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HILARIOUS! CNN President Jeff Zucker Is Hitler [VIDEO] | CNN s ratings have been in the toilet ever since they made falsifying news about our President and his nonexistent Russian connection a top priority. Earlier this week, CNN sunk to a new low when they threatened to release the identity of a private user on social media site Reddit, after he made a video showing President Trump body-slamming a CNN logo superimposed over the WWE Chairman s body. Perhaps it s a good time for CNN to think about replacing their vengeful, bully president CNN s president, Jeff Zucker, responded to the fiasco surrounding his network this week with a jab President Donald Trump s way, asserting it s the White House chief who s the aggressor in this tiff that the news organization is the victim.Zucker s like the playground bully, caught mid-punch, mid-push, now standing before the principal, trying to weasel out of blame. My job is to remind everyone that they need to stay focused doing their job, Zuckersaid to The New York Times. [Trump s] trying to bully us, and we re not going to let him intimidate us. You can t lose your confidence and let that change the way you conduct yourselves. Decoded meaning: CNN s not going to change their witch-hunting ways.The whole tiff is over a video clip that Trump retweeted showing him wrestling CNN to the ground. The media, as the media is wont to do, went overboard with the criticism of Trump s retweet, pretending like he was calling for arms against members of the media.CNN then went on a hunt to identify the creator of this video, watchdogging like it s not watchdogged in years. And once identified, the guy was then issued this rather cold, calculating message from CNN: Behave, or we ll name you publicly.Watch Infowars hilarious FAKE NEWS video that replaces the Hitler character with CNN president Jeff Zucker: Hitler reacts to CNN pic.twitter.com/zyjdJTknAN Trump in 2020 (@GOPin2020) July 8, 2017The hashtag #CNNBlackmail quickly gathered steam on Twitter. And rightly so. A media giant going after a private citizen for making a satire video seems a bit, well, Gestapo tactic. But instead of backtracking and apologizing, CNN seems to have dug in for battle.Hmm. Interesting strategy. Washington Times | 1real |
Trump Literally Stops The GOP Debate To Inform Us All About The Size Of His Penis (VIDEO) | The GOP Presidential Primary hit a new low on Thursday night as the debate descended into a literal cockfight, with Donald Trump attempting to convince us all about the satisfactory size of his manhood. This is not satire. This actually happened.The weirdest campaign moment yet came after a plea by Marco Rubio that the GOP candidates end their war of insults, and keep the debate to a battle of ideas instead. At which point, Trump took us on a tangent, which ended with him telling us all about the size of his penis.Basically, Trump has been smarting for a quarter of a century over a slight made against him by journalist Graydon Carter. The Vanity Fair writer wrote a negative piece on Trump, in which he called him a short-fingered vulgarian. Last October, Carter published a piece in Vanity Fair entitled: Why Donald Trump Will Always Be a Short-Fingered Vulgarian - in which he detailed Trump s thin-skinned response to the criticism, and his refusal to let the matter go. He writes:Like so many bullies, Trump has skin of gossamer. He thinks nothing of saying the most hurtful thing about someone else, but when he hears a whisper that runs counter to his own vainglorious self-image, he coils like a caged ferret. Just to drive him a little bit crazy, I took to referring to him as a short-fingered vulgarian in the pages of Spy magazine. That was more than a quarter of a century ago. To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump. There is always a photo of him generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers.And so it was, that Trump decided that a Primary debate to decide the Republican nominee for President of the United States, was the appropriate place to brag about the size of his penis. Look at those hands. Are they small hands? he told the crowd, holding his (admittedly stubby) fingers out towards the audience and the cameras. He referred to my hands, if they re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there s no problem. I guarantee. There was awkward laughter from the audience. There was probably much louder laughter around the world, as U.S. politics is turned into the kind of embarrassing spectacle that we are more used to seeing from North Korea or other banana republics. Donald Trump is fast becoming the Kim Jong Un of America: an over-fed, over-indulged, hyper-vain authoritarian who embarrasses his nation every time he embarrasses himself. Featured Image by Gage Skidmore (Flickr Creative Commons) | 1real |
Congress Passes One-Week Spending Bill to Avert Government Shutdown - Breitbart | The Senate has joined the House of Representatives in averting a government shutdown by funding most of the federal government for one week. The Senate approved the House’s Joint Resolution (HR Res 99) on a voice vote shortly after the House passed the Continuing Resolution on a 382 to 30 voice vote. [The CR, introduced in the House on Thursday, amends the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2017. The current CR was set to expire on Friday. “There’s no Democratic objection,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ( ) told NBC News. ”There’s still some to be negotiated” on a deal, “but the negotiators were up ’til 1:30 last night … so certainly we’re willing to give it a few more days. ” “The measure was needed after negotiations between the two parties in Congress and the administration on a bill fell short of Friday’s deadline,” NBC reported on Friday. “The CR also amends the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to extend through May 5, 2017, a provision that provides health care benefits for certain retired miners and their families,” the congress. gov website states. President Donald Trump has until midnight tonight to sign the Continuing Resolution. | 0fake |
HEARTWARMING: Support For Socialism On College Campuses Much Less Than Media Would Like Americans To Believe | Proof that sanity still exists on college campuses.Capitalists on campus won t have to stand by any longer while communists and socialists celebrate May Day, as they ve appropriated the holiday. Turning Point USA offered free materials to students with a comprehensive plan for the Socialism Sucks Day of Action.More than 500 campuses are participating in the counter-celebration on Monday. I want the American Dream. Socialism only takes away my chance to start a multi-billion company in my apartment, Turning Point USA s Josh Thifault declared. It s important that we stick to the values that made our country great capitalism and freedom. Some students have caught on to what Venezuela has learned the hard way. Venezuela s brewing company, responsible for 80 percent of its beer supply, began to shut down its last plant on Friday, according to The Wall Street Journal. In addition to how Venezuelans like to celebrate, there is concern because the beer factory also provided jobs. The country has suffered food shortages and power outages, and can no longer afford to print its own money. Venezuelans are also learning that socialism sucks and are petitioning to recall President Nicol s Maduro.In stark contrast to the student activities in other parts of America, May Day was celebrated with violence in Seattle. At least nine were arrested for pelting officers with rocks, batons, and molotov cocktails, which injured at least five officers. The violence has been an annual trend in Seattle for May Day, as Yahoo! News reported.Only 33 percent of young people support socialism, according to a recent Harvard IOP poll.Via: Red Alert Politics | 1real |
SHAMELESS! Hillary Clinton Throws Benghazi Families Under The Bus | Hillary Clinton s pointing the finger at the victims of the Benghazi attack the families of the four heroes who died there. She says, not me when asked who s lying about Benghazi. I have to say with Hillary s track record of telling some big whoppers, I d say I believe the Benghazi families. How about you?Hillary Clinton insists that if anyone is lying about the aftermath of the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks that left four Americans dead, it s not me. More than three years after the fires inside a U.S. diplomatic compound in the Libyan port city died down, the political heat is intensifying again with Clinton facing tough questions along her road to the White House.The Daily Sun, a newspaper in rural Conway, New Hampshire, hosted an editorial board meeting with Clinton on Wednesday. Columnist Tom McLaughlin recounted for her the claims of victims family members who said she had told them a crude Internet video that mocked the Islamic faith was responsible for inciting the attackers who killed their loved ones.Clinton has denied making any such statement, despite the accounts of four people. One, the father of a slain CIA security contractor, took written notes of her words. Somebody is lying, McLaughlin told her Wednesday. Who is it? Not me, that s all I can tell you, Clinton replied, casting blame on the families.Read more: UK Daily Mail | 1real |
Former Vanderbilt Football Player Found Guilty in Campus Rape - The New York Times | A Tennessee jury convicted a former Vanderbilt University football player of rape charges on Saturday after weighing evidence that he invited three teammates to sexually assault an unconscious woman in his dorm room. Over five days of testimony in a Nashville courtroom, prosecutors portrayed Brandon Vandenburg, 23, as encouraging the 2013 attack, passing out condoms and recording video that he sent to friends. Reporters in the courtroom said Mr. Vandenburg shook his head as the jury foreman read the verdict: guilty on all counts, five of aggravated rape, two of aggravated sexual battery and one of unlawful photography. In a front row, his mother sobbed. “It’s impossible to not to be emotional about this case,” Jan Norman, an assistant district attorney, said after the verdict. “The facts of it are horrific. ” Prosecutors say three other men were present in Mr. Vandenburg’s room during the attack in June 2013. One, Cory Batey, was convicted along with Mr. Vandenburg last year during a joint trial. Those verdicts were thrown out after it was revealed that one of the jurors had not disclosed during the trial that he had once been a victim of statutory rape. During a retrial in April, Mr. Batey was again found guilty of aggravated rape and other charges. The two other men, Jaborian McKenzie and Brandon Banks, have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial. The trial, conducted against the backdrop of a national discussion about sexual assaults on college campuses and the conduct of gained intense public scrutiny because of the accusations against the defendants, who were Division I athletes at Vanderbilt, a private university. It also drew comparisons to another recent trial. In that case, Brock Turner, a former swimmer at Stanford, was sentenced to six months in jail after being convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in 2015. The punishment, which many critics denounced as lenient, set off protests that echoed across the country and, on Wednesday, in Congress, where members of the House took turns reading a letter written by the victim. Mr. Vandenburg and Mr. Batey are both facing minimum sentences of 15 years. The law also provided a mandatory minimum in Mr. Turner’s case — two years — but the judge had discretion to deviate from it. The victim in Nashville, at the time a neuroscience major, testified that she had been drinking with Mr. Vandenburg at a bar. The next thing she recalled, she said, was waking up alone in his bed, in pain. Questioned by the police four days later, Mr. Vandenburg acknowledged that he had watched the attack. “She got sexually assaulted right in front of me. And I didn’t do anything,” he said during the interrogation, according to The Tennessean. “I should’ve called someone. ” Mr. Vandenburg’s defense argued that he was intoxicated and could not be held responsible for his teammates’ actions. While the state did not accuse Mr. Vandenburg of touching the woman, it argued that he coaxed others to do so. In that regard, said Tom Thurman, the deputy district attorney general, the videos taken by Mr. Vandenburg, some of which were recovered by investigators and shown during the trial, established his culpability beyond any doubt. Randall Reagan, a lawyer for Mr. Vandenburg, said he would appeal. | 0fake |
Iran Races to Clinch Oil Deals Before Donald Trump Takes Office - The New York Times | TEHRAN — President Hassan Rouhani of Iran is racing to sign as many oil deals with Western companies as he can before at home and Donald J. Trump have a chance to return the Mideast country to cultural and economic isolation. At the same time, Iran is in a battle with Saudi Arabia and other OPEC producers to reclaim its position as one of the world’s leading oil exporters, a spot it lost during the years of international sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran’s oil industry, the lifeblood of its economy, was devastated by the cumulative impact of the nuclear sanctions, which halved petroleum exports and left the country ostracized economically. The international nuclear agreement that lifted those sanctions nearly a year ago, one of the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy initiatives, has enabled Iran to partly recover. But Mr. Trump has warned that he may dismantle the deal, a threat that has injected new urgency into Iran’s push to build up its oil industry before Mr. Trump takes power next month. A provisional agreement this week with Royal Dutch Shell to develop two of the country’s largest oil fields is the latest sign of interest in Iran from international energy companies. Over the last four weeks, Tehran has negotiated similar agreements with the oil field services giant Schlumberger and companies from China, Norway, Thailand and Poland. The deals, if completed, would bring expertise and foreign investment. Just as important, though, the agreements could provide a lifeline to the rest of the world, experts say, cementing relations with a number of European and Asian countries. That, they say, could provide an insurance policy of sorts against any punitive actions taken next year by the Trump administration and the Congress. Few Iranian officials like to acknowledge their country’s vulnerability, insisting it is immune to outside pressures. But the election of Mr. Trump and his selection of a national security team that views Iran as a major threat in the Middle East seems at the least certain to usher in a new period of tensions, and could ultimately threaten Iran’s efforts to rejoin the global economy. “Our officials are in a rush to sign contracts with big oil companies in order to have leverage when Trump enters the White House,” said Saeed Laylaz, an economist with close ties to the government of Mr. Rouhani. The Iranian president came to power promising to end Iran’s isolation and revive its economy, so the advent of a Trump presidency poses a dire threat to his political future. Mr. Laylaz pointed out that most European energy giants had been present in Iran for decades and had left only after sanctions, now lifted, were imposed during the Obama administration. “Just as in the past, we need them back here, also to make sure we are not isolated,” he said of the Europeans. Analysts noted that the deals were only memorandums of understanding, not hard contracts. But they stressed that the agreements also indicated a strong desire by Western and Asian energy companies to send a message to Washington as they return to Iran, once the world’s exporter of oil. “It seems the big oil and gas companies in Europe are determined to show Mr. Trump that they are going to make deals with Iran anyway,” said Reza Zandi, an Iranian journalist and analyst who specializes in the oil and gas industries. “These are important signals to America,” he added. Mr. Zandi said it was not hard to see why the oil companies were so eager to return to Iran. “We need $40 billion in investment in the oil and gas sector each year,” he said, “and we don’t have such resources inside the country. ” Mr. Rouhani and his government of technocrats are fighting their oil battle on two fronts. Domestically, they face pressure from who have been closely scrutinizing the oil contracts, seeking anything that could undermine Iran’s independence and trying to steer them to companies under their control. But Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, told the semiofficial news agency Fars in November that only foreign companies had the ability and capital to modernize Iran’s crumbling oil and gas sector. “We need technology, including the management technology that allows a project to come into operation in four years rather than in 12 years,” he said. “And above all, we need the money. ” Iran also faces a struggle to rebuild its oil exports. Growing production has allowed Iran in recent months to recover many of the Asian and European markets that it lost to Saudi Arabia and other OPEC producers during the years when sanctions were in effect. And as Iran effectively flexes its muscles in OPEC for the first time since the sanctions were lifted in January, its goal is not only to protect its newfound gains but also to expand its markets, pitting it directly against its bitter sectarian rival, Saudi Arabia. Further production and export expansion, however, will require more foreign investment. The new wave of agreements with Iran, most of which remain provisional, began on Nov. 8, the day of Mr. Trump’s victory, when Total, a French company, became the first Western energy company to negotiate a deal to develop and produce natural gas from a section of a giant Persian Gulf gas field. Total leads a consortium that includes the China National Petroleum Corporation and Petropars, a subsidiary of the Iranian oil company, in the $4. 8 billion project. The provisional agreement is expected to be completed early next year. “They are signing before Trump does something,” said Dragan Vuckovic, president of Mediterranean International, a oil services company that works in North Africa and the Middle East. “The Iranians will give the Europeans favorable terms because of Trump. They want to send a message to Trump that if you try to cancel this agreement, we will just go to the Europeans. ” Iran needs foreign capital and technical expertise to reach its immediate goal of returning to its 2011 oil production level of 4. 3 million barrels a day, reversing a drop that began even before sanctions were imposed. Many Iranian fields are old and in decline, requiring sophisticated and expensive redrilling of wells and injections of water and carbon dioxide to coax more oil from the ground. Since oil export sanctions were lifted, Iran’s production has risen almost a third, to about 3. 7 million barrels a day, with minimal foreign help. By reaching agreements with Total and Shell, Tehran now has the ambitious goal of reaching production levels of 4. 8 million barrels a day by 2021, which would give it added clout in OPEC and the ability to go with Saudi Arabia in competing for growing Asian markets, particularly in India. In past decades, Iran has been aggressive in urging other OPEC members to use their position to manipulate the market for higher prices, while Saudi Arabia has often argued for caution. Saudi Arabia has held the upper hand in recent years, but Iran was a major player at the latest OPEC meeting, as the cartel decided to cut production for the first time in eight years. Iran wants to ramp up production at the very moment that Saudi Arabia wants to cut output to lift prices. Using its recovered production leverage, Iran agreed to go along with the decision to collectively cut 1. 2 million barrels a day of production only when the other members conceded to its demands that it be allowed to increase production by about 90, 000 barrels a day next year. It remains to be seen whether the agreement to scale back production, not slated to take effect until January, will hold up. Similar agreements among OPEC members in the past have crumbled in the face of widespread cheating and a lack of an enforcement mechanism. The agreement is also contingent on cooperation from a handful of producers, particularly Russia, which is notoriously unreliable in such matters, said Philip K. Verleger Jr. an energy economist who served in the Ford and Carter administrations. “There is no one who will concede market share, and so there is no way to come to an enforceable agreement,” Mr. Verleger said. But just the fact that Iran was able to play a leading role at the OPEC meeting is a sign that its leaders are determined to return to world markets — as long as they are not stymied once again by geopolitical developments. | 0fake |
Comment on Mark Ruffalo Delivers Mobile Solar Trailers to Standing Rock Camps in Preparation for Harsh Winter by T. Mohr | Home / Be The Change / Mark Ruffalo Delivers Mobile Solar Trailers to Standing Rock Camps in Preparation for Harsh Winter Mark Ruffalo Delivers Mobile Solar Trailers to Standing Rock Camps in Preparation for Harsh Winter Jay Syrmopoulos October 30, 2016 2 Comments
Cannon Ball, ND – In a show of kindness and solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux, actor Mark Ruffalo and Native Renewables founder Wahleah Johns presented Sioux tribal elders with mobile trailers equipped with solar collection arrays. The trailers provide a clean energy source for the protest encampment where over 500 Native American tribes have taken a stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline in the largest gathering of American Indians in modern history.
“This pipeline is a black snake that traverses four states and 200 waterways with fracked Bakken oil,” said Ruffalo, co-founder of The Solutions Project, a venture that works to transition society to clean and renewable energy.
“We know from experience that pipelines leak, explode, pollute and poison land and water. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
The solar trailers will allow for medical tents and numerous other critical facilities to be powered with clean energy, and represent exactly the healthy/abundant future of energy for which the Standing Rock Sioux are currently fighting.
“Water is life,” said Johns, a Navajo leader. “By leading a transition to energy that is powered by the sun, the wind and water, we ensure a better future for all of our people and for future generations.”
According to a report by EcoWatch :
Johns’ company, Native Renewables, promotes low-cost clean energy solutions for Native American families throughout the U.S., with an emphasis on job creation and on benefiting the community as a whole. The trailers were built by members of the Navajo nation and were financed by Empowered by Light and Give Power.
Research led by Stanford Prof. Mark Jacobson, another Solutions Project co-founder, shows that it would be technically possible and economically beneficial to transition to 100 percent clean renewable energy in each and every state across the country. In North Dakota, for example, wind and solar energy would be the primary sources of clean power and transitioning to 100 percent renewables would create 30,000 jobs.
The reality of the situation is that the Standing Rock tribe is fighting to protect their source of clean water. The Dakota Access Pipeline puts the tribe’s clean water supply, as well as that of millions of others, in danger, as the pipeline is scheduled to go directly under the Missouri River.
— Dan Zukowski (@danzukowski) October 25, 2016
The construction of the “black snake” marks the conglomeration of corporate/banking interests being elevated above that of the public interest. Furthermore, the ongoing construction has already desecrated sacred burial sites and cultural artifacts. “Around the world, more than 80 percent of the forests and lands with protected waterways and rich biodiversity are held by indigenous tribes. This is no coincidence,” Ruffalo said. “As so many of us suffer from polluted water, air and land in our rural and urban communities, the water defenders at Standing Rock are showing us another way.”
Imagine how you would respond if an oil pipeline was being dug through the cemetery where your grandparents and great grandparents were buried.
Mark Ruffalo taking a stand for the Standing Rock Sioux is a great example for all individuals, celebrity, and non-celebrity alike. Rather than simply donating some money to a cause, he has utilized his celebrity to bring much greater attention to the continued injustices being perpetrated against the Native American community.
It’s clear that Ruffalo has taken a page out of Ghandi’s book, and is “being the change he wishes to see in the world.”
Please share this inspiring human story — and take a stand for Standing Rock! Share | 1real |
HILLARY ANNOUNCES DEFENSE OF KILLING BABIES AFTER 20 WEEKS…Okay With Keeping Babies Alive If Used For Campaign Props | Way to go Granny! Perfect timing for your announcement with the discovery of the Planned Parenthood s aborted baby parts business in the headlines Yesterday, Hilary Clinton defending late-term abortion on Twitter and called Wisconsin s abortion ban dangerous and unacceptable.As LifeNews previously reported, on July 19th, pro-life Governor Scott Walker signed the Pain Capable Unborn Protection Act, making Wisconsin the 15th state to ban abortions after 20-weeks of pregnancy. Prior to signing the bill, he said, At five months an unborn child can feel pain. As a society we should be protecting that child. But Hillary Clinton has a vastly different view:Gov. Walker signed dangerous abortion restrictions into law in WI without exceptions for rape or incest. Extreme and unacceptable. -H Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 21, 2015 Governor Walker responded with his own rejoinder calling Clinton out of touch: Hillary shows she s out of touch with the majority of Americans who believe babies at 5 months deserve life. -SW https://t.co/5NG0llQRbd Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) July 21, 2015 Unfortunately, if Hillary Clinton becomes our next president she will further abortion-on-demand in America even though she once said she believes abortion should be rare. Bill Donohue from the Catholic League responded to her remarks and highlighted her radical abortion agenda.He said, We know that Hillary lied when she said she wants abortions to be rare. To be exact, she opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions: if she is okay with killing a baby who is 80 percent born, there are no instances left for her to register an objection. Now we know that Hillary lied when she said she wants to keep abortions safe. As soon as Walker signed the law protecting unborn babies from feeling pain, Hillary labeled his decision dangerous. He added that Hillary should explain what she means when she says that this ban is dangerous, considering the fact that some of these babies feel immense pain while being dismembered. Donohue concluded, Hillary needs to elaborate on this. Why is it not uncomfortable forget about dangerous for a sensate human being to be pierced with a surgical knife? Why, for example, do these babies put their fingers up to the knife in an attempt to shield them from more pain? The public has a right to know what s going on in her mind. In May, Clinton joined President Obama in opposing the federal 20-week ban and said the following through a spokesperson: Politicians should not interfere with personal medical decisions, which should be left to a woman, her family and her faith, in consultation with her doctor or health care provider. She added, This bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, which has protected a woman s constitutional right to privacy for over forty years. The bill puts women s health and rights at risk, undermines the role doctors play in health care decisions, burdens survivors of sexual assault, and is not based on sound science. However, the science behind fetal pain is solid, which is why so many states in the U.S. have worked to end late abortion. Unborn children have the biological equipment necessary to feel pain no later than 20 weeks after fertilization, and nerves link receptors to the brain s thalamus and sub-cortical plate around that same time. Researchers also found that unborn children react to pain by recoiling, which is the same way adult humans react to pain. In fact, during surgery on these little humans, fetal surgeons found that anesthesia was necessary to decrease their reaction to stress hormones.Via: LifeNews | 1real |
ISLAMIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATION Joins Obama And Friends To Condemn Trump’s ‘No New Muslim Immigrants’ Position | What does Obama, the Democrat Party, the state-run media and faux conservatives in Congress all have in common with Hamas? They all want to take down Trump TEL AVIV Palestinian terrorist organizations did not take kindly to Donald Trump s call for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country s representatives can figure out what is going on. Responding to Trump s proposal, Ismail Radwan, a Hamas leader and spokesman in Gaza, told Breitbart Jerusalem: We do not estimate that the current U.S. administration, any administration, will implement these racist suggestions. This is a pathetic attempt to attribute terror exclusively to Muslims. Radwan, whose group s charter calls for the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, lectured Trump: Islam is a religion of peace, a religion which opposes bloodshed. Radwan glossed over Hamas own long and sordid history of bloodshed in the name of Islam, including thousands of terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds of Israelis. Hamas has been responsible for suicide bombings, shootings, and rocket attacks targeting Israeli neighborhoods.Abu al-Ayna al-Ansari, a senior Salafi jihadist in the Gaza Strip, also sounded off to Breitbart Jerusalem on Trump s remarks.Supporters might argue that Trump s shutdown could stop future terrorist attacks. Ansari, however, claimed that, because of leaders like Trump, the American people are risking more terrorist attacks from our brothers, fighters of the Islamic State. We Muslims have grown used to these types of statements, which prove that the U.S. under any president will continue to be hostile towards Muslims, added Ansari.The jihadist went on to claim that Trump s sentiments exposed the truth about American leaders. They claim to stand for human rights, while in actuality they carry out the same policy as that of the infidel crusading West, which oppresses the Muslims. Trump should know that a new generation of Muslims has risen, a generation that is capable of handling people like him and countries like the U.S., Ansari added.Speaking on ABC s Good Morning America on Tuesday, Trump clarified that under his proposal American Muslims can come and go as they please.Trump expressed his hopes that a shutdown will go quickly, as soon as our leaders figure out what the hell is going on. If a person is a Muslim, goes overseas and comes back, they can come back. They re a citizen. That s different, Trump explained. But we have to figure things out. Speaking on CNN on Tuesday, Trump warned that the country risks more terrorist attacks if his plan for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration is not implemented. You re going to have many more World Trade Centers if you don t solve it many, many more and probably beyond the World Trade Center, Trump told CNN s Chris Cuomo.Trump speculated that there are already terrorists inside the country. They want our buildings to come down; they want our cities to be crushed. They are living within our country. And many of them want to come from outside our country. In a statement released to reporters on Monday, Trump cited a poll from the Center for Security Policy showing that segments of the Muslim population hold anti-American views.According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred toward Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing 25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad and 51% of those polled agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah. Trump urged Americans to better understand the ideology of radical Islam before allowing Muslims into the country. Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Why Was A Mysterious Navy Plane Conducting “Secret Electronic Command/Control Drill” Over Denver? | Why Was A Mysterious Navy Plane Conducting “Secret Electronic Command/Control Drill” Over Denver? Mac Slavo SHTFplan.com Read by 2 people
It seems that the U.S. military is geared up for a permanent cyber war with the people and various governments of this globe.
Though tensions with Russia may have been temporarily alleviated with the election of Donald Trump – who has signaled for peace with Putin – the long game is much more complicated.
With new powers in Washington taking shape in the next administration, one faction in government was quietly, subtly parading its power.
The Continuity of Government contingent of the shadow government will not be taken out of power by any mere election, and no matter what decisions Trump makes and no matter what inflammatory remark he may make, there are those who will still have their finger on the button. And that means a tremendous amount of power.
Residents in the Denver area were presented with a mysterious white plane that flew in a “racetrack pattern” for more than an hour above the city before it landed at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, where the aircraft – what the Navy has now disclosed to be an E-6B – is housed.
Here’s the bizarre route that observers tracked, and the Navy was later forced to confirm: “Mysterious” plane circling over Denver was “just” an E-6B Mercury “doomsday” plane https://t.co/SqJlBkdIqg pic.twitter.com/oE0BBWrhFL
— The Aviationist (@TheAviationist) November 17, 2016
It’s mission remains classified, but military officials admit a drill was underway…
via ABC 7 Denver :
A plane shrouded in mystery captured the attention of thousands on Wednesday. Nobody knew why a high-altitude plane circled the City of Denver for hours. Now the Navy has some answers.
Denver7 tracked IRON99 as it traveled from the West Coast to Oklahoma, where it eventually landed at Tinker Air Force Base, however it spent roughly an hour in Denver, circling in a racetrack-style holding pattern over the city.
Denver7 branded it a mystery in a previous report because officials from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and a dozen Air Force Bases could not confirm what the flight may have been.
A day later — after the plane landed — Navy officials… confirmed IRON99’s identity is a Navy E-6B Mercury, created by Boeing at a cost of $141.7 million per unit.
The unit’s overall mission is classified, Hubbell said, [elaborating that] the E-6B is “command, control and communications abilities to direct and employ strategic resources.”
[…] the planes are able to launch nuclear missiles and communicate with diverse assets, including nuclear submarines.
[…] a high-ranking federal official … said the plane was involved in a classified training mission organized by the Department of Defense.
The training mission reportedly centered around electronic surveillance and involved several agencies which aren’t likely to comment on the mission, the source said.
Given that the E-6B deals with “command, control and communications,” as well as electronic surveillance and communications with nuclear submarines and other assets that could launch nuclear war… one can assume that a major mission is in rehearsal – to take charge of the nation’s vital weapons and resources in the event of a catastrophic emergency, break down in order or disabling of the power structure in Washington.
A similar E-4B was spotted flying above the capital on the morning of September 11th, shortly after the attacks. It was reportedly conducting a drill, but later instructed to prepare to go active as a mobile command center. Both planes deal with sensitive electronics communications involving, at least in part, nuclear launch codes and military continuity in the event of a breakdown of order.
DOOMSDAY PLANES It is important to note that the E-4B is no ordinary aircraft. It is a militarized version of a Boeing 747-200, equipped with advanced communications equipment, and capable of carrying a crew of up to 112 people. Nicknamed “Doomsday” planes during the Cold War, E-4Bs serve the president, the secretary of defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In times of national emergency, they can act as highly-survivable command, control, and communications centers to direct forces, execute war orders, and coordinate actions by civil authorities. The U.S. military possesses four of them in total. One is always kept on alert, with a full battle staff. Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska is the “Main Operating Base” for the E-4B, though there are also numerous “Forward Operating Bases” (FOB) throughout the U.S. [7]
Here’s the reported layout of the E-6B, upgraded for the cutting edge of electronic warfare:
In the current context, there are perhaps three distinct fronts that this command unit could have theater over. COMMUNICATIONS BLACKOUT – The E-6B’s communications and control powers could be used to disrupt or disable electronic communications in the population over a given city or area. With sensitive military installations near Colorado Springs, the plane could have blacked out much of the Denver area accordingly with the situation. This CoG plane has dominance over the civilian population, and can bring their ordinary activities to a halt. Surveillance, data collection and ‘drone detection’ may have also been objectives of this drill and real-life activities. CHECK AGAINST AGGRESSION – The E-6B’s capabilities are a powerful counterbalance to possible hostile intentions on the part of Russia, China or other adversaries. As SHTF has often highlighted, modern warfare is based around the use of electromagnetic fields, communications jamming and, potentially, the use of an EMP to knock out electronics. Depending upon the potential situation, the ranking U.S. official on board or in communication with this plane could launch nuclear weapons, communicate with SSBN submarines around the globe or deny airspace to a conflicting force. TRUMP CARD FOR THE COG – Symbolically, at least, the E-6B, conducting a drill a week or so after the election sends a message to the President-elect, and perhaps to his constituents as well, that there are limits to the power of a president. While Trump’s power is theoretically capped by the Constitution’s checks and balances, in the real world, the Continuity of Goverment (CoG) structure has operational superiority over any president, and perhaps they wanted to signal to Trump here (or perhaps not). If any president ‘gets out of line’ or starts to ‘believe they are truly in charge’, this plane can override their ego and maintain the dominance of the status quo… it is a potential coup in motion.
This is the true face of the ruling elite. This is the system they maintain, and anything below this threshold is not truly in charge.
This what democracy looks like, when you strip away the silly game of voting, candidates and campaigns.
This is the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about.
Read more: | 1real |
Desperate Staff Sent Melania To Stop 2-Hour Trump/Putin Meeting, She Failed | If you ever needed evidence of Donald Trump s bromance with Vladimir Putin, it s in the amount of time they spent together. Though their private meeting at the G-20 summit was supposed to last a half hour, Trump ended up spending two hours and sixteen minutes with the man who helped him get elected through a fierce and well-funded propaganda campaign as well as an extensive hacking effort. Several times I had to remind the president, people were sticking their heads in the door, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the Washington Examiner. They even sent in the first lady at one point to see if she could get us out of there, and that didn t work either. We went another hour after she came in to see us, so clearly, she failed. There was so much to talk about, said Tillerson. Neither one of them wanted to stop. Tillerson says that Trump and Putin got along like they had been best friends all their lives. The two leaders connected very quickly, he says. There was a very clear positive chemistry. Don t worry, though. Trump is on top of this Russia scandal thing. He asked Vlad if Russia interfered with our election and accepted at face value that Putin absolutely did not help him win. Nothing to see here:Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who attended the meeting along with Tillerson, said Trump accepted Putin s assurances that Russia didn t meddle in the U.S. election. But Tillerson said the Russians had asked for proof and evidence of its involvement. A day earlier, Trump had said Russia probably meddled but that other countries likely did, too.Tillerson said the two leaders had agreed to continue the discussion, with an eye toward securing a commitment that Russia won t interfere in U.S. affairs in the future.See? Case closed. Nothing to worry about. Everything is perfectly normal.Featured image via Twitter | 1real |
WOW! CHICAGO RESIDENTS Blast “Democratic Machine” For Ruining The City…”They Want You to Think Donald Trump Is The Problem…White and Black Democrats Are Doing This To Us” [VIDEO] | This isn t the first punch this group of black Chicago residents have delivered to the failed Democrat Party. In 2015, they made a video message directly aimed at Barack Obama and the Democrat Party. The video exposed the lies Obama and the Democrats told Chicago residents to get votes, and then after the election, they ignored the residents while unemployment rates and crime skyrocketed and the city crumbled around them. Watch the VIRAL video HERE.The taxpayer-funded installation of a giant, gold-lettered #RealFake sculpture, placed by Chicago just opposite Trump Tower, serves as the backdrop for a cutting short film, Chicago Carnage, from RebelPundit filmmakers Jeremy Segal and Andrew Marcus featuring community organizers Paul McKinley and Mark Carter.The city of Chicago installed the sculpture just across the Chicago River from Trump Tower in a space that could only be intended to give a giant middle finger to President Trump late last month. The sculpture sits as perfect photo-op to take selfies and group photos flipping off the Trump sign, while standing underneath it right next to the golden sculpture that screams Real Fake.Both say Chicago is a city that is overrun with very real deadly violence and poverty within a few short miles from this sculpture and it is by intentional design under the liberal agenda. It is ironic that this sign would show up right here, and not in front of City Hall, McKinley says. It is a great deception to distract people from real issues. Carter says, They are not trying to resolve the problems in this city, they need things to happen exactly the way they are happening .The fake news is that this city is a city for everyone .This is city for the elite. He goes on to slam the city for looking like a bomb has been dropped, and looking like a third world city. Every day of the week there is a body count, 30 people shot up, 40 people shot up, that s not real fake, says McKinley. They want you to be focused on Donald Trump being the problem, Carter said, to which McKinley asks, why are we all messed up, Trump just got in there? There is nothing fake about this guy, said Carter, he tells you what he s about, the fake is Barack Obama, the fake is Bill Clinton. The Democrat machine is dummying down the people, socially engineering the people into poverty.They want you to believe that there is some white racist Republicans or some white racist conservative doing this. No, this is the democrat machine, these are white and black racist Democrats that are doing this to us.They don t want the killing to stop. They need the people to continue to poor. They need these blood sucking programs, that have never done anything to bring down violence, unemployment and poverty.McKinley says, this is the most racist city and segregated city in the country, right here in Chicago. Rebel Pundit | 1real |
Senate delays healthcare vote as McCain recovers from surgery | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate will delay its consideration of healthcare legislation while Arizona Republican Senator John McCain recuperates from surgery, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Saturday. McCain’s absence cast doubt on whether the Senate would be able to pass the legislation to dismantle and replace Obamacare. McConnell needs 50 “yes” votes for passage in a chamber the Republicans control by a 52-48 margin. “While John is recovering, the Senate will continue our work on legislative items and nominations, and will defer consideration of the Better Care Act,” McConnell said in a statement. The announcement came after McCain’s office said he would remain in Arizona next week following a procedure to remove a 2-inch (5-cm) blood clot from above his left eye. Repealing and replacing President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law was a top campaign promise for President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress. But two Republican senators have already declared their opposition to revised legislation unveiled on Thursday. McCain has expressed concern about the healthcare bill but has not said how he would vote. The 2008 Republican presidential nominee, McCain was resting comfortably at home in good condition after Friday’s operation, his office said. “There are few people tougher than my friend John McCain, and I know he’ll be back with us soon,” McConnell said. McCain’s surgeons removed the clot during a minimally invasive craniotomy through an incision in the 80-year-old lawmaker’s eyebrow. Tissue pathology reports would be available within the next several days. “Thanks to @MayoClinic for its excellent care — I appreciate your support & look forward to getting back to work!” McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on social network Twitter late on Saturday. | 0fake |
Trump Supporter Threatens To Slaughter Black People Because A Guy Was Mean To Him On Facebook (VIDEO) | Ever since Officer Darren Wilson murdered unarmed African-American teen Michael Brown in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, Trump supporter James Stachowiak has been threatening African-Americans, even attempting to organize a posse to shoot black people animals and n*ggers as Stachowiak calls them peacefully protesting the GOP convention last year. According to this self-described patriot, black women and children (who should be shot in the backs according to the right-wing activist) who were seen exiting stores in Ferguson during the protests because they may or may not be looting.Naturally, African-Americans aren t exactly fond of the guy who has been leveling threats at an entire race for years. After Stachowiak told his fellow conservatives to prepare to kill anyone who punches a Nazi in America, a black man who goes by the name Frank Luc on Facebook messaged Stachowiak, informing him that he will gladly punch him in the face and if Stachowiak pulls a gun, it will not end well for him. While we can never endorse threats against anyone, the anger this gentleman feels toward a racist white man who has threatened to kill quite literally any African-American who does something he does not like is justified.Stachowiak, being a thin-skinned bully, quickly published a video on his Instagram threatening Mr. Luc and, once again, black people in general. I will kill him, Stachowiak said in a video filmed while he was driving. I will kill you Frank if you so much as set in front of my house even on a public street. I will fill your car with so much rounds they won t be able to tell if if was a vehicle anymore. Then his threats became more general. He informed Frank that he will be hunted if he successfully defends himself against a premeditated gun attack and that anyone between you and the hunters will be acceptable collateral damage. We re done with Black Lives Matter aren t we Frank? Stachowiak continued. We re gonna start cleaning it up starting with you Frank. In case you missed it, because someone was mean to him on the internet, Stachowiak threatened to ethnically cleanse black people. Regardless of anyone s opinion of Frank s message to Stachowiak, it is chilling that he would plot to kill an entire race of people because of one man s words.Watch the video below:featured image via screengrab | 1real |
BOOM! Hey Democrats….Why The Violent Riots? YOUNG AMERICAN Proves Dems Really Don’t Care About Jobs, Helping Minorities or Women [VIDEO] | Watch:You want a #JobsReport?Here's a jobs report: President Trump is bringing jobs back to America & keeping promises. #FlashbackFriday pic.twitter.com/qViMRO9OOv #ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) March 10, 2017 | 1real |
5 Things You Need to Know About the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests | By Nick Bernabe A small Standing Rock Sioux site in North Dakota called the Sacred Stone Camp has been propelled into the national news narrative following... | 1real |
ANGRY CONGRESS SET To Cut Off Funding To U.N…Threatens To Expel Palestinian Diplomats From U.S. Soil After Obama’s Final Assault On Israel | Congress is already setting the stage to cut off U.S. funding to the United Nations in the wake of a contested vote last week in which the Obama administration permitted an anti-Israel resolution to win overwhelming approval, according to congressional leaders, who told the Washington Free Beacon that the current administration is already plotting to take further action against the Jewish state before vacating office.Other punitive actions by Congress could include expelling Palestinian diplomats from U.S. soil and scaling back ties with foreign nations that voted in favor of the controversial measure, according to multiple sources who spoke to the Free Beacon about the situation both on and off the record.The Obama administration is still under bipartisan attack for its decision to help craft and facilitate the passage of a U.N. resolution condemning the construction of Jewish homes in Jerusalem, a move that reversed years of U.S. policy on the matter.The Free Beacon was the first to disclose on Monday that senior Obama administration officials played a key role in ensuring the measure was passed unanimously by the U.N. Security Council. This included a phone call by Vice President Joe Biden to Ukraine s president to ensure that country voted in favor of the measure.While Biden s office continues to dispute the claim, reporters in Israel and Europe confirmed in the intervening days that the call between Biden and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko did in fact take place.With anger over the issue still roiling, leading members of Congress told the Free Beacon on Wednesday that they will not delay in seeking retribution against the U.N. for the vote. This could include cutting off U.S. funding for the U.N. and stripping the Palestinian mission s diplomatic privileges.Lawmakers also will work to rebuff further attempts by the Obama administration to chastise Israel on the international stage. This would include freezing funds that could be spent by the administration on further U.N. action. The disgraceful anti-Israel resolution passed by the UNSC was apparently only the opening salvo in the Obama administration s final assault on Israel, Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) told the Free Beacon. President Obama, Secretary Kerry, Ambassador Power, and their colleagues should remember that the United States Congress reconvenes on January 3rd, and under the Constitution we control the taxpayer funds they would use for their anti-Israel initiatives. The 115th Congress must stop the current administration s vicious attack on our great ally Israel, and address the major priorities of the incoming administration, Cruz said, expressing his desire to work with the incoming Trump administration to reset the U.S. relationship with Israel.< Senior congressional sources currently working on the issue further disclosed to the Free Beacon that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are in an uproar over the Obama administration, which they accuse of plotting behind closed doors to smear Israel. Not content with spending the last eight years using the United Nations to undermine American sovereignty, the Obama administration has finally trained their sights on Israel and is trying to exploit this unelected and unaccountable international body to impose their resolution of the Palestinian issue on Israel, one senior congressional aide told the Free Beacon. Enough is enough. While the Trump administration will not take office until the end of January, Congress will be working overtime before then to stop the Obama administration from further damaging the U.S.-Israel relationship, according to the source, who hinted that a full cut-off of U.S. funding to the U.N. currently is on the table. A new administration will arrive on January 20th, but in the intervening weeks Congress has an important role mitigating the damage President Obama can do in his final hours, the source said. Why on earth would we throw good taxpayer dollars after bad in support of the UN, which has proven itself again and again utterly unable to encourage any positive progress? Just take Syria if they were doing anything over the last five years, it should have been working out a fair and equitable adjudication of the Syrian war. Instead, they ve proven themselves utterly useless in fact they ve probably made a gut-wrenching catastrophe worse, the source explained. There s no reason to think this action will turn out any more favorably. For entire story WFB | 1real |
Marine Le Pen Echoes Trump’s Bleak Populism in French Campaign Kickoff - The New York Times | LYON, France — The French leader Marine Le Pen delivered a grim populist kickoff to her burgeoning presidential campaign on Sunday, warning thousands of her supporters of “two totalitarianisms,” globalization and Islamism, that want to “subjugate France. ” Ms. Le Pen’s dark picture of a weakened France troubled by bureaucrats and burqas was a striking echo of themes being sounded across the Atlantic. France, a prosperous country with the world’s economy, was depicted as a besieged wreck. In a packed hall here, she made a point, in an hourlong speech brimming with nationalist fervor, of praising President Trump and the Americans who had elected him, as her supporters shouted forcefully, “This is our country!” Americans, she said, had “kept faith with their national interest,” even as she promised to do the same for France, saying the French had been “dispossessed of their patriotism. ” Whether it will sell in a country undoubtedly frightened by terrorism and weary of unemployment hovering around 10 percent is unclear, but it is certain that Ms. Le Pen’s National Front party is closer than it has ever been to gaining power in France after over 40 years of existence. Polls show that she is very likely to reach at least a second round of voting in France’s electoral process this spring. The weekend’s campaigning in this prosperous southeastern metropolis — her likely runoff opponent, Emmanuel Macron, the centrist former economy minister, also drew thousands to a rally across town on Saturday — offered a taste of the fierce electoral battle to come and a rerun of some of the American election’s dynamic. The populist Ms. Le Pen, 48, offered up a forbidding dystopia in urgent need of radical upheaval, much like Mr. Trump did. The boyish Mr. Macron — he is 39 and has created a nonparty political movement that has suddenly caught fire — spoke of “reconciling” France and of “working together,” and repeatedly addressed more than 10, 000 supporters in a giant stadium as “my friends. ” France would certainly stay in the European Union, in his view, and there would be none of Ms. Le Pen’s war on globalization. The crowd spilled onto the grounds outside the stadium, forcing many to watch Mr. Macron on huge screens. He took a backhanded slap at Mr. Trump, promising refuge in enlightened France to American scientists, academics and companies “fighting obscurantism” at home. They would have, “as of next May,” the date of the presidential runoff, “a homeland, and that will be France,” Mr. Macron promised. The candidates both present themselves as outsiders — Mr. Macron served in the Socialist government but is not a Socialist, while Ms. Le Pen’s party has never held power — but the crowds at the two rallies were a study in contrast. Judging by a interviews, Mr. Macron’s group was peppered with teachers, doctors, academics, civil servants and men who described themselves as “heads of companies. ” In contrast, Ms. Le Pen’s crowd was full of factory workers and former soldiers, and it adored her thundering opening line: “I’m against the Right of money, and the Left of money. I’m the candidate of the people!” Still, the slickly produced National Front event at Lyon’s modernist conference center, full of party functionaries in blazers scurrying about, showed how far the party has come from its disreputable ragtag origins in the early 1970s, when it emerged as a xenophobic coalition of former Nazi collaborators and disgruntled veterans of the Algerian war who had not forgiven the country’s leaders for having agreed to Algeria’s independence — like Ms. Le Pen’s father, the party’s founder, Le Pen. She has effectively kicked him out of the party. But Ms. Le Pen’s populist tirade echoed with many of the former patriarch’s themes. She delivered her speech against a screen projecting the words “In the Name of the People,” and it was full of immigrants committing crimes, jihadists plotting attacks and European Union bureaucrats stealing jobs from the French. Ms. Le Pen promised to crack down on all of them. Clearly buoyed by Mr. Trump’s victory after years of electoral defeats in France — “The impossible becomes the possible,” Ms. Le Pen said of it — she offered a sketch of what her presidency might look like. She promised to hold a referendum within six months on European Union membership, which she called a “nightmare,” secure the country’s borders and pull France out of NATO. Foreigners, she said, were eating up France’s social benefits and offering little in return. “Our benefits are distributed to people all over the world,” she said. But in contrast to Mr. Trump, for Ms. Le Pen restoring what she called “sovereignty” to France appeared as an end in itself. She offered no return to a golden age of prosperity for her country, promising instead to “restore order” within five years. Ruin was just around the corner, in her telling. “After decades of cowardice and our choice is a choice of civilization,” she said. “Will our children live in a country that is still French and democratic?” The crowd ate it up. “She’s got a real program, in the name of the people, for the workers, and by the workers,” said Eric Fusis, a retired military officer from the Doubs. “It’s for the nation, and not for the financial sector and the banks,” he said. | 0fake |
Mom Of Columbine Shooter Shames The NRA And Gun-Crazy Republicans | Sue Klebold, the mother of Columbine High School shooter Dylan Klebold, has written an op-ed column in the Washington Post discussing the issue of gun violence in America.The April 20, 1999 shooting at Columbine in Colorado killed 13 and injured another 24. The shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, committed suicide. At the time it was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, but then the shooting at Newtown happened.In her moving piece, Klebold discusses the role of mental health in mass shootings, and notes that over the years since the massacre, we as a society have learned to better see the signs of mental distress and to know better how to reach out to kids in crisis.But she also notes that as important as that is, the issue of easy access to guns is still hanging over this issue.Having said that, I still cannot help but believe that Dylan and Eric would not have been able to take the lives of so many if they had not had such easy access to guns. As I later learned, Dylan and Eric both of whom were minors secretly attended a gun show where they bought the shotguns they would use in the massacre and met a young man who sold them a TEC-9 semiautomatic pistol.Is our right to gun ownership under the Second Amendment so absolute that we cannot, at the very least, restrict access to certain kinds of weapons to protect the most vulnerable among us especially teenagers, whose judgment at the best of times is compromised by hormones, impulsivity and immature decision-making? Is our right to bear arms so vital to what it means to be an American that there can be no limit on those rights whatsoever, whether raising the legal age at which one can purchase a gun, as we did with the drinking age or conducting more extensive background checks or restricting access to assault weapons designed for the battlefield?Her words strike right at the heart of the core beliefs of the NRA, who insist nothing can ever actually be done to rein in guns in America. Instead, the NRA and the politicians it owns Democrats and Republicans mouth words about mental health and move on from one mass shooting to the next.If the mother of one of the worst killers in American history can see this, why can t they? Is the money really worth it?Featured image via YouTube | 1real |
WHOA! SOROS-LINKED GROUP Funding Ohio’s John Kasich Campaign | Soros is a Hungarian immigrant who s doing his best to turn America into a weak third world failed country. He s behind Obama and behind so many of the bad things that have happened to America in the past 7 years. He s as dirty as it gets so it s no surprise that he s behind the effort to bring down Donald Trump. If you live in Ohio, please make an effort to NOT vote for Kasich tomorrow because it s a vote for far left open border policies. As new reports break that a George Soros-linked group is taking credit for efforts to violently disrupt GOP frontrunner Donald Trump s campaign rallies, the Center for Responsive Politics reveals that another George Soros-linked group is coordinating another furtive operation to stop Trump by financing the campaign of John Kasich.According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Soros Fund Management is one of John Kasich s top financial contributors.George Soros a liberal progressive donor has been a top funder of the push to open America s borders. According to a 2013 CNS News report, Soros s Open Society Foundation proudly claimed to have given $100 million dollars to immigrant rights projects in the United States. According to the report, those that have been the beneficiaries of that $100 million include La Raza (Soros funding $2.4 million), the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (Soros funding $1.6 million), as well as Amnesty International (Soros funding $844,088) and Immigration Equality (Soros funding: $301,667).In addition, Soros has been financially linked to the National Immigration Forum the group behind the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT). As Breitbart reported in 2013, the Evangelical Immigration Table is actually a front group for players on the institutional left including billionaire George Soros EIT is running a $250,000 advertising campaign in favor of the Senate s Gang of Eight immigration bill. Soros money is frequently tied to groups with innocuous sounding names that promote radical agendas such as the Evangelical Immigration Table.Interestingly, as Breitbart News has previously reported, John Kasich has made a series of extreme statements on immigration that place him to the furthest leftward reaches of not just the GOP Presidential field, but the Democratic Presidential field as well. For instance, Kasich has said that enforcing our immigration laws and deporting the illegal immigrants is not humane. Kasich likened deportations to the Japanese internment camps of World War II. Kasich has also pledged that he will enact amnesty within the first 100 days of his hoped-for Presidency in effect, meaning that those who support John Kasich s presidential campaign are voting to enact the largest amnesty in U.S. history by April 30, 2017.The Washington Times reported in January of 2015, George Soros was also behind the funding of the Ferguson protests, Mr. Soros gave at least $33 million in one year to support already-established groups that emboldened the grass-roots, on-the-ground activists in Ferguson, according to the most recent tax filings of his nonprofit Open Society Foundations. As the 2013 CNS report documents, Soros has aided hundreds of left-wing groups in America since 2000 under the auspices of his Open Society Foundations. In just 10 years, he gave more than $550 million to liberal organizations in the United States.Read more: Breitbart | 1real |
Rock Legend Bryan Adams Tells Bigoted Mississippi Republicans To Go F*ck Themselves | Everything he does is definitely NOT for hateful Republicans, as rock singer Bryan Adams just cancelled an upcoming concert in Mississippi rather than perform in a state where discrimination is legal.Mississippi Republicans passed a bigoted law earlier this month giving business owners and religious organizations the ability to fire employees and refuse service to customers who don t meet their extreme religious standards.So if you are gay or have pre-marital sex or are involved in an interracial relationship, businesses can discriminate against you and hide behind their Bibles to do so.Because of the law they passed, Mississippi Republicans may have cost their state billions of federal dollars, which they desperately need considering Mississippi is the top state in the nation when it comes to getting more money from the government than it pays in taxes.Corporations have also condemned the law and are threatening to no longer do business with or in the state as long as the law remains on the books. And now concerts are being cancelled.Just as Bruce Springsteen cancelled a concert in North Carolina over a similar law passed by Republicans there, Bryan Adams has cancelled his concert in Mississippi for the same reasons. Mississippi has passed anti-LGBT Religious Liberty bill 1523, Adams wrote in a statement on his website. I find it incomprehensible that LGBT citizens are being discriminated against in the state of Mississippi. I cannot in good conscience perform in a State where certain people are being denied their civil rights due to their sexual orientation. Therefore i m cancelling my 14 April show at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Using my voice I stand in solidarity with all my LGBT friends to repeal this extremely discriminatory bill. Hopefully Mississippi will right itself and I can come back and perform for all of my many fans. I look forward to that day. If any Bryan Adams fans are angry about the singer s stand against discrimination and bigotry, they only have Mississippi Republicans to blame for legalizing hate in their hate in the first place.Featured image via Wikimedia | 1real |
Obama Administration Considers Arming Syrian Kurds Against ISIS - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is weighing a military plan to directly arm Syrian Kurdish fighters combating the Islamic State, a major policy shift that could speed up the offensive against the terrorist group but also sharply escalate tensions between Turkey and the United States. The plan has been under discussion by the National Security Council staff at a moment when President Obama has directed aides to examine all proposals that could accelerate the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Mr. Obama has told aides that he wants an offensive well underway before he leaves office that is aimed at routing the Islamic State from Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in northern Syria. Deciding whether to arm the Syrian Kurds is a difficult decision for Mr. Obama, who is caught in the middle trying to balance the territorial and political ambitions of Turkey and the Syrian Kurds, two warring American allies that Washington needs to combat the Islamic insurgency. Directly providing weapons for the first time to the Syrian Kurds, whom American commanders view as their most effective ground partner against the Islamic State, would help build momentum for the assault on Raqqa. But arming them would also aggravate Mr. Obama’s already tense relations with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The United States and Turkey sharply disagree over Syria’s Kurdish militias, which Turkey sees as its main enemy in Syria. The plan has filtered up through the Pentagon’s Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East. It calls for providing the Syrian Kurds with small arms and ammunition, and some other supplies, for specific missions, but no heavy weapons such as antitank or antiaircraft weapons. American officials note that the proposal has not yet been presented at the administration’s highest levels for decision. White House officials declined to comment on it. The review of the military plan comes as American commanders fear that their timetable to take Raqqa was set back after Turkey recently plunged into Syria with ground forces for the first time. The Turkish offensive cut off a crucial Islamic State supply route but also rolled back the territorial gains of Kurdish militias, who despite help on the ground from American Special Operations advisers have criticized the United States for allying with Turkey. American commanders view the plan to arm the Syrian Kurds, whose population straddles the border with Turkey, as an incentive to keep them on board for the fight against the Islamic State. Asked if the recent volatile military and political situation around the border had slowed the pace for taking Raqqa, Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of Central Command, said last week that it might have. “We don’t necessarily control the timeline ourselves,” General Votel told a security conference here sponsored by the Institute for the Study of War. Associates of General Votel say he has expressed much greater concern in private over maintaining momentum in the fight against the Islamic State, especially if the Syrian Kurds and Turkey continue to clash with each other. General Votel said last week, “We have to play a leadership role on both sides” — Turks and Kurds — “and keep focus on the mission to defeat ISIS. ” In the past two years the Pentagon has provided small arms, ammunition and other supplies to a group acceptable to Turkey — the Syrian Arabs, a minority in the umbrella group that is fighting the Islamic State. About 350 resupply deliveries have been made by air or by land to the Syrian Arab militias, according to the American military command in Iraq. But out of deference to Turkey, the United States has not directly armed the Kurdish fighters themselves. Many analysts say the Pentagon’s support to the Syrian Arabs is basically cover for aid to the Syrian Kurds, who call the shots in the wider alliance, coordinate airstrikes with the United States, and are considered the most capable fighters. But arming the Kurds directly, even for just specific missions, would still be a significant shift practically and symbolically. “If this happened, the fig leaf would disappear and it would be a very serious, contentious issue between the two countries,” said Soner Cagaptay, a specialist on Turkey at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Five senior American officials who have been briefed on the proposal discussed it on the condition that they not be identified because the plan is still under review. They all said that any direct aid to the Kurds would be one piece of a larger strategy to defeat the Islamic State in Syria. One practical goal of the plan is to equip the Syrian Kurds after their spearheading of several fiercely fought battles against the Islamic State in the past several months, starting near Syria’s border with Iraq to, most recently, the strategically important city of Manbij, where the terrorist group had established processing centers for hundreds of newly arrived recruits. The city was also a final for more seasoned fighters heading back to Europe through Turkey. The Kurds have also recently lost one regular source of arms — the Syrian government — as a result of the political rapprochement between Turkey and Russia, and clashes between Kurds and Syrian Army troops. Politically, the aid would also seek to assuage the hard feelings the Syrian Kurds have felt toward their American allies since the Turkish offensive into Syria, American officials said. Just last week, American Special Operations forces arrived in northern Syria to work alongside Turkish troops combating the Islamic State, the Pentagon said Friday, emphasizing that the approximately three dozen Americans would serve in an “advise and assist” capacity. Turkish news outlets reported this month that Mr. Erdogan had suggested that his country was prepared to conduct a joint operation with the United States to defeat the Islamic State in Raqqa. American officials, however, have played down that discussion, and have said the United States is still trying to figure how to assemble enough ground forces to take back Raqqa. Across the border in Iraq, security forces will be ready to push into Mosul in October, the top American general said Monday. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him aboard a United States military aircraft that the final decision on when to retake Mosul rests with Prime Minister Haider of Iraq, according to Reuters. The general added that “our job is to actually help the Iraqis generate the forces and the support necessary for operations in Mosul, and we’ll be ready for that in October. ” | 0fake |
Donald Trump Backslides on Campaign Promise To Curb Legal Immigration - Breitbart | President Donald Trump has slid back from his campaign promises to curb the annual legal immigration of roughly 1 million foreigners. [In an interview with Economist magazine, Trump was asked: “Do you want to curb legal immigration?” Trump responded by saying he prefers immigration of skilled people. The interviewer pressed him again on the scale of legal immigration, asking “[are you] not looking to reduce the numbers?” “No, no, no, no, we want people coming in legally. No, very strongly,” Trump replied, as two of his economic advisors sat beside him — top economic staffer Gary Cohn, and Steve Mnuchin, the Secretary of the Treasury. Trump also backed proposals to keep importing temporary contract workers for the agricultural sector, even though the cheap labor will retard farmers’ emerging interest in buying new machinery, such as robot and robot . Trump told the Economist: We also want farm workers to be able to come in. You know, we’re going to have work visas for the farm workers. If you look, you know we have a lot of people coming through the border, they’re great people and they work on the farms and then they go back home. We like those people a lot and we want them to continue to come in. Immigration reform advocates are not surprised at Trump’s but they are confident that Trump’s dependence on his base in the 2020 election is pressuring him to stick with his campaign promises, amid constant elite pressure for more legal immigration. “The president was unambiguous in his [2016] campaign … one of the things he said was that he would support reductions in immigration,” said Ira Mehlman, communications director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “If he is backing off, we will fight to remind him that he did make this commitment during the campaign and we intended to hold him to it,” he told Breitbart. “Anyone following Trump’s primary campaign could have predicted this — he repeatedly justified guestworker visas of various kinds and stressed the ‘big beautiful door’ that would be built into his wall,” wrote Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “Both the crowd and some immigration hawks mistook Trump’s commitment to enforcement (which seems genuine) to mean he was also skeptical of the overall level of immigration,” he said, adding that the next generation of populist GOP leaders — such as Sen. Tom Cotton — understands the many harms caused by mass immigration. But Trump’s backsliding isn’t a done deal. Former President Barack Obama also backed off many of his promises, even while he was urging his supporters to publiccly protest his actions and to push back the lobbies that were blocking his agenda. Obama also adopted a gradualist political strategy which helped the GOP establishment ignore his gradual progress towards his goals, and he achieved many goals for his supporters via court decisions and agency regulations by allied appointees. With constant pressure by Trump’s supporters, Trump will be more willing and better able to ignore or overcome establishment opposition and gradually get his agenda implemented . In August 2015, Trump issued his very popular immigration plan to raise wages by reducing legal and illegal immigration: The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans — including immigrants themselves and their children — to earn a middle class wage … Every year, we voluntarily admit another [1] million new immigrants, [plus 1 million] guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing historic record population of 42 million immigrants. We need to control the admission of new workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream. Requirement to hire American workers first. Too many [contract worker] visas, like the have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS … . Immigration moderation. Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. This will help reverse women’s plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages. Trump repeated those commitments in many subsequent speeches. For example, in March 2016, Trump called for a pause in legal immigration, saying “I think for a period of a year to two years we have to look back and we have to see, just to answer the second part of your question, where we are, where we stand, what’s going on … I’d say a minimum of one year, maybe two years. ” In his January 2017 inauguration speech, he described the theme of his administration as “Buy American, Hire American. ” Some polls show that promise is extremely popular. For example, a November 2016 poll by Ipsos showed that only 12 percent of respondents strongly opposed plans to “change the legal immigration system to limit legal immigration. ” Four times as many, or 57 percent, back reductions in legal immigration, while 13 percent did not take a position. To a large extent, Trump has followed through on those promises. He has revived enforcement of immigration law, slashed the inflow of illegal immigrants, and he is pushing a popular reform that would likely reduce the inflow of unskilled legal immigrants. Trump’s reform is also backed by some GOP legislators who want to increase Americans’ productivity, not just the number of American consumers. But Trump is under constant pressure from business leaders — including some of his advisors — who have a huge incentive to boost legal immigration, no matter the cost to ordinary Americans. In strictly economic terms, legal immigration is far more important than illegal immigration, because it is far larger and has far greater impact on employees, companies, and investors, wages, housing prices, profits and stock prices. In fact, multiple economists — including economists at Goldman Sachs — say government should try to boost the size of the economy by importing more consumers and workers. Federal immigration policy adds roughly 1 million legal people, workers, consumers and renters per year to the economy. This annual inflow is further expanded by the immigrants’ children, which now combine to create a population of roughly 63 million consumers and workers — not counting roughly 21 million illegals and their U. S. children. That means roughly of the nation’s consumers have been imported into the 330 economy via legal or illegal immigration. This legal inflow includes some very skilled workers and some people who become very successful entrepreneurs, but it also dumps a lot of unskilled workers into the country just as a new generation of technology is expected to eliminate many types of jobs. It also annually shifts $500 billion from employees to employers and Wall Street, and it forces state and local government to provide $60 billion in taxes to businesses via routine aid for immigrants, and it pushes millions of marginal U. S. workers out of the labor force and into poverty, crime and opioid addiction. High immigration also reduces employers’ need to recruit disengaged Americans, to build new facilities in areas, or to buy machinery or to demand that local schools rebuild high school vocational training departments for the millions of youth who don’t gain much from colleges. The resulting poverty and civic conflicts increase support for Democrats, ensuring that more states — especially California — are dominated by the Democratic Party’s policies. Under Obama, the annual inflow of legal immigrants was roughly twice the inflow of illegals. Roughly 550, 000 illegals arrived in 2016, but fewer are expected in 2017, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Whenever the inflow of extra immigrant customers is threatened by public opposition, business groups say their companies and investors will be damaged. For example, in July 2016, a Wall Street firm tried to help Hillary Clinton by declaring that Trump’s opposition to illegal immigration would hurt companies and investors by forcing them to pay higher wages, and by reducing the cost of housing. “As the immigrants leave, the already tight labor market will get tighter, pushing up labor costs as employers struggle to fill the open job positions,” the report declared. “Mr. Trump’s immigration policies will thus result in … potentially severe labor shortages, and higher labor costs,” the critical report promised. The formal unemployment rate would immediately drop by a third, from 5 percent in 2016 to 3. 5 percent in 2017, the report predicts. Housing prices would drop by almost 4 percent in 2018 and 2019, says the Moody’s report, which did not admit that higher wages and lower housing prices are popular throughout America. “Reduced immigration would result in slower labor force growth and therefore slower growth in potential GDP,” or annual economic activity, according to a 2017 report by Goldman Sachs. Similarly, Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, recently called for an amnesty for illegals and a potentially huge increase in immigration to help stimulate the economy. “I hope eventually we have proper immigration. Good people who have paid their taxes and haven’t broken the law, get them into citizenship at the back of the line … [and] if people get educated here, and they’re foreign nationals, get them a green card,” he said. In the same interview, Dimon portrayed himself as concerned about the economic condition of ordinary Americans, saying: wages haven’t gone up. One is, wages haven’t gone up enough to create a living wage. One is, people losing jobs, more to automation than anything else. … There’s some more terrible numbers — men, age 25 to 55, the participation rate is down 10%. That’s unbelievable. There are 35, 000 dying of opioids every year. Seventy percent of kids age 17 to 24 can’t get into the US military because of health or education. Obesity, diabetes, reading and writing. Is that the society we wanted? No. We should be working on these things, acknowledge the flaws we have, and come up with solutions. Not Democrat. Not Republican. Not . But the 2016 election showed that Trump and centrist Americans recognize that higher immigration means reduced wages, more unemployment, more drug addition, higher housing prices and longer commutes. That is how Trump won the 2016 election in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and why his immigration policy is at the core of his impending 2020 race. Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC or email the author at NMunro@Breitbart. com, | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton Blasts Trump’s Budget Cuts - Breitbart | Friday during her speech at Georgetown University, former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton criticized President Donald Trump for his proposed budget cuts to diplomacy and international aid within the agency she once headed. Clinton said, “I’m here also to say we are seeing signals of a shift that should alarm us all. This administration’s proposed cuts to international health, development, and diplomacy would be a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country. Some of you may have seen the recent letter from more than 120 retired generals and admirals to congress and the administration, urging the congress and the White House not to retreat from these programs which represent our values. ” “These distinguished men and woman who served in uniform recognize that turning our back on diplomacy won’t make our country safer,” she continued. “It will undermine our security and our standing in the world. Defense Secretary Mattis said it well when he said if you cut funds to the State Department, that means he has to buy more ammunition. ” ( The Hill) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
With Big Red Stamp, Russia Singles Out What It Calls ‘Fake’ News - The New York Times | MOSCOW — Russia’s Foreign Ministry got into the fake news business in a splashy way on Wednesday. No, not by creating it. That dark art seems to emanate from other, even more opaque branches of the Russian government. Rather, Maria V. Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the ministry, unveiled a new section on its website meant to highlight articles that it considers to be fake news, including one by The New York Times. Just in case anybody missed the point, each article on the Foreign Ministry website carried a big red label reading “FAKE” in English and a line saying that the information in the article “does not correspond to reality. ” Russia actually announced something of a fake news double whammy, since the defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, told Parliament on Wednesday that the military had created a special task force assigned to wage information warfare, although he did not provide any details. That was no surprise to officials in the United States and Europe, who have been grappling with the Kremlin’s information warfare for at least the last two years. The Foreign Ministry’s new venture in singling out fake news seemed to fit a pattern identified by many analysts of creating alternative realities meant to sow confusion in people’s minds, in that way discrediting all news sources. It was hard for some critics to take the ministry’s fake news detector seriously, and some suggested that inclusion there was something of a badge of honor, an indication that the article had hit close to home. The Foreign Ministry has become a propaganda wing serving the Kremlin rather than a diplomatic service that establishes foreign policy, said Alexei A. Venediktov, the longtime editor of the respected Echo of Moscow radio station. “You shouldn’t worry at all,” he said, but should instead consider being singled out by the Foreign Ministry to be an honor “like a medal. ” Ms. Zakharova introduced the fake news section during her weekly, nationally televised briefing. “We will publish examples of propaganda hoaxes from various media outlets and give links to sources,” she said. “The aim is to demonstrate the main trends in fake news publications about our country and do everything to stop their dissemination. ” It was not immediately clear what criteria the ministry would apply in its effort to identify what it considered to be fake news, and Ms. Zakharova declined to answer questions beyond what she said at her briefing. The spokeswoman emphasized that the Foreign Ministry would consider the news fake when it failed to include Russian reaction or the Russian position on the issue. News published from unidentified sources that constituted opinion or unverified fact also qualified, according to Ms. Zakharova. The initiative appeared to be a reaction to widespread reporting over the past year focused on fake news emanating from Russia. Ms. Zakharova outlined an appeal process, noting that news organizations could ask to have their work removed. “Russia is being accused of doing this, but how can you accuse us of disseminating untrue information by government agencies and the media while you are doing the same against Russia?” Ms. Zakharova said. “While publishing information about Russia, the world media is doing the same thing — they never cite concrete facts — this is a sad paradox. ” There is a rather distinct gap between what Russia is accused of disseminating and what it labeled “fake news. ” After Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from Amsterdam was shot down over Ukraine in July 2014, killing all 298 civilians on board, for example, local rebel commanders at first bragged about shooting down an aircraft at the very spot. When the extent of the tragedy emerged, Russia went into overdrive pumping out alternative versions, most of them fanciful and most blaming Ukraine. One such version suggested that it was a failed attempt to shoot down President Vladimir V. Putin’s jet, which was aloft at the same time. A investigation concluded that the powerful missile system that took down the airliner had been trucked in from Russia at the request of separatists and returned over the border the same night. As tensions with Europe escalated over the past several years, all sorts of false news stories emerged. State news media and Russian officials falsely claimed that a Russian immigrant in Germany had been kidnapped and raped, for example, and websites linked to Russia spread rumors, like one that Sweden had been approached to sell weapons to female fighters for the Islamic State. The stories that Russia labeled “fake news” were certainly more mainstream fare. The initial offerings included five articles from various large organizations including The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Daily Telegraph and NBC News. Indicating that its reach would be wide, however, one article was included from the Santa Monica Observer in California, about the sudden deaths of a number of Russian diplomats in recent months. Seemingly borrowing a practice from President Trump, Russia appears to be labeling as fake any articles it dislikes. The one from Bloomberg, for example, quoted Richard Ferrand, the chief of Emmanuel Macron’s presidential campaign in France, as accusing Russia of carrying out cyberattacks against the campaign. It quoted Dmitri S. Peskov, Russia’s presidential spokesman, as denying any link. The New York Times article, by a veteran national security reporter and former Moscow correspondent, Michael R. Gordon, detailed concerns in the American administration about Russian violations of a nuclear arms treaty. The story quoted unidentified officials as well as experts in the field, and it noted Russian criticism of some aspects of the treaty. A spokeswoman for The Times strongly defended the article and criticized the practice of simply labeling news reports fake without any substantiating evidence. “It’s a dangerous and troubling situation for governments or individuals to simply assign the label of fake news to a story they don’t like, instead of challenging specific facts or offering counter evidence,” said Eileen Murphy, the spokeswoman. “We stand by our reporting. ” Russian social media erupted with a certain amount of derision about the whole enterprise, particularly since the link in Russian to the page translated as “publications and refutations. ” “So to slap a red stamp and grandly say that something is ‘fake’ — this is what they call refutation these days?” wrote one Russian man on Facebook. A reporter for the Moscow Times asked via Twitter whether he could borrow the big red stamp. Ms. Zakharova said that the ministry would not be assessing Russian news media for fake news. It deals with foreign relations, she noted. | 0fake |
Bernie Sanders is unleashing a plan to make prescription drugs cheaper | Generic drug prices have nearly quadrupled in the past five years — and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has a plan to fix it.
On Monday, Sanders, who is also running for the Democratic presidential nomination, rolled out a proposal that would place strict limits on how quickly pharmaceutical companies could hike generic drug prices. Specifically, drug manufacturers would have to pay a rebate back to Medicaid if their drug prices grew faster than inflation. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) is introducing the same bill in the House.
Generic drugs are cheaper versions of drugs that have lost their patent. But in recent years, the prices for generic drugs have been rising quickly and inexplicably. One report from pharmacy benefits manager Catamaran found that consumers paid, on average, $13.14 for each prescription of the 50 most popular generics in 2010. By 2014, they paid $62.10 — a 373 percent increase.
Sanders has previously cited federal records at hearings, showing that the prices of more than 1,200 generic medications rose an average of 448 percent between July 2013 and July 2014.
Generic drugs are typically meant to make medicine cheaper, giving patients less-expensive access to the costly drug formulations that pharmaceutical companies develop. You can see this clearly in the over-the-counter market: you can get 100 generic ibuprofen pills for $7.49 — or pay $9.99 for the brand-name drug Advil.
Generic drugs now compose more than 80 percent of all prescriptions dispensed annually in the United States, and experts think that's helped slow the growth of overall drug spending.
In recent years though, the market for generic prescription medications has become increasingly expensive, with drug manufacturers hiking up generic prices. This seems especially likely to happen when there is just one drug company making the generic, giving that manufacturer pretty complete control over the prices it wants to charge.
Consider the case of albendazole, an antiparasite drug that helps kill an infection caused by worms. It's not an especially common drug because it treats a relatively uncommon problem among lower-income populations, particularly refugees and immigrants.
Albendazole's patents expired years ago but there's still only one company that makes it, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). And recently the drugmaker has quietly hiked the price. Data published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that the average cost Medicaid paid for an albendazole prescription has increased from $36.10 in 2008 to $241.30 in 2013.
This is the exact same drug; the only difference is that in the span of six years, its price tag rose six-fold.
And albendazole isn't alone — there is a lot of data showing a steep increase in generic drug prices. The National Community Pharmacist Association says its members have seen generic prices increase "as much as 600 percent" in recent years.
The United States is one of the only developed countries that do not negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
In Spain, the United Kingdom, and pretty much all other European countries, the government sits down with drugmakers and haggles over how much it will pay. Each country uses different negotiating tactics. The United Kingdom, for example, runs its bargaining through the National Institute for Clinical Evaluation, typically known by its acronym, NICE.
The United States works differently. Federal law bars Medicare, the country's largest insurance plan, from negotiating with drugmakers. Once a pharmaceutical company sets its price, the government-run plan that insures 49 million seniors is required to accept it.
There are thousands of private insurers, though, and they often have little clout to demand lower prices. Other countries are essentially buying in bulk, like shopping at Costco. The United States does the equivalent of going to the local grocery store — and paying more.
"We don't have a NICE in the United States," said Steven Pearson, founder and president of the Institute for Clinical and Economic Reviews, a nonprofit that evaluates evidence on medical tests. "We have a system that says, ‘If it's better, we have to provide this pill, and you, the drugmaker, get to name the price.' It's not a market. It's drugmakers saying what they want."
Sanders's new proposal wouldn't give the government the power to negotiate drug prices (although that is also an idea the Vermont senator supports).
Instead, it would require generic drug manufacturers to give Medicaid, the program that covers low-income Americans, a rebate for any growth in drug prices above and beyond overall inflation.
Drug companies will almost certainly oppose this idea, as it would cut into their profits — and, they'll argue, into their development of generic drugs. Sometimes they will cite a shortage of raw materials as a reason for the price hikes, and would likely point to that as reasons why they couldn't produce the drugs for less. Pharma is a strong lobby, and that (along with overall gridlock in Congress) would be a significant obstacle for this type of bill.
Still, the idea of rebates is not unprecedented in American health policy. Federal law requires that Medicaid get a 23 percent discount on all brand-name drugs' sticker prices. And individual state Medicaid programs are allowed to negotiate even lower prices with drugmakers if they so choose. The idea there was similar to the one in the Sanders bill: making drug prices cheaper for the program that serves the lowest-income Americans. | 0fake |
Marco Rubio Pushes Left-Wing Conspiracy Theory About Trump Advancing Russian Interests in Ukraine | During Tuesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Sen. Marco Rubio ( ) pushed the misleading Democratic Party talking point that the Republican Party platform was changed to “not provide defensive weapons to Ukraine. ”[Here is a transcript of the relevant section of the hearing: RUBIO: My last question, you were on the foreign policy team and the Republican platform was changed to not provide defensive weapons to Ukraine. Were you involved in that decision and do you know how the change was made? SESSIONS: I was not active in the platform committee and did not participate in that, and I don’t think I had direct involvement. RUBIO: Do you know who did or you have no recollection of a debate about that issue internally in the campaign? SESSIONS: I never watched the debate, if it occurred, on the platform committee. I think it did. So I don’t recall that, Senator. I’d have to think about that. Rubio was alluding to the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign had the Republican Party platform changed on the issue of Ukraine to allegedly aid Russian interests. The charge, which comes mostly from a Washington Post opinion piece, remains so unproven that even the PolitiFact fact checker failed to reach a judgement on the issue, allowing “it’s hard to use those news reports as evidence in this . ” The entire issue revolved around one platform committee member, a Ted Cruz supporter, who wanted to use language calling for the U. S. to provide “lethal defensive weapons” to the Ukrainian military. Instead the platform eventually called for “appropriate assistance” to Ukraine — which leaves open the possibility of providing “lethal defensive weapons” — and called for “greater coordination with NATO defense planning. ” That was enough for the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin to pen an opinion piece titled “Trump campaign guts GOP’s stance on Ukraine. ” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow used the tidbit to claim on television that “something weird” happened regarding “that Ukraine and Russia thing” on the platform. She claimed the Trump campaign “jumped right up on that and they insisted that that plank only, that one, had to be taken out, that language could not stand. ” Writing at the Washington Examiner, media critic Byron York noted: Missing from all the talk is what the Republican platform actually said before it was allegedly “gutted” by Trump. What did the original draft of the platform say about Russia and Ukraine? Was it, in fact, changed? If so, how? As it turns out, a look at the original draft of the platform — which has never been released publicly — shows that it always had tough language on Russian aggression in Ukraine. And not only did that language stay in the final platform — nothing was taken out — it was actually strengthened, not weakened, as a result of events at the convention. … Not only that, the later, final platform contained a few additional words on Russia and Ukraine that weren’t in the original draft. To the first passage cited above, after “from the Baltic to the Caucasus,” the GOP platform committee added this: Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With research by Joshua Klein. | 0fake |
Putin Rejects Russian Army’s Calls to Resume Aleppo Airstrikes | Putin Still Hopes to See Moderate Rebels Separated From Nusra Front by Jason Ditz, October 28, 2016 Share This
Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially rejected a request from his nation’s Defense Ministry to endorse a resumption of Russian airstrikes against the Syrian city of Aleppo, after 10 straight days of no Russian airstrikes being conducted.
Russia launched a brief ceasefire in Aleppo last week, and extended it for four days. Even after it officially expired, they have not resumed strikes against the city, with officials saying they want to convince Western nations to separate the moderate rebel factions within East Aleppo from the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
So far that’s not been working so well, as indeed separating the two was the primary goal of a weeklong ceasefire a month ago, and a public US call to separate never amounted to anything. After that, the idea appears to have been given up on by the US, and Russia has also sought Turkey and Saudi Arabia’s influence on the more moderate factions.
As the rebel factions are launching a new offensive trying to brief the Aleppo siege, the Russian defense ministry has gone to the unusual step of publicly announcing their request to Putin, and Putin’s very public rejection may suggest there is some debate within the Russian leadership on how to proceed. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 1real |
Donald Trump to London: U.S. Will Help, ‘We Are With You. God Bless’ - Breitbart | President Donald Trump announced that the U. S. will help London and the United Kingdom in any way possible in a tweet issued shortly after two new terror incidents hit London on Saturday night. [Trump’s first twitter activity regarding the attack was a retweet of the Drudge Report: Fears of new terror attack after van ’mows down 20 people’ on London Bridge … — DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) June 3, 2017, The President went on to add his own commentary on the potential multiple incidents: We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2017, Whatever the United States can do to help out in London and the U. K. we will be there — WE ARE WITH YOU. GOD BLESS! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2017, Just hours earlier, Trump tweeted out his weekly address, in which he spoke of his first trip abroad as President of the United States and his talks with world leaders about fighting terrorism. #WeeklyAddress🇺🇸 pic. twitter. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2017, Vice President Mike Pence also offered his prayers and thoughts for all affected: Our thoughts prayers are the victims, courageous first responders all the people of London. As President Trump said: WE ARE WITH YOU. — Vice President Pence (@VP) June 3, 2017, The U. S. Embassy in London issued it’s own statement with emergency instructions for U. S. citizens: Emergency message for U. S. Citizens — please read + share: https: . pic. twitter. — U. S. Embassy London (@USAinUK) June 4, 2017, In March a “knifeman” mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge with his vehicle before ramming into the gates of Britain’s House of Parliament, then stabbing a police officer. London’s Metropolitan Police announced within the hour that they were treating that attack as a “terrorist incident. ” On May 22 an IED was set off at Manchester Arena as an Ariana Grande concert was concluding. Breitbart News previously reported that Europe had seen a terror attack attempted every nine days in 2017 as of May 23. ISIS put out a alert for more truck attacks, calling crowded London streets “ideal targets” in a recent issue of their magazine Rumiyah. “Flatten [ ] under trucks,” it read in part. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 0fake |
FREAK OUT: Republicans Will HATE That This Famous Liberal Actor Is Going To Play Ronald Reagan | Comedian and actor Will Ferrell has been cast as former President Ronald Reagan in an upcoming movie. The former Saturday Night Live cast member is known to be a liberal, and was a supporter of President Obama. Now he will be portraying arguably the biggest icon of the conservative movement.Sources tell Variety Ferrell is attached to star as President Ronald Reagan in the Black List script Reagan. Penned by Mike Rosolio, the story begins at the start of the ex-president s second term when he falls into dementia and an ambitious intern is tasked with convincing the commander-in-chief that he is an actor playing the president in a movie.The script was so popular following its announcement on the Black List, an annual catalog of the top unproduced scripts in Hollywood, that a live read was done recently done in March starring Lena Dunham and John Cho.Ferrell s iconic portrayal of George W. Bush on SNL was a key part of the cultural zeitgeist, cementing the image of Bush as a slow-witted, unintelligent buffoon with large segments of the public. Ferrell s version of Bush, along with Phil Hartman s interpretations of Reagan and Bill Clinton, is often seen as one of the best such parodies in the show s history. Ferrell also appeared as Bush on Broadway, in the production You re Welcome, America. Ferrell has also appeared in several movies that have progressive themes that also lampoon conservatives. The Other Guys cast Wall Street raiders as the bad guys, ripping off police pensions; The Campaign lampooned right-wing billionaires who meddle in politics, like the Koch Brothers; and Get Hard again showcased the elite 1% as heartless bad guys, while the working class character is the ultimate hero. Several of Ferrell s films are directed by Big Short director Adam McKay, which of course is another film about the super-rich soaking the rest of America.Ferrell also starred in one of the most popular videos posted on YouTube by the Obama campaign (over 5 million views), where he promised to do anything in exchange for a vote to re-elect the president:Featured image via YouTube | 1real |
INSTANTVIEW: House Republicans pass revised Obamacare overhaul | (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill on Thursday to repeal major parts of Obamacare and replace it with a Republican healthcare plan, handing President Donald Trump his biggest legislative victory but setting up a tough fight in the Senate. STEPHEN WOOD, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, RUSSELL INVESTMENTS, NEW YORK: “This strikes to me that the market is breathing a sigh of relief more than a nod of approval. I think there will be progress on individual and corporate tax cuts but they will come at the end of 2017. This will be positive for the economy and markets. We think there will be ‘knots in the floss’ to get legislation done. We expect to see more sloppiness in the legislative process so you have to focus on fundamentals. Valuation is currently very high in the equity space. The outlook for the United States is good, but we need very good fundamentals to justify current equity valuation. Europe is increasingly interesting from an equity perspective. One would be more comfortable with Europe compared with the U.S.” “Elections have consequences, and I think that this is the very first manifestation of it. It would be foolish to say that it doesn’t reinvigorate Trump because ... earlier this week the main headlines were that the budget was an Obama-type budget instead of anything that was promised during the campaign. “Once Republicans develop cohesion you are going to see more of a domino effect. It’s like, ‘We all got onboard with this (healthcare reform), what’s stopping us from trying to get money for the wall or having tax reform that’s going to be agreeable to the president’s agenda?’ So I think that it does in some way invigorate it.” GUY LEBAS, CHIEF FIXED INCOME STRATEGIST, JANNEY MONTGOMERY SCOTT, PHILADELPHIA: “What is a bit lost in the perception that House’s healthcare reform bill is positive for financial markets is a proposed repeal of a surcharge of roughly 3.9 percent on investment income on high-income individuals, which is in the Affordable Care Act. Now this bill goes to the Senate. For the market, the odds of passage of at least this version of ‘repeal-and-replace’ in the Senate isn’t very high. It’s going to a tough sell in the Senate. This is largely a non-event for the bond market. It’s more gearing up for tomorrow’s jobs report and what Yellen might say.” RANDY FREDERICK, VICE PRESIDENT, TRADING AND DERIVATIVES, CHARLES SCHWAB, AUSTIN, TEXAS: “I think anything that they (Republicans) get done, that they accomplish, popular or unpopular, will show that they have the ability to make progress and to get things done and work together. Because obviously the biggest divisions are not between the Democrats and the Republicans but within the Republican party. “This puts the idea of tax reform a little bit closer to reality, simply because it’s shown that they have figured out a way to negotiate and work together.” JOSEPH KRIST, PARTNER, CREDIT SPECIALIST, COURT STREET GROUP RESEARCH, NEW YORK: “It means that it satisfies those members of Congress who have made this a primary campaign issue and want to say they want to repeal Obamacare and we voted to did it. From a policy standpoint it is virtually meaningless. The bill from everything I have seen is virtually impossible to pass in the Senate.” “I don’t think this really should have any impact. The fundamentals driving people’s healthcare ideas came before the election. People looking at small standalone and rural hospitals, saw they were wall badly positioned for healthcare reform going forward, whether it be because of Obamacare, should it remain, due to cost reduction measures. And conversely people were looking at size as a really important factor, whether a large institution or large chains. The consolidation was already coming whether repealed or not. It is not really a big factor from a public finance fixed income perspective. You still want big balance sheets, large pools of cash and diversity revenues.” “This morning going in the market was expecting the House was going to pass it and it did.” “This is just one of several different things Trump is trying to get accomplished. This is out of the way and now they have to go to tax reform. That’s something that’s going to drag out for a while and probably the next key thing, aside from the geopolitical things that are going on.” “As far as traders and investors I talk to, this (healthcare bill) isn’t affecting their position or what they want to do.” RICK MECKLER, PRESIDENT, LIBERTYVIEW CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY: “The fact that they could pass this doesn’t make much of a difference. The real risk in the near term to the so-called Trump rally was a failure to pass it. “I don’t know if this market is really that focused on healthcare as the big issue. I think they’re really focused on the tax plan. If they couldn’t pass the healthcare, it would bode very poorly for the tax plan. “But the fact that they could pass the healthcare, even pass it in the House, and pass it so narrowly, I don’t think it necessarily means the tax plan is more likely to come through.” KEN POLCARI, DIRECTOR OF THE NYSE FLOOR DIVISION, O’NEIL SECURITIES, NEW YORK: “It passes the House, that’s fine, now it goes to the Senate, and we know in the Senate it is going to have a very tough time. So even though it has passed the one, it is certainly not a done deal yet. Obamacare is still very much alive and intact. “The market has really been flat. I don’t necessarily think this is such a surprise, after all the news reports today and yesterday, people were expecting it. They are all high-fiving and cheering and all that stuff in the Congress but it still has to go to the Senate and that is where it is going to run into some problems. “The market is again biding time, there is no reason it’s not really taking off, we are hitting our head at the ceiling, we have been hitting our head on the ceiling. If anything it is going to cause it, the catalyst is going to be the (French election) Sunday night. It is listless trading at the moment, nobody is making big huge bets one way or the other.” STOCKS: S&P 500 remains little changed on the day BONDS: 2- and 10-year Treasury yields hold higher on the day FOREX: The dollar index ticks down to the session low | 0fake |
ARE SENATOR AL FRANKEN and REP JOHN CONYERS Being Sacrificed By The Democrat Party For A Much Larger Goal? | After two days of being criticized by mostly female, (and even some male) members of Congress, over multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, Democrat Al Franken just announced he s resigning from his US Senate seat. Democrat Representative John Conyers met a similar onslaught of criticism from fellow House members earlier in the week, which left him feeling isolated from his own party as he faced multiple allegations of sexual assault, misconduct and even accusations of a veiled death threat by one woman.After years of looking the other way while numerous women courageously stepped forward to accuse former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault and even rape, Democrats not only looked the other way, they nominated his wife who was accused by the same women of enabling his behavior as their choice for President of The United States.So why the sudden outrage over Franken and Conyers? Could it have something to do with the upcoming election for Senator in Alabama, where hard-core conservative Republican Judge Roy Moore appears to be ahead in the polls against Democrat candidate Doug Jones, despite being accused by several women of sexual misconduct that took place decades ago? So far, the motives or tactics of almost every one of Moore s accusers has been called into question. But this is not just any race, it s a race that the Democrats have dumped millions into, in hopes of taking a Senate seat they would otherwise have no chance of gaining in a deeply red state that overwhelmingly went for Trump in 2016. Democrat Senate candidate Doug Jones has never run for political office, opposes tax cuts for the rich and supports an expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. The 63-year-old also is staunchly pro-choice, putting him at odds with embattled Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, who is staunchly pro-life.There s one thing we know about the Democrats they know how to fight. If the Democrats can make an 11th-hour show of how moral they are, because they are suddenly able to rally against sexual predators in leadership roles in their party (even though they spent decades ignoring the Clinton s, or the biggest elephant in the room) perhaps they can convince voters to support Democrat Doug Moore over the moral-less Republican-backed candidate Roy Moore, and gain a Senate seat they could only have dreamed about 6 months ago. The Democrats haven t won a senate seat in Alabama since 1992.Let s face it, Senator Franken resides in a solidly blue state who went for Hillary in 2016. There s not much likelihood that they ll elect a Republican to replace him. When it comes to the 88-year old Conyers, he s not only nearing the end of his career, he s a representative in Detroit, where it doesn t matter who runs as long as they have a (D) behind their name. It s a 100% safe seat.So if sacrificing a few members of their own party means gaining a Senate seat, it s all worth it, right? After all, the media wouldn t dare call out their allies in the Democrat Party for their decades of hypocrisy, and for their undying support of accused rapist Bill Clinton and his lovely, enabling wife Meanwhile, the blue state of Minnesota still loves Al Franken:Minnesota s Star Tribune calls Senator Al Franken (D-MN) A star in his party After eight years in the Senate, Franken had emerged as a powerful voice on progressive causes and forceful critic of the Trump administration, frequently generating national headlines with aggressive questioning of Trump s Cabinet officers. He was a star attraction for the Democratic Party, raising millions of dollars for candidates around the country and appearing frequently on nationally broadcast talk shows and in other high-profile venues.Franken s celebrity preceded his political career. He was hired as a staff writer for Saturday Night Live in its first season in 1975 and quickly became a regular on-air performer as well. He served two long stints on the show s staff, the second ending in 1995. After that, he published several bestselling books of political satire from a liberal point of view and hosted a nationally syndicated radio show for several years.Franken, who had been a vocal champion of women s rights and a popular, in-demand spokesman for various progressive causes, found himself caught up in a growing cultural movement around outing bad behavior toward women by men in positions of power. By abandoning Franken along with former U.S. Rep. John Conyers, who resigned earlier this week, Democrats are drawing a distinction between their party and Republicans at a time when President Trump has thrown his full weight behind Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, accused of sexual abuse of underage girls.A Democratic source told the Star Tribune that Dayton is likely to appoint Lt. Gov. Tina Smith and that she is not expected to run in the special election.88-year old Representative John Conyers (D-MI) was the longest-serving House Member in US history. | 1real |
CETA: Canada Has Challenged The EU’s Chemical Regulations 21 Times | A man protests against international trade agreements TTIP and CETA in front of EU headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016.
The Canadian government raised concerns over the European Union’s regulations on chemicals on more than 20 occasions over the course of a decade, according to a letter seen by Energydesk .
In a note sent to the Belgian government on October 19 , the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) claims that the Canadian state challenged the EU’s REACH regulations at the World Trade Organisation 21 times between the years 2003 and 2011.
The UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) describes the REACH regulations as providing “a high level of protection of human health and the environment from the use of chemicals.”
The news will raise concerns that Canadian companies may use the trade and investment deal CETA to undermine EU regulations.
“The threat of undue Canadian influence on environmental regulations such as REACH is real,” CIEL CEO Carroll Muffett wrote .
The CETA deal – which sets up private courts that enable foreign corporations to sue countries – has been held up by the British government as a model for post-Brexit free trade deals.
Corporate courts Canadian companies have also used the trade agreements to take legal action against countries on 42 occasions, according to data from the Investment Policy Hub — with Canada ranked 5th among the nations in which this type of investor-to-state lawsuit have been filed.
Earlier this year, for example, the Canadian pipeline company TransCanada sued the United States government for $15 billion over its decision to scrap the Keystone XL project — using a provision in the NAFTA trade deal.
CETA, which is currently being signed by EU members following a week-long blockade by Wallonia and two other Belgian regions, sets up an investor dispute system called the Investment Court System (ICS) .
In fact the ICS was among the reasons that the Wallonian government took a stand, with the region’s leader Paul Magnette saying: “I would prefer that [the ICS] disappears pure and simple and that we rely on our courts or at the very least, if we want an arbitration court, it must provide equivalent guarantees to domestic ones.”
As part of the newly negotiated agreement, the Belgian government will ask the European Court of Justice to rule on the legality of the deal — and the ICS in particular.
Beyond REACH REACH – the r egistration, e valuation, a uthorisation and restriction of ch emicals – is a set of extensive rules “adopted to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the risks that can be posed by chemicals” — so says the European Chemicals Agency .
Canada’s concerns – which were not formal actions, but rather issues raised at the WTO – largely related to rules around competition and whether the regulations would be burdensome to business .
The 21 complaints spanned the administrations of the Liberal Paul Martin, when REACH was just a draft, and the Conservative Stephen Harper.
Essentially Canada – like the United States – takes issue with the European approach to regulation, which is described as the ‘precautionary principle’.
This approach means products need to be proven safe by companies who seek to market them, before they enter the market. In North America, the burden of proof is on public authorities, which have to prove that a product is dangerous.
Documents unearthed by CIEL show that Canada has filed objections to the EU using this approach to regulate endocrine disrupting chemicals, arguing that the “EU’s hazard-based approach could unnecessarily disrupt trade in food and feed”.
Scientific studies show a range of health impacts caused by exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals – which are found in food containers and plastics – including IQ loss and adult obesity. | 1real |
Barely a quarter of Catalans want to pursue split from Spain: poll | MADRID (Reuters) - Barely a quarter of Catalans want to continue with a plan to claim independence from Spain in the wake of Dec. 21 regional elections, according to a poll published in El Pais newspaper on Monday. An illegal Catalan independence referendum on Oct. 1 plunged Spain into its worst political crisis in decades. It eased after the sacking of the secessionist Catalan authorities by the Madrid government elicited little resistance. But uncertainty could return if the pro-independence camp wins in the Dec. 21 vote. Just 24 percent of those polled by Metroscopia said they would like to continue with the independence process after the elections, whereas 71 percent said they would prefer politicians to find an agreement based on Catalonia staying part of Spain. Pro-independence parties may fail to retain an absolute majority of seats in the Catalan parliament in next month s election, the first part of the poll published on Sunday showed. However, the survey s margin of error at 2.4 percent and the fact support was evenly split between the two sides makes reading conclusions from polls difficult. The telephone poll surveyed 1,800 Catalans between Nov. 20 and Nov. 22. Failure to capture a majority in the regional parliament would be a heavy blow for Catalan separatists who have billed the election as a plebiscite on Madrid s decision to impose direct rule on the region last month. The Oct. referendum produced a large majority in favor of independence, but turnout was only 43 percent because many who opposed the breakaway did not vote. Catalan separatist parties are forecast to win 46 percent of the vote, down slightly from 47.7 percent in a previous election in 2015. Unionist parties combined would account for another 46 percent of votes, up from less than 40 percent last time, according to the Metroscopia poll. Turnout for the election, which former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said on Saturday would be the most important in the region s history, is predicted to reach a record 80 percent. | 0fake |
The Daily Show Turned Trump’s Own Words Into A Hip Hop Song, And It’s Glorious (VIDEO) | The Daily Show may finally have found a format in which the boastful, bragadocious word soup of Donald Trump actually makes sense: a hip hop video.One of the show s finest correspondents, Roy Wood Jr., plays Black Trump, in a video which takes Trump s own actual words, and forms them into a song called They Love Me. To give you you an example of some of the lyrics, pulled straight from Trump speeches and tweets, here are some sample lyrics:I was down there at 7/11 Spent almost nothing on my run for president All the women flirted with me on The Apprentice If Ivanka weren t my daughter, then perhaps I d be dating herAll backed up by a solid hip hop beat and plenty of bling and crotch shots.Can you believe Ted Cruz who been killing our country? Lyin Ted Cruz used a picture of Melania Careful Lyin Ted, I ll spill the beans on your woman I be watching Modern Family, written by a moron I never liked Bette Midler s persona (Told ya!) I have black guys counting my money The one who can beat Hillary, I m not a Mitt Romney Remember I m the only candidate who s self-funding (Told ya!)It s hard to ignore that Donald Trump really does makes a lot more sense as a Frat Bro hip hop wannabe, than as a presidential candidate. As Roy Wood Jr., tells Daily Show host Trevor Noah: Everything Trump says is straight out of a rapper s play book. He brags about his money, he s disrespectful to women, and there s always fights at his concerts. In case anyone was wondering if the words actually come from Trump, Genius.com has painstakingly sourced every last one of Wood s lyrics, which you can play interactively here. You can enjoy the full video below:Featured Image via Screengrab | 1real |
MURDERERS AND RAPISTS FOR HILLARY: VA Governor, Close Clinton Friend Gives 206,000 Felons Voting Rights, Releases Them From Jail Before Election | The good news for Hillary is that she should be able to connect with these hardened criminals on a personal level. The only thing that stands behind Hillary and an orange jumpsuit is her husband s connections and the corrupt Democrat machine that can t get enough of the Clinton Crime Syndicate.In a move called unprecedented by the Richmond-Times Dispatch, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed a sweeping order that grants 206,000 convicted felons voting rights just months before the presidential election.McAuliffe s order extends to non-violent and violent felons, including convicted murderers and rapists, an expert told the New York Times.If some cannot abide by society s standards, those standards are barriers that society must break down, McAuliffe affirmed in announcing the order. If we are going to build a stronger and more equal Virginia, we must break down barriers to participation in civic life for people who return to society seeking a second chance. We must welcome them back and offer the opportunity to build a better life by taking an active role in our democracy. I believe it is time to cast off Virginia s troubling history of injustice and embrace an honest, clean process for restoring the rights of these men and women, the governor said in a statement.McAuliffe couched his move in terms of social justice and civil rights, having compared felon disenfranchisement to a poll tax. The order will likely boost black voter turnout in a critical swing state that could deliver Hillary Clinton one estimate provided to the New York Times claimed as many as one in five blacks in Virginia lost their right to vote after being convicted for committing felonies. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
MICHIGAN MAYOR Joins College Political Science Class…Goes On Rant Calling Trump ‘Despicable’ | What happened at Michigan State could happen and does happen on all college campuses How dare this professor allow her classroom to be a pulpit to trash our president! The Mayor of Lansing, Michigan called President Trump despicable and pathetic ! Can you imagine if someone had done this while Obama was in office?This woman allowed a potty mouthed anti-Trump mayor to come into her classroom and spew his hate. Please contact her to let her know how wrong she is: Sarah Reckhow Email: reckhow@msu.eduThe mayor of Lansing, Michigan recently subjected a political science class at Michigan State University to a lengthy tirade against Donald Trump.RANTING POLITICIANS ALLOWED IN THE CLASSROOM?Mayor Virg Bernero (see video below), a Democrat who has served in the position since 2006 but is not seeking re-election, came to the classroom with no presentation in mind, instead offering a freewheeling indictment of the Trump administration during which he called Trump the Divider in Chief. If he was doing everything within the confines of his job, then why couldn t he explain that to us? Tweet ThisWithin the first 15 minutes of the October 10 presentation, Bernero took a knee in front of the classroom and told students that we are punishing kids by taking away their rights when we don t allow them to take a knee during the national anthem.Bernero then blamed the controversy on Trump, calling him despicable and saying he is a pathetic excuse for a presidentOne student in the class challenged Bernero on actions he had taken as mayor, particularly in regards to the construction of a city park. He basically gave a really convoluted answer about how, like, he couldn t say where he got the money from because he was afraid people would record him, the student, who wishes not to be identified, told Campus Reform. If he was doing everything within the confines of his job, then why couldn t he explain that to us? the student added after noting that Bernero refused to allow students to record him.ANTI-AMERICAN ANTI-ANTHEM:Bernero concluded his discussion by expressing disbelief over Americans who stand for the national anthem, calling it a battle hymn that promotes violence.Campus Reform reached out to both Bernero s office and course instructor Sarah Reckhow for comment, but did not receive a response from either.BERNERO FAMOUSLY DEBATED TUCKER CARLSON AND LOST:AFTER HE WAS CALLED OUT HE CAME BACK:VIA: CAMPUS REFORM | 1real |
Sessions changes statement about Trump campaign and Russia | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions acknowledged on Tuesday he was aware of contact between Donald Trump’s election campaign and Russian intermediaries, again modifying a previous statement about the extent of connections to Moscow. The comment by Sessions to a House of Representatives panel did not reveal any new link between the Trump team and Russia but it was another example of the top U.S. law enforcement official offering a different version of events as lawmakers try to work out if the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 election. Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee that he now recalls a meeting last year with then-candidate Trump where a campaign adviser said he had connections with Moscow and could help arrange a Trump meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I do now recall” the meeting where adviser George Papadopoulos made the proposal, Sessions said, “but I have no clear recollection of the details of what he said during the meeting.” Sessions has previously told Congress he was unaware of any Trump campaign contacts with Russia, leading Democrats on Tuesday to accuse him of lying under oath. “I will not accept and reject accusations that I have ever lied under oath. That is a lie,” Sessions told the panel. Accusations of collusion with Russia during the election campaign have dogged Trump’s first 10 months in office. Sessions’ testimony appears likely to keep the controversy over Russia boiling as Special Counsel Robert Mueller accelerates his investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Since Mueller’s probe began, numerous Trump advisors have acknowledged interactions with Russian intermediaries. They include Donald Trump Jr., former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russian representatives. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election to help Republican Trump’s campaign. The Kremlin denies that and Trump says there was no collusion between his campaign and Russian officials. Sessions faced tough questioning from committee Democrats on Tuesday. Representative Hakeem Jeffries accused Sessions of hypocrisy, saying Sessions, while he was a U.S. attorney, had prosecuted a police officer for perjury after the officer corrected his testimony. “The Attorney General of the United States should not be held to a different standard than the young police officer whose life you ruined,” Jefferies said. That prompted an angry backlash from Sessions. “Nobody! Nobody - not you or anyone else, should be prosecuted, not me. . .for answering a question the way I did in this hearing. I have always tried to answer the questions fairly and accurately.” During the March 2016 campaign meeting where Russia was discussed, Sessions shut down Papadopoulos’ idea of engaging with Russian contacts, according to a source familiar with the matter. Sessions said that was the version of events he recalled. “After reading his account, and to the best of my recollection, I believe that I wanted to make clear to him that he was not authorized to represent the campaign with the Russian government, or any other foreign government, for that matter,” Sessions said on Tuesday. After that meeting, Sessions said, he did not have “any further knowledge” of additional contacts between the campaign and Russian officials. It was not the first time that Sessions, who was a senior Trump campaign aide and Republican senator, has revised his comments about contact between the campaign and Russia. He said during January’s confirmation hearing that he was unaware of such communications. News reports then emerged showing that Sessions had himself met Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak at least twice in 2016. Under pressure, Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. He told reporters he was “honest and correct” in his response in the hearing, although he acknowledged he should have mentioned he had met with the ambassador in his role as a senator. Sessions also said on Tuesday he did not challenge a statement by another campaign foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, that he told Sessions in a brief encounter that he was about to leave for Moscow. But he said he had no memory of that conversation. The hearing was starkly divided. Majority Republicans demanded that Sessions appoint a second special counsel to investigate a series of issues involving Trump’s election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, including the sale of a uranium company to Russia while she was U.S. secretary of state. Sessions was cautious on that score. When Republican Representative Jim Jordan detailed what the controversy “looks like” to him, the attorney general responded: “‘Looks like’ is not enough basis to appoint a special counsel.” Earlier, Sessions confirmed that he has asked senior federal prosecutors to look into the potential appointment of a second special counsel. Democrats say that five congressional committees have looked into the uranium sale and found nothing improper. | 0fake |
NEW EMAILS: Clinton Foundation VIP donors buy access – while Hillary was Secretary of State | 21st Century Wire says In the old days, this scandal would be filed under gross conflict of interest or government corruption . In the America in 2016, it s simply filed under news. Far from being a great charity organization, the Clinton Foundation appears to be merely a vehicle for those who want access to a US-based syndicate of international oligarchs, elite financial institutions, foreign governments, and even dictator-friendly Lebanese-Nigerian billionaires.As 21WIRE reported last week, this international syndicate stretches right through the heartland of Islamist radicalization and state-sponsored terrorism to the feudal monarchs in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and others.To be sure, this is only the tip of a much larger political iceberg RTNewly released emails reveal more ties between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department during Hillary Clinton s tenure as secretary of state, showing that major donors received special perks including lunch with the Chinese president.The State Department emails were released as part of a public records lawsuit by conservative group Citizens United. The documents were then shared exclusively with ABC News. After more than two years of Freedom of Information Act requests and lengthy litigation, the truth is finally coming out, David Bossie, president of Citizens United, said in a statement. Hillary Clinton s senior staff at the State Department routinely worked with the Clinton Foundation to reward big donors with special access and favors for four years. The emails seem to suggest that some of the Clinton Foundation s biggest donors were given special treatment, including seats at a meal attended by Chinese President Hu Jintao.One particular email chain dated December 2010 includes correspondence between Clinton s closest aide, Huma Abedin, and then-top Clinton Foundation official Doug Band.The email gives names of those expected to attend a State Department lunch with the Chinese president scheduled for January 2011 and some of the foundation s biggest donors were on the guest list.The list included three executives from organizations that have donated millions to the Clinton Foundation Bob McCann, then-president of wealth management at UBS; Dr. Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation; and Hikmet Ersek, the CEO of Western Union.According to the Clinton Foundation s website, UBS has contributed between $500,000 and $1 million to the organization. The Rockefeller Foundation has donated between $10 million and $25 million, and Western Union and its foundation has given between $1 million and $5 million.Nearly two weeks after the initial email, Band sent a follow-up requesting that Rodin be seated at Vice President Joe Biden s table. I ll ask, Abedin wrote in response.In a separate email, Abedin forwarded Band an attachment titled Updated China RSVP Guest List 1-5-11. The attachment itself was not included in the documents seen by ABC Read more at RTREAD MORE CLINTON NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Clinton Files | 1real |
How a homemade tool helped North Korea's missile program | SEOUL, (Reuters) - In 2009, a pop video from North Korea celebrated a new national hero - one that outside experts would later realize was at the heart of the secretive state s banned nuclear and missile programs. That hero, widely available in factories across the world, was the Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine. Big, grey and boxy, CNC machines use pre-programmed guides to produce intricate parts for everything from automobiles and mobile phones to furniture and clothes. They offer accuracy that human machine tool operators are unable to achieve. In North Korea, thanks to a combination of homemade technology and reverse engineering, the machines now play a critical role in the weapons programs. They allow Kim Jong Un to build nuclear bombs and missiles without relying as heavily on outside technical aid or imports. Nuclear weapons experts say this has helped him accelerate missile and nuclear testing despite international sanctions on the transfer of sensitive equipment. Special Section: North Korea revealed. Interactive: Nuclear North Korea Interactive: Kim s latest act of defiance North Korea s centrifuges and new missiles all depend on components made with CNC machine tools, said Jeffrey Lewis, head of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies at Monterey, California. (They) are the essential underlying technology for producing missiles and nuclear weapons, said Lewis. Since 1996, CNC machines have been included in the Wassenaar Arrangement an international arms control regime aimed at stopping the proliferation of equipment with both civilian and military uses. North Korea is not a signatory. The country s celebrations of its CNC technology have been fulsome. Hundreds of dancers in luminous orange and green performed the CNC pop song, titled Break through the cutting edge, at a Korean Workers Party celebration in 2010. In 2012, the year the South Korean hit Gangnam Style was released, the North s CNC title was on karaoke machines nationwide, according to Choson Exchange, a Singapore-based company that trains North Koreans in business skills. The official video for the song opens with a long-range North Korean rocket soaring into a blue sky. North Korea likely started to develop its own CNC machines in the early 1990s as part of a drive to build sophisticated missiles and nuclear weapons, nuclear experts say. It probably learned how to make them by taking apart machines it had imported from the Soviet Union. Its first homemade CNC machine was introduced in 1995. Former leader Kim Jong Il gave the machine the Ryonha brand, according to a 2009 article in the country s official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun. That was the first time state media mentioned the technology. By 2009, the machines had become a mainstay of North Korean propaganda, as Pyongyang launched a nationwide campaign to boost domestic industry. Sanctions were mounting after its second nuclear test and a long-range missile launch that year. At the time, arms control experts raised concerns about a visit by former leader Kim Jong Il to a North Korean factory where homemade CNC machines appeared to be producing aluminum tubes. These could be used for nuclear centrifuges. By around 2010, it seemed they were capable of manufacturing various types of CNC machines, said Kim Heung-gwang, a North Korean defector who taught at Pyongyang s Hamhung Computer Technology University before defecting to South Korea. But it wasn t until 2013 that the Korea Ryonha Machinery Joint Venture Corporation, which produced the machines, was blacklisted by the U.N. Security Council for supporting the weapons programs. And it was only in August this year that U.S. intelligence officials told Reuters North Korea likely has the ability to produce its own missile engines themselves. (Full Story) Now, Kim Heung-gwang estimates, North Korea has about 15,000 CNC machines. He bases this on North Korean state media reports and photos as well as interviews with more than a dozen defectors who were scientists, professors or factory workers. Pyongyang hailed the homemade machines as a triumph for its governing ideology of Juche , which champions self-sufficiency. But that wasn t strictly true. In August 2016, state media released photos of Kim Jong Un visiting a factory using CNC machines with the logo of Swiss engineering firm ABB ABB.UL, one of the leading players in the global CNC machine market. It s not clear when or how the machine reached North Korea. ABB said the firm respects all applicable trade sanctions against North Korea, and undertakes not to deliver ABB equipment to the country. That said, we cannot rule out that some of our equipment may have been resold to DPR of Korea without our knowledge or permission, the company said in response to a Reuters inquiry, using North Korea s official title. A United Nations panel monitoring sanctions on North Korea said in a report this year that Tengzhou Keyongda CNC Machine Tools Co of China had been a supplier of Pyongyang s new CNC machines. A sales representative for Tengzhou Keyongda told Reuters the company stopped selling CNC machines to North Korea four years ago, and no longer maintains trade relations with the country. Despite sanctions, CNC machines are commonplace across North Korean manufacturing and can be brought in through China and Russia, said Lee Choon-geun, a senior fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute in South Korea. The biggest loophole has been that while some CNC machines are banned because they can have both military and civilian functions, most serve civilian industry. Given their dual-use capability, you could even import the machines for other purposes, take them to pieces and use them however you want, said Lee. The CNC song highlights this in its opening line: Whatever it is, once we put our mind to it, there s a program to make it, it says. | 0fake |
EPA chief visits Indiana waste site amid proposed budget cuts | EAST CHICAGO, Ind. (Reuters) - The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) toured his first hazardous waste site on Tuesday amid proposed budget cuts that could devastate efforts to clean up contaminated land and water around the country. Scott Pruitt’s visit to East Chicago, Indiana, came a day after the agency denied a report that it was considering closing its Chicago office, which oversees regional environmental protection efforts, including the Flint, Michigan drinking water clean-up and Great Lakes restoration. “The reason I’m here is because it is important that we restore confidence to the people here in this community that we are going to get it right going forward,” Pruitt told the media after meeting with residents and lawmakers. Pruitt did not address the report of the possible office closure or how drastic budget cuts would impact the EPA’s operations. He toured a housing complex built on the Superfund site where around 1,000 residents had to leave their homes earlier this year due to lead contamination. Dozens of people held signs on Wednesday urging the EPA to continue clean-up efforts. The Superfund program was started in 1980 to clean up hazardous waste sites, which now number just over 1,300 around the country. The White House budget proposal submitted to Congress last month includes a 31 percent cut in spending for the EPA, including a similar reduction of the agency’s Hazardous Substance Superfund Account by $330 million to $762 million. Clean-up would continue in East Chicago, lawmakers said. Pruitt, “made commitments that we would have it right,” Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly said.” There is a budget that is sent over and then there is a real budget that is put together. And the real budget will provide the funds necessary to make sure East Chicago is right.” East Chicago, around 25 miles (40 km) outside of Chicago, was home to the now defunct U.S. Smelter and Lead Refinery Inc which contaminated the facility and surrounding areas with lead and arsenic. Demetra Turner, 44, a resident of the West Calumet Housing Complex who has yet to leave, urged others to keep pressure on the EPA. “Keep fighting people, keep fighting, because that is what it takes,” she said. | 0fake |
Trump Fan WILLFULLY Gives Reporter Kurt Eichenwald Epileptic Seizure – Deplorables CHEER (TWEETS) | Newsweek s Kurt Eichenwald, who also serves as a senior editor at Vanity Fair and goes hard at conservatives in his reporting, is an avid Twitter user. He also has epilepsy, and some deplorable fuckwits have taken advantage of that and his Twitter presence to literally harm him they ve sent him tweets with strobe effects specifically intended to induce an epileptic seizure.What kind of a black-hearted animal does someone have to be to do something like this? It s not bad enough that these deplorables were threatening Eichenwald s kids following his on-air brouhaha with Fox News Tucker Carlson? They have to go after him and literally harm him?Epileptic seizures are not a joke. They can be very serious. And make no mistake, intentionally inducing a seizure in someone, especially as harassment, ought to be considered assault under the law if it isn t already. In fact, Eichenwald s wife took to Twitter on his account to call this jackass out on that:@jew_goldstein This is his wife, you caused a seizure. I have your information and have called the police to report the assault. Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016@jew_goldstein s account was suspended at the time of this writing, but that s a mere slap on the wrist for what they did.Another horribly sick thing here is all the responses to Ms. Eichenwald s tweet. Right-wing nutjobs clearly don t give a damn about what happened. Take a look at a sampling, if you can (this writer s heart is breaking):@kurteichenwald @jew_goldstein Yes, Police, I d like to report an assault by JEW GOLDSTEIN' AltRight_GOP (@WeDaGOPNow) December 16, 2016@WeDaGOPNow @Trump_a_right @jew_goldstein @kurteichenwald His tweets loud like a bomb I was traumatized TheRightStuff (@ThaRightStuff) December 16, 2016@ThaRightStuff @WeDaGOPNow @Trump_a_right @jew_goldstein @kurteichenwald finally someone is actually literally shaking Sally Baker (@SallyBakerCake) December 16, 2016@kurteichenwald @jew_goldstein BWAHAHAHAH THIS IS THE FUNNIEST AAAARRGH cough aaaaackkk ..DAMMIT NOW IM HAVING A SEIZURE! HELP! Alpha Mike Foxtrot (@AlphaMikeFox2) December 16, 2016@TrumpetyTrumpet @kurteichenwald @TuckerCarlson Can you lead with this tomorrow? Also, an explicit mention of the maestro, @jew_goldstein tx Bill Smith #7933 (@Trump_a_right) December 16, 2016The Dallas Morning News reported earlier that Eichenwald is taking a short break from Twitter, which is confirmed in his own tweetstorm over this incident. Eichenwald says that this specific tweet read, You deserve a seizure, in addition to containing the strobe video. His break from Twitter is for self-protection. His tweetstorm over this is below and contains a warning to anyone else who might consider doing this to him. Here s hoping there are actually consequences and he doesn t ever have to worry about this again.For self-protection, I am taking a short twitter break. I will be spending that time with my lawyers & law enforcement going after 1 of u Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016Last night, for the second time, a deplorable aware I have epilepsy tweeted a strobe at me with the message you deserve a seizure on it Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016 it worked. This is not going to happen again. My wife is terrified. I am disgusted. All I will be tweeting for the next few days are Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016 copies of documents from the litigation, police reports etc. Once we have the lawsuit filed, we will be subpoenaing Twitter for the Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016 identity of the individual who engaged in this cross-state assault. At this point, the police are attempting to determine if this is Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016 a federal crime because it appears to be cross state. This kind of assault will never happen again without huge consequences. This Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016 individual will be going to court, and he will be paying a price. And if any of you others ever try this again, I will make sure it Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016 happens to you. Online anonymity does not protect criminals. Thats why subpoenas exist. You are facing a criminal investigation and a Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016 lawsuit. So if any of you others think about trying this cute prank, consider the consequences. They will be severe. Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016Again, I will not be seeing your comments or tweeting for awhile except to upload copies of litigation and police documents. Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016Otherwise, I ll be back once it is clear from the paperwork i will be tweeting that this is not a joke. See you soon. Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 16, 2016Featured image by Charles Eshelman via Getty Images | 1real |
Trump Whines About Obamacare And Takes Credit For Obama’s Economy In Delusional Morning Rant | Donald Trump is absolutely obsessed with erasing President Obama s achievements and taking credit for them.In yet another Twitter tantrum on Monday morning, Trump began by whining about the Affordable Care Act.If ObamaCare is hurting people, & it is, why shouldn t it hurt the insurance companies & why should Congress not be paying what public pays? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2017As usual, Trump is lying his ass off.The truth is that members of Congress must buy health insurance through the exchanges like the rest of us and they don t get a special subsidy either. They pay what the rest of us do.According to FactCheck.org, lawmakers and their staffs face additional requirements that other Americans don t, and the subsidy which Trump appears to be referring to is just a contribution from the federal government. Lawmakers are merely getting a contribution from their employer like ordinary Americans who get insurance through their employer. Except lawmakers are not getting insurance through their employer like they used to. Members of Congress used to get their healthcare paid for by the taxpayer. That ended under Obamacare as lawmakers were forced to buy a private plan through the exchanges like everyone else. In other words, Congress pays what we pay.And then Trump once again took credit for President Obama s economy.Highest Stock Market EVER, best economic numbers in years, unemployment lowest in 17 years, wages raising, border secure, S.C.: No WH chaos! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2017By the end of President Obama s tenure, and long before Trump was elected, the stock market had already reached record highs. Unemployment fell to under 5 percent thanks to Obama s record 75 consecutive months of job growth. Wages also rose by 2.9 percent. Wages under Trump have actually remained flat no matter how much he wants to take credit for imaginary wage hikes. The border was also secure under Obama as illegal immigration dropped significantly under his watch. And if Trump really thinks his White House isn t chaotic he is truly delusional.The bottom line is that Trump is trying to take credit for things President Obama did while trying to erase his legacy. Trump won t have a legacy, so he is trying to steal Obama s for himself. It s just more desperation from a pathetic man who is unfit to be president, but a perfect fit for federal prison.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
Review: That ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Close-Up, Finely Focused - The New York Times | The scenery may have shrunk, but that face — oh, that face — looms larger than ever. So does the ego that animates it, both indomitable and irreparably broken. “With one look,” indeed, to borrow a song lyric that describes such unsettling presence. That outrageous, desperate old lady shedding sanity on the stage of the Palace Theater still has the poetry in her gaze to break every heart. Yes, Hollywood’s most fatally narcissistic glamour girl, Norma Desmond, is back in town, in the revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” that opened on Thursday night. It is a show that exists almost entirely to let its star blaze to her heart’s content. The light she casts is so dazzling, this seems an entirely sufficient reason to be. Miss Desmond is embodied by Glenn Close, the movie actress who won a Tony in the same part 22 years ago. And what was one of the great stage performances of the 20th century has been reinvented, in terms both larger and more intimate, that may well guarantee its status as one of the great stage performances of this century, too. Ms. Close is even better than when I first saw her — more fragile and more frightening, more seriously comic and tragic. Part of this presumably involves the insights an artist accumulates over the decades. It is also to Ms. Close’s advantage that she is no longer required to compete with an elephantine, set. For this latest incarnation of “Sunset Boulevard,” directed by Lonny Price and first seen in London last year, is a close cousin to the productions from Encores! of vintage musicals in concert at City Center. As in such presentations, the orchestra (40 pieces strong) is onstage and visible. James Noone’s set, anchored by tiered industrial scaffolding, conjures 1950s Hollywood through suggestive visual accents — a giant chandelier here, a floating corpse there — rather than scenery. Yes, a car still shows up onstage. And our Miss Desmond still gets a workout walking up and down the stairs. But the opulence of John Napier’s original designs has been scrubbed away. Such relative minimalism allows us to see Norma and “Sunset Boulevard” plain. The good news is that Norma has never looked bigger. (And no, I’m not forgetting about Gloria Swanson, who immortally created the part in the 1950 Billy Wilder film on which this show is based.) The musical, on the other hand, seems and sounds thin, despite the velveteen lushness of its excellent orchestra. Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s book is just fine when it hews to the dialogue of the original screenplay. But “Sunset,” being a musical, spends most of its time singing, and Mr. Black and Mr. Hampton’s lyrics have a way of turning cynicism into taunting schoolyard jingles, with rhymes that land as emphatically as children on hopscotch squares. (“You know I’m right. It’s there in black and white. ”) Mr. Lloyd Webber’s music often inhabits a similar zone of singsong insistence, with certain melody lines repeated so often you fear surgery may be necessary to have them removed from your memory. Only the swirling, ominous overtures evoke the shades of noir of Franz Waxman’s original film score. For long stretches, you may even forget you’re inhabiting one of the darkest visions that Hollywood ever summoned of itself. This is a story, after all, that begins with a talking dead man. That’s Joe Gillis, the screenwriter who narrates in sustained flashback. On the lam from a collection agency, Joe (Michael Xavier) winds up in a scary old mansion at 10086 Sunset Boulevard, playing editor, house pet and eventually lover to the reclusive Miss Desmond, a nearly forgotten diva, who is planning her comeback. We also spend far too much time with Joe in the less exotic world of Hollywood hopefuls, where he falls for an ambitious studio worker, Betty Schaeffer (Siobhan Dillon) his best friend’s girl. Betty, to put it bluntly, is a bore, and so is Joe when he’s with her, since she has the effect of making them both sing like sweethearts out of Victor Herbert. Mr. Xavier is glib, handsome and charmingly . But he’s lightweight, lacking the tortured conscience that William Holden brought to Wilder’s movie. Fred Johanson, looking like Lurch from “The Addams Family,” finds more substance and shadow as Max, Norma’s fanatically loyal . The large ensemble, choreographed into flailing friskiness by Stephen Mears, is serviceable. But we’re just marking time until Norma’s back. Whenever she makes an entrance, the adrenaline that surges through the house is palpable. Swathed in ensembles of sequined black, shimmering gold and assorted animal prints (the great Anthony Powell did Ms. Close’s costumes) her face as white and exaggeratedly expressive as Marcel Marceau’s, Norma should by rights be merely a drag queen’s fantasy. And, yes, on one level, the lady is a camp. But Ms. Close deploys the declarative physical vocabulary of acting to convey a genuine grandeur of spirit and an equally outsize force of will. Watch Norma watching herself onscreen in a state of mimetic rapture, or seesawing violently between little girl coquettishness and iron imperiousness with her captive lover. The audacity of this performance is matched by its veracity. This is acting of a singularly sophisticated and disciplined order, one of those rare instances in which more is truly more. Her singing voice is reedy and at times . But her delivery, her stance, her very presence are operatic in the richest sense of the word. I won’t even try to describe the brilliant spiderlike dance — superhuman and pathetically human — with which Ms. Close concludes the show. You have to (and I mean have to) see it in person. Her interpretation of the show’s one great song, “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” in which Norma visits her old studio lot, is a . Watching it from its beginning (when a set worker trains a spotlight on Norma’s face) to its end (when she steps to the edge of the stage to absorb the applause like an unquenchable sponge) is to understand with all your senses the addictiveness of stardom. “Feel the magic in the making,” sings Norma. You can only nod your head in agreement. | 0fake |
JUST IN: JOHN CONYERS’ Attorney Suggests Nancy Pelosi Is A Racist For Saying Conyers Should Resign | Apparently, the arrogant 88-year-old Congressman John Conyers, who is being accused of sexual misconduct by several women, is not going to leave the halls of Congress on his own. Yesterday, Black Caucus member, Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC) claimed that the women accusing Conyers of sexual misconduct were all white women or racists. Today, Conyers black accuser is speaking out.More than a week after it was first reported that Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Detroit, settled a sexual harassment claim in 2015, the woman he settled with is speaking out.WATCH: "Can you tell me what you say John Conyers did when you were his employee?" @savannahguthrie asks Rep. Conyers accuser Marion Brown pic.twitter.com/2jsszMStWj TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 30, 2017Brown s 2014 complaint, and a settlement she reached with Conyers in 2015, were first reported by BuzzFeed News last week. The report did not identify Brown, who signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of the settlement that prohibited her from speaking about it.The report included Brown s accusation that Conyers had fired her after she rejected his sexual advances. Since then, at least two other female former staffers have accused Conyers of sexual harassment. Conyers denies the allegations.Lisa Bloom, the high-profile attorney representing Brown, issued a statement Sunday calling on Conyers and the congressional Office of Compliance to release her client from the non-disclosure agreement.Brown said Thursday that she decided to break the agreement and speak out to be a voice for other women. I felt it was worth the risk to stand up for all the women in the workforce that are voiceless ordinary women like myself with extraordinary challenges, working in the workforce, that are dominated by men, she said. Huffington PostWATCH: "Did you ever tell any of your superiors?" @savannahguthrie asks Rep. Conyers accuser Marion Brown pic.twitter.com/EAsOYkU0Ry TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 30, 2017Before Conyer s accuser Marion Brown came out and courageously appeared on the Today Show, Nancy Pelosi stood firm in her belief that Conyers was innocent. She even went as far as to call him an icon during her interview with Meet The Press host Chuck Todd:.@NancyPelosi: Accused Congressman Conyers is an "icon" in our country. #MTP pic.twitter.com/4QlKKJTIJP Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 26, 2017Now that Conyer s accuser has revealed herself to the public and is being represented by the high-profile, leftist lawyer, Lisa Bloom, Nancy has suddenly had a change of heart and is now calling for the resignation of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).BREAKING: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi calls for resignation of Rep. John Conyers https://t.co/wXXKqJGQKV pic.twitter.com/D8cRNKAiNE WXYZ Detroit (@wxyzdetroit) November 30, 2017Speaker of the House Paul Ryan joined the chorus today and called for the resignation of Congressman Conyers..@SpeakerRyan on Congressman Conyers: "Yes, I think he should resign. I think he should resign immediately." pic.twitter.com/z7NIHwOc2X CSPAN (@cspan) November 30, 2017Meanwhile, Conyers attorney, Arnold Reed, is laughing at the idea that the 88-year-old congressman who has been accused by several women of sexual misconduct would resign. Today, during his press conference in Detroit, Reed called out the idea that Nancy Pelosi would call for his client to resign while ignoring (white) Senator Al Franken (D-MN). During his press conferencet today Reed told reporters that Nancy Pelosi won t tell Conyers what to do. Reed then pulled the race card from the bottom of the deck, asking: What is the discernible difference between Al Franken and John Conyers? Rep. Conyers' attorney on calls for resignation: "It is not up to Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi did not elect [Conyers] and she sure as hell wont be the one to tell the congressman to leave" pic.twitter.com/fxaRpDRQmh NBC News (@NBCNews) November 30, 2017NBC Capitol Hill correspondent Kasie Hunt tweeted about Conyers belligerent lawyer:JOHN CONYERS' LAWYER says Nancy Pelosi won't tell him what to do: "What is the discernible difference between Al Franken and John Conyers?" he says Kasie Hunt (@kasie) November 30, 2017Yesterday, Conyers arrogant and defiant lawyer tweeted that his client is not going to be forced out of office :Attorney: Conyers not going to be forced out of office https://t.co/Np2bGmUGdI via @detroitnews Arnold E. Reed (@ArnoldReedEsq) November 30, 2017 | 1real |
Value-Seekers Warm to a $450 Annual Credit Card Fee - The New York Times | Seldom does a new credit card go viral. There are the unboxing videos posted on YouTube: People exulting in receiving the precious new metallic rectangle, lovingly unwrapping it, boasting to the world of their ownership of it. (One video features a cat ripping the package open.) There are message boards and blogs dedicated to obsessing over it, with more than 6, 000 comments so far on a Reddit discussion. It is so popular that JPMorgan Chase, the bank that issues the card, ran out of the engraved card’s fancy metal stock in only 10 days, and had to send a temporary plastic placeholder to disappointed customers. But the Chase Sapphire Reserve card has done more than generate product hysteria at its finest. It has also intensified the arms race among large credit card issuers, which are introducing increasingly lavish rewards programs to capture affluent consumers who spend large sums on travel and recreation, but no longer want to be bound to one particular hotel or airline’s affinity program. The price for these premium cards can seem outlandish: $450 a year. But for a growing number of customers, the math makes sense. Cards that were once more about elite service and social status are now emphasizing their value proposition — even when it comes with a hefty annual fee. “American Express used to have a stranglehold on the market, but folks like Chase and Citi are coming hard after their crown,” said Matt Schulz, an analyst for CreditCards. com, a comparison site. “It’s the best time in years to shop for a rewards card. ” American Express’s Platinum charge card pioneered the premium category, and was for a long time its undisputed champion. But in 2014, Citi overhauled its Prestige credit card to take on the Platinum card with similar perks — free hotel stays, access to airport lounges and private golf courses, transferable points redeemable for airfares and upgrades — as well as spending incentives to let customers cash in faster. It quickly became a favorite among road warriors. Chase started making plans early last year for its own entry into the market. Those who call themselves travel hackers, a community of who go to elaborate lengths to maximize their reward points, obsessively analyze the nuances of the latest deals the way sports fans scrutinize their team’s draft picks. In late July, rumors began spreading on FlyerTalk, a popular message board, that Chase had a new card in the works, with a bonus — twice the standard offer from its rivals. When an online link accidentally went live in a week earlier than Chase planned, people pounced: Hundreds of applications poured in for a card Chase had not yet announced. “It significantly exceeded our expectations,” Amy Bonitatibus, a spokeswoman for Chase, said of the “tens of thousands” of cards the bank has issued so far. It has been a particular hit with millennials, who make up the majority of the cardholders — a noteworthy detail, given that many millennials have been turning on credit cards. The card’s rich bonus caught the eye of Amber Cooney, 29, who works for a nonprofit lender in Austin and is saving for a honeymoon next year in Italy and Croatia. She considers herself a casual credit card user, but she started paying attention to points and rewards a few years ago when she realized that her spending patterns could net her free vacations if she planned carefully. “Rewards cards made travel a reality for me,” she said. “I went from seeing Niagara Falls and calling that my international travel to visiting four different countries. ” Her points have paid for airfare to Argentina and hotels in Paris she plans to use her Chase card on a trip to Japan this year. Ben Schlappig, 26, a travel blogger who lives the life of an nomad — he has no fixed address, preferring to live in hotel rooms — plans to shift most of his spending to his Chase Sapphire Reserve. The card offers triple points on dining and travel spending, the two categories that consume nearly all of Mr. Schlappig’s budget. Chase defines “travel” fairly flexibly, and includes services like Airbnb and Uber. Sapphire Reserve customers have spent $1. 5 million already with those two companies, earning 4. 5 million points, Ms. Bonitatibus said. “It’s an incredible deal,” said Mr. Schlappig, who writes the blog One Mile at a Time. “The card is almost too good to be true. I think a lot of people are scared that some of the perks will be cut. ” Ms. Bonitatibus insists that Chase has no current plans to make changes, but the general trend with loyalty and points program is that card issuers are quick to ditch benefits that dig too deeply into their profits. Citi Prestige customers grumbled this year when the card dropped its free access to American Airlines’ Admirals Club lounges, a perk that had disappeared two years earlier from American Express’s Platinum card. With credit card companies adjusting the perk programs so often, the value of each issuers’ reward miles and points changes frequently, prompting some people to . One travel blogger, The Points Guy, posts monthly calculations, down to the micropenny, of what he considers each card’s benefits to be worth. Perhaps as a sign of the strengthened economy, the major issuers say that demand for their premium cards is rising. The number of Citi Prestige cardholders increased sixfold in the last 18 months, according to a company spokeswoman, and American Express says that its Platinum card membership is “large, growing and loyal. ” Customers seem increasingly willing to consider shifting from free cards to ones with fees and better perks. Americans received 1. 2 billion credit card solicitations in the second quarter of this year, according to research by Mintel Comperemedia. A record proportion of them, 19 percent, were for rewards cards, up from 14 percent a year ago. “Around the recession, we saw promotional innovation in the space,” said Andrew Davidson, a senior vice president of Mintel. “Now, I think we might start seeing more innovation around points and miles in the premium space. What this launch has done is shake things up a bit: American Express and Citi will be forced to their cards’ value proposition. ” The premium cards’ gains may come at the expense of the more traditional airline, retail and hotel cards issued by banks. Around 43 percent of adult Americans had at least one affinity credit card last year, a sharp decrease from the 55 percent who carried one in 2009, according to research from Packaged Facts, which regularly surveys the market. “If you look at the behavior of millennials, it’s clear they’re not going to commit to a relationship with one credit card, or brand, the way their parents did,” said David Robertson, the publisher of The Nilson Report, which follows the credit card industry. He is even casting a critical eye on his own card, an American Airlines card from Citi that carries a $450 annual fee. “I look at it now, and it’s just a question of, do I want to spend the time to think about the value proposition on an alternative?” Mr. Robertson said. “There’s much to be said about inertia. ” | 0fake |
5 Secrets to Wu Wei, the Taoist Principle of Effortless Effort | 5 Secrets to Wu Wei, the Taoist Principle of Effortless Effort Nov 18, 2016 6 0
As we progress through the process of ascension, several stages occur. Among them is a shake-up which inspires an initial awakening, then the full realization of truth, followed by the development of discernment to ascertain a correct course of action. We wouldn’t try to ride a bicycle before building one, nor would we attempt to sail an ocean without a boat. When things get challenging in life, we can check to see if we are practicing Wu Wei in order to refine our actions. This is the art of effortless action as described in Taoist teachings. 1. No Action Doesn’t Mean ‘Nothing’ Happens
“ The Tao does nothing and yet nothing is left undone .” – Lao Tzu
Wu Wei or 無為, translates from Chinese pinyin to mean “no-action” or “actionless action.” This is considered the ‘natural’ way to do things, as opposed to striving, opposing, and forcing, as well as lollygagging, or succumbing to complete inertia. When we are in alignment with the Source, or as Taoists call it, simply, the Tao, then we don’t have to ‘work’ at anything. This is not to be confused with doing nothing. The state of Wu Wei doesn’t give us an excuse to sit on the sidelines, observing life and critiquing others’ actions. Instead, it describes the inspired action of a person who is brimming with life energy, and that has dedicated their actions to a purpose which supports Oneness. This person does not waste energy, though, and moves only when the time is right, and then, with magnificent acumen, and seemingly magical support behind them.
The ancient ideograms and symbols used in the Chinese language and culture offer the most simplistic way to describe wu wei. We can observe this is the simple yin yang symbol. One side is active, or masculine, representing the energy of extending oneself into the world, and the other side of the symbol is passive, or more accurately, receiving, or feminine energy that causes an inward journey.
All Chinese medicine, martial, and internal arts from Tai Chi to acupuncture to meditation aim to help balance the masculine and feminine energies, the doing and ‘not-doing’ you might say, as a way to achieve wu wei. 2. The Cosmos is Not Working Against You
We aren’t sandwiched between heaven and earth, we ARE heaven and earth. To practice wu wei, we must first realize that we are connected to the Oneness of all things. Though we should have clear boundaries, like children given free rein to run and play within the confines of a beautiful park, we also should remain open to vulnerability and the lessons this may teach. Once we are open and protected we can begin to observe nature and embrace universal energy as it ebbs and flows. From there, we learn when to move with that energy – ebbing and flowing with our own actions in accordance with the Oneness of all things. An immense sense of freedom comes from knowing we don’t have to fight against the Cosmos, and understanding that it is never working against us – only we can choose to work against it’s flow. 3. Physical Action Isn’t the Only Action
Another principle of wu wei involves quieting the ever-busy mind. Even if we aren’t ‘doing’ anything physically, often our minds are busier than ever. Wu wei means that we not only quiet the body and its actions, but that we aim to quiet the mind. Otherwise, we will have no idea if we are in Universal flow, or simply acting ‘busy’ out of the needs of the ‘ego,’ we so obsessively align ourselves with.
Even with our meditation practice, we are encouraged not to ‘try too hard.’ Perhaps you’ve seen a mind game that has been installed at several museums around the U.S.. Two people sit across from one another, and attach headbands equipped with electrodes to themselves. Between the players are a group of balls that can only be moved with the brain’s waves, measured as electromagnetic currents through the headband. If a player maintains a state of relaxed calm, essentially a combination of alpha and theta waves produced by the brain when it’s relaxed, then a ball moves up a tube and is placed in a bin. The player with the most ‘balls,’ wins after a certain period of time commences. Those who try too hard, fail, as do those who don’t try hard enough. The combination of alpha and theta waves created by a wu wei mind is what wins the game every time.
Lao Tzu advises that we must be quiet and watchful, learning to listen to both our own inner voices and to the voices of our environment in a non-interfering, receptive manner. This requires a calm, but astute mind. 4. Being at One with the Tao Means Accepting Change
A key principal in Taoism, and the practice of wu wei involves the realization that there is an unceasing flow of change in nature. This change is governed by laws which are unalterable, and rarely perceived except by the most consciously evolved individuals. Fighting these laws of change would be a sisyphean task. Would you try to to stop the changing of the season or the rise and fall of the sun to the horizon? Once you observe this flow of change in nature, you can apply principles of wu wei to your own transformation. Since you are a part and parcel of nature, you will change accordingly. Why not move with that change instead of fight against it – perhaps you can even welcome change the next time it arrives at your doorstep. 5. True Wu Wei Involves Purposeless Wandering
Zhuangzi refers to a type of being in the world that many of us have never considered. He calls it flowing, or more poetically “ purposeless wandering .” Most of our cultural values frown upon this type of being. If we have ‘no purpose’ we are often deemed pathological in the context of modern day living. Yet, it would be difficult to maintain that our current values have promoted harmony and balance, either environmentally or for each individual.
In Zhuangzi’s Basic Writings , he states , “you can use the analogy of an artist or craftsman. The skilled woodcarver, the skilled swimmer. . . does not ponder or ratiocinate on the course of action he should take; his skill has become so much a part of him that he merely acts instinctively and spontaneously, without knowing why, and achieves success.” He further describes an enlightened person as being one who wanders through creation enjoying its delights without ever becoming attached to any one part of it. Vote Up Christina Sarich Christina Sarich is a musician, yogi, humanitarian and freelance writer who channels many hours of studying Lao Tzu, Paramahansa Yogananda, Rob Brezny, Miles Davis, and Tom Robbins into interesting tidbits to help you Wake up Your Sleepy Little Head, and *See the Big Picture*. Her blog is Yoga for the New World . Her latest book is Pharma Sutra: Healing The Body And Mind Through The Art Of Yoga . | 1real |
BREAKING: House Dems Demand ‘Emergency’ Meeting With DHS Over Trump’s Bigoted Muslim Ban | Donald Trump should be coming to the realization that his Muslim ban may have been just a step too far. But in case he needs help figuring it out, Democrats are ready to help teach him a lesson.According to Politico, high-ranking lawmakers on numerous committees sent a letter to DHS Secretary John Kelly on Sunday night. They demanded that he hold an emergency meeting to discuss Trump s unlawful executive order banning Muslims from entering the United States. As ranking members of the committees of jurisdiction for matters of immigration, border security, and admission of refugees, we write to you on an emergency basis to request a meeting to discuss the implementation and guidance concerning the Executive Order, the congressmen wrote.The letter was reportedly signed by House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.), Homeland Security ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), top Democrat on Judiciary s immigration panel. In their letter, the lawmakers pointed out that only two days after the Order was signed, it is clear that it has already led to panic and disorder, not to mention protests. Lofgren intends to introduce legislation this week in an effort to fight Trump s bigoted ban. Unfortunately, Paul Ryan being the fickle fellow that he is, is now supporting Trump s order even though he denounced the idea of religious tests just six months ago. This means Logren s move will probably end up dead in the water.Democrats are asking Kelly to sit down with them no later than Wednesday. In addition, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have both reached out to Kelly on their own.In the letter, the lawmakers also blasted DHS for accusations that customs officials have been denying legal counsel to detainees. Given the widespread chaos and confusion caused by the order and the issuance of stays last evening concerning the Order by federal courts in New York, Virginia, and Massachusetts, they wrote, it is vital that we meet as soon as possible so that we may provide needed guidance and information to our committees and our constituents. House and Senate Democrats also intend to stage a protest in front of the Supreme Court at 6 p.m. on Monday night. The fight is only just beginning but Democrats intend to battle Trump s bigotry every step of the way. Some Dems have even said that they are exploring all legal options, including an Amicus Brief in support of the ACLU. The letter concluded with the lawmakers telling Kelly that they look forward to meeting with you in short order so that we can have an open and candid discussion about how the Trump administration arrived at this chaotic place, what you understand the meaning of the Executive Order to be, and what guidance you have offered to your employees and other stakeholders. Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
Ann Coulter: We Have Now Hit Full-On Crazy | Liberals are ecstatic that a judge in Hawaii is writing immigration policy for the entire country, and that policy is: We have no right to tell anyone that he can’t live in America. (Unless they’re Christians — those guys we can keep out. )[As subtly alluded to in the subtitle of Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole, the goal of liberals is for the poor of the world to have a constitutional right to come here whenever they want. I can’t help but notice that the Third Worlders aren’t moving to liberals’ neighborhoods. After nearly 1 million Rwandans were murdered by other Rwandans in 1994, our government asked itself: Why not bring more of this fascinating Rwandan culture to America? Ten thousand of them poured in. So far, nearly 400 have been convicted in the United States of lying on visa applications about their role in the genocide. And that’s why we have to tighten our belt, America! Massive international investigations don’t come cheap. Almost every immigration case is a con, something we find out every time there’s a San Bernardino shooting and half the familyturns out to have scammed our immigration officials. One hundred percent of the “humanitarian” cases are frauds. Earlier this month, Rwanda’s Gervais Ngombwa was convicted for lying on his immigration application by claiming to have been a victim of the 1994 genocide. In fact, he was a perpetrator — even featured in Rwandan newspaper articles as a leader of the genocide. For most of the last two decades, Ngombwa has been living in Iowa with his wife and eight children in a house built by Habitat for Humanity — because no Americans need houses. He came to the authorities’ attention a couple years ago by setting that house on fire after a domestic dispute, then filing a fraudulent $75, 000 insurance claim. Another Rwandan genocidalist living in America was featured in Adios, America: Beatrice Munyenyezi, granted refugee status as an alleged victim of the genocide, even though she, too, had helped orchestrate it. Munyenyezi was living safely living in Kenya when she applied for a refugee visa to America. The welfare is way better here. And, luckily for us, she had a “chronic medical condition” that required constant attention from a New Hampshire hospital. Hesham Mohamed Hadayet arrived in the U. S. on a tourist visa, then immediately applied for “asylum” on the grounds that he was persecuted in Egypt — for being a member of an Islamic terrorist group. Being a member of a noted terrorist group cannot be used to block you from coming to America, thanks to Barney Frank’s 1989 amendment to the Immigration and Naturalization Act, because liberals love this country so very, very much. Being a talented neurosurgeon from Switzerland, however, is disqualifying. Hadayet’s refugee application wasn’t denied until he’d already been living here for three years. When he was called in for a visa overstay hearing, he didn’t show up, and the INS didn’t bother looking for him. After allowing Hadayet to mill about America for another year, our government granted him permanent residency and a work permit. On the Fourth of July following the attack, Hadayet shot up the El Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles International Airport. I guess the Egyptians were right! As bodies were being cleared away from the ticket counter, including Hadayet’s, his wife blamed America for the attack, denying her husband had anything to do with it. “He is a victim of injustice,” she explained. “In America, they hate Islam and Arabs after Sept. 11. ” At least immigrants are grateful. Immigration bureaucrats are so determined to transform America without anyone seeing what they’re doing that the INS initially refused to release Hadayet’s file to congressional investigators, in order to protect his “privacy. ” Of course, anybody could miss Egypt’s designating someone a terrorist. And maybe the INS’s test for Rwandan “refugees” is: Would this person be able to convince Rolling Stone magazine that “Haven Monahan” raped her? How about Rasmea Yousef Odeh? She waltzed into America after having been convicted and imprisoned in Israel for a supermarket bombing that left two Hebrew University students dead, and also for the attempted bombing of the British consulate in Israel. She was released in a prisoner exchange — whereupon Odeh made a beeline for the U. S. True, Odeh wasn’t subjected to the vetting accorded the humanitarian cases, like the Boston Marathon bombers (we were warned by Russia) Hadayet (we were warned by Egypt) or the Blind Sheik (same). But how did our immigration authorities miss a CONVICTION FOR BOMBING IN ISRAEL? Apart from the terrorism, welfare, and fraud, what great things did any of them do for our country? Ngombwa was a custodian at the Cedar Rapids Community School District in Iowa, a job that, evidently, no American would do. Munyenyezi had a job as an advocate for refugees — just one of the many jobs being created by immigrants. Hadayet ran a failing limousine company and was $10, 000 in debt. Odeh was an unemployed waitress and a Palestinian grievance activist. Recently, she’s been heavily involved in male protests, because who doesn’t like incessant Third World unrest? In 1960, 75 percent of the in America were from Europe. Today only about 10 percent are. More than a third of all post — Teddy Kennedy act immigrants — not just the wretched humanitarian cases — don’t even have a high school diploma. What is the affirmative case for this? How is it making America better? Improving the schools? The job market? Crime? The likelihood of terrorism? Can the liberals doing cartwheels over a district judge’s announcement that everyone in the world has a right to come here (except Europeans and Christians) give us the analysis they’re using? Twenty million Third World immigrants give us ( __ ) terrorists, ( __ ) welfare recipients, ( __ ) uncompensated medical costs, ( __ ) discrimination lawsuits, but it’s all worth it because ( _________________ )? | 0fake |
Raise the wage: Paul Krugman shatters the myth that we can’t afford to boost workers’ pay | Three things are inevitable in this life: death, taxes, and conservative claims that we simply can’t afford to give low-wage workers a pay boost. Nobel Prize-winning economist takes on the latter inevitability in his New York Times column today, seizing on recent developments to illustrate why arguments against wage increases don’t withstand serious scrutiny.
Take McDonald’s announcement this week that it would pay its workers $1 above the minimum wage per hour at the 1,500 outlets owned and operated by McDonald’s itself. (The move, which still falls well short of what workers and their advocates seek, affects 90,000 workers, but it doesn’t apply to the 750,000 workers employed by McDonald’s 3,100 American franchisees.) While modest in scope,McDonald’s move — coming on the heels of similar wage boosts by bold-faced names like Walmart and Target — suggests that “[m]aybe it’s not that hard to give American workers a raise, after all,” Krugman writes.
While free market fundamentalists might retort that global competition will sink firms that boost worker pay, Krugman responds by noting that most American workers are “employed in service industries that aren’t exposed to international trade.”
What about technology? Isn’t it an unassailable maxim of modern economics that we can afford to pay larger wages only to highly skilled workers — ones who can’t be replaced by machines? As Mike Konczal wrote recently, technology is but a small part of the larger inequality phenomenon. The key factors, he pointed out, include tax policy, the financialization of the American economy, deunionization, and the conscious political choice not to raise the minimum wage.
What’s more, Krugman observes, “Workers are people; relations between employers and employees are more complicated than simple supply and demand.” This truism is borne out in empirical evidence, with comparisons of states that raised their minimum wages with neighboring states that didn’t showing that higher pay does not mean fewer jobs.
Similar factors explain another puzzle about labor markets: the way different firms in what looks like the same business can pay very different wages. The classic comparison is between Walmart (with its low wages, low morale, and very high turnover) and Costco (which offers higher wages and better benefits, and makes up the difference with better productivity and worker loyalty). True, the two retailers serve different markets; Costco’s merchandise is higher-end and its customers more affluent. But the comparison nonetheless suggests that paying higher wages costs employers a lot less than you might think. And this, in turn, suggests that it shouldn’t be all that hard to raise wages across the board. Suppose that we were to give workers some bargaining power by raising minimum wages, making it easier for them to organize, and, crucially, aiming for full employment rather than finding reasons to choke off recovery despite low inflation. Given what we now know about labor markets, the results might be surprisingly big — because a moderate push might be all it takes to persuade much of American business to turn away from the low-wage strategy that has dominated our society for so many years. There’s historical precedent for this kind of wage push. The middle-class society now dwindling in our rearview mirrors didn’t emerge spontaneously; it was largely created by the “great compression” of wages that took place during World War II, with effects that lasted for more than a generation. | 0fake |
Kasich: Voters Are ‘Starting to Pay Attention’ | CHARLESTON – John Kasich isn’t sure how he got to be the runner-up to in Tuesday’s New Hampshire GOP primary, an achievement that is drawing more South Carolina voters to his under-the-radar presidential campaign. “Frankly no one would have thought I would finish in second place, way ahead of everybody else, in New Hampshire,” Mr. Kasich told […] | 0fake |
“HILLARY WILL BE INDICTED” | The question is who Obama will protect? Will he stand by his Yes woman, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, or will he provide cover for Hillary, allowing her to emerge as the successor to his corrupt two terms in office? Our money is on Obama protecting Attorney General Loretta Lynch if Valerie Jarrett has anything to do with it A former U.S. Attorney predicts a Watergate-style showdown in the Department of Justice if Attorney General Loretta Lynch overrules a potential FBI recommendation to indict Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The [FBI] has so much information about criminal conduct by her and her staff that there is no way that they walk away from this, Joseph diGenova, formerly the District of Columbia s U.S. Attorney, told Laura Ingraham in a Tuesday radio interview. They are going to make a recommendation that people be charged and then Loretta Lynch is going to have the decision of a lifetime. I believe that the evidence that the FBI is compiling will be so compelling that, unless [Lynch] agrees to the charges, there will be a massive revolt inside the FBI, which she will not be able to survive as an attorney general. It will be like Watergate. It will be unbelievable. DiGenova is referring to the Watergate scandal s Saturday Night Massacre Oct. 20, 1973, when President Richard Nixon sacked Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned in protest. Via: Daily Caller | 1real |
Establishment Rising in Trump’s White House: Noonan Says Efforts to ’Take Out’ Bannon ’Low, Unseemly, Ugly’ | Pulitzer columnist Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal about the efforts to take out White House strategist Steve Bannon. While offering a candid assessment of Bannon’s shortcomings and strengths, Noonan summarizes Bannon’s populist and nationalist worldview as outlined in a speech he gave at the Vatican in 2014 — a speech that predicted the issues that propelled Trump to victory in 2016. [From Noonan’s column: But there’s something low, unseemly and ugly in the efforts to take [Bannon] out so publicly and humiliatingly, to turn him into a human oil spot on the tarmac — this not only from his putative colleagues but now even the president. “I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Mr. Trump purred to the New York Post’s Michael Goodwin. … What will take its place if [Bannon] leaves the White House or recedes as a figure? What worldview will prevail, to the extent Mr. Trump does worldviews? Policy changes accompanying Mr. Bannon’s diminishment this week included the president’s speaking approvingly of the Bank and NATO, declaring that China isn’t a currency manipulator after all, suggesting the dollar may be too strong, and hitting Syria and Afghanistan. None of that sounds like Candidate Trump. It is possible what we are seeing is simply the rise of a more moderate or conciliatory or establishment Trump White House. But it also looks like the rise of the Wall Street Mr. Bannon painted as tending to see people as commodities. Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, is said to be Mr. Bannon’s most effective internal foe. He is the new rising figure. There are many Wall Street folk — some from Messrs. Bannon and Cohn’s old stomping ground, Goldman Sachs — in influential administration posts. They don’t come across as the kind of people who exhaust themselves pondering the meaning of the historical moment or tracing societal stresses and potential responses. Read the rest here. | 0fake |
WATCH: Sean Spicer Just Defended Michael Flynn While Attacking Sally Yates | Following Sally Yates testimony yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday accused the former acting Attorney General of being a political opponent of the president because she informed the White House three times that then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn lied about his contacts with Russia. Spicer was asked why it took Trump 18 days to fire Flynn after it was revealed by Yates that he had been compromised and was vulnerable to being blackmailed by Russia.Spicer said that Flynn was not fired immediately because of an element of due process after the White House was informed of [Yates] giving us a heads up. Somebody came over, gave us a heads up, told us there were materials, Spicer said. Ultimately, the president made a decision that was the right one. So, I think the process worked. According to Spicer, Trump defended Flynn after learning that he lied because he is somebody who served our country honorably in uniform for over 30 years. The president does not want to smear a good man, Spicer continued. Let s look at how this came down. Someone who is not exactly a supporter of the president s agenda who a couple of days after this conversation took place refused to uphold a lawful order of the president who was not exactly excited about President Trump by taking office or his agenda. Just because someone gives you a heads up doesn t mean you jump the gun and go take action, Spicer added. What if we just dismissed someone because a political opponent of the president had made an utterance, you would argue that it s pretty irrational. Watch:Spicer also said that Yates was a strong supporter of Clinton, however, he said that without offering proof of such. It was widely rumored, Spicer said.Watch:lol, reporter asked Spicer why he claimed Yates was strong supporter of Hillary Clinton, Spicer OF COURSE says it was rumored pic.twitter.com/UgWmZ1Rol6 Tommy Christopher (@tommyxtopher) May 9, 2017Spicer called Sally Yates, who has served under Republican and Democratic Presidents, and served in the Justice Department for nearly three decades with an unblemished record, a political opponent. Let that sink in.In February, Trump referred to Flynn as a wonderful man and blamed the fake media for criminal leaks. He said that after firing this wonderful man who is now caught up in a massive scandal. Trump was not only warned by Yates three times but also by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.Image via screen capture. | 1real |
The Great Wall Street/Washington Con Job: Part 4 Of The Recovery Which Didn’t Happen | The Great Wall Street/Washington Con Job: Part 4 Of The Recovery Which Didn't Happen By David Stockman. During the last few days we have been debunking the notion that Imperial Washington's massive monetary and fiscal stimulus caused the so-called "recovery". To the contrary, it has actually poisoned the regenerative powers of American capitalism by causing capital and resources to flow out of the main street economy and into the speculative casinos of Wall Street. | 1real |
Trump win opens way for China to take climate leadership role | WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - The election of climate change skeptic Donald Trump as president is likely to end the U.S. leadership role in the international fight against global warming and may lead to the emergence of a new and unlikely champion: China. China worked closely with the administration of outgoing President Barack Obama to build momentum ahead of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The partnership of the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters helped get nearly 200 countries to support the pact at the historic meet in France’s capital. By contrast, Trump has called global warming a hoax created by China to give it an economic advantage and said he plans to remove the United States from the historic climate agreement, as well as reverse many of Obama’s measures to combat climate change. He has appointed noted climate change skeptic Myron Ebell to help lead transition planning for the Environmental Protection Agency, which has crafted the administration’s major environmental regulations such as the Clean Power Plan and efficiency standards for cars and trucks. Beijing is poised to cash in on the goodwill it could earn by taking on leadership in dealing with what for many other governments is one of the most urgent issues on their agenda. “Proactively taking action against climate change will improve China’s international image and allow it to occupy the moral high ground,” Zou Ji, deputy director of the National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and a senior Chinese climate talks negotiator, told Reuters. Zou said that if Trump abandons efforts to implement the Paris agreement, “China’s influence and voice are likely to increase in global climate governance, which will then spill over into other areas of global governance and increase China’s global standing, power and leadership.” Chen Zhihua, a representative of the Chinese delegation and official in the climate change division of the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s economic planning agency, said Chinese and other countries’ efforts will not change if the United States withdraws from the agreement. “Action by the international community will not stop because of the new government of the United States. We still have confidence the international community will join hands and continue our efforts on climate change,” he told reporters at the 200-nation U.N. meeting being held in Marrakesh to start fleshing out the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement seeks to phase out net greenhouse gas emissions by the second half of the century and limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Each country has put forward national plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Some have raised concerns that without involvement and financial support from the United States, emerging economies like India may feel inclined to back out. One of the key advisors to Obama’s team on climate change said he hoped China would take on the mantle and keep the global climate deal alive. Beijing should “continue to work in the spirit that we worked together in and before Paris,” said Andrew Light, former senior adviser to previous U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern. It is an ironic twist for the government of the world’s second-largest economy. For years, Beijing fought attempts by foreign governments to limit carbon emissions, claiming it should be allowed the same space to develop and pollute that industrialized nations had. But with its capital often choked by smog and its people angry about the environmental devastation that rapid development has wrought across the country, Beijing has become a proponent of efforts to halt global warming rather than a hindrance. “China is acting on climate for the benefit of its own people,” said Erik Solheim, executive director of the UN Environment Programme. “I am confident China will take a lead role.” China has powerful domestic and global imperatives to play a high-profile role in continued global climate change talks, meant to avert more heat waves, droughts, floods and rising sea levels that could cause trillions of dollars of damage by 2100. China sees a perceived role as global climate leader as way to bolster its aspiration to become a “clean energy superpower” by leading in renewable energy technology such as wind and solar power and asserting itself as a key geopolitical power. Dealing with the pressures of continued urbanization in some of the world’s largest cities has already put China ahead, said Andrew Steer, the president of environmental think tank the World Resources Institute. Beijing is innovating to build low-carbon cities, he said. “It sees carbon as an indicator of economic inefficiency,” Steer said. Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton darkened the mood of delegates attending the current round of climate talks in Marrakesh. Some delegates at the talks say that China is already setting an example. “China is surprising us daily. Whatever they’ve promised they’re delivering,” said Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, of Democratic Republic of Congo, who heads the 48-nation group of least developed countries at the talks. | 0fake |
Syrian, Russian jets bomb residential areas in eastern Ghouta: witnesses, monitor | AMMAN (Reuters) - Jets believed to be Syrian and Russian struck heavily crowded residential areas in a besieged rebel enclave near Damascus, killing at least 27 people and injuring dozens in the third week of a stepped-up assault, residents, aid workers and a war monitor said on Monday. Civil defense workers said at least 17 were killed in the town of Hamoriya in an aerial strike on a marketplace and nearby residential area after over nearly 30 strikes in the past 24 hours that struck several towns in the densely populated rural area east of Damascus known as the Eastern Ghouta. Four other civilians were killed in the town of Arbin, while the rest came from strikes on Misraba and Harasta, the civil defense workers said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, said the casualties on Sunday were the biggest daily death toll since the stepped-up strikes began 20 days ago. The monitor said nearly 200 civilians were killed in strikes and shelling, including many women and children, during that period. The Eastern Ghouta has been besieged by army troops since 2013 in an attempt to force the rebel enclave to submission. The government has in recent months tightened the siege in what residents and aid workers have said is a deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war, a charge the government denies. The United Nations says about 400,00 civilians besieged in the region face complete catastrophe because aid deliveries by the Syrian government were blocked and hundreds of people who need urgent medical evacuation have not been allowed outside the enclave. Eastern Ghouta is the last remaining large swathe of rebel-held area around Damascus that has not reached an evacuation deal to surrender weapons in return for allowing fighters to go to other rebel-held areas farther north. They are targeting civilians ... a jet hit us there, no rebels or checkpoints, Sadeq Ibrahim, a trader, said by phone in Hamoriya. May God take his revenge on the regime and Russia, said Abdullah Khalil, another resident, who said he lost members of his family in the air strike on Arbin and was searching for survivors among the rubble. The intensified bombardment of Eastern Ghouta follows a rebel attack last month on an army complex in the heart of the region that the army had used to bomb nearby rebel-held areas. Residents said, however, that the failure of the army to dislodge rebels from the complex had prompted what they believe were retaliatory indiscriminate attacks on civilians in the Eastern Ghouta. Government advances since last year have forced people to flee deeper into its increasingly overcrowded towns. The loss of farmland is increasing pressure on scarce food supplies. The Eastern Ghouta is part of several de-escalation zones that Russia has brokered with rebels across Syria that has freed the army to redeploy in areas where it can regain ground. Rebels accuse the Syrian government and Russia of violating the zones and say they were meant as a charade to divert attention from the heavy daily bombing of civilian areas. The Syrian government and Russia deny their jets bomb civilians and insist they only strike militant hideouts. | 0fake |
FBI Agent Indicted In Killing of Lavoy Finicum, Hires High-Profile DC Lawyer | 21st Century Wire says Back in January of 2016, 21WIRE reported how the Oregon Standoff protesters convoy was intercepted in a ambush by federal forces, and how Lavoy Finicum was executed by a rogue agent. The mainstream media was silent. Running point on the government s propaganda campaign was the Oregonian newspaper s supposed award-winning reporter Les Zaitz who shamefully referred to the planned federal ambush as a traffic stop. As it turns out the mainstream media was completely wrong while we were right. This was an elaborate federally managed cover-up from the beginning.21WIRE reported at the time the obvious contradiction; without any audio track to synch with the FBI s aerial footage it was impossible to know when shots were fired and if the official story was actually true. As part of the federal cover-up, FBI Special Agent in Charge, Greg Bretzing, insisted that their footage provided an honest and unfiltered view of what happened. It wasn t and new evidence told a completely different story, exposing the official story as a lie from the onset.Finicum was shot three times in the back An autopsy revealed with one of the bullets piercing Finicum s heart.The obvious problem with how these latest legal proceedings are being framed is this: Finicum is execute with three shots to the back after a pre-planned federal ambush, while the hired federal gunman who pulled the trigger is indicted for lying. Will his family and friends get justice this time around? EXECUTED:Robert LaVoy Finicum (January 27, 1961 January 26, 2016) Conrad Wilson OPDThe FBI agent indicted for allegedly lying about a pivotal moment during the 2016 Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation has hired a high-profile Washington D.C.-based attorney to defend him.Indicted FBI Hostage Rescue Team member W. Joseph Astarita has retained Robert Cary, who is well known in the nation s capital for his defense of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.In 2008, the Department of Justice indicted the Republican senator on corruption charges. Years later, the case was dismissed and found to be an example of gross prosecutorial misconduct. If what happened to Sen. Ted Stevens, a powerful Senator a few blocks from the Supreme Court of the United States, a few blocks from the United States Capitol if it can happen to him, it can happen to anybody, Cary said in a 2015 speech to an American Bar Association gathering.Cary will serve as co-counsel in the Astarita case with Portland based attorneys David Angeli and Tyler Francis, according to Angeli.Federal prosecutors have accused Astarita of lying to investigators about firing his gun during a traffic stop that left Malhuer occupation leader Robert LaVoy Finicum dead.Though neither of Astarita s shots hit Finicum, prosecutors have charged the FBI agent with several felonies for allegedly failing to disclose them. Those charges include making false statements and obstruction of justice Continue this story at OPDREAD MORE BUNDY RANCH NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Bundy FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Obama Furious After Fed-Up ‘Deplorables’ Drop 41,000-Piece Gift On Him | Obama Furious After Fed-Up ‘Deplorables’ Drop 41,000-Piece Gift On Him Amanda Shea Pissed off Patriots (left), Barack Obama deplaning Air Force One (right)
Barack Obama was at home in the White House when he received a little “gift” from Donald Trump’s fed-up “deplorables,” who interrupted his taxpayer-funded rest and relaxation with 41,000 things he never saw coming. These blunt patriots weren’t messing around, and they sent a clear message to our lame duck president, who didn’t like it at all.
The leader of the free world hasn’t done much in his two terms of trying, and he’s not about to start now on his way out of office. He has taken the liberty of awarding himself substantial tee time, only reserving his efforts and energy to promote who he hopes to be his successor, Hillary Clinton. As annoying at it is to watch him do nothing, it’s worse to see him take a side to campaign with one candidate while slandering the other, which Donald Trump’s supporters have noticed and are fed-up over it.
There’s a war happening on our own soil, between sharply divided citizens who are sick of seeing democracy destroyed during this election. While Hillary has everyone from the mainstream media to our president in her pantsuit pocket, patriots are expected to just accept it, along with the skewed results — and don’t want to pay a single dime for our president to spit in our faces any longer as he promotes Hillary on our hard-earned tax money.
A petition started on StandUnited has received 41,000 signatures from frustrated patriots who are asking Congress to stop paying our president as he plays favorites in campaigning for Hillary. “ We the People demand that Congress withhold President Obama’s salary, pension, travel expenses, etc. for any time he spends actively campaigning for Hillary Clinton between now and the election in November,” the petition on conservative site states.
While it’s not unusual for the current president to endorse a candidate on their way out of the White House, “Rarely, however, does that same lame duck President spend weeks or even months prior to the November election actively campaigning for his successor,” the petition laments.
Considering Obama’s salary of about $400,000 a year and the cost of Air Force One at $180,000 for every single hour of flight, the amount he’s siphoning from an already strained budget for a candidate that a mass amount of Americans don’t want in office is astronomical and insulting. Congress probably doesn’t even care about the cash or true conservatives and their petition, since the establishment is for keeping things how they want it at the cost of this Republican candidate who could better the country with change we need. | 1real |
Germany, France disagree with Russia on how to deploy peacekeepers in Ukraine: Gabriel | MINSK (Reuters) - There is a substantial difference between how Germany and France envisage the possible deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in eastern Ukraine and Russia s position, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told journalists on Friday. Both Kiev and Moscow have proposed U.N. peacekeepers be deployed to help resolve Ukraine s pro-Russian separatist conflict but the sides disagree on whether the troops should be positioned on the rebel-controlled part of the Ukraine-Russia border. Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine have previously held talks in an effort to end the fighting that has killed more than 10,000 people despite a notional ceasefire. Germany and France s idea and Russia s idea on how a blue helmets (peacekeeping) mission would be shaped are still very far apart, Gabriel said during an official visit to Belarus. Nevertheless Gabriel said the deployment would represent a real chance for peace in the war-torn Donbass region. Although our ideas are still far apart, it would be inadvisable to close this window of opportunity, he said. | 0fake |
Trump Links C.I.A. Reports on Russia to Democrats’ Shame Over Election - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that he did not believe American intelligence assessments that Russia had intervened to help his candidacy, casting blame for the reports on Democrats, who he said were embarrassed about losing to him. “I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s just another excuse,” Mr. Trump said in the interview, on “Fox News Sunday. ” “I don’t believe it. ” He also indicated that as president, he would not take the daily intelligence briefing that President Obama and his predecessors have received. Mr. Trump, who has received the briefing sparingly as said that it was often repetitive and that he would take it “when I need it. ” He said his vice president, Mike Pence, would receive the daily briefing. “You know, I’m, like, a smart person,” he said. “I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years. ” He added that he had instructed the officials who give the briefing: “‘If something should change from this point, immediately call me. I’m available on a ’s notice. ’” Mr. Trump’s seeming dismissal of the importance of that daily interaction with intelligence agencies, as well as his claims of politically tainted intelligence reports on Russia, widened a breach between a and the agencies he will have to rely on to carry out priorities like fighting terrorism and deterring cyberattacks. His stance on the issue is also putting him increasingly at odds with senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including members of his own party, who say that the evidence of Russian interference is clear and warrants a congressional investigation. The Obama administration reached a consensus months ago that Russia was trying to meddle in the election. After initially believing that Russia’s goal was to undermine American democratic processes, the intelligence agencies concluded a week after the vote that the Russian efforts had been intended, at least in their latter stages, to help Mr. Trump. The said those new reports were politically motivated. “I think the Democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country,” he said in the interview, recorded on Saturday. During the campaign, he also dismissed suggestions of Russian meddling. Pressed about why he did not believe the intelligence agencies’ conclusions, Mr. Trump said there was disagreement among intelligence agencies about the extent and the origin of the hacking. “They’re fighting among themselves,” he said. “They’re not sure. ” The Washington Post and The New York Times reported on Friday that American intelligence agencies had concluded that Russia took covert action during the campaign to harm the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The new conclusion, The Times reported, was based in part on evidence found by the C. I. A. that Russian hackers had penetrated the Republican National Committee’s computer system, as well as that of the Democrats and several of Mrs. Clinton’s senior aides, but had leaked only Democratic correspondence. Mr. Trump’s transition office responded to those reports with a statement on Friday night dismissing the intelligence agencies as “the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. ” The office said it was time to “move on” from the election. The Iraq case has been the subject of a debate over whether the intelligence was tainted or whether the Bush White House read it selectively to support its decision to go to war. On the subject of Russian interference, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Sunday that it would be dangerous to dismiss the issue as a matter of partisan politics. He urged Mr. Trump to accept the agencies’ conclusions, and called on his colleagues to move forward with an investigation. “You can’t make this issue partisan it’s too important,” Mr. McCain said on the CBS program “Face the Nation. ” “A fundamental of democracy is a free and fair election. ” Referring to the hacking, Mr. McCain added, “The Russians have been using it as a tool as part of Vladimir Putin’s ambition to regain Russian prominence and dominance in some parts of the world. ” Mr. McCain was among a bipartisan group of four senior lawmakers, including the coming minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, who issued a statement Sunday pledging to work to respond to the incursions. The statement adds pressure to Republicans, who control Congress, to investigate the hacking. “Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyberattacks,” the statement said. Several senators, including Rand Paul of Kentucky and James Lankford of Oklahoma, both Republicans, expressed support for such an investigation on Sunday. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, did not comment on the issue over the weekend, but he was expected to address it in a news conference scheduled for Monday morning. Mr. McCain said on “Face the Nation” that he would like to see a select committee formed to look into the C. I. A. ’s conclusions, but that in the meantime, an armed services subcommittee under his control would “go to work on it. ” | 0fake |
CUOMO OUTRAGED That Iowans Cheered When Trump Said He Doesn’t Want A Poor Person As Commerce Secretary | CNN s Chris Cuomo freaked out at President Donald Trump s comment during a speech in Iowa that he didn t want a poor person in economic Cabinet positions. He said he couldn t believe Trump supporters would applaud this comment. Chris Cuomo s faux outrage is hysterical!Cuomo called the audience apparently blue collar How does he know this audience isn t full of people from all backgrounds?Cuomo commented: I guess, if you are not rich, you can t understand economics. You can t be smart enough to make a difference if you re poor, because that s probably why you re poor, right? Isn t that the point he s making? Note the lingo used by the panel clearly disturbed by what Trump said tribalism, populism Apparently, Chris Cuomo failed common sense 101 Wouldn t it be better to hire a Cabinet full of successful people? President Trump filled his Cabinet positions with the MOST qualified people without regard for politics. The CNN panel must be confused when they refer to the swamp because President Trump overwhelmingly chose people for positions from outside of politics. The swamp is the DC elite!Way to go CNN! You re still stupid! | 1real |
Obama Just Declared The Flint Water Crisis A Federal Emergency, Here’s What That Means For Flint | On Saturday, President Obama officially declared that the Flint water crisis is now a federal emergency. The President s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in Genesee County, reads a statement from FEMA.Just two days ago, Michigan s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, requested that President Obama declare the Flint water crisis a federal emergency.In April 2014, Flint s emergency manager forced the city to switch from using Detroit s water system to using the Flint River for water. The decision to do so was touted as a means to cut costs for the city. It turned out to be a disaster.There is an unusual amount of salt in the Flint River. The river is also extremely contaminated. So when the salt began to corrode the pipes of Flint s water system, lead leaked into people s drinking water. One study found the pipe corrosion problem could have been solved for as little as $100 a day. Now it is estimated that it will cost up to $1.5 billion dollars to fix Flint s water system.The statement from FEMA goes on to say that: Emergency protective measures, limited to direct federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent federal funding. This emergency assistance is to provide water, water filters, water filter cartridges, water test kits, and other necessary related items for a period of no more than 90 days. This is great news for the city of Flint. The people of Flint are almost completely reliant on bottled water and emergency water stations. The National Guard and other governmental bodies, along with grassroots community groups, have been tasked with providing the residents of Flint those emergency water supplies. Now, they will receive funding and coordination from FEMA, which should alleviate some of the burden.Featured Image Credit:By The White House [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons | 1real |
George Takei Is Ready To Wage War Against The NRA | Normally mild mannered George Takei is pissed at gun violence in this country, and he s planning to organize an LGBT army to do something about it.In an op-ed in The Daily Beast, the former Star Trek star and current Facebook sensation is beyond upset about the brutal massacre at the Pulse gay club in Orlando, Florida that left 49 dead and more than 50 injured. Takei, and many in the LGBT community, took the attack personally. Why wouldn t they? It was a terrorist attack, but it was also a very specifically targeted hate crime. It was an attack on all LGBT people. Takei argues that they were not the only community targeted, though. Nearly every casualty was also Latino. Those two communities is where Takei sees opportunity..Takei, a liberal, was very fair in his assessment, but he argues that the Second Amendment is in direct opposition to the First Amendment, especially in situations like mass shootings.For the average American, it is the First Amendment that articulates many of our most basic and fundamental civil rights: freedom of speech and of worship, but also of assembly and association. On Sunday, the latter two rights came under direct assault for the LGBT community. There is little doubt, for instance, that the killer targeted his victims out of hate. He intended to strike not just at people, but at a closely-knit community. After all, if his goal were sheer bloodshed and horror, Orlando boasts far more tempting and, some might even argue, more sympathetic targets. The killer apparently had issues with gay people; his father stated that, two weeks prior, his son got very angry at the mere sight of two men kissing in public, and even angrier that his own boy should witness it. At the same time, the killer was known to frequent the very establishment he attacked, suggesting that he may have deeply internalized the hate he heard from religious extremists.Takei didn t give ISIS a pass. He mentioned that they hate gay people and that the shooter claimed allegiance with the terrorist organization, but the fight to stop gay marriage and the fight to criminalize bathroom usage by transgender people pretty much shows that our attitudes aren t much better.Takei goes on to say that freedoms, even those guaranteed by the Constitution, have limits:But this is not so rare a circumstance. Indeed, there is no freedom within the Bill of Rights that is absolute. Even freedom of speech, a bedrock of our participatory democracy, has some established limits. I may not jokingly yell fire inside a crowded theater, precisely because the value of that speech is heavily outweighed by the danger to others who might panic. Nor may I cavalierly libel others without fear of legal repercussions. This is because we have decided, as a society, that the cost of the injuries that might arise outweighs any benefit from the freedom to say whatever I want.Takei is done with the gun debate. He has no desire to get rid of the Second Amendment, but he sees no reason everyday American should have assault rifles. He s ready to take on that fight, with a little help from his friends and he feels the LGBT community has spent the past several decades getting ready:Now this latest and most deadly attack has targeted a group that has spent the last few decades learning how to organize, fight for, and protect its rights. Perhaps, then, the next chapter of LGBT history might not be just about the struggle to gain equality for ourselves, but also how we might help lead this country towards a collective right to participate and live free of fear and terror, and ultimately toward a common-sense, permanent ban on weapons designed for mass slaughter.Like it or not, this history and this obligation have been thrust upon us, and we must now rise to its challenge. For if there is one group in this country with more will, more experience, and more tenacity than the NRA, it is the LGBT community.You don t want to mess with us.Featured image via Slaven Vlasic with Getty Images. | 1real |
Globalists In Exile: ‘Party of Davos’ a Gloomy Event This Year After Brexit, Donald Trump’s Win - Breitbart | The globalists in world politics and international finance are celebrating a somber occasion in Davos, media reports indicate, as their influence on the global stage is waning rapidly in the wake of the U. K. referendum to leave the European Union and the U. S. election of Donald Trump to the presidency. [“The global economy is in better shape than it’s been in years. Stock markets are booming, oil prices are on the rise again and the risks of a rapid economic slowdown in China, a major source of concern a year ago, have eased,” Reuters’ Noah Barkin writes from Davos, Switzerland, at the annual summit of the world’s elite. “And yet, as political leaders, CEOs and top bankers make their annual trek up the Swiss Alps to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the mood is anything but celebratory. Beneath the veneer of optimism over the economic outlook lurks acute anxiety about an increasingly toxic political climate and a deep sense of uncertainty surrounding the U. S. presidency of Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on the final day of the forum. ” The Sydney Morning Herald’s Clancy Yeates has a piece detailing how this year’s World Economic Forum at Davos — at which Chinese president Xi Jinping will speak, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel will not — there is a focus on the “backlash” voters worldwide have delivered against globalization. “Chief executive pay has become a powerful symbol of the widening gap between the winners and losers created by globalisation, and boards must put more focus on justifying the bonuses they pay executives amid a backlash against policies,” Yeates writes. “That is the view of the chairman of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Elizabeth Proust, one of the Australian business leaders attending the powerful summit in Switzerland this week. The annual meeting of the global economic and political elite, in a town in the Swiss Alps, takes place against a backdrop of growing inequality in many countries, seen as a key driver for political shocks including Brexit and Donald Trump’s win. ” The globalists at Davos still don’t seem to fully understand what is happening, as the World Economic Forum’s website published a column from Robert Muggah of the Igarape Institute with a headline stating boldly: “Populism is poison. ” He and Misha Glenny, a writer and broadcaster, advocate for “plural cities” to defeat populism. Populism is poison. Plural cities are the antidote, says Robert Muggah https: . pic. twitter. — World Economic Forum (@wef) January 15, 2017, “If cities are to defeat populism, they need to know what it is,” Muggah and Glenny write. “According to Princeton’s Muller, at the core of populism is a profound rejection of pluralism. It is animated by two basic ideas — an opposition to diversity and a rejection of the establishment. Populists contend that outsiders threaten the national way of life and that ‘the people’ need to exclude outsiders. The antithesis of the people is, oddly, migrants. ” Populists aren’t likely to slow their winning streak any time soon. Globalization is on the decline everywhere in the world, from Guatemala — which elected a television comedian, Jimmy Morales, as its president back in late 2015 — to Italy, whose recent referendum led to the resignation of prime minister Matteo Renzi. Obviously, America just elected Donald Trump and the British voted to leave the European Union. French and German presidential elections in 2017 threaten to see the potential rise of Marine Le Pen and the possible demise of Angela Merkel all in one fell swoop. It’s unclear if Merkel will go down, or if Le Pen will win in France. But that we’re even at this point where it’s possible is remarkable in and of itself. Le Pen spent the past few days in New York City, making a surprise appearance at Trump Tower hoping for a meeting which she didn’t get with the . Merkel, meanwhile, is clearly scared enough of a potential electoral loss in 2017 that she’s skipping her regular appearance in Davos at the World Economic Forum so as to avoid providing populist opponents of her globalism with any ammunition heading into this year. It comes on the heels of her pledge to ban burkhas in her speech announcing she intends to stand for a complete reversal from a leading open borders advocate who’s perhaps singlehandedly overseen the importation of millions of Muslims into mainland Europe including Germany. The New York Times’ Michael J. de la Merced and Russell Goldman detail how the World Economic Forum has, for decades, been the exclusive annual for the world’s political, financial and cultural elites — a place where they gather together, and celebrate themselves. “The annual meeting runs on a tiered system of colored badges denoting just how important one is, or is not,” Merced and Goldman write. “White badges are for attendees able to attend any official event and make full use of the forum’s facilities. Orange badges are reserved for the 500 journalists who cover the forum, but are not allowed at some parties. Other badges, like purple ones, denote technical or support staff and limit their holders to a few areas. If that system were not complicated enough, local hotels like the Belvedere and the InterContinental often sell their own badges to the bankers and consultants who descend upon Davos — but not the forum itself — to strike deals and chat up clients. These souls camp out at the hotels, renting rooms for business meetings by day and soiree hopping at night. ” While most of the official events are things like lectures, speeches, panels and discussions, the Times writers highlight some of the “more esoteric attractions” like “a simulation of a refugee’s experience, where Davos attendees crawl on their hands and knees and pretend to flee from advancing armies. ” There are also lots of parties and schmoozing behind the scenes, where the elites bond together. “There are several official cocktail receptions, but the action really lies in a galaxy of events hosted by corporations. Some are small, intimate dinners that feature the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Bono,” Merced and Goldman write. “Others are dazzling affairs: JPMorgan Chase, for example, has previously taken over the Kirchner Museum Davos for drinks with its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. Google’s annual party at the InterContinental Hotel has become the hottest ticket in town. The investor Anthony Scaramucci, now an adviser to Donald J. Trump, for years has hosted a reception at the famed Hotel Europe featuring a sometimes list of Champagne and Bordeaux red wine. A more recent is hosted by Salesforce. com, a business software maker, whose chief, Marc Benioff, is one of the forum’s most ardent boosters. Last year’s Salesforce party included Mr. Benioff flying in scores of fresh flower leis and a band from Hawaii, as Eric Schmidt of Google and other tech notables danced in a corner. Several years ago, Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame, hosted an gathering that featured stuffed animal heads shooting laser beams out of their eyes. And the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has thrown opulent gatherings at a nearby villa where the Champagne flowed freely For a nightcap, the Davos crowd traditionally retires to the Tonic Bar at Hotel Europe, sipping cocktails while the forum fixture Barry Colson leads the crowd in Billy Joel singalongs. ” At last year’s Davos, the elites were certain the people of the world would never vote for things like Brexit or Trump or the Italian referendum. In other words, all was well. “Last year, the consensus here was that Trump had no chance of being elected. His victory, less than half a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union, was a slap at the principles that elites in Davos have long held dear, from globalization and free trade to multilateralism,” Barkin wrote in Reuters. This year, though, it’s a much gloomier affair in Davos. These world elites have found out, thanks to voters worldwide, they’re no longer the center of the universe. Financial elites are losing control on the world markets while political elites are losing control of international governments and cultural elites are seeing their star power fade. “Trump is the poster child for a new strain of populism that is spreading across the developed world and threatening the liberal democratic order,” Barkin adds. “With elections looming in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and possibly Italy, this year, the nervousness among Davos attendees is palpable. ” And now, the gloomy affair in the Swiss Alps is getting even more depressing. According to Bloomberg’s Matthew Campbell and Simon Kennedy, those at Davos are even beginning to wonder if they’re “part of the problem. ” “Did the global elite’s devotion to borderless capitalism sow the seeds of a populist backlash?” reads the subhead of a recent Bloomberg piece from Campbell and Kennedy. The piece quotes Harvard professor and former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kenneth Rogoff as admitting that Davos is never correct. “A joke I’ve told 1, 000 people in the months since leaving Davos is that the conventional wisdom of Davos is always wrong,” Rogoff said. “No matter how improbable, the event most likely to happen is the opposite of whatever the Davos consensus is. ” The elites at Davos are worried as the working class folks worldwide have stormed their castles and disrupted their lovely lives, the Bloomberg writers say, and they don’t find it very funny. “The repeated failure of business and political elites to predict what’s coming — last year, that included the U. K.’s vote to leave the European Union — doesn’t strike those returning this month to the Swiss Alps as very funny,” Campbell and Kennedy wrote. “After a year in which political upsets roiled financial markets and killed off the careers of politicians, the concern for delegates attending this year’s meeting isn’t that their forecasts are often wrong, but that their worldview is. ” Populists shouldn’t take this as proof the war is over: The globalists will always try to fight back. There’s even rumblings that Party of Davos regular former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a disgraced leader who lost his own primary election back in 2014 to now Rep. Dave Brat ( ) may try for a political comeback down the road. But if past is prologue, it’s unlikely these world elites will regain power and authority over the people who took their power away in the first place. | 0fake |
Father of Orlando Shooter is Long-time CIA Asset | SEE ALSO: ORLANDO KNOWN WOLF Watched by FBI, Worked with DHS, Amid Crisis Actors, Drills & CI s21st Century Wire says The Orlando Shooting. Many things are just not right with this story, including the father of the alleged shooter Omar Mateen, an Afghan-American, Seddique Mateen, who is closely linked to some of the most powerful leaders and agencies in Washington DC.Below is a photo of Omar s father after a meeting at the US State Dept. in Washington DC where he met with officials , but oddly, no log of his visit is available in the public record. Image Credit: facebook.com/seddique.mateenThe alleged shooter s father played an absolute key role in setting up the entire hate crime narrative by inserting this quote into the MSM machine during the immediate aftermath of the sensationalized media event. Seddique Mateen said: We were in Downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music, and he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry. They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that. And they we were in the men s bathroom and men were kissing each other. For the media, and every other political leader in the US, this was now classified as a hate crime , and so case closed. In other words, a simple story line with real traction was now baked firmly into this event about a homophobic, ISIS-inspired, crazed lone gunman who went postal in a Orlando gay nightclub, and coincidentally, on the eve of an international Gay Pride celebration day.Pictured below is Seddique Mateen with California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher (R-CA) was initially elected to Congress in 1988, with the fundraising help of friend Oliver North.Rohrabacher s decades-long involvement in all things Afghan eventually earned him the nickname Gunga Dana. Today he chairs the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats.This morning President Obama called him a home-grown terrorist. In a series of phone interviews Monday morning, Donald Trump responded that there s something going on with the President s reaction to the Orlando shooting.I guess even a stopped clock is right twice a day. It s like calling Blackwater XE Orlando shooter Omar Mateen s father said his son was not motivated by Islamist radical ideology, but in a Facebook video posted early Monday he said, God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality. My own suspicion was first awakened on Monday morning when U.S. news outlets uniformly reported that the father s TV show aired on a U.S.-based Afghan satellite channel. That sort of circumlocution is typical when something is being hidden which the corporate media prefers we not ask questions about.The name of the nameless Afghan satellite channel, Payam Afghan, is said to be widely-known in Southwest Asia as a CIA-Pakistani ISI construct, as this picture from Flicker shows.The identification of shooter Omar Mateen also involved deception. He was said to work for a security company called G4S, which few have ever heard of. However, G4S is merely a re-branded Wackenhut Corporation, a name with a storied reputation for scandal in the U.S. and around the world.Rohrabacher has stated that he sees radical Islam as the source of a major terrorist threat to the U.S.Calls to his office today to request comment on whether he views CIA assets relocated in the U.S. as a terrorist threat have not been returned.SEE FULL REPORT: ORLANDO KNOWN WOLF Watched by FBI, Worked with DHS, Amid Crisis Actors, Drills & CI sHelp support us by becoming a 21WIRE Member at: 21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Scottish parliament offices briefly evacuated in suspect white powder scare | EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Offices at Scotland s devolved parliament in Edinburgh were briefly evacuated on Tuesday after suspicious packages containing white powder were found. It s a white powder incident, there were a couple of suspicious packages sent to a Tory (Conservative) MSP, a source at the parliament told Reuters, using the acronym for Member of the Scottish parliament. Business returned to normal after police gave the all-clear, the Scottish parliament said. Known as Holyrood, the parliament building is located at the bottom of the Royal Mile, Edinburgh s most famous thoroughfare which leads down from its historic castle to Queen Elizabeth s Edinburgh residence, Holyrood Palace. The parliament s chief executive said only the building housing MSPs offices had been evacuated while the rest of the parliamentary campus was operating normally. The parliament said later police inquiries had concluded there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the incident and that no crime had been committed. | 0fake |
Fear of volcanic eruption on Bali forces nearly 135,000 to flee to shelters | KARANGASEM, Indonesia (Reuters) - Nearly 135,000 people on the Indonesian island of Bali have left their homes and taken shelter in makeshift evacuation centers after warnings the Mount Agung volcano could erupt at any time, officials said late on Thursday. Spewing white smoke and sending tremors through the area, Mount Agung s alert status was raised to the highest level last week. Since then, tens of thousands of villagers have abandoned their homes beneath the menacing volcano. The national disaster management agency said many people have fled because they are unsure of their proximity to a 12 km (seven miles) exclusion zone imposed around the crater. Evacuees are being housed in tents, school gyms, and government buildings in neighboring villages. While there are plentiful stocks of food, water, medicines, and other supplies, evacuees fear they are in for a long wait that could disrupt their livelihoods. One farmer said he was worried that lava flows could destroy his house and farm. If my house is destroyed I don t know how to restart my life. I don t know where my kids will sleep and all I can do now is pray, said Gusti Gege Astana, 40. Officials also noted there are around 30,000 cattle within the danger zone around the volcano, and efforts are being made to move the livestock as it is an important source of income for many residents. More than 1,000 people were killed the last time Mount Agung erupted, in 1963. An elderly woman who survived that eruption said evacuation instructions had come much earlier this time. Back then we weren t evacuated until it got really dangerous. Life went on as normal when ash and gravel was falling on us, until the big lava came out and destroyed everything, said 82-year-old Gusti Ayu Wati. Indonesia has nearly 130 active volcanoes, more than any other country. Many of these show high levels of activity but it can be weeks or even months before an actual eruption. Bali is famous for its beaches and temples and saw nearly 5 million visitors last year, mainly from China, Australia, and Japan. Some tourists, however, were having second thoughts about their holiday plans after several countries, including Singapore and Australia, issued travel advisories warning of the risk from the volcano. Bali s tourism department on Thursday issued a letter reassuring travelers, and noting that flights were operating normally. The island is safe except for areas around Mount Agung. We urge tourists to continue visiting, the letter said. The transportation minister said on Wednesday that Bali-bound flights could be diverted to 10 airports across the country in case of an eruption. Ash clouds from volcanic eruptions have disrupted tourism in Bali and other parts of Indonesia in recent years. Hundreds of domestic and international flights were disrupted in 2016 when a volcano erupted on Bali s neighboring Lombok island, sending columns of ash and debris into the air. | 0fake |
Head Of Wikileaks Calls Hillary Clinton A ‘Demon’ Who Wants To Hang People | Julian Assange, the founder and head of the group WikiLeaks, has struck out once again at Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee. In an interview with the New York Times on Facebook Live, Assange described Clinton as a demon. The American liberal press, in falling over themselves to defend Hillary Clinton, are erecting a demon that is going to put nooses around everyone s necks as soon as she wins the election, which is almost certainly what she s going to do, Assange said in the interview, which was broadcast live Wednesday on Facebook.Assange s verbal attack is the latest episode of the organization lashing out at Clinton and the Democratic Party. WikiLeaks was used as the conduit for the release of thousands of stolen emails from inside the Democratic Party before the 2016 Convention. Those emails led to the resignation of the party chairman and several top officials and a rift between the DNC and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).On the heels of that document dump, WikiLeaks also released documents stolen from Democratic lawmakers, including personal cell phone numbers for members of Congress like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and others, who reported getting sexist and racist phone calls as a result.WikiLeaks has even engaged in promoting conspiracy theories, floating the allegation that a Democratic staffer who was tragically killed in Washington, D.C. had some sort of connection to machinations by the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton.Originally the vehicle for documents on the Iraq war disseminated by Private Chelsea Manning, WikiLeaks has over the last few months pivoted to be a force opposing Clinton, aided by hackers like Guccifer, who have infiltrated multiple systems.A recent analysis has also found that the possible source of material stolen from Democrats and given to WikiLeaks were hackers connected to the Russian government. Assange has, in the recent past, hosted a television show on RT, the cable and satellite news channel financed by the Russians.Featured image via screen capture | 1real |
George Takei Just BRILLIANTLY Destroyed Trump’s Rambling, Insane Interview Technique (IMAGE) | If there s one thing that s certain about Donald Trump you know, aside from his racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, and fascist tendencies it s that almost every speech and interview sounds basically the same. Trump loves to bloviate but rarely provides his listeners with actual ideas, facts, or even an answer to questions he is asked.George Takei decided to have a little bit of fun with this idea in a Facebook post, providing a Trumpanese answer to a rather simple question: What is two plus two. Takei perfectly captures The Donald s rather impressive ability to ramble endlessly about nothing while avoiding providing an actual answer to even the simplest of queries. I have to say a lot of people have been asking this question. No, really. A lot of people come up to me and they ask me. They say, What s 2+2? Takei writes. And I tell them look, we know what 2+2 is. We ve had almost eight years of the worst kind of math you can imagine. Oh my god, I can t believe it. Addition and subtraction of the 1s the 2s and the 3s. Takei continues, adding: Its terrible. Its just terrible. Look, if you want to know what 2+2 is, do you want to know what 2+2 is? I ll tell you. First of all the number 2, by the way I love the number 2. It s probably my favorite number, no it is my favorite number. You know what, it s probably more like the number two but with a lot of zeros behind it. A lot. If I m being honest, I mean, if I m being honest. I like a lot of zeros. Except for Marco Rubio, now he s a zero that I don t like. Though, I probably shouldn t say that. He s a nice guy but he s like, 10101000101 , on and on, like that. This Trump impression is spot-on. Takei even manages to work in Trump s penchant for including not-so-subtle jabs at his opponents. His depiction of The Donald s modus operandi is so clear, you can almost hear the racist 2016 hopeful s voice as you read it.Good job, Mr. Sulu!Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Progressive Nomad: Bernie Sanders Pens CRUCIAL Letter To The President (IMAGES) | Progressive Nomad: Bernie Sanders Pens CRUCIAL Letter To The President (IMAGES) By Stephanie Kuklish on October 29, 2016 Subscribe
On the heels of Thursday’s brutal attack on Native Americans peacefully protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline by local and state police officers, Senator Bernie Sanders has written an open letter to President Obama asking for him to stand up against this atrocity.
In a message posted on Sander’s official U.S. Senate website, he asked for President Obama to halt construction of the pipeline until cultural and environmental reviews were done by trusted sources. Sanders wrote : “It is deeply distressing to me that the federal government is putting the profits of the oil industry ahead of the treaty and sovereign rights of Native American communities. Mr. President, you took a bold and principled stand against the Keystone pipeline – I ask you to take a similar stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline. To my mind, the [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] should have never approved this project on an expedited process in the first place.”
Sanders continued the letter by urging the President to send non-partial monitors to the camp in order to ensure that the water protector’s civil rights were being protected. He then reminded President Obama just how dangerous this pipeline, and others like it, can be for the environment. Sanders stated : “According to one report, burning the oil transported through the pipeline would produce carbon emissions equivalent to 21 million cars or 30 coal plants. If we have any hope of avoiding the worst consequences of climate change, we should not be building new oil pipelines that lock us into burning fossil fuels for generations to come.”
It has been incredibly difficult to get media coverage on this event, and even when there is; everyone seems to turn a blind eye to what is going on in North Dakota. Police are once again lying about the protestors and taking very violent and forceful tactics against them, even though they are not armed and are showing little to no signs of violent actions.
At some point this has got to end and either the President can make a stand or he may be addressing the nation apologizing for wasteful human deaths at the hands of our own police force. | 1real |
Six New England Patriots Say They Will Skip a White House Visit - The New York Times | At least six members of the Super New England Patriots have said they will not visit the White House for the traditional meeting that championship teams have with the president. Running back LeGarrette Blount, defensive end Chris Long and defensive tackle Alan Branch on Thursday became the latest to announce that they would skip the visit. Long posted on Twitter that he “planned on skipping” in response to a column in The Daily News that urged him to skip. Blount revealed his decision on Fox Sports in a radio interview on “The Rich Eisen Show” later in the afternoon. “I just don’t feel welcome in that house,” Blount said. “I’m going to just leave it at that. ” Branch told Sirius XM Radio that he planned to spend time with family. A day earlier, the Pro Bowl linebacker Dont’a Hightower bowed out when he told ESPN, “Been there, done that,” having visited with a championship Alabama team. Tight end Martellus Bennett told reporters after the Super Bowl that he would not go: “It is what it is,” he said. “People know how I feel about it. Just follow me on Twitter. ” The outspoken Bennett had joked that he might move to outer space after Donald J. Trump was elected. The Pro Bowl safety Devin McCourty, a team captain, told Time magazine: “Basic reason for me is I don’t feel accepted in the White House. With the president having so many strong opinions and prejudices, I believe certain people might feel accepted there while others won’t. ” Bennett and McCourty were in the news for their activism last fall, when they raised their fists in protest during the national anthem for one game. At the time, athletes in various sports were protesting racial oppression in the country. The number of Patriots absences may well increase. Running back James White said he had not made up his mind whether to go. “I’ll wait till the time comes and decide then,” he said. No date has been scheduled for this year’s ceremony honoring the Patriots. The ceremony for last year’s champions, the Broncos, took place in June. Perhaps no other team has as close an association with Trump as the Patriots. Just before the election, Trump claimed that he had the support of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Coach Bill Belichick. Brady, who displayed a “Make America Great Again” cap in his locker during the campaign, never explicitly endorsed Trump, but he spoke favorably of him and they have socialized. Trump also cited a supportive letter he had received from Belichick, and several news media accounts confirmed the letter was authentic. The team’s owner, Robert K. Kraft, has said he has considered Trump a longtime friend. Brady did not attend his team’s visit with former President Barack Obama at the White House, in 2015, citing family issues. But some athletes who have skipped the trip over the years have explicitly given politics as a reason. Bruins goalie Tim Thomas declined to visit the Obama White House with his teammates in January 2012, saying in a statement: “I believe the federal government has grown out of control, threatening the rights, liberties and property of the people. “Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a free citizen, and did not visit the White House. ” Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk cited his opposition to abortion as the reason for skipping a 2013 visit. A number of other athletes have skipped the ceremony while citing scheduling conflicts or family commitments. Presidents for years have invited sports figures to the White House, but the tradition of honoring championships teams there solidified under Ronald Reagan. Major professional champions and many college champions stop by for a presentation and a photo opportunity. Six Patriots, so far, won’t make the trip this year. | 0fake |
U.S. seeks urgent action on Myanmar, U.N. eyes $200 million for refugees | YANGON/DHAKA (Reuters) - The United States wants Myanmar to take urgent action to end violence in Rakhine state, where a military offensive has created a crisis that could jeopardize its economic and political transition, a U.S. official said on Friday. Bangladesh and aid organizations are struggling to help 422,000 Rohingya Muslims who have arrived since Aug. 25, when attacks by Rohingya militants triggered a Myanmar crackdown that the United Nations has branded ethnic cleansing. (For graphic, click tmsnrt.rs/2xTId74) A senior U.N. official said an estimated $200 million would be needed to help the refugees in Bangladesh for six months. Aid workers fear a humanitarian crisis is also unfolding in Rakhine state, though Myanmar has restricted access. We think, urgently, actions need to be taken to stop this violence and facilitate humanitarian assistance, lower the rhetoric, lower the tension and ... start doing the hard work to solve the longer-standing problems, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Murphy told reporters. Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has faced a barrage of international criticism over the plight of the Rohingya, for not speaking out more forcefully against the violence or doing more to rein in security forces over which she has little power. Sweden, the United States, Britain, France, Egypt, Senegal, and Kazakhstan asked on Friday for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to publicly brief the 15-member Security Council next week on the violence. Tension between majority Buddhists and Rohingya, most of whom are denied citizenship, has simmered for decades in Rakhine, but it has exploded several times over the past few years, as old enmities, and Buddhist nationalism, surfaced with the end of decades of harsh military rule. Murphy, who spent three days in Myanmar this week, said there were many points of responsibility and he wanted to see everyone follow through on commitments Suu Kyi made to uphold rights and the law in an address to the nation on Tuesday. There s the elected government, there are the security forces which have authorities that don t fall under the purview of the civilian elected government, there are local leaders and there is the broader population, among which there are many emotions and many tensions, he said. Significant responsibility sits with security authorities and local officials in Rakhine state and we are looking for their cooperation to make these commitments a reality, Murphy told reporters on a conference call from Bangkok. Myanmar dismisses accusations of ethnic cleansing, saying it has to tackle the insurgents, whom it accuses of setting fires and attacking civilians as well as the security forces. While the United States has urged action to halt the violence, China, which has close economic and political ties with Myanmar, has welcomed measures by the government to alleviate the situation in Rakhine state. Murphy said the military s response to the August insurgent attacks had been disproportionate and the country risked a terrorist backlash. The attacks were claimed by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which Murphy referred to as a so-called group of which little was known. It denies links to foreign militants but the government says it is connected to global terrorism. Whether or not this organization has ties elsewhere is not particularly germane, given the fact that it could be creating an incentive for foreign terrorists to look at a new opportunity and this is among the risks that we have shared with Burmese stakeholders, he said. Bangladesh was already home to some 400,000 Rohingya who fled earlier bouts of violence and persecution. Given the massive numbers arriving in the past few weeks, the United Nations was expected to launch an appeal for $200 million to help them for the next six months, an official said. It has not been confirmed, but it is a ballpark figure, based on the information we have, Robert D. Watkins, U.N. resident coordinator in Bangladesh, told Reuters in an interview in Dhaka. Watkins said the situation had not stabilized in terms of new arrivals so it was difficult to say how many people to plan for, or how long. We don t want to plan a 10-year operation, obviously, because we want to maintain hope that there will be a way for negotiating a return of the population, he said. We can t plan too far in the future, because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy ... politically, it sends a strong signal, which we don t want to send, which is that people are going to be here for a long time. And our donors are not prepared to respond to anything beyond a one-year time frame, given the massive amounts of money we are asking for. Aid groups in Bangladesh have warned of a public health disaster unless help is increased massively. We need to scale up quickly, said Dr N. Paranietharan, the World Health Organisation representative in Bangladesh. If we don t drastically improve water and sanitation we will face water-borne diseases including cholera. | 0fake |
‘Dealmaker’ Trump LOST Votes When He Visited Congress To Beg Them To Pass His Healthcare Bill | Donald Trump is another step closer to suffering a major policy defeat, and that s good news for the Affordable Care Act.Trump and House Republicans have been pushing for passage of a bill they dubiously refer to as the American Healthcare Act, depsite the fact that s it not American nor is it healthcare.Indeed, the legislation is designed to kill the Affordable Care Act, which slowed the rising costs of health insurance premiums and extended healthcare coverage to tens of millions of Americans.If Republicans pass Trumpcare, millions of Americans will lose their coverage and the price of healthcare will skyrocket, especially among senior citizens.The Republican bill is a bad one, but Trump, who thinks it s wonderful, went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to beg Republicans to pass it and threatened to punish any Republicans who vote against it.Several Republicans who attended the meeting told the Washington Post that Trump literally promised to come after them. I m gonna come after you, but I know I won t have to, because I know you ll vote yes, Trump said. Honestly, a loss is not acceptable, folks. But apparently, Trump s threats spectacularly backfired and his self-manufactured reputation as a dealmaker took a humiliating hit.Prior to the meeting, NBC had counted 17 Republicans who were leaning against the bill. After the meeting NBC counted 27, which means ten Republicans turned against Trump and his pathetic health care bill in a matter of hours.Republicans are hoping to bring the bill up for a vote on the House floor on Thursday, but it won t pass if GOP leadership can t keep the number of Republicans leaning against it under 22.This would be a humiliating defeat for Trump, especially after he has repeatedly hyped the bill on social media.On Wednesday morning, Trump bragged about the bill on Twitter again.Big day for healthcare. Working hard! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2017It s a big day alright. Will these 27 Republicans refuse to let Trump bully them into voting for a bad bill or will they stand their ground and kill it on behalf of the tens of millions of Americans who desperately need their healthcare coverage?If they stand their ground, Trump will be a loser, but the American people will win. And last time I checked, congressmen work for the people, not Trump.Featured image via Aude Guerrucci-Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump Whines About Waiting For ‘EASY D’ And The Jokes Just Write Themselves (TWEETS) | In his nearly-incoherent ravings about his Muslim ban getting shut down, Donald Trump said something that will haunt him until the end of his disaster of a presidency. Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, Trump said, adding the good part: as we wait for what should be EASY D! Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, as we wait for what should be EASY D! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017We can probably assume that Trump meant easy defense, but phrasing, man! Twitter immediately lit up with people razzing him for his hilariously unintentional search for a big, all-caps, EASY D and the jokes kind of just wrote themselves from that point.@realDonaldTrump @realDonaldTrump I heard you can get "EASY D" by answering Craigslist Casual Encounters ads. pic.twitter.com/MwSvaVZkco Kristina Wong (@mskristinawong) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Is "EASY D" what you give President Bannon and Daddy Putin every night for dessert? #easyD pic.twitter.com/XzQfS7mnqi Kristina Wong (@mskristinawong) February 8, 2017.@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/kY1sYZy8bS Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) February 8, 2017"I'm told that D is abundant and of low value, period. Next question." pic.twitter.com/CB1soGXh0X Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) February 8, 2017@MikeTScribe @bessbell I think it's going to be the average grades of our schools with DeVos in, and Trump must think a D is just great! Appalachian Tarheel (@appalachianheel) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Please give us your easy D!Also, you lost the popular vote by a lot. Evan Dashevsky (@haldash) February 8, 2017@scottbix that was my nickname in college David Wyllie (@journodave) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Easy D? That a euphemism for something Steve Bannon-related? Eric Walkuski (@ericwalkuski) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Scare me daddy. pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) February 8, 2017. @realDonaldTrump Mmm I want some Easy D DansGaming (@Dansgaming) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Nicknaming DeVos "EASY D" is disgusting! Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) February 8, 2017All @realDonaldTrump is asking for is some #EasyD Mike Denison (@mikd33) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump you like that easy D don't you lucas matney (@Lucas_Matney) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump "Easy D" is what you'd like to give your daughter. Jon Bershad (@JonBershad) February 8, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Eazy D! pic.twitter.com/M3QjrZ38Xp Kristopher Tapley (@kristapley) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump easy D is meaningless without real love tho Michael Foss (@Fossphate) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Tell us more about getting the "Easy D" from Putin pic.twitter.com/AAaaapkFhK Kaj-Erik Eriksen (@KajEriksen) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump dude, if you want some easy D, just stroll down the beach after midnight. Curtis unNormalized (@cebsilver) February 8, 2017He even got trolled by one of the leading websites where one can find some easy D (in video form):. @realDonaldTrump Who doesn't love waiting for some EASY D? Pornhub ARIA (@Pornhub) February 8, 2017 .and by an adult toy maker, who offers some of the easiest D in existence since it comes straight to your door:The folks at gay dating app Grindr just seemed confused that Trump thinks he has to wait to get some D :? https://t.co/6s674G6h6i Grindr (@Grindr) February 8, 2017Being President can be hard (just ask Steve Bannon), and easy D can be hard to find (unless you re on Craigslist when the RNC comes to town), but no matter what kind of D Trump wants, there are better ways to get it than banning Muslims from entering the country.The only way any of us are going to get easy D is if we get Trump out of the White House so we can begin to rebuild our relationships with everyone. F*cking everyone.Featured image via Getty Images (Pool)/screengrab | 1real |
HYSTERICAL! JESSE WATTERS Busts The Idiotic “White Privilege” Trend On Campus: “I don’t necessarily feel it” [Video] | 1real | |
Central Bankers Are Out Of Monetary Ammunition And Weapons | Central Bankers Are Out Of Monetary Ammunition And Weapons by IWB · October 27, 2016
by GoldCore
Satyajit Das has written an excellent article in Bloomberg which clearly details the risks facing the global financial and monetary system and how central bankers are out of monetary ammunition and weapons.
Excerpt:
“No one likes to admit defeat. But global policymakers, who continue to insist that there’s more they can do to revive growth and inflation, are starting to sound like Monty Python’s Black Knight (click link to see video), the limbless and mortally wounded warrior who threatens to bleed on his victorious opponent. The truth is that governments and central banks have very few weapons left — and have probably lost any chance they once had of averting a prolonged stagnation.
Secular Stagnation
Clearly, the real economy hasn’t responded as hoped to zero and now negative interest rates. A whole host of factors continue to depress personal spending — high debt, stagnant incomes, unemployment and under-employment, and economic uncertainty. Even the rich, who have benefited immensely from the runup in asset prices, can’t really spend much more than they already are.”
Satyajit Das is an Australian former banker and corporate treasurer, turned consultant, author and academic. His latest book is “A Banquet of Consequences” and he is also the author of “Extreme Money” and “Traders, Guns & Money.”
Important article can be read on Bloomberg here
Gold and Silver Bullion – News and Commentary | 1real |
It’s official, she’s NUTS! Donna Brazile thinks Democrats can turn THIS state blue (hint: no way in Hell) – twitchy.com | It’s official, she’s NUTS! Donna Brazile thinks Democrats can turn THIS state blue (hint: no way in Hell) Posted at 11:01 am on October 28, 2016 by Sam J.
As we near the election (only 11 days now, thank God) Donna Brazile must be feeling a tad cocky because she was blathering on about turning a specific and very red state, blue.
We laughed a LOT before actually writing this piece, especially when we read this tweet: One of the things I've wanted to do as party chair is invest in states across the country. We're ready to turn Utah blue. #ForwardTogether
— Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) October 27, 2016
HA. Utah. One of the reddest most conservative states in the UNION. The state hasn’t supported a Democrat in over 50 years (the last time the state went for the Democrat was 1964) and yet Donna thinks the Democrats can turn it blue.
Witch please. @donnabrazile I'll take how DonnaBrazile cheats for her candidate besides stealing questions for them for $500. Alex
— Lalapuj (@lalapuj) October 28, 2016
Clearly she’ll do ANYTHING to move that ol’ gray mare forward. Yup. @donnabrazile Nah, it's property of the #mormonmafia now. You'll have to speak to @Evan_McMullin now if you want to operate in his state.
— Hugh Jabdomin (@kransom2) October 27, 2016 @donnabrazile @KenGWalter1 Not happening. #Utah is going for @Evan_McMullin this year. If Dems were thinking strategically, they'd help him. | 1real |
Hearing into murder of Malta journalist case struggles to start | VALLETTA (Reuters) - A second magistrate in less than a week has recused herself from hearing court evidence in Malta against three men accused of the murder of anti-corruption blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia. The double abstention has jeopardized the launch of judicial proceedings against the three men and underscored the interwoven nature of public life on the Mediterranean island of Malta - the smallest nation in the European Union. The initial magistrate assigned to the case stood down last Thursday after defense lawyers complained that she knew one of Caruana Galizia s sisters and had sent her condolences following the Oct. 16 killing. On Monday, a replacement magistrate, Charmaine Galea, said she was also withdrawing from the case because the blogger had written about her and her alleged connections to the government. She said that justice had to be done and be seen to be done. A new magistrate was subsequently assigned to the suit and the preliminary hearing was scheduled to resume on Tuesday. Under Maltese law, the compilation of evidence must be presented within a 30-day time frame and a lawyer for Caruana Galizia s family warned the delays could sink the case. The trio were charged on Dec. 4, giving the court until Jan. 4 to hear the evidence and decide whether to call a trial. The three suspects, brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, and Vince Muscat have denied any wrongdoing. The three were known to local police and had never been the target of any of Caruana Galizia s often fierce blogs. Caruana Galizia was killed instantly when the car she was driving was blown up. According to Maltese media, the three suspects were arrested on the basis of phone intercepts and analysis of triangulation data showing their locations at the time of the murder. The reports said one of the suspects had to call a local telecom company shortly before the bomb went off to top up the credit on the mobile phone that was used to detonate the explosives - a error that led police straight to the trio. The government has announced a one-million-euro ($1.2-million) reward to anyone giving enough information for convictions. Caruana Galizia s family have denounced the handling of the case and expressed fears that those behind the murder will never be brought to justice. ($1 = 0.8482 euros) | 0fake |
U.S. weakens retirement advice rule, responding to industry | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new U.S. rule aimed at protecting retirement savers from profit-hungry brokers turned out to be much weaker than an initial proposal after the Obama administration bowed to pressure from the financial services industry. The rule, announced by the Department of Labor on Wednesday, sets a so-called fiduciary standard for financial brokers who sell retirement products, requiring them to put clients’ best interests ahead of their bottom line. The language is tougher than an existing rule that only requires brokers to ensure products are “suitable.” However, the Labor Department did compromise with the industry on a range of provisions. Unlike the draft proposal, the final rule does not restrict brokers from pushing proprietary products, splitting revenue with creators of funds they promote, or recommending risky, high-fee investments in alternative assets and certain annuities. Brokers also got more time to implement the changes, which they said were costly and difficult. The rule will now take full effect on Jan. 1, 2018, compared with an eight-month compliance deadline in the Labor Department’s initial proposal. Nonetheless, brokers will now be covered by a fiduciary standard, said Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a consumer advocate who helped shine a national spotlight on the proposal last year. “There’s no doubt there is some risk,” Warren, a Democrat, said in an interview. “On the other hand, the Department of Labor was not looking to put all proprietary products out of business,” Warren said. The goal is to make sure there is “adequate regulation,” said Warren, adding that she now believes there will be. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton issued a statement in support of the new rule, saying it will “stop Wall Street from ripping off families” and “save seniors billions.” However, Knut Rostad, an investor advocate who chairs the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard, said he was disappointed that the final rule was not tougher, calling it “a major defeat for investors, period.” Some leading Republican lawmakers also expressed continued opposition to the rule, saying it would prevent low- and middle-income Americans from saving for retirement or getting access to advice. Several major brokerage firms said they needed time to review the implications, but that they generally supported the idea of a “best interest” rule. Industry trade groups reiterated concerns that the rule could have negative effects. But several Wall Street analysts who cover brokerages, insurers and mutual fund companies affected by the rule said it turned out to be much less onerous than initially feared. Shares of brokerage, mutual fund and life insurance companies showed little reaction to the news. The Labor Department “meaningfully softened” the rule, Morgan Stanley insurance analysts said, characterizing it as “good news for those companies impacted.” Wednesday’s announcement caps a fierce, six-year battle involving the Labor Department, Wall Street and many U.S. lawmakers. The Department received more than 3,000 letters about the rule and took part in more than 100 meetings. It first issued a proposal in 2010 but rescinded it the following year in response to an enormous industry backlash. A second proposal issued last year also faced criticism. Firms have said the rule would raise compliance costs, and therefore fees, and force them to get rid of Main Street clients and small businesses that offer 401(k) plans. The Labor Department said complying with the rule would cost the brokerage industry up to $31.5 billion over the next decade but produce even bigger gains for investors. Some lawmakers said the Labor Department should hold off until the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission finalizes its own fiduciary rule, which it has been crafting for years. SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar expressed opposition to the final rule on Wednesday. President Barack Obama had made a new fiduciary rule a priority for his administration. In a speech at AARP headquarters last year, he said Wall Street brokers were bilking retirees out of billions of dollars in savings through hidden fees and that he intended to ensure the industry put clients’ interests first. “If expecting retirement advisers to act in their clients’ best interest sounds like it’s pretty obvious – and it’s pretty obviously the right thing to do – it’s because it is,” Jeff Zients, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said in a call with reporters. Although the final rule did include the best-interest provision, it made plenty of concessions. For example, the draft listed types of assets that advisers could recommend to steer retail investors away from certain high-risk products. The final version eliminates that list, mostly in response to the financial industry’s concerns, the Labor Department said. Brokerages and lawmakers were also concerned about an earlier requirement that brokers sign contracts with clients at initial meetings. The document was to include investment projections, fee disclosures and other detailed information. The contracts are required in the final rule, but can be as short as a paragraph, signed later and tucked into paperwork that customers sign when opening new accounts, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said. The final version also loosened guidelines on pay, allowing advisers to collect “common types of compensation,” such as commissions and revenue-sharing, where brokerages receive payments from mutual-fund companies to help promote products. | 0fake |
Education Secretary Arne Duncan stepping down | "He's done more to bring our education system -- sometimes kicking and screaming -- into the 21st century more than anybody else," Obama said at a White House ceremony. "America is going to be better off for what he's done."
Duncan leaves the administration as the longest-serving education secretary in U.S. history, Obama said.
"It's a record that I truly believe that no other education secretary can match," he said. "Arne bleeds this stuff. He cares so much about our kids. And he's been so passionate about this work."
While speaking about the impact his parents -- both educators -- had on him, Duncan got emotional.
"All our lives we saw what kids could do when given a chance, and that's why we do this today," he said. Obama has selected Deputy Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr. to replace him. In an internal memo to Department of Education staff, Duncan cited the commute between his home and family in Chicago in announcing his departure and called his job the "greatest honor of my life." "We have been lucky to have an a amazing team here from Day One, but I honestly believe our team today is the strongest it's ever been," Duncan wrote. "So it's with real sadness that (I) have come to recognize that being apart from my family has become too much of a strain, and it is time for me to step aside and give a new leader a chance." Obama brought Duncan with him to Washington from Chicago, where he served as the city's schools chief. He's long been one of the president's closest friends in the administration, their relationship forged in the days before either came to national prominence. Duncan, along with Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and senior advisers Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod, formed a hometown crowd for the Obamas when they arrived to the White House. Jarrett remains in her post at the White House, though Axelrod and Emanuel have both returned to Chicago -- Emanuel as the city's mayor, and Axelrod as chair of a politics institute at the University of Chicago. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will step down in December, an administration official said Friday, October 2. Katherine Archuleta, director of the Office of Personnel Management, resigned July 10, a day after revealing a data breach of government computers was vastly larger than originally thought. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, announced February 5 in an email to staff that she was stepping down after six years as commissioner. Jennifer Palmieri, Obama's communications director, left in spring 2015. She now serves as the director of communications for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. Dan Pfeiffer, one of Obama's chief strategists and closest advisers, departed from the White House in early March, officials confirmed. Marilyn Tavenner, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' top administrator who was involved in the roll-out of Obamacare, announced in an email to staff that she was resigning at the end of February 2015. Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned in October 2014 after multiple security breaches involving the President. The firestorm began after an intruder scaled the fence and entered the White House on September 19, 2014. Gen. David Petraeus stepped down as director of the CIA on November 9, 2012, after an FBI investigation confirmed he was having an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. He served the position for a little over a year. Gen. Eric Shinseki resigned in May 2014 after it was revealed that Veterans Affairs administrators had conspired to cover up wait lists that were months long, leaving sick and dying veterans waiting for care. Kathleen Sebelius resigned as secretary of Health and Human Services in April 2014 after months of backlash against her role in the faulty roll-out of Healthcare.gov. Shirley Sherrod, a former official with the Department of Agriculture, was forced to resign from her position in 2010 after a conservative blogger published a video of her questioning whether to help a white man losing his farm since " so many black people lost their farm land" before him. When it was discovered that the video was taken out of context, the USDA offered her another job, which she declined. In June 2010, Obama relieved Gen. Stanley McChrystal from his post as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan after disparaging comments McChrystal made against the administration in Rolling Stone magazine. Three months after Tareq and Michaele Salahi crashed a state dinner in November 2009, Desiree Rogers stepped down as White House social secretary. Suzanne Barr, a senior Obama administration political appointee and longtime aide to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, resigned September 1, 2012, amid allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior lodged by at least three Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees. Duncan said he had not made a decision about his next steps besides spending time with his family and added that he expected to find work that involved "expanding opportunity for children." "Over the years that I have known him, and especially in the months we have worked together here, I've come to recognize John as one of the most passionate, courageous, clear-headed leaders in our field," Duncan said. Duncan's departure means Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack will be the sole remaining Cabinet-level secretary who has been with Obama since 2009. Obama's Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan started in 2009 as his Housing and Urban Development secretary. In the early days of the administration, Duncan and Obama often played pickup basketball on the weekends in Washington — Duncan is among the group of close Obama confidantes who participated in the President's Election Day pickup game in 2012 -- though Obama's days on the court have waned in favor of days on the golf course. As education secretary, Duncan pushed reforms to improve the quality of education, including advocating for the controversial Common Core requirements. Many Republicans say the requirements provide unnecessary federal interference in school curriculum. He also implemented the administration's "Race to the Top" funding program that has states compete for federal school funding, as well as gone after for-profit colleges for predatory practices. | 0fake |
Kenya's nurses call off their strike as lecturers take action | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Nurses in Kenya have ended a five-month-old strike over delays to agreed wage rises, a union official said on Thursday, just as university lecturers began a similar action over their pay and benefits. The nurses strike had brought health services to a halt in many parts of the country, with patients being sent away from some government-run hospitals. Their pay deal was meant to have been approved in June by the union, the national government and county governments, but the state commission that advises on public sector pay rejected it shortly afterwards. We have asked all nurses to resume duty latest by Friday, union head Seth Panyako told Reuters, adding that an agreement had been reached with the government. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta won a second term in a re-run election on Oct. 26 after his initial victory in August was nullified by the electoral commission because of procedural irregularities. Panyako said a collective bargaining agreement would be signed in 30 days time. Kenyan public servants often strike over pay inequalities. The country s members of parliament are among the world s most well-paid, taking home around 1.2 million shillings ($11,577.42) per month, including allowances, says Justine Musila of the parliamentary watchdog website Mzalendo. In contrast, basic salaries for lecturers at public universities range from 69,000 shillings to 200,000 shillings each month, before allowances. A newly-qualified doctor typically earns about 156,000 shillings a month. On Thursday, lecturers also launched a strike to protest against what they described as the government s continued failure to implement a deal signed in March to boost salaries and housing allowances. That pact, which provided for a pay hike of 17.5 percent and an increase of 3.9 percent in housing allowances, ended a previous 54-day strike over pay that also affected the more than half a million students in Kenya s 31 public universities. All academic staff at the 31 public universities are on strike from November 1, Constantine Wasonga, secretary general of the University Academic Staff Union, said in a statement seen by Reuters on Thursday. The strike remains in force until the collective bargaining agreement is implemented in total. | 0fake |
Obama Joins Comedy Central Host to Push ‘Laughable’ Establishment Conspiracy Theory on DNC Leaks | 21st Century Wire says President Obama is once again appearing on info-tainment programming on Comedy Central but his appearance is clearly not to entertain or inform the viewer. In the final days of the President s time in office he is going on comedy shows to push the Russian hack effect on the U.S. Presidential election outcome. He does so without a shred of evidence nor a mention of the Podesta emails, the collusion of the media with the Clinton campaign or the questionable practices of the Clinton Foundation.The Duran asks some good questions and provides further analysis Alex Christoforou The DuranObama has gone all in to blame Russia for Hillary Clinton s loss and the DNC hack that exposed Hillary Clinton for the corrupt cheat that we all knew, deep down inside, she truly was.Notice how Obama talks only about the DNC hack and not the Wikileaks Podesta email leak. Also notice how Obama tries to justify his conveniently timed call for an investigation, by throwing it back onto Donald Trump.Obama never states that he has irrefutable evidence that Russia hacked the DNC emails, and never even mentions once the Podesta emails We determined and announced in October that it was the consensus of all the Intelligence agencies in law enforcement that organizations affiliated with Russian intelligence were responsible for the hacking of the DNC materials that were being leaked. FYI China, Israel, Germany, etc also hack US institutions. US intelligence agencies hack governments all over the world.Obama s above assertions are based on James Clapper s statement that The Duran reported on in October consider the statement US intelligence published last week on the subject of alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and of other US agencies involved in the election. It reads as follows: The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there.We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities. (bold italics added)The statement is an implicit admission that US intelligence has no evidence to back its allegations of Russian hacking.It is merely confident not sure that it is the Russians who are behind the hacking, and it is clear from the statement that it arrived at this conclusion purely through inference: because the hacks supposedly were consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts .US intelligence assumes the Russians were behind the hack not because it knows this to be so but in part because of what it believes Russian motives to be.The statement backs its claim with a textual trick. It says the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia . It then immediately follows these words with the words for example .These lead to the expectation that an actual example of such Russian tactics and techniques is about to follow. Instead what is provided are the fact free words to influence public opinion there .The words for example lend nothing to the meaning of the statement, which would be exactly the same without them. These two words as used in the statement are actually meaningless. That is a sure sign that their presence in the statement is intended to confuse the casual reader, and that this is true of the statement as a whole.The words are designed to create a subliminal impression to a casual reader that the Russians have been caught doing this sort of thing before, without however providing a single actual example when this was the case.Demonstrating how thin the case of Russian government actually is, the statement then goes on to say: Some states have also recently seen scanning and probing of their election-related systems, which in most cases originated from servers operated by a Russian company. However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian Government. (bold italics added)In other words US intelligence admits the mere fact servers operated by a Russian company may have been used for scanning and probing and presumably also for hacking is not in itself proof of the involvement of the Russian government.The Daily Show s Trevor Noah, who is not a journalist, and not even American, is the perfect useful idiot to conduct this interview and help spread Obama s political spin.No tough question, no follow up questions just giggly gushing glances of admiration and awe from Noah.Remember when Obama told Trump to stop whining about a rigged election and focus on getting votes. This was when Obama, and the entire Hillary liberal elite establishment, were certain that Trump had no chance to win the US Presidency.How things change, and how Obama is now changing his tune doing everything in his power to undermine Trump and undermine US Democracy, while risking escalating, already high tensions with Russia.Continue reading this story at The DuranREAD MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files | 1real |
13 YR OLD BLACK CONSERVATIVE Hammers #BlackLivesMatter College Activists:”Grow Up!” [Video] | The spoiled brats protesting on colleges campuses across America could benefit from a little common sense advice from 13 year old conservative, CJ Pearson Cj Pearson is running for Chairman of the Georgia Teen Republicans. If you live in Georgia, you might consider supporting him.You can also donate to his #StandwittCJ campaign here: https://rally.org/CJPearson | 1real |
Oklahoma GOP Bill Would Ban Suicidal LGBT Teens From Seeking Help From Pro-Gay Therapists | If Oklahoma Republicans have their way, the suicide rate among LGBT teens will skyrocket.LGBT teens are, by far, the most vulnerable group within the LGBT community because they are not considered adults yet and therefore are subject to the will of their parents, teachers, and school administrators. Many teens are scared to reveal their sexuality out of fear that they will be ostracized and discriminated against.And that appears to be exactly what Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kerns wants since she has introduced several anti-gay bills this year as part of her ongoing hate crusade against gay people.The most egregious bill of the three is HB 3044, which forbids school officials from referring gay students in crisis to councilors or therapists who would actually treat them like human beings.According to Slate,The bill states that no public school counselor, therapist, social worker, administrator, teacher or other individual can refer a student under the age of eighteen to any individual, organization or entity if the referral pertain[s] to human sexuality. In fact, public school counselors can t even provide the contact information, business card, brochure or other informational materials of a gay-friendly organization to students.The only way students would get to see gay friendly therapists is if they notify their parents, which would out them as being gay, thus making the situation worse and opening themselves up to further ridicule and bullying that could push them over the edge.But that s not the only bill Kerns is pushing to persecute gay people.HB 1598 would protect ex-gay conversion therapy, even though the American Psychiatric Association opposes it. And this bill works perfectly with HB 3044 because it would funnel gay teens to anti-gay therapists who would likely pressure their patients to enter such a program.And then there is SB 733, which would ban anyone with HIV or other communicable or infectious diseases from getting married.These bills are specifically designed to discriminate against gay people. And the laws are particularly cruel toward gay teens who need understanding and caring professionals to talk to instead of hateful people who will only make things worse. It s like Republicans are literally trying to make sure these kids commit suicide and that should make every parent sick despite how you might feel about homosexuality.Featured Image: Children s Advocate | 1real |
House Republicans Pave Way For Rampant Corruption Under Trump By Gutting Independent Ethics Panel | House Republicans just made it clear that they are for sale and intend to put ethics aside during Donald Trump s reign in the White House.On Monday night, Republicans voted 119-74 to cripple the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, which has been an outside watchdog working to root out corruption by members of Congress ever since a string of lobbying scandals rocked Capitol Hill. Under Speaker Nancy Pelosi s leadership, the panel was created as a non-partisan entity and has done a good job.But Republicans are gutting it because the panel has done its job too well so they passed an amendment which basically gives them direct oversight of the panel and the power to kill investigations they don t like. So if the panel is investigating a Republicans, they can kill it and then turn around and allow an investigation against a Democrat.According to CNN,The proposal would bar the panel from reviewing any violation of criminal law by members of Congress, requiring that it turn over any complaint to the House Ethics Committee or refer the matter to an appropriate federal law enforcement agency. The House Ethics Committee would also have the power to stop an investigation at any point and bars the ethics office from making any public statements about any matters or hiring any communications staff.And the ethics office would no longer be able to accept or investigate any anonymous reports of alleged wrongdoing by members of Congress.Republicans claim that the ethics panel abused its power and that it falsely accused members of Congress of committing ethics violations. These members allegedly had to spend a fortune to defend themselves. Frankly, it sounds like Republicans are just mad because they got caught putting their hand in the cookie jar and they are attacking the panel to make sure they can t be caught again.By gutting the independent panel and placing it under their supervision, Republicans just paved the way for their members to commit crimes at will. They could a take a bribe from a lobbyist and then vote to kill any investigation that arises. It will create a free-for-all for lobbyists at a time when Republicans intend to consider infrastructure spending, tax cuts, and massive defense spending.This especially concerns Norman Eisen and Richard Painter, who served as ethics attorneys under President Obama and President Bush, because the 115th Congress is setting itself up to be dogged by scandals and ethics issues for years and is returning the House to dark days when ethics violations were rampant and far too often tolerated. So not only will the White House be corrupt under Donald Trump, Republicans just guaranteed that the House of Representatives is going to be corrupt as well, proving once again that Republicans only care about using government to enrich themselves instead of helping the American people.Featured image via Zach Gibson/Getty Images | 1real |
The Matrix of Four of The Medicine Wheel | Sacred Medicine Wheel of Four Brothers(image by open) DMCA "The elders knew peace would not come on the Earth until the circle of humanity is complete; until all four colors sat in the circle and shared their teachings." The sacred medicine wheel of the four directions is for all extents and purposes a mandala, a visual depiction of the universe, our Earth and our inner universe . It's symbolism is simple and primal, and through these qualities it is powerful and meaningful. Representing the intersection of duality and polarity , four is recognized as symbol for completion. In nature this symbolism is illustrated in the cycle of four seasons -- spring, summer, winter and fall -- derived from the flow of cycles between two solstices and two equinoxes of our orbit, as well as the elements of nature: air, fire, water and earth. Four is also reflected in the four aspects of the self: the mental, physical, spiritual and emotional. Mathematically, the symbolism of four it is represented in the four forms of arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) while philosophically, comprehensive human thinking encompasses four dimensions: the thesis (is it so?), antithesis (is it not so?), synthesis (are both so?) and nullesis (are neither so?) Correspondingly, this matrix of four is presented in the beginning of practically every creation story, from Genesis to the Popol Vuh (the Mayan creation story). Nearly all creation stories start with the polarities of Heaven and Earth, and male and female. In this respect, this matrix of four is the basis of most creation stories as well as being depicted in every cross-like symbol shared by so many religions (the Christian cross, the Hindu swastika, the Egyptian ankh etc.) The four Vedas (Sanskrit for "knowledge") are the foundational scriptures in Hindu theology, while the cross symbol adopted by Christianity, Judaism and Islam, its presence in the creation story, and its basis in the four worlds of the Kabbalah reflect its major significance to those teachings. Indeed, all peoples share traditions that include the symbolism of four directly (or subtlety) as part of their core belief systems -- as I explore in detail in the article, The Common Origin of Religions and Theology . And it is this universality of the cross symbol and the unanimous celebration of the matrix of four, symbolically and philosophically, in Hindu, Taoist, Native American, Egyptian, Celtic and Judeo-Christian theology and symbolism that most clearly illustrates its commonality to human spirituality and understanding of our world. - Advertisement - But perhaps no group has lived so completely in unity and reverence to the seasonal cycles of Earth Mother and the universal system, as the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, now known as North America. Most significantly, the Hopi believe we are living in the fourth world. Hopi tradition states the first world was Endless Space, the second was Dark Midnight, the third was the Age of Animals and the fourth is the World Complete. Four migrations were written upon four sacred tablets which man was supposed to undertake once in this fourth world -- to separate into smaller tribes, divided by color, and began to migrate in four different directions, settling in new lands. The Medicine Wheel Prophecy: The Polarity of Institutions vs. Individuals
"At the beginning of this cycle of time, long ago, the Great Spirit made an appearance and gathered the peoples of this Earth together, and said to the human beings, "I'm going to send you to four directions, and over time I'm going to change you to four colors, but I'm going to give you some teachings, and you will call these the Original Teachings; when you come back together with each other, you will share these so that you can live and have peace on Earth, and a great civilization will come about"
"And so He gave each of us a responsibility, and we call that the Guardianship. To the Indian people, the Red people, He gave the Guardianship of the Earth" To the South, He gave the yellow race of people Guardianship of the Wind" To the West, He gave the black race of people Guardianship of the Water" To the North, He gave the white race of people Guardianship of the Fire" Each of the four races went to their directions and learned their teachings" [but] some of the brothers and sisters had forgotten the sacredness of all things, and all the human beings were going to suffer for this" The elders knew peace would not come on the Earth until the circle of humanity is complete; until all the four colors sat in the circle and shared their teachings -- then peace would come on Earth."
~ Source : A Cherokee Legend by Lee Brown, Cherokee
I have watched with dismay and horror over the last few years especially, and my lifetime in total, as the powers that be, every institution of each type -- religious, government, corporate and media -- have interjected and overwhelmed the discourse of the collective conversation, stifling the development of the discussion and thus the development of our thinking and being. This happens concerning practically every subject -- topics are reduced to a consideration of limited polarities. This reinforces polarity in the human mind, which is trained from birth to look for opposites: Good/Evil, Right/Wrong, Left/Right, Thesis/Antithesis. - Advertisement -
The very inquiry into the origins of human thinking and being is posed through the duality of polarity, and yet it is most often considered a singular polarity. Why are we the way we are? Is it the result of nature, or nurture? The debate of nature versus nurture is posed in a single distinct polarization, yet the best question itself supersedes the mindset of the singular polarity. Traditionally, the question is viewed philosophically as a trinity of options -- the thesis (nature), antithesis (nurture) and synthesis (both) of one and the other. And yet, in its natural state, this mode of thinking is more comprehensively a matrix of four: thesis, antithesis, synthesis (both) or neither -- the mindset of infinite alternative potential.
Such comprehensive thinking is uncommon today, as the institutions of the status quo have worked to maintain limited, polarizing collective narratives (particularly through the corporate media) so as to keep control of the way we think, and therefore, behave. But, when we understand how duality and polarity can be used against us, we soon come to see there are many holes in the institutional faรยงade. Sometimes it is their actions that expose them, but quite often it is what they say and how they say it -- or what they don't say -- that provides clarity into their real motivation: domination. Four Types of Institutional Lies
There are four basic types of institutional/political lies, which directly correlate to the four basic forms of arithmetic. Like all effective lies, each type involves some nugget of truth. The first type of lie is the addition of information: Sometimes the addition of a small bit of (generally false) information can change the story entirely. The second type of lie is the subtraction of information: The removal of small key components can result in entirely different meaning. The third type of lie is the multiplication of information: Exaggerations of situations and related information are included in its presentation, to dilute or emphasize. The fourth type of lie is the division of information: The facts are interlaced with 'disconnects' which separate or underplay the significance of information.
This approach is often used to cover institutional prejudices and bias; to maintain the appearance of objectivity among institutional leaders. The four main categories of human prejudice are racial, religious, institutional/national and cultural heritage/history. Often prejudice is simply based on the pigment of one's skin, or other inherited features, but sometimes it is much more nuanced and complicated than that, particularly where a history of conflict exists. And while human prejudice is typically based on these four distinctions, the specifics of each are near limitless. | 1real |
Ann Coulter: Obama Should Testify Under Oath on Trump Campaign Surveillance - Breitbart | Using the hashtag #PutObamaUnderOath, author and political pundit Ann Coulter tweeted that while knowing the truth about Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice allegedly ordering surveillance of President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign aides, Obama should also testify before Congress on the matter. [“Susan Rice testimony now essential, but insufficient,” Coulter tweeted on Tuesday. “Must hear from Obama. ” Susan Rice testimony now essential, but insufficient. Must hear from Obama. #PutObamaUnderOath, — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 4, 2017, Coulter also suggested in another tweet that Michelle Obama may be able to shed some light on the White House surveillance activities during her husband’s tenure. “I don’t know if what she knows is privileged, but we need to hear from Michelle too,” Coulter tweeted. I don’t know if what she knows is privileged, but we need to hear from Michelle, too. #PutObamaUnderOath, — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 4, 2017, Rice allegedly ordered surveillance of Donald Trump’s campaign aides during the 2016 presidential election, and maintained spreadsheets of their telephone calls, the Daily Caller reported. The alleged spreadsheets add a new dimension to reports on Sunday and Monday by blogger Mike Cernovich and Eli Lake of Bloomberg News that Rice had asked for Trump aides’ names to be “unmasked” in intelligence reports. The alleged “unmasking” may have been legal, but may also have been part of an alleged political intelligence operation to disseminate reports on the Trump campaign widely throughout government with the aim of leaking them to the press. The surveillance and spreadsheet operation were allegedly “ordered one year before the 2016 presidential election. ” According to a Fox News report on Monday, former White House aide Ben Rhodes was also involved. | 0fake |
France tells Libya to act over migrant "crimes against humanity" | PARIS (Reuters) - France demanded on Wednesday an urgent U.N. Security Council session on human trafficking in Libya and raised the possibility of sanctions on the country after a video appearing to show African migrants sold as slaves there sparked global outrage. Convened by Italy, which struck a deal with Libya to slash the number of migrants reaching its shores, the Council on Tuesday unanimously backed a resolution urging tougher action to crack down on human trafficking and modern slavery worldwide. Speaking to lawmakers, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian suggested Paris wanted to take things further and called for an urgent session of the Council to specifically discuss the situation in Libya. Libyan authorities, who have been alerted several times, including by myself because I was there in September, have decided to open an investigation into the facts, Le Drian said. We want it to go fast and if the Libyan justice system can not carry this procedure through then we should open international sanctions, Le Drian said. Footage appearing to show African migrants sold as slaves in Libya has sparked an international outcry with protests erupting across Europe and Africa, while artists to soccer stars to U.N. officials have made pleas for the abuse to end. The video broadcast by CNN showed what it said was an auction of men offered to Libyan buyers as farmhands and sold for $400, a chilling echo of the trans-Saharan slave trade of centuries past. What has been revealed is indeed trafficking of human beings, it s a crime against humanity, Macron said during a news conference with African Union President Alpha Conde. Macron said he wanted the U.N. Security Council to discuss what concrete steps could be taken to tackle the issue. A French diplomat said the U.N. session would likely be in coming days, probably next week, and would see what concrete measures could be taken to improve the situation. Despite events in Libya, Conde put the blame firmly on the European Union, accusing it of encouraging the Libyans to keep migrants in the North African country despite there being no government. What happened in Libya is shocking, scandalous, but we must establish the responsibilities, said Conde. In Libya there is no government, so the European Union can not choose a developing country and ask that country to detain refugees (...) when it doesn t have the means to do so, he added. The refugees are in terrible conditions ... so our European friends were not right to ask Libya to keep the migrants. The European Union is responsible. Le Drian said he wanted the International Organization for Migration and the U.N. Refugee Agency to publish details about the trafficking of migrants in the country. Libya splintered along political, ideological and tribal lines during and after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that unseated former leader Muammar Gaddafi. In 2014 a battle for the capital led to rival parliaments and governments being set up in Tripoli and the east. | 0fake |
Over 40 Percent Of America Supports Impeaching Donald Trump | President Trump has started his presidency out in the worst possible way: His inauguration turnout was dismal; his most controversial executive action has been halted; his cabinet is facing confirmation troubles; his approval rating is at an historic low; and now, 40 percent of the American public supports impeaching him.A new poll released by Public Policy Polling shows that, while 4 in 10 support his impeachment, only 48 percent do not. Twelve percent are (still) unsure at this point.That s not a lot of wiggle room. That s actually close to evenly split.The most fascinating parts? The 40 percent mark is up five points from where it was just a week ago. Also, the poll found that 3 percent of Trump voters want to see him impeached.According the analysis:Usually a newly elected President is at the peak of their popularity and enjoying their honeymoon period after taking office right now. But Donald Trump s making history once again with a sizable share of voters already wanting to impeach him, and a majority of voters wishing they could have Barack Obama back.The poll also found that the overall impressions of President Trump continue to remain negative, with 52 percent of the American public viewing him unfavorably, and 45 percent viewing him favorably. These numbers are almost identical to a recently released poll from CNN, which show his disapproval rating at 53 percent.Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat from Texas and potential Senate candidate for 2018, told Buzzfeed that, should President Trump and his administration continue to defy the judge s ruling regarding the Muslim ban stay, House Democrats would be looking at possible impeachment. Senator Dick Durbin echoed Castro s warnings.While Republicans wanted to impeach President Obama for supposedly being a Marxist Muslim, Democrats (and independents alike) want to impeach Trump for violating the Constitution and a federal judge s order.To think, in only two weeks, forty percent of the country is in favor of removing their president from office. Perhaps Republicans should be taking notice. After all, 2018 is right around the corner. And history shows that the more unpopular a president is, the more his party suffers in the midterms.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images | 1real |
UK police charge serving soldiers over suspected far-right terrorism | LONDON (Reuters) - Three men, including two serving soldiers, were charged by British police on Monday with terrorism offences, including belonging to a banned far-right group. The men were among five arrested on Sept. 5 as part of a pre-planned, intelligence-led operation. The other two were released without charge on Sunday. West Midlands Police said 22-year-old Alexander Deakin, 32-year-old Mikko Vehvilainen and 24-year-old Mark Barrett had all been charged with being members of neo-Nazi organization the National Action group. Barrett and Vehvilainen both gave their addresses as British army bases. All three will appear before Westminster Magistrates Court on Tuesday. National Action became the first far-right group to be outlawed in Britain last year after the murder of member of parliament Jo Cox, whose killing the group had praised. Police said Deakin had also been charged possessing documents useful in committing or preparing an act of terrorism, distributing a terrorist publication and inciting racial hatred. Vehvilainen was also charged with possessing documents useful in committing or preparing an act of terrorism, as well as publishing threatening or abusive material and possessing a weapon. | 0fake |
Putin tells Maduro: we'll keep cooperating with you on economy | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin told Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, who is visiting Moscow, that Russia would continue its economic cooperation with Venezuela, including on major projects. We see that Venezuela is going through difficult times, Putin told Maduro. We have the impression that you have, nevertheless, been able to establish some contact with those political forces that oppose you. For our part, work continues, including in the economic sphere. | 0fake |
Who Will Weed Out the Warmongers? | Written by Robert Parry If Hillary Clinton hangs on to win the presidency, liberal Democrats have vowed to block her appointment of Wall Street-friendly officials to key Cabinet and sub-Cabinet jobs. But there has been little organized resistance to her choosing hawkish foreign policy advisers. Indeed, Washington’s foreign policy establishment has purged almost anyone who isn’t part of the neoconservative/liberal-interventionist “group think.” That’s why pretty much everyone who “matters” agrees about the need to push around Russia, China, Syria, Iran, etc. Reflecting that attitude, Sunday’s lead editorial in the neocon Washington Post hailed the broad consensus within the Establishment for more warlike actions once President Obama is gone, taking with him what the Post calls Obama’s “self-defeating passivity.” The Post praised a new report from the liberal Center for American Progress which calls for bombing the Syrian military and getting tough to “counter Iran’s negative influence” in line with what all the neocons — as well as Israel and Saudi Arabia — want the next President to do. The absence of any significant counter to this neocon/liberal-hawk “group think” represents one of the greatest dangers to the future of the human species, since this new hubris comes with a cavalier assumption that nuclear-armed Russia and China will simply accept humiliation dished out by the “indispensable nation.” If they don’t, we can expect Official Washington to ratchet up tensions in a game of nuclear chicken with the expectation that the leaders in Moscow and Beijing will bow down to US “exceptionalism’ and slink away with their tails between their legs. Surely, that is what the armchair warriors at The Washington Post will demand and they have, of course, a spotless record of infallibility, such as their certainty that Iraq was hiding stockpiles of WMD in 2003. Editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt was so sure of that he wrote it as flat fact . Given the Iraq War catastrophe and the failure to find the WMD, you might have assumed that Hiatt was summarily fired and has never worked in journalism again. But, of course, you’d be wrong. He is still the editorial-page editor of The Washington Post continuing to ladle out his extraordinary wisdom and brilliant insights. The New McCarthyism And, if you dare question those new certainties or note the risks of stumbling into a nuclear conflagration, the Post’s editorial pages label you a Moscow stooge repeating Russian propaganda. That is what Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump when he warned about the risks of World War III if a President Hillary Clinton starts shooting down Russian planes over Syria. Rather than acknowledge the genuine risk of getting into a shooting war with Russia, neocon Applebaum declares such concerns unacceptable and offers a whiff of McCarthyism toward anyone who thinks such a thing. “Why is Russian state media using such extreme language?” she asks darkly. “And why is Trump repeating it?” Then, with the typical perceptiveness of a neocon ideologue, Applebaum determines that the Kremlin is warning its citizens about the growing risks of nuclear war to scare them into line amid a recession that the US helped create as part of its “regime change” strategy to destabilize Russia by making its economy scream. A thoughtful person might stop here and wonder if the use of economic sanctions and other means to destabilize nuclear-armed Russia is such a good idea, but no mainstream person is allowed to raise such questions inside Official Washington. That would just make you a Russian puppet, in Applebaum’s view. Applebaum then rants on with some wild conspiracy theories about Russian plans to exploit the US presidential transition: “Whatever the outcome on Nov. 8, political uncertainty will follow: the months of transition, a change of White House staff, perhaps even the violent backlash that Trump may incite. This could be an excellent moment for a major Russian offensive: a land grab in Ukraine, a foray into the Baltic states, a much bigger intervention in the Middle East — anything to ‘test’ the new president. “If that’s coming, Putin needs to prepare his public to fight much bigger wars and to persuade the rest of the world not to stop him. He needs to get his generals into the right mind-set, and his soldiers ready to go. A little nuclear war rhetoric never fails to focus attention, and I’m sure it has.” Reckless Drivel Perhaps the more immediate question here is why a major American newspaper runs such crazy and reckless drivel from one of its regular columnists. But the fact that the Post does so indicates how dangerous the moment is for humanity. For those of us who read the Post regularly, such insane rhetoric barely registers since we see similar nuttiness on a daily basis. But the “group think” that the Post and other mainstream publications create and then enforce explains why there is such unity among the Establishment as it presses ahead with these dangerous policies in much the same manner that almost the same cast of insiders “group thought” their way into the disastrous Iraq War. So, the wannabe insiders at the Center for American Progress and the more established pooh-bahs at the Brookings Institution and other preeminent think tanks know they have to promote “regime change” strategies and other forms of warmongering to appease Hiatt and his fellow neocon editorialists and columnists. In Washington, this “group think” has moved beyond the usual careerist and conformist “conventional wisdom” into something more akin to totalitarianism, at least on foreign policy issues. That is why it is hard to even come up with a list of sensible people who could survive the onslaught of character assassinations if they were to be proposed as senior advisers to a President Hillary Clinton. That is also why the attention of progressives, such as Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, only on vetting domestic officials in a prospective Hillary Clinton administration is so insufficient. If a hawkish President Clinton surrounds herself with like-minded neocons and liberal hawks, the costs of their warmongering would surely swallow up the tax dollars necessary for domestic priorities – on infrastructure, education, health care, the environment and other pressing concerns. And, if the McCarthyistic intolerance of The Washington Post influences or infects her administration, the genuine risks of World War III will dwarf any other worries. Reprinted with permission from ConsortiumNews.com . Related | 1real |
WATCH: Rachel Maddow Just Skillfully Exposed Trump’s ‘Deliberate’ Attempts To Spark A Race War (VIDEO) | On Friday, Donald Trump canceled a rally in Chicago because he was embarrassed that seemingly more people showed up to protest him than to stroke his ego. The night had already been bloody, with an event in St. Louis, Missouri almost becoming a total race war earlier in the evening. In Chicago, Trump has not even arrived when the incredibly white attendees began attacking, hurling insults at, and geerally being complete racist d*ckbags to black people and anyone else who dissented just like Trump taught them to (after all, he says he will pay their legal fees if they brutalize a black man in his name).The Donald says he was forced to cancel his rally because he didn t want anyone to get hurt though he was perfectly willing to call into Fox News to whine about how somehow his First Amendment rights had been stripped away by protesters, once again proving that not a single Republican anywhere understands the First Amendment. According to the billionaire 2016 hopeful, the blame for violence at his rallies lies with two entities: the protesters his fans attack, and Barack Obama.Shortly after, Rachel Maddow took a moment out of her show to absolutely and utterly destroy any claim Trump could make that he doesn t want violence at his rallies, that he just wants people to be safe as he claims. It s becoming more intense at Donald Trump rallies, Maddow said after playing a clip of the numerous beatings we have seen at his campaign events throughout recent history: There have been instances in the past where he has encouraged or at least praised the idea of violent actions by his supporters, when he s spoken wistfully about how great it would be to beat people up at his rallies, or he s told people that he would pay their legal fees if they beat up a protester on his behalf. But this sort of bloodlust, this kind of half-tongue-in-cheek-mostly-serious call for a tougher America where there are more beatings, and where anti-Trump protesters should fear for their lives as he heads into these tinderbox cities today and tonight, I just want you to watch how that part of candidate Donald Trump s rhetoric has escalated. Maddow rolled numerous clips of Trump calling for his violent, racist, and poorly educated fans to harm others with date stamps included. In other words, she left Trump in a completely indefensible position, not that it matters to him or his followers. If you want to see the deliberate act that created what happened tonight in Chicago, watch where it came from, she said, noting that all the calls for violence culminated into the Chicago incident. And it really is something like we have never seen in mainstream American politics before, Maddow told viewers, recalling that she used to see these events unfold at white supremacist rallies in the 1980 s. The difference, of course, is that it is now happening in mainstream Republican politics at events hosted by their frontrunner. Anybody who tells you that there s no connection between the behavior of the mob at these events and the behavior of the man leading the mob at these events is not paying attention to what he s saying at the podium, she said after the clips rolled. but the most damning clip she rolled was of Trump in St. Louis earlier that evening when he complained that part of the problem is no body wants to hurt each other anymore. That s right he complained that there was not enough violence at his events to put protesters in their place. There used to be consequences, he whined just before St. Louis erupted into violence. These people are bringing us down, he whined. These are the people that are destroying our country. That s the way Donald Trump has been talking about protesters at his events. That s the way he has been directing his supporters at events. That was today, Maddow said after the damning St. Louis footage rolled. If you want to know what led up to Chicago tonight that was Donald Trump s display of leadership and calming the waters. Then she dropped the bomb: American presidential politics isn t like this for anyone else. American presidential politics did not get this way on its own. This is the workd of an American presidential candidate who deliberately made this happen. And the Republican party is about to nominate him for President. Watch Maddow tear Trump a new orifice below:Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Erdogan Checks in with Obama Before Bombing Syria | Erdogan Checks in with Obama Before Bombing Syria October 27, 2016 Erdogan Checks in with Obama Before Bombing Syria
Turkey's military operation in northern Syria will target the town of Manbij, recently liberated from ISIS by Kurdish-led forces, and the jihadists' stronghold of Raqqa, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. In a speech in Ankara broadcast live, Erdogan said he had informed U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama about his plans for the operation in a telephone call. Syrian rebels, backed by Turkish warplanes, tanks and artillery, launched an operation dubbed "Euphrates Shield" in August to push Islamic State and Kurdish militia forces away from the border area of northern Syria. In a speech in Ankara broadcast live, Erdogan said he had informed U.S. President Barack Obama about his plans for the operation in a telephone call on Wednesday. Before Manbij and Raqqa, the operation will target the town of al-Bab, he said.
(ANKARA) - Turkey has been angered at Washington's support for the Kurdish YPG militia in its battle against ISIS in Syria, with Ankara regarding it as a hostile force with deep ties to Kurdish militants fighting in southeast Turkey.
A top U.S. military commander said on Wednesday YPG fighters will be included in the force to isolate Raqqa. Arab forces, and not Kurdish ones, are expected to be the ones to take the city itself, U.S. officials say.
READ MORE: ONLY RUSSIA CAN SAVE THE WEST FROM ITSELF IN SYRIA
Defence Minister Fikri Isik told state broadcaster TRT on Thursday that Turkey had asked the United States not to allow the YPG to enter Raqqa, saying it was ready to provide the necessary military support to take over the town.
Erdogan also said that the Iraqi region of Sinjar, west of Mosul, was on its way to becoming a new base for Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants and that Turkey would not allow this to happen. Article by Doc Burkhart , Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles Got a news tip? Email us at Help support the ministry of TRUNEWS with your one-time or monthly gift of financial support. DONATE NOW ! DOWNLOAD THE TRUNEWS MOBILE APP! CLICK HERE! Donate Today! Support TRUNEWS to help build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news
We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media Top Stories | 1real |
A divided Iraq tests U.S. influence as fight against Islamic State wanes | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After years of focusing divided Iraq on a shared fight against the Islamic State group, the United States is now straining to leverage its limited influence to avoid a full-blown conflict between the Iraqi and Kurdish forces it has armed and trained. Experts say that a path toward reconciliation, in some form, exists. But it will be a long, arduous test of nerves that could expose the U.S.-backed war effort in Iraq to risks from insurgents and from militia backed by neighboring Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump declared on Monday that the United States was not taking sides in the internal conflict between Baghdad and independence-seeking Kurds, as Iraqi government forces captured the Kurdish-held oil city of Kirkuk. We don t like the fact that they re clashing. We re not taking sides, Trump told reporters at the White House. We ve had for many years a very good relationship with the Kurds as you know and we ve also been on the side of Iraq, he said. That neutral approach met a cool reception from the Kurdish government representative in Washington, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman. In particular, she said the United States had already helped isolate the Kurds by publicly calling for them to postpone the Sept. 25 referendum on independence that triggered the dispute with Baghdad. With every step (Washington) emboldened Baghdad, Iran and Turkey ... each one of them thinking: Well, so the Kurds are on their own, we can do whatever we like , she told Reuters. The Iraqi government s capture of Kirkuk was the most decisive step yet by Baghdad to block the Kurd s independence bid. It also put Washington in the awkward position of recognizing the Iraqi government s authority while maintaining ties with its close Kurdish allies. Kurdish Peshmerga forces said Baghdad would be made to pay a heavy price for triggering war on the Kurdistan people. U.S.-led coalition military support for Iraqi and Kurdish forces was decisive during the most critical phases of the war against Islamic State. However, Washington s leverage has yet to be fully tested after the recapture of major cities from the militant group. It is unclear, in particular, how much influence the United States has with Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani after already failing to delay the independence referendum, in which the Kurds voted to secede. Paul Salem, from the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington, said Barzani was learning that he had very few friends and he is a much weaker player than he thought before the Sept. 25 vote. (The U.S.) has some leverage, Salem said. Michael Knights, an expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the United States needed to take steps to avoid alienating the Kurds in the region. Those steps included sending a U.S.-led military coalition officer to a key military base there and pressing for an interim Kurdish governor of Kirkuk. This would maintain the basic power-sharing compact negotiated by Kirkuk community leaders in 2007, Knights said. The Pentagon confirmed that U.S. forces had a presence in the vicinity of Kirkuk but declined to say where. Such a presence could help deter further conflict, a tactic it used in Syria to keep Kurds and Turks from fighting each other. The U.S. State Department urged all sides to restore calm and warned that the dispute was distracting from the battle against Islamic State, which swept through Iraq in 2014 by exploiting the country s vast ethnic and political divisions. We strongly urge all parties to avoid provocations that can be exploited by Iraq s enemies who are interested in fueling ethnic and sectarian conflict, it said in a statement. Former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, James Jeffrey, said he believed Iran - which backs Shi ite Iraqi militia - was positioned to gain influence because of the Iraqi-Kurdish conflict. He said the United States needed to make certain that Iranian-backed forces don t surge forward into the Kirkuk area to challenge Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. The United States has to make it very clear: We are not going to defend Kirkuk ... but if the Iranian militias move forward, then we will help the Peshmerga, if necessary, Jeffrey said. Trump unveiled last week a more aggressive U.S. approach to Iran, whose elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps backs the militias in Iraq. Abdul Rahman was wary of Iran s role in the unfolding crisis and criticized the U.S. military s characterization of an exchange of fire early on Monday as a misunderstanding, downplaying the loss of life. I think the U.S. needs to be very, very aware of the statements that it makes and the statements that it doesn t make, she said. The threat of Iraqi and Kurdish forces turning U.S.-supplied weapons against each other has raised alarms in Congress. Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned Iraq s government of severe consequences over any further misuse of U.S.-provided weaponry against Kurdish forces. The United States provided equipment and training to the government of Iraq to fight (Islamic State) and secure itself from external threats - not to attack elements of one of its own regional governments, McCain said. | 0fake |
Soccer player Messi prison sentence lifted in exchange for fine | MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish court said on Friday it has exchanged a 21-month prison sentence handed to Soccer player Lionel Messi for tax fraud last July for a quarter-of-a-million-euro fine. The Barcelona player and his father were found guilty by a Catalan court last year of three counts of tax fraud to the tune of 4.1 million euros ($4.68 million) over income earned from image rights. The father also had his 15-month sentence exchanged for a fine of 180,000 euros, the court said. Neither Messi or his father would have served time in jail following the original ruling as defendants without a previous conviction are permitted to serve any sentence of under two years on probation. | 0fake |
HYSTERICAL! MSNBC Host Gets Rapists confused…Calls Bill Cosby “Bill Clinton” [VIDEO] | It seems like a pretty easy mistake. After all he could easily have called Hillary Obama | 1real |
Influential Australian Senator Nick Xenophon resigns | SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Senator Nick Xenophon, a key independent lawmaker, said on Friday he was resigning from national politics, potentially complicating Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull s efforts to pass legislation. Turnbull does not have a majority in the Senate and has relied on Xenophon s party, the fourth largest bloc in the upper house, to pass legislation. Xenophon s replacement will come from his party, which bears his name, but is likely to be a far less experienced compared with Xenophon s nine years as a Senator. Xenophon was a known quantity, he was experienced and as he saw, Turnbull could work with him, said Peter Chen, senior lecturer in politics at the University of Sydney. His potential replacement will be inexperienced, and that can be unpredictable. This will not be Turnbull s preferred choice. Xenophon s future as a Senator was under a cloud due to him holding possible dual citizenship with Britain. Under the constitution a lawmaker must only hold Australian citizenship to be eligible to be elected to the national parliament. Xenophon had renounced his Greek citizenship, which he received from his mother, but had not been aware he held possible British citizenship. While he was born in Australia, his father was born in Cyprus, which was a British colony until independence in 1960. Xenophon s citizenship issue was due to be determined by Australia s High Court. Australia s High Court will next week rule on the eligibility of seven politicians, including Xenophon and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. Should Joyce be ruled ineligible, Turnbull will lose his majority in the lower house. In announcing his surprise resignation, Xenophon said he would stand for election in his home state of South Australia next year. State parliaments do not have the same citizenship rule as the national parliament. I have increasingly concluded that you can t fix South Australia s problems in Canberra without first fixing our political system at home. South Australia politics is broken and politically bankrupt, Xenophon told reporters in Adelaide. | 0fake |
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