which caught FBI officials and top lawmakers completely off-guard on Tuesday was kept very close to the chest within Trump s inner political circle up until the moment [we] were ready to pull the trigger on axing Comey.Adding insult to injury, Trump s abrupt firing of Comey leaves the now former FBI director stranded in Los Angeles.Legitimate question about how Comey will get home from LA. He's there with FBI plane. Does Trump allow him to fly home on it? Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) May 9, 2017Trump himself appears to have ordered his Attorney General to start finding reasons to fire Comey at least a week ago around the same time Trump went on Twitter to suggest Comey was in the tank for Hillary.Sessions was ordered to find a reason to fire Sessions a week ago. This is what Trump was tweeting a week ago pic.twitter.com/uiOHsOR4WD Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) May 9, 2017In his letter to Comey, Trump says he couldn t allow him to continue as FBI director and implied it was due to his refusal to publicly state that there was no investigation into Trump s connection to Russia. (Note: Testifying to that would have required Comey to perjure himself because there is an on-going investigation into Trump s connection to Russia.)In short: The White House is once again in complete chaos and the only person responsible is Trump himself.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
US House Seeks Syria-War Escalation | US House Seeks Syria-War Escalation November 22, 2016
Moving to trap President-elect Trump into a war escalation in Syria, the House rushed through a resolution promoting a U.S.-imposed “no fly zone” that could spark World War III, reports Rick Sterling.
By Rick Sterling
Late in the day, on Nov. 15, one week after the U.S. elections, the lame-duck Congress convened in special session with normal rules suspended so the House could pass House Resolution 5732, the “Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act” calling for intensifying the already harsh sanctions on Syria, assessing the imposition of a “no fly zone” inside Syria (to prevent the Syrian government from flying) and escalating efforts to press criminal charges against Syrian officials.
HR5732 claims to promote a negotiated settlement in Syria but, as analyzed by Friends Committee for National Legislation, it imposes preconditions which would actually make a peace agreement more difficult. The West Front of the U.S. Capitol
There was 40 minutes of “debate” with six representatives (Ed Royce, R-California; Eliot Engel, D-New York; Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Florida; Dan Kildee, D-Michigan; Chris Smith, R-New Jersey; and Carlos Curbelo, R-Florida) all speaking in favor of the resolution. There were few other representatives present, but the House Foreign Affairs Committee stated that the resolution was passed “unanimously” without mentioning these special conditions.
According to Wikipedia, “ Suspension of the rules is a procedure generally used to quickly pass non-controversial bills in the United States House of Representatives … such as naming Post Offices…” In this case, however, the resolution could lead to a wider war in the Middle East and potentially World War III with nuclear-armed Russia.
Most strikingly, the resolution calls for evaluating and developing plans for the United States to impose a “no fly zone” inside Syria, a sovereign nation, an act of war that also would violate international law as an act of aggression. It also could put the U.S. military in the position of shooting down Russian aircraft.
To call this proposal “non-controversial” is absurd, although it may say a great deal about the “group think” of the U.S. Congress that an act of war would be so casually considered. Clearly, this resolution should have been debated under normal rules with a reasonable amount of Congressional presence and debate.
The motivation for bypassing normal rules and rushing the bill through without meaningful debate was articulated by the bill’s sponsor, Democrat Eliot Engel: “We cannot delay action on Syria any further. … If we don’t get this legislation across the finish line in the next few weeks, we are back to square one.”
The current urgency may be related to the election results since President-elect Donald Trump has spoken out against “regime change” foreign policy. As much as neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist allies are critical of President Obama for not doing more in Syria, these Congressional hawks are even more concerned about the prospect of a President who might move toward peace and away from war.
The Caesar Fraud
HR5732 is titled the “Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act,” which House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Royce explained was named after “the brave Syrian defector known to the world as Caesar, who testified to us the shocking scale of torture being carried out within the prisons of Syria.” U.S.-backed Syrian “moderate” rebels smile as they prepare to behead a 12-year-old boy (left), whose severed head is held aloft triumphantly in a later part of the video. [Screenshot from the YouTube video] In reality, the Caesar story was a grand deception involving the CIA with funding from Qatar to sabotage the 2014 Geneva peace negotiations. The 55,000 photos which were said to show 11,000 torture victims have never been publicly revealed. Only a tiny number of photos have been publicized. However, in 2015, Human Rights Watch was granted access to view the entire set. They revealed that almost one half the photos show the opposite of what was claimed: instead of victims tortured by the Syrian government, they actually show dead Syrian soldiers and civilian victims of car bombs and other terror attacks. The “Caesar” story, replete with a masked “defector,” was one of the early propaganda hoaxes regarding Syria.
One of the other big lies regarding Syria is that the U.S. has been doing nothing. Royce said, “ The administration has decided not to decide. And that itself, unfortunately, has set a course where here we sit and watch and the violence only worsens. Mr. Speaker, America has been sitting back and watching these atrocities for far too long. Vital U.S. national security interests are at stake.”
Rep. Engel said, “Four years ago I thought we should have aided the Free Syrian Army. They came to us in Washington and begged us for help. … They were simply looking for weaponry. I really believe if we had given it to them, the situation in Syria would have been different today.”
That narrative is nonsense. By late 2011, the U.S. was actively coordinating, training and supplying armed opposition groups. When Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan government was toppled in fall 2011, the CIA oversaw the diversion of Libyan weapons to the Syrian armed opposition, as documented in the Defense Intelligence Agency report of October 2012.
These weapons transfers were secret. For the public record, it was acknowledged that the U.S. was supplying communications equipment to the armed opposition while U.S. “allies” — Saudi Arabia and Qatar — were supplying the weaponry. This is one reason that Saudi purchases of weapons skyrocketed during this time period; they were buying weapons to replace those being shipped to the armed opposition in Syria. It was very profitable for U.S. arms manufacturers.
Huge weapons transfers to the armed opposition in Syria have continued to the present, with the U.S. government even more directly involved. This past spring, Janes Defense reported the details of a U.S. delivery of 2.2 million pounds of ammunition, rocket launchers and other weaponry to the armed opposition.
So, the political claims that the U.S. has been inactive are baseless. In reality, the U.S. has done everything short of a direct attack on Syria. And the U.S. military is starting to cross that line. On Sept. 17, the U.S. air coalition conducted a series of airstrikes on the Syrian Army in Deir Ezzor, killing 80 Syrian soldiers and enabling ISIS to launch an attack on the position. Claims that it was a “mistake” are highly dubious.
The assertions by Congressional hawks that the U.S. has been “inactive” in the Syrian conflict are part of the false narrative suggesting the U.S. must “do something” which leads to a “no fly zone” and full-scale war. Ironically, these calls for war are masked as “humanitarian” though even proponents, such as Hillary Clinton, privately have acknowledged that large numbers of Syrians, including civilians, would be killed in the U.S. attacks needed to establish the “no fly zone.”
And, never do the proponents bring up the case of Libya where the U.S. and NATO “did something”: destroyed the government and created chaos.
Fact-Free House of Propaganda
With only a handful of representatives present and no dissent, the six Congressional members engaged in unrestrained propaganda and misinformation. Samantha Power, Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN, addresses the Security Council meeting on Syria, Sept. 25, 2016. Power has been an advocate for escalating U.S. military involvement in Syria. (UN Photo)
Engel, said “We’re going into the New Year 2017, Assad still clings to power, at the expense of killing millions of his citizens.” Even if all the deaths, including Syrian soldiers and civilians killed by anti-government jihadists, were blamed on Assad, this number is way off anyone’s charts.
Rep. Kildee said “The world has witnessed this terrible tragedy unfold before our eyes. Nearly half a million Syrians killed. Not soldiers – men, women, children killed.”
The official text of the resolution says, “ It is the sense of Congress that– (1) Bashar al-Assad’s murderous actions against the people of Syria have caused the deaths of more than 400,000 civilians…”
The above accusations – from “millions of citizens” to “half a million” to “400,000 civilians” – are all preposterous lies. Credible estimates of casualties in the Syrian conflict range from 300,000 to 420,000. The opposition-supporting Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates the documented 2011-2016 death toll as follows: killed pro-Syrian forces – 108,000; killed anti-government forces – 105,000; killed civilians – 89,000
In contrast with Congressional and media claims, civilians comprise a minority of the total death count and the heaviest casualties are among those fighting in defense of the Syrian state. In the U.S. political world and the mainstream media, these facts are ignored and never mentioned because they point to the reality versus the propaganda narrative which has allowed the U.S. and its allies to continue funding terrorism and a war of aggression against Syria.
The Congressional speakers were in full self-righteous mode as they accused the Syrian government of “committing crimes against humanity and war crimes against civilians including murder, torture and rape. No one has been spared from this targeting, even children.” A naive listener would never know that the Syrian government is primarily fighting the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda including thousands of foreign fighters supplied and paid by foreign governments.
The speakers went on to accuse the Syrian military of “targeting” hospitals, schools and markets. A critical listener might ask why they would do that instead of targeting Al Qaeda terrorists and their allies who launch dozens and sometimes hundreds of hell-cannon missiles into the government-held sections of Aleppo every day.
The Congressional propaganda fest would not be complete without mention of the “White Helmets.” Royce said “We (previously) heard the testimony of Raed Saleh of the Syrian White Helmets. These are the doctors, nurses and volunteers who actually, when the bombs come, run towards the areas that have been hit in order to try to get the injured civilians medical treatment. … They have lost over 600 doctors and nurses.”
This is more Congressional nonsense. There are no nurses or doctors associated with the White Helmets. The organization was created by the U.S. and U.K. and heavily promoted by a “ shady PR firm .” The White Helmets operate solely in areas controlled by Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front (recently renamed Syria Conquest Front) and associated terrorist groups. The White Helmets do some rescue work in the conflict zone but their main role is in the information war manipulating public opinion.
The White Helmets actively promote U.S./NATO intervention through a “no fly zone.” Recently, the White Helmets became a major source of claims about innocent civilian victims in east Aleppo.
Given the clear propagandistic history of the White Helmets, these claims should be treated with skepticism. We need to ask exactly what is the evidence?
The same skepticism needs to be applied to video and other reports from the Aleppo Media Center. AMC is a creation of the Syrian Expatriates Organization whose address on K Street in Washington, D.C., indicates it is a U.S. marketing operation.
What’s Going On?
The campaign to overthrow the Syrian government is failing and there is possibility of a victory for the Syrian government and its allies. A heart-rending propaganda image designed to justify a major U.S. military operation inside Syria against the Syrian military.
The earlier flood of international jihadi recruits is drying up. The Syrian Army and allies are gaining ground militarily and negotiating settlements or re-locations with “rebels” who previously terrorized Homs, Darraya (outer Damascus) and elsewhere. In Aleppo, the Syrian army and allies are tightening the noose around the armed opposition in east Aleppo.
This has caused alarm among neoconservative lawmakers devoted to Israel, Saudi Arabia and U.S. empire. They are desperate to prevent the Syrian government from finally eliminating the terrorist groups which the West and its allies have promoted for the past five-plus years.
“Pro Israel” groups have been major campaigners for passage of HR5732. The name of Simon Wiesenthal is even invoked in the resolution. Rabbi Lee Bycel wrote, “Where is the Conscience of the World?” as he questioned why the “humanitarian” HR5732 was not passed earlier.
Israeli interests are one of the primary forces sustaining and promoting the conflict. Syria is officially at war with Israel which continues to occupy the Syrian Golan Heights; Syria has been a key ally of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance; and Syria has maintained its alliance with Iran. In 2010, Secretary of State Clinton urged Syria to break relations with Hezbollah, reduce relations with Iran and come to settlement with Israel. The Syrian refusal to comply with these Washington demands was instrumental in solidifying Washington’s hostility .
Congressional proponents of HR5732 make clear the international dimension of the conflict. Royce explains, “It is Russia, it is Hezbollah, that are the primary movers of death and destruction. … It is the IRGC [Revolutionary Guard] fighters from Iran.”
Engel echoes the same message: “Yes, we want to go after Assad’s partners in violence … Iranian and Hezbollah forces.”
In words and deeds Israel has made its position on Syria crystal clear. Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren explained in an interview: “we always wanted [President] Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran … the greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc.”
These statements have been fully backed up by Israeli actions bombing Syrian positions in southern Syria and providing medical treatment for Nusra/Al Qaeda and other armed opposition fighters.
What Will Happen Now?
If the Syrian government and its allies continue to advance in Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, outer Damascus and the south, the situation will come to a head. The enemies of Syria – predominately the U.S., Gulf Countries, NATO and Israel – will come to a decision point. Do they intervene directly or do they allow their “regime change” project to collapse? HR5732 is an effort to prepare for direct intervention and aggression.
One thing is clear from the experience of Libya: Neoconservatives do not care if they leave a country in chaos. The main objective is to destabilize and overthrow a government which is too independent. If the U.S. and its allies cannot dominate the country, then at least they can destroy the contrary authority and leave chaos.
What is at stake in Syria is whether the U.S. and allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, are able to destroy the last secular and independent Arab country in the region and whether the U.S. goal of being the sole superpower in the world prevails. The rushed passage of HR5732 without any meaningful debate is indicative of that.
Despite Trump’s election and his stated priority of taking on Islamic terrorism – not overthrowing Assad – the “regime change” proponents have not given up their war on Syria. They still seek to escalate U.S. aggression there and hope to box President Trump in.
It’s also clear that the U.S. Congress has become a venue where blatant lies can be stated with impunity and where violent actions are advanced behind a cynical and amoral veneer of “humanitarianism.”
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist and member of Syria Solidarity Movement. | 1real |
North Korea Has Executed a Deputy Premier, Seoul Reports - The New York Times | SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader, Kim has executed his deputy premier for education and purged two other senior officials, sending them to camps, the South Korean government said on Wednesday. Jeong a spokesman for the South’s Unification Ministry, said at a news briefing that the South Korean government had used various means to confirm the execution of Kim the deputy premier, and the purge of Kim the head of the United Front Department of the ruling Workers’ Party, which handles relations with, as well as spying operations against, South Korea. Choe Hui, a deputy chief of the party’s Propaganda and Agitation Department, was also banished for Mr. Jeong said. Mr. Jeong provided no further details, including when the reported punishments were believed to have taken place or how South Korea had learned of them. But in a later briefing, a senior Unification Ministry official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said that Kim had found fault with the deputy premier’s “disrespectful posture” during a meeting that Mr. Kim oversaw in late June. A subsequent investigation found the deputy premier to be an “ reactionary” guilty of “ factionalism,” and he was executed by firing squad in July, the official said. Kim would be the official known to have been executed since 2013, when North Korea confirmed in a rare announcement that Kim had executed his own uncle and No. 2 official, Jang on charges of factionalism, corruption and plotting to overthrow his government. The ministry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that Kim the leader of the United Front Department, had spent a month at a camp on suspicion of abuse of power and that he had been released in . Kim is seen as a by South Korean officials. He was accused of helping orchestrate recent armed provocations by the North along the border, including an artillery barrage against a South Korean island in 2010, when he was the army’s intelligence chief. The Unification Ministry official said Mr. Kim would now need to prove his loyalty, which the official said raised the possibility that the North could take more aggressive actions toward South Korea. Since taking power in 2011, Kim has frequently reshuffled the party and military elites as he has consolidated his authority in North Korea, which his family has ruled for seven decades. Mr. Kim has also executed dozens of top officials in what President Park of South Korea has called a “reign of terror,” according to South Korean intelligence officials. It remains difficult to independently verify reports of executions and purges in the secretive North. North Korea rarely announces them. It was unusual for a South Korean government spokesman to make them public in an open news briefing, though intelligence officials have often briefed lawmakers in parliamentary sessions. In one such briefing last year, lawmakers were told that Gen. Hyon the defense minister, had been executed with an antiaircraft gun in Pyongyang, the North’s capital, after dozing off during military events and Mr. Kim’s orders. Mr. Jeong, the government spokesman, said that he was responding to recent reports in the South Korean news media. On Tuesday, the daily JoongAng Ilbo, citing an anonymous source, reported that Hwang Min, a former North Korean agriculture minister, and Ri a senior Education Ministry official, had been executed with antiaircraft guns in early August. The newspaper reported that Mr. Ri had been arrested after dozing off during a meeting supervised by Mr. Kim and that Mr. Hwang had proposed a policy that was deemed to represent a challenge to Mr. Kim’s leadership. Mr. Jeong did not comment on the fates of those two officials in his briefing on Wednesday. JoongAng Ilbo reported that the officials’ reported executions might have been aimed at tightening Mr. Kim’s control after a senior North Korean diplomat’s recent defection to the South. South Korean officials often cite such defections, and purges like those announced Wednesday, as potential sources of instability in Mr. Kim’s totalitarian regime. But some analysts dispute such conclusions. Purges and executions remain a key feature of political life in the North, said Cheong a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute, a South Korean research organization. But he said such persecutions, while barbaric, had become less frequent and “relatively restrained” under Kim . Mr. Kim’s father, Kim was estimated to have purged more than 2, 000 officials from 1994 to 2000, he said. | 0fake |
PRESIDENT TRUMP Looking at Executive Action on Obamacare | Remember during the effort to get Obamacare passed when Nancy Pelosi said: We ll go through the gate. If the gate s closed, we ll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we ll pole vault in. If that doesn t work, we ll parachute in but we re going to get health care reform passed for the America people. (at 1:10 mark)Well, now if looks like President Trump might parachute in to get rid of Obamacare U.S. Senator Rand Paul said he spoke to President Donald Trump by phone about healthcare reform on Monday and told the president he thought Trump had the authority to create associations that would allow organizations to offer group health insurance plans.Paul, a Republican, told reporters that Trump was considering taking some form of executive action to address problems with the healthcare system after the Senate failed last week to pass a measure to reform the system.Allowing groups like AARP, which represents retirees, to form health associations could enable individuals and small businesses to form larger groups to negotiate with health insurance companies for lower rates.Via: Reuters | 1real |
U.S. attorney general to accept FBI findings in Clinton email probe | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, seeking to tamp down a firestorm over meeting with former President Bill Clinton, said on Friday she will accept the recommendations of career prosecutors and the FBI director on whether to charge Hillary Clinton for mishandling emails. The United States’ top law enforcement officer, however, stopped short of saying she would recuse herself from the investigation of the Democratic presidential candidate. “I will be informed of those findings, as opposed to never reading them or never seeing them, but I will be accepting their recommendations and their plan for going forward,” Lynch said. She was responding to questions from a Washington Post journalist who was introducing a talk by Lynch at the Aspen Ideas Festival, a gathering of government, technology and other business leaders in Aspen, Colorado. Republicans, including presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, have said a political appointee like Lynch should not be involved in the email investigation and that the Monday night meeting with Bill Clinton shows Lynch is too close to the Clintons. With a regretful tone, Lynch said on Friday she would not privately meet with Bill Clinton again and that she understood how the meeting “casts a shadow” over the perception of the Justice Department’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s email use. The attorney general said she has received many questions about her role in the investigation and “whether someone who was a political appointee would be involved in deciding how to investigate.” Republican lawmakers have called for an independent investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, saying the Obama administration’s Justice Department could not be free of bias. In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told a daily news briefing that the investigation is being handled completely independently of the White House and President Barack Obama. Lynch was appointed by the Democratic president and sworn in on April 1, 2015, well after Hillary Clinton left Obama’s Cabinet in 2013. Career prosecutors are not appointed by a president and may serve through different administrations. The FBI director is appointed by the president but is not part of his Cabinet and is considered apolitical. Lynch said on Friday that she had already decided to accept whatever recommendations prosecutors presented her before her meeting with Bill Clinton. The private meeting with the former president took place on Lynch’s plane after she landed in Phoenix on Monday night. Bill Clinton was leaving the airport after a rally for his wife earlier that day. Lynch told reporters earlier this week that she did not discuss the email probe or other matters pending before the Justice Department with Bill Clinton, calling their meeting “primarily social.” The FBI is investigating Hillary Clinton’s email use and whether laws were broken as a result of a personal email server kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state, an issue that has overshadowed her campaign. She apologized last year for using the server, saying that while she did nothing wrong, she should have used two email accounts: one for State Department business and another for personal matters. Representatives for her campaign could not be reached immediately for comment on Friday. Trump on Thursday called Lynch’s meeting “a sneak” and questioned the judgment of both Bill Clinton and the attorney general. In a tweet on Friday, the wealthy businessman said the meeting showed the U.S. political system was “totally rigged” and that Hillary Clinton had bad judgment. “Bill’s meeting was probably initiated and demanded by Hillary!” Trump said on Twitter. The Justice Department, along with the White House, has said the probe should be free of political interference. | 0fake |
House Republican Busted For Illegally Using Campaign Funds For Personal Expenses | It is a violation of federal election laws to use campaign funds to pay for personal expenses, but that s exactly what California Rep. Duncan Hunter has been busted for doing.According to the San Diego Union Tribune,Campaign finance reports show $5,339 in such charges during 2015 alone: $1,128 in travel, $1,650 to Hunter s children s school in El Cajon, $1,424 for video games and $1,137 paid to an oral and facial surgeon.The forms list only one personal expense that was actually paid back by Hunter $169 on Oct. 21, with no indication of which personal expense was being reimbursed. None of the other outstanding charges were listed as repaid, or as an ongoing debt to the campaign for the year-end accounting.So it s hard to believe that Hunter will actually pay back the funds he and his family have stolen to enrich themselves like he said he would do in a statement. There was no taxpayer money involved, and I take full responsibility, Hunter said before claiming that he s going to pay everything back by tomorrow morning, with interest. Hunter has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2013, and it didn t take long before he and his family started personally gaining financially off campaign funds.Even his own wife gets paid $3,000 a month as his supposed campaign manager.And Hunter clearly knows that he has been breaking the law all this time even though he lamely blamed the video game charges on his own son despite admitting that he and his wife are the only ones who had a campaign credit card.The Tribune reports that a $1,650 payment on Sept. 21 to Christian Unified Schools where Hunter s three children attend was listed as a personal expense to be paid back on Hunter s form for the period ending Dec. 31. Hunter literally listed a payment as a personal expense, which provides all the evidence the Federal Election Commission needs to throw the book at him.This is yet another example of the hypocrisy Republicans have demonstrated. For years, the GOP has attacked food stamp recipients of living on the dole. Meanwhile, a Republican like Hunter uses campaign funds to pay for lavish personal expenses instead of using his own bank account. The difference is that food stamp recipients actually NEED food stamps to put food on the table. That s not laziness, it s survival. What Hunter is doing on the other hand, is laziness and theft and not only should he be forced to pay back every cent, he should be forced to resign.Featured image: YouTube | 1real |
CHILLING! FOX REPORTER JAMES ROSEN Recounts Being Spied on by the Obama Mafia [Video] | 1real | |
Kremlin raps U.S.A for not issuing visas to U.N.-bound officials | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin on Friday accused the U.S. authorities of acting in an unacceptable way by not issuing entry visas to a Russian military delegation which had been due to attend a briefing at the United Nations headquarters in New York. A group of senior officers from the general staff of the Russian armed forces could not attend the joint briefing on Thursday with the Chinese military at the U.N. because they had no U.S. visas, said Alexander Emelianov, from the Russian Defense Ministry international cooperation committee. As a country hosting the United Nations headquarters and its structures, the U.S. authorities bear certain obligations. Certainly, in this case we are very worried by such a situation and consider it unacceptable, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a regular conference call with reporters. | 0fake |
Obama hopes 'cooler heads' prevail on Supreme Court nominee | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he hoped “cooler heads will prevail” and that the Republican-led Senate will act on his U.S. Supreme Court nominee but top Republicans dug in their heels, defending their refusal to consider anyone Obama picks. Obama has narrowed to five his list of candidates to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13. Obama’s nominee could tip the nine-member court to the left for the first time in decades. The Republicans who control the Senate have vowed not to hold confirmation hearings or an up-or-down vote on anyone Obama picks, saying the choice should belong to the next president who takes office in January after the Nov. 8 presidential election. “My hope is that cooler heads will prevail and people will reflect on what’s at stake here once a nomination is made,” Obama said at a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The White House is interviewing five candidates, federal judges Sri Srinivasan, Jane Kelly, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Paul Watford and Merrick Garland, according to a source familiar with the process. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, whose panel handles Supreme Court nominations, offered a lengthy defense of the Senate Republicans’ stance. Grassley accused Democrats of a “charade” with feigned outrage over the Republican refusal to consider Obama’s nominee simply to “score as many political points as possible.” “Regardless of what some are willing to admit publicly, everybody knows any nominee submitted in the middle of this presidential campaign isn’t getting confirmed. Everybody. The White House knows it. Senate Democrats know it. Republicans know it. Even the press knows it,” Grassley told a committee hearing. Under the U.S. Constitution, the president selects a Supreme Court nominee and the Senate confirms or rejects the nominee. “I’m going to do my job,” Obama said, promising an “eminently qualified” nominee. “And it will then be up to Senate Republicans to decide whether they want to follow the Constitution and abide by the rules of fair play that ultimately undergird our democracy and that ensure that the Supreme Court does not just become one more extension of our polarized politics,” Obama said. Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, and other presidential aides met with Judiciary Committee Democrats at the White House on the nomination. Afterward, the Democratic senators predicted Republicans would buckle under public pressure and drop their “obstruction” once Obama names his nominee. “We are optimistic that, soon enough, not only will the president nominate, but our Republican colleagues will see the light,” said U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, forecasting that Obama’s nominee will be confirmed with bipartisan support. Separately, one Republican senator indicated Senate Republicans would act on a nominee if they had a Republican president. “If a conservative president’s replacing a conservative justice, there’s a little more accommodation to it,” Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson told a radio interviewer. “President Obama’s nominee would flip the court from a 5-4 conservative to a 5-4 liberal-controlled court. And that’s the concern,” Johnson added. THE GRASSLEY-KELLY CONNECTION Grassley in 2013 spoke in favor of Kelly’s nomination to the St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. She was confirmed by a 96-0 Senate vote. Kelly, an Obama classmate at Harvard Law School, is based in Iowa and previously served as a federal public defender there. The Iowa senator rejected any notion he could be persuaded to drop his opposition if Obama were to nominate a candidate previously confirmed by him and other Republicans. He denounced the idea that the White House selection process was “guided by the raw political calculation of what they think will exert the most political pressure on me.” Choosing someone like Kelly from Iowa would be an “obvious political ploy” that would fail, Grassley added. Senator Orrin Hatch, another Judiciary Committee Republican, said in an interview that Garland, whose previous nomination to the appellate court he backed, is “a fine man” who would be “a moderate choice” for the high court. But Hatch said he opposed acting even on Garland. “It isn’t a question about the person in my opinion. It’s a question about the timing ... and the atmosphere that we have around here, which is poisonous,” Hatch said. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid delivered his latest attack on Grassley, saying on the Senate floor that it was “a little strange, a little odd” that Grassley would not hold hearings even for Kelly, considering his past support. Iowa’s Tom Miller, a Democrat, was among a group of attorneys general from 19 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico who sent a letter to Grassley and other Senate leaders urging them to act promptly on Obama’s nominee. | 0fake |
REPORT: Trump Will Likely Force US Taxpayers To Pay Mexican Companies To Build His Border Wall | Adding insult to injury, not only will Donald Trump force U.S. taxpayers to build the wall along the southern border, he will use that money to hire Mexican companies to build it.During his inaugural address, Trump claimed America would follow tow rules.We will follow two simple rules: BUY AMERICAN & HIRE AMERICAN!#InaugurationDay #MAGA?? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2017That s right. The man who buys materials for his hotels from overseas and has his products made by overseas laborers literally commanded Americans to buy American made goods and to hire American workers.And Trump is already breaking those rules as president.Trump repeatedly promised his supporters that he would build a wall alongside the entirety of the U.S.-Mexican border and force Mexico to pay for it. Trump then said that American taxpayers would pay for it and Mexico will simply reimburse us for the cost. Just before taking office, Trump went to Congress to ask them for the money to build the wall.Yesterday, Trump declared once again on Twitter that he is following through with building the wall.Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017But now it appears that Trump is getting ready to screw over American taxpayers, American workers, and American companies because he intends to hire Mexican companies to build the wall.According to The Guardian,The construction consultants Gleeds Worldwide said building a 1,000-mile wall the border is 1,889 miles long but large parts are protected by natural barriers including mountains and the Rio Grande would cost $31bn and take 40,000 people more than five years to construct.And because Mexican laborers and Mexican companies are less expensive, Trump will likely pay them to build it, thus depriving American workers and companies from benefiting. The idea of building a 1,000-mile wall which is designed to be impenetrable is something that may well come back to haunt the president, Gleeds chairman Richard Steer said. You ve got to build roads to move the materials and machinery and get the workforce to the location as the wall is being built. You would need a very big labor force to build it some 40,000 people working over five years. Steer went on to state that Mexican workers would benefit the most from the massive project because they are closer to the site and make less pay.Mexican companies are also poised to benefit most from the project because materials are cheaper.Analysts at Bernstein investment bank plotted the location of nearby plants and quarries and found that the Mexican building company Cemex was best-positioned to provide materials on both sides of the border.In short, Trump is going to do the same thing he did in order to build his hotels. He s going to screw over American companies and American workers by using foreign labor and buying materials from foreign companies to do the job. And the taxpayers are going to fund every last wasteful dime of the cost and get nothing in return except a useless ugly wall that will do nothing to stop immigration and will draw comparisons to walls built by other tyrannical regimes such as the Berlin Wall built by the Soviet Union.It s time for Trump supporters to wake up and realize that Trump doesn t give a damn about them at all.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 1real |
Saudi king leaves for Moscow, crown prince in charge | RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia s King Salman left on Wednesday for an official trip to Russia where he is set to meet President Vladimir Putin for talks on oil production and regional policy, state television said. Several investment deals, including on a liquefied natural gas project and petrochemical plants, could also be signed during the trip and plans for a $1-billion fund to invest in energy projects are likely to be finalised. The king appointed his son, 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to manage the kingdom s affairs in his absence. | 0fake |
Difficult legal path forward for Trump in sanctuary cities case | NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Even if President Donald Trump wins an appeal of a court ruling blocking his executive order on sanctuary cities, arguments made by the government in the case could permanently harm its efforts to cut off wide swaths of federal funding to targeted cities, some legal experts say. Trump’s original order, issued on Jan. 25, stated that cities and counties shielding illegal immigrants and refusing to cooperate with immigration officials would lose federal funding except for that “deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes.” U.S. Justice Department attorneys defending the order in a San Francisco court presented a far narrower view of its reach, however, arguing before U.S. District Judge William Orrick III earlier this month that the only funds the government intended to withhold were certain grants tied to law enforcement programs. * COMMENTARY: Why Trump should mend ties with Russia reut.rs/2qiISqU * COMMENTARY: Russia investigation teeters, but Trump’s strategy of stonewalling does not reut.rs/2oxuHll That argument did not convince the judge on Tuesday, who noted in issuing a preliminary injunction that the text of the executive order threatened withdrawal of a much wider range of federal funds than the government attorneys asserted in court. [nL1N1HX23B] “Disavowing the plain language of the executive order itself” was a potentially dangerous course for the Justice Department, said Edward Waters, a Washington lawyer who specializes in federal grants. The government’s strategy could restrict its ability to cut off funds going forward, some legal experts said, since the Justice Department now has said the order applies to a narrow range of funding. Trump has promised to broadly “defund” sanctuary cities, saying they “breed crime.” The government could appeal the preliminary injunction to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the losing side at the appellate level could then appeal to the Supreme Court. One procedural case the federal government could make on appeal involves the timing of the challenge, some legal scholars suggested, but such an argument would have limitations. Since no federal funds actually have been withheld to date, the government could say there has been no harm and therefore the case is not yet “ripe” for litigation, said Brian Galle, an expert on government finance at Georgetown Law. To have standing to bring a case, San Francisco and Santa Clara County would have to have suffered actual harm, which could be difficult to establish in this case since they have so far lost no federal funding. [nL1N1FL1GW] The two municipalities successfully argued in the district court hearing that they had already been harmed by uncertainty and chaos in their budget planning but that might not convince an appellate court. “In the very short run it’s quite possible that the administration could win a reversal of this ruling” on appeal because of these procedural reasons, Galle said. He predicted, however, the administration would be unable to successfully defend itself if it then began withholding funds without Congress authorizing such action. The Justice Department declined to discuss its appeals strategy. Tuesday’s ruling left leeway for the administration to deny some kinds of funding to sanctuary cities, noting the government can “use lawful means to enforce existing conditions of federal grants.” A small amount of federal law enforcement money is tied to a statute requiring local jurisdictions to share information with federal immigration officials. Programs making such grants include the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, Community Oriented Policing Services, and the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. In San Francisco, such funding is a small fraction of federal monies that go to the city, said City Attorney Dennis Herrera. Tuesday’s ruling was the latest legal blow to the Trump administration, which has had two previous executive orders stayed by the courts. In February, a Washington court blocked a Trump order temporarily banning all refugees and travelers from seven mostly Muslim nations. A subsequent order replaced that one, removing Iraq from the ban and creating more exemptions. Parts of that ban were also blocked, this time by judges in Maryland and Hawaii.[nL2N1GS0XF] Those cases are pending appeal. After Tuesday’s district court ruling, a spokesman for the Department of Justice said that it “will follow the law with respect to regulation of sanctuary jurisdictions.” But the president made clear on Twitter Wednesday that he doesn’t consider the battle over: “See you in the Supreme Court!” he tweeted. | 0fake |
Wow! Wow! Wow! Das neue Postillon-Buch ist da! Kaufen! Kaufen! Kaufen! | Freitag, 4. November 2016 Wow! Wow! Wow! Das neue Postillon-Buch ist da! Kaufen! Kaufen! Kaufen! Halleluja! Dieses himmlische Werk muss jeder Mensch besitzen! Für nur 15,99 Euro präsentiert Ihnen der Postillon eine 192 Seiten starke Sammlung der besten Artikel, Reportagen und Enthüllungsstorys. Kaufen Sie sich jetzt das noch bessere Beste aus über 170 (=10 Jahre gratis im Vergleich zum letzten Buch) Jahren! FAQ: Das Buch kostet nur 15,99 Euro und ist damit deutlich günstiger als ein Kleinwagen! Gibt es das Buch überhaupt wirklich? Ja, jetzt echt mal ohne Scheiß, auch wenn uns das nach über einem Jahr PamS niemand mehr glaubt. Lohnt es sich? Aber sowas von! Sie erhalten 192 Seiten geballte Information in seriösesester Postillon -Qualität! Mit einem Seitenpreis von ca. 8,848958 Cent kommen Sie sogar noch günstiger weg als beim letzten Buch ! (← trotzdem kaufen!) Warum sollte man den Postillon in Buchform kaufen, wenn man die Artikel doch im Internet lesen kann? Boah! Was für eine fiese Frage! Also: Erstens gibt es jede Menge Bonusgags (Vorwort, Anzeigen, Gimmick usw.), die so noch nie im Internet erschienen sind und außerdem ist das Buch das perfekte Geschenk für Weihnachten, Geburtstage, Goldene Hochzeiten und gelungene Blinddarmoperationen. Wo bekomme ich das Buch? In jeder guten Buchhandlung (kann auch dort bestellt werden) oder | 1real |
Transition Team’s Request on Gender Equality Rattles State Dept. - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump’s transition team asked the State Department this week to submit details of programs and jobs aimed at promoting gender equality, rattling State Department employees concerned that the incoming administration will roll back a cornerstone project of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The memo, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times on Thursday, directed employees to outline “existing programs and activities to promote gender equality, such as ending violence, promoting women’s participation in economic and political spheres, entrepreneurship, etc. ” It also requested a list of positions “whose primary functions are to promote such issues” — though not the names of people in those positions — as well as how much funding was directed to programs in 2016. The United States Agency for International Development also received the request, according to a senior official there. The wording of the memo is neutral and does not hint at any policy change. Nevertheless, some State Department employees took note of the reference to “ staffing,” which they said could also refer to programs focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, though the memo did not refer specifically to them. The memo is reminiscent of one the transition team sent recently to the Energy Department, which asked for the names of people who had worked on climate change or attended global climate talks organized by the United Nations within the past five years. That more detailed questionnaire, on the heels of Mr. Trump’s appointment of a climate change denialist to head the Environmental Protection Agency, sowed fears that the Trump administration would purge anyone involved in trying to curb the effects of climate change. The latest request drew expressions of concern from advocacy groups and some on Capitol Hill. “The transition team should clarify their intent,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, in a statement. “I can promise that if the next administration intends to roll back programs designed to lift women up, it will very quickly meet stiff opposition in the Senate. ” The transition team declined a request for comment on the memo. A person answering the phone in the State Department transition office directed inquiries to the public affairs office, which declined to confirm the memo’s existence or to discuss information being sought. After a slow start, the transition team is accelerating its work to staff the State Department, sending memos requesting information from the rank and file on issues such as the department’s antiterrorism initiative, Countering Violent Extremism. Mr. Trump has made the fight against the Islamic State central to his foreign policy and has railed against what he said was President Obama’s refusal to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism. ” The transition team’s questions have led some in the department to assume that, at a minimum, the program will be renamed Countering Islamic Extremism. Transition officials are said to be concerned about how many senior jobs in the department will be vacated by departing political appointees. They asked whether there would be anyone to show the secretary of Rex W. Tillerson, around his office. On Wednesday, the State Department press secretary, John Kirby, told reporters that in general terms, the information being sought by Mr. Trump’s team was not out of the ordinary. “Having gone through a transition myself a few years ago, without getting into detail, I can tell you that the kinds of things, the kinds of material, the kind of information that they are asking for is very much in keeping with what I’ve seen in at least the one previous presidential transition that I lived through when I was at the Pentagon,” Mr. Kirby said. Secretary of State John Kerry has spoken to Mr. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, in what Mr. Kirby said was a “nice chat where the secretary had an opportunity to congratulate him. ” On Tuesday, Mr. Tillerson met in Washington with Vice Mike Pence and other senior members of Mr. Trump’s national security team. Mr. Kerry has tended to champion efforts to counter climate change while at the State Department, but Mrs. Clinton made issues a leitmotif of her tenure. In her first year, she created the position of ambassador at large for global women’s issues, appointing Melanne Verveer, who had been her chief of staff when she was first lady. Mr. Kerry kept the post, which is currently held by Catherine M. Russell, a former chief of staff to Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Some at the department now worry it will be eliminated. Several of Mrs. Clinton’s showcase projects, like clean stoves for the developing world, had a strong gender component. In travels to El Salvador, India and Pakistan, she gathered female entrepreneurs to discuss their challenges. She often drew a link between the treatment of women and the nation’s security. “If you look at where we are fighting terrorism,” she said in an interview in 2009, “there is a connection to groups that are making a stand against modernity, and that is most evident in their treatment of women. ” Mrs. Clinton also gave equal benefits and protections to partners of American diplomats. In an internal memo, she wrote, “Like all families, our Foreign Service families come in different configurations all are part of the common fabric of our post communities abroad. ” Although Mr. Trump has a record of derogatory comments about women, it is not clear why he would want to roll back the department’s work in this area. News of the memo came the same day he appointed Kellyanne Conway, who managed his campaign, as counselor to the president, making her the woman in the White House. One of the people on Mr. Trump’s State Department transition team, Erin Walsh, is a former Goldman Sachs executive in Asia who has worked to advance gender issues. At a conference in 2013, she promoted the “10, 000 Women Initiative,” a program sponsored by Goldman to provide women with a business and management education. A senior State Department official said it was possible that the memo was simple . But in the current political environment, and given the language Mr. Trump used in the campaign, he said, people were reading the most malign implications into it. “I can’t believe any of this has been shared with the because Exxon under Tillerson has been extremely supportive of women’s issues,” Ms. Verveer said. “It’s just really hard to fathom. ” Moreover, Mr. Tillerson was on the Boy Scouts of America’s executive board when the group voted in 2013 to lift the ban on gay scouts. | 0fake |
NEW VIDEO Of United Airlines Passenger Emerges: “I won’t go…You can drag me, I’m not going…I’m staying right here…I tell you…make a lawsuit against United Airlines” | Watch here:@United overbook #flight3411 and decided to force random passengers off the plane. Here's how they did it: pic.twitter.com/QfefM8X2cW Jayse D. Anspach (@JayseDavid) April 10, 2017Many readers on our 100 Percent FED UP Facebook page were enraged to think that we would even suggest that there could be more to the story than what was being reported. We were curious about what happened before Dr. Dao was dragged out of his seat. To be clear, we don t condone the abuse of any passenger on a paid flight by airport police, but we still believed there was more to the story than what was being shown in a video making the rounds on social media, that was taken by a passenger on the flight from Chicago to Louisville.We re wondering how long the United Airlines passengers would have put up with Dr. Dao s refusal to leave the plane before they became involved. After 1 or 2 hours of Dr. Dao s refusal to leave (even though he accepted to those terms when he agreed to fly with United), would the passengers have taken matters into their own hands after hours of listening to him refusing to leave? How long would the passengers have allowed Dr. Dao to delay their flight before demanding someone take action?Here s the latest UPDATE:The tense moment Dr David Dao argued with a Chicago cop just seconds before being humiliatingly hauled off an overbooked United Airlines flight has been captured on camera.Footage of Dr Dao being unceremoniously dragged from a plane at Chicago O Hare International Airport on Sunday has traveled around the world, leading to mass condemnation of United and its policies.But exactly what happened in the moments leading up to the doctor being pulled from the fight by his arms was unknown.Until now.The new video, recorded by a female passenger sitting directly behind Dr Dao, starts with a flight attendant and police officer standing in the aisle.The doctor is seen gesturing with his arm towards the cop, while talking on his cellphone. I won t go. I m a physician I have to work tomorrow, eight o clock, he is heard saying.Dr Dao then tells the person he is talking to on the phone: I I tell you make a lawsuit against United Airlines. The officer is then heard in the video again asking Dr Dao to leave. No I am not going, he replies, shaking his head angrily.The cop then says: Well I have to drag you You know how this is going to end up happening, right? Dao then replies: You can drag me, I m not going. I m staying right here. You ll have to drag me. The cop then says, I m just telling you, it s going to be a lot harder for you , before Dao interrupts with: Yes I know that, I d rather go to jail. You d rather go to jail than just getting off, the cop replies, while sounded confused at the comment. Yes, Dao is heard saying.The two then continue speaking for a few more seconds, with Dr Dao mentioning he had flown to Chicago from Los Angeles and was desperate to get home, before the video cuts off.Here s the video: Daily Mail | 1real |
The Truth that America Doesn't Want You to Know about War Crimes in Syria | After claiming the lives of more than a quarter of a million people; causing the biggest refugee crisis since World War II; and fueling the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the civil war in Syria, which started in 2011 as a peaceful protest against President Bashar al-Assad but later turned into an international proxy war, is today, signaling World War III. At least, that’s what the West and the mainstream media want you to believe . However, the truth is the United States and its allies are using the “war crimes” and “crimes of historic proportions” in Syria to prolong the proxy war, overthrow Assad, and annex an independent country. Sadly, the United Nations, Amnesty International, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and other “concerned parties” (including the mainstream media), support the West in its malicious intent.
The Western Claim “Russia and the Syrian regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities and children and women,” US Secretary of State John Kerry recently commented. Kerry begged for an investigation of the Russian and Syrian military strikes against civilians and medical facilities in Aleppo, as war crimes.
“There is clear and abundant evidence the Assad regime and the Russian government are committing crimes that include, but are not limited to, deliberate attacks on civilians, collective punishment, starvation as a tool of war, torture, murder, inhumane treatment of prisoners and the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield,” asserted The Washington Post .
“The ancient city of Aleppo, a place of millennial civility and beauty, is today a slaughterhouse — a gruesome locus of pain and fear, where the lifeless bodies of small children are trapped under streets of rubble and pregnant women deliberately bombed,” observed the UN human rights’ chief, seeking a war crimes inquiry.
The Western Evidence 1. A commission for International Justice and Accountability — a non-profit organization funded by western states including the UK, US, the EU, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Canada and Denmark — smuggled over 600,000 top-secret Syrian government documents brought to Western Europe .
An analysis of some 400 documents “linked the systematic torture and murder of tens of thousands of Syrians to a written policy approved by President Bashar al-Assad, coordinated among his security-intelligence agencies, and implemented by regime operatives.” Current status: Neither the documents nor the evidence has been made public.
2. A decorated American journalist and a former CIA officer, Adam Ciralsky wrote about the 53,275 photos that “Caesar” (a Syrian military photographer turned war crimes whistleblower, who fled the country in August 2013) took as grisly evidence of Assad’s brutality.
“The pictures, most of them taken in Syrian military hospitals, show corpses photographed at close range — one at a time as well as in small groupings. Virtually all of the bodies — thousands of them — betray signs of torture: gouged eyes; mangled genitals ; bruises and dried blood from beatings; acid and electric burns; emaciation; and marks from strangulation,” Ciralsky explained. Current Status: The treasure trove, as well as the photographer “Caesar,” is hidden from the public eye.
3. In 2015, Amnesty International documented the systematic and widespread “unthinkable atrocities” war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed by Assad’s regime, in a 74-page report (including indiscriminate use of explosive weapons, arbitrary arrests, torture, and enforced disappearances). The ‘heartbreaking’ research involved merely 78 residents (mostly former) and 29 professionals working in Aleppo .
4. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights — the London-based monitoring group, often Quote: d as the most authoritative source of information about human rights abuse in Syria — is a tool of Western propaganda run by one man who last visited Syria in 2000 (11 years before the armed conflict began). He relies on “intelligence” allegedly gathered by around 200 “activists” who he has never met. Current Status: Whatever the SOHR claims, the mainstream media reports as truth without verifying its nature – because the SOHR does not reference any sources.
The Western Lies Why is the angry and (nowadays) concerned world not asking the United States and the mainstream media a few pertinent questions? What is the West doing in Syria? Why is the peace-loving West prolonging the war? Why is the West backing the rebels in a foreign country? Why is the West funding and arming ISIS?
Why are the Western forces not being held accountable for war crimes like bombing a hospital? Why is the mainstream media, the NGOs and the UN not holding the West accountable for crimes committed on their own land, or in Israel, Africa or Yemen?
One reason may be because of the abundance of natural gas under Syrian soil, and that this may very well be another ‘petrodollar’ war . The US had long had its gaze set on Syria – years before the civil war and the 2011 “revolution.” Leaked WikiLeaks cables show the US ambassador to Syria (2004-2007) William Roebuck discussing a plan to remove Assad from power, in December 2006 .
While the Russian and Iranian forces entered Syria on Assad’s request to fight against ISIS and armed rebels, the Western military invaded Syria — a sovereign country and United Nations member state — to violently overthrow the Syrian government.
Why didn’t the West invade Saudi Arabia to initiate “humanitarian intervention” and save innocent citizens from its brutal dictator? Saudi Arabia remains a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council and a U.S. ally, despite its poor human rights record — if attacking an independent harmless country is justified, why did the US act against Osama bin Laden?
The Western effort to annex Syria has relied on a series of crudely-spun lies and media-generated talking points. In September, RT dared to expose the top 10 Western lies about Syrian conflict that the mainstream media are trading in, to fool the Western public into backing yet another failed ‘nation-building’ project (after Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya). Obviously, the fear mongering media didn’t find it profitable to give the lies much, if any, coverage in the West.
From calling the conflict a fault of wicked Assad, and Assad a brutal dictator who enjoyed no popular support, to portraying him as an uncompromising President interested only in ‘killing his own people’ – and not in peace and reconciliation, the list is endless. From accusing the Syrian government and Russia for helping ISIS and terming the Western interventions in Syria as humanitarian, to claiming Russia was acting out of self-interest and that the West was on the side of the ‘good guys’ in Syria, can you be certain of the ‘truth’? Realistically, the West hasn’t been fighting ‘terror’ in Syria, it has aided it.
Remember the American journalist Serena Shim, who was killed in October 2014, after she revealed the ISIS-Turkey-US link that proved the West was assisting ISIS in Syria?
The Syrian Reality Henry Lowendorf, a member of the Executive Board of the U.S. Peace Council’s Peace and Fact-Finding Delegation to Syria – who returned from Syria in August – noted: “What we saw in Syria goes against everything we read in the United States.”
Before 2011, illiteracy in Syria had been wiped out; the life expectancy was 75.9 years and the government spent massive amounts of money on improving the nation. Developing irrigation, electricity, water and road building projects, and expanding the health services and education to rural areas, all occurred; and China invested hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize Syria’s aging oil and gas infrastructure. | 1real |
Text of Nobel Peace Prize award to anti-nuclear campaign ICAN | OSLO (Reuters) - Following is the text of the Nobel Peace Prize award on Friday to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons: The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). The organization is receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons. We live in a world where the risk of nuclear weapons being used is greater than it has been for a long time. Some states are modernizing their nuclear arsenals, and there is a real danger that more countries will try to procure nuclear weapons, as exemplified by North Korea. Nuclear weapons pose a constant threat to humanity and all life on earth. Through binding international agreements, the international community has previously adopted prohibitions against land mines, cluster munitions and biological and chemical weapons. Nuclear weapons are even more destructive, but have not yet been made the object of a similar international legal prohibition. Through its work, ICAN has helped to fill this legal gap. An important argument in the rationale for prohibiting nuclear weapons is the unacceptable human suffering that a nuclear war will cause. ICAN is a coalition of non-governmental organizations from around 100 different countries around the globe. The coalition has been a driving force in prevailing upon the world s nations to pledge to cooperate with all relevant stakeholders in efforts to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. To date, 108 states have made such a commitment, known as the Humanitarian Pledge. Furthermore, ICAN has been the leading civil society actor in the endeavor to achieve a prohibition of nuclear weapons under international law. On 7 July 2017, 122 of the UN member states acceded to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. As soon as the treaty has been ratified by 50 states, the ban on nuclear weapons will enter into force and will be binding under international law for all the countries that are party to the treaty. The Norwegian Nobel Committee is aware that an international legal prohibition will not in itself eliminate a single nuclear weapon, and that so far neither the states that already have nuclear weapons nor their closest allies support the nuclear weapon ban treaty. The Committee wishes to emphasize that the next steps towards attaining a world free of nuclear weapons must involve the nuclear-armed states. This year s Peace Prize is therefore also a call upon these states to initiate serious negotiations with a view to the gradual, balanced and carefully monitored elimination of the almost 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Five of the states that currently have nuclear weapons the USA, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China have already committed to this objective through their accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1970. The Non-Proliferation Treaty will remain the primary international legal instrument for promoting nuclear disarmament and preventing the further spread of such weapons. It is now 71 years since the UN General Assembly, in its very first resolution, advocated the importance of nuclear disarmament and a nuclear weapon-free world. With this year s award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to pay tribute to ICAN for giving new momentum to the efforts to achieve this goal. The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has a solid grounding in Alfred Nobel s will. The will specifies three different criteria for awarding the Peace Prize: the promotion of fraternity between nations, the advancement of disarmament and arms control and the holding and promotion of peace congresses. ICAN works vigorously to achieve nuclear disarmament. ICAN and a majority of UN member states have contributed to fraternity between nations by supporting the Humanitarian Pledge. And through its inspiring and innovative support for the UN negotiations on a treaty banning nuclear weapons, ICAN has played a major part in bringing about what in our day and age is equivalent to an international peace congress. It is the firm conviction of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that ICAN, more than anyone else, has in the past year given the efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons a new direction and new vigor. | 0fake |
Six Things Betsy DeVos Can Do to Show She Is ‘Certainly Not a Supporter’ of Common Core | Betsy DeVos announced upon her nomination as U. S. education secretary that she is “certainly not a supporter” of Common Core, even though the organizations she funded and supported through her service are avid proponents of the controversial education reform. [Now that she is sworn in, establishment politicians of both parties and the mainstream media would have Americans believe there is nothing DeVos or President Donald Trump can do to eliminate Common Core because it was adopted by the states. Here are six actions DeVos could take to begin fulfilling Trump’s promise to get rid of the “disaster” he said is Common Core: #1: Assure states they can repeal Common Core without penalty from the federal government. President Trump and DeVos should not — and cannot — tell the states to repeal Common Core. To do so would mean they were accepting federal control of education — an area the Constitution reserves for the states and local governments. However, they can guarantee to states wanting to rid themselves of the boondoggle — and its affiliated standards programs — that they will not be penalized by the federal government for doing so. “I hope Mrs. DeVos will realize that too many states have remained in Common Core because of all the federal pressure and threats — yes, including under ESSA [Every Student Succeeds Act] — that incentivize them to do so,” American Principles Project (APP) senior fellow Jane Robbins tells Breitbart News. “She should vow to remove those pressure points and make it clear to states that the feds won’t penalize them in any way if they replace Common Core with good standards. If she does that, there may be a stampede for the exits. That would be a great thing for our students. ” #2: Issue guidance that says the Every Student Succeeds Act’s (ESSA) provision that gives the education secretary power over state curricula and tests is not enforceable due to its extremely vague language. Establishment politicians often claim that ESSA — the most recent federal education law — has repealed the federal mandate for use of Common Core in the states. They base their pronouncements on the portion of ESSA that states: “The federal government is prohibited from … Mandating, directing, controlling, coercing, or exercising any direction or supervision over academic standards that states develop or adopt, including Common Core State Standards. ” Education scholars who have studied the law, however, assert ESSA neither repeals the Common Core mandate, nor prohibits the education secretary from coercing states into adopting the standards. In fact, these experts say ESSA actually does the opposite: it keeps states anchored to the controversial education reform. “Within the other 1, 060 pages of ESSA lurk the provisions that will keep states in Common Core, or something that looks very much like Common Core,” Robbins and Indiana parent activist Erin Tuttle wrote at The Pulse 2016. “The Secretary won’t have to mandate anything, because the other parts of the bill contain the requirements for … ‘high standards,’” a phrase that has come to refer to Common Core. Robbins and Tuttle assert: [A state’s] plan must be “coordinated” with 11 federal statutes, including the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act passed a year ago the Education Sciences Reform Act, which is all about collecting student data for research the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act, which adds to the Head Start requirements on preschool standards and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Authorization Act, which governs the NAEP test that will almost certainly be aligned to Common Core to hide the fact that Common students perform poorly on NAEP. Requiring state plans and therefore state standards to coordinate with all these federal statutes means, as a practical matter, states will keep Common Core. “ESSA, which replaces NCLB, does mandate alignment,” the authors write, quoting the ESSA law and translating the Common Core rhetoric: “Each State shall demonstrate that the challenging academic standards are aligned with entrance requirements for coursework in the system of public higher education in the State and relevant State career and technical education standards. ” This is simply another way of saying states must have “ and ” standards. And as made clear by the U. S. Department of Education’s own materials, “ and ” means Common Core. With ESSA’s language decoded, the Federalist’s Joy Pullmann also observes DeVos could issue guidance that says since ESSA “gives the education secretary dictatorial power over state curricula and tests,” but “is so vague on its criteria for doing so, she finds the provision unenforceable until Congress specifies … ” Cato education director Neal McCluskey agrees Trump and a Republican Congress can ensure the regulations associated with ESSA don’t “coerce the use of the Core or any other specific standards or tests. ” “This has been a real concern,” he explains. “While the spirit and rhetoric surrounding the ESSA is about breaking down federal strictures … the statute includes language vague enough that it could allow federal control by education secretary veto. ” “A Trump administration would likely avoid that,” McCluskey says, and notes as well that Trump’s supporters “don’t seem inclined to do what Beltway types tell them. ” #3: Put forward a plan to eliminate her department. As DeVos was confirmed in the Senate, Rep. Thomas Massie ( ) introduced legislation in the House that would eliminate the federal department of education. “Neither Congress nor the President, through his appointees, has the constitutional authority to dictate how and what our children must learn,” Massie said in a press release announcing his bill that is only one sentence long. With legislation to that end already introduced, DeVos could reach out to Massie and work with him and the bill’s other sponsors to dismantle her department in an organized manner. Pullmann, author of the upcoming The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids, tells Breitbart News, “The way to end Common Core is to end the superstructures that made it not just possible but inevitable. ” She urges Trump to send the states’ education dollars back to them to allow parents and local citizens to manage them as they see fit. “Even though Common Core is technically for federal influence, its successors will soon arise, and they will be worse than Common Core — unless President Trump fulfills his promise to his voters to end Common Core once and for all,” she says. “Common Core is a hydra that consumes federal education dollars. The only way to kill it for good is to stop feeding it. Give us our own money and power back, and Common Core will never happen again. ” Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn recently confirmed to Breitbart News the ESSA still provides the education secretary with substantial power over the states’ education policy and standards. Arnn said he advises DeVos to devise a plan that ultimately addresses the question, “What are we even doing here anymore? Let’s get rid of this department. ” “If Betsy DeVos has a lot of power, then her successor would have that, too,” he observed. “So, it would be better to get rid of her successor. ” #4: Address local control of education before school choice. While school choice is a good concept in general, some financial mechanisms that bring about the “choice” — such as school vouchers — are associated with high levels of regulation for the schools that agree to accept them. If DeVos works to achieve a federal mandate for vouchers, private and religious schools and homeschooling families could be required to submit to the Common Core standards and tests, as well as other federal education mandates. In a column at The Hill, Heartland Institute senior fellow Robert Holland explains the “magnitude of the opposition” facing the new secretary from the grassroots parents’ groups opposing Common Core is not a factor to be ignored. Holland writes: As incongruous as it may seem, given DeVos’ championing of a parent’s right to select the best possible school for a child, parents organized in grassroots groups in all 50 states were among the most adamant critics of President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead federal education policy. On social media, these groups have names such as Stop Common Core in Florida (or New Jersey, or Oregon, or Michigan, or insert your own state). Their reach is enormous. The concern for many of these activists boils down to this: While choice may be desirable, it is not feasible when big government imposes uniform requirements on all schools for such central policies as curricula, testing, and teacher evaluation. Holland also urges DeVos to make local control of education a priority to pave the way for local school choice programs by announcing her intention to use her authority to free state and local governments from the oppression of federal control. “A push for federal school vouchers in the current regulatory climate could backfire either by flopping in Congress or, if enacted, drawing more private and religiously affiliated schools into the Common Core web,” he warns. “Having a dedicated school choice activist as U. S. education secretary does not alter the reality choices are properly made in communities and homes, not in Washington, DC. ” #5: Invite onto her staff education experts who are committed to the Constitution’s provision that the federal government has no authority in education. Holland calls attention to reports of Common Core supporters on DeVos’s staff and observes grassroots parent activists “see DeVos’s longstanding support of powerful organizations that pushed Common Core standards on schools nationwide as rendering null and void any ‘choice’ that might emanate from Washington, DC under her leadership. ” He urges the new secretary to invite onto her staff as well “education scholars who understand the federal government has no constitutional authority to dictate education policy,” and that the U. S. education department should be “phased out of existence. ” #6: Reverse the Obama administration’s regulatory gutting of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In November of 2015, Trump promised to close the loopholes in the federal privacy law to ensure students’ personal information remains private. The Obama administration gutted FERPA in 2013, thus allowing private student and family information to leave schools without parental consent. In a Pioneer Institute paper titled “Cogs in the Machine: Big Data, Common Core, and National Testing,” authors Pullmann and Robbins joined APP education director Emmett McGroarty to reveal the reason for the Obama administration’s desire to place a “condition” of student data collection upon states when they applied for 2009 federal stimulus money in Race to the Top applications: Federal law prohibits USED [U. S. Education Department] from maintaining a national student database … Since the absence of a national database impedes efforts to track citizens and manage the economy by manipulating the workforce, the federal government has for years been building the statutory structure to evade this prohibition. In fact, the law that essentially created the federal role in education also called for databases to monitor compliance with federal law in exchange for federal funds … The federal structure now incentivizes states to build identical — and therefore sharable — data systems, enabling a de facto national database. “Parents may not sue a school that discloses their child’s PII [personally identifiable information] in violation of FERPA,” the authors say. | 0fake |
Russia, North Korea military commission starts first meeting in Pyongyang: RIA | MOSCOW (Reuters) - A delegation of Russia s defense ministry is taking part in the first meeting of a Russian-North Korean military commission in Pyongyang, the RIA news agency cited Russian diplomats as saying on Thursday. The Russian delegation arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday, Russian media reported at the time. No details of its agenda in the reclusive nation have been available. | 0fake |
Annual U.S. Congress baseball game brings unity after shooting | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Members of the U.S. Congress took the field for their traditional Republicans vs. Democrats baseball game on Thursday, with many wearing hats to honor Representative Steve Scalise, who was critically wounded by a gunman as his Republican team practiced a day before. When the members of the Republican team were announced at Nationals Park, mention of Scalise’s name drew a standing ovation from the areas designated for Republican, Democrat and nonpartisan fans alike. President Donald Trump did not attend but in a video address shown on the stadium’s giant screen praised the friendly nature of the annual charity event. David Bailey, a Capitol Hill police officer who was part of Scalise’s security detail and helped bring down the shooter, also was injured in the Wednesday incident but had recovered enough to throw the game’s ceremonial first pitch. The Democrats won the game, 11-2, but loaned the trophy to the Republicans until Scalise is better. Both Republican and Democratic leaders at the game encouraged a sense of unity in the wake of the shooting during an otherwise politically rancorous time in Washington when the parties are sharply divided over healthcare legislation and investigations of the members of the Trump administration. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stood side by side to shout: “Let’s play ball!” and the crowd chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!” as the game began. Scalise, 51, a Louisiana Republican who is the No. 3 House Republican, remained in critical condition at a hospital a few miles from the stadium after undergoing a third surgery on Thursday. He was hit in the left hip, suffering injuries to internal organs, broken bones and severe bleeding, in Wednesday’s shooting. For the game, which began in 1909, members of the Senate and House of Representatives donned uniforms representing teams from their constituencies, and many topped them with hats from Louisiana State University, Scalise’s alma mater, as a tribute. In addition to Scalise, a police officer, a congressional aide and a lobbyist were shot on Wednesday morning when a man opened fire as the Republican lawmakers practiced for the game in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. Nearly 25,000 tickets were sold for the game and it was on track to raise more than $1 million, roughly double what it did last year, organizers said. Ticket sales picked up after Wednesday’s shooting, eventually setting an attendance record, the organizers said, as attendees such as Alexander Hilten, 16, of Arlington, Virginia, decided to come to the game for the first time. “A lot of times in politics we have divisions but it shouldn’t come to violence,” he said. “It’s cool that they’re putting it on even after the shooting. It just shows how resilient these politicians are.” The Capitol Police Memorial Fund was added to the list of charities that will receive money raised by the game in honor of two members of Scalise’s security detail who were at the Wednesday practice session and returned fire. The Washington Nationals Dream Foundation, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington and the Washington Literary Center are the game’s other beneficiaries. (This story corrects typographical error in paragraph 2, day of shooting in paragraph 8 and spelling of Hilten’s name in paragraph 12.) | 0fake |
Bali airport may stay closed longer than 24 hours amid Agung eruption: governor | DENPASAR, Indonesia (Reuters) - Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika said the closure of I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport could last longer than 24 hours amid an eruption of Mount Agung. We don t know how long it will be closed for, Pastika told reporters, referring to the Bali airport. Sure, it s been closed for 24 hours until tomorrow, but that doesn t rule out the possibility the (closure) could be extended, he said. At least 5,000 foreign and 15,000-20,000 domestic tourists pass through the airport each day, according to Pastika. Ngurah Rai is Bali s main international gateway and a hub for tourists traveling to Indonesian islands further east. | 0fake |
Memetic Wednesday: Endgame Hillary | Listen up everybody
It is literally less than two weeks till the election.
@Colonel-Gunter.Brumm has had a brilliant idea. For the remainder of the race we need to focus on one last Glorious Memetic Campaign. It should primarily be focused on social media for widest distribution.
Specifically via a ‘NORMIE FRIENDLY’ assault.
Our Orders: Add a shortcut to this article to your desktop. Check the BBS for great posts and send them out across your networks. Make a new folder on your desktop just for this campaign. Archive, create, distribute Go through ALL of your archives for the best memes you have. ONLY NORMIE FRIENDLY stuff. Anti Hillary and Glorious Trump stuff. NO Hakenkreuzes, chicken and watermelons or Daily Stormer watermarks, etc. Then assemble them all along with PNGs, blank backgrounds, finished products, etc so that we can mobilze and go full Klendathu Drop on her ass for the rest of the campaign. Because this is the ONLY TIME THAT COUNTS FOR MOST SHEEPLE. We need to reach the sheeple that we all know personally and get them laughing, angry, emoting, etc. Deploy these normie friendly memes to flood your own personal social media, twitter etc. Put them into the hands of all of your colleagues at work, friends, relatives and their friends to flood the planet for the next 2 weeks. Again- NO Nazi stuff, just intense anti Hillary stuff right up to the edge of what we normally do and our best of the best Trump stuff we have. Make many posts, every day for the rest of the presidential campaign. Saturate all your networks (i.e. FB, Twitter etc.) Deploy all your accounts, IRLs, sockpuppets, etc. Reach out to other Alt-Right communities and have them join us.
Check back here on this article every day to get more ammo and to leave more for others.
Anyone that blocks you is a Hillary voter so don’t worry about them. Anyone that’s pro Trump will not block you and will share your stuff. Anyone undecided will read and can be swayed by the humor and horror and beauty of our memes.
Remember this is about reaching the undecided, the fence sitters, the people who supported other candidates. The reason why they have to be specifically Normie friendly is so that everyone here feels comfortable enough to blast them into their own personal social networks.
There are millions of us, blasting them into our networks extend their reach to billions. Stuff that your aunt and uncle can share with their friends too. We want them laughing and horrified.
We think the best stuff to focus on is– Highlight her desire for war with Russia..– Highlight her corruption– Highlight Trump’s heroism and genius and glory– Highlight that all the smart and cool and sexy people support him.
This is for real now. Get off your ass and do your duty for the Fatherland.
To our Non American Brothers: This is your election too. The same orders apply. Help us so that we can help you. The US is the vampire heart of ZOG. If we bring it down here, you are free. Simple as that.
Also here are some simple tools to make stuff and modify stuff you already like. Use them, make them and then post them here for others to deploy as well. | 1real |
The Crucial Thing We Forget When We Go Crazy Debating About Trump | The Crucial Thing We Forget When We Go Crazy Debating About Trump Nov 12, 2016 1 0 This election sure has created quite the ripple effect of intense emotions, division and polarized opinions. Since Trump won, all I see are people angrily debating about whether or not he is a good guy, and whether or not he can “make America great again”. But while we all sit behind our computers and drive ourselves crazy trying to convince others of our stance or spend hours of research trying to find the truth… it’s easy to forget about the basics. The basics that, I believe, are the KEY to real and lasting change. I think the world needs this message big time. Share far and wide if you agree! | 1real |
Karma’s A B*tch: Judge Orders Anti-Gay Preacher’s Church Up For Public Auction Due To Unpaid Debts | Pastor James David Manning is one of the most vocally homophobic preachers in America. He is the leader of Atlah Worldwide Church, and has made such disgusting public statements as Jesus would stone homos, and tried to accuse gay people of spreading Ebola through Starbucks coffee. Well, Pastor Manning is finally getting his comeuppance, because a judge has ordered that his hateful church be put up for public auction.The reason for the order is that Manning has not been paying his church s bill. DNA Info reports that Manning has nine tax liens against the church s property. The debts include, but are not limited to:Manning, however, is as delusional as ever, and insists that he didn t know about the auctioning of his church until last week. This seems to be a flat-out lie, though, as his lawyers responded to the case as early as October 2009, which is a month after the case was opened. Manning also plans to go against the auction order, which was filed by Judge Joan Kenny on December 17, 2015. Manning says of the auctioning of his church: I assure you, it s about a water bill and a tax that can t be levied against this church. I think it s a land grab quite frankly. Though the church is, like all others, tax exempt, Manning seems to be unable to comprehend that being a tax exempt religious institution does not mean that he does not have to pay his bills. To that end, whatever appeals he might make to stop the auction will likely prove fruitless. The auction will be held on February 24.This is all to the good, as the community can now be effectively free of Manning and his followers constant and unending stream of homophobic hate speech. Harlem will definitely be a better place.Featured image via screen capture from the Manning Report on YouTube | 1real |
Australia expands security assistance to Philippines to combat Islamist militants | CLARK FREEPORT ZONE, Philippines (Reuters) - Australia on Tuesday announced the expansion of its security support to the Philippines, which will involve training in urban counter-terrorism, to fight the rise and spread of Islamist militancy in the region. The announcement follows the end of the 154-day battle for Marawi city which stunned the Philippine s military inexperienced in urban combat, and fueled concerns Islamic State loyalists wanted to use the southern island of Mindanao as a base for Southeast Asia activity. The battle for Marawi ended on Monday. Philippines authorities said 920 militants, 165 troops and police and at least 45 civilians were killed in the conflict, which displaced more than 300,000 people. Australia, along with the United States, Singapore and China, provided weaponry and technical support, including surveillance aircraft. All nations must learn from the recent Marawi conflict and the Philippines experience, said Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne, adding Canberra and Manila will host a post-conflict seminar to learn from the five-month Marawi conflict. About 80 soldiers from Australia s mobile training team will be deployed in local bases in the Philippines to train army and marine units in urban counter-terrorism warfare, said Payne on the sidelines of an ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting in Clark, a former U.S. air force base. The practical training the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) will provide will ensure the Philippines defense force is better able to counter the brutal tactics being employed by terrorists, Payne told a news conference. The spread of Daesh-inspired (Islamic State) terrorism is a direct threat to Australia and its interests and we are committed to working with our partners and allies to ensuring Daesh cannot establish a geographic foothold in the region. Payne said Australia was concerned with Islamic State fighters returning from Iraq and Syria to home countries in Southeast Asia and was working closely with Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore to monitor militant movements. Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said in the same briefing the government had been provided by Kurdish intelligence, through Manila s embassy in Baghdad, with a list of Indonesians, Malaysians and a few Filipinos who might return home. Lorenzana said the Philippines and Australia are now reviewing the deployment of surveillance planes, which flew four times a week over Marawi since late June. Apart from urban warfare training, Australia will also enhance provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability, share information and intelligence and strengthen maritime security engagement and bilateral maritime patrols. An increasing number of Australian warships are expected to make visits to Manila. Canberra is also emerging to be the top source of education and training for local troops. | 0fake |
War crimes verdict on Mladic delayed as he undergoes blood test: Mladic son | AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The verdict in the war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic was delayed on Wednesday while he underwent a blood pressure test, his son Darko told Reuters. U.N. judges had ordered a five-minute bathroom break for Mladic, 74, before issuing their verdict in his trial for 11 alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including genocide. That pause then stretched on for more than an hour. They took his blood pressure during the break. We don t know the readings, but they said they could continue with the verdict. We are very concerned about his blood pressure because he has already has four strokes, Darko Mladic said. | 0fake |
5 Key Factors to the New York Prison Escape, in a Killer’s Words - The New York Times | By the time David Sweat spoke to investigators from the office of New York State’s inspector general last year, he had spent three weeks on the run, been shot by a state trooper, and was facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life in solitary confinement for pulling off a prison break that riveted the country. But Mr. Sweat, a convicted murderer, was apparently eager to talk. And talk he did. In the report on the escape by the inspector general’s office released on Monday, Mr. Sweat comes off as unrepentant and smug, describing prison guards as lazy and incompetent and his sidekick, Richard W. Matt, as a bumbling, overweight . Mr. Matt was shot and killed by law enforcement authorities during the manhunt. Here, in Mr. Sweat’s own words quoted in the report, are five key factors that were crucial to the success of his plot to break out of the Clinton Correctional Facility, a prison in the far northern part of the state. Mr. Sweat needed tools, and to get them he needed to find a willing accomplice among the prison’s employees. Enter Joyce E. Mitchell, the civilian supervisor in the prison tailor shop, whose loneliness Mr. Sweat said he exploited, writing “love lust” notes to “placate her. ” The plan worked. In the months before the escape, Ms. Mitchell gave Mr. Sweat and his partner at least eight hacksaw blades, two chisels, a steel punch and two concrete drill bits, often smuggled in frozen hamburger meat. Ms. Mitchell proved less reliable in the second phase of the plot when she was supposed to pick up the two inmates in her car after they emerged from a manhole outside the prison walls. Mr. Sweat described his final instructions to Ms. Mitchell before the escape: She never showed up, and the inmates had to flee on foot. It took Mr. Sweat 85 nights to cut, dig and hammer his way through the brick, steel and concrete blocking his path to freedom. He had no blueprints or maps of the tunnels behind and beneath the prison walls to guide him, so he had to rely on trial and error to plot his route. Mr. Sweat lost perhaps 30 pounds working on the escape route, “letting myself down and pulling myself back up, you know, three flights every night … crawling through all the pipes. ” By the time of the escape, Mr. Sweat said, he was “probably about the best physical shape I been in. ” “There was a couple of times … I got quite discouraged,” he said, but he understood that once he started there was no turning back. At times, Mr. Sweat had to get creative, both to avoid detection and to speed his progress. Breaking through a wall with a sledgehammer he found in the tunnels and a makeshift pry bar, he said he timed his blows to coincide with loud sounds that emanated from the surrounding pipes. “So I wait until they start banging, and then I would bang,” he said. After about two weeks, he said, “I knocked the wall out. ” To cool the sweltering air inside the steam pipe that ultimately led the two inmates to freedom, he devised a ventilation system out of a fan and a tube made of several plastic garbage bags. This allowed him to remain in the pipe, cutting for three hours at a time, he said, stopping only to “eat a candy bar, drink a little water. ” Mr. Sweat and Mr. Matt could never have pulled off their escape had corrections officers and their supervisors followed basic security protocols, the report said. Officers rarely if ever conducted rounds at night and almost never inspected the catwalks and tunnels where Mr. Sweat spent night after night working. In his testimony, Mr. Sweat said he had counted on guards’ not doing their jobs and had never worried about being found out. Of the guards, he said, “They’re lazy, to be honest. ” He said he studied the guards and got to know their habits. Even Mr. Sweat was surprised, though, when he first crawled out of his cell and discovered how easy it was to move around the catwalks and tunnels. There were no locking doors or gates, which he anticipated having to break through. He was free to roam. “Nothing ended up being anything like either one of us expected it to be,” he said. During his time in the tunnels, Mr. Sweat said he never encountered an officer, though there were a few close calls. He said he would occasionally see officers on the catwalks above him, and one night he was nearly struck by a lit cigarette tossed out by a guard. The biggest scare came when the two inmates first emerged from the manhole into a residential neighborhood. An approaching car spooked Mr. Matt, who ran into the backyard of a nearby home and attracted the attention of the driver. When confronted, Mr. Sweat had to talk their way out of the fix, explaining to the driver that they were just cutting through the yard. Mr. Matt’s jitters continued, according to Mr. Sweat. He “kept running in people’s yards when he would see a car. ” “I said, ‘Dude, nobody knows you’re out,’” he told investigators, cursing at his partner to “just walk like a normal person. ” | 0fake |
DEAR ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTERS: “Your Behavior Is Why Trump Won In The First Place” [VIDEO] | You re carrying Mexican flags while chanting, Trump is not my President. You know that this is America right? ***Language warning*** | 1real |
MEDIA ATTEMPTS HIT JOB ON BEN CARSON With West Point Fabrication Story… But Here’s The Truth | It s too bad the media didn t work as hard to expose the massive lies about Barack Hussein Obama and his background during his campaign. Many are calling this the end of Carson s political career. Compare this mostly innocuous fabrication to the fact that Hillary Clinton put our nation s security at risk with her personal email server. What about the incredible lie Hillary told about the controversial video to the families of the 4 brave Americans whose caskets were just unloaded off the plane from Benghazi? Compare this to the multiple lies that have been exposed about Hillary and Bill s corrupt money laundering for political favors charity. Does anyone remember how the media circled the wagons for Barack Hussein Obama when it was discovered he sat in the pews of a black liberation theology church for over 20 years listening to a close friend and mentor preach hate towards whites and the United States of America? What about the birth certificate, the fake social security numbers, the lies Obama told about his illegal relative he claimed he didn t know, but then later it was revealed that he actually lived with him? None of those things mattered. Obama was untouchable and if you criticized him or the lies he told about his past, the media and the left were quick to label you as an intolerant racist. Compare and contrast the treatment of Hillary Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama and black conservative, Dr. Ben Carson by the media. But the feeding frenzy on Ben Carson by the progressive media will continue unabated and unchecked, because nobody in the GOP has the cajones to stand up to them. And that, my friends is why the non-establishment GOP candidates who are fighting back against the leftist media are polling at the top. America is ready for a fighter, and if we truly love our country, every one of us should be standing shoulder to shoulder behind Trump, Carson and Cruz who are being openly punished by the media for standing up to them Never underestimate the capacity of the media to propagandize against Republicans.That s the theme of this morning s overwrought news coverage on Dr. Ben Carson s supposed lie regarding a scholarship to West Point. The story began with Politico, which ran with the audacious headline, Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point scholarship. Even I was taken in by the headline after all, that s a pretty bold claim!Politico began thusly:Ben Carson s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from POLITICO, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.The key word here is fabricated. Did the Carson campaign admit any such thing? Absolutely not. The facts reported by Politico don t even support this interpretation of the Carson campaign s response. According to Politico, Carson said in his 1992 memoir Gifted Hands that he was offered a full scholarship to West Point after dining with General William Westmoreland in 1969. Here s the relevant passage from Carson s autobiography:At the end of my twelfth grade I marched at the head of the Memorial Day parade. I felt so proud, my chest bursting with ribbons and braids of every kind. To make it more wonderful, We had important visitors that day. Two soldiers who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor in Viet Nam were present. More exciting to me, General William Westmoreland (very prominent in the Viet Nam war) attended with an impressive entourage. Afterward, Sgt. Hunt introduced me to General Westmoreland, and I had dinner with him and the Congressional Medal winners. Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point. I didn t refuse the scholarship outright, but I let them know that a military career wasn t where I saw myself going.That s the entire relevant portion of Carson s account. He reiterated that account last month in an interview with Charlie Rose, when he said, I was offered a full scholarship at West Point, got to meet General Westmoreland and go to Congressional Medal of Honor dinners. But decided really my pathway would be medicine. Politico followed up on this story. They reported one additional pieces of information that seem to conflict with Carson s story: Carson never applied to West Point, and was never extended admission.But Carson never said he applied. He said he was extended a full scholarship offer. What s more, West Point doesn t offer scholarships: all admission is free contingent on serving in the military afterwards. It thus seems probable that Westmoreland or another military figure tried to recruit Carson, telling him that he wouldn t have to pay for his education and that Carson read that as a full scholarship, and never applied.In fact, that s exactly what Carson s campaign manager said to Politico in an email:Dr. Carson was the top ROTC student in the City of Detroit. In that role he was invited to meet General Westmoreland. He believes it was at a banquet. He can t remember with specificity their brief conversation but it centered around Dr. Carson s performance as ROTC City Executive Officer. He was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors. They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in ROTC. He considered it but in the end did not seek admission.But here s how Politico editorialized: When presented with this evidence, Carson s campaign conceded the story was false. That s nonsense. They did no such thing. They provided details that corroborated Carson s story and explained his loose use of the language. If someone told you that you could go to college for free, you might reasonably conclude that you had been offered a full scholarship to attend that university. But Politico would call you a liar if you used such language to describe the exchange.Now, some on the right are saying that Carson should be held to a higher standard here than other candidates because he s running as an outsider. But this is a basic case of misinterpreting facts, not an outright lie. Carson served in ROTC. Prominent people wanted him to go to West Point. He wouldn t have had to pay. He didn t apply because he didn t want to go. Those facts are not in dispute. It s the specific wording over which media have decided to crucify him.This is a textbook example of a left-wing media hit. Politico would never editorialize about any Democrat who issued such a response to a factual inquiry in this manner. Politico won t even conclude that Hillary Clinton lied about her attribution of the Benghazi attacks to a YouTube video despite email evidence that she knew Benghazi was a terrorist attack entirely unrelated to a YouTube video.But for Ben Carson, they ll make an exception.Via: Ben Shapiro, Daily WireUPDATE: Dave Weigel of The Washington Post rightly points out this from Carson s Facebook page circa August:I was the highest student ROTC member in Detroit and was thrilled to get an offer from West Point. But I knew medicine is what I wanted to do. So I applied to only one school. (it was all the money I had). I applied to Yale and thank God they accepted me. I often wonder what might have happened had they said no.So Politico lied again Carson never even claimed to have applied to West Point. | 1real |
South Africa to Withdraw From International Criminal Court · Guardian Liberty Voice | On Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016, Tshililo Michael Masutha, the Minister of Justice of South Africa, presented a bill to parliament for the withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC). South Africa, Burundi, and Gambia announced in October their intention to leave the ICC due to what they believe is unbalanced treatment of the Court’s members. This move is drawing much attention internationally and some are concerned an African exodus from the ICC could be taking place. Support for the ICC in Africa is reflected in a statement issued on Oct. 22 by 24 African and international organizations that have called South Africa’s decision, “a slap in the face for victims.”
South Africa’s decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court is being seen as more significant than the Burundian lawmakers’ decision to vote themselves out on Oct. 12. Burundi has experienced an increase in “violence and conflict” since President Pierre Nkurunziza’s announcement that he will be seeking a third term in office. Due to this violence, the ICC opened a Preliminary Investigation into the situation in Burundi, causing some resentment from its leadership. Gambia’s decision to leave is also no surprise to many after President Yahya Jammeh and his government was again criticized for “cracking down” on political opposition.
South Africa has not been the target of an ICC investigation which is why their decision is being received differently. Criticisms of the ICC include ineffective prosecution and uneven treatment of the Court’s members. Frustration was experienced by Africa’s ICC members recently when Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, while being indicted for “multiple counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes,” was allowed to freely travel to ICC member-states where the ICC holds jurisdiction. ICC jurisdiction can be a complicated matter. The Rome Statute, the international legal treaty that established the ICC, dictates that it will be the obligation of the Court’s members’ policing agencies to “cooperate fully with the Court in its investigation and prosecution of crimes.”
This essentially means while the ICC holds the jurisdiction to prosecute those who have committed the worst crimes, domestic authorities need to aid in the facilitation of such procedures. This notion that local remedies must be exhausted prior to ICC intervention was exhibited by Nigeria during Bashir’s international trip. Upon arriving in Nigeria legal charges were brought against him in Nigeria’s domestic court system, perhaps prompting him to leave just 24 hours after arriving. The prosecution of Bashir is also complicated due to the African Unions policy, established in 2013, of not prosecuting sitting “heads of state.”
The other criticism, that the ICC treats its member’s unbalanced looks to be an accurate statement, but it may also carry a complicated explanation. The Rome Statute has been ratified by 124 nations. These nations did not all join at once and African countries have been more zealous than others in referring criminals to The Hague for prosecution. Over half of the investigations being conducted by the ICC at present were referred by African ICC members. In fact, nine out of ten of the current investigations are of African individuals and all 32 individuals who have been indicted under the jurisdiction of the ICC have been from Africa. So, while the numbers reflect a heavy focus on African criminals, these people have been referred to the Court by African nations.
South Africa’s decision to proceed with their withdrawal from the ICC could bring more attention to the above criticisms. Many argue, though, that there is still strong support for the ICC in Africa. On Thursday, coinciding with Masutha’s submission of the bill, the Acting Spokesperson for Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jane Adams, communicated in a statement that Nigeria would not be leaving the ICC. Adams believes, “A strengthened, reinvigorated and fine-tuned ICC as a symbol of the International Criminal system has an important role to play to offer solace to victims of heinous despicable and dastardly crimes.”
By Joel Wickwire
Sources:
Foreign Affairs – ICC on Ice?
Human Rights Watch – Africa Speaks Out Against ICC Withdrawal
International Criminal Court (ICC) – Statement of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, on Opening a Preliminary Examination into the Situation in Burundi
International Criminal Court (ICC) – Situations Under Investigation
The Jurist – South Africa Justice Minister Submits Bill to Withdraw from ICC
Top Image Courtesy GovernmentZA’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
In-Line and Feature Image Courtesy of Christopher A. Dominic’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
court | 1real |
Patti LuPone, Christine Ebersole and Broadway’s Friendliest Feud - The New York Times | “You’ve got lovely beds. Good beds,” the actress Patti LuPone said. She was referring not to furniture, but fingernails: the unvarnished ones on the hands of her current Christine Ebersole. They contrasted markedly with Ms. LuPone’s nails, which she herself had lacquered in shiny maroon, after years observing professional manicurists. “I watch how they depress the fluid,” Ms. LuPone said, pantomiming bottle and brush. “The problem is, when I put nail polish on it really weakens my nails,” Ms. Ebersole said in a sisterly way. “They just flake off. ” The talons were out, in other words, but this was not a catfight. More a chat ’n’ chew between Tony actresses getting the chance to share a Broadway stage for the first time in “War Paint,” one of a new musicals debuting in a mad cram before the season ends. Dressed in a confusion of stretchy black clothing and scarves, the two women were sharing a sofa in the upper half of a sleek duplex at 663 Fifth Avenue, where the flagship of Elizabeth Arden’s signature spa, the Red Door, moved five years ago from the florid former Aeolian Building two blocks north. They had refused treatments and were instead efficiently slurping vegetarian soups. In “War Paint,” which is now in previews and opens at the Nederlander Theater on April 6, Ms. Ebersole, 64, plays Miss Arden, née Florence Nightingale Graham: the entrepreneur who made cosmetics, long associated with prostitutes, acceptable and desirable to the American middle and upper classes starting in the 1910s. Ms. LuPone, 67, plays Arden’s but equally esteemed competitor, Helena Rubinstein, who imparted both artistic and clinical prestige to the pursuit of beauty, and who is credited with the phrase “there are no ugly women, only lazy ones. ” Bette Davis vs. Joan Crawford Alexis Colby vs. Krystle Carrington: Female rivalries have long meant boffo box office and Nielsen ratings points. But theatergoers hoping for Ms. Ebersole and Ms. LuPone to whack each other with pocketbooks or hurl drinks like Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine in “The Turning Point” are due for disappointment. Rather, their characters fight by issuing new products, raiding staff and investing in premium real estate: penthouses and country spreads for Rubinstein, who donated millions of dollars to arts education and other causes through her foundation an Irish castle and Lexington, Ky. breeding stable for Arden, who was passionately devoted to horses and marched with suffragists. “We should really look at them as role models,” Ms. LuPone said of the two tycoons. “They were really inspiring,” Ms. Ebersole said. “My God,” Ms LuPone said. “Regardless of what their personal flaws were, or what drove them — nothing that they achieved for themselves and then in the name of woman has ever been matched!” Ms. Ebersole, more gently: “They paved the way, and started before women had the vote. ” Ms. LuPone was incensed by news reports about the departing C. E. O. of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer. “Her male replacement is getting twice as much as she is,” she said. “Twice as much!” The gender pay inequity common in the film industry is not an issue for “War Paint,” which is capitalized at $11 million and carried by its leading ladies, one or both of whom appear in all but four of the show’s numbers. But the fact that its principal creators are all men might arch an eyebrow. The musical takes its title and basic premise from a dual biography by Lindy Woodhead published in 2004 that a few years later inspired a documentary, “The Powder the Glory,” to which David Stone, a producer, was introduced by the director James Lapine. Mr. Stone has had tremendous success with “Wicked,” another musical centered on female foes, and, among other projects, worked on “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler. He called her for advice before proceeding. “Eve said, ‘This can’t be about makeup.’ And it’s not,” Mr. Stone said. “It’s about women and beauty and power and how women treat each other. ” Mr. Stone and Ms. LuPone both wrinkle their noses at the word “diva,” a description cribbed from Italian opera that is now often applied to any commanding female presence in the entertainment industry, inevitably also suggesting an excess of temperament. “I just can’t stand it,” Mr. Stone said. “Diva implies difficult. ” At a talk about the show a few months ago, Ms. LuPone proposed “dame” as an alternative, to approving whoops from the audience. After securing rights to the material, Mr. Stone hired Michael Greif, with whom he had worked on “Next to Normal” and “” to direct. They brought in the composer Scott Frankel, the lyricist Michael Korie and the book writer Doug Wright, Mr. Greif’s collaborators on the musical “Grey Gardens,” inspired by the Maysles brothers’ cult documentary about the eccentric aristocrats “Big Edie” Beale and her daughter, “Little Edie. ” Some early workshops of “War Paint” featured Donna Murphy in the Arden role but she withdrew for family reasons, and Ms. Ebersole, who had won a 2007 Tony for portraying both Beales at different stages of their lives, assumed the part. She and Ms. LuPone, for whom this is the first musical since the “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (2010) were not shy about participating in the creative process. “Both of them were very excited to play against the obvious — feuding, stars and that kind of energy — and actually find ways where the competition between them was nourishing,” Mr. Frankel said a few hours before curtain on a recent evening. “These women were enormously sophisticated and tasteful and in corporate weaponry,” Mr. Wright said. “They didn’t have to reduce things to an insult they could actually wage business warfare against one another and did so very effectively for 50 years. ” Anything “that felt cheap or easy,” he said, the actresses “instantly rejected. ” Criticism of an tryout in Chicago last summer focused on relentless between its two subjects, who supposedly never met in real life. About a third of the show has been revised, the creators said, both to fortify the solo appearances and to find novel ways of bringing the characters together onstage. “There was some tightening,” Mr. Frankel said, slipping into patois. “Because it’s the two of them, there’s a little bit of inherent that’s intrinsic in the proposition of the evening, but I think we tried to find ways to mix that up in more unexpected ways. ” He and his colleagues were adamant that “War Paint” is not purely ladies’ entertainment, though the Broadway audience is disproportionately female, a demographic that has helped make shows like “Waitress” into hits. “There are metaphors inherent in the idea of makeup that I think transcend gender,” Mr. Wright said. “It offers a potential mask where you can pretend to be someone you aren’t it offers a disguise if you don’t wish to be recognized it offers an avenue toward a certain kind of perceived it is a kind of lure to attract someone else. ” But with its costume changes designed by Catherine Zuber, including hats and piles of glittering jewelry, and makeup by Angelina Avallone, “War Paint” has been an occasion for the two stars to reflect on how cosmetics and other trappings have been integral to their long careers. “Once I put on the wig it’s like ‘O. K. badda bing, badda boom,’” Ms. LuPone said. “I’m not the type of actress that goes into a corner and meditates for 20 minutes on the bones of Helena Rubinstein. Do you know what I mean?” Ms. Ebersole said that for performers backstage as well as for many people in real life, “putting on makeup is a really great centering device. It’s a way of having you focus on what you’re doing. As you put on the mask, then the other things come through. ” She recalled her work in the 2001 revival of “42nd Street,” for which she won her first Tony with the help of 1930s regalia by Roger Kirk: “The costumes just informed everything. ” This inspired Ms. LuPone to reminisce about “Evita,” for which she got her first Tony, at 31. “The amount of — for lack of a better word — gack that we’re putting on!” she said. “I also harken back to that time in ‘Anything Goes’ when I was in those gowns. Oy, I can’t wear a gown now to save my life, unless I’m strapped in. ” The two actresses were “babies in the city together,” as Ms. LuPone put it. She arrived in 1968 to attend Juilliard, where she studied with Marian Seldes, having known she wanted to perform since she was 4, standing downstage right in a tap recital. Ms. Ebersole, who had gone to MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill. before enrolling at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1973, had had other plans. “I was going to be a nurse,” she said. “Of course you were,” Ms. LuPone said. “Look at her!” Instead Ms. Ebersole served customers at the Lion’s Rock, a restaurant on the Upper East Side with water splashing down a slab of red granite. “It’s condominiums now, I think,” she said. Ms. LuPone, meanwhile, worked at a “wannabe mobster” hangout run by a man who imported cages for dancing girls in nightclubs. “My roommate was one of the dancers, and I wasn’t pretty enough, tall enough or thin enough to be a dancer, so I was a waitress in a lace ” she said. Both women bemoaned a lost era when actors (and stagehands) were recognized and welcomed in the theater district at places like Jimmy Ray’s and Charlie O. ’s, and spent time after the show socializing rather than cultivating followings on Twitter and YouTube. “I think we have fewer showmen,” Ms. LuPone said. “Like the Irving Thalbergs and the Alex Cohens and the Robert Whiteheads and the people that loved the theater or loved making movies. It’s such a cliché, but it’s all bean counters. It’s statistics. Polling. ” This was a reminder that the unexpected foil in the showdown was Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon, rendered in “War Paint” by Erik Liberman as “a carnival barker in an Italian suit. ” It’s a line that for some involved with the production took on new resonance after Donald J. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Overnight, in their view, the musical went from celebration to cautionary tale. After Rubinstein died in 1965, Revson bought her Park Avenue triplex. But that wasn’t the final indignity. Last year, the company he founded, which had brought sex back into the midcentury cosmetics marketplace with suggestive ad copy and flashy layouts, took over Elizabeth Arden. “Everybody’s rolling over in their grave!” Ms. LuPone said. Not that any of these brands make her particularly nostalgic. “I used to be a Georgette Klinger girl. For years,” she said, after the two women packed up a gift of exfoliating face pads and descended nine floors to the lobby. “Oh my gosh, Georgette Klinger, I completely forgot that name,” Ms. Ebersole said, blinking her blue eyes on the sunny sidewalk. “That was a salon,” Ms. LuPone said. “You’d go in, and close the door, and they were all about getting into your face. They don’t get into your face anymore. ” | 0fake |
Stephen Colbert Just Got Himself Thrown Off The RNC Stage Before It Even Began (VIDEO) | Stephen Colbert showed up at the site of the disastrous clusterf*ck that will be the Republican National Convention on Sunday. The late night host and his crew visited with convention-goers and made preparations for his coverage of the upcoming event. But the comedian decided to have a little fun with the level of access he was granted when he jumped up on the stage and hijacked the microphone.Dressed as his Hungry For Power Games character, Colbert launched into an assault on Trump and his new sidekick, Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Colbert declared that Trump has formed an alliance with Indiana Governor Mike Pence just before he pretended to fall asleep. Sorry, I blacked out there for a moment, Colbert says, before slamming down a gavel and announcing, it is my honor to hereby launch and begin the 2016 Republican National Hungry For Power Games! As a security guard attempts to remove him, Colbert drops the most memorable line of this stunt:The former Comedy Central host is then escorted off the stage.Stephen Colbert just ran onto the RNC stage. pic.twitter.com/Uvd9hJPeX9 Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 17, 2016Colbert s Hungry For Power Games is a segment from his late night show, and probably one of the more entertaining things he has done since leaving Comedy Central. Watch a clip of that below:Colbert and Jon Stewart will be teaming up to cover the convention a welcome surprise for everyone who misses the contributions these two have traditionally made to political comedy.Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Indonesian police warn Islamists against raids in search of Santa hats | JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian police appealed on Thursday for tolerance and respect for other people s religious celebrations after an Islamist group threatened to raid businesses to check for Muslims being forced to wear Santa Claus hats or other Christmas garb. The hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) said this week it would conduct sweeping operations in the world s biggest Muslim-majority country, and that forcing Muslims to wear Christmas attire was a violation of their human rights. Indonesia is home to several religious minorities, including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and people who follow traditional beliefs. The constitution guarantees freedom of religion in an officially secular state though tension between followers of different faiths can flare. There can be no sweeping operations ... members of the public should respect other religions that are carrying out celebrations, national police chief Tito Karnavian told police during a security exercise in the capital, Jakarta. The FPI said it aimed to enforce a fatwa, or decree, issued by Indonesia s Islamic Clerical Council in 2016 prohibiting business owners from forcing employees to wear Christmas clothing. We will raid businesses in anticipation of them being stubborn about this and we will be accompanied by police, said Novel Bakmukmin, head of the FPI s Jakarta chapter. Employers forcing staff to wear Christmas clothes were violating their rights. Businesses should be aware that there should be no forcing, he said. The Islamic Clerical Council s decrees are not legally binding but serve as guidelines for Indonesian Muslims. Christmas is widely celebrated across Indonesia and holiday decorations are ubiquitous, especially at shops, restaurants and malls where many enthusiastic workers - even Muslims - don Santa hats or elf costumes. The FPI built its reputation with raids on restaurants and bars serving alcohol during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. In recent years, it has turned its attention to Christian celebrations. The group has also said it wants the Jakarta city government to stop sponsoring New Year celebrations, which attract many thousands of people. About 90,000 police officers will be on duty cross the country during the end-of-year holidays, in an operation largely aimed at preventing militant attacks. Attacks on churches in Jakarta and elsewhere on Christmas Eve in 2000, killed nearly 20 people. Ever since, authorities have stepped up security at churches and tourist spots for the holiday. | 0fake |
Elizabeth Warren Delivers A MAJOR ‘F*ck You’ To Trump In Grad Speech (VIDEO) | Since the beginning of Donald Trump s terrible offensive and divisive campaign, Elizabeth Warren has been one of the only politicians with enough balls to stand up to the presumptive Republican nominee and call him out on his bullsh*t. She s proven that Trump basically crumbles whenever a strong woman goes up against him, and her most recent anti-Trump comments show just how capable she is in taking The Donald on.In a commencement address at Bridgewater State University, Warren hilariously mocked Trump once again, clearly following in President Obama s footsteps after he blasted Trump in a recent graduation speech at Rutgers University. After telling the graduating class to sing like no one is listening and dance like no one is watching, the Massachusetts senator gave them some more applicable advice be ready for anything, because you never know what life has in store for you. Poking fun at the orange-skinned business mogul, Warren said: Heck, on my day of graduation, I never imagined I would visit foreign countries. I never imagined I would be a commencement speaker. I never imagined I would get into a Twitter war with Donald Trump. But here I am, living the life! You can watch that hilarious moment in Warren s speech below:The crowd couldn t get enough and gave Warren a deafening applause for her efforts in being one of the few people tough enough to try and bring the disgraced candidate down. Warren also gave the graduating class some advice about dealing with naysayers who these days, say it in nastier and nastier ways. Pulling from some amazing pop culture references, Warren said: As one of the great philosophers of our time has said, Haters going to hate, hate, hate hate, hate. Knowing who you are helps you Shake It Off. (applause) Okay, I promised I wouldn t sing, and I definitely can t dance like Britney Spears. It was an amazing speech, and the fact that it came at Trump s expense made it so much better. After the commencement, Warren continued to insult Trump as she spoke to reporters. She said: I think that Donald Trump is a truly dangerous man and there is some risk that he could be president of the United States. I think it s time for all of us to pay careful attention to him and to the issues that he has raised and to start fighting back. Warren also continued to tease us with the idea of ticketing up with the chosen Democratic nominee. She wouldn t give a straight answer on whether or not she would run for vice president if offered the job, but said, I have a job I love and I wake up every morning eager to do that. It s uncertain if Warren will end up on the ticket, but she s definitely proven time and time again that she can handle Trump s nonsense with ease, and that makes her an even greater asset to the Democratic nominee.Featured image is a screenshot | 1real |
Supreme Court firmly backs abortion rights, tosses Texas law | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down a Texas abortion law imposing strict regulations on doctors and facilities in the strongest endorsement of abortion rights in America in more than two decades. The 5-3 ruling held that the Republican-backed 2013 Texas law placed an undue burden on women exercising their right under the U.S. Constitution to end a pregnancy, established in the court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The abortion providers who challenged the law said it was medically unnecessary and specifically intended to shut clinics. Texas officials said it was intended to protect women’s health. The ruling means similar laws in other states are probably unconstitutional and could put in jeopardy other types of abortion restrictions enacted in various conservative states. “The decision should send a loud signal to politicians that they can no longer hide behind sham rationales to shut down clinics and prevent a woman who has decided to end a pregnancy from getting the care she needs,” said Jennifer Dalven, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. President Barack Obama, whose administration backed the abortion providers in the court challenge, said in a statement he was “pleased to see the Supreme Court protect women’s rights and health” and that restrictions like those in Texas “harm women’s health and place an unconstitutional obstacle in the path of a woman’s reproductive freedom.” Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the court’s four liberal members in the ruling, with the remaining three conservatives dissenting. The court declared that both key provisions of the law - requiring abortion doctors to have difficult-to-obtain “admitting privileges” at a local hospital and requiring clinics to have costly hospital-grade facilities - violated a woman’s right to an abortion. Writing for the court, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer said, “We conclude that neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes.” “Each places a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a pre-viability abortion, each constitutes an undue burden on abortion access, and each violates the federal Constitution,” Breyer added. Deferring to state legislatures over “questions of medical uncertainty is also inconsistent with this court’s case law,” Breyer added. The ruling in the case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, represented the most vigorous affirmation of abortion rights in the United States since a 1992 ruling affirmed a woman’s right to have the procedure. On a warm sunny summer day, hundreds of people on both sides of the issue converged on the Supreme Court building, with abortion rights advocates dancing and celebrating after the ruling. “We’re ecstatic. The reality is today women won,” abortion rights activist Marcela Howell said. The law was passed by a Republican-led legislature and signed by a Republican governor in 2013. Ten states currently have admitting privileges requirements on the books while six have laws requiring hospital-grade facilities. Lower courts have blocked admitting privileges provisions in five states and halted facilities regulations in two states. “The decision erodes states’ lawmaking authority to safeguard the health and safety of women and subjects more innocent life to being lost. Texas’ goal is to protect innocent life, while ensuring the highest health and safety standards for women,” Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott said. Since the law was passed, the number of abortion clinics in Texas, the second-most-populous U.S. state with about 27 million people, had dropped from 41 to 19. The Supreme Court has appeals pending in two cases involving admitting privilege laws in Mississippi and Wisconsin on which it could act as soon as Tuesday. The Texas law required abortion doctors to have “admitting privileges,” a type of formal affiliation, at a hospital within 30 miles (48 km) of the clinic so they can treat patients needing surgery or other critical care. The law also required clinic buildings to possess costly, hospital-grade facilities. These regulations covered numerous building features such as corridor width, the swinging motion of doors, floor tiles, parking spaces, elevator size, ventilation, electrical wiring, plumbing, floor tiling and even the angle that water flows from drinking fountains. Americans remain closely divided over whether abortion should be legal. In a Reuters/Ipsos online poll involving 6,769 U.S. adults conducted from June 3 to June 22, 47 percent of respondents said abortion generally should be legal and 42 percent said it generally should be illegal. Views on abortion in the United States have changed very little over the decades, according to historical polling data. The last time the justices decided a major abortion case was nine years ago when they ruled 5-4 to uphold a federal law banning a late-term abortion procedure. Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, which led the challenge to the Texas law, said, “Every day Whole Woman’s Health treats our patients with compassion, respect and dignity - and today the Supreme Court did the same. We’re thrilled that today justice was served and our clinics stay open.” Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Twitter called the ruling “a victory for women in Texas and across America.” “This fight isn’t over: The next president has to protect women’s health. Women won’t be ‘punished’ for exercising their basic rights,” she said, a dig at presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who once suggested women who get illegal abortions should face “some sort of punishment.” The presidential election is Nov. 8. Some U.S. states have pursued a variety of restrictions on abortion, including banning certain types of procedures, prohibiting it after a certain number of weeks of gestation, requiring parental permission for girls until a certain age, imposing waiting periods or mandatory counseling, and others. “It’s exceedingly unfortunate that the court has taken the ability to protect women’s health out of the hands of Texas citizens and their duly-elected representatives,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito dissented. The normally nine-justice court was one member short after the Feb. 13 death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who consistently opposed abortion in past rulings. | 0fake |
Republican Senator Collins says talks on tax bill 'productive' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins, who has demanded changes to a Republican tax bill, said she had “good discussions” with the White House and colleagues on the legislation and that “productive negotiations” continue. “Many of these discussions have focused on my proposals to help middle-income families, including allowing a deduction for property taxes and helping to lower insurance premiums on the individual market to offset any increases that might result from repealing the individual mandate,” Collins said in a statement. Republican Senator Bob Corker, who has expressed concerns about the bill’s effect on the deficit, said details about a provision of the legislation known as a “trigger,” which would raise taxes if expected economic growth does not materialize, will be unveiled on Thursday. | 0fake |
Severe Allergies to Peanuts, Eggs and Dairy Directly Linked to Ingredients in Common Vaccines | . Severe Allergies to Peanuts, Eggs and Dairy Directly Linked to Ingredients in Common Vaccines Have you read The Peanut Allergy Epidemic by historian Heather Fraser? She begins by asking us wh... http://humansarefree.com/2016/10/severe-allergies-to-peanuts-eggs-and.html Have you read The Peanut Allergy Epidemic by historian Heather Fraser? She begins by asking us why the peanut allergy epidemic is only found in Western cultures, where at least 4 million people experience the mysterious phenomenon, yet there are virtually no reported cases in India, where peanuts just so happen to be the main ingredient in most baby food products. Consider this: one century ago, you couldn't find anyone allergic to peanuts, but now it's commonplace for parents to send EpiPens to school for the teacher and nurse to keep near to their children, just in case someone so much as opens a snack in the room that contains peanuts, or even if someone opens a food product that was so much as manufactured in "a facility that processes peanuts." What's wrong with the human body that it would go into anaphylactic shock from a seemingly harmless food ingredient that couldn't harm a soul a hundred years ago? Today, peanuts cause the most common severe food allergy reactions , and are the number one cause of death from food reactions, and for good reason: Peanut oil was never meant to be put in a syringe and injected into muscle tissue. Peanut oil is a non-stated, hidden ingredient in children's vaccines Back in 2010, one family had their 6-month-old child taken away from them and were accused in court of shaken baby syndrome, until their attorney presented corroborating medical information about the child's anaphylactic reaction and swelling around the baby boy's brain (subdural hemorrhages) that occurred as an immediate response to vaccinations . Which vaccines were those, you may be wondering? DTaP, Prevnar7 (pneumococcal) and Rotateq (Rotavirus vaccine). Guess what? The administered vaccines contained unlabeled peanut oil, which was used as an adjuvant, but was not listed on the vaccine inserts. The doctor basically proved to the court that the child's allergic reaction to having peanut oil injected by vaccine had caused the massive brain swelling reaction that sent the boy into shock. False medical theory: The stronger the allergic reaction to vaccine ingredients, the longer the immunity lasts In the mid-1960s, peanut oils were first introduced into vaccines because scientists hypothesized they could "prolong" immunity. Somehow, they thought, the oil would act as a time release capsule. Within 20 years, peanut oil was the preferred "excipient" – meaning a substance formulated alongside the active ingredient of a medication for the purpose of long-term stabilization. The dangers of its use, however, were well-documented. The problem ? Doctors and scientists had lumped immune response with immunity, making a grave mistake that's still assumed to be true today. The myth is that the greater the allergic response to the vaccine, the greater the immunity that is conferred. Wrong! Today, anyone who challenges this myth is referred to as anti-science, anti-vaccine and a conspiracy theorist. There is no faster way for a doctor to lose their license to practice medicine than to challenge this commandment of vaccine mythology. 1980 to 2016: Correlating the massive surge in severe childhood allergies When did these childhood allergies experience a massive upsurge in number? Answer: When the mandated schedule of the number and frequency of vaccines for children under age 7 doubled, and then tripled. Take a look: 1980 – 20 vaccines 1995 – 40 vaccines 2016 – 70 vaccines What's the easiest way to send a child's body into anaphylactic shock and create severe food allergies for the rest of his/her life? Inject intact proteins from peanuts, eggs and dairy (casein) products directly into the infant's muscle tissue 36 times before the age of 18 months. When normal food becomes extremely toxic to children, the parents should review how those specific ingredients have been introduced to their infant's bodies, and what other dangerous "trace amounts" of carcinogens, antibiotics, adjuvants, emulsifiers, preservatives, additives, brewing agents, carriers and "immune response stimulants" are being injected into the body repeatedly for no logical reason. Vaccines have never been proven safe or effective ; only studies done by the manufacturers themselves, which have subsequently been proven fraudulent, altered and skewed, are published in order to fool the public. Do you really know what's in most vaccines? Have you ever read the ingredients, warnings, reactions and the documented side effects on a vaccine insert? Here is a summary of the most dangerous vaccine ingredients, for your convenience: 1. Bovine cow serum: Extracted from cow skin. When injected causes connective tissue disorders, arthritis and lupus; also shortness of breath, low blood pressure, chest pain and skin reactions. 2. Sorbitol: Synthetic sweetener which metabolizes very slowly and aggravates IBS and gastrointestinal issues. 3. Hydrolyzed gelatin: Derived from the collagen inside animals' skin and bones. Injecting gelatin poses the risk of infection from synthetic growth hormones and BSE infectivity (mad cow disease). 4. Sodium chloride: Raises blood pressure and inhibits muscle contraction and growth. 5. Egg protein: Vaccines are prepared in eggs (certainly not organic). May contain growth hormones, antibiotics, and salmonella bacteria. 6. Casein: Also known as cow's milk protein, many children experience severe allergic and life-threatening reactions to traces of casein, commonly found in the DTaP vaccine. 7. Thimerosal: A neurotoxic mercury which causes autism: There are 25 mcg in one average flu vaccine, and the EPA safety limit is 5 micrograms, so children who are vaccinated simultaneously with multiple vaccines receive over 10 times the safety limit of mercury in one day. 8. Human albumin: The protein portion of blood from pooled human venous plasma; when injected causes fever, chills, hives, rash, headache, nausea, breathing difficulty, and rapid heart rate. 9. Formaldehyde: Highly carcinogenic fluid used to embalm corpses. Ranked one of the most hazardous compounds to human health; can cause liver damage, gastrointestinal issues, reproductive deformation, respiratory distress and cancer. Peanut oil? Enough said! Source and references: Naturalnews.com ; TheDoctorWithin.com ; NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov ; VacTruth.com Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.
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ANONYMOUS VIDEO Of Bill Clinton Raping 13 Yr Old Could End It All For Crooked Hillary | Anonymous is a loosely associated international network of activists and hacktivists. They have made a video threatening they are are about to plunge the election into chaos for sexual abuse enabler Crooked Hillary, as they claim to have a sex tape showing Bill Clinton raping a 13 year old girl and will be releasing it. The alleged rape was filmed on billionaire buddy and convicted pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein s Pedophile Island. Anonymous claims Hillary knew about this and has been hiding it. | 1real |
New Hampshire governor asks Trump to stop Indonesian deportation effort | BOSTON (Reuters) - New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu on Monday publicly called on U.S. President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican, to halt an effort to deport 69 Indonesian Christians who fled violence in that country two decades ago and are living illegally in the state. The group had been living near the state’s coast under the terms of a 2010 deal worked out with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that allowed them to remain so long as they handed in their passports and turned up for regular check-ins with immigration officials. That changed starting in August when members of the group who arrived for scheduled meetings with ICE officials at the agency’s Manchester, New Hampshire, office were told to buy one-way plane tickets back to Indonesia, which they fled after 1998 riots that left about 1,000 people dead. “I am respectfully requesting that your administration reconsider its decision to deport these individuals, and I urge a resolution that will allow them to remain in the United States,” Sununu said in a letter to Trump dated Friday, which his office made public on Monday. Several members of the group, who are all ethnic Chinese, told Reuters they fear that they would face discrimination or violence if they returned to the world’s largest majority-Muslim country. “While I firmly believe that we must take steps to curb illegal immigration, it is also imperative that we make the process for legal immigration more streamlined and practical,” Sununu wrote. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Immigration advocates have filed lawsuits in Boston on behalf of 47 members of the group asking a federal court judge to intervene. Chief U.S. District Judge Patti Saris has ordered a stay to the deportations, but has indicated that she has little jurisdiction over immigration, which is handled by the Executive Office for Immigration review. She is currently weighing whether she can order a longer delay to give the affected people, many of whom have U.S.-born children, time to renew their efforts to gain legal status. Most of the group entered the United States legally on tourist visas following the riots, which erupted at the start of the Asian financial crisis. They overstayed their visas and failed to apply for asylum on time, but have been allowed to live openly under the accord with ICE, negotiated with the help of U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat. | 0fake |
DEMOCRAT MOCKS AMERICANS For Believing ‘Climate Change’ Is Part Of Obamatrade: Two Weeks Later…Obama Announces ‘Climate Change’ Is Part of Obamatrade | Not that it matters, but since it appears that no one has read the bill, it s probably not that unlikely that Democrat senator Ron Wyden misspoke In a speech on the Senate floor on May 22, Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon ridiculed those who thought climate change regulation would be part of Obamatrade:We ve heard suggested, for example, that it s a backdoor route to immigration reform or action on climate change . My sense is that the rate these hypotheticals are going, you re bound to hear that a future president working on a trade deal might have second thoughts about the Louisiana purchase.But in an interview on NPR s Marketplace yesterday (June 3), President Obama said that enforcing climate change regulations will indeed be part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Obamatrade pact that he is currently negotiating with Malaysia and 10 other countries. He said:If we want to solve something like climate change, which is one of my highest priorities, then I ve got to be able to get into places like Malaysia, and say to them, this is in your interest. What leverage do I have to get them to stop deforestation? Well part of the leverage is if I m in a trade relationship with them that allows me to raise standards.In December, Obama will negotiate a multi-country climate agreement in Paris. We already know from Obama s joint announcement with China that he will commit the United States to a huge reduction in carbon emissions of 26%-28% from 2005 levels, but he will let China, already a much larger carbon emitter, continue to expand its carbon emissions until 2030.Via: American Thinker | 1real |
Coal mine explosion kills nine workers in northern China: Xinhua | BEIJING (Reuters) - An explosion late on Wednesday at a small coal mine in China s northern province of Heilongjiang killed nine workers, the official Xinhua News Agency said on Thursday. The incident occurred at the Yuchen coal mine, which has 60,000 tonnes of annual production capacity, located in the city of Jixi. The latest accident follows an announcement by China s State Council on Aug. 31 to launch a new round of safety checks at coal mines and chemical plants starting in September after injuries during an incident at a state-owned coal mine in August. China s coal output in August fell to a 10-month low, data from the National Statistics Bureau showed on Thursday, suggesting mines have reduced production in the wake of major accidents. | 0fake |
“SHE’S NO PUSHOVER”: How Sarah Huckabee Sanders Made It To The White House Podium | Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders found herself behind the briefing room lectern last Wednesday fielding questions about the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the investigation into Russia s involvement in the 2016 campaign.Her calm, cool and collected approach to rapid-fire questioning stood in stark contrast to that of Sean Spicer s brash mannerisms.But Sanders isn t a soft pushover, and she can hold her own as evidenced by her approach to Thursday s briefing. Sanders often sighed and lamented that she had to repeat herself, answering reporters questions regarding Comey s firing with, I think I ve already answered this. Sanders approach to handling the press is due to years of political upbringing, her father told Fox News in an interview. And for those who might not recognize her face, Sanders maiden name, Huckabee, is a dead giveaway for just what kind of political upbringing that was.Family MattersThe daughter of former two-time Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sanders grew up in politics in a way that many kids don t, Huckabee said. I always say that when most kids are 7 or 8 years old out jumping rope, she was sitting at the kitchen table listening to [political commentators] analyze poll results, he said.Sanders was consistently ingrained in her father s own political aspirations, serving as his field director for his 2002 gubernatorial reelection campaign and national political director during his 2008 presidential bid. In 2016, she ran his presidential campaign.But it was growing up in the Arkansas governor s mansion as a young teenager that prepared Sanders for her current role as deputy press secretary, Huckabee said.Huckabee became governor in the summer of 1996 as the then-Democratic Gov. Jim Guy Tucker was convicted of fraud. Huckabee describes the transition and the media during that time as hostile and brutal as the legislature was the most lopsided in the country worse than that of Massachusetts or Maine, he said. At the time, Huckabee said, Sanders was in junior high school. [Sanders] saw how utterly unfair and petty the press can be for even simple things, Huckabee said. So having grown up with that, I think people don t understand it s not just that she presents a sort of sense of being beyond it; she really is. She s seen it her whole life. But Huckabee also credits his daughter s poise behind the briefing room podium to another familial matter growing up with two older brothers. She grew up pretty doggone tough. She had to, as a matter of survival, Huckabee said. She s got a very sweet heart, but she s tough, and she can handle herself. She s had to take all kinds of gruff from her brothers, so she s pretty fearless. Huckabee added that as his youngest child and his only daughter at that Sanders was at time spoiled by her parents. But even still, the Huckabees sought to instill a spirit of hard work in all the children, he said. She s always been raised to tell the truth, take responsibility for her own actions, to work hard for what she wants in life. Even as teenagers, when they went to things like church camp, we wouldn t pay their tuition, he said. We told them that they needed to work in the cafeteria or snack bar to cover their costs not because it was absolutely necessary, but because we wanted them to understand and appreciate that everything costs something. Road to the White HouseHuckabee describes his daughter as the type who was always ambitious. Like him, Sanders attended Ouachita Baptist University, a private liberal arts school in southwest Arkansas where she was student body president.Following college, Sanders took a job at the Department of Education under the Bush administration, according to a 2007 profile in Time. She s always been raised to tell the truth, take responsibility for her own actions, to work hard for what she wants in life. Sanders resume includes a bevy of GOP campaigns: working on former President George W. Bush s reelection campaign in 2004, acting as a senior advisor to Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton s Senate bid and managing other Arkansas Sen. John Boozman s bid for Senate.Outside of campaigning, Sanders worked as a national campaign manager for Bono s ONE Campaign, the grassroots advocacy organization aimed at ending poverty.She also cofounded the political consulting firm in Little Rock, Second Street Strategies, which her husband is also involved with.In 2010, Sanders was named to Time s 40 Under 40 list along with longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, civil rights leader Ben Jealous and Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich.But it was after Huckabee s withdrawal from the Republican-heavy field of presidential candidates in February 2016 when Sanders was tapped by the Trump campaign as a senior advisor and eventual on-air surrogate. I volunteered to join Mr. Trump s campaign because he is a champion of working families, not Washington-Wall Street elites, Sanders said in a statement released by the campaign at the time.Her statement added praise for Trump s anti-abortion and pro-marriage stance.Next StepsAs Sanders has gained more notoriety in the Trump administration often appearing on camera to defend the president s actions and agenda rumors circulated among journalists and White House aides about her future in the Trump administration.Her time behind the podium this week in Spicer s absence could be an audition for his job, anonymous White House aides reportedly told Politico. We re all under the impression that Sanders is auditioning for a greater role in the Trump administration and don t rule out Spicer s job, a White House aide told Fox News in response to the Politico report.But Sanders dismissed the idea as just another ridiculous story. READ MORE: NYP | 1real |
Evil Russian Propaganda From The Evil Russian Invaders : Information | Evil Russian Propaganda From The Evil Russian Invaders By Craig Murray
" TruePublica " - If you would like to listen to some evil Russian propaganda, here is my new interview on Sputnik News .
The BBC World Service was founded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and funded by them directly for six decades, until a cosmetic change last year. Its specific purpose is to spread British values and the British view of the world abroad. It specifically, on its dozens of different national services, gives an opportunity to dissident voices who cannot get on their mainstream media. The Americans spend hundreds of millions annually on outfits like RFE/RL to do the same. Yet when the Russians do precisely the same thing on a much smaller scale, for example by enabling you to listen to me, this is portrayed as evil propaganda.
Fortunately we have the Henry Jackson Society to defend you from it. The Henry Jackson Society, supported by Liam Fox, Jim Murphy and pretty well every other right wing enthusiast you can name, is of course a great believer in free markets. And its sense of the market has detected that its old product of a constant stream of Islamophobia is becoming dated, and currently buyers want Russophobia. Whatever your phobia, the Henry Jackson Society will have some to sell you, so here we have their new Manual of Russophobia .
Written by Dr Andrew Foxall, Director of the Henry Jackson Societys so-called Centre for Russian Studies, has by brilliant research exposed the fact that Jeremy Corbyn, Seumas Milne, Tommy Sheridan and Colin Fox have all appeared on Russia Today television. And that a tiny group of left wingers I have never heard of once met in a pub with some Russian nationalists from the Ukraine. Funniest of all is the contention that CND is funded by the Russians.
Given that the Henry Jackson Society is, and always has been, financed by CIA money laundered through American New World Order supporting private foundations, this is rather amusing. This pathetically thin hate manual is now on the desk of every Conservative and New Labour Progress Group MP.
It is of course no coincidence that the overt security service operations operate in close co-ordination with the supposedly covert ones. The same day that the Henry Jackson Society paper was released, the head of MI5 gave an interview to the Guardian about the Russian threat. The Russians are not just coming, they are here! You cant see them because they are inside your laptop, where the Russian government apparently want to steal all your secrets. Our security services dont like the competition. That is their job.
Apparently the Russians are out to steal Britains industrial secrets, like how the Nissan Qasghqai is built or how the Chinese and French build Hinkley Point. I hope they dont get the blueprints of the new Dyson. Andrew Parker has of course to work hard as MI5 to find a new enemy. While he has yet again repeated the ludicrous claim that there are 3,000 Islamic terrorists in the UK, he must realise people will query the low productivity of these terrorists when it comes to killing anybody.
Russophobia has of course peaked in the US with Clintons claims that it is Russia which is revealing her gross corruption and all her opponents are servants of Russia. She wants to face down Russia in Syria, in order to give it to the Islamic terrorists of whom Andrew Parker worries we have 3,000 in the UK. Clintons claims of Russian involvement in hacking her entourage are totally unfounded, hence the lack of evidence. I am however surprised there have been no serious attempts to fabricate some.
Who benefits from this ratcheting up of anti-Russian rhetoric to hotter than cold war levels? Why the armaments and security industries, of course. Expect more donations to politicians and their foundations, and more pesky corruption investigations to be dropped by prosecuting authorities.
The truth is that Russia is not our enemy. There is no chance that Russia will attack the UK or US. It has never happened and it never will. Nor is it remotely likely that Russia will attack any EU member state. The only thing that can make such a contingency even a 0.1% possibility, is the continuing gross anti-Russian rhetoric and propaganda and continued forward stationing of NATO assets. History from WWI to the Gulf shows that military build-up can in itself cause conflict.
The danger to the world is us.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was a British Ambassador from August 2002 to October 2004. Murray complained to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in November 2002, 2003 and in June 2004 that intelligence linking the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan to al-Qaeda was unreliable, immoral and illegal, as it was thought to have been obtained through torture. For that the British government sacked him. | 1real |
Щит Евфрата: удастся ли замысел Вашингтона? | Новое восточное обозрение | Страна: Сирия В своей новой статье постоянный обозреватель НВО Тони Карталучи отмечает, что начиная с 2012 года Вашингтон практически упрашивал турецкие войска вторгнуться в Сирию, чтобы создать там «бесполетную зону» и обеспечить прикрытие контролируемым Вашингтоном «умеренным силам». При этом западные аналитики открыто признают, что данная зона нужна им для свержения сирийского режима, а также что они планируют её расширять. В этой связи проведение Анкарой операции «Щит Евфрата» можно считать своеобразным подарком для Вашингтона, хотя до сих пор остается непонятным, отважится ли Турция посягнуть на новые территории в Сирии и будет ли она продолжать поставки оружия в сирийский город Ракка, который находится в руках боевиков ДАИШ. С полной версией статьи вы можете ознакомиться здесь . Популярные статьи | 1real |
WALMART Removes Controversial T-shirt But Black Lives Matter Tees Remain | Walmart has pulled all its Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter shirts after police complain they are offensive. The Fraternal Order of Police wrote to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon on Tuesday, complaining that the store should not aim to profit off racial tensions in the US.THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE PRESIDENT WAS DEAD ON IN HIS LETTER TO THE WALMART CEO: Commercializing our differences will not help our local police and communities to build greater trust and respect for one another Turning a buck on strained relationships will not contribute to the healing process, said the national FOP s president, Chuck Canterbury. THE FOP PRESIDENT SAID HE DIDN T FEEL IT NECESSARY TO REMOVE ALL OTHER BLACK LIVES MATTER ITEMS.We found quite the selection on the Walmart website:The Bulletproof Black Lives Matter items were removed Your thoughts?Read more: Daily Mail | 1real |
POLICE REFUSED To Believe German Man’s Emergency Call Saying Girlfriend Was Being Raped By Refugee With Machete While Camping | The ban, which also applies to women and children and elderly relatives from war torn countries, has been put in place for two years after the country revealed the crisis will cost 37bn in 2017.Now just days after the Bundestag voted to speed up deportation and mandatory finger printing, it s emerged they have outlined the country needs 300,000 people a YEAR for the next 40 years to stop population decline. Express UKA major shake up is underway in Germany after police refused to take seriously a 999 call from a young man who called in to say his girlfriend was being raped yards from him.The officer who took the call did not believe the desperate man on the other end of the line, and said: You are not messing with me I hope? The terrified boyfriend had been threatened with a machete when the Ghanaian refugee entered the tent he shared with his girlfriend at a campsite near Bonn and told to remain where he was.But the boyfriend had a hard time getting police to take him seriously. Hmm, was the first reaction from the female police officer on the line. Where exactly is this rape happening? she added.The man was forced to watch as the attacker violated his 23-year-old partner and the police never arrived.The 26-year-old boyfriend eventually scooped her up and began walking with her along a main road looking for help.He called police a second time and again they did not take their account of what happened at face value.Finally, nearly 30 minutes later, officers arrived and the victim was taken to hospital.Frank Piontek, spokesman for the Bonn Police, conceded that the incoming official in the control centre, after our findings, did not initially correctly categorize the circumstances of the first call and reacted inappropriately in her language. The second call was also not handled properly, he added, saying a major review of procedures is underway following the attack in April.A photofit picture of the attacker led to his arrest and DNA testing confirmed his guilt.A CD player he stole from the tent was found at his refugee centre.He tried to flee when police moved in to arrest him, flinging a rucksack at one officer.It turned out that the backpack was stolen from a barbecue party shortly before the rape occurred. Daily MailWelcome to the violent new Germany, thanks to Chancellor Angela Merkel, the woman who snubbed President Trump on his recent visit over his views on tightening immigration into America from terror nations, as he bravely stands in the face of liberal opposition determined to protect the safety of United States citizens. | 1real |
Sean Spicer: No Evidence of Connection Between Trump Campaign and Russia - Breitbart | White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer ripped into the media on Friday for continuing to ask questions about a connection between the Trump campaign and Russia, noting that there’s been no evidence of that. [“Everyone who’s been briefed on this subject, from Republican to Democrat to CIA — former Obama administration’s [Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper, [CIA Director John] Brennan, you name it — all of the people come back with the same conclusion … that there’s been no evidence,” he said at the White House press briefing. Spicer said if anyone was trying to engage with Russia, it was Hillary Clinton. “It was Hillary Clinton, who was the architect of the last administration’s failed reset policy — she told Russian state TV that it was designed to strengthen Russia. That was their goal: to strengthen Russia,” he said. “She used her office to make concession after concession, selling off of our country’s uranium, paid speeches, paid deals, getting personal calls from Vladimir Putin. I think if there’s — really want to talk about a Russian connection and the substance, that’s where we should be looking,” he added. Spicer was referring to how in 2010, of State Clinton was one of nine to sign off on Russia’s purchase of a controlling stake in Uranium One, an international mining company headquartered in Canada. Around the same time, a Russian investment bank paid Bill Clinton $500, 000 to give a speech. “When you talk about connections to Russia, the only connection that anyone’s made with President Trump is multiple years ago he hosted a pageant there and he’s — some of the — you know, he owns condos around the world and some of them were sold to some Russians and I think he sold a house to one several years back. That’s his connection,” he said. “So when you compare the two sides in terms of who’s actually engaging with Russia, trying to strengthen them, trying to act with them, trying to interact with them, it is night and day between our actions and her actions,” he said. “And yet no one questioned what she was doing or how she was handling it. ” Critics of President Trump have argued that his campaign aides colluded with Russia to help him get elected. While intelligence officials have assessed that Russia tried to interfere in the U. S. elections in favor of Trump by hacking into the Democratic National Committee and Clinton aide John Podesta and leaking embarrassing emails, there has been no evidence that Russia affected the outcome of the election or that there was collusion with Trump campaign officials. The FBI is investigating the matter, and the House and Senate intelligence committees are also investigating it. But Clapper told NBC News on March 5 that no evidence existed that showed any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Not to my knowledge,” he said, when asked if any evidence existed. Clapper said there could have been information found since he left the government on January 20, but as of then, “We had no evidence of such collusion. ” | 0fake |
Donald Trump Vows to Rip Up Trade Deals and Confront China - The New York Times | MONESSEN, Pa. — Donald J. Trump vowed on Tuesday to rip up international trade deals and start an unrelenting offensive against Chinese economic practices, framing his contest with Hillary Clinton as a choice between nationalism and the policies of “a leadership class that worships globalism. ” Speaking in western Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump sought to turn the page on weeks of campaign turmoil by returning to a core set of economic grievances that have animated his candidacy from the start. He threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement and pledged to label China a currency manipulator and impose punitive tariffs on Chinese goods. He attacked Mrs. Clinton on her past support for the Partnership, a trade pact negotiated by the Obama administration, and challenged her to pledge that she would void the agreement in its entirety. Noting that Mrs. Clinton had backed agreements like Nafta in the past, Mr. Trump warned, “She will betray you again. ” At a rally later in the day in eastern Ohio, Mr. Trump attacked the Partnership in more provocative terms, saying it was a “rape of our country. ” As a policy manifesto, Mr. Trump’s Pennsylvania speech was an attack on the economic orthodoxy that has dominated the Republican Party since World War II. It is an article of faith among establishment Republicans and allied groups like the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents the interests of large corporations, that trade is good and more trade is better. Mr. Trump, by contrast, has made blistering attacks on trade his primary economic theme. In his address he rejected the standard view that countries benefit by importing goods, arguing that globalization helped “the financial elite,” while leaving “millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache. ” It is a critique that has been leveled for years, mainly by a small group of liberal economists who have gained little traction even on the Democratic side. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump not only embraced their views, but also cited the work of the liberal Economic Policy Institute by name. Mr. Trump, as president, would have significant authority to raise trade barriers, and his speech Tuesday included his most detailed account to date of his plans to do so, saying that he would pull the United States from Nafta if Mexico and Canada did not agree to renegotiate it. But it is far from clear that any president has the power to reverse globalization. Under existing law, Mr. Trump could impose tariffs only on specific imports. The most likely effect would be to shift production to other nations. Mr. Trump’s address opened his first tour of the general election race. After he muddled around the political map since his last Republican rivals withdrew, and veered away from the campaign last week for a trip to Scotland, Mr. Trump’s tour this week through Pennsylvania and Ohio was the start of a concerted effort to carve a path to 270 electoral votes on daunting political terrain. The language and location of Mr. Trump’s speech encapsulated his aspirational strategy for the general election: His greatest source of support has been white men, and his campaign hopes to compete in traditionally states, like Pennsylvania and Michigan, to offset his deep unpopularity with Hispanic voters and women, which may put swing states like Florida and Colorado out of reach. Mr. Trump delivered his address at a steel plant in the heart of coal country, on a stage flanked by blocks of compressed steel wiring, aluminum cans and other metals. And for the second time in two weeks, he spoke carefully from a script. Aides to Mr. Trump, who has faced criticism throughout the race for factual exaggerations and outright falsehoods, circulated a copy of the speech with 128 footnotes documenting its claims. Still, Mr. Trump could not resist the occasional line to skewer Mrs. Clinton or boast of his own achievements. He said, for example, that he had forced her to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism. ” And he took credit for pressuring Mrs. Clinton to oppose the Partnership trade deal, though at the time she faced far greater pressure from a primary challenge on the left, from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Mr. Trump’s speech drew rebukes from two sides: The Clinton campaign attacked his credibility as a critic of free trade, and deployed Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a populist Democrat who is viewed as a potential running mate for Mrs. Clinton, to accuse Mr. Trump of hypocrisy. “With all of his personal experience profiting from making products overseas, Trump’s the perfect expert to talk about outsourcing,” Mr. Brown said, reciting a list of Trump products, from suits to picture frames, that he said were made in other countries. “We know just in my state alone where Donald Trump could have gone to make these things,” he added. Mr. Trump also drew a cold response from traditionally interests for his heated attacks on international trade agreements. The U. S. Chamber of Commerce, which spends millions of dollars in federal elections, almost entirely in support of Republican candidates, criticized Mr. Trump’s speech on Twitter and claimed that his policies would hurt the economy. “Even under scenario, Trump’s tariffs would strip us of at least 3. 5 million jobs,” the group wrote in one Twitter message. For Mr. Trump, who has shifted and doubled back on policy pronouncements, trade has been a rare area of consistency in the 2016 race. At nearly every campaign rally, Mr. Trump has knocked trade deals with China as unfair to the American worker so frequently as to make his percussive pronunciation of China a hallmark of impersonators. Mr. Trump appeared in his speech to criticism from economists and business groups that have argued his policy proposals would lead to a damaging trade war with China and perhaps other countries. “We already have a trade war,” Mr. Trump told the crowd, departing from his prepared remarks. “And we’re losing, badly. ” Mr. Trump, who has struggled for months to win support from the conservative business community, also attended a in West Virginia on Tuesday hosted by a coal executive, Robert E. Murray. It remains to be seen if Mr. Trump will stick closely to the message he delivered in Pennsylvania. At an evening rally in eastern Ohio, he returned to a familiar set of themes, calling for a wall on the Mexican border and reiterating his vow to waterboard Islamic State terrorists. But to win that state in November, Mr. Trump hopes to outflank Mrs. Clinton with economically distressed voters who may have voted Democratic in the past, and trade remains an issue that stirs up voters across party lines. In a nod to potential crossover voters, Mr. Trump at one point on Tuesday quoted Mr. Sanders by name in criticizing Mrs. Clinton. Though he dwelled at greatest length in Pennsylvania on what he described as the damaging economic consequences of globalization, Mr. Trump also laced his remarks with broader nationalist language, arguing that the United States would lose its sovereignty and national pride by negotiating too freely with the world. “They get the expansion. We get the joblessness,” Mr. Trump said of trade deals with foreign countries. “That’s the way it works — not going to happen anymore. ” | 0fake |
Bundy Terrorists Claim God Told Them To Act Like Toddlers And Take Over Wildlife Refuge | Ammon Bundy and his wayward crew of temper tantrum-throwing white guys with guns are now claiming that God talked to them and told them to seize the federal wildlife refuge.On Friday, Bundy told a meeting of fellow right-wing domestic terrorists that he refuses to end the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge because the Lord told him to go there in the first place. I was asked to do this by the Lord. I did it how he told me to do it. It sounds like Bundy and his band are suffering from a form of mental illness. Because the Mormon church that Bundy is a member of sure doesn t agree with him.In a statement earlier this month, officials from the Church of Latter-day Saints rejected Bundy s claim that his seizure of federal property had anything to do with religion. Church leaders strongly condemn the armed seizure of the facility and are deeply troubled by the reports that those who have seized the facility suggest that they are doing so based on scriptural principles. This armed occupation can in no way be justified on a scriptural basis. Exactly, and that is why we can no longer tolerate this armed occupation. Bundy and his pals are committing treason and domestic terrorism. They have illegally carried guns on federal property, along with breaking and entering and threatening violence against federal officials. They have forced the town of Burns to live in fear as schools and businesses are closed to avoid putting innocent children and adults in harm s way.If Bundy and his group were a bunch of armed black people or Muslims, federal and local law enforcement would have already riddled the building with bullets on the first day and Ammon Bundy would look like Swiss cheese.But because these guys are white rednecks with guns, law enforcement is giving them free reign to do as they please. Bundy thinks him and his buddies should be able to walk free when this is all over and they assume the government will give in to their demands. If that were to happen, nothing will stop these terrorists from becoming more emboldened in the future. Perhaps they ll set their sights on the Capitol building or the White House next.This armed takeover has been totally unjustified from the very beginning. Not only have Dwight and Steven Hammond, the arsonist ranchers whom Bundy says he is fighting for, rejected his cause, history and the law are firmly against him as well.Bundy claims the federal government stole the land from ranchers, but that is far from the case.According to Oregon Live, the federal government has legally held the title to all public lands in Oregon since it was a territory. After exhaustive research, the Supreme Court also ruled in 1902 and 1935 that this is the case. Furthermore, ranchers have willingly sold and been paid fair value for their land by the federal government to expand the wildlife reserve over the years.In short, the Bundys do not have religion, history, nor the law on their side. They are terrorists, pure and simple, and they need to be arrested and thrown in prison, or treated just like we have treated terrorists in the Middle East, who ironically enough also claim religion justifies their cause.Featured Image: WMUR | 1real |
Media blackout as hundreds of black teens attack Temple U. students, police, a horse | Print
In a story that predictably did not make the mainstream media, and with video surveillance very difficult to find, a massive mob of black teens viciously attacked white Temple University students, police officers and even a police horse in Philadelphia on Friday night.
[…]
In the limited local coverage this story did receive, the race aspect was generally avoided. It is way past time to take back the media, and fill it with truth-tellers, not apologists.
“More than 150 teens, spread out in groups of 20 or 30, descended upon the campus at around 8:30 p.m. Friday — wreaking havoc for nearly two hours before eventually dispersing,” according to NBC 10 ….
But there is a reason for all of this horror, according to Solomon Jones of Philly.com . It evidently boils down to the progressive canard “white privilege.”
The black teens are feeling excluded because evil white “others” have come into their neighborhood and built rental properties for college students, raising the property values of their neighborhoods in a way that evidently excludes the angry teens, who were used to having their blighted turf unmolested. | 1real |
SUNDAY SCREENING: Overpill (2017) | This week s documentary film curated by our editorial team at 21WIRE. The US has a highly developed pharmaceutical industry offering treatments for all kinds of mental disorders. Millions of Americans are being medicated for ailments as diverse as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and many others. Even young children are being put on psychiatric drugs. If parents decline such treatment, social services may intervene. Many patients, who ve been taking these pills for years, insist that they do more harm than good. They have experienced disturbing side effects such as suicidal thoughts, addiction and even neurological damage. A lot of patients were put on their medication as children and by the time they were legally old enough to decide for themselves, they had already become addicted. They testify that breaking their dependency on the drugs is extremely difficult because, like any habit forming narcotic, they cause severe withdrawal symptoms.RTD meets some of the sufferers to hear their stories of battling to shake off prescribed medicines. Father of 5, Josh, was given anxiety medication, it caused Akathisia and Dystonia. Both are physical disorders causing involuntary and uncontrolled body movement and have left him disabled. Olivia s son was prescribed psychiatric drugs to treat Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD). Olivia soon noticed side effects and refused to continue giving him the pills. He was taken by social services and hospitalised. These stories and more.RTD meets a few of them. Watch this incredible documentary film:. Run time: 49 min Writer & Director: Petr Timofeev Distributor: RT-TV Novosti (2017)SEE MORE SUNDAY SCREENINGS HERE | 1real |
British PM May meets Iraqi PM Abadi in Baghdad | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May met with her Iraqi counterpart Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad on Wednesday, an Iraqi government spokesman said, her first visit to Iraq since coming to power last year. Britain is a main partner in the U.S.-led coalition helping Iraq defeat Islamic State, the hardline Sunni group that overran about a third of Iraq in 2014. The British government said in September that there were around 600 British soldiers on the ground in Iraq. They are primarily involved in training Iraqi security forces in battle-winning infantry, engineering and combat medical techniques, as well as providing courses on other skills including countering improvised explosive devices. Britain provided over 1,400 military personnel as part of its three-year involvement in the U.S.-led coalition. Iraqi-British relations are witnessing a marked improvement. We thank the British government for its support of Iraq in all fields, chiefly cooperation against terrorism, air support, and intelligence, Abadi said in a news conference. Britain had also helped Iraq on the issue of those who were internally displaced as a result of the Islamic State takeover and the subsequent campaign by Iraqi forces to dislodge the militants, he said. We will continue to support Iraq as a partner in order to enforce security, building, and stability, as well as in training Iraqi forces and efforts to return the displaced, Abadi s office quoted May as saying. The two leaders discussed British investments in Iraq. May pledged in a news conference to provide 20 million pounds ($26.8 million) in support of human rights and 30 million towards stabilization efforts and reforms. Britain agreed in March to arrange 10 billion pounds in loans to finance infrastructure projects in Iraq over a 10 year period, a program that would only benefit British companies. May affirmed her support for Iraq s unity and called on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to respect a united Iraq in all fields, Abadi s office said in a statement. She said in a news conference, through a translator, that she wanted to see a united and inclusive Iraq . Iraq s Kurds voted overwhelmingly to break away from Iraq in a Sept. 25 referendum, defying the central government in Baghdad and alarming neighboring Turkey and Iran who have their own Kurdish minorities. The Iraqi government responded by seizing the Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk and other territory disputed between the Kurds and the central government. It also banned direct flights to Kurdistan and demanded control over border crossings. Long-serving Kurdish president Masoud Barzani stepped down over the affair and the regional government led by his nephew Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has tried to negotiate an end to the confrontation. A KRG spokesman told Reuters there were no plans for May to visit the region s capital Erbil. ($1 = 0.7463 pounds) | 0fake |
New study suggests that religious people have less understanding of the world | Tue, 25 Oct 2016 15:07 UTC © Getty Images The researchers compared believers in God to people with autism, saying both struggle to distinguish between the physical and the mental. Religious people are more likely to have a poorer understanding of the world and are more likely to believe objects like rocks and paper have human qualities, scientists say. Researchers at the University of Helsinki compared believers in God or the paranormal to people with autism after finding they tend to struggle to understand the realities of the world around us. Religious beliefs were linked with a weaker ability to understand physical and biological phenomenon such as volcanoes, flowers, rocks and wind without giving them human qualities. Believers were more likely to think that inanimate objects such as metal, oil, clothes and paper can think and feel, and agree with statements such as "Stones sense the cold". Marjaana Lindeman and Annika Svedholm-Häkkinen, who completed the study, said: " The more the participants believed in religious or other paranormal phenomena, the lower their intuitive physics skills, mechanical and mental rotation abilities, school grades in mathematics and physics, and knowledge about physical and biological phenomena were... and the more they regarded inanimate targets as mental phenomena" . The study defined "mental" as having human characteristics such as thoughts and sprit. Researchers said their findings suggest people's lack of understanding about the physical world means they apply their own, human characteristics to the whole universe, "resulting in belief in demons, gods, and other supernatural phenomena ". This confusion between mental and physical qualities "has [also] been recognised mainly among ancient people and small children", they added. The scientists compared religious believers to people with autism, saying both struggle to distinguish between the mental and the physical, although autistic people are at the opposite end of the spectrum because they often see the world as entirely physical and struggle to understand the mental state of others. Ms Lindeman and Ms Svedholm-Häkkinen asked 258 Finnish people to report how much they agreed that "there exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God" and whether they believed in paranormal phenomena such as telepathy and visions of the future. They then matched their answers with a range of other factors, including exam results, survey answers and performances on different tests. They also found that people who believe in God and the paranormal are more likely to be women and tend to base their actions on instinct rather than analytical thinking. Previous studies have suggested religious people tend to have a lower IQ and are more likely to believe literally in what scientists called "bullshit statements" including phrases like "Earth wants water" and "Force knows its direction". However, they are also found to be happier and have greater life satisfaction than non-believers and are seen as more generous and trustworthy. Comment: Despite the overly materialistic view of the researchers (even quantum physics can seem a little mystical) the brains of religious people have bee found to work 'differently'. | 1real |
Under Trump, Approach to Civil Rights Law Is Likely to Change Definitively - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — In the final weeks of the Obama administration, the Justice Department won the first case involving a transgender victim and sued two cities for blocking mosques from opening. Prosecutors settled charges with two banks, then sued a third. They filed legal briefs on behalf of New York teenagers being held in solitary confinement, and accused Louisiana of forcing mentally ill patients into nursing homes. And then, with days remaining, prosecutors announced a deal to overhaul Baltimore’s Police Department and accused Chicago of unconstitutional police abuses. The moves capped a historic and sometimes controversial span in which the Justice Department pushed the frontiers of civil rights laws, inserting itself into private lawsuits and siding with transgender students, juvenile prisoners, the homeless, the blind, and people who videotape police officers. On issues of gay rights, policing, criminal justice, voting and more, government lawyers argued for a broad interpretation of civil rights laws, a view that they consistently said would put them on the right side of history. Few areas of federal policy are likely to change so definitively. Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, opposes not only the Justice Department’s specific policies on civil rights but its entire approach. While liberal Democrats have criticized Mr. Sessions’s views on specific issues like gay marriage and voting, the larger difference is how differently the Trump administration will view the government’s role in those areas. Vanita Gupta, the head of the civil rights division and the face of the Obama administration’s efforts over the past two years, has spoken about the power “to bend the arc of history itself — not merely by serving your clients, but by harnessing the law as a force for positive change. ” “The project of civil rights has always demanded creativity,” she said in an interview. “It requires being bold. Often that means going against the grain of popular thinking. Or it requires going to the more expansive reading of the law to ensure we are actually ensuring equal protection for everyone. ” Mr. Sessions, a former federal prosecutor, has spoken harshly about lawyers and judges who try to push the law in certain directions — “a postmodern philosophy that elevates outcomes over law,” he has called it. Congress makes laws, he has said, and he was outraged when Eric H. Holder Jr. the former attorney general, refused to defend a law banning gay marriage and told his state counterparts that they could ethically do the same regarding state bans. “It was shameful and disgraceful and an abandonment of the rule of law,” Mr. Sessions said in 2015. “I’m not happy about what’s happened to my Department of Justice. ” At this confirmation hearing, Mr. Sessions harkened to the era of segregation in arguing that there was no need for the federal government to become involved in prosecuting crimes against women or gay people that were already being prosecuted locally. “I am not sure women or people with different sexual orientations face that kind of discrimination. I just don’t see it,” Mr. Sessions said, denying that he was or . The Obama administration saw its mandate much more broadly. One of the clearest examples of this philosophy came last year, when Ms. Gupta wrote a letter to every public school district in the country and told them to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that matched their gender identity. The policy touched off a furious debate and became a touchstone for conservatives who saw the Obama administration as out of touch and making its own laws. Courts have not settled the question of whether the federal laws apply in matters of gender identity. But Justice Department lawyers, who were fielding questions from school officials, interpreted those protections broadly. Congress created the civil rights division as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and its mission and leadership have been the subject of frequent debate. President Reagan’s civil rights chief, William Bradford Reynolds, faced criticism from advocacy groups who said he refused to enforce civil rights laws. President Clinton’s choice to lead the division, Bill Lann Lee, served his tenure in an acting capacity after the Senate refused to confirm him, largely over his support for affirmative action. One of Mr. Obama’s nominees, Debo P. Adegbile, was rejected by the Senate over his prior representation of a man convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer. In response, Mr. Obama never nominated Ms. Gupta to the post. Like Mr. Lee, she has served her tenure in an acting capacity. She started work amid unrest in Ferguson, Mo. where angry and sometimes violent demonstrators protested the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager and the way police officers treated African Americans. “History simmers beneath the surface in more communities than just Ferguson,” Mr. Holder said at the time as he cast the Justice Department as a voice for those who have felt abused and ignored for years. The Justice Department ultimately cleared the officer involved in the shooting but sued the city, accusing its officers of longstanding abuses of force in encounters with black residents. Ferguson was the most target of the department’s campaign to use civil rights laws to force changes in police policy. Congress gave the Justice Department that authority in 1994 after the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, but no administration has used that power nearly as aggressively. The Obama administration has opened two dozen such investigations and sued cities to make policing changes. Police groups have criticized the administration’s approach. James O. Pasco Jr. executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said officers were particularly concerned with the administration’s early talk. Tom Perez, Mr. Obama’s first civil rights chief, declared his division was “once again open for business,” and promised more investigations into police departments. “During his entire tenure there, we were never reached out to once. Not once,” Mr. Pasco said. “He went out of his way to make police officers the villains. ” Mr. Pasco has said collaboration with officers has since improved and spoke glowingly of Ms. Gupta. But many officers still say the Justice Department has portrayed them unfairly, and Mr. Sessions shares that belief. “These lawsuits undermine the respect for police officers and create an impression that the entire department is not doing their work consistent with fidelity to law and fairness,” Mr. Sessions said at his confirmation hearing. He said civil rights lawsuits hurt morale and changed the way citizens viewed the police. “And we need to be careful before we do that. ” In 2015, Mr. Sessions sharply questioned Ms. Gupta about her views on policing and her A. C. L. U. advocacy. “You come from a background that indicates an aggressiveness in these areas,” he said. Ms. Gupta said such questions reflect a double standard. “I don’t think the same comment gets made of criminal prosecutors who’ve obtained a lot of convictions,” she said in an interview, “that they’re too aggressive to do their jobs effectively. ” She added, “I was an aggressive civil rights chief, and I’m proud of that. ” Ms. Gupta will leave government with the administration but a team of career lawyers remains. Many view Mr. Sessions’ nomination warily, but senior officials have urged an open mind. Ms. Gupta said she hopes her successor will have one, too. “This is not abstract work done for its own sake,” she said. “It is fundamentally about the people whose rights we protect. ” | 0fake |
Re: Undoubtedly! Hillary loves having support of these ‘real’ billionaires [video] | — Magnus Dahlgren (@MagnusDahlgren) October 26, 2016
Here’s something Hillary Clinton routinely said during her primary battle against Bernie Sanders. Wait, no she didn’t: Clinton says she has "the support of real billionaires." Names Buffett, Cuban, Bloomberg
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) October 26, 2016 Clinton: "I love having the support of real billionaires & they've been speaking up because … Donald gives a bad name to billionaires"
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) October 26, 2016 . @HillaryClinton : "I love having the support of real billionaires." https://t.co/4L9GKRaxG9 https://t.co/asuMpnjBzm
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 26, 2016
It seemed to take Clinton a couple seconds to convince herself it was OK to admit that because Bernie’s out of the race: After @HillaryClinton says she loves having the support of real billionaires, watch as she pauses to look back at her script pic.twitter.com/rN7Wzu97nf
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) October 26, 2016
Hey, why didn’t she mention some billionaire supporters from Saudi Arabia too? She was thinking, "wait,……what did I just say" @charliespiering https://t.co/RRYgjhJ2xl | 1real |
U.S. justices weigh federal fraud claim over woman's death | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday struggled with the question of when federal contractors can be sued for defrauding the government in a case involving a 19-year-old Massachusetts woman who suffered a fatal 2009 seizure at a mental health facility. The parents of Yarushka Rivera claimed that Universal Health Services Inc, which owned the facility, provided “gravely inadequate treatment” and used “unsupervised and unqualified personnel.” Their lawsuit said King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based Universal Health Services, one of the nation’s largest hospital operators, defrauded the government because it was receiving federal Medicaid funding to provide treatment to low-income people and failed to comply with all necessary requirements. Rivera died in October 2009 of a seizure after being treated at the mental health center in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Julio Escobar and his wife, Carmen Correa, filed suit against Universal Health Services in U.S. District Court in Boston in 2011. They said they had received information that more than 20 treatment providers at the Lawrence facility, including a nurse who prescribed medication to Rivera, were not properly licensed or supervised as required by state law and federal regulations. The parents sued under the False Claims Act, which allows individuals to make claims that the federal government has been defrauded. During the one-hour oral argument, liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan signaled support for the parents’ fraud claims. Sotomayor said billing for services that were not carried out in full was like a government contractor providing the military “guns that don’t shoot.” Kagan similarly questioned whether the claim against Universal Health Services was any different than a failure by a federal contractor to provide the military boots that can be worn and food that can be eaten. Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts appeared more hostile to the fraud claim, saying companies should not necessarily be liable for fraud just because they do not follow every procedure. “That causes concern, of course, because there are thousands of pages of regulations under Medicaid or Medicare programs,” Roberts said. Medicare provides healthcare assistance to the elderly. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2014. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it in March 2015. Universal Health Services then appealed, asking the Supreme Court to resolve what kind of lawsuits can be brought under the False Claims Act. Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed briefs backing the company, saying fraud claims should be allowed only when they involve specific violations of the terms of a contract with the government and not violations of other regulations. | 0fake |
Britain to study effect of foreign students on economy | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain commissioned a report on Thursday on the economic impact of foreign students, part of an increasingly heated debate over whether they should be included in the government s target of reducing migration to the tens of thousands. Prime Minister Theresa May has been under pressure to drop international students from Britain s immigration figures, which have remained stubbornly high despite her pledge as interior minister seven years ago to reduce them to under 100,000 a year. High rates of immigration into Britain were a major reason for the vote to leave the European Union last year. But many officials argue that foreign students contribute to the economy. There is no limit to the number of genuine international students who can come to the UK to study, and the fact that we remain the second most popular global destination for those seeking higher education is something to be proud of, interior minister Amber Rudd said in a statement. We understand how important students from around the world are to our higher education sector, which is a key export for our country, and that s why we want to have a robust and independent evidence base of their value and the impact they have. Immigration has long been a sensitive topic in Britain. The expansion of the European Union to take in some eastern European countries saw rates jump, which critics said put pressure on public services such as hospitals. But others argue that immigration helps the economy and a provides a much-needed workforce. By including students in the immigration figures, they say, Britain is failing to acknowledge the contribution they make or that most leave after finishing their studies. International students make up around a quarter of total immigration, according to official figures. Data released on Thursday showed that net migration to Britain in the year to March 2017 fell by 81,000 to 246,000 people. More than half of those who left were EU citizens . In a separate report on What s happening with international student migration? , the Office for National Statistics said: There is no evidence of a major issue of non-EU students overstaying their entitlement to stay. Of the 1.34 million nationals from outside the European Economic Area who held visas that expired in 2016/17, 96.3 percent departed before the visa expired, the ONS said in another report. Another 0.4 percent departed after their visa had expired. Just 3.3 percent were not initially identified as having departed after their leave expired. We have always been clear that our commitment to reducing net migration to sustainable levels does not detract from our determination to attract international students from around the world, Immigration Minister Brandon Lewis said. Since 2010 we have clamped down on abuse, while increasing the number of genuine students that come to the UK from around the world. | 0fake |
Trump signs order dismantling Obama-era climate policies | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an order to undo Obama-era climate change regulations, keeping a campaign promise to support the coal industry and calling into question U.S. support for an international deal to fight global warming. Flanked by coal miners and coal company executives, Trump proclaimed his “Energy Independence” executive order at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency. The move drew swift backlash from a coalition of 23 states and local governments, as well as environmental groups, which called the decree a threat to public health and vowed to fight it in court. The order’s main target is former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants - a key factor in the United States’ ability to meet its commitments under a climate change accord reached by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015. Trump’s decree also reverses a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, undoes rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas production and reduces the weight of climate change and carbon emissions in policy and infrastructure permitting decisions. Carbon dioxide and methane are two of the main greenhouse gases blamed by scientists for heating the earth. “I am taking historic steps to lift restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations,” Trump said at the EPA. The room was filled with miners, coal company executives and staff from industry groups, who applauded loudly as Trump spoke. Shares in U.S. coal companies edged higher in response. The wide-ranging order is the boldest yet in Trump’s broader push to cut environmental regulation to revive the drilling and mining industries, a promise he made repeatedly during the 2016 presidential campaign. Energy analysts and executives have questioned whether the moves will have a big effect on their industries, and environmentalists have called them reckless. “I cannot tell you how many jobs the executive order is going to create, but I can tell you that it provides confidence in this administration’s commitment to the coal industry,” Kentucky Coal Association president Tyler White told Reuters. Environmental groups heaped scorn on Trump’s order, arguing it was dangerous and went against the broader global trend toward cleaner energy technologies. A coalition of mostly Democrat-led states and local governments issued a statement saying they would oppose the order in court. “We won’t hesitate to protect those we serve — including by aggressively opposing in court President Trump’s actions that ignore both the law and the critical importance of confronting the very real threat of climate change,” the coalition, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, said in a statement. The coalition includes states such as California, Massachusetts and Virginia, as well as cities including Chicago, Philadelphia and Boulder, Colorado. U.S. presidents have aimed to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, which triggered soaring prices. But the United States still imports about 7.9 million barrels of crude oil a day, almost enough to meet total oil demand in Japan and India combined. An overwhelming majority of scientists believe that human use of oil and coal for energy is a main driver of climate change, causing a damaging rise in sea levels, droughts and more frequent violent storms. But Trump and several members of his administration have doubts about climate change, and Trump promised during his campaign to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, arguing it would hurt U.S. business. Since being elected, Trump has been mum on the Paris deal and the executive order does not address it. Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change who helped broker the Paris accord, lamented Trump’s order. “Trying to make fossil fuels remain competitive in the face of a booming clean renewable power sector, with the clean air and plentiful jobs it continues to generate, is going against the flow of economics,” she said. The order directs the EPA to start a formal process to undo the Clean Power Plan, which was introduced by Obama in 2014 but was never implemented in part because of legal challenges brought by Republican-controlled states. The Clean Power Plan required states to collectively cut carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Some 85 percent of U.S. states are on track to meet the targets despite the fact the rule has not been implemented, according to Bill Becker, director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, a group of state and local air pollution control agencies. Trump’s order also lifts the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management temporary ban on coal leasing on federal property put in place by Obama in 2016 as part of a review to study the program’s impact on climate change and ensure royalty revenues were fair to taxpayers. It also asks federal agencies to discount the cost of carbon in policy decisions and the weight of climate change considerations in infrastructure permitting, and it reverses rules limiting methane leakage from oil and gas facilities. | 0fake |
In Russia, Blooms Flourish on International Women’s Day - The New York Times | MOSCOW — A multicolored chaos reigned across Russia on Wednesday, as crowds jostled for bouquets of all sizes and hues for a holiday that celebrates women. Russians love International Women’s Day, a holdover sometimes called the Russian St. Valentine’s Day. And flower sellers love the holiday, with March 8 ranking as the largest single sales day in Russia for shops, wholesale markets and Dutch farmers. On March 8, the need for bouquets quickly adds up. Although Valentine’s Day is also celebrated here, it is viewed as a foreign import and too cloyingly romantic to encompass the full range of ways that women should be appreciated. On International Women’s Day, men and women give flowers to mothers, sisters, daughters, along with wives and girlfriends. “St. Valentine’s Day is for lovers, and Women’s Day is for women,” said Maria Mamedova, a saleswoman at a flower stall outside the Tsvetnoy Boulevard subway station in Moscow. “Women really value March 8,” added Ms. Mamedova, peeling leaves from lisianthus stems and clipping the stems to form gigantic bouquets. As in the United States, the Russian floral market is buoyed by holidays like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. People in the Netherlands and some other European countries tend to give flowers year round, creating steadier demand. International Women’s Day is especially important for the Dutch flower industry. Dutch flower farmers grow and export tulips and lilies. The Netherlands is also the first point of arrival for many roses from Africa and South America, which are traded in Dutch flower auctions before being elsewhere, including to Russia. The Netherlands exported 120 million euros’ worth of flowers to Russia last year, according to Matthieu ter Haar, a spokesman for Royal FloraHolland, a flower industry trade association. The March 8 holiday typically accounts for 10 percent of the annual total. “It’s always a beautiful day, and flowers always bring a lot of happiness to people,” Mr. ter Haar said. “On International Women’s Day in Russia you see lines of people at the shops. It’s a very positive thing. ” Like so much in Russia, the flower business has even been a source of geopolitical tension. When investigators from the Netherlands looked into the downing of a civilian plane over Ukraine in 2014 that killed nearly 200 Dutch people, Russian authorities for a time banned — and in some cases burned — Dutch flowers. The authorities denied the moves were related, saying they were prompted by a pest threat. The tension subsided and the trade is again open. Nicolas Megrelis, a French owner of 13 flower shops across Moscow, sells exclusively imported roses for $2. 40 to $3. 40 per stem. Like all in the flower business in Russia, his business pivots around Women’s Day when the shops typically sell 150, 000 stems, or more than $400, 000 worth of roses, as much as a month of sales. The flower business in Russia, as elsewhere, is composed mostly of small, individual sellers rather than chains of flower shops, making wholesale markets like Rizhsky in Moscow important links in the floral supply chain. About 70 percent of the roses, chrysanthemums, carnations and ornamental greenery sold in the Rizhsky market are imported, with most coming from Holland, Ecuador, Colombia and Israel, Taras Belozyorov, the spokesman for the Moscow city department of trade and services, said in a statement. “Growing flowers in the Moscow region is accompanied by certain difficulties,” he said, notably the cost of heating and illuminating greenhouses during the bitter Russian winter. But Russians still love flowers. The market is a tableau of pink, yellow and orange pastels of tulips, gigantic bundles of red roses. The gentle beauty contrasts with the bustle of buyers as lovers, fathers, sons and bosses set about doing something kind for the women in their lives. Out on the frosty streets of Moscow on Wednesday, Dmitri Makhno, a restaurant owner, was buying white tulips for his female employees. “I love my employees,” he said. “I give flowers to every woman today. Today is their day. ” | 0fake |
Pres. Obama RUTHLESSLY Trolls Trump After His Own Campaign GROUNDS Him From Twitter (VIDEO) | Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr
On Sunday, President Barack Obama was on the campaign trail stumping for Hillary Clinton in Florida when he started brutally mocking Donald Trump upon learning that his campaign may have taken away his Twitter account in the final days leading up to the election.
The president couldn’t help himself; he just had to go after the man who he characterized as being too immature to step into his job.
“Apparently his campaign has taken away his Twitter,” Obama said during a Florida rally for Hillary Clinton , to laughs.
The president then used humor to make a point to remind everyone of just what was at stake in this election. “In the last two days, they had so little confidence in his self control, they said: ‘We’re just going to take away your Twitter.’ Now, if somebody cant handle a Twitter account, they can’t handle the nuclear code,” Obama continued. “If somebody starts tweeting at three in the morning because SNL made fun of you, then you can’t handle the nuclear codes.”
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Trump no longer controls his Twitter account. Instead, the Republican nominee appears to have aides creating “Trump safe” messages on his behalf while he focuses his energy on whining and lying at his live rallies.
During the rally in the battleground state of Florida, Obama labeled Trump as being “uniquely unqualified” and “temperamentally unfit” to serve as Commander-in-Chief. “I’ve been in this office now almost eight years and here’s what I can tell you,” Obama said. “Who you are, what you are, does not change when you take office. It just magnifies who you are. It just shines a spotlight on who are you.” Every day there’s another example of how much of a complete joke Trump’s campaign has been over the past year. But as much as we would love to laugh at this clown, we must first make sure he doesn’t get elected. Or else the joke’s on us. Featured image via (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) and (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images) Share this Article! | 1real |
Both parties want to craft populist messages for 2016 | Presidential hopefuls in both parties agree on at least one thing: Economic mobility, and the feeling of many Americans that they are being shut out from the nation’s prosperity, will be a defining theme of the 2016 campaign.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush last week became the latest Republican to signal a readiness to engage Democrats on what historically has been their turf, putting issues of middle-class wage stagnation, poverty and shared prosperity at the forefront of their political messages.
Bush’s framing of the economic and social challenges facing the country nearly mirrors that of likely Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as other possible contenders on the left. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has written a book on the subject, “American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone,” to be published this week, while Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has proposed policies for distressed communities that he sees as “the ticket to the middle class.”
And Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee who was portrayed by Democrats as insensitive to and out of touch with the lives of middle- and working-class Americans, has told friends he considers poverty a topic du jour as he weighs another run in 2016.
“You talk to any pollster, on the Democratic side or the Republican side, they’re in complete agreement on the idea that there has to be an economic populist message,” said Matthew Dowd, a top strategist for former president George W. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns. “Then it comes down to ‘Are there credible solutions and is there a credible candidate?’ ”
About 45 million Americans live at or below the poverty line, according to last fall’s census estimates, while the median household income in the United States in 2013 was just under $52,000. Adjusted for inflation, the median is 8 percent lower than it was in 2007, the last full year before the recession, and 11 percent below what it was in 2000.
Wage stagnation has been a persistent problem for low- and middle-income workers. “Since the late 1970s, wages for the bottom 70 percent of earners have been essentially stagnant, and between 2009 and 2013, real wages fell for the entire bottom 90 percent of the wage distribution,” Lawrence Mishel of the liberal Economic Policy Institute wrote in a paper published this month.
Launching his new political action committee, Right to Rise, Jeb Bush asserted last week in the PAC’s mission statement that President Obama’s tenure has been “pretty good” for those at the top of the income scale but a “lost decade” for everyone else.
“Millions of our fellow citizens across the broad middle class feel as if the American Dream is now out of their reach; that our politics are petty and broken; that opportunities are elusive; and that the playing field is no longer fair or level,” Bush wrote. “Too many of the poor have lost hope that a path to a better life is within their grasp.”
Bush’s focus adds an unexpected element to the coming debate and puts pressure on the entire field, himself included, to come forward with fresh policies that address the nation’s core economic problems.
The shift also highlights a potential vulnerability for Democrats. In his campaigns, Obama twice promised to focus on wealth inequality and middle-class stagnation, but those problems persist even as the economy revs up and unemployment falls.
Clinton could be challenged now from both the right and the left to lay out solutions that go beyond Obama’s — and also to develop a political voice of her own to articulate them. Democrats conceded after last fall’s midterm elections that they had not found a compelling economic message.
Democrats will look to Clinton, should she run, to take the lead in doing that — although they also are looking to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and her harder-edged populist rhetoric.
Clinton tested such a message last year. In a major speech at the New America Foundation in May, she said that Americans are “finding it harder than ever to get their footing in our changing economy. The dream of upward mobility that made this country a model for the world feels further and further out of reach.”
The language of Bush, Rubio and other Republicans appears aimed at avoiding the problem that bedeviled Romney throughout his 2012 campaign. The former Massachusetts governor’s memorable comment about the “47 percent” of the population who he said depend on government and feel like victims haunted him during the final months before the election.
Yuval Levin, editor of the conservative journal National Affairs, said the overall shift in emphasis by Republicans is an effort to move away from Romney’s more abstract message of job growth and to focus more specifically on social mobility and solutions for those at or near the bottom.
“It’s a process of letting the light out from under the bushel,” Levin said. Citing past conservative leadership in reforming welfare, he added: “I think Republican ideas have always held this promise, but conservatives have not always emphasized these elements. . . . A difference in emphasis is not insignificant.”
Democrats, however, argue that revising their rhetoric will not be enough for Republicans — especially if Jeb Bush becomes the GOP nominee — to gloss over former president George W. Bush’s legacy, which Democrats say tightened the middle-class squeeze.
“It’s not like the Republican Party has clean hands on the issue of rising inequality,” said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and an adviser to Clinton on economic policy. “It’s a weird thing to say, ‘I care about how the rest of the country is doing, not just the top earners,’ when your brother cut taxes for the wealthy and your party’s economic position starts with undoing Dodd-Frank,” the 2010 law that tightened regulation of Wall Street.
Obama hit the road last week to highlight economic successes of his presidency, from the auto industry bailout to more robust overall growth in the last half of 2014. Still, many Democrats acknowledge that there is a large gap between promise and results on issues of middle-class insecurities.
That is where Bush and some other Republicans are taking aim. Two factors have contributed to the opening they see.
One is the continued problem of stagnating wages for the broad middle class and the income gap between rich and non-rich. The other is new evidence that it has become harder for those at the bottom to rise into the middle class, and that the risk of some born into the middle class — particularly minorities — falling out of it is growing.
Democrats long have been seen as the party more trusted to deal with middle-class economic issues. Republicans long have resisted policies that smack of economic redistribution. Could that be changing?
“How do you tell the middle class, ‘We’re your guy?’ ” said Grover Norquist, a conservative anti-tax advocate. “Republicans feel comfortable saying that now because they feel the guys they’re running against are sufficiently discredited.”
William Galston of the Brookings Institution said that the issue of blocked social mobility is one Republicans will feel more comfortable engaging — and on their own terms. “That’s what Jeb Bush is saying: ‘We can accept a definition of a problem . . . but give unabashedly conservative responses to those challenges,’ ” he said.
But Galston, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, said Bush’s framing of the issue this way means he has put down a marker that he will be expected to meet.
“I would expect to hear from him over the coming months some of the best and most innovative conservative thinking on opportunity and upward mobility,” he said. “That will be a fair test on how much gas there is in the conservative ideas tank.”
Other Republicans have been working to reorient their party toward blue-collar economics and to put forward fresh economic ideas. Former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, two former presidential candidates who are looking at running in 2016, long have talked about the GOP’s need to recognize the problems of working families.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has focused on policies designed to lift people out of poverty. In 2012, as Romney’s running mate, Ryan wanted to campaign in inner cities and give speeches promoting individual empowerment. He was frustrated that Romney’s campaign team directed him to talk about other topics.
Rubio has proposed a fundamental shift in anti-poverty programs. He has suggested devolving power and responsibility from Washington to the states by consolidating federal monies into a “flex fund.” The senator from Florida has called for significant reductions in federal regulations that he says will spur creation of better jobs. On education, he has offered a series of reforms designed to lessen the burden of student loan debt and expand access to apprenticeship programs. Rubio and others also have proposed changes in the earned-income tax credit to extend its reach to more people.
Democrats are skeptical that Republicans can meet the challenge with policy proposals that are much beyond calls for tax cuts to spur economic growth and further efforts to scale back the size of government.
“It sounds to me like a traditional Romney Republican trickle-down agenda but with a willingness to engage on inequality and mobility,” said Jared Bernstein, a former adviser to Vice President Biden who works at the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities.
Democrats say it’s too early to draw conclusions, but they note that if Bush and other Republicans find new ways to engage middle-class voters with populist themes, the pressures on Clinton will mount significantly.
“Voters are going to [say], ‘Okay, thank you for acknowledging this problem, but what are you going to do about it?’ ” Bernstein said. “I would argue that Democrats are going to have to have more in their toolbox than [raising the] minimum wage and universal pre-K.” | 0fake |
Among White House hopefuls, Trump least likely to hit 'follow' button on Twitter | NEW YORK (Reuters) - The millions of Twitter users following Donald Trump shouldn’t expect a “follow back” from the Republican presidential front-runner anytime soon. Trump’s campaign account @realDonaldTrump has nearly 6 million Twitter followers, the most of any candidate running for president. But he is picky about who he follows, with just 49 accounts listed as of Friday. That means he has the highest ratio of followers to those he is following, in both the Republican and Democratic fields. In contrast, Ted Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas who has emerged as Trump’s strongest rival, follows nearly 14,000 accounts on Twitter and has 755,000 followers, according to his profile as of Friday. The exclusivity underscores how Trump primarily uses Twitter to broadcast his message as opposed to engaging in a back and forth with users, experts in digital strategy said. While other campaigns use a similar approach, Trump commands the most attention on social media. Trump’s pickiness may indicate a surprising strategy for the freewheeling Republican front-runner: Playing it safe when it comes to pledging his Twitter allegiance with a “follow.” Candidates can’t pick and choose their followers, but they have control over when to click the follow button. “There is more risk in who you follow,” said Scott Talan, a communications professor at American University who teaches social media strategy. “If you’re actively following someone, you’re assuming it’s not going to be some religious extremist ... or a prisoner with a record.” And, while some Republican candidates follow each other, Trump follows none of them. The accounts Trump monitors include those of his children and several hotel properties. Also on the eclectic list are musician Steven Tyler, basketball great Magic Johnson, Vince McMahon, chairman and CEO of WWE Inc, and sisters Lynette “Diamond” Hardaway and Rochelle “Silk” Richardson, former Democrats who now stump for Trump and tweet under the handle @DiamondandSilk. Despite Trump’s highly public battle with Fox News over anchor Megyn Kelly’s role as a moderator in last week’s Republican debate, Fox shows or news personalities such as Sean Hannity account for better than 10 percent of the handles he follows. Kelly, not surprisingly, did not make the list, but the Fox handles still add up to a larger bloc than any outside of Trump’s family or business. Hannity and other Fox presenters are also widely followed by Trump’s rivals for the GOP presidential nomination. Trump’s cautious approach to who he follows hasn’t put a damper on his social activity. His account shows more than 30,000 tweets, the highest of any account reviewed by Reuters. It also hasn’t stopped Trump from committing blunders with his retweets, like the one from an account called @WhiteGenocideTM, which gave its location as “Jewmerica” and featured an image that referenced George Lincoln Rockwell, a prominent figure in the neo-Nazi movement in the United States. Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said that Trump operates his own Twitter account. “Everything you see on there is pretty much directly from him,” she said. “The strategy behind it is to tell the truth and to call it like he sees it.” On Twitter, Trump goes where his opponents fear to tread. He uses it to launch unfiltered personal attacks on those who cross paths with him. For example, he did not shy from retweeting a post that included photographs of a skimpily dressed Kelly from a magazine shoot and the comment, “And this is the bimbo that’s asking presidential questions?” “He is definitely a loose cannon in terms of how he uses his Twitter account,” said Micah Sifry, co-founder of Personal Democracy Media, an online forum on technology and politics. “At the same time, he hasn’t been hurt by it yet because apparently a big chunk of what he’s saying is popular among Republican voters.” Trump is aware of his social media success. Following the seventh Republican presidential debate on Thursday, he tweeted Twitter data showing that he commanded the most traffic during the event. “Great Twitter poll-and I wasn’t even there,” he said. Twitter matters to campaigns - it is an increasingly important way for candidates to reach their most ardent supporters. But talking about the issues on Twitter may not always be the most effective means of engaging supporters. A recent Trump tweet wishing retired golfer Jack Nicklaus happy birthday received more than four thousand “likes”, roughly twice as many as Clinton’s policy-related tweets on the same day. (Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus and Amy Tennery in New York, editing by Dan Burns and Ross Colvin) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency. | 0fake |
Tillerson will not meet Turkey opposition in Ankara visit this week | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will not meet members of Turkish opposition groups during a one-day visit to Ankara this week where talks with President Tayyip Erdogan will focus on the war in Syria, senior U.S. officials said on Monday. Thursday’s visit comes at a politically sensitive time in Turkey as the country prepares for a referendum on April 16 that proposes to change the constitution to give Erdogan new powers. A senior State Department official said Tillerson will meet with Erdogan and government ministers involved in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. “It is certainly something we are very acutely aware of and the secretary will be mindful of while he is there,” one State Department official told a conference call with reporters, referring to political sensitivities ahead of the referendum. American officials expect Erdogan and others to raise the case of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the government accuses of orchestrating a failed coup last July. The focus of the Ankara talks is the U.S.-led offensive to retake Raqqa from Islamic State and to stabilize areas in which militants have been forced out, allowing refugees to return home, officials said. A major sticking point between the United States and Turkey is U.S. backing for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey considers part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party that has been fighting an insurgency for three decades in Turkey. But the United States has long viewed Kurdish fighters as key to retaking Raqqa alongside Arab fighters in the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). “We are very mindful of Turkey’s concerns and it is something that will continue to be a topic of conversation,” a second U.S. official said. Turkey, Russia and Iran have held Syrian peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, on a ceasefire in Syria. The United States has proposed “areas of stability” where Islamic State has been pushed out and refugees can be returned. Six years since the start of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he is winning on the battlefield although the war is far from over. The once stable country is broken into fiefdoms ruled by rebels and warlords. “We’re looking forward to discussing with Turkey how we can reinforce ceasefire negotiations through the Astana process,” the second U.S. official said. | 0fake |
TAKE THIS SHORT QUIZ: Which Radical Said It? We Guarantee The Answers Will Surprise You… | Here are six trivia questions to see how much history you really know. The answers are very revealing. If you don t know the answer, make your best guess. Answer all of the questions (no cheating) before looking at the answers.Hint: The answers to these questions aren t all Barack Obama.1) We re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. A. Karl MarxB. Adolph HitlerC. Joseph StalinD. Barack ObamaE. None of the above2) It s time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few And to replace it with shared responsibility, for shared prosperity. A. LeninB. MussoliniC. Joseph StalinD. Barack ObamaE. None of the above3) (We) can t just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people. A. Nikita KhrushevB. Joseph GoebbelsC. Boris YeltsinD. Barack ObamaE. None of the above4) We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own in order to create this common ground. A. Mao Tse DungB. Hugo ChavezC. Kim Jong IID. Barack ObamaE. None of the above5) I certainly think the free-market has failed. A. Karl MarxB. LeninC. MolotovD. Barack ObamaE. None of the above6) I think it s time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched. A. PinochetB. MilosevicC. Saddam HusseinD. Barack ObamaE. None of the above(1) E. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/29/2004(2) E. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 5/29/2007(3) E. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007(4) E. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007(5) E. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007(6) E. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 9/2/2005 | 1real |
Gay Catholic Groups Want Pope Francis to Do More Than Apologize - The New York Times | ROME — Leaders of gay Catholic groups on Monday praised Pope Francis for saying that all Christians and the Roman Catholic Church owed an apology to gays for previous mistreatment, even as the groups called on the church to take more concrete steps to repudiate past teachings and condemn violence. Streaking across the sky on Sunday night in his papal airliner, returning from a visit to Armenia, Francis also visibly winced, momentarily overcome with emotion, when a journalist, Cindy Wooden, mentioned the recent attack at an Orlando gay nightclub and noted that Christians are sometimes blamed for stigmatizing homosexuals. Francis did not directly address the Orlando killings. But he endorsed a comment of one of his top advisers who, soon after the Orlando attack, said that the church had marginalized gay people and should apologize. The pope said the church “must” not only apologize to a gay person it offended, “but we must apologize to the poor, to women who have been exploited, to children forced into labor. ” Marianne executive director of DignityUSA, a leading organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics, said the pope’s remarks represented a powerful statement, if not enough. “For a pope to acknowledge that the church has done so much damage to gay people, and that we deserve an apology, is an unprecedented act of humility,” she said in a telephone interview. “But a statement of remorse is only as good as the change in behavior that follows. ” Francis’s outreach toward gays has been part of his broader effort to welcome people who have felt marginalized by the church. He made global headlines early in his papacy when he signaled a new openness toward gays when he famously uttered, “Who am I to judge?” Francis’ words raised hopes among some gay Catholics and others that he might make significant changes inside the church itself. Some advocates even wondered if he might loosen the church’s prohibition of marriage as part of his broader move to make the church more welcoming to unconventional families. But Francis has steadfastly opposed marriage. His document on family life, “Amoris Laetitia,” called on the church to welcome gay people but flatly closed the door on marriage. “He’s not liberal,” said the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit priest who is close to the pope. Instead, Father Spadaro said Francis sought to avoid categorizing people and wanted a welcoming environment devoid of discrimination. “Of course,” he added, “he wants a church of open doors. ” In a statement, Ryan Hoffman, director of Call to Action, a Catholic group, praised Francis’ remarks but also called on Catholic officials to “reform teachings and practices that refer to gay people as ‘objectively disordered’ and ‘intrinsically evil.’ ” “It’s time Francis’ wise words translate into just action,” Mr. Hoffman said. Ms. pointed to cases of the firing of gay employees of Catholic schools in the United States after they married in civil ceremonies. She also noted that bishops around the world often played leading roles in campaigns against gay rights. “We need the church to understand the reality of our lives,” she said. “And where church teaching and practice has caused so much trouble. ” Popes have a tradition of apologizing for past sins of the church. In 2000, Pope John Paul II issued a sweeping apology for the church’s errors over the previous 2, 000 years. Francis himself offered a striking apology during his 2015 trip to South America, when he asked for forgiveness for the church’s complicity in the brutality of the era of Spanish colonialism. “There are a lot of people at the Vatican who don’t like the church ever admitting we ever did anything wrong,” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest and senior analyst for The National Catholic Reporter. “With gays, it is especially important because they are still subject to persecution and discrimination all over the world, and even in the United States. ” | 0fake |
Former Fatah Official: PA ’Disappointed’ with Tepid Arab Response to Possible U.S. Embassy Move to Jerusalem | The Palestinian leadership is “disappointed” by the feckless Arab reactions to reports the United States may relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a former Fatah official told Breitbart Jerusalem. [“Trump is unpredictable and Arab leaders don’t want to get on his bad side so soon,” Dimitri Diliani, a former member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, said, adding that “Arab leaders are waiting to see what will happen eventually and how exactly the embassy will be moved. ” “It’s impossible to foresee the reaction of the Palestinians on the street, but I expect it will be harsh,” he said. “The Palestinian Authority must use whatever measure it has at its disposal — from rolling back the security coordination with Israel, to disbanding the PA and turning its security officers into paramilitaries. The Palestinian Authority cannot react lightly. It’s the moment of truth. ” “Jerusalem is not the capital of the State of Israel, it’s an occupied territory,” he wrongly claimed, “and the question is whether the United States wishes to become a country that violates international law,” he said. “I expect the PA leadership to use whatever means it has at its disposal to resist that decision. ” Earlier this week, White House Spokesman Sean Spicer was asked by reporters for an update on the embassy matter. “We are at the very beginning stages of even discussing this subject,” Spicer said, according to Reuters. President Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Thursday it was “too early” to discuss moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. | 0fake |
HAPPY LABOR DAY! 5 STUNNING FACTS: How Obama Family Has Taken Full Advantage Of Everyday Working Americans | Happy Labor Day! Today is a day to celebrate working Americans and the contribution they make to our nation and to its prosperity. It s also a great time to consider what Obama has done to help Americans get jobs, improve wages, and to improve their living conditions. Have you ever wondered how much time off the average American takes for a family vacation as compared to Obama, or how much time they spend on the golf course? How much does the average American, who can actually afford to take a family vacation spend? How does the average American senior who s paid taxes their entire lives fare next to Michelle s 5-star, American taxpayer funded mom?A record 94,708,000 Americans were not in the labor force in May, 2016 664,000 more than in April and the labor force participation rate dropped two-tenths of a point to 62.6 percent, near its 38-year low, according to the Labor Department s Bureau of Labor Statistics.When President Obama took office in January 2009, 80,529,000 Americans were not participating in the labor force; since then, 14,179,000 Americans have left the workforce some of them retiring and some just quitting because they can t find work. By almost every economic measure, America is better off than when I came here at the beginning of my presidency, President Obama told the people of Elkhart, Indiana in June, 2016. We cut unemployment in half, years before a lot of economists thought we would. While the unemployment rate in May dropped to 4.7 percent, BLS reported, less than half of its Obama-era high of 10 percent in October 2009, the labor force participation rate overall, has deteriorated over Obama s two terms.FIVE FUN LABOR DAY FACTS 1) OBAMA S NET WORTH SINCE 2007:Barack and Michelle Obama s net-worth has risen 438% since Obama decided to run for office. Apparently, being a public servant and an oppressed First Lady pays big dividends.According to financial disclosure reports, President Obama has an estimated net worth of $7 million dollars.Since he was worth $1.3 million in 2007, that makes the millionaire 438% more wealthy than when he first ran for office.EVERYDAY AMERICANS:The average American income in 2015 was $53,657. Americans didn t get a raise last year. In fact, they haven t gotten one in years.The typical American family income was $53,657 in 2014, barely changed from $54,462 a year earlier, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday.What s worse it s far below the peak set in 1999. That s a major reason why so many Americans are still gloomy about the economy six years into the recovery.2) OBAMA VACATIONS:Obama took an average of 21.5 vacations days per year in his first four years as president.Judicial Watch did a little digging on the travel costs of Obama s vacation on the West Coast back in October and found in the process that Obama has now racked up OVER $73 MILLION in travel expenses in his 7 years as president.Though some of the expenses incurred while fundraising are supposed to be reimbursed by political parties and campaigns, only a small portion of the president s travel costs are actually repaid, and, unsurprisingly, the White House keeps the formula for such cost-sharing secret. Perhaps most depressing about the president s exorbitant travel expenses is that those figures do not even present the full cost of his spending on vacations, which inevitably include huge security, room and board, and entertainment (think golf) expenses.As for his West Coast fundraising jaunts, Obama used the trip as a way to promote his gun control agenda, party with Kanye West, and hit up Hollywood elites for big-dollar donations. Oh yeah, and he briefly squeezed in a visit with the families of victims of the San Bernardino terror attack that took the lives of 14.AVERAGE EVERYDAY AMERICAN:Private-industry workers in the United States who have at least 20 years on the job get an average of 19 days of paid vacation per year.According to American Express, the average vacation expense per person in the United States is $1,145, or $4,580 for a family of four. More than half of Americans, 56%, have not taken a vacation in the last year, according to the insurance company Allianz Global Assistance. That s equivalent to 135 million people. The survey defined vacation as a week off from work during which those surveyed travelled at least 100 miles away from home.Another survey of 1,005 Americans, conducted last year by Skift, found that just 15% of Americans planned to take a real vacation in 2014. That same survey found that 33% of Americans couldn t afford a vacation, 30% were too busy and that 22% were going to take a short vacation over a summer weekend.3) OBAMA S LEISURE TIME:Barack Obama has played over 300 rounds of golf, or an average of over 40 rounds per year since he took office in 2008.EVERYDAY AMERICAN:The National Golf Foundation identifies core golfers in America as those who play an average of eight rounds per year.4). OBAMA AND MICHELLE S LUXURIOUS TAXPAYER FUNDED 5-STAR EXISTENCE:Since the beginning of Barack Obama s administration, the Obamas have become increasingly notorious for unnecessary, luxurious travel, under the guise of official business.According to records obtained by Judicial Watch through FOIA requests and subsequent lawsuits, the Obamas and Bidens have spent millions of taxpayer dollars on trips, beginning with the Obamas much-publicized New York City date night in 2009 up through the president s most frequent golf outings and the first lady s Aspen ski jaunts.Judicial Watch uncovered an expensive combination of trips by the Obamas to Africa and Honolulu, which cost taxpayers $15,885,585.30 in flight expenses alone. The single largest prior known expense for accommodations was for Michelle Obama s side-trip to Dublin, Ireland, during the 2013 G-8 conference in Belfast, when she and her entourage booked 30 rooms at the five-star Shelbourne Hotel, and where she stayed in the 1500 square-foot Princess Grace suite at a cost of $3,500 a night.The total cost to taxpayers for the Obamas Ireland trip was $7,921,638.66. To date, the known beyond-first-class travel expenses of the Obamas and Vice President Joe Biden exceed $57 million.In February, Michelle Obama took a weekend trip to Aspen, Colorado that cost taxpayers a pretty penny; $57,068.80 in travel expenses alone for the 7.4 hour-round trip flight, according to U.S.Air Force records.5) THE ULTIMATE 5-STAR, TAXPAYER FUNDED OBAMA FAMILY FREE-LOADER:Michelle Obama s mother, Marian Robinson, has been living like a queen ever since her daughter moved into the White House. Just take a look at all of the vacations you ve paid for her to take as an extended member of the First Family:Tagging along with the First Family doesn t come cheap, but of course, Robinson isn t the one footing the bill. That responsibility lands squarely on the shoulders of hard-working taxpayers like you and me.So why are we saddled with this extra expense at a time when the American taxpayer is already so burdened by an out-of-control national deficit? According to the Washington Examiner, it s because Robinson cares for her grandchildren in the White House. Really???The Obama girls are certainly old enough to care for themselves. At the very least, they do not need a glorified nanny to accompany them around the world, costing millions of extra dollars in travel expenses. Malia is preparing to start college; she s definitely too old for a babysitter.Perhaps the Obamas are not breaking any laws by ensuring that Marian Robinson gets to live the high life during their years in the White House, but they are being incredibly insensitive, which honestly, we have come to expect from the self-indulgent family. After all, the First Lady is embarking on her third vacation in as many months in just a couple weeks.EVERYDAY AMERICAN:The average American retiree (or those 65 and older) is spending about $3,600 per month or about $43,600 per year. Using the 4% rule, that would mean a nest egg of over $1 million would be needed to finance the average lifestyle.More and more Americans over the age of 65 are struggling with mounting debt levels, fueled primarily by mortgages and credit cards. The average debt held by senior citizens has ballooned to $50,000 in 2010, up 83% since 2001, according to Federal Reserve data crunched by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.Much of this is due to an increase in housing-related debt. Families headed by someone at least 60 years old had the largest increase in average mortgage debt, in terms of percentage, between 2000 and 2012, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve.Of course, Marian doesn t have to worry about housing, food or 5-star vacation costs. She was quietly moved into the taxpayer funded White House in 2008 under the guise of a nanny for the Obama girls. She has somehow managed to continue living on the tax-payer dime without any media scrutiny. Even though the oldest Obama daughter is now in college and the youngest daughter is perfectly capable of brushing her own teeth, taxpayer funded granny has enjoyed a lifestyle that 99% of American seniors can only dream about. The king and Queen of extravagant vacations, free-loading grannies and golf and will be gone in 4 months and the only thing we ll have to show for it is a multi-million dollar tab.Work harder America the Obama s lived it up on our dime and now we have a massive tab to pay.Happy Labor Day! | 1real |
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