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Trump strikes blow at Iran nuclear deal in major U.S. policy shift | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump struck a blow against the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement on Friday in defiance of other world powers, choosing not to certify that Tehran is complying with the deal and warning he might ultimately terminate it. Trump announced the major shift in U.S. policy in a speech in which he detailed a more aggressive approach to Iran over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its support for extremist groups in the Middle East. He accused Iran of “not living up to the spirit” of the nuclear agreement and said his goal is to ensure Tehran never obtains a nuclear weapon, in effect throwing the fate of the deal to Congress. He singled out Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for sanctions and delivered a blistering critique of Tehran, which he accused of destabilizing actions in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. “We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout,” Trump said. Trump’s hardline remarks drew praise from Israel, Iran’s arch-foe, but was criticized by European allies. The move by Trump was part of his “America First” approach to international agreements which has led him to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. His Iran strategy angered Tehran and put Washington at odds with other signatories of the accord - Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union - some of which have benefited economically from renewed trade with Iran. Responding to Trump, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Friday on television that Tehran was committed to the deal and accused Trump of making baseless accusations. “The Iranian nation has not and will never bow to any foreign pressure,” he said. “Iran and the deal are stronger than ever.” European allies have warned of a split with the United States over the nuclear agreement and say that putting it in limbo as Trump has done undermines U.S. credibility abroad, especially as international inspectors say Iran is in compliance with the accord. The chief of the U.N. atomic watchdog reiterated that Iran was under the world’s “most robust nuclear verification regime.” “The nuclear-related commitments undertaken by Iran under the JCPOA are being implemented,” Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said, referring to the deal by its formal name. U.S. Democrats expressed skepticism at Trump’s decision. Senator Ben Cardin said: “At a moment when the United States and its allies face a nuclear crisis with North Korea, the president has manufactured a new crisis that will isolate us from our allies and partners.” While Trump did not pull the United States out of the agreement, he gave the U.S. Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under the pact. If Congress reimposes the sanctions, the United States would in effect be in violation of the terms of the nuclear deal and it would likely fall apart. If lawmakers do nothing, the deal remains in place. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker was working on amending the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act law to include “trigger points” that if crossed by Iran would automatically reimpose U.S. sanctions. The trigger points would address strengthening nuclear inspections, Iran’s ballistic missile program and eliminate the deal’s “sunset clauses” under which some of the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program expire over time. Trump directed U.S. intelligence agencies to probe whether Iran might be working with North Korea on its weapons programs. The president, who took office in January, had reluctantly certified the agreement twice before but has repeatedly blasted it as “the worst deal ever.” It was negotiated under his predecessor, former President Barack Obama. Trump warned that if “we are not able to reach a solution working with Congress and our allies, then the agreement will be terminated.” “We’ll see what happens over the next short period of time and I can do that instantaneously,” he told reporters when asked why he did not choose to scrap the deal now. The Trump administration designated the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps under an executive order targeting terrorists. The administration stopped short of labeling the group a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a list maintained by the State Department. The Revolutionary Guard is the single most dominant player in Iran’s security, political, and economic systems and wields enormous influence in Iran’s domestic and foreign policies. It had already previously been sanctioned by the United States under other authorities, and the immediate impact of Friday’s measure is likely to be symbolic. The U.S. military said on Friday it was identifying new areas where it could work with allies to put pressure on Iran in support of Trump’s new strategy and was reviewing the positioning of U.S. forces. But U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said no changes in force posture had been made yet, and Iran had not responded to Trump’s announcement with any provocative acts so far. | 0fake |
Trump Can’t Find Anyone To Serve On His National Security Team | Donald Trump actually won, despite the popular vote. It s pretty hard to believe, and no one really expected this. Not even the campaign team itself. As in, they don t have a national security team. In fact, they are having trouble even getting recruits to be on the team.According to the Daily Beast one of the senior members of Trump s team said: She wasn t even sure that she was going to be able to fill a transition team, much less find people to serve in government positions, this person said. In theory, 20 people are supposed to parachute into the Department of Homeland Security [during the transition between administrations]. And I don t think they have anybody to do it. It s funny to see the Trump campaign struggle to fill these much needed positions, scrambling at the last minute, reaching out to any possible candidate they can to no avail. In fact a handful of U.S. officials already said they re considering leaving their jobs.This says quite a bit about our new commander-in-chief. Trump is not experienced in office at all, not to mention he is just simply unfit to run a country, especially the U.S.A.. He promised to do quite a few things during his first 100 days in office, but it looks like he s going to be busy staffing his administration before he can begin undoing all of Obama s work. Good thing too, because this country already is great, and nothing Trump has said he s going to do will make it any better. As a country, we ve come pretty far over the last several years, but with Trump promising to ban all Muslims and build a giant wall on the Mexican border it looks like it s been in vain. Hopefully, things continue to make it impossible for Trump to get anything done and we can elect another progressive come 2020.Featured image by Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
Suicide car bomb kills at least 12 Afghan police | KABUL (Reuters) - At least 12 Afghan police were killed and four wounded when a Humvee packed with explosives drove into their checkpoint in the southern province of Kandahar late on Wednesday, a government official said. Abdul Bari Baryalai, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the attack took place in Maruf district, bordering Pakistan. The attack, in one of the Taliban s heartlands, underlines the threats faced by Afghan security forces, notably police units on the front lines of the battle against insurgents who control or contest about 40 percent of Afghanistan. The incident came on the same day that militants attacked Kabul airport while U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was visiting the Afghan capital. | 0fake |
Iraqi security forces retake al-Qaim from Islamic State: PM | ERBIL (Reuters) - Iraqi forces seized the district of al-Qaim on Friday, one of the last remaining territories in the country held by Islamic State militants, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said. In a congratulatory statement, Abadi praised the Iraqi security forces for liberating the district in record time . Units from the Iraqi army, Counter-Terrorism Services, Sunni tribal and Iranian-backed Popular Mobilisation forces entered the area on Friday morning. | 0fake |
NYT Admits Key Al Qaeda Role in Aleppo | Posted on November 8, 2016 by WashingtonsBlog
By Robert Parry, the investigative reporter who many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. Originally published at Parry’s Consortium News (republished with permission).
As much as The New York Times and the mainstream U.S. media have become propaganda outlets on most foreign policy issues, like the one-sided coverage of the bloody Syrian war, sometimes the truth seeps through in on-the-ground reporting by correspondents, even ones who usually are pushing the “propo.”
Such was the case with Anne Barnard’s new reporting from inside west Aleppo, the major portion of the city which is in government hands and copes with regular terror rocket and mortar attacks from rebel-held east Aleppo where Al Qaeda militants and U.S.-armed-and-funded “moderate” rebels fight side-by-side. Samantha Power, Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN, addresses the Security Council meeting on Syria, Sept. 25, 2016. Power has been an advocate for escalating U.S. military involvement in Syria. (UN Photo)
Almost in passing, Barnard’s article on Sunday acknowledged the rarely admitted reality of the Al Qaeda/”moderate” rebel collaboration, which puts the United States into a de facto alliance with Al Qaeda terrorists and their jihadist allies, fighting under banners such as Nusra Front (recently renamed Syria Conquest Front) and Ahrar al-Sham.
Barnard also finally puts the blame for preventing civilians in east Aleppo from escaping the fighting on a rebel policy of keeping them in harm’s way rather than letting them transit through “humanitarian corridors” to safety. Some of her earlier pro-rebel accounts suggested that it wasn’t clear who was stopping movement of civilians through those corridors.
However, on Sunday, she reported: “We had arrived at a critical moment, as Russia said there was only one day left to pass through a corridor it had provided for people to escape eastern Aleppo before the rebel side was flattened, a corridor through which precious few had passed. The government says rebels are preventing civilians from leaving. Rebels refuse any evacuation without international supervision and a broader deal to deliver humanitarian aid.”
Granted, you still have to read between the lines, but at least there is the acknowledgement that rebels are refusing civilian evacuations under the current conditions. How that is different from Islamic State terrorists in Mosul, Iraq, preventing departures from their areas – a practice which the Times and other U.S. outlets condemn as using women and children as “human shields” – isn’t addressed. But Barnard’s crimped admission is at least a start.
Barnard then writes: “Instead [of allowing civilians to move through the humanitarian corridors], they [the rebels] are trying to break the siege, with Qaeda-linked groups and those backed by the United States working together — the opposite of what Russia has demanded.”
Again, that isn’t the clearest description of the situation, which is stunning enough that one might have expected it in the lede rather than buried deep inside the story, but it is significant that the Times is recognizing that Al Qaeda and the U.S.-backed “moderates” are “working together” and that Russia opposes that collaboration.
She also noted that “Three Qaeda-linked suicide bombers attacked a military position with explosive-packed personnel carriers on Thursday, military officials said, and mortar fire was raining on neighborhoods that until now had been relatively safe. It was among the most intense rounds in four years of rebel shelling that officials say has killed 11,000 civilians.”
While she then throws in a caveat about the impossibility of verifying the numbers, the acknowledgement that the U.S.-backed “moderate” rebels and their Al Qaeda comrades have been shelling civilians in west Aleppo is significant, too. Before this, all the American people heard was the other side, from rebel-held east Aleppo, about the human suffering there, often conveyed by “activists” with video cameras who have depicted the conflict as simply the willful killing of children by the evil Syrian government and the even more evil Russians.
More Balance
With the admission of rebel terror attacks on civilians in west Aleppo, the picture finally is put into more balance. The Al Qaeda and U.S.-backed rebels have been killing thousands of civilians in government-controlled areas and the Syrian military and its Russian allies have struck back only to be condemned for committing “war crimes.” The second plane about to crash into the World Trade Center towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.
Though the human toll in both sides of Aleppo is tragic, we have seen comparable situations before – in which the U.S. government has supported, supplied and encouraged governments to mount fierce offensives to silence rockets or mortars fired by rebels toward civilian areas.
For instance, senior U.S. government officials, including President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, have defended Israel’s right to defend itself from rockets fired from inside Gaza even though those missiles rarely kill anyone. Yet, Israel is allowed to bomb the near-defenseless people of Gaza at will, killing thousands including the four little boys blown apart in July 2014 while playing on a beach during the last round of what the Israelis call “mowing the grass.”
In the context of those deaths, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, who has built her career as a supposed humanitarian advocating a “responsibility to protect” civilians, laid the blame not on the Israeli military but on fighters in Gaza who had fired rockets that rarely hit anything besides sand.
At the United Nations on July 18, 2014, Power said , “ President Obama spoke with [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu this morning to reaffirm the United States’ strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself…. Hamas’ attacks are unacceptable and would be unacceptable to any member state of the United Nations. Israel has the right to defend its citizens and prevent these attacks.”
But that universal right apparently does not extend to Syria where U.S.-supplied rockets are fired into civilian neighborhoods of west Aleppo. In that case, Power and other U.S. officials apply an entirely different set of standards. Any Syrian or Russian destruction of east Aleppo with the goal of suppressing that rocket fire becomes a “war crime.”
Perhaps it’s expected that the U.S. government, like other governments, will engage in hypocrisy regarding affairs of state: one set of rules for U.S. allies and another for countries marked for U.S. “regime change.” Statements by supposed “humanitarians” – such as Samantha Power, “Ms. R2P” – are no exception.
But double standards are even more distasteful when they come from allegedly “objective” journalists such as those who work at The New York Times, The Washington Post and other prestige American news outlets. When they take the “U.S. side” in a dispute and become crude propagandists, they encourage the kind of misguided “group thinks” that led to the criminal Iraq War and other disastrous “regime change” projects over the past two decades.
Yet, that is what we normally see. A thoughtful reader can’t peruse the international reporting of the U.S. mainstream media without realizing that it is corrupted by propaganda from both government officials and from U.S.-funded operations, often disguised as “human rights activists” or “citizen journalists” whose supposed independence makes their “propo” even more effective.
So, it’s worth noting those rare occasions when The New York Times and the rest of the MSM let some of the reality peek through. When evaluating the latest plans from Hillary Clinton and other interventionists to expand the U.S. military intervention in Syria – via prettily named “safe zones” and “no-fly zones” – the American people should realize that they are being asked to come to the aid of Al Qaeda. | 1real |
Провал за провалом: В США похитили списки шпионов-нелегалов | 0 комментариев 3 поделились источник Pravda.Ru
Как сообщает Associated Press со ссылкой на документы судебных органов, "секретная информация, украденная бывшим подрядчиком Агентства национальной безопасности, включает в себя имена тайных сотрудников разведки".
По данным Российской газеты, защита 51-летнего Гарольда Томаса Мартина III Глен Берни будет просить федерального судью в пятницу рассмотреть вопрос об освобождении его клиента из-под стражи на том основании, что следствие по этому делу продолжается.
Судья Дэвид Кпперзайт отклонил подобную просьбу на прошлой неделе, согласившись с прокуратурой, что освобождение Мартина представляет риск, якобы потому, что "враги Соединенных Штатов хотели бы узнать больше о секретной информации, найденной в его доме".
Защита Мартина настаивает на версии, что бывший лейтенант ВМС США просто "увлекся", взяв документы на дом в надежде усовершенствовать свои навыки и стать более опытным специалистом в своем деле.
Адвокаты говорят, что их клиент "любит свою семью и свою страну", и что нет никаких доказательств того, что он поделился информацией с иностранным государством или намеревался сделать это.
Фирма Booz Allen Hamilton, где он работал, уволила Мартина, как только узнала о его аресте, и заявила в четверг, что наняла бывшего директора ФБР Роберта Мюллера, чтобы пересмотреть свою практику безопасности.
Как сообщает Reuters, Гарольд Томас Мартин работал в той же компании Booz Allen Hamilton, что и Эдвард Сноуден. Напомним, Сноуден в 2013 году передавший в прессу разоблачительные материалы о действиях спецслужб США.
По словам помощника генерального прокурора США по национальной безопасности Джона Карлина, "возможна ситуация, когда "во второй раз за три года сотрудник сумел похитить у АНБ строго засекреченную информацию, нанеся серьезный ущерб".
Сообщается, что изначально Мартин отрицал свою вину, но позже на допросе в ФБР признался в краже секретных данных.
Ранее электронная версия The New York Times сообщила, что сотрудники Федерального бюро расследований (ФБР) арестовали подрядчика Агентства национальной безопасности (АНБ) по подозрению в краже и раскрытии "строго секретных кодов, разработанных для взлома сетей правительств других государств", в том числе России.
Поделиться: | 1real |
The Worst Possible Person Just Won Alabama’s Runoff For U.S. Senate, And It’s All Trump’s Fault | Alabama s Republican runoff election for Jeff Sessions vacant Senate seat has come to its end, and the candidate that will go up against Democrat Doug Jones in December s general election is none other than Roy Moore. Moore is the former chief justice of Alabama s state Supreme Court, and he s the one who ordered all of Alabama s probate judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court s ruling on same-sex marriage in 2013.But Moore wasn t Donald Trump s candidate. Luther Strange, who has been holding Sessions seat, was the man backed by Trump. In fact, Trump was at a political rally for Strange last Friday when he called for NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to be fired. The president s endorsement usually helps a candidate, yet it s Moore who just won. Here s a little background on Moore: He was yanked from the Alabama Supreme Court s bench in 2003 for refusing to remove a massive monument to the Bible s 10 Commandments from the grounds of the courthouse. That s considered a violation of the First Amendment since it constitutes a government endorsement of one religion.In 2012, Moore won his job back, then called same-sex relationships sodomy, and decried the immorality of it all in the wake of the Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage across all 50 states. He wanted to bar Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison from serving in office because he s a Muslim, and he accused Obama of using our military for social experiments (including wiping out don t ask, don t tell and allowing transgender individuals to serve).He has also defended Putin because Putin seems to agree with him on the issue of LGBTQ rights. One might think that would earn him Trump s endorsement, but somehow, it didn t.All of that should have made this election a tossup given conservatives current love of Trump, but it didn t. Moore was polling ahead of Strange pretty much the entire time. Why?Well, Trump, for starters. That buffoon endorsed Luther Strange and bragged about it all over Twitter, up to and including through today. He boasted that Strange s numbers had skyrocketed since his endorsement, but according to NBC News, Trump s endorsement actually pushed people towards Moore. Trump won Alabama by double digits last year, but it seems they re souring towards him now.That makes this Trump s fault, at least partly. Voters claimed that his endorsement didn t affect them one way or another, but those who were influenced by Trump said he pushed them away from Strange. What that means is that some Republican voters chose Moore because Trump backed the other candidate.That s a massive blow to Trump. Maybe Alabama voters are ashamed of Trump, and they d have good reason to feel that way. For instance, speaking on the Rick and Bubba radio show, which is based out of Birmingham, Trump said: Luther Strange is going to be a great Senator. He loves Alabama, he loves the states and he loves the country. He will absolutely win against the Democrat.Ray will have a hard time. If Luther wins, the Democrats will hardly fight. If Ray wins, [Democrats] will pour in $30 million. Moore s first name is Roy. When Rick Burgess, one of the show s hosts, pointed out that he d gotten Roy s name wrong, Trump actually said that it s not a good sign if the president doesn t know his name. Then he said: I don t know that much about Roy Moore. Roy Moore is going to have a very hard time getting elected against the Democrat.Against Luther they won t even fight. When news of Moore s win came out, Trump tweeted the following:As noted above, the general election is December 12. That tweet has since been deleted, and replaced with one noting the correct month for the general.Where is Trump s influence, then? Rosie Gray of The Atlantic said: The outcome of the special election primary will help answer the question of who is more influential with Trump s base: Trump himself, or the constellation of powerful voices on the right to whom base voters listen and who are supporting Moore? Well, it seems that Trump doesn t have the influence he thinks he does. Especially given that Strange was likely a far better candidate for Senate than Moore ever could be. Moore is an absolute disaster. He s a danger to the U.S., and in deep-red Alabama, there s very little chance that a Democrat can win Sessions Senate seat. And Trump s endorsement of Strange is partly responsible for this. He s a blight on the GOP and a blight on the nation as a whole. He s dangerous, and Moore s election is evidence of that.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
Donald Trump Plans Visit to Paul Ryan’s District During Speaker’s Europe Trip - Breitbart | President Donald Trump plans to visit Speaker Paul Ryan’s district in Wisconsin on Tuesday, but the Speaker will not join him. [According to a spokesman appearing on Fox 6, Ryan will be traveling in Europe to meet with NATO allies. Trump is expected to visit the tools headquarters in Kenosha, Wisconsin to highlight his agenda. Ryan had visited the innovation center in 2015 to host a Congressional listening session. Ryan won his campaign in the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin in 2016 with 65 percent of the vote in 2016 after defeating his primary challenger Paul Nehlen with 84 percent of the vote. Trump won Wisconsin in the 2016 presidential election by about 22, 000 votes over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. | 0fake |
Federal Employee With Stage IV Cancer May Lose Job For Taking Medical Marijuana | A 36-year-old U.S. man diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in March of this year is now being forced to confront the likelihood of losing his job should he choose to use marijuana for the purpose of relieving symptoms caused by his cancer and cancer treatments.
John Doe is a married father of one. He spent at least ten years as a biologist and environmental protection specialist and planned large scale projects to minimize environmental impacts. He also directed the cleanup of solid waste sites and oil spills for several federal agencies. (We granted him anonymity because if he is suspected of using marijuana he will be fired.)
He told Shadowproof that he hoped to move to the private sector in the months leading up to the diagnosis to be closer to his wife’s family or his own family. “But the diagnosis changed that, since a stage IV cancer patient can’t get life insurance on the private market and the health insurance available to federal employees was a better deal” for him than what was available under the Affordable Care Act. “It’s gotten worse since then.”
After experiencing complications with the prescribed medicines for his cancer, the doctor recommended medical marijuana, “which is required to get a card in the state I had been living in and also in the state in which I live now.”
Since marijuana is listed under the Controlled Substances Act as a schedule 1 substance by the DEA, doctors cannot prescribe it. “Dronabinol/Marinol gets around that by being a synthetic analog— apparently it’s okay if you pay a pharmaceutical company for it, but not okay if you grow it yourself,” Doe said.
Doe was never offered a prescription for dronabinol. Instead, it was recommended he use medical marijuana should he need nausea relief and appetite stimulation, and he used it when he needed it to function, “which was typically for the several days following chemo so that I could stop the nausea. It’s constant, by the way, readers should know that it does not come in waves, and there is no relief.”
But Doe had to hide his medical marijuana use from everyone. “Federal employees are barred from using any illegal drug and can be fired even if the use is on their own time away from work.”
“All federal employees receive a memo each year from their agency solicitor or DOJ reminding them specifically that medical marijuana is not recognized as valid by the DEA, and since all marijuana (except dronabinol) is listed as schedule 1, it’s use is ‘inconsistent with federal employment’ and employees can be fired if they are caught using it or if they test positive during a drug test.”
Unfortunately for Doe, drug testing is likely to expand from law enforcement, firefighters, commercial drivers, and seasonal employees to his position at the agency. Any employee may be forced to submit to a test if there is “reasonable suspicion” that employee is using drugs. “I’m not sure the threat of a lawsuit for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act would help me forestall a drug test. I’d like to point out as well that my use has been limited to edibles, and that I do not work under the influence. When I use, it is after work so that I can eat.”
Back in August 2015, Doe suffered bouts of constipation and diarrhea, symptoms he assumed were triggered by all the stress brought on after having his first child. While the constipation and diarrhea diminished, the issues did not entirely go away.
Doe mentioned these symptoms to his doctor in October, who noticed that Doe had also lost around five or six pounds. “He then asked how the baby was doing and said that I was probably just dealing with stress and asked me to track how I feel and report back to him if things didn’t improve in a week.”
Things did not improve, and he found himself having to use the bathroom more often than usual. After another doctor’s visit, he was asked to make some dietary changes and prescribed a laxative and stool softener with instructions to call back after a week or two if things didn’t improve.
In November, after Doe’s symptoms continued to worsen, he made an appointment for a colonoscopy. Unfortunately, the hospital was booked so he had to wait.
By mid-January, he used the bathroom nearly 10 times a day. “[The doctor] finally ordered a thorough set of blood and stool tests to look for a range of disorders, parasites, etc. Results that came back in mid-February were all in the middle of reference range for blood chemistry and negative for parasites. According to the doctor, I was healthy as a horse, and he gave me a large stack of literature on irritable bowel syndrome. It was at this point that the hospital finally found time to get me in for a colonoscopy.”
In March, Doe finally had a colonoscopy. “I fell asleep on the gurney fully expecting to wake up and hear that it was IBS.” After waking up in the recovery room, the doctor came in and told him that she had some bad news. They found and removed a polyp in his sigmoid colon, which was the good news. He was then shown a picture of an obstruction a few inches further into his sigmoid colon.
“There was a obstructing tumor so large that she couldn’t push the scope beyond that point. Preliminary diagnosis was colon cancer,” he shared. They had to do a CT scan immediately to see if the cancer spread, and he needed surgery within a week to install a colostomy bag to bypass the blockage.
“I remember thinking, ‘Well, if they’d been able to get me in for a routine colonoscopy back in November I might not be in this situation,” followed by “I guess this means I can eat onions and garlic again since it’s not IBS.”
Days after having a CT scan, Doe went in to work to fill out several forms, “mostly making sure my designations of beneficiaries were current and submitting an open-ended sick leave request.” While he was there, he received a call from the gastroenterologist. “My CT results were in, and they weren’t good. In addition to the tumor in the colon I also had numerous tumors in my liver and lungs. That was…hard to hear.”
The doctors put off the consultation for surgery to install the colostomy until Wednesday of that week, but he didn’t make it that far. “My digestive tract was not happy after a full week of nothing but clear liquid, and I had trouble passing anything. My wife and I went to the emergency room on Tuesday and after waiting several hours had surgery to install the colostomy. That went well. Then we met with the local oncologist.”
Doe was told they would focus on palliative care with drugs, and that surgery was not an option. “I give you about a fifty percent shot at living another two years.”
He sought second opinions and got two, one at the University of Wisconsin and another at the University of Iowa. “Those doctors were more encouraging. Despite a stage IV diagnosis and spread [of cancer] to more than one distant organ, they held out hope that if my cancer responded well to chemotherapy perhaps we could consider surgery given my age and otherwise great health.”
As of publication, Doe has done one course, or twelve rounds, of FOLFOX plus Avastin. FOLFOX is a chemotherapy regimen for colorectal cancer, and Avastin is a cancer medicine that is supposed to disrupt the growth of cancer cells.
“I also took and continue to take several supplements my doctors have suggested to me: curcumin, vitamin D, vitamin E, etc. The tumor marker CEA in my blood samples dropped precipitously each time I went in for the next round of chemo, and CT scans at various points during treatment documented shrinkage of the tumors in the liver and lungs.”
While comparing his most recent CT scan to the first scan, doctors have pointed out just how much the tumors had shrunk and noted that some of the tumors in the liver appeared to be mostly dead. “They also said that given my response to chemo, they’d like to give me a shot at surgery. To do that, they need to grow the unaffected lobe of my liver before surgery and then the surgery, assuming it happens, will be a great big invasive procedure to remove the tumor in my colon, some lymph nodes, and the still-affected part of my liver, and burn out the remaining tumor tissue in my lungs. I am looking forward to that, believe it or not.”
Despite undergoing a series of traumatic symptoms, medical treatments, and consultations, Doe continues to work full time, and on a number of occasions he has worked during chemotherapy sessions in the hospital.
At first, the only side effects he felt from the chemotherapy were fatigue and nausea. He told Shadowproof that each chemo session involves receiving an IV drug that helps minimize nausea, and that he was also prescribed prochlorperazine, which is to be taken every 8 hours and scopolamine patches to wear behind his ear to prevent motion sickness.
The prochlorperazine worsened his fatigue, and after a few days of struggling to stay awake on prochlorperazine, he asked if there was anything else they could prescribe. “They gave me ondansetron, which also was to be taken every 8 hours. One doctor mentioned dronabinol, AKA marinol, synthetic THC (and approved by the FDA for treating nausea), but said that would be a last resort if nothing else worked.”
“I wondered why, since I had been researching the hell out of my treatment options and a lot of patients strongly suggested that marijuana was by far the best thing to prevent nausea and stimulate appetite. The ondansetron worked to a degree. By six hours into a dose, I would feel nauseous, and my appetite wasn’t good for several days following treatments. This worsened over time, such that my nausea and suppressed appetite would last longer and longer after chemo sessions.”
“I still continued to work but there would be long stretches of feeling uncomfortable when my nausea wasn’t controlled.”
Should Doe lose his federal employment because he is taking marijuana to help him through cancer treatment, it will mean he also loses the life insurance policy he has through the government. If he loses that, he would be unable replace it, “as no insurance company will underwrite a new policy for a stage IV cancer patient.”
“Being fired would cost my family dearly in the event that I die sooner rather than later, and losing the health insurance virtually guarantees that I would die sooner rather than later.”
The cost of Doe’s chemotherapy runs between $10,000 and $20,000, depending on the hospital. “The insurance for families has quite a few copays and an annual $11,000 deductible for the family, $5,000 for the first family member to reach that number. I hit $5,000 pretty quickly after my diagnosis so while I still make copays for my family’s medical care I haven’t had to pay any for myself since May of 2016.”
“I will have to start paying the deductible again on January 1 until I hit whatever deductible the insurance company sets for next year, which I assume will be higher than it was this year. I pay something like $350 a month for this insurance and the government pays an additional $900+ as part of my compensation package.
Doe continued, “I haven’t seen how much the premiums in my state of residence will be going up for 2017, but I know the number of providers has dropped to one or two and those providers have limits on office visits, larger copays, and higher deductibles that I currently pay. Were I to be drug tested and fired, I would have to make do with one of those plans that carries larger costs and offers fewer benefits.”
Right now, Doe has friends writing letters to the White House, their Representatives, and their Senators asking for either executive action to modify the 1986 Reagan Executive Order regarding off-duty drug use and to recognize state laws regarding medical marijuana. They are also helping him push for congressional action to grant marijuana the same exemption from the Controlled Substances Act “enjoyed by the alcohol and tobacco lobbies.”
“I’d like to note that the White House responses so far have been tone deaf, and that while the responses have focused on a supposed lack of any therapeutic use of marijuana—despite the FDA approval for dronabinol, lots of state laws, and lots of very sick people saying it works—to avoid action. I’d like to know what therapeutic use alcohol and nicotine serve.”
The White House’s response to these letters is distressing. It shows little concern for those impacted by blanket drug testing and zero tolerance drug policies. It reads in part:
“This Administration opposes marijuana legalization, and our policy approach focuses on improving public health and safety through prevention, treatment, support for recovery, and innovative criminal justice strategies to break the cycle of drug use and crime. A considerable body of evidence shows that marijuana use, especially chronic use that begins at a young age, is associated with serious health and social problems. Studies also reveal that marijuana potency has tripled since 1990, raising serious public health concerns.
At the same time, we share public concerns about ensuring limited Federal enforcement resources are dedicated to pursuing our highest enforcement priorities, such as preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors, preventing the sale of marijuana by criminal enterprises and gangs, preventing violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana, and preventing drugged driving and other adverse public health consequences. We will also closely monitor implementation of marijuana legalization in individual States and prevent the diversion of marijuana to States that have not legalized its use, sale, or distribution. Outside of its highest enforcement priorities, the Federal Government has traditionally relied on State and local agencies to address marijuana activity through enforcement of their own narcotics laws.”
Attorney Stefan Borst-Censullo, Counsel to Hoban Law Group, who specializes in cannabis legislation, explained that the federal government “defined the idea that employers have the right to terminate for off work drug use, and they’ve continued this tradition, regardless of state laws for medical marijuana.”
Borst-Censullo told Shadowproof that this applies to “everyone,” as there is no existing marijuana law in the states which offers worker protection to patients, “and most state courts that look at the issue side with federal supremacy.” When it comes to whether or not medical marijuana users should be hopeful that they will see any changes, Borst-Censullo says no.
“The Colorado Supreme Court ruled against a man with [multiple scoliosis] who was being blatantly discriminated against due to his ADA [Americans With Disabilities Act] status. But because marijuana is federally illegal, ADA doesn’t apply,” Borst-Censullo added.
Doe hoped more exposure will pressure the President and Congress “to step into the 21st century” because “that is apparently what it will take to allow people access to medicine they need without fear of punishment for simply trying to control nausea or pain.” This isn’t just for him, he said. “This is for anybody and everybody in my situation.” He added, “And there are many of us.”
The post Federal Employee With Stage IV Cancer May Lose Job For Taking Medical Marijuana appeared first on Shadowproof .
| 1real |
MIKE HUCKABEE SCORCHES THE PRESS: “Grow up!…Start acting like journalists” [Video] | 1real | |
Eight ways to strengthen our democracy beyond voting | Eight ways to strengthen our democracy beyond voting The strength of our civic life depends on what we do outside elections. By Chuck Collins Chuck Collins
Throughout this trying election season, we’ve been told how much is at stake with our vote. But the success of any democracy depends on continuing to pay attention long after we cast our ballots.
So let’s pledge to strengthen our democracy with a few resolutions to focus our intentions and keep us moving forward over the next four years.
1. Change your media diet .
Way too much ink, airtime, and mental real estate has been consumed by the horserace reporting on elections—it’s all about who’s winning and losing. So unplug from the talk shows that interview pollsters and engage in partisan bickering all day. Find the commentators and independent media outlets that strengthen our civic life.
2. Turn off corporate media.
This election has been very profitable for big media corporations, but bad for our democracy. As CBS chairman Les Moonves remarked , “Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? The money’s rolling in and this is fun.”
Our differences have been compounded by media reports that amplify the loudest and most partisan utterances. Election coverage this year has encouraged us to view one another as cartoon caricatures, not neighbors.
3. Reject the consumer mentality in elections .
We’re encouraged to view national elections like consumers buying a car, but presidential elections can make most of us feel like spectators, not participants. Election Day is a small part of our real democracy—think of voting as a tiny fraction of your civic life.
4. Make your voice heard .
Pledge to communicate with your elected officials all year round, not just when they want your vote. Call, write, email, and attend community forums. When a politician hears from a dozen constituents with the same concern, it matters.
A few resolutions must address our polarized political atmosphere. The only way to break through this is by connecting with people we don’t always agree with.
For instance, the liberal California sociologist Arlie Hochschild spent five years interviewing conservative Tea Party activists in Louisiana, making friends and asking deep questions. She urges us all to scale the “empathy wall” and learn each other’s stories.
Here’s a few easy ways to get started.
5.Try a social media fast.
Social media is amazing, but it mostly serves as an echo chamber to reinforce our existing views. It’s not a substitute for talking to people, asking questions, and learning why people support certain policies.
6. Practice the art of civil discourse .
Find ways to meet others face-to-face to engage in conversations, not soapbox speeches and debates. Look at the “ Living Room Conversation ” movement that brings people together across political divisions. Their goal is to encourage “authentic, respectful conversations” to “strengthen relationships and advance understanding of the challenges, opportunities, and solutions before us.”
Finally, other resolutions should focus on changing our polarizing election system.
7. Eliminate the wealth primary .
Long before voters cast their ballots in a primary, big money donors have winnowed the field and selected who will stand for election. People all across the political spectrum agree that we need fundamental campaign finance reform to reduce the influence of big money, including the repeal of Citizens United .
8. Break the two-party duopoly .
A growing number of voters have declared independence from the two major parties. So why do we allow other voices and perspectives to be excluded from presidential debates? Our democracy would benefit if we had real choices outside the two major parties, as they do in most other countries in the world.
The strength of our civic life depends on what we do outside elections. And especially after the deeply toxic experience of 2016, we all need to step up to protect our real democracy from those who profit from division.
Chuck Collins co-edits Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies and is author of the new book, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good . Distributed by OtherWords.org. permalink . | 1real |
Trump Whines Because Democrats Are Blocking His Cabinet Nominees, Gets Informed That Karma Is A B*tch | Donald Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates on Monday and proceeded to whine about how Democrats are blocking his nominees. Twitter responded by teaching him about karma.For eight years, Republicans blocked many of President Obama s nominees, including one nominee who died waiting to be confirmed as the Ambassador to the Bahamas. Cassandra Butts waited for two long years and died without getting the opportunity to serve her country. And Republicans blocked President Obama s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court for almost a year before it expired due to the end of Obama s second term in office.This unprecedented obstruction has rallied Democrats to do the exact same thing to Trump, but Democrats have far better reasons to block Trump s nominees since they intend to help him destroy this country.One particular nominee Democrats are blocking is Jeff Sessions, whom Trump nominated as Attorney General. The problem is that Sessions is a racist who wants to cripple civil rights and voting rights and that will be easy to do if he is allowed to control the Justice Department.So Trump complained about the obstruction on Monday night and again on Tuesday morning.The Democrats are delaying my cabinet picks for purely political reasons. They have nothing going but to obstruct. Now have an Obama A.G. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 31, 2017Nancy Pelosi and Fake Tears Chuck Schumer held a rally at the steps of The Supreme Court and mic did not work (a mess)-just like Dem party! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 31, 2017When will the Democrats give us our Attorney General and rest of Cabinet! They should be ashamed of themselves! No wonder D.C. doesn t work! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 31, 2017Trump is a hypocrite. Again, Republicans did the same thing to President Obama for eight years, and his nominees were at least qualified for the jobs. Trump s nominees are not. And I don t recall Trump ever telling Republicans that they ought to be ashamed of themselves.The Internet, of course, ripped Trump a new one.@realDonaldTrump None of your cabinet picks are qualified. I would vote NO on all of them. Betsy Devos has no experience. Matthew Schueller (@booshoe37) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump You are putting our entire country in danger. Step down NOW. Jen Vargas (@jenvargas) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump As the Republicans reminded us in 2016 with Merrick Garland, the Senate has to advise *and* consent. Try to be patient. Dave Hogg ? (@Stareagle) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump dude your party literally stole Obama s rightful SCOTUS pick after obstructing it for nearly an entire year Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) January 31, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Betrayal ?! #SallyYates swore an oath of loyalty to the CONSTITUTION, not a bullying, narcissistic fascist. WE #RESIST Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump That s because you couldn t be trusted to pick out a cabinet from Ikea Declan Cashin (@Tweet_Dec) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump or maybe your cabinet picks are garbage humans. Their moral compasses smaller than your tiny, pathetic hands. Neil Miller (@rejects) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump if by political reasons you mean objecting to appt of unqualified folks w/huge conflicts of interest then, well, yeah. rebeccaloebe (@rebeccaloebe) January 31, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Maybe if you didn t pick a guy who in 1986 was deemed too racist to be a judge \_( )_/ Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump you re running America like a reality TV show. You can t just say you re fired to everyone you don t like, Mr Trump. Ben Rachinger (@BenSRachinger) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump This is how it s supposed to work: no one gets all the power. While you re waiting, maybe read up on checks and balances? rebeccaloebe (@rebeccaloebe) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump You re surprised they re making it difficult for you to ruin the US ? Henry Hall (@hj_hall) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump Merrick Garland, 321 days ago. Obstruction is the O in GOP. Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump Your party explicitly stated that their job was to stop Obama at every turn through obstructionism. Damn hypocrite. MatthewDicks (@MatthewDicks) January 31, 2017@realDonaldTrump Right? It s almost like refusing to move forward with a Supreme Court nomination for a president with 11 months left. Aaron Gouveia (@DaddyFiles) January 31, 2017Featured image via Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
NYC MAYOR DEBLASIO SAYS ‘Something is changing in America” ANNOUNCES NEW “Communist Manifesto” AGENDA | Why would anyone expect anything else from a mayor who criticized Barack Obama for being too conservative and too afraid to take the bold kind of action that President Roosevelt took during the Great Depression MISS ME YET?Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a 13-point national Progressive Agenda that is being touted as the liberal Contract with America. The aim is for the Progressive Agenda to become the basis for the Democratic Party s main economic policies, including those of its 2016 presidential candidate.De Blasio has compared his plan to the Contract with America, a document released by the Republican Party during the 1994 congressional election and drawn up by future House Speaker Newt Gingrich to serve as the GOP policy agenda.Now WND documents that most of the 13 points in de Blasio s Progressive Agenda can also be found in the manifestos and literature of the Communist Party USA and the Socialist Party USA.The full progressive plan, entitled, The Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality, can be found on the agenda s new website.Here is a comparison of the Agenda s plan with literature from the manifestos and writings of the Community Party USA, or CPUSA, and the Socialist Party USA, or SPUSA. Progressive Agenda: Raise the federal minimum wage, so that it reaches $15/hour, while indexing it to inflation. SPUSA: We call for a minimum wage of $15 per hour, indexed to the cost of living. CPUSA: Calls for struggles for peace, equality for the racially and nationally oppressed, equality for women job creation programs, increased minimum wage. Even with ultra-right control of the Federal government, peoples legislative victories, such as increasing the minimum wage, can be won on an issue-by-issue basis locally, statewide, and even nationally. Progressive Agenda: Pass comprehensive immigration reform to grow the economy and protect against exploitation of low-wage workers. SPUSA: We defend the rights of all immigrants to education, health care, and full civil and legal rights and call for an unconditional amnesty program for all undocumented people. We oppose the imposition of any fees on those receiving amnesty. We call for full citizenship rights upon demonstrating residency for six months. CPUSA: Declares the struggle for immigrant rights is a key component of the struggle for working class unity in our country today. Progressive Agenda: Make Pre-K, after-school programs and childcare universal. SPUSA: We support public child care starting from infancy, and public education starting at age three, with caregivers and teachers of young children receiving training, wages, and benefits comparable to that of teachers at every other level of the educational system. Progressive Agenda: Earned Income Tax Credit. Implement the Buffett Rule so millionaires pay their fair share. SPUSA: We call for a steeply graduated income tax and a steeply graduated estate tax. CPUSA: No taxes for workers and low and middle income people; progressive taxation of the wealthy and private corporations. Dems hail beginning of revolution De Blasio criticized Obama as too conservative to assert a progressive economic vision and too afraid to take the bold kind of action that President Roosevelt took during the Great Depression, reported the liberal news network.Speaking at the Progressive Agenda launch event outside the Capitol building last Tuesday, de Blasio said something is changing in America. It s time to take that energy and crystallize it into an agenda that will make a difference, he said. We ll be calling on leaders and candidates to address these issues, to stiffen their backbones, to be clear and to champion these progressive policies. Read more at WND | 1real |
LOUDMOUTH ROSIE O’DONNELL Just Bullied The Wrong Trump: OUTRAGED Melania Threatens Lawsuit After Rosie Pushes False Video On Twitter About 10 Yr Old Barron | Remember when children of the President or President-elect used to be off limits to the press or even those who may have objected to the the views of the President? I wonder how Rosie would feel about someone spreading a totally unfounded rumor about one of her children all over social media Melania Trump has hired a famous lawyer who is now threatening a lawsuit over a video suggesting her 10-year-old son, Barron, is autistic, and the letter calls out Rosie O Donnellas a bully.According to the letter, obtained by TMZ, the YouTube video falsely insinuates Barron is autistic. The letter, and our sources familiar with the situation, say Barron absolutely is not autistic.Rosie tweeted out the video last week, with a caption, Barron Trump Autistic? The letter says, The video allegedly seeks to stop the bullying of Barron Trump. Not true The video did instigate further bullying by Rosie O Donnell and others. https://youtu.be/yZAd5Pu9iw4The video lists a number of signs it claims points to autism, including Barron clapping without slapping his hands together. Melania s attorney, Charles J. Harder, says Barron did this once at the end of a long day at the RNC but the vast majority of the time, he claps normally. The video shows Barron yawning and grimacing during his father s victory speech at the RNC and on election night. Melania s team says both events were late at night, and Barron was exhibiting normal behavior for a 10-year-old.Melania is not threatening to sue Rosie, but her attorney, Harder, wants the person who posted the YouTube clip to delete it and post an apology.Our sources say Melania is outraged and is serious about going after the person who posted the video if he doesn t take it down. | 1real |
President Trump vs President Clinton … What Will Happen After Inauguration? | The Vineyard of the Saker | 3454 Views November 07, 2016 15 Comments Guest Posts The Saker
by Oleg Maslov
The time has come for the country with the largest economy and military in the world will soon go to the polls to choose a new leader for itself. Americans will elect a new president on November 8, 2016. However, the two main candidates running for the office of president in the general election have never been more different from each other. Hillary Clinton has lived in the White House as First Lady for 8 years, served as a senator, ran for president in 2008, and served as Secretary of State during Barack Obama’s first term, during which she oversaw the NATO intervention in Libya and the Benghazi crisis – in other words, a career politician. On the other hand, Donald Trump has never served in public office, instead dedicating his life to many different business ventures, some of which became runaway successes and others short-lived failures.
Both candidates boast considerable strengths and face off against damaging scandals. Clinton has been touted as the ‘most qualified candidate for the job’ and has decades of experience in and around the center of power in Washington. However, she is currently under investigation by the FBI for potentially mishandling classified information after using a private email server to send and receive emails while Secretary of State, faced allegations of corruption relating to donations from foreign entities to the Clinton Foundation in return for political favors, responded to leaked email suggested that the Democratic National Convention colluded with major media companies against Democratic primary rival Bernie Sanders, and dealt with ongoing accusations of husband Bill Clinton’s sexual relations and infidelities. On the other hand, Trump has pointed to his wealth to promote himself as a self-made billionaire capable of hard negotiations and used his status as a political outsider status to make his promise to change to the establishment believable. He has also been the target of sexual harassment allegations, responded to claims that some of his failed businesses may have been scams, battled accusations of involvement with white supremacy groups, and is the only candidate for president from a major party not to release tax information since Gerald Ford.
Comparing the individual factors and history of both candidates gives us considerable information for analysis, but what effect will the policies of the candidates bring to the world once they enter office? In the following sections, we pit Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in a head-to-head comparison, analyzing the likely outcomes of their policies on global conflicts, the world economy, American social and business conditions, the future of Europe, and US relations with Russia and China.
Global Conflicts
Hillary Clinton
The former Secretary of State has been labeled by some analysts as a representative of the ‘hawks’ in Washington, or the group of influencers who are pro-war and closely connected with the American military industrial complex. Hillary Clinton voted for the American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Senator and spearheaded the American push for the NATO-imposed ‘no-fly zone’ in Libya as well as the US support for ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria as Secretary of State in the Obama administration.
A vote for Hillary is a vote for continuing the foreign policies of the Obama administration, including the expansion of NATO activities in Eastern Europe, intensifying American actions against the government of Bashar al-Assad, ramping up US naval might in the South China Sea, and arming and supporting Saudi Arabia in its military operation against Yemen.
One policy favored by Hillary Clinton adequately sums up the potential effects of a Clinton administration on global security: Hillary Clinton has publicly advocated for the implementation of a ‘no-fly zone’ and ‘safe zones’ within Syria. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of State, succinctly outlined the consequences of such a policy last month when he explained to the US Senate that carrying out this policy would require the United States to “go to war against Syria and Russia”, something unequivocally negative for both regional and global security and something which will certainly exacerbate tensions in Syria rather than relieve them.
Trump expresses the greatest fear that such a policy may bring when he says that such proposals may start World War III.
Much can be written on the other conflicts mentioned, but the general trend is relatively apparent – a Clinton presidency would continue aggressive American policies which only increase tensions and create the possibility for a spark to light the powder keg of conflict.
Donald Trump
If a Clinton administration would be predictably aggressive, a Trump administration would be an unpredictable wild card for global security. Many point to Trump’s open call for good relations between the US and Russia, even for cooperation between the two countries in tackling the Islamic State, as a sign of a period of peace and stabilization of the global security climate under a Trump administration. However, others react with alarm when they hear Trump criticize the usefulness of NATO or seemingly advocate for the proliferation of nuclear weapons, although these apparent Trump policies are often taken out of context.
Trump has consistently called for an increased ‘sharing of the burden’ from NATO partners and other American partners, notably Japan and South Korea. His campaign claims that the remarks that Trump made about the usefulness NATO and the proliferation of nuclear weapons was an extreme example meant to show the necessity of convincing American partners to pay more for the US military umbrella and that Trump has no intention of disbanding NATO or allowing states like Saudi Arabia or Japan to get nuclear weapons.
However, if Trump’s drive to push more of the financial burden of US military protection onto allies were to fail, he may be forced to carry out his promises, at least to some degree, if only to save face. Trump’s public intentions to mend ties with Russia and pursue cooperation in Syria combined with the potential for a weaker US presence in Europe may in fact encourage Russia to act more aggressively in pursuing their own interests in Europe and the Middle East.
One country has been disproportionately targeted by Trump – China. Trump has campaigned on the idea that China has been playing the United States for a sucker and that the US-Chinese relationship has been beneficial mostly for one side. His promises to renegotiate trade deals with China (which could be potentially quite harmful for China) could well have to be enforced by naval power projection, and Trump may end up following many of the same naval policies in the South China Sea as the Obama administration. This would, of course, raise tensions between the United States and China.
Trump’s proposals and policies have not been thoroughly tested and their success at stabilizing the world situation are far from assured. Although Trump tends to appear more interested in fostering peace and cooling down global conflict, the tensions created by his policies, especially with respect to China, may in fact increase the possibility of conflict, showing just how unpredictable a Trump administration may be.
World Economy
Donald Trump
Trump has positioned himself as a pro-business candidate that will stimulate the US economy, and many of his proposed policies could potentially have positive effects. However, Trump’s heavy criticism of global trade agreements, including the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific-Partnership (TPP), as well as Trump’s intention to force American companies to bring their business operations back from other countries in an attempt to reverse the process of ‘offshorization’ may well benefit the American economy, but may in fact deal some heavy damage to the global economy.
Policies that benefit the United States directly, such as encouraging auto manufacturers to return production to American soil by raising tariffs on autos made by American companies in other countries, will have a negative effect on other countries. Agreements such as the TTIP would certainly raise global economic activity, despite the fact that they benefit one side over the other, and would raise the level of global economic activity. It follows that delaying or disrupting negotiations on these agreements may lead to more negative consequences for the world economy as a whole.
Trump’s public call for better relations with Russia may have the effect of reducing or even removing sanctions thereby restoring former business between Russia and Europe as well as creating new business relationships which compensate for negative effects of other policies on the world economy. Further, if Trump’s promises for peace and stabilization of global conflicts is carried out, economic activity and innovation would continue without any obstacle.
Hillary Clinton
A Clinton administration would continue to develop the economic strategy initiated by the Obama administration, including liberal policies toward corporate offshoring and advancement of global trade deals such as TTIP and TPP. In essence, these policies would produce slow but stable growth for the world economy. Maintaing the sanctions on Russia would restrict global growth but if negotiations on either TTIP or TPP would result in an agreement, the resulting economic activity would more than make up for that lost business.
The Clinton administration may appear to offer better opportunities for the global economy, but one major factor still needs consideration. Clinton’s preference for resolution of conflicts by military means, seen most acutely in her proposals for resolving the Syrian situation, have a high potential to lead to a wider conflict with Russia and Iran, and ultimately may lead to a third global war, a war in which the main adversaries have a vast amount of deliverable nuclear weapons as well as a protocol for using them, should the need arise.
Needless to say, any conflict in which nuclear weapons are used is unequivocally negative for the global economy in the short term, if a global economy even remains after the dust has settled. If a global war remains conventional or if nuclear weapons are used in limited capacity, the prospect for global economic growth in the medium term is quite positive given the need to rebuild the affected countries, but the loss of life, destruction of productive infrastructure and buildings, and long term psychological and social effects far outweigh the economic growth related to rebuilding what was lost.
US Social and Business Conditions
Hillary Clinton
As the status quo candidate, Hillary Clinton represents a future similar to the present conditions with small but noticeable changes. Although controversial, Obama’s healthcare plan, commonly referred to as ‘Obamacare’, did bring healthcare insurance to more Americans. Clinton will most certainly continue developing Obamacare, which may improve the lives of many people. Hillary has also proposed a plan to finance higher education for students whose household earns a combined income of less than $125,000 per year, something seen as positive for standard of living and development of future business conditions.
Clinton’s willingness to accept more refugees from the war torn Middle East may increase already palpable social tensions by increasing competition for low-wage jobs and undermining social cohesion. The liberal policies of allowing companies to seek lower cost labor in other countries will continue to send jobs out of the United States, leaving university graduates, already suffering from low employment rates, with even fewer work opportunities.
Despite meeting with mothers of black teens killed by police, Hillary has no practical solution for addressing the growing issue of perceived racial prejudice by police officers. Neither does Donald Trump for that matter.
Donald Trump
Trump’s strongest potential option for improving the social and business conditions in the US is his promise to force American companies to bring production back to the United States. Fulfilling this promise would create many jobs in the US and alleviate the millennial unemployment problem, all the while raising wages and the overall standard of living. Although xenophobic and perhaps even racially charged in nature, Trump’s intention to limit immigration may also create more low-wage opportunities for American citizens.
Trump has called for an increase in paid maternity leave, something which may quality of life for average people. One of his main campaign promises is to revise and simplify the tax system. If done properly, this policy will make filing taxes easier for normal citizens and businesses as well, improving business conditions and potentially creating more jobs and economic activity.
On the other hand, Trump is widely seen as a candidate who represents white male superiority and the mere fact of a Trump administration may cause an increase in already palpable social tensions, potentially even leading to open protest from Muslim or Hispanic groups among others at his presidency. The Clinton campaign has worked to paint Trump as a white supremacist and misogynist, and often successfully so. Despite the potential economic benefits of a Trump presidency, the potential explosion of social tensions may cause an overall negative social and business situation in the United States. Of course, a Trump administration will recognize this danger and will make every attempt to prevent it.
The Future of Europe
Donald Trump
A Trump presidency would entail a major reversal of policies for many Eastern European countries, including the Baltic States, Poland, and Ukraine, when it comes to European relations with Russia. Trump has not only publicly questioned the utility of NATO, but has also called for better relations with Russia, both concepts which are anathema to many Eastern European nations. If Trump were to decrease the American footprint in Europe and to attempt to build better relations with Russia, many European nations would be forced to rethink some of their main strategic objectives at the very least. The current government of Ukraine would be one of the biggest losers in Europe should Trump become president and may even be pushed out of power, either peacefully or forcefully, should Trump choose to sacrifice American support for Ukraine in exchange for better relations with Russia, including recognition of Crimea as Russian territory.
A decrease in US forces on mainland Europe as well as American engineered political obstacles to cooperation between Europe and Russia would naturally lead to a blossoming of relations between Europe and Russia. Under a Trump presidency, one may expect a significant rollback of European sanctions on Russia and significant growth in Russia-Europe trade and relations. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe (PACE) would regain influence in regulating Europe-Russia relations. European-Chinese relations would also grow dynamically as ‘Silk Road’ projects through Russia would take on new relevance.
Many so-called ‘Euroskeptic’ movements and otherwise ‘right of center’ political groups would gain influence and perhaps even become part of the mainstream political configuration. Parties like Marine Le Pen’s Front National, Alternative fuer Deutschland, Austria’s Freedom Party, and Golden Dawn in Greece could make a grand entrance into mainstream politics while ruling parties in Hungary and Italy could become even more entrenched. Pushed forward by Brexit, this trend would bring considerable momentum behind the a drive for the dissolution of the European Union, at least for the monetary union, but this remains unlikely.
A Trump presidency may even allow for the start of negotiations between Europe and Russia on a comprehensive trade and political agreement to regulate relations. Numerous politicians, including Francois Mitterand and Vladimir Putin, have spoken about a free trade zone stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostock, but if China has any say in the matter, the zone will extend to Singapore and cover the entire supercontinent of Eurasia. If this concept were to ever become reality, European nations would gain influence over developing nations and receive access to valuable and profitable investment opportunities.
Further, any major agreement between the United States and Russia on Middle Eastern policy would entail a significant slowdown of the current migration crisis as well as a noticeable reduction in terrorist related activity. Europe may even join a coalition of the US and Russia to fight terrorism. Lastly, US missile defense systems in Poland and Romania are likely to be dismantled.
Hillary Clinton
A Hillary Clinton presidency would entail business as usual with Europe and a continuation of the current trends and policies initiated by the Obama administration. The major features of a Clinton presidency would include continued military build-up in Baltic states, continuation of European sanctions against Russia, increased support for the Ukrainian government, increased media hype about the Russian military threat, and a further break-down in the systems that govern Europe-Russia relations, such as the OSCE and PACE.
A Clinton presidency would entail an increase in the number of American troops in mainland Europe as well as an increase in joint US-European defense projects, including expansions of the missile defense project. More US-led NATO troops, groupings, and exercises would take place in the Baltic countries and a Clinton administration would push for Sweden and Finland closer to NATO, with the ultimate purpose to convince the Scandinavian countries to join the military block. Expect increased media reports about air force interceptions and Russian submarine scandals.
Any European Union political party that has a neutral or favorable position to Russia will come under increased scrutiny and will face attacks on multiple fronts, mostly through the media. The EU will work to make examples of governments such as Hungary, Greece, and Italy that actively resist sanctions against Russia and attempt to circumvent sanctions by making their own economic arrangements with Russia.
Europe will be pressured to sign TTIP and will most likely become more and more dependent on the United States for economic and political policy. More LNG terminals will be built on the European mainland so that European countries can import natural gas from America and Qatar so that dependence on Russia is decreased. China will place less of an effort on the Silk Road overland trade route and will have to make a different trade arrangement with Europe.
Middle East migration numbers will continue in full force as US policy in the Middle East will continue to favor interventionist hawks, forcing reluctant European nations to accept more and more refugees from Middle Eastern nations. The threat of terrorism will remain high and terrorist attacks are likely to occur again on European soil.
US Relations with Russia and China
Hillary Clinton
A Clinton administration will continue to play a double game with China, continuing the liberal policies of offshoring production to Chinese companies and maintaining a strong trade relationship on the one hand, but encircling China militarily with naval hardware and trade partnerships with local Chinese rivals. China will have a difficult time trying to push its goods to Europe through the Eurasian continent as the US will actively block attempts to create a Silk Road structure leading either through Russia or through Iran. However, on the surface, the US will continue to maintain a careful policy of wary respect toward China, never making overt insults or provocations and maintaining an air of pretentious respect.
Relations with Russia will be characterized by increased support to Russia’s enemies in Ukraine and Syria, as well as attempts to undermine the governments in Belarus and Central Asian countries. President Clinton will push European allies to increase economic pressure on Russia and media coverage of Russia from all ideological sides of American media will turn increasingly negative. All of this will take place while the United States will continue to do business with Russia as usual, buying rocket engines, space transport services, grain, and even certain types of weapons as if there was no issue in bilateral relations.
Donald Trump
The strategic economic goals of a Trump presidency would almost immediately begin to cause problems for Chinese-American relations. If Trump acts on his promises to raise tariffs for American companies producing goods in foreign countries and then shipping them to the US, many businesses with manufacturing operations in China will be forced to shut down their Chinese subsidiaries, causing significant losses for China. China would potentially experience a major economic downturn as many of its factories and industrial centers would be forced out of business. China would not leave such an unkind gesture unanswered and would most likely sell a significant portion of its US Treasury bills and bonds on the market, or simply demand early payment, leading to a period of financial troubles for the US.
American-Russian relations would potentially enter into a new and unprecedented period of mutual understanding and cooperation. President Trump would work to open Russia’s massive market even further to American companies and would deepen partnerships between the US and Russia in areas like space exploration and development, energy distribution and marketing, and perhaps even reopen programs focusing on purchase and delivery of Russian military hardware to groups supported by the Pentagon, including the program to arm and train the Afghan military with Russian helicopters.
In all, both candidates offer substantially different visions of the future, and it is up to individual voters to decide which vision appears more rational and beneficial for both the United States and the world at large. The Essential Saker: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world $27.95 | 1real |
AMBUSH! Two Iowa Police Officers Dead Man Hunt Underway | We Are Change
Early Wednesday morning, Two Iowa police officers were ambushed and shot and killed in two separate ambush style attacks.
Police from Urbandale and Des Moines departments responded to a report of gunfire at the intersection of 70th Street and Aurora Avenue at approximately 1:06 a.m according to local news DesmoinesRegister.
Officers have not yet identified a suspect or suspects in the shootings and have not identified the deceased officers that were murdered.
One unnamed officer was found dead by fellow officers in Urbandale, at the intersection of 70th Street according to a press conference by Police Sgt. Paul Parizek.
Following by a second officer found in Des Moines, Merle Hay Road both roads and surrounding roads are closed off.
Both officers were gunned down in their squad cars.
Video has emerged of one of the crime scenes at 70th and Aurora.
The scene of the first shooting at 70th and Aurora where an officer was found shot early Wed morning. Some officers in combat gear here. pic.twitter.com/SJEUY4B3gh
— Brian Powers (@bpowersphoto) November 2, 2016
Police Sgt. Paul Parizek addressed the press and citizens of Iowa stating there is a clear and present danger if you’re a police officer. He believes the shootings were targeted.
“There’s literally a clear and present danger if you’re a police officer,”
~Police Sgt. Paul Parizek, said.
“I don’t even know where to begin on how bad this year is but this is what we do. We come in day in and day out, we go out there and provide the same level of service regardless of what’s going on in our personal and professional lives.”
~Police Sgt. Paul Parizek, said.
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad released this statement Wednesday, morning.
“An attack on public safety officers is an attack on the public safety of all Iowans. We call on Iowans to support our law enforcement officials in bringing this suspect to justice. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the police officers who were tragically killed in the line of duty as well as the officers who continue to put themselves in harm’s way.”
~Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, said, in a statement.
https://twitter.com/TerryBranstad/status/793773450670198785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Condolences started pouring in on twitter from all over including the Orlando police department’s twitter account which tweeted out – “Our hearts are broken for @ DMPolice @ UrbandalePolice – an officer from each agency shot & killed in ambush attacks in their cars overnight.”
Our hearts are broken for @DMPolice @UrbandalePolice – an officer from each agency shot & killed in ambush attacks in their cars overnight. https://t.co/d29JxiBGjX
— Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) November 2, 2016
Our thoughts and prayers go out to @UrbandalePolice and @DMPolice officers and their families. pic.twitter.com/4ksZakXk1E
— Ames Police (@AmesPolice) November 2, 2016
(THIS IS DEVELOPING STORY WE WILL UPDATE AS MORE INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.)
The post AMBUSH! Two Iowa Police Officers Dead Man Hunt Underway appeared first on We Are Change .
| 1real |
Factbox: Facts about conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly died on Monday at 92. Following are some facts about her: * Schlafly said she tirelessly fought against the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on the grounds that women were already fully protected and that the amendment would erode women’s standing, leading to homosexual marriages, women in combat, government-funded abortions and loss of alimony. She threw a party in Washington in 1982 to celebrate when the ERA proposal died, having missed its ratification deadline with approval from only 35 of the 38 required states. * While attending Washington University in St. Louis during World War Two, Schlafly worked the night shift at an ordnance plant, firing rifles and machine guns as an ammunition tester. * Schlafly often debated feminist leader Betty Friedan, who called her “a traitor to her sex” and said she’d like to burn her at the stake. Schlafly said Friedan was “always very ugly to deal with and debate and made it clear that she hated me.” * Schlafly was a consistent foe of gay rights even though her oldest child, John, who worked for her Eagle Forum, acknowledged he was a homosexual in 1992. “It’s not a problem for anybody but the press,” she said, adding that John is not a proponent of gay marriage. * Among the decorations in Schlafly’s office were a chunk of the Berlin Wall, a “Doonesbury” cartoon mocking her and a necktie from Ronald Reagan, who was her favorite president in her lifetime. * Schlafly wrote some 20 books, including “Feminist Fantasies,” “The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It,” “Who Will Rock the Cradle?: The Battle for Control of Child Care in America,” “Pornography’s Victims,” “Child Abuse in the Classroom” and “Kissinger on the Couch.” | 0fake |
Cutting Pentagon's acquisition chief post may raise costs: Carter | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A proposal by a U.S. Senate committee to cancel the Defense Department position of acquisition chief could lead to an increase in costs, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday. The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act aims to cancel the position of under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics because it slows innovation. The committee is proposing to divide the responsibilities between a new office in the Pentagon that deals with research and another which would address business management. If the acquisition chief position, currently held by Frank Kendall, was cut, it would separate research and engineering from manufacturing and could derail progress made on lowering growth in contract costs over the last three decades, Carter said at the Sea-Air-Space conference. “Separating these functions makes no sense, as procurement and sustainment costs are controlled by decisions made during development,” Carter said. The proposal still has to take a number of steps before it becomes law. The Senate version of the defense bill must be reconciled with the House’s version before being voted on in both chambers. If passed, that version would be sent to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature, or veto. On Monday, the White House said it would veto the House’s version of the bill because it would shift $18 billion of wartime Overseas Contingency Operations, or OCO, funds to avoid automatic budget cuts to military programs. | 0fake |
Republican Party backs Senate candidate Moore: official | (Reuters) - The Republican Party will resume funding the U.S. Senate campaign of Roy Moore after President Donald Trump endorsed the Alabama Republican, who is accused of sexual misconduct involving teenage girls. The Republican National Committee had transferred $50,000 to the Alabama Republican Party in support of Moore, an RNC official said on Tuesday. No RNC staff have been deployed to the state. The state party can use the money as it sees fit, the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Later on Tuesday, an RNC official said a second transfer for the sum of $120,000 was made to the Alabama state Republican Party on Moore’s behalf, making the total $170,000. The RNC cut ties with Moore last month after several women accused the former Alabama judge of sexual assault or misconduct when they were teenagers and Moore was in his early 30s. Moore, 70, has denied the accusations. Reuters has not independently verified the reports. On Monday, the White House said Trump had called Moore to give him his support. In a tweet that acknowledged the president’s endorsement, Moore quoted Trump as saying: “Go get ‘em, Roy!” In a sign of the deep divide within the Republican Party around the allegations facing Moore, former U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized Trump’s endorsement, as did former RNC Chairman Michael Steele. “Roy Moore in the U.S. Senate would be a stain on the GOP and on the nation,” Romney wrote on Twitter. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last month he believed Moore’s accusers and joined other senators in urging him to quit the race. But on Sunday, the Republican McConnell said it was up to Alabama voters to decide whether to send Moore to Washington. Moore will face off with Democratic candidate and former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones in a special election on Dec. 12. “As I have said before - I believe these women. And so should you,” Jones said in speech on Tuesday. At the White House, Trump told reporters he thought Moore was going to do “very well” in next week’s election. “We don’t want to have a liberal Democrat in Alabama,” Trump said. “We want strong borders, we want stopping crime, we want to have the things that we represent. And we certainly don’t want to have a liberal Democrat that’s controlled by Nancy Pelosi and controlled by Chuck Schumer,” he added in reference to the Democratic leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. | 0fake |
WIKILEAKS RED ALERT: Clinton Camp Exposed Committing Conspiracy To Hide Evidence [VIDEO] | UPDATE FROM BRETT BAIER THIS MORNING: | 1real |
This Tennessee GOP Rep’s Answer To Orlando Is Exactly What’s Wrong With The U.S. | GOP Tennessee State Rep. Andy Holt is done with terrorism. His solution, like with most in ammosexual Republicans, is more guns, because that will suddenly make Muslim men less angry with us, or something. To prove it, Holt is putting his money where his mouth is and he s raffling two AR-15 s, because terrorism.To be fair, Holt had planned this giveaway before the massacre last Sunday morning, but at the same time, Sunday s massacre is only propelling him to go on with it because, a crazed Muslim terrorist shouldn t change the plans or activities that we have as Americans. I think there is nothing more that this particular individual would love, this terrorist, than to think that he has changed a significant number of plans for Americans, and also that maybe gun control measures will be instituted regarding the use of firearms here in the United States because of his actions, Holt said.He added, I don t concede to the idea we should change our plans because this individual inappropriately used a firearm. Source: CNNBecause that s what Americans are thinking about this Father s Day weekend obtaining maximum killing machines. Okay, maybe that is what Americans are thinking about this Father s Day weekend.Here s the video:Holt did concede, though, that maybe, just maybe, it s a bad idea to let people on the terrorist watch list have guns. I think there is a reason for terror suspects not to get firearms. A man that has devoted himself to ISIS and radical Islam, that s a precursor that should disallow an individual to have a firearm. We don t want to go too far, though. He says we have to be strategic, which likely means doing nothing at all about the fact that yes, people on the terrorist watch list, including Omar Mateen, who brutally gunned down 49 people and was once on the list, bought his gun legally. We ll also likely do nothing about guns and mental illness or guns and domestic abusers, or about guns and anything, because in the good old U.S. of A., guns are more important than people.Featured image via video screen capture. | 1real |
Latest House Vote Proves Republicans Are Ready To Go Down With The Russian Ship | With the release of the email chain that proves that Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner met with the Russians with the idea of getting dirt on Hillary Clinton; after Jared Kushner (Donald Trump s son-in-law) failed to disclose multiple meetings with Russians (which is a crime), he has managed to keep his security clearance. Democrats tried to do something about it, but Republicans, who are apparently with Trump till the very end, stopped them.House Democrats proposed an amendment that would strip Kushner of his security clearance. Republicans certainly have to be seeing the writing on the wall at this point Trump and his crew (especially Kushner) are going down but instead of using this opportunity to tell their constituents that they truly stand for law and order, Republicans are digging their heels and are prepared to go down with the ship (excuse the mixed metaphor). They blocked the amendment.Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who chaired the Democratic National Committee during much of last year s campaign cycle, proposed an amendment targeting Kushner during a House Appropriations Committee markup session Thursday. It was voted down, 22-30, along party lines.The measure would have barred the government from issuing or maintaining a security clearance for any White House individual under a criminal investigation by a Federal law enforcement agency for aiding a foreign government. This amendment is an important step in protecting the American people from the threat of hostile foreign interference. That is not a controversial or a political goal, Wasserman Schultz said during the hearing. Revoking Jared Kushner s security clearance would send a clear signal to anyone who would consider aiding and abetting a foreign enemy state to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election that they will not be entrusted with our nation s most sensitive information, she added.Source: Huffington PostThis proves that Republicans have lost all claims to patriotism. They have put party and even Russia before country. That s okay, though. The Trump ship is sinking and Republicans who refuse to jump off will pay dearly at the polls.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1real |
WATCH: Trump Supporter HAMMERS Trump For Committing Treason By Defending Russia | Russia committed espionage against our country and got caught by the CIA, but Donald Trump is desperately defending his buddy Putin to salvage his legitimacy.Seventeen intelligence agencies agree that Russia interfered with our election to help Trump win. Now Russia has the puppet in the White House they have always wanted.Americans are outraged and lawmakers from both political parties are demanding an investigation by Congress. Because if it s confirmed by Congress that Russia helped Trump win, the election results should be invalidated and we should hold a new election or install Hillary Clinton as the rightful winner for the sake of election integrity.But Trump and his team are denying that Russia interfered and are insisting that we should just ignore the facts and move on.And that isn t sitting well with former Tea Party congressman Joe Walsh.Earlier this week, Walsh took to Twitter to personally call for an investigation and blasted Trump for not having the balls to call for one himself.Every Republican swore to defend us against our enemies, including a foreign attack on our electionsAny Republican who won t should resign Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) December 11, 2016I ve said over and over that I d support Trump when he s right & call him out when he s wrong.Well he s wrong about Russia. Dead wrong. Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) December 12, 2016Well, Walsh appeared on CNN on Monday night and tore into Trump for defending Russia instead of believing our intelligence agencies. I m outraged at the lack of outrage, especially on my side, the Republican side, Walsh said. I get that the country is divided, but my god, a foreign government interfered with our election. That should piss everybody off. Indeed, anyone who cares about our country should be outraged.But Walsh continued blasting Trump and his Republican supporters, much to the surprise of host Brooke Baldwin. It s like because our guy won, Trump won, we re going to keep our mouths shut, Walsh said. I mean that s just so wrong. Walsh went on to say that it s a fact that Russia meddled in our political process and said Trump should be ashamed of himself because he s acting like a traitor by siding with Russia over our own intelligence community. For Donald Trump to come out and attack our men and women in the CIA, that s almost treasonous. Russia attacks us and Trump attacks the CIA. He ought to be the one calling for an investigation. Here s the video via YouTube.Donald Trump should not be allowed to take office until a full investigation has come to a conclusion. Our democratic process is too sacred to just ignore the fact that Russia helped Trump win and now they have a puppet they can bend to their will. It s bad for our country and it s bad for the American people.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
Russia accuses U.S.-led coalition of 'barbaric' bombing of Syria's Raqqa | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia accused the U.S.-led coalition in Syria on Sunday of wiping the city of Raqqa off the face of the earth with carpet bombing in the same way the United States and Britain had bombed Germany s Dresden in 1945. The Russian Defence Ministry, which has itself repeatedly been forced to deny accusations from activists and Western politicians of bombing Syrian civilians, said it looked like the West was now rushing to provide financial aid to Raqqa to cover up evidence of its own crimes. Major-General Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Defence Ministry, said in a statement that around 200,000 people had lived in Raqqa before the conflict in Syria, but that not more than 45,000 people remained. U.S.-backed militias in Syria declared victory over Islamic State in Raqqa, the group s capital, last week, raising flags over the last jihadist footholds after a four-month battle. Raqqa has inherited the fate of Dresden in 1945, wiped off the face of the earth by Anglo-American bombardments, said Konashenkov. Most of the German city was destroyed in Allied bombing raids just before the end of World War Two. Though he said Russia welcomed Western promises of financial aid to rebuild Raqqa, Konashenkov complained that numerous Russian requests for the West to give humanitarian aid to Syrian civilians in other parts of the country had been rejected in previous years. What is behind the rush by Western capitals to provide targeted financial help only to Raqqa?, said Konashenkov. There s only one explanation - the desire to cover up evidence of the barbaric bombardments by the U.S. air force and the coalition as fast as possible and to bury the thousands of civilians liberated from Islamic State in the ruins. The U.S.-led coalition says it is careful to avoid civilian casualties in its bombing runs against Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq, and investigates any allegations. It has previously denied killing civilians in air strikes on Raqqa, saying its goal is zero civilian casualties. | 0fake |
Leading Senator In Trump-Russia Investigation Reveals STARTLING Odds For Trump’s Impeachment | Ever since Donald Trump won the election (unfairly, with the help of Russia), Americans have been calling for his removal from office. These pleas have only gotten louder as Trump s presidency went on, as the incompetent POTUS repeatedly proves that he cannot do his job properly and is a danger to the country (and world).Now that Trump has passed his first 100 days, the calls for his impeachment couldn t be clearer. He s proven that he can t get anything done and wants to play golf instead. He s involved in numerous probes regarding his Russia scandal and business conflicts. Amid the controversies and a historically low approval rating, even GOP lawmakers are abandoning Trump at record speed and many are calling for impeachment or for invoking the 25th Amendment, which allows presidents who are mentally unfit to be replaced. Some lawmakers have even said Trump isn t going to finish his first term.Stephen Moore, a senior economist at the Heritage Foundation and Trump campaign adviser, commented on Trump s plummeting approval rating in an interview with the New Yorker: You can t govern this country with a forty-per-cent approval rate you just can t. Nobody in either party is going to bend over backwards for Trump if over half the country doesn t approve of him. That, to me, should be a big warning sign. Jerry Taylor, president of the libertarian Niskanen Center, also weighed in on why Trump s presidency is failing so quickly: The reality is, he is governing as if he is the president of a Third World country. Power is held by family and incompetent loyalists whose main calling card is the fact that Donald Trump can trust them, not whether they have any expertise. My guess is that there s only between 50 and 100 Republican members of the House that are truly enthusiastic about Donald Trump as president. The balance sees him as somewhere between a deep and dangerous embarrassment and a threat to the Constitution. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has even predicted Trump s odds for impeachment as a striking 2-1.Professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School Laurence Tribe said that it s entirely possible that we will invoke the 25th Amendment well before 2020 , and that it s not a liberal fantasy but instead can be an entirely plausible tool especially in Trump s case. At this point, getting Trump impeached would be a blessing.Featured image via Scott Olson / Getty Images | 1real |
Trump Bares Himself at UNGA, “In a Kind of Neocon Full Monte” | President Trump speaking at the UNGA. (Photo: Screenshot)Robert Parry Consortium NewsIn discussing President Trump, there is always the soft prejudice of low expectations people praise him for reading from a Teleprompter even if his words make little sense but there is no getting around the reality that his maiden address to the United Nations General Assembly must rank as one of the most embarrassing moments in America s relations with the global community.Trump offered a crude patchwork of propaganda and bluster, partly delivered as a campaign speech praising his own leadership boasting about the relatively strong U.S. economy that he mostly inherited from President Obama and partly reflecting his continued subservience to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.However, perhaps most importantly, Trump s speech may have extinguished any flickering hope that his presidency might achieve some valuable course corrections in how the United States deals with the world, i.e., shifting away from the disastrous war/interventionist policies of his two predecessors.Before the speech, there was at least some thinking that his visceral disdain for the neoconservatives, who mostly opposed his nomination and election, might lead him to a realization that their policies toward Iran, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere were at the core of America s repeated and costly failures in recent decades.Instead, apparently after a bracing lecture from Netanyahu on Monday, Trump bared himself in a kind of neocon Full Monte: He repeated the Israeli/neocon tripe about Iran destabilizing the Middle East when Shiite-ruled Iran actually has helped stabilize Iraq and Syria against Sunni terrorist groups and other militants supported by Saudi Arabia and to a degree Israel; He again denounced the Iranian nuclear agreement whose main flaw in the eyes of the Israelis and the neocons is that it disrupted their plans to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran, and he called for regime change in Iran, a long beloved dream of the Israelis and the neocons; He repeated the Israeli/neocon propaganda about Hezbollah as a terrorist organization when Hezbollah s real crime was driving the Israeli military out of southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an Israeli occupation that began with Israel s 1982 invasion; He praised his rush-to-judgment decision to bomb Syria last April, in line with Israeli/neocon propaganda against President Bashar al-Assad and partly out of a desire to please the same Washington establishment that is still scheming how to impeach him; He spoke with the crass hypocrisy that the neocons and many Israeli leaders have perfected, particularly his demand that all nations respect the rights of every other sovereign nation when he made clear that he, like his White House predecessors, is ready to violate the sovereignty of other nations that get in Official Washington s way.A Litany of WarsJust this century, the United States has invaded multiple nations without U.N. authorization, based on various coalitions of the willing and other subterfuges for wars of aggression, which the Nuremberg Tribunals deemed the supreme international crime and which the U.N. was specifically created to prevent.Not only did President George W. Bush invade both Afghanistan and Iraq while also sponsoring anti-terror operations in many other countries but President Barack Obama acknowledged ordering military attacks in seven countries, including against the will of sovereign states, such as Libya and Syria. Obama also supported a violent coup against the elected government of Ukraine.For his part, Trump already has shown disdain for international law by authorizing military strikes inside Yemen and Syria. In other words, if not for the fear of provoking American anger, many of the world s diplomats might have responded with a barrage of catcalls toward Trump for his blatant hypocrisy. Without doubt, the United States is the preeminent violator of sovereignty and international law in the world today, yet Trump wagged his finger at others, including Russia (over Ukraine) and China (over the South China Sea).He declared: We must reject threats to sovereignty, from the Ukraine to the South China Sea. We must uphold respect for law, respect for borders, and respect for culture, and the peaceful engagement these allow. Then, with a seeming blindness to how much of the world sees the United States as a law onto itself, Trump added: The scourge of our planet today is a small group of rogue regimes that violate every principle on which the United Nations is based. Of course, in the U.S. mainstream media s commentary that followed, Trump s hypocrisy went undetected. That s because across the American political/media establishment, the U.S. right to act violently around the world is simply accepted as the way things are supposed to be. International law is for the other guy; not for the indispensible nation, not for the sole remaining superpower. On Bibi s LeashDespite some of his America First rhetoric tossed in as red meat to his base Trump revealed a global outlook that differed from the Bush-Obama neoconservative/liberal-interventionist approach in words only. In substance, Trump appears to be just the latest American poodle on Bibi Netanyahu s leash.For instance, Trump bragged about attacking Syria over a dubious chemical-weapons claim while ignoring the role of the Saudi/Israeli tandem in assisting Al Qaeda and its Syrian affiliate; Trump threatened the international nuclear agreement with Iran while calling for regime change in Tehran, two of Netanyahu s top priorities; and Trump warned that he would totally destroy North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs while making no mention of Israel s rogue nuclear arsenal and sophisticated delivery capabilities.Ignoring Saudi Arabia s ties to terrorism, Trump touted his ludicrous summit in Riyadh in which he danced with swords and let King Salman and other corrupt Persian Gulf monarchs, who have long winked and nodded at ideological and logistical support going to Al Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups, pretend their governments were joining an anti-terror coalition.Exploding the myth that he is at least a street-smart operator who can t be easily conned, Trump added, In Saudi Arabia early last year, I was greatly honored to address the leaders of more than 50 Arab and Muslim nations. We agreed that all responsible nations must work together to confront terrorists and the Islamist extremism that inspires them. No wonder Netanyahu seemed so pleased with Trump s speech. The Israeli prime minister could have written it himself while allowing Trump to add a few crude flourishes, like calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Rocket Man on a suicide mission ; referring to the loser terrorists ; and declaring that many parts of the world are going to hell. Trump also tossed in a plug for his new strategy for victory in Afghanistan and threw in some interventionist talk regarding the Western Hemisphere with more threats to Cuba and Venezuela about escalating sanctions and other activities to achieve more regime change solutions.So, what Trump made clear in his U.N. address is that his America First and pro-sovereignty rhetoric is simply cover for a set of policies that are indistinguishable from those pushed by the neocons of the Bush administration or the liberal interventionists of the Obama administration. The rationalizations may change but the endless wars and regime change machinations continue. Watch Trump s full speech here: *** READ MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Breaking: Hillary Admits Guilt With 10 Revealing Words Most People Missed | Breaking: Hillary Admits Guilt With 10 Revealing Words Most People Missed Posted on October 30, 2016 by Alisha Rich in Politics Share This
Hillary Clinton held a short press conference to address the American people after the news about the FBI reopening its investigation on her secret email server went public. In her short and quick statement, she carefully explained that the American people have nothing to worry about. However, without even realizing it, she incriminated herself by admitting her guilt with just ten revealing words that most people missed.
Just when Hillary Clinton thought she was in the clear and free from any further questions regarding her criminal behavior, the FBI found more evidence and reopened their investigation on her secret e-mail server. Instead of preparing for the upcoming election and sealing in as many last votes as she can, Hillary’s been forced to redirect some of her attention on covering up her own lies.
During her press conference to address the public, she desperately tried to convince us all that there’s nothing to be worried about. An unidentified reporter asked, “What would you say to a voter who right now will be seeing you and hearing what you’re saying, saying I didn’t trust her before. I don’t trust her anymore right now. And they’re heading to the ballot box tomorrow.”
Hillary’s response to this question proved her guilt with it all – and nearly everyone missed it. “You know, I think people a long time ago made up their minds about the e-mails. I think that’s factored into what people think and now they are choosing a president,” Hillary began, according to The Gateway Pundit .
However, her next ten words are what incriminates her. “I would urge everybody to get out and vote early,” Hillary said.
In other words, it must be worse than we thought, and she needs her supporters to go out and vote before the investigation reveals her criminal behavior. She doesn’t want the FBI to release more information and sway her supporters to vote elsewhere, ruining her chance to be president. She’s guilty and desperate for votes. The only way she can secure those voters is if she convinces her mindless sheep to vote early before all of her dirty deeds become known.
If I were Donald Trump, I’d be doing a happy dance. The real Hillary Clinton is about to be exposed, and it’s all happening mere days before the election. | 1real |
The Rocky Relationship of Donald Trump and Paul Ryan, a History - The New York Times | Speaker Paul D. Ryan treads a fine line between disavowing some of the Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s more inflammatory remarks and disavowing Mr. Trump himself. We mapped out Mr. Ryan’s rhetorical footwork: A statement from Donald Trump’s campaign on barring Muslim immigrants: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. ” He added, “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. ” Mr. Ryan: “This is not conservatism. What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for and, more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for. ” _____ Mr. Ryan, on endorsing Mr. Trump: “I’m just not ready to do that at this point. I’m not there right now. And I hope to, though, and I want to. ” _____ Mr. Ryan, on a meeting with Mr. Trump: “It was important that we discussed our differences that we have. But it was also important that we discuss the core principles that tie us together. ” _____ Mr. Ryan on when he might give his endorsement: “I don’t have a timeline in my mind, and I have not made a decision. Nothing has changed from that perspective, and we’re still having productive conversations. ” _____ Mr. Ryan endorses Mr. Trump: “Through these conversations, I feel confident he would help us turn the ideas in this agenda into laws to help improve people’s lives. That’s why I’ll be voting for him this fall. ” _____ Mr. Trump, on a judge of “Mexican heritage” presiding over Trump University cases: “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest. ” Mr. Ryan: “I disavow these comments — I regret those comments that he made. Claiming a person can’t do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment. ” But not retracting his endorsement: “I believe that we have more common ground on the policy issues of the day and we have more likelihood of getting our policies enacted with him than with her. ” _____ Mr. Ryan, addressing the Republican National Convention: “Only with Donald Trump and Mike Pence do we have a chance at a better way. ” _____ Mr. Trump, on Khizr Khan’s remarks that he has not sacrificed: “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. ” Mr. Trump, on Ghazala Khan: “If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me. ” Mr. Ryan’s spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, after Mr. Khan called on Mr. Ryan to repudiate Mr. Trump: “The speaker has made clear many times that he rejects this idea, and himself has talked about how Muslim Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. ” _____ Mr. Ryan, in a statement, on honoring military sacrifice: “America’s greatness is built on the principles of liberty and preserved by the men and women who wear the uniform to defend it. As I have said on numerous occasions, a religious test for entering our country is not reflective of these fundamental values. I reject it. Many Muslim Americans have served valiantly in our military, and made the ultimate sacrifice. Captain Khan was one such brave example. His sacrifice — and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan — should always be honored. Period. ” | 0fake |
ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISTS Videotape Themselves Carving A Quote Into Trump Golf Course Green…The Liberal Media Calls It “A Daring Act of Defiance” [Video] | The social media director for Trump called them out on it:Now we have the Washington Post accepting a videotape from crazy environmentalists who carved six feet tall letters into the 5th green on Trump s golf course. They were so proud of their vandalism that they gave details to the Post of how long it took to vandalize the property.When I went to the article to read it, there was a disclaimer at the top. Well, if you go to the comments section at the end of the article, the comments are mostly ripping on the environmentalists AND the articles reference to the vandalism as a DARING ACT OF DEFIANCE . So the editor replaced the phrase with a more accurate term of VANDALISM WHAT THESE PEOPLE DID IS DISGUSTING AND SO WRONG GLORIFYING DESTRUCTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IS NEVER OK SHAME ON YOU WAPO!Editor s note: The beginning of this story was changed to more accurately reflect the nature of the actions taken by a protest group against the Trump golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.The group which labels itself an anonymous environmental activist collective snuck into Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., and carved a message into the green with six-foot-tall letters that said: NO MORE TIGERS. NO MORE WOODS. The 18-hole, 7,300-yard course is set among cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean just south of Los Angeles. Last year, Golf Digest ranked it the 43rd best course in California.In a statement sent to The Washington Post, the group said the vandalism was carried out in response to the Trump administration s blatant disregard for the environment: Tearing up the golf course felt justified in many ways, the member said. Repurposing what was once a beautiful stretch of land into a playground for the privileged is an environmental crime in its own right. In response to the president s recent decision to gut our existing protection policies, direct action was conceived and executed on the green of his California golf course in the form of a simple message: NO MORE TIGERS. NO MORE WOODS, the statement said.Read more: WaPo | 1real |
Republicans Flip Out Over Law That Would Require Women To Register For The Draft | Far too many people don t understand the awesome simplicity of the Republican war on women. They try to analyze the underlying causes; blame some on religion, some on chauvinism. Overthinking is a strictly Democratic problem. To the good ol white boys club of the GOP, women are just inferior creatures in need of nurturing: weak and restrained; helpless at best. Yeah, sadly it really is just that simple to figure out why their war exists. They have no respect for their mothers. Ouch OK, that was harsh. Republicans, in general, find women to be beneath them. Republican women depend on their men because their fathers told them to, just like their mothers told them to just pull the Republican lever and vote the straight ticket.Naturally when the time came to review the guidelines for selective service, Republicans went bonkers. It seems women have always been exempted from the draft because they weren t allowed to be in combat roles and the draft is for extreme-case national emergencies where combat would be likely. Things have changed. Women are now allowed in not some but ALL combat roles if they can pass the training the same as a man. Two women made national headlines as the first members of the Army Rangers earlier this year, they probably would have gladly signed up at 18 for the draft we haven t used since we stopped sending kids off to be slaughtered in Vietnam in 1973.Republicans still can t reconcile. Rep Duncan Hunter (R-CA) told The Hill: The draft is there to get more people to rip the enemy s throats out. I don t want to see my daughters put in a place where they have to get drafted. You mean you wouldn t want to see your daughters treated as equals among their peers. You wouldn t want to witness how incredibly strong any human being can be when put into extraordinary circumstances. You want them at home, right next to your sons, watching the horrors of war turned into a game show on Fox News. It s difficult as a father to imagine your daughters trotting off to war. It s just as difficult to imagine my son going. Hunter was right. The draft is there for extreme situations to get more people to rip the enemy s throat out. Do we just keep searching through the men and eliminate half the population s prospective ability to do just that? I don t know if these old men have been paying attention, but women aren t the delicate flowers they once were in the stone age when they were kids.The amendment passed the Armed Services Committee and moves forward to the house floor where a bunch more men will debate how awful it would be for their daughters to fight for their country and their freedom while they happily send the sons of the poor and working class and anyone who commits a misdemeanor who has a penis. There are a ton of exemptions available for people to be excluded from the draft, and certainly motherhood would be one. Don t worry, Republicans, there won t be moms pushing strollers across battlefields just yet.Featured image from Daniel Bendji/Getty Images | 1real |
APEC ministers end talks after wrangling over trade wording for U.S. | DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - Ministers from Asia-Pacific countries ended their meeting on Thursday with a very good outcome , despite differing views on trade and protectionism, Vietnamese Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh told a news conference. Talks among trade and foreign ministers from Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries on a communique for leaders were extended into a second day in the face of U.S. demands for changes to the language used concerning issues such as free trade and protectionism, officials at the talks said. There were diverse views, but we were able to conclude with very good outcome, which reflects the interests of all APEC economies, the Vietnamese minister said, referring specifically to trade and protectionism. | 0fake |
Ted Cruz Reveals Paranoid Fantasy Involving Obama, A Chisel, And Arlington Cemetery (TWEETS) | Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz stunned audiences on the campaign trail this week with a piece of paranoid fantasy that would make Alex Jones blush. On Wednesday, Cruz reportedly told crowds:Cruz: "We're just steps away from the chisels at Arlington coming out to remove crosses and stars of David from tombstones." daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 6, 2016For most rational human beings, this statement would occur as a flight of fear-mongering fancy so far beyond the bounds of reality that it was laughable. But, he is appealing to Republican voters after all a majority of whom believe the Earth was created 5000 years ago, by an omnipotent God.But even for a GOP candidate, this is out there. So, what on earth prompted this moment of insanity?Context of that Cruz nightmare of crosses being chiseled off soldiers' tombstones: It could happen if 5 liberals dominate SCOTUS daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 6, 2016Seriously, that s it. Apparently Senator Cruz believes that the only thing restraining Obama from sneaking into Arlington with a chisel and removing religious symbols from the gravestones, is the presence of conservatives on the Supreme Court of the United States.Could it be that the GOP hopeful s rant had less to do with Arlington, and more to do with the fact that the birther conspiracy has blown up in his face?Cruz, born in Canada to a U.S. citizen mother and a Cuban father, is now facing the Birther conspiracy that he so enjoyed inflicting upon President Obama. The three requirements to be President of the United States are:The definition of Natural Born Citizen is still unsettled in U.S. law, meaning that Cruz is far more open to genuine challenge by the Birther movement than Hawaii native Barack Obama.This sounds like the desperate rant of a candidate in trouble. As Driftglass points out expertly:Ted Cruz knows the rotting, raving heart of the GOP perfectly well. From his dentist s drill voice to the transparently concocted, treacly fascism of his style, he has spent his adult life meticulously constructing a public persona to fit the madness of his party hand-in-glove.And he is not going to let some interloping radioactive Chia-publican sweep in and steal his brownshirt chumps.Awkward.Featured Image via Flickr Creative Commons | 1real |
Japan detects radio signals pointing to possible North Korea missile test: source | TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japan has detected radio signals suggesting North Korea may be preparing another ballistic missile launch, although such signals are not unusual and satellite images did not show fresh activity, a Japanese government source said on Tuesday. After firing missiles at a pace of about two or three a month since April, North Korean missile launches paused in September, after it fired a rocket that passed over Japan s northern Hokkaido island. This is not enough to determine (if a launch is likely soon), the source told Reuters. Japan s Kyodo news agency reported late on Monday that the Japanese government was on alert after catching such radio signals, suggesting a launch could come in a few days. The report also said the signals might be related to winter military training by the North Korean military. North Korea is pursuing its nuclear weapons and missile programmes in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions and has made no secret of its plans to develop a missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. It has fired two missiles over Japan. South Korea s Yonhap news agency, citing a South Korean government source, also reported that intelligence officials of the United States, South Korea and Japan had recently detected signs of a possible missile launch and have been on higher alert. South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon told reporters on Tuesday there have been noteworthy movements from the North since its last missile launch in mid-September, but there was no hard evidence of another nuclear or missile test. North Korea hasn t been engaging in new nuclear or missile tests but recently we ve seen them persistently testing engines and carrying out fuel tests, said Cho at a media event in Seoul. But we need some more time to see whether these are directly related to missile and nuclear tests. Asked about the media reports, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters the United States continued to watch North Korea very closely. This is a diplomatically led effort at this point, supported by military options, he said. The Republic of Korea and U.S. alliance remains strong and capable of countering any North Korean provocations or attacks. Two U.S. government sources familiar with official assessments of North Korean capabilities and activities said that while they were not immediately familiar with recent intelligence suggesting that North Korea was preparing to launch a new missile test, the U.S. government would not be surprised if such a test were to take place in the very near future. Other U.S. intelligence officials noted North Korea has previously sent deliberately misleading signs of preparations for missile and nuclear tests, in part to mask real preparations, and in part to test U.S. and allied intelligence on its activities. South Korea s Cho said North Korea may announce the completion of its nuclear programme within a year, as it is moving more faster than expected in developing its arsenal. North Korea defends its weapons programmes as a necessary defence against U.S. plans to invade. The United States, which stations 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war, denies any such intention. | 0fake |
Venezuela confirms ex-oil bosses Del Pino, Martinez detained | CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela s state prosecutor confirmed on Thursday that former oil bosses Eulogio Del Pino and Nelson Martinez were detained in the early hours of Thursday as part of a sweeping graft probe that is ridding the OPEC member of many of its top executives. Del Pino was arrested for alleged participation in a $500 corruption scandal at the Petrozamora joint venture, while Martinez was held for allegedly allowing a refinancing deal for U.S.-based refiner Citgo to go ahead without government approval, prosecutor Tarek Saab said. | 0fake |
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT…When We Said “Lock Her Up” We Weren’t Asking [VIDEO] | When he was running for president, Donald Trump made locking up Hillary Clinton for her criminal behavior a centerpiece of his campaign. Just the mere mention of her name would send supporters at his massive rallies into a wild chant, as they screamed, LOCK HER UP! Trump s supporters weren t chanting to be cute. Trump supporters were chanting because after decades of evading the law, Americans were quite serious about expecting candidate Donald Trump to follow through on his campaign promise to hold her accountable, and make her pay for her crimes, just like any other American would be expected to do. When we told @realDonaldTrump to LOCK HER UP! we weren t asking Mr. President, please deliver on your promise. pic.twitter.com/A6lWKhv3Yu Newt-Trump Fan Club (@NewtTrump) May 9, 2017 | 1real |
Philippine lawmakers reject fifth Duterte cabinet pick | MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine lawmakers rejected President Rodrigo Duterte s choice of health secretary on Tuesday, making her the fifth cabinet member to have been turned down since Duterte came to power. No reason was given for the rejection of Paulyn Ubial, who has been in public office for 27 years. In the Philippines, all cabinet ministers must be approved by the Commission on Appointments and hearings can take place long after they start work. Senator Gregorio Honasan, chairman of the commission s health committee, said it had decided to withhold its consent to the appointment of Ubial. He did not elaborate. Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella expressed regret, saying the government was grateful for her service. Duterte has enjoyed strong opinion poll numbers since winning the presidency in last year s elections but heavy scrutiny of his war on drugs, which has killed thousands of Filipinos, appears to have impacted his ratings. Trust and satisfaction in Duterte fell to the lowest of his presidency in the third quarter of this year, a survey showed on Sunday, although sentiment about his leadership remained positive overall. Lawmakers have also rejected the appointments of Duterte s foreign, environment, agrarian reform and social welfare ministers. Two of the ministers were recommended by Maoist rebel leaders who were still talking peace with the government. Duterte has stopped the negotiations because of continuing violence. Duterte s picks for foreign and environment ministers, Alan Peter Cayetano and Roy Cimatu, have been confirmed. | 0fake |
Top Hillary Clinton Adviser Said Despite Mistakes, Campaign Faced ’A Perfect Storm’ of Problems - Breitbart | Top Hillary Clinton adviser Karen Finney said on CNN Sunday that Clinton’s campaign faced “a perfect storm” of problems that cost her the election, the Daily Mail reported. [“Look, there are any number of things that you could point to to say that it was a mistake that we made that probably has some merit to it, because it was such a perfect storm of a lot of different things,” Finney told Jake Tapper, sitting on a panel of Democrats on CNN’s State of the Union. Finney said there was no “magic bullet” that could have changed the direction of the doomed campaign. Even though she said the campaign was doomed, she also said that it was a close race. “Particularly when you look at the fact that in those Rust Belt states … that gap is about 70, 000 votes that we’re talking about,” she continued. “A majority of those people agreed with [Clinton] on the economy, thought she’d be better on the economy,’ Finney said. ‘And she’s won 2. 8 million more in the popular vote. ” Finney suggested to Tapper that outreach could be better, like former DNC chairman Howard Dean’s “ strategy” that helped Obama get elected. “I think we need to learn some of the lessons coming out of this election, no question, in terms of how we talk to working families, whether they are black, white, brown and where those families are located, how we talk to them about the issues they care about,” Finney said. “But I don’t think that this is an example of, you know, there are one or two things that was just flip a switch and everything will be perfect,” she said. In November, Finney blamed the election loss on everything but Clinton, saying she lost because of sexism, James Comey, and the media, among other reasons, the Washington Free Beacon reported. | 0fake |
MAJOR OUTDOOR CLOTHING COMPANY With Ties To Human Trafficking Wages War On President Trump Over Outrageous Obama Land Grab | The CEO of outdoor clothing giant Patagonia is burnishing her anti-Republican bona fides again, this time saying she intends to pledge her entire company to the resistance of President Donald Trump.Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario recently attacked President Trump for his statements about rolling back President Obama s unusually aggressive campaign of confiscating millions of acres of state lands and claiming them as national monuments. We have to fight like hell to keep every inch of public land, Marcario said in a May article at Huffpost. I don t have a lot of faith in politics and politicians right now. In an effort to prevent citizens from retaking possession of their state lands, one of her immediate actions will be to sue the Trump administration for its efforts to scale back Obama s unprecedented land grab. A president does not have the authority to rescind a national monument, Marcario said in an April 26 statement after Trump announced his national monuments order. An attempt to change the boundaries ignores the review process of cultural and historical characteristics and the public input. In particular, the Trump administration is preparing to revisit Obama s order to create the Bears Ears National Monument. In April, Trump issued an executive order requiring the Department of the Interior to review Obama s actions on national monuments. Ordering Interior Secretary Ray Zinke to review Obama s policies in April, President Trump called Obama s move an egregious abuse of federal power. Many state governments fully agree with Trump s assessment and were furious when Obama swooped in from Washington and stole away millions of acres of land from state control to create new national monuments and parks.A poll of residents of Utah, for instance, showed that 60 percent opposed Obama s land grab, while only 33 percent supported it.This is far from the first time the sportswear company pledged its profits to political matters. Last year, the California-based company spent over $1 million for a get-out-the-vote campaign to defeat Donald Trump and Republicans. BreitbartPatagonia is an accredited and founding member of the Fair Labor Association; its website is as much an educational tool about environmental and social responsibility filled with information on issues such as preservation of land in Chile, labeling GMO products, and responsible sourcing as it is an online store. In a note launching the company s food division, Patagonia Provisions, company founder Yvon Chouinard restated the brand s central ethos: We aim to make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and perhaps most important, inspire solutions to the environmental crisis. And yet, despite these aspirations, four years ago internal audits turned up multiple instances of human trafficking, forced labor, and exploitation in Patagonia s supply chain, according to Cara Chacon, the company s director of social and environmental responsibility, and Thuy Nguyen, the manager of supply chain social responsibility and special programs. | 1real |
Earth’s Magnetic Field is COLLAPSING and The Poles Are About To Switch | posted by Eddie As it turns out – according to studies— our planets magnetic field could flip in our lifetime. According to experts , the position of the South Pole has shifted and is not located precisely at Antarctica, the North Pole is also believed to be ‘racing’ across the Arctic Ocean. Earth’s magnetic field appears to be collapsing which could severely damage our climate and WIPE OUT power grids across the world. Our planet’s magnetic field exists because Earth has a massive ‘ball of iron’ at its core which is surrounded by an outer layer of molten metal. As the earth’s magnetic field varies over time, the positions of the north and south magnetic poles gradually change. The magnetic declination at a given location also changes over time. As it turns out a lot has changed in the last couple of hundred years, and to see what we are taking about visit NOAA and take a look at Historical Magnetic Declination . Interestingly, according to previous studies, Earth’s magnetic field – which shields our planet from blasts of deadly solar radiation has dangerously weakened in the last couple of years. According to reports from the European Space Agency , the biggest weak spots seen in the magnetic field are located in the western hemisphere. Experts are unsure why the magnetic field is weakening but one of the MOST LIKELY reasons is that our planets magnetic poles are getting ready to flip said Rune Floberghagen, the ESA’s Swarm mission manager. Researchers have concluded that the magnetic field had diminished at a rate of around five percent per century. However, new studies who that the magnetic field is weakening at an accelerated rate of five percent per decade –meaning that it is deteriorating five times faster than previously believed. If we take a look at the animation of secular variation in geomagnetic total intensity for the last 400 years, we will see that the magnetic field began weakening in 1600 . Animation of secular variation in geomagnetic total intensity for the last 400 years: Furthermore, the magnetic field weakened a staggering 10 percent from the 1800’s to 2000. Ok so… what would happen if it really flips? According to experts, if the pole switch does happen the entire planet and everything on it will become exposed to solar winds which could punch giant holes into the ozone layer which in turn could have a devastating effect on mankind. If the planet’s Magnetosphere starts collapsing power grids could collapse, the weather would abruptly change and humans would have serious health risks. According to reports from the European Space Agency, as of 2014 the magnetic field is continuing to weaken rapidly . With the help of SWARM, scientists have obtained unprecedented insights into the complex workings of Earth’s magnetic field. Reports show that the general trend of the magnetic field is weakening and the most dramatic declines are present over the Western Hemisphere.
The latest measurements also confirm the movement of magnetic North towards Siberia. It is believed that the magnetic field is speeding away at a rate of about 40 miles per year. But what is most terrifying is perhaps a study that warns that magnetic reversals lead to extinction events. The highlights of the study indicate : Geomagnetic field reversal substantially weakens the protection for the atmosphere. Solar wind energizes more oxygen ions to escape when geomagnetic field is weakened. Oxygen escape may explain the drop of atmospheric level during mass extinction. The causal relation between reversal and mass extinction should be “many-to-one”. The simulated oxygen escape rate based on knowledge of Mars support our hypothesis. Furthermore, it is believed that magnetic reversals can be responsible for floods of biblical proportions as you can see in the video below:
source: | 1real |
ABC News’ Terry Moran: Trump Inauguration Speech Had ‘Anti-Semitic Overtones’ - Breitbart | Terry Moran of ABC News put on his hat and declared President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech had “overtones” of the 1930s “ movement” because the President dared to put the words “America’ and “first” together.[ “However, it carries with it overtones from the 1930s, when an movement saying, ‘We don’t want to get involved in Europe’s war. It’s the Jews’ fault in Germany,’” he pontificated, before adding ominously, “Charles Lindbergh led them. ” “It is a term, as he defined it his way, but the words themselves carry very ugly echoes in our history,” said Moran, serving notice the new President that he must carefully consider the psychotic delusions of paranoid ABC News reporters before choosing his every word. Apparently Trump can explain what he means a million times without exorcising the ghost of Charles Lindbergh from certain imaginations. This is an especially outrageous charge to level at Trump when his inauguration included the first benediction from an Orthodox rabbi ever, and the first Jewish prayer since Ronald Reagan’s second inaugural. Not only that, but Rabbi Marvin Hier is the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. He’s probably a lot better than Terry Moran at detecting actual . Trump’s daughter Ivanka converted to Orthodox Judaism before she was married to Jared Kushner in 2009. Trump declared himself “glad” about her decision in public. He’s also been very public about his support for Israel, including his intention to move the U. S. embassy to Jerusalem. His predecessor, Barack Obama, closed out his second term with a spectacular betrayal of Israel at the United Nations, winning loud applause from people openly pledged to murdering Jews. Did that make Terry Moran’s detector twitch a bit? People who listened to Trump’s speech probably found it a nice change of pace to have an American president who thinks the needs of the American people come first for a change, just as most other world leaders tend to work for the best interests of their respective nations. While they were having these thoughts, squads of were smashing windows, blocking traffic, and assaulting police officers across Washington, D. C. If they had Terry Moran’s finely tuned sense of historical irony, they’d have been wearing brown shirts instead of black. Moran didn’t invent this smear — many other Trump critics have previously accused him of using “America first” language to send coded messages to or of witlessly using the phrase without understanding its pedigree. Some of the same people think Trump deliberately quoted the Batman supervillain Bane in his inaugural speech. | 0fake |
What Bill O’Reilly Just Said About Women Proves He’s A Certified A**hole (VIDEO) | Bill O Reilly has said some ridiculous things on his show over the years and his so-called conservatism has translated into outright bigotry and nonsense in many cases. That tradition continued with yet another nonsensical statement, this time about women. Watch the video here:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za05IPc8F-U]It all started with O Reilly s interpretation of what Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton said during the Democratic debates on the issue of abortion, believing that both candidates say they want few limits on abortion. During an interview with Fox News analyst Kirsten Powers, O Reilly said: If you are going to say that the two Democrats running for president both favor pretty much abortion at any time, for any reason, and they hide behind the women s health issue, but that could be a migraine headache, you know. OK, I don t want to have the kid, my boyfriend left me, my husband left me, whatever it may be, I got a migraine, kid is going to be born next week. Let s get- Powers interrupted, saying, I don t think that many people get abortions because they have a migraine headache. O Reilly continued: OK, it doesn t matter. It s theoretical. When you have two candidates saying they don t want any limitations in the law place, they don t want any. That can happen. And we know what happened in Kansas, did that big investigation on Tiller you know what happened there. And so that s so radical and so far away from what the American people want. That s just one example. O Reilly has proven himself to lack any credibility whatsoever and his male privilege is disturbing to watch. When will people learn that a woman has a right to choose? After all, in the end, it s the woman s body and O Reilly s nonsense is typical of males believing they have authority over a woman s body as well as her choices.I m looking forward to the day when this guy s show gets cancelled.Featured image via video screenshot. | 1real |
Jeb Bush Blames THE POPE For Making Him Lose The GOP Nomination (VIDEO) | While most people have pretty much forgotten that Florida Governor Jeb Bush was actually a Republican presidential candidate not too long ago, it seems that he can t let it go. After being overshadowed by candidates like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and the party s presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, Jeb has come to the surface to let everyone know that it wasn t his fault he lost.On Monday, the younger Bush reminded everyone that just like his big brother, he is also capable of spewing moronic garbage. In an interview with former Bush press secretary Nicolle Wallace, sore loser Jeb! made sure to remind Americans that the real reason he didn t win in South Carolina was because of the Pope.In discussing what went wrong in his presidential campaign that prevented him from surpassing the other candidates, Jeb said, The Pope intervening in American politics didn t help. Wallace was shocked and pointed out You re Catholic, blaming the Pope! Bush reiterated that he wasn t blaming the Pope but clearly Pope Francis inconvenient mass had cost Jeb everything: No, no. I m not blaming. Talking about, basically, open borders at a time with the whole Trump phenomenon was to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. he goes to the border for a massive mass, and he had every right to preach the gospel there, I don t think he should be intervening, I don t think he understood he was intervening in our political affairs. That generated a lot of news and stopped the momentum. When Wallace asked Jeb to specify just how Pope Francis had helped the media kill his campaign, Jeb explained: The news cycle was dominated by that. Trump, to his credit, was very smart at exploiting these kind of opportunities. He s a master at understanding how the media works more than anybody I ve ever seen in politics, kudos for him for kind of creating the environment and then manipulating the environment to his effect. Jeb s comments are so ridiculous, they might as well have come from Ben Carson. Not only is Jeb criticizing the Pope, but he s praising Trump, who dissed the Catholic leader. Jeb is also in an insane amount of denial over the three-way tie for second place, because he seriously thinks that if the Pope hadn t ruined everything, he could have won. According to statistics, Trump, Rubio and Cruz all had over 22 percent of the vote each. Jeb lost South Carolina with 7.8 percent. But I m sure it was because of the Pope. You can watch Jeb blame the demise of his disastrous campaign on the world s most famous religious leader below:Featured image via Gage Skidmore and Martin Schulz | 1real |
Corporate tax reform negotiators aim above Trump's 15 percent pledge | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump campaigned on cutting the U.S. corporate tax rate to 15 percent, but administration officials said on Monday negotiators engaged in closed-door talks are now shooting for a little over 20 percent because they realize the super-low rate would balloon the federal deficit. Republican leaders in the House of Representatives and the Senate are unlikely to allow the budget deficit to grow, so officials said they now hope for a corporate tax at the low end of a 20 percent to 25 percent range. “It’s going to be truly deficit neutral,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady told reporters. “We’re going for permanence. That means our reforms have to balance in the budget.” Six months into Trump’s presidency, Republicans who control House, Senate and the White House have yet to agree on important features of a tax code overhaul. Under Senate rules, Republicans who want to take advantage of their simple majority and pass tax legislation without Democratic support must show the new policies will not add to the federal deficit after 10 years. Cutting the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from a current 35 percent would cost more than $2 trillion over a decade, according to independent analysts, and that total would be hard to offset when proposals to raise revenue face broad political opposition. “I don’t think there are $2 trillion of politically saleable offsets on the corporate side of the ledger,” said Rohit Kumar, a former aide to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell who now serves as a principal in the tax policy group at the consulting and accounting firm PwC LLP. Two House Republican proposals could help pay for such a reduction: a border adjustment tax and a proposed elimination of business deduction of debt interest payments. But these face broad opposition from industry and many Republican lawmakers. Administration officials hope the negotiators will agree on a plan by the end of July, convert it to legislation during August, unveil it in September and have Trump sign it into law well before the end of 2017. Independent analysts and lobbyists say a more likely timeline would see the release of tax legislation in October or November and a vote in early 2018. The negotiators, Brady, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch, have yet to agree on a new corporate tax rate or how to pay for tax cuts. They also have yet to agree on which tax breaks to eliminate or whether to include a controversial border tax on imports. They want to end taxation on the foreign profits of U.S. multinational corporations and must agree on a measure to stop U.S. corporations from moving headquarters and shifting profits overseas. Lobbyists say the group is likely to consider a minimum tax on foreign corporate earnings as an alternative to the border tax. Some Republicans in Congress acknowledge that it will be a challenge to identify tax code changes that can unite party factions now battling over healthcare and a fiscal 2018 budget that includes a legislative tool crucial for passing tax legislation without Democratic votes. “The question is, can we get a framework that has a chance of passage? And the answer to that is, we’ll see,” Hatch told reporters after taking part in a principals meeting last week. | 0fake |
Trump Lashes Out At Puerto Ricans, Calls Them ‘Ingrates’ In Self-Congratulatory Tweets | Again, these are AMERICAN citizens he is talking about.If Donald Trump had treated Texas and Florida the way he is treating Puerto Rico right now, there would be riots in the streets and massive protests in front of the White House.But apparently, people don t seem to understand that the people of Puerto Rico are American citizens who should be given the same respect and treatment that Texans and Floridians received after hurricanes slammed their states.Trump has not done that so far. Not only was he too slow in responding because he focused more on trying to force NFL players to stand during the national anthem, he has not sent nearly enough troops or equipment or supplies to Puerto Rico. And he is insulting them to add insult to injury.Trump has taken to Twitter to constantly brag about the recovery operation despite his response being worse than President George W. Bush s response to Hurricane Katrina. Puerto Rico was devastated by two Category 5 hurricanes, yet less water and food has been sent to the island.When Trump s administration tried to frame the disaster as a good news story, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz fired back by pointing out that people are dying. Trump threw a temper tantrum in response and suggested that Puerto Ricans are lazy people who won t help themselves.On Sunday morning, Trump lashed out again. While bragging about the recovery effort as if it s the best recovery effort in history, Trump congratulated himself and called Puerto Ricans who criticize the weak effort ingrates. We have done a great job with the almost impossible situation in Puerto Rico. Outside of the Fake News or politically motivated ingrates, Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017 people are now starting to recognize the amazing work that has been done by FEMA and our great Military. All buildings now inspected .. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017 for safety. Thank you to the Governor of P.R. and to all of those who are working so closely with our First Responders. Fantastic job! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017Again, Trump s response to the crisis in Puerto Rico could be much better and it s certainly not as good as he thinks it has been. Furthermore, Trump insulted Puerto Ricans again. While Mayor Cruz is working to save lives, Trump is busy golfing and rage-tweeting. He is enraged because he thinks brown people should be grateful for what little help he has provided. That s a totally unacceptable way to treat American citizens. Period.Featured Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 1real |
FRIGHTENING Observations By A 75 Year Old American…All Of A Sudden America’s Becoming An Islamic State | These are shocking revelations that have essentially taken place while America and our elected representatives slept.ALL Of A Sudden Before Obama there was virtually no outlandish presence of Islam in America. Only 7 years later, here are some observations made by a 75 year old American:1. All of a sudden, Islam is taught in schools. Christianity and the bible are banned in schools and in our military.2. All of a sudden we must allow prayer rugs everywhere and allow for Islamic prayer in schools, airports and businesses.3. All of a sudden we must stop serving pork in prisons.4. All of a sudden we are inundated with law suits by Muslims who are offended by American culture.5. All of a sudden we must allow burkas to be worn everywhere even though you have no idea who or what is covered up under them.6. All of a sudden Muslims are suing employers and refusing to do their jobs if they personally deem it conflicts with Sharia Law.7. All of a sudden the Attorney General of the United States vows to prosecute anyone who engages in anti-Muslim speech .8. All of a sudden, Jihadists who engage in terrorism and openly admit they acted in the name of Islam and ISIS, are emphatically declared they are NOT Islamic by our leaders and/or their actions are determined NOT to be terrorism, but other nebulous terms like workplace Violence. 9. All of a sudden, it becomes policy that Secular Middle East dictators that were benign or friendly to the West, must be replaced by Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood.10. All of a sudden our troops are withdrawn from Iraq and the Middle East, giving rise to ISIS.11. All of a sudden, America has reduced its nuclear stockpiles to 1950 levels, as Obama s stated goal of a nuke-free America by the time he leaves office continues uninterrupted.12. All of a sudden, a deal with Iran must be made at any cost, with a pathway to nuclear weapons and HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars handed over to fund their programs.13. All of a sudden America APOLOGIZES to Muslim states and sponsors of terror worldwide for acts of aggression, war and sabotage THEY perpetrate against our soldiers.14. All of a sudden, the American Navy is diminished to 1917 Pre-World War I levels of only 300 ships. The Army is at pre-1940 levels. The Air Force scraps 500 planes and planned to retire the use of the A-10 Thunderbolt close air support fighter. A further draw down of another 40,000 military personnel is in progress.15. All of a sudden half of our aircraft carriers are recalled for maintenance by Obama rendering the Atlantic unguarded, NONE are in the Middle East.16. All of a sudden Obama has to empty Guantanamo Bay of captured Jihadists and let them loose in Jihad-friendly Islamic states. He demands to close the facility.17. All of a sudden America will negotiate with terrorists and trade FIVE Taliban commanders for a deserter and Jihad sympathizer.18. All of a sudden there is no money for American poor, disabled veterans, jobless Americans, hungry Americans, or displaced Americans but there is endless money for Obama s Syrian Refugee Resettlement programs.19. All of sudden there is an ammunition shortage in the USA.20. All of a sudden, the most important thing for Obama to do after a mass shooting by two Jihadists, is disarm American Citizens.21. All of a sudden, the President of the United States cannot attend the Christian funerals of a Supreme Court Justice and a former First Lady because of previous (seemingly unimportant) commitments.Finally And all of a sudden, I m sick to my stomach. I m not sure the majority of Americans recognize the seriousness of the situation and how much progress has been made by Islam these last 7 years, a very brief time compared to a 75 year lifetime!This was sent to 100% FED UP! by a fan of our Facebook page. | 1real |
Rafael Nadal Upset by Lucas Pouille in Fourth Round of U.S. Open - The New York Times | After four grueling hours spent fending off a relentless adversary who refused to submit, Rafael Nadal saw the ball exactly where he wanted it, practically on a platter and ready to be plucked. It was in the tiebreaker at the end of one of the most compelling matches of this United States Open. Nadal, the No. 4 seed, had already rejected three attempts from his pesky opponent, the No. 24 seed, Lucas Pouille. Now Nadal had one of his favorite shots tantalizingly before his eyes, an approach forehand of the kind he has drilled into the other court for a winner countless times in hundreds of matches throughout the years. But this time, Nadal brushed up on it too much, and the ball hit the net. “Was a big mistake,” he said. But there was still a chance. Nadal had been destroyed in the first set, and he had come back. He lost the third set, too, and blew a break in the fifth set, and there he was in a tiebreaker. If Pouille, a Frenchman looking for the biggest win of his life, had not had the nerve to convert his other three match points, perhaps he would fail to do it here, too. But under the pressure of momentous stakes, Pouille summoned the nerve needed. He won the next two points to earn a thrilling (6) upset of Nadal in 4 hours 8 minutes. Nadal had been gaining momentum coming into the match. He had not lost a set in three matches. His quarter of the draw was wide open — except for Pouille, that is. “I lost an opportunity to have a very good event here,” Nadal said. “I am sad for that. ” In the last few draining sets, the fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium, announced at more than 23, 000, did not necessarily blow the new roof off its foundations during the match. But they left a noisy impression. “Sometimes I couldn’t even hear myself when I was saying, ‘Allez, allez, allez,’” Pouille said. “Sometimes you can’t even hear yourself. ” Pouille, who is playing in just his 11th major tournament, had never reached the third round until this year at Wimbledon, where he went to the quarterfinals. But he has long been considered a rising prospect in France, and this year, he is beginning to collect on his promise. “I think because, mentally, I’m stronger,” he said. “Physically, I’m stronger. That gave me a lot of confidence before the match. I knew if I wanted to win that, it’s not going to be like three sets, . It would be long. ” By steeling himself for the slog, Pouille was able to withstand Nadal’s comebacks and match him stroke for stroke. Indeed, in the final tally, each player won 156 points. In the fifth set, Nadal broke Pouille’s serve in the first game and was up, . It seemed as if Nadal had his opening. But anyone expecting the more experienced Nadal — with 14 Grand Slam titles on his résumé, including two Opens — to sweep Pouille away was shocked. Pouille broke back to make it . Nadal said his experience alone had not been enough to make the difference in that game. “The problem is arrive to on the tiebreak of the fifth,” he said. “I should be winning before. ” Later in the same stadium, No. 1 Novak Djokovic pounded the Kyle Edmund of Britain, to set up a meeting with No. 9 Tsonga in the quarterfinals. It was the first time in his last three matches that Djokovic was able to complete a match after his opponents withdrew in the previous two for physical reasons. Tsonga is one of three French players to reach the quarterfinal stage, but Pouille is the most surprising. For Nadal, 30, the loss capped a mixed season and ended, for now, his hope for a third Open title and a 15th Grand Slam championship. His last title came at the 2014 French Open, where he matched Pete Sampras with 14 Grand Slam titles over all. He pulled out of this year’s French Open after his match because of an injury to his left wrist. At the time, it was unclear when he would be able to return. He made it back for the Olympics, where he lost in the match to Kei Nishikori of Japan and won a gold medal in doubles. He played only two matches at the Western Southern Open, but he stormed through his first three matches at Flushing Meadows, dropping only 20 games in three victories. He had hopes of going deep. Instead, it is Pouille, and not Nadal, who will play Gaël Monfils in an quarterfinal match. Monfils brushed aside the Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis, . Monfils is not only playing well, he is one of the more entertaining players on tour, and fans love to marvel at his athletic ability. In the first week of the United States Open, he has given them a lot to see. He had a wrestling match with an clock he practiced in the midst of a downpour and he hit a jumping shot between his legs when there was no pressing need for it. Then on Sunday, he did something even more unusual. He pretended to tie his shoe in the middle of a point in his match against Baghdatis. “To be honest, I have no idea what happened,” he said. “Sometimes, those points don’t mean anything to me. I don’t know. I just lose it. ” | 0fake |
EPIPEN PRICE GOUGING CEO Tries To Explain Away Price Increase: “Fasts Are Inconvenient To Headlines” [Video] | Nice try BUT WE RE NOT BUYIN IT! | 1real |
Clues to the Mystery of Prince’s Final Days - The New York Times | MINNEAPOLIS — The 1988 Dassault Falcon 900 was about an hour into its flight from Atlanta in the wee hours of Friday, April 15, when the pilot made a distress call to air traffic controllers in Chicago. There was a medical emergency on board. A male passenger was unresponsive. And so the Chicago airport officials diverted the flight for an emergency landing in Moline, Ill. just 48 minutes from its intended destination of Minneapolis. As it turned out, the flight was carrying the musical genius Prince, who, a week later, would be found dead, collapsed in an elevator on the first floor of his suburban Minneapolis compound. “We had an emergency unscheduled landing at 1:35 a. m. on April 15 for a medical emergency for an unresponsive person,” said Jo Johnson, the human resource manager for Quad Cities International Airport in Moline. It remains unclear what caused Prince, 57, to become unresponsive on the flight last week. His publicist has attributed the crisis to the fact that the entertainer was “fighting the flu. ” But officials investigating Prince’s sudden death said Friday that the plane’s emergency landing, and what caused it, would be part of their sweeping inquiry. Prince spent only a few hours at a Moline hospital before his private jet flew home here, and the entertainer resumed life at his compound in nearby Carver County. Just days before his death, he attended a show at a local jazz club, and playfully showed off his new piano and guitar at a party at his studio. As law enforcement officials await the complete results of an autopsy performed Friday, they said they would be reviewing local pharmaceutical records as part of a broad effort to understand Prince’s full medical history. They declined to comment on reports that Prince had been taking pain medication, saying the investigation was continuing. “This is a tragedy for all of us,” said Jim Olson, the sheriff of Carver County, where Prince’s estate, Paisley Park, was located in the town of Chanhassen. “To you, Prince Rogers Nelson was a celebrity. To us, he was a community member and a good neighbor. ” Prince was last seen alive at about 8 p. m. on Wednesday evening when someone dropped him off at his estate, where he lived alone, Sheriff Olson said during the afternoon news conference. Unable to make contact with Prince on Thursday morning, Paisley Park staff members went looking for him in the sprawling compound. They found him unresponsive in an elevator and called 911 at 9:43 a. m. Sheriff Olson said. “The person is dead here,” a male caller told the dispatcher, according to a transcript of the 911 call. Later, the caller added, “And the people are just distraught. ” Medics responding to the home could not resuscitate Prince, who was pronounced dead at 10:07 a. m. Thursday, Sheriff Olson said. He was not sure, he said, how long Prince, dressed in a shirt and pants, had been collapsed in the elevator. There were no obvious signs of injuries, and Sheriff Olson said the death was not believed to be a murder or a suicide. Officials said the body had been released to Prince’s family but that it may be weeks before any details from the autopsy are released. Before that, further tests need to be completed and the medical history must be compiled. There remain many questions around Prince’s health. Sheila E, a friend who collaborated with Prince, said during an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the star did have hip problems from his performances onstage. He has said in interviews that he struggled with epilepsy as a child. The mystery of the end of Prince’s life has left his vast legion of supporters measuring their shock. As they wait for answers, fans around the world grieved and celebrated his life with the frenetic energy with which Prince lived it — with dance parties and widespread tributes, from social media posts to impromptu Broadway performances. Here in his hometown, the famed First Avenue dance club held a free overnight dance party from Thursday into Friday, with more scheduled through the weekend. Makeshift memorials popped up outside of the club and in front of Paisley Park. Billboards encouraged residents to wear purple, a major bridge was lit in the color and a purple orchid with a note that read “Rest In Peace Prince” lay on the table of the intimate Dakota Jazz Club where Prince sat when he attended a show there on Tuesday. “It’s a very somber moment here, but his legacy will live on,” Kinneva Brown said as she visited Paisley Park on Friday. Those who knew him and saw him in his final days said the master showman betrayed no sign that he was near death. With his Afro picked out, Prince hopped on stage before about 300 revelers last Saturday — the night after his emergency landing in Moline — at one of the parties he was famous for throwing at Paisley Park. He banged out a quick performance of “Chopsticks” on his new purple piano, Scott Lawrence, who was in attendance with his son, said. He then broke out a new Gus Guitar, placing it on the piano and then moving away. “It’s too cool to open up,” Prince joked, according to Mr. Lawrence. But the star also offered a few accidentally prescient words, Mr. Lawrence recalled. “Wait a few days before you waste your prayers,” he told the crowd, referring to reports of his medical emergency from the previous day. Close followers of Prince find it hard to believe that anything sinister could have played into his death. He was a Jehovah’s Witness and obsessively healthy eater. You couldn’t drink, smoke or even curse at his Paisley parties. “Better eat your cheeseburger before you get to Paisley,” Van Jones, a political commentator and activist who was a friend of Prince’s, said he used to think before visiting Prince. Last Saturday, Prince stopped by Electric Fetus, a Minneapolis record store, and bought about half a dozen CDs, said Bob Fuchs, the retail manager. Prince had been coming to the store for 30 years, Mr. Fuchs said, and nothing on this visit seemed out of the ordinary. “Thanks for your support,” Mr. Fuchs recalled telling Prince, referring to something the musician had been helping the store with. “He smiled and said ‘Hello’ and ‘You’re welcome. ’” “He looked very alert and well dressed,” Mr. Fuchs added. “He seemed the same old. I did not think anything about the way he looked. Nothing suggested to me anything different. ” | 0fake |
Downfall of ITT Technical Institutes Was a Long Time in the Making - The New York Times | Doors were bolted shut and parking lots emptied at ITT Technical Institutes around the country this week after the chain of colleges announced it was closing for good. At some campuses, though, this was not the first time students and employees found themselves locked out. More than a decade ago, in 2004, federal agents, search warrants in hand, swooped into the company’s offices in eight states, closing schools briefly as they hunted for evidence of fraud related to student recruitment, enrollment, dropout rates, grade inflation, loans, and reported job placements and salaries. The collapse of ITT, one of the nation’s largest educational chains, may have seemed sudden, coming less than two weeks after the Education Department — citing financial instability and the likely loss of accreditation — barred the parent company from enrolling new students using federal funds. But the unraveling stretches further back, to a time when ITT was a Wall Street darling, raking in record profits. “It has been a long time coming,” said Carrie Wofford, president of the nonprofit Veterans Education Success and the former senior counsel to a Senate committee investigating colleges. There was “a lack of fair play that was particularly true at ITT and some others. ” Founded at the end of World War II as part of the original International Telephone Telegraph, the career schools operation split off into an independent, publicly traded corporation in the . The switch came as liberals and conservatives began a wholehearted embrace of privatization on the theory that professionally managed, businesses could do a better job of delivering public services than nonprofits or the government. Investors, thinking that the education sector was the next big thing, swarmed. With transformations in the economy, more and more working adults were turning to training programs where factory hands could learn to use computers or home health care aides could earn a nursing degree. Providers like ITT Technical Institutes held out the promise, not just of a good job for eager young prospects, but of steady growth in enrollment and revenue as well. From 2000 to 2003, the sector outran every other on Wall Street. Publicly traded shares climbed 460 percent, according to one analysis, compared with a 24 percent loss for the Standard Poor’s index. Some mutual fund managers boasted that the schools’ owner, ITT, had been their most profitable stock. Yet even as business was booming, troubling accusations of abusive practices in the industry like the ones that resulted in the 2004 federal raid bubbled up. That investigation, brought initially by the United States attorney’s office in Houston, was ultimately closed, but suspicions continued to trail ITT and other giants. The next year, ITT agreed to a $725, 000 settlement with California after employees revealed that the company inflated grades to qualify students for state financial aid. Several investors, convinced company officials had lied to them, filed securities fraud lawsuits. A major grievance was that the industry was overselling programs that left enrollees with deep debt and degrees that had little value in the job market. Students weren’t the only potential victims so were taxpayers. The company said it was more concerned with the present than the past. “We’re involved in the complicated and process of closing our academic institutions after approximately 50 years of outstanding service to students and employers who hire them,” said Nicole Elam, a spokeswoman for ITT Technical Institutes. “When students have been abruptly forced into the streets and employees’ livelihood ripped from them,” she added, “regurgitating unproven allegations as a means to justify this horrific end is shameless. ” colleges were a magnet for billions of dollars in federal student loans and grants to students. In 2010, they gobbled up more than $32 billion, a quarter of all federal financial aid, nearly double their share less than a decade earlier, the Senate committee inquiry found. Hundreds of millions more flowed in from the Pentagon and veterans’ programs through the G. I. Bill. For ITT, the total haul in federal dollars that year equaled $1. 1 billion. Absent that steady stream of public funds, these privately managed businesses would collapse. With Wall Street demanding steady growth, the pressure on the company’s managers was relentless. The chain was adding eight to 10 new campuses a year, according to the Senate committee. Former employees said recruiters pushed to enroll more and more students — regardless of their preparation, chances of graduating or ability to repay their loans — even as the company pared instructional costs and raised tuition to increase profits. Although the investigations temporarily depressed ITT’s stock, within a few years, the company was soaring to new heights thanks to an otherwise disastrous development: the Great Recession. As employers shed workers, many more people returned to school, taking on enormous debts in the hope of bolstering their credentials and skills and improving their chances on the job market. Profits took off, but so did disenchantment with the industry. Aggrieved students, graduates who found their degrees of little value, even insiders who became turned to online websites and watchdog groups. Many filed complaints with state prosecutors and regulators, the Education Department and lawmakers. They reported deceptive marketing recruitment tactics misleading information about costs, courses, graduation and job placement rates inflated enrollment numbers schemes subpar instruction and more. Ms. Wofford of Veterans Education Success said that every time the government tried to clamp down on an abuse, some colleges would come up with a scheme to circumvent the rule, like a private loan program set up by ITT to keep the pipeline of federal funds flowing. “There’s a perniciousness that’s disturbing,” Ms. Wofford said. Some employees tried to change company practices. Rodney Lipscomb, the former dean of academic affairs at an ITT campus in Tallahassee, Fla. said he was on the job six months, “when I really started to say something’s not right. ” Hired in the spring of 2011, he was disturbed by the aggressive recruitment, something he had never seen during his two decades at public educational institutions. Former students returned to the school, stunned by letters demanding payment for loans they knew nothing about. Worst of all, he said, staff members would then persuade those same students to in unrelated programs and take on even more debt as a way of deferring the loans that were already due. He started filing reports, detailing his concerns. “I really believed at that time, I could fix it if I got to the right folks,” said Mr. Lipscomb, who now works for a community college in Texas. “But the higher I reported up the chain, the worse the environment got for me. ” Finally he was told a lawyer from the company’s headquarters in Indiana and the district manager were coming to Florida to meet with him. “I was very happy,” he said. “I thought they were going to take action. ” Instead, Mr. Lipscomb said, they told him that if he continued to report his complaints, he would be fired. In 2015, he was. He has since filed a suit against ITT Technical Institutes in federal court, accusing the company of defrauding the government of money and wrongful termination. Beyond the spate of private lawsuits, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and 19 states have either investigated or sued ITT. The Education Department actively monitored the company’s finances starting in 2014. But it was last month’s ban on enrolling new students with federal funds that delivered the death blow. Now many current as well as former students have been left stranded. “This has a huge impact on my life,” said Chris Blank, a former Marine who was studying electrical engineering at an ITT campus in California. “I relied on G. I. benefits. They are all basically wasted and I can’t get any of those back. ” | 0fake |
Trump’s Twitter Access Revoked - The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Nation Puts 2016 Election Into Perspective By Reminding Itself Some Species Of Sea Turtles Get Eaten By Birds Just Seconds After They Hatch WASHINGTON—Saying they felt anxious and overwhelmed just days before heading to the polls to decide a historically fraught presidential race, Americans throughout the country reportedly took a moment Thursday to put the 2016 election into perspective by reminding themselves that some species of sea turtles are eaten by birds just seconds after they hatch. Cleveland Indians Worried Team Cursed After Building Franchise On Old Native American Stereotype CLEVELAND—Having watched in horror as their team crumbled after a 3-1 World Series lead, members of the Cleveland Indians expressed concern Thursday that the organization has been cursed for building their franchise on an incredibly old Native American stereotype. Report: Election Day Most Americans’ Only Time In 2016 Being In Same Room With Person Supporting Other Candidate WASHINGTON—According to a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, Election Day 2016 will, for the majority of Americans, mark the only time this year they will occupy the same room as a person who supports a different presidential candidate. Nurse Reminds Elderly Man She’s Just Down The Hall If He Starts To Die DES PLAINES, IL—Assuring him that she’d be at his side in a jiffy, local nurse Wendy Kaufman reminded an elderly resident at the Briarwood Assisted Living Community that she was just down the hall if he started to die, sources reported Tuesday. | 1real |
FEMA Opens Loan Window As Red Cross Tries To Shut Down Shelters | Natural Blaze
As the floodwaters receded from Nichols, South Carolina and the surrounding areas, many residents made the emotional journey home to assess what little they had left, a good portion of those people discovering that they had absolutely nothing. Having spent the last several weeks in a shelter operated out of the National Guard Armory in neighboring Mullins (some of those at the shelter are from Mullins also), the shelter residents have been anxious to return home or, at the very least, to return to a home at all.
After the cleanup has begun and the issue morphed into getting the victims out the shelters, many people thought that the cavalry finally arrived when FEMA announced it was coming to town to “assess” the damages and the need of the community for aid. Unfortunately for those who don’t fully understand the nature of such organizations, FEMA has been anything but a cavalry.
In fact, despite an annual budget of nearly $14 billion a year , FEMA has done virtually nothing other than “assess” damages. The agency did not come with water, sandbags, food, blankets or anything else necessary for flood victims. All it brought was an expensive van and lots of paperwork.
So what does FEMA actually do besides assess? And why on earth would it need $14 billion to assess anything? The answer? Besides creating the blueprint to use a natural disaster, military conflict, economic collapse, and social unrest as justification to set up domestic internment camps alongside the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA acts as a facilitator for loans and “loan assistance” to victims who have lost their homes and their livelihood. Instead of providing “trailers” (preferably free of toxic chemicals) to victims, FEMA is instead focused on providing “low interest” loans through the Small Business Administration .
While no one is arguing that loan assistance program is the problem, many would rightly wonder why, if this is all FEMA will do in an actual emergency, is there an annual budget of $14 billion?
For many people, FEMA is just another in a long line of useless and overrated organizations reaping the benefits of the disaster relief industrial complex. The Red Cross, for instance, is notorious for sucking up large sums of money and disappearing, leaving only a fragile house or two behind them to prove that they did, technically speaking, build homes for disaster victims . In Mullins, for instance, where the organization ran the shelter for the Hurricane Matthews victims, the Red Cross was seen as a hindrance as much as it was a help. While the organization’s help in running the shelter was appreciated, it was reported by an overwhelming numbers of people in the Mullins area who attempted to bring food and supplies to the victims that the Red Cross rudely refused their assistance. In fact any and all hot food brought by members of the community was actually turned away. Likewise, supplies donated by citizens and people of the surrounding areas were taken in but not actually distributed, instead being shipped to other locations. The Red Cross, in Mullins, actively prevented the community from coming to aid their friends and neighbors.
Predictably, after the media cameras were gone and the words “Hurricane Matthew” fell from the headlines, the Red Cross decided to close the last remaining shelter, which was still housing over 80 people at the time. The shelter victims were given only a matter of a few days prior knowledge that they were about to be homeless in the traditional manner, i.e., that they would soon be sleeping on the street. Oh, and they were directed to FEMA to apply for their low interest loans.
As is typical with the Red Cross and many organizations like it, when the glory of being the “selfless” disaster relief organization faded, so did its interest in the people it was allegedly there to assist.
As WPDE TV 15 reported ,
After Hurricane Matthew, the Red Cross opened 95 shelters statewide and 24 in our area. Now, there is only one left open, the National Guard Armory in Mullins.
As of Monday night, this shelter still has more than 70 people staying there. However, they plan on closing it Thursday at 3 p.m.
All the people staying at the shelter were evacuated from Nichols after the Little Pee Dee River and Lumber River flooded the town.
“We don’t have a home to go to. That’s what I’m telling Red Cross. What are you all going to do with us when you close Thursday? We have a shelter full of people that they don’t have a home,” said Margaret Tart, who’s staying at the shelter and lived in Nichols. She continued. “How can you close a shelter and put us out?”
After outcry from citizens in Mullins and the subsequent negative attention in the local press, however, the Red Cross reversed its decision to close the shelters. WPDE reported the next day ,
About 70 people were still staying there as of Monday night and all had been evacuated from Nichols after the Little Pee Dee River and Lumber River flooded the town.
Shelter officials were planning to close it as of 3 p.m. on Thursday, but Palm said that decision has changed.
“We reached an accommodation with our partners and they decided…that they could keep the shelter open as long as was needed there,” he said.
The disaster response from the Red Cross and FEMA should serve as a lesson not only to Marion County citizens but to every single American. When disaster strikes, you cannot depend on multi-million dollar “relief” organizations nor can you depend upon FEMA or any other government agency. While we argue that FEMA should be redirected to act as what it was allegedly created to be-a crisis management organization that provides material and logistical support to relief, rescue, and rebuilding operations.
In the meantime and, unfortunately, in the real world, communities must accept the fact that they are on their own when it comes to disasters. Stronger connections within the community must be built and maintained and the people of both rural and urban areas must begin to make plans and preparations to act for themselves and their neighbors when outside agencies and organizations are not there for them.
But back to that giant FEMA budget . . . . | 1real |
Donald Trump's Real Problem Is With White People | Donald Trump needs to stop the bleeding.
Since the two parties' conventions, he has plummeted in the polls — both nationally and in the states.
His campaign knows this. His new campaign manager, KellyAnne Conway, is a veteran Republican pollster well aware of Trump's deficiencies with certain voting groups.
That's why there's been a concerted effort in the Trump campaign to reach out to black and Hispanic voters, even if it's been poorly received by many nonwhites.
But the outreach might not be entirely to gain the support of minority voters, who are deeply skeptical of Trump and indicate they are supporting Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly.
It might be aimed, in large measure, at white people, in particular suburban whites with college degrees. You know, people who traditionally vote Republican. They might be persuadable, given their past voting history, but they don't want to vote for someone who is viewed as a racist or a bigot.
So his campaign is trying to change that. Trump has been speaking specifically about black voters at multiple events over the last week or so (though in front of predominantly white crowds) in Wisconsin, Ohio, Texas and Florida. He held an event Wednesday night in Jackson, Miss., where 4 in 5 residents are black.
That outreach continues Thursday at an event at Trump Tower, where black and Latino leaders are supposed to join Trump. And there will perhaps even be a tour of Detroit led by Ben Carson, who grew up there, in early September.
But how can it be, that Trump has a white people problem? Isn't he supposed to be the candidate who appeals squarely to whites?
Let's take a look at the polling. What it shows is that Trump is underperforming with whites compared with Mitt Romney's performance in 2012:
White women: Romney won white women by 14 points — 56-42 percent, according to national exit polls.
Trump, in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released this month, is down a point with the group, 43-42 percent.
That's a 15-point shift. No Republican can afford that.
Trump is supposed to drive up the score with white men. But, according to NBC/WSJ, he's only up 13 points (49-36 percent), far less than Romney.
And, let's remember, Romney lost in an electoral landslide to President Obama.
A big problem for Trump is when education is factored in. He is struggling to win the margins he needs with whites with college degrees. Just look at this chart of Trump's massive deficit with white women with college degrees:
What's stunning about this is that Democrats have never won a majority of white voters with college degrees since exit polling began in 1976.
And when it comes to white voters without a college degree, even here Trump is only doing about as well as Romney did. Romney won 61 percent of whites without a college degree. Trump, in the latest, CNN/ORC poll, gets the support of 59 percent.
Yes, Romney lost by big margins with nonwhite groups, too, but white voters made up 72 percent of the electorate in 2012 (likely to be slightly less this year.) Trump's campaign has to think there's nowhere to go but up with minority voters — except, right now, Trump is doing worse (or almost similarly bad) with both African-Americans and Latinos also.
Maybe Trump's outreach to minorities can change his standing somewhat with those groups. But an important group he needs to reach are those white voters, who should be traditionally open to voting Republican but are not behind him right now.
That's a point Republican pollster Whit Ayres made as well this week to the Washington Post.
"After 15 months of denigrating every nonwhite minority in sight, it's hard to believe that he can actually do significantly better among nonwhites," said Ayres, who wrote the book 2016 and Beyond: How Republicans Can Elect a President in the New America. He joined Marco Rubio's campaign as his pollster. "But he may be able to soften his image a bit with some Republican and maybe a few independent whites who have been put off by his harshness thus far."
But this is a big hole to climb out of in less than 11 weeks. | 0fake |
SAVE THE SPRINKLES! FDA BAN COMING TO CHANGE HOW YOUR FAV TREAT FOODS TASTE | THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS PUSHING FOLKS OFF OF TRANS FATS I should say nudge because that s the favorite term of the liberals. We all know it s really a shove to do what they mandate. It s doubtful trans fats in small quantities will be devastating to anyone. The taste and texture of foods like donuts will change. Will be start to have underground donut shops that are made with banned trans fats? The food police are making DAMN sure you conform to their mandate but isn t palm oil just as bad? The Obama administration is expected to all but ban trans fat in a final ruling that could drop as soon as next week, killing most uses of an ingredient that has been put in everything from frozen pizza to Reese s Pieces but since deemed harmful to human health.The agency may create some very limited exemptions, but the ruling could force food companies to cut trans fat use beyond the 85 percent reduction already achieved over the past decade a key piece of the Obama administration s broader agenda to nudge Americans toward a healthier diet.The food industry believes low-levels of trans fats are safe. Industry leaders have banded together behind-the-scenes to craft a food additive petition that will ask FDA to allow some uses of partially hydrogenated oils, such as in the sprinkles on cupcakes, cookies and ice cream. The industry hasn t shared details, but officials maintain the uses will represent very limited amounts. For more than 60 years, partially hydrogenated oils have been used in food products under the status generally recognized as safe, which does not require FDA s approval. But since the 1990s, reams of studies have linked trans fat consumption to cardiovascular disease, causing somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 premature deaths before the industry started phasing it out.In late 2013 the Obama administration issued a tentative determination that partially hydrogenated oils are not generally recognized as safe. The move sent shock waves through the food industry, which has already brought down average consumption from more than 4 grams per day to about 1 gram per day an exodus largely fueled by mandatory labeling imposed a decade ago. Scores of popular products, including Oreos and Cheetos, have quietly dropped partially hydrogenated oils over the years, but it remains an ingredient in many products, including Pop Secret microwave popcorn, Pillsbury Grands! Cinnamon Rolls and Sara Lee cheesecake, as well as some restaurant fryers and commercial bakery goods. If FDA sticks to its guns in its final determination and most in food policy circles assume it will the agency will be taking a firm step toward pushing out more of the remaining uses of trans fat. Read more: Politico | 1real |
Report: John McCain Claims Barack Obama Provided Better ’American Leadership’ Than Donald Trump | Sen. John McCain ( ) has reportedly told a newspaper that he believes “American leadership” was better under President Barack Obama than President Trump — the latest in a series of shots the failed 2008 presidential candidate has taken at his fellow Republican. [According to the Guardian, McCain was “visibly irked” when asked about comments Trump made last week in the wake of the terrorist attack in London, in which he criticized London Mayor Sadiq Khan for his response to the atrocity. “What do you think the message is? The message is that America doesn’t want to lead,” McCain said. “They are not sure of American leadership, whether it be in Siberia or whether it be in Antarctica. ” Then, when asked if America’s international standing was better under Obama, McCain reportedly responded: “As far as American leadership is concerned, yes. ” McCain — who lost his 2008 presidential bid against Obama after a campaign in which he repeatedly defended Obama from his supporters’ criticisms — has been an outspoken critic of Trump and has refused to tone it down since his fellow Republican took the White House. In a recent tour of Australia, McCain told an audience in Sydney that Trump has “unsettled” allies and Americans alike. “Other American allies have similar doubts these days and this is understandable,” McCain said, according to The Associated Press at the city’s university. “I realize that some of President Trump’s actions and statements have unsettled America’s friends. They have unsettled many Americans as well. ” He went on to urge the Australians to “keep at” the Partnership deal in the hope that one day “America will decide to join you. ” He also said in an interview with an Australian TV network that Trump makes him “nervous from time to time” and said he was bothered that Trump does not always take the advice of his national security team. “Can I tell you that he does all the time? No. Does it bother me? Yes, it bothers me,” he said. Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY. | 0fake |
Josh Groban Mocks The Hell Out Trump Meeting With Kanye West, And It’s HILARIOUS (TWEET) | Because nothing in this world makes sense anymore, while Donald Trump meets with people who may or may not fill his future cabinet roles in his administration, the president-elect also took time to meet with Kanye West. You know, because why not, right?Here s the dynamic duo in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City:NEW YORK, NY DECEMBER 13: (L to R) President-elect Donald Trump and Kanye West stand together in the lobby at Trump Tower, December 13, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)Well, not being able to let that moment come and go without comment, the brilliant and clearly hilarious singer Josh Groban tweets out: Word is Kanye and Trump have been in the lab co-writing some ?tweets. Apple is even considering making a larger, signature caps lock. Word is Kanye and Trump have been in the lab co-writing some ?tweets. Apple is even considering making a larger, signature caps lock. josh groban (@joshgroban) December 13, 2016You see, both Kanye West and Donald Trump are tweet happy and, well, do so not always in the sanest of ways.Now, if you want to be mortified, check out West s tweets following the meeting with Trump:I feel it is important to have a direct line of communication with our future President if we truly want change. KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) December 13, 2016Scarier yet, the insinuation that he ll be running himself in 2024, you know, to give Trump two terms. And really, at this point, why not? It seems we really don t give a damn who runs the nation anymore.#2024 KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) December 13, 2016Now, all of this could be rather hilarious if it wasn t remarkably terrifying making the entirety of the sane world want to curl into a fetal position and cry themselves to sleep.However, thank you, Josh Grobin, for some much needed levity.Featured Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images Twitter | 1real |
“ENTITLED” DEM REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE Has Been Taking Advantage Of Her “Public Servant” Status On Airplanes For Decades: “Don’t you know who I am?…Where is my seafood meal?” | Jean-Marie Simon, a passenger on a United Airlines flight from Houston to Washington D.C. has accused United Airlines of giving her first-class seat to U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. D-Houston. When the flight attendant saw her taking a picture of the congresswoman who was seated in her front row, first-class seat, she threatened to remove her from the plane.Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) in seat 1A the one I paid for dearly, and the one United gave to her without my consent or knowledge! Fellow congressman on same flight said she does it repeatedly. @united pic.twitter.com/Q2c6u6B0Yp Jean-Marie Simon (@JeanMarieSimon1) December 23, 2017A mechanical problem with the plane delayed take-off and after about 50 minutes, she said, passengers were invited to consult with a gate agent about alternative flights.Simon said she went to the front and snapped a photo of Jackson Lee and told a flight attendant that she knew why she d been bumped.In her statement, Jackson Lee said she overheard Simon speaking with an African-American flight attendant and saw her snap the photo.JACKSON LEE PULLS THE RACE CARD: Since this was not any fault of mine, the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African American woman, seemingly an easy target along with the African American flight attendant who was very, very nice, Jackson Lee said in the statement. This saddens me, especially at this time of year given all of the things we have to work on to help people. But in the spirit of this season and out of the sincerity of my heart, if it is perceived that I had anything to do with this, I am kind enough to simply say sorry. Simon said Jackson Lee s statement accused her of racism, adding: I had no idea who was in my seat when I complained at the gate that my seat had been given to someone else, she said. There is no way you can see who is in a seat from inside the terminal. It was just so completely humiliating, said Jean-Marie Simon, a 63-year-old attorney and private school teacher who used 140,000 miles on Dec. 3 to purchase the first-class tickets to take her from Washington D.C. to Guatemala and back home.According to True Pundit The Democrat has developed a reputation for making life hell for any clerk, stewardess, or pilot unwilling or unable to make her three-and-a-half-hour flight anything less than glamorous. She takes advantage of federal travel perks to book multiple flights (only to cancel at the last minute and at no charge). She demands an upgrade to premier seats. She expects, in her words, to be treated like a queen. Sometimes it gets ugly. For instance, when one peasant of a flight attendant failed to serve the food Jackson Lee requested, the congresswoman went wild. Don t you know who I am? she reportedly shrieked. I m Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Where is my seafood meal? I know it was ordered! That inflight incident was in 1998, and Jackson Lee has only increased in seniority since. She sits on the Committee on Homeland Security and she serves as the ranking member of the subcommittee on transportation security, no doubt, giving her, even more, sway over the airlines and even more of a reason to feel entitled.When accused of taking an ill-gotten first-class seat, Jackson Lee was adamant she didn t do anything wrong. It s just the way she expects to be treated. I asked for nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary and received nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary, the congresswoman said in a statement. True Pundit | 1real |
Bill Maher: That ‘Lesser Of Two Evils’ Election Argument Is ‘BULLSH*T!’ (VIDEO) | Bill Maher: That ‘Lesser Of Two Evils’ Election Argument Is ‘BULLSH*T!’ (VIDEO) By Andrew Bradford on October 29, 2016 Subscribe
Since it first became clear that this year’s nominees for their respective parties would be Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there’s been some whining among voters that they are being forced to choose between the “lesser of two evils.” And for those people, Real Time host Bill Maher has a very simple but direct message : “Grow the fu*k up!”
On his show last night, Maher directly confronted the “less of two evils” griping by explaining what’s at stake in this election: “Republicans have one path to this election and it’s ‘false equivalency.’ They can’t deny Trump is horrible – it’s on tape. So they want voters to believe that Hillary is just as bad. And in pursuit of that goal they have a very powerful ally — lazy people. “People who like to say, ‘they’re all bad.’ Because when you say that, you don’t have to do any homework. Say, ‘they’re all the same,’ and you can sound justifiably jaded by the entire process when, really, you just don’t know anything.”
Finally, Maher directed his comments at millennial voters who he said are wrongly obsessed with “bullshit” trivia: “I am so tired of hearing that Hillary doesn’t seem genuine. Grow the fuck up.”
Exactly! Hillary isn’t “genuine?” So would you rather have a man who is a genuine serial sexual assaulter of women and a threat to the national and economic security of the United States? Those of us who care about what happens in the future because we love our children need to put aside our petty picking at a woman who has devoted her life to helping others and elect her as President. If we fail to do so, future generations will never forgive us.
Featured Image Via YouTube Screengrab About Andrew Bradford
Andrew Bradford is a single father who lives in Atlanta. A member of the Christian Left, he has worked in the fields of academia, journalism, and political consulting. His passions are art, music, food, and literature. He believes in equal rights and justice for all. To see what else he likes to write about, check out his blog at Deepleftfield.info. Connect | 1real |
GREAT ANSWER! TRUMP’S Response To Question From BBC Reporter: “This was your choice of a question, there goes that relationship!” | This was your choice of a question, there goes that relationship! @POTUS reacts to Laura Kuenssberg s question https://t.co/v9jJpyT2tn Sky News (@SkyNews) January 27, 2017 | 1real |
Comment on Inequality As Policy: Selective Trade Protectionism Favors Higher Earners by RickM | By Dean Baker, the co-founder of CEPR. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website
Globalization and technology are routinely cited as drivers of inequality over the last four decades. While the relative importance of these causes is disputed, both are often viewed as natural and inevitable products of the working of the economy, rather than as the outcomes of deliberate policy. In fact, both the course of globalization and the distribution of rewards from technological innovation are very much the result of policy. Insofar as they have led to greater inequality, this has been the result of conscious policy choices.
Starting with globalization, there was nothing pre-determined about a pattern of trade liberalization that put U.S. manufacturing workers in direct competition with their much lower paid counterparts in the developing world. Instead, that competition was the result of trade pacts written to make it as easy as possible for U.S. corporations to invest in the developing world to take advantage of lower labor costs, and then ship their products back to the United States. The predicted and actual result of this pattern of trade has been to lower wages for manufacturing workers and non-college educated workers more generally, as displaced manufacturing workers crowd into other sectors of the economy.
Instead of only putting manufacturing workers into competition with lower-paid workers in other countries, our trade deals could have been crafted to subject doctors, dentists, lawyers and other highly-paid professionals to international competition. As it stands, almost nothing has been done to remove the protectionist barriers that allow highly-educated professionals in the United States to earn far more than their counterparts in other wealthy countries.
This is clearest in the case of doctors. For the most part, it is impossible for foreign-trained physicians to practice in the United States unless they have completed a residency program in the United States. The number of residency slots, in turn, is strictly limited, as is the number of slots open for foreign medical students. While this is a quite blatantly protectionist restriction, it has persisted largely unquestioned through a long process of trade liberalization that has radically reduced or eliminated most of the barriers on trade in goods. The result is that doctors in the United States earn an average of more than $250,000 a year, more than twice as much as their counterparts in other wealthy countries. This costs the country roughly $100 billion a year in higher medical bills compared to a situation in which U.S. doctors received the same pay as doctors elsewhere. Economists, including trade economists, have largely chosen to ignore the barriers that sustain high professional pay at enormous economic cost.
In addition to the items subject to trade, the overall trade balance is also very much the result of policy choices. The textbook theory has capital flowing from rich countries to poor countries, which means that rich countries run trade surpluses with poor countries. While this accurately described the pattern of trade in the 1990s up until the East Asian financial crisis (a period in which the countries of the region enjoyed very rapid growth), in the last two decades developing countries taken as a whole have been running large trade surpluses with wealthy countries.
This implies large trade deficits in rich countries, especially the United States, which in turn has meant a further loss of manufacturing jobs with the resulting negative impact on wage inequality. However, there was nothing inevitable about the policy shifts associated with the bailout from the East Asian financial crisis that led the developing world to become a net exporter of capital.
The pattern of gains from technology has been even more directly determined by policy than is the case with gains from trade. There has been a considerable strengthening and lengthening of patent and copyright and related protections over the last four decades. The laws have been changed to extend patents to new areas such as life forms, business methods, and software. Copyright duration has been extended from 55 years to 95 years. Perhaps even more important, the laws have become much more friendly to holders of these property claims to tilt legal proceedings in their favor, with courts becoming more patent-friendly and penalties for violations becoming harsher. And, the United States has placed stronger intellectual property (IP) rules at center of every trade agreement negotiated in the last quarter century.
In this context, it would hardly be surprising if the development of “technology” was causing an upward redistribution of income. The people in a position to profit from stronger IP rules are almost exclusively the highly educated and those at the top end of the income distribution. It is almost definitional that stronger IP rules will result in an upward redistribution of income.
This upward redistribution could be justified if stronger IP rules led to more rapid productivity growth, thereby benefitting the economy as a whole. However, there is very little evidence to support that claim. Michele Boldrin and David Levine have done considerable research on this topic and generally found the opposite. My own work, using cross-country regressions with standard measures of patent strength, generally found a negative and often significant relationship between patent strength and productivity growth.
There is also a substantial amount of money at stake. In the case of prescription drugs alone, the United States is on path to spend more than $430 billion in 2016 for drugs that would likely cost one-tenth of this amount in the absence of patent and related protections. While we do need mechanisms for financing innovation and creative work, it is almost certainly the case that patent and copyright monopolies as currently structured are not the most efficient route, even if their negative consequences for distribution are quite evident.
The structuring of trade and rules on IP are two important ways in which policy has been designed to redistribute income upward over the last four decades. There are many other ways in which the market has been structured to disadvantage those at the middle and bottom of the income distribution, perhaps most notably macroeconomic policies that result in high unemployment. While tax and transfer policies that reduce poverty and inequality may be desirable, we should also be aware of the ways in which policy has been designed to increase inequality. It is much easier to have an economic system that produces more equality rather than one that needlessly generates inequality, which we then try to address with redistributive policies. 0 2 0 0 0 0 | 1real |
CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Trump Supporter Goes RABID Against Hillary Supporters On Flight (VIDEO) | There definitely seems to be a new sense of entitlement among Donald Trump supporters now that he won the Electoral College count in the presidential election. They can t exactly say he won via popular support seeing as Hillary Clinton currently leads by over 2 million votes.However, these Trump supporting bullies are out there nonetheless, with seemingly a permission slip from the new bully-in-chief-elect, to be as awful to others as they want to be. After all, Trump was a bully to pretty much everyone and still won the election.One of the most recent examples of this bullying behavior was caught on camera.While boarding a plane, one Trump supporter was outright being plane vile to anyone who voted for Hillary Clinton. Even shouting: We got some Hillary bitches on here?! Then proceeds to say: Donald Trump! He s y alls president. Every god damn one of yas. If you don t like it, too bad. Regardless of the bad grammar or the obvious observation that he may very well be intoxicated, this sort of entitled bully behavior has been seen all over the country.What is even more startling, is that people seem to be allowing it and staying silent as he rants.We have to speak up or people like this will continue to think it s okay. This man should ve been tossed from the plane, but he wasn t. This isn t okay.Watch this Trump supporter be exactly like the bully we also know his leader to be: The epitome of post-election white privilege. He wasn t put off the plane in spite of multiple requests. pic.twitter.com/9ZvMhLgLYs Shaun King (@ShaunKing) November 24, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Russia, North Korea discuss bilateral 2015 treaty: Russian embassy | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The first meeting of a Russian-North Korea military commission is discussing the implementation of a 2015 agreement on preventing dangerous military activities signed by the two nations in 2015, Russia s embassy to Pyongyang said on its Facebook page on Thursday. Russia s defense ministry delegation arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday. It will stay in North Korea until Saturday, an embassy official told the RIA news agency. | 0fake |
Brazil's new top prosecutor reshuffles 'Car Wash' investigation team | BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil s new top federal prosecutor on Tuesday reshuffled the team of investigators in charge of pursuing the biggest corruption probe yet conducted in Latin America s largest nation. Prosecutor General Raquel Dodge, who took over the post on Monday after the end of her predecessor Rodrigo Janot s term, had previously invited all the members of Janot s team of prosecutors working on the Car Wash corruption probe to stay. However, few expressed interest in continuing, and Dodge, 56, who holds a master s degree from Harvard and has spent three decades working as a federal prosecutor, decided to replace the entire team with her own choices. Just a few of the previous prosecutors will stay on for a month to help with the transition. The Car Wash investigation, which began in early 2014, has led to an unprecedented fight against entrenched political corruption in Brazil. It has uncovered billions of dollars in bribes paid by major construction firms to politicians and executives at state-run enterprises such Petroleo Brasileiro in return for lucrative contracts. It is one of several major investigations taking place in Brazil, probes that have led to the conviction of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and charges being leveled against President Michel Temer, his predecessor Dilma Rousseff, and two more former presidents. Charges have been lodged or investigations opened against dozens of federal lawmakers, while over 100 powerful businessmen and politicians have been convicted. While there was a clear personal rift between Janot and Dodge, whose appointment by Temer was ratified by the Senate in August, that does not necessarily mean federal prosecutors will be any less aggressive in pursuing corruption. Obviously there will be a change in style, but there will be no change in the course of investigations, said Carlos Pereira, a professor of public policy at the Getulio Vargas Foundation and one of Brazil s top experts on corruption. But the team chosen by (Dodge) is extremely professional and has already shown skills in fighting corruption. Among the prosecutors who will be part of Dodge s Car Wash investigation team are veterans from Brazil s first major probe into political corruption, the 2005 Mensalao scandal. It ended with top members of Lula s government being found guilty of paying off lawmakers in return for their support of Lula s legislation. | 0fake |
Russia and Turkey Vow to Repair Ties as West Watches Nervously - The New York Times | MOSCOW — Against a backdrop of rising tensions between Turkey and the West, Presidents Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey pledged on Tuesday to repair relations after nine months of open antagonism. Although their meeting in St. Petersburg on Tuesday produced little beyond vows of friendship and cooperation, the symbolism of the two former antagonists coming together for a friendly talk was enough to raise alarms in Western capitals. Besides being a member of the NATO alliance, Turkey is vital to Europe’s efforts to stanch the flow of migrants from Syria and Afghanistan. Washington and Ankara, long at odds over American support of the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, have had a series of problems lately. has been on the rise in Turkey, amid accusations that the United States played a role in the failed coup in Turkey and widespread resentment of the White House’s criticism of the resulting crackdown. Turkish officials have been further infuriated by President Obama’s reluctance to hand over Fethullah Gulen, a reclusive Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania whom Mr. Erdogan has accused of leading the coup attempt. For Mr. Putin, who has made little secret of his ambitions to weaken NATO and crack European unity, the opportunity to forge a new, closer relationship with a humbled Mr. Erdogan was probably deeply satisfying, and a vindication of his decision to intervene militarily in Syria. No one predicted a radical shift in relations, at least not immediately. Russia and Turkey have been on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict, and the two leaders had been at each other’s throats since November, when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that it said had violated its airspace on the Syrian border. After the jet was shot down, Mr. Putin called Mr. Erdogan a and demanded an apology, which was refused. That episode drew an angry response from Moscow, which banned most fruit and vegetable imports from Turkey and halted the flow of millions of Russian tourists. Although Russian gas sales to Turkey continued, the countries’ $30 billion in annual trade decreased by 43 percent, Mr. Putin said. “It is true that we lived through a complicated moment in our interstate relations,” Mr. Putin said at a joint news conference televised from St. Petersburg. “But we all would like to — and we feel that our Turkish friends want the same — overcome those complications. ” Feeling increasingly isolated this summer, Mr. Erdogan wrote a letter in June offering the apology Mr. Putin had demanded for the downing of the Russian jet. With that done, steps could begin toward a normalization of relations. Efforts to restore ties then accelerated after the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, after which Mr. Putin was the first leader to call to offer support. “It was very important from a mental perspective, this kind of psychological support,” Mr. Erdogan said at the news conference. Any future agreements between the two countries could have significant repercussions for the Middle East and Europe. Mr. Erdogan most likely hopes to use the leverage of improved relations with Russia to force a better deal with Europe over the migrant crisis. European leaders have joined the United States in criticizing the sweeping arrests that followed the failed coup. Closer ties with Russia also carry the potential to create tensions within NATO that Mr. Putin would be happy to exploit. Ultimately, Moscow would like to draw Turkey into its orbit and into the security and trade organizations it is promoting in Asia, although such a shift is not expected anytime soon. “Erdogan can use Russia as a trump card in his negotiations with the West,” said Aleksandr D. Vasilyev, an expert on ties at the Institute for Oriental Studies in Moscow. “For him, the main goal is the West, not Russia. ” If the White House was uneasy about the potential warming of relations between Turkey and Russia, nobody was saying so publicly. At the State Department on Tuesday, officials referred questions about the meeting to the Turkish government, and argued that the meeting itself had not changed the American calculus on the Middle East or Europe. “We don’t view this as a game,” said Elizabeth Trudeau, a State Department spokeswoman. She noted that Turkey and Russia were both members of the United coalition fighting the Islamic State, and had both been involved in the effort to end Syria’s civil war. “There’s a lot of common goals, common interests there. ” “I don’t think it’s a question at all that our relationship with Turkey would be weakened at all by this,” Ms. Trudeau added. She said she had no update on Turkey’s request for the United States to extradite Mr. Gulen, a “legal, technical process” about which American officials have been in direct contact with the Turkish authorities. The administration, Ms. Trudeau said, feels rhetoric is “unhelpful” to the United States’ relationship with Turkey. “We believe our relations and our partnership and our friendship with Turkey is strong,” she said. As for Russia and Turkey, Syria remains a major potential fault line, despite the pledges to work together. Mr. Putin noted that the views of the two sides “do not always coincide” when it comes to Turkey’s southern neighbor. Mr. Erdogan is a bitter enemy of Syria’s president, Bashar and has insisted that he step down before peace negotiations can begin. Russia, though, is a longtime ally of Mr. Assad’s, and it intervened with Iran in the Syrian conflict to bolster his fortunes. Yet the Kremlin also signaled on Tuesday that it was in Syria to stay. Mr. Putin called on Russia’s Parliament to approve an extended deployment of the Russian Air Force at Khmeimim Air Base outside Latakia, Syria, where its planes have flown sorties for almost a year to bolster Mr. Assad. Parliamentary approval is virtually guaranteed. “This is a demonstration that Russia has come to Syria for a very long time,” said Aleksandr M. Golts, a Russian military analyst. “This is a demonstration that it will support Assad and that it is ready to tie itself to a regime that is involved in a bloody civil war. ” Russia would like Turkey to seal its borders and stem the flow of fighters and weapons to the insurgents, and to reverse its demand that Mr. Assad must go. Ankara wants Moscow to stop bombing its insurgent allies to lessen support for the Kurds and to halt the bombing of civilian populations, which drives refugees into Turkey. As a possible sign of good will, a major Kurdish representative office closed in Moscow on Sunday, although the local representative said it was because of rent costs rather than politics. In the bleak days, planning was suspended on the Turkish Stream pipeline meant to deliver Russian gas to Europe, as well as on the Akkuyu nuclear power plant that Russia is building in southern Turkey. Russia’s gas industry, starting with Gazprom, the behemoth, is eager to get the Turkish Stream back on track, because other routes to Europe have been blocked, and Turkey is just as keen on becoming a hub for gas distribution. “I think the interests of Gazprom and the energy companies are the cornerstone of what is happening,” said Mr. Vasilyev, the analyst. On Tuesday, the two leaders said they were planning to restart all that. Mr. Erdogan repeated their pledge to eventually increase annual trade between the countries to $100 billion. “Both countries are committed and determined to returning our relationship to its level,” Mr. Erdogan said at the news conference. Mr. Putin said Mr. Erdogan had pledged to grant the Akkuyu project the status of a “strategic investment,” helping it avoid taxes and reap other benefits. Russia agreed to lift sanctions that had barred some agricultural imports and had stopped the flow of millions of Russian tourists. As recently as May, the “complications,” as Mr. Putin called them, meant that Turkey in general, and Mr. Erdogan in particular, were often portrayed as enemy No. 1 on Russia’s television. For all the professed warmth during the talks with Mr. Erdogan, Russia seemed to drop one subtle hint that things were not entirely back to normal. Greece and Turkey share a long, ancient enmity, and Russian news reports noted that Mr. Putin had met his Turkish counterpart in a restored czarist palace on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. They met in the Greek sitting room. | 0fake |
Huge WW2 bomb to be defused close to German gold reserves | FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Frankfurt s city center, an area including police headquarters, two hospitals, transport systems and Germany s central bank storing $70 billion in gold reserves will be evacuated on Sunday to allow the defusing of a 1.8 ton World War Two bomb. A spokesman for the German Bundesbank said, however, the usual security arrangements would remain in place while experts worked to disarm the bomb, dropped by the British air force and uncovered during excavation of a building site. The Bundesbank headquarters, less than 600 meters from the location of the bomb, stores 1,710 tonnes of gold underground, around half the country s reserves. We have never defused a bomb of this size, bomb disposal expert Rene Bennert told Reuters, adding that it had been damaged on impact when it was dropped between 1943 and 1945. Airspace for 1.5 kilometers around the bomb site will also be closed. Frankfurt city officials said more than 60,000 residents would be evacuated for at least 12 hours. The evacuation area would also include 20 retirement homes, the Opera house and the diplomatic quarter. Bomb disposal experts will make use of a Rocket Wrench to try and unscrew the fuses attached to the HC 4,000 bomb. If that fails, a water jet will be used to cut the fuses away from the bomb, Bennert told Reuters. The most dangerous part of the exercise will be applying the wrench, Bennert said. Roads and transport systems, including the underground, will be closed during the work and for at least two hours after the bomb is defused, to allow patients to be transported back to hospitals without traffic. It is not unusual for unexploded bombs from World War Two air raids to be found in German cities, but rarely are they so large and in such a sensitive position. | 0fake |
Philippine troops kill 14 Maoist rebels in clash: army | MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine soldiers have killed 14 Maoist guerrillas in an offensive south of the capital, Manila, an army officer said on Wednesday, days after President Rodrigo Duterte ended peace talks with the rebels. More than 40,000 people had been killed in nearly 50 years of fighting between the leftist guerrillas and government forces, a conflict that has stunted economic growth in resource-rich rural areas. Duterte, who took power last year, had raised hopes for peace with the communists as well as with Muslim insurgents in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic country, but peace has proved elusive. This is a big blow to their organization, Major Mikko Magisa, executive officer of the army s 202nd Brigade, told reporters, referring to the late Tuesday clash in Batangas province. Five soldiers had been wounded in the 20-minute clash involving army and air force commandoes, he said. The bodies of 13 rebels were found, including a suspected secretary and a platoon leader of the guerrilla unit, he said. One of two wounded rebels who were captured died in hospital. Duterte signed a proclamation ending peace talks with the communists last week after complaining that rebel violence had continued during the negotiations. Talks, which have been held intermittently since 1986, were revived in August last year, and were brokered by Norway. Government troops have been ordered to be on alert for movements by the estimated 3,800 leftist guerrillas, military officials have said. Government troops have in recent months been engaged in the biggest battle in the Philippines since World War Two, with Islamist militants who occupied a southern town for several months. (Amends to show peace has been elusive, paragraph three) | 0fake |
This Rogue Twitter Account HILARIOUSLY Trolls Trump With Unique Spin On Important Issues (TWEETS) | The rogue government Twitter accounts, which all consider themselves to be helping resist Trump, go about their missions in different ways. Some are keeping the flow of information alive with an administration that wants everyone to shut it. Some are simply relaying news and explaining it. And some, who don t call themselves rogue but still have alt Twitter handles, are actively trolling Donald the Trump.Enter the account known as Alt_Dept of Interior, which actually has more to do with interior design than it does the actual Department of the Interior. Nevertheless, the people behind it spend a lot of their time trolling Trump. This is what they have to say about the border wall:BORDER WALL: Tomorrow we ll present our 3rd design to the @POTUS. The previous two were rejected due to their inability to stop anything. pic.twitter.com/VM41GqVfJq Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 4, 2017Reports show that first sections of the #Borderwall are successful. Foreigners are kept out of the US, including for 1st time Jesus Christ. pic.twitter.com/R43C38455x Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 9, 2017BREAKING: The @POTUS new immigration policy will require Mexicans with legal visas to enter the US via a water slide through the border wall pic.twitter.com/RvUaBkBHy4 Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 9, 2017We re asking the American People for input on latest Border Wall design. Which barbed wire design should we use to best represent @POTUS? pic.twitter.com/KDvoKE7OHT Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 9, 2017Just when you think US/Mexico relations are deteriorating, the President of Mexico installs public art piece to thank US for #BorderWall pic.twitter.com/KOuH61HgKO Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 9, 2017New #BorderWall design allows the @POTUS to look directly into the eyes of the person responsible for costing taxpayers billions. #Resist pic.twitter.com/fo9yezfamY Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 9, 2017They re also taking other issues and using them to troll him too. One such issue is his access to the nuclear codes:BREAKING: The @POTUS reveals first ever look at the Nuclear Codes to the American public. pic.twitter.com/3DsxSuAFiD Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 7, 2017There are all the rumors swirling about whether Trump and certain people in his administration are, or were, on cocaine:BREAKING: Federal employees working overtime in an effort to keep up with demand of high end Cocaine at White House #superbowl party. pic.twitter.com/Iz1f0he3sn Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 5, 2017We d like to correct earlier reports that WinterStorm #Niko is approaching. It s actually a European cocaine shipment to Trump Tower. #POTUS pic.twitter.com/j5v6FCtSgL Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 9, 2017We d like to correct earlier reports that it was snowing in the DC Metropolitan area. This was actually just cocaine. @weatherchannel pic.twitter.com/RwL8xipuYc Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 2, 2017There s Kellyanne Conway s reference to the Bowling Green massacre (where we all died it was terrible):BREAKING: The @POTUS has released evidence that the #BowlingGreenMasacre did occur, citing a 2016 ftball game.They stand by @KellyannePolls. pic.twitter.com/4OnstbrIPY Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 3, 2017STATEMENT: The @POTUS has sent @KellyannePolls to congratulate Coach @FredrckDouglass and Super Bowl Champs, the Bowling Green Falcons. pic.twitter.com/1rV7kuTiXh Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 6, 2017There s climate change and animal rights:BREAKING: We can comfirm that rising temperatures on earth are no longer due to #climatechange. We re just getting a lot closer to hell. pic.twitter.com/Za1NygBRd8 Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 1, 2017We regret to inform animal lovers everywhere, but the White House is now holding a Humpback Whale captive at the @POTUS request. #blowhole pic.twitter.com/TGJu9s2nlK Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 7, 2017There s the executive order rolling back the very regulations that were supposed to help protect us from more abuse at the hands of Wall Street:BREAKING: Following reports of deregulation, the @POTUS has asked the @SecretService to call him the Bubble Maker https://t.co/6CXxyLwKwa Alt_Dept of Interior (@Alt_Interior) February 3, 2017 Basically, they see themselves as providing the light of humor during what anyone with a shred of human decency and sanity considers a very dark time. And Trump makes himself such a great target.Read more:Featured image by Win McNamee via Getty Images | 1real |
Chris Rock Returns With Jokes and Personal Anguish - The New York Times | DURHAM, N. C. — As soon as Chris Rock strode onstage here on Monday in the first performance of his “Total Blackout Tour,” he explained why, nine years after his last special, he’s pacing stages again: “That’s what alimony will do to you. ” Mr. Rock, who was married for 16 years, divorced last year, and while his quip had the jackhammer snap that has long made him the best deliverer of punch lines in comedy, the old swagger faded during his show. Now 52, Mr. Rock, looking trim in casual black pants and jacket, talked about his vanity, insecurities and failures with startling frankness. “I wasn’t a good husband,” he said, standing still, shifting into a quieter register. “I didn’t listen. I wasn’t kind. I cheated. ” Mr. Rock paused as the audience waited for the joke. It arrived eventually, but it did not match the impact of this silent, dramatic beat. In his new set, Mr. Rock appeared to be after something more than laughs. It is rare to see a celebrity discuss his infidelity with the specificity that he did here — detailing who and how many — but he talked about this in an anguished, searching tone that fans may find surprising. At times, Mr. Rock sounded like a man confessing his sins, turning vulnerability into his latest provocation. Ever since his breakthrough 1996 HBO special, “Bring the Pain” — his new set includes giant initials evoking that seminal show — Mr. Rock has maintained a secure place in the pantheon. But in contrast with peers like Bill Burr and Louis C. K. his specials are infrequent enough that every one is a major event. His current show will be released as a special on Netflix, part of a $40 million deal. His last, “Kill the Messenger,” was recorded during the 2008 election, and it’s hard not to be struck by his cheerful mood then, sounding positively giddy as he pokes fun at John McCain, skewering him as a “war hero who got captured. ” In the recent presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump made the same point about Mr. McCain in similar language, but without the punch line. In the past nine years, the line for transgression has shifted. But Mr. Rock didn’t try to adjust to it. Nor did he approach the recent election with what has become the standard alarm of many comedians. Barack Obama was the anomaly, he argued, while Mr. Trump is a return to business as usual in a conservative country always run by rich white men. “I’m not scared,” Mr. Rock said, looking to the evils of history for comfort. “I’m black. The future is always better when you’re black. ” Comedy is about surprise, and one reason Mr. Rock has been his generation’s finest political is his ability to consistently go against the grain with conviction. (Unlike some, he always seems to believe the premises of his jokes.) The rise of Mr. Trump, he concluded, taking his critique to a comic extreme, stems from our battle against bullying. “We got rid of bullies,” he said. “When a real one showed up, we didn’t know what to do. ” He also discussed police shootings in an unexpected way, saying that he would think that law enforcement might try to shoot a white kid for once, “just for appearances. ” But he also spent time sympathizing with police officers, describing work that has zero room for error and draws pay that is far too low. If his current social commentary has a common thread, it’s an alertness to how economics colors every issue. “Whole Foods does not say ‘No Blacks Allowed,’” he said. “But a $7 orange does. That’s the new Jim Crow. ” What stood out most about this show, however, was the personal, not the political. Mr. Rock has mostly kept the audience at a distance from his private life. He isn’t the type to dwell on his demons or soul search on a podcast. So it’s a surprise to see him tell jokes about the dark consequences of his addiction to pornography or the excruciating details of family court. This is not his funniest show, but it might be his most compelling, a departure even in its form. The distance between his forceful persona and the more thoughtful one he displays in interviews has shrunk a bit — and his jokes are more intricate, denser. What remains firm is a lyricist’s gift for concision, boiling down a thought to its comic essence. On bullying: “Pressure makes diamonds. Not hugs. ” Mr. Rock’s comedy has always been happily cynical about marriage, his jokes regarding relationships rooted in regressive stereotypes about men and women. He’s found many laughs in sympathy for men behaving badly, blaming Hillary Clinton for her husband’s cheating and pointing out how O. J. Simpson had to pay steep alimony while his former wife slept with another man. (“I’m not saying he should have killed her, but I understand. ”) When discussing his own marriage, however, he blamed only himself, repeatedly, allowing sadness to creep into his dynamic voice. He also dug into his past, telling a story about his grandmother disparaging poor men that stuck with him for years, and another about his grandfather mocking him for crying. Mr. Rock wants to tell us where he came from, and also where he hopes to go. “I’m trying to get a little bit of religion,” he said, before backtracking: “Not a lot. ” He added that he believes in God, but only a bit. Onstage, Mr. Rock has always had the intonations of a preacher — which his grandfather was — repeating premises until they sound like incantations. But his real religion is comedy, and at the end of this discussion of his relationship with God, he contrasted the sureness of faith with the questioning nature of a comic. But as comedians go, Mr. Rock has always been one of the most forcefully confident. What’s different is he now sounds more anxious. And while the election and his divorce may have added heaviness to his gait, this evolution may also stem from simply growing older. In a line he repeated over and over on Monday, Mr. Rock explained his spiritual search in the hardheaded pragmatic terms we’ve come to expect from him: “I want to find God before God finds me. ” | 0fake |
WATCH BILL O’REILLY’S EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW With President Trump [Video] | WATCH NOW IN FULL: @oreillyfactor s exclusive #SuperBowl interview with President @realDonaldTrump. pic.twitter.com/p2gIid0fzE Fox News (@FoxNews) February 5, 2017 | 1real |
Jerusalem Truck Terrorist’s Sister: We’re Thankful To Allah For His ’Saintly’ Death | TEL AVIV — The sister of a Palestinian terrorist who plowed his truck into a group of soldiers in Jerusalem on Sunday, killing four and wounding 16, said the family was “thankful” for his “most beautiful martyrdom. ”[“Praise be to Allah that he became a martyr. It is the most beautiful kind of saintly death,” Fadi al Qanbar’s sister Shadia, 28, told Palestinian media. “Allah chose him for this martyrdom. Thank God. We are patient and we thank Allah for this,” she added. Shadia said her brother was not a member of any terror group and had acted on his own. She added that Qanbar, a father of four, was devoutly religious. Qanbar rammed his truck into a crowd of cadets and officers who were touring the promenade overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem in the southern neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv. According to eyewitnesses, after the terrorist ran his flatbed truck over the soldiers, he reversed over them a second time. All four of the soldiers who died were in their twenties, and three of them were women. terror group Hamas on Sunday praised the attack as a “heroic” act and encouraged other Palestinians to do the same and “escalate the resistance. ” In the coastal enclave, Palestinians were photographed giving out sweets to passing drivers in celebration of the attack. Hamas spokesman Qanou said the attack showed that the wave of Palestinian violent “resistance” against Israel has not ceased. “It may be quiet, it may linger, but it will never end,” he said. At least nine people have been arrested in connection with the attack, mostly members of the Qanbar family. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there are signs Qanbar may have supported the Islamic State. He also suggested a connection between Sunday’s attack and the truck rammings in Berlin and Nice last year. | 0fake |
OOPS! Secret Service Opens Investigation After Madonna Tells Thousands Of Angry Liberals She’d Like To “BLOW UP WHITE HOUSE” | A spokesman for the Secret Service told The Gateway Pundit the agency is aware of the comment by aging pop star Madonna made at a large liberal women s protest against President Donald Trump held in Washington, D.C., Saturday, that she has thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. The spokesman said an investigation would be opened but that the decision to prosecute rests with the U.S. Attorney s office.Madonna told tens of thousands of angry liberals at the March for Women in DC: I m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. But I know that this won t change anything.Here s the sickening moment the aging, irrelevant pop-star thought it was pretty cool to say she s, thought and awful lot about blowing up the White House. | 1real |
White House finds temporary fix in Zika funding fight | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Wednesday it will redirect $589 million in funds to prepare for the Zika virus before the mosquito that carries it begins to emerge in the continental United States, but urged Congress to act quickly on its request for more money. White House budget director Shaun Donovan said the use of money previously provided for fighting another health crisis, the Ebola virus, was only a temporary fix for Zika funding. Donovan said some measures to fight Zika would have to be delayed, curtailed or stopped unless the U.S. Congress approves more than $1.8 billion in emergency funds requested by the Obama administration in February. The Zika virus, linked to a growing number of cases of the birth defect microcephaly in Brazil, is spreading rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean and heading north as the weather gets warmer. “We should not play with fire here,” Donovan told reporters on a conference call. Without full Zika funding, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said mosquito control and surveillance may have to be delayed or stopped, vaccine development could be jeopardized and development of faster diagnostic tests could be impaired. Most of the $589 million will come from $2.7 billion in funds set aside for public health projects aimed at the Ebola virus. West Africa was stricken by a two-year Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,300 people starting in December 2013 and led to a small number of cases in the United States. The Republican-controlled Congress has said the White House should draw the money needed to fight Zika from the Ebola funds. Chairman Hal Rogers and other top Republicans on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee said in a statement they would “monitor the changing needs resulting from this unpredictable crisis” to ensure that needed funds are available. “Republicans are going to look back on this time that they’ve had to act on the Zika virus and deeply regret it,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. Burwell said a recent flare-up of Ebola in West Africa shows the United States cannot shortchange its work in the region. “We face two global health challenges, Ebola and Zika, and we don’t have an option to set one aside in the name of the other,” Burwell told reporters. Burwell said there were 672 confirmed cases of Zika infections in the United States, including 64 pregnant women. She said there was one confirmed case of Zika-related microcephaly in Hawaii. The World Health Organization has said there is a strong scientific consensus that Zika can cause microcephaly as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, though proof may take months or years. Microcephaly is a condition defined by unusually small heads in babies that can result in developmental problems. Guillain-Barre syndrome is a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis. Brazil said it has confirmed more than 940 cases of microcephaly, and considers most to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating nearly 4,300 additional suspected cases of microcephaly. | 0fake |
Dining In: Homemade Chili Gains Ground on Chili’s - The New York Times | Sales at some of the country’s biggest restaurant chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Buffalo Wild Wings, to name a few — are slumping. The culprit? People like John Reynolds, if you listen to restaurant executives. A salesman for a convenience store distributor, Mr. Reynolds used to spend several evenings a week eating in New York restaurants with friends and relatives after making the rounds of customers in the city. But in the last year, he has taken to making turkey burgers or a pot of chili at home. “It’s just a financial thing for me — eating out is expensive,” Mr. Reynolds, 31, said. “And eating at home more has actually had an additional benefit — it’s healthier. ” Such words strike terror into the heart of the restaurant industry, which has blamed a crash in food prices that has made groceries cheaper for its woes. Egg prices, for instance, hit a low this summer, and beef prices are lower than they have been in more than three years. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s the biggest gap we’ve seen in the last 10 years,” Mike Andres, the departing president of McDonald’s American business, told reporters in July. “This is clearly impacting the whole industry. ” The gap between grocery and restaurant prices adds to a variety of other factors putting pressure on the restaurant business, especially the segment. Americans now have a greater interest in healthy foods. They also have more and better choices of prepared food in grocery stores, and many options for meal kit and grocery delivery services, all of which make eating at home easier. It is unclear whether these changes add up to a temporary change or the start of a major reversal in where people eat. For the last couple of decades, the general direction of food spending in the United States has been toward restaurants, and in 2014, dining out eclipsed home cooking for the first time, according to the United States Agriculture Department. “The reasons people are eating more away from home aren’t going away,” said Howard Elitzak, an agricultural economist at the U. S. D. A. “Women continue to enter the work force. People continue to work longer hours. Families have higher disposable income. Everyone wants convenience — these are very trends. ” Yet the Agriculture Department statistics, and individual restaurant sales figures, strongly suggest that Americans are revisiting the kitchen table. In January, for instance, people spent more in supermarkets than in restaurants, an aberration that was repeated in June. (The department’s data from the Census Bureau is somewhat imprecise. For example, the supermarket numbers don’t include food bought at Walmart, America’s largest grocery chain.) The National Restaurant Association estimates that restaurant sales will increase 5 percent this year, to $783 billion. But B. Hudson Riehle, a senior vice president of the trade group, noted that the growth rate of those sales has slowed since 2007, partly because of the recession that started around that time. “It is still over all an environment where consumers continue to use restaurants, but for the industry, it’s a more moderate growth rate than in the past,” Mr. Riehle said. To help compensate for sagging profits, many restaurants have been raising prices, even as the cost of food has declined. For instance, Zoe’s Kitchen, a chain of more than 150 stores, said its sales in restaurants open at least one year had grown 4 percent. But more than 3 percent of that gain came from price increases. Slightly less than 1 percent of its sales growth came from what the industry calls “traffic” — or more customers. Diners have noticed. “I definitely feel like prices at restaurants have increased,” said Kathryn Shannon, who works at a financial services company in New York. Ms. Shannon, 28, began cooking at home with deliveries from Blue Apron, a meal kit service, but now she just goes to the grocery store. If she does go out for dinner, it is to a restaurant where she can get something she wouldn’t make at home. “I’m not going to buy a really nice cut of steak because I’ll probably screw it up,” Ms. Shannon said. “But I can make basic Chinese food that’s just as good as what I get on the corner and at a quarter of the price. ” Some restaurants, where people like Ms. Shannon might go for a steak, don’t appear to be having the same problem as their far bigger cousins. Sabato Sagaria, the chief restaurant officer at the Union Square Hospitality Group, said he had noticed more tourists dining this summer in the company’s restaurants, which include Gramercy Tavern and Blue Smoke in Manhattan. He expected that mix to change in the fall, when the regulars return. Nonetheless, he said, competition for customers has never been greater. “Restaurants are competing with delivery services, meal kit companies, prepared foods in the grocery store, salad bars,” he said. Jack Bishop, chief creative officer at America’s Test Kitchen, a media company that publishes Cook’s Illustrated and produces TV shows and events, said he had also noticed a difference among generations. Younger people, in his experience, seem to be more suspicious of food prepared by big corporations. And the rise of diet trends like Paleo, vegetarian and also is spurring more home cooking, he said, because adherents have difficulty finding something they can eat on many menus. “There’s also just an overall shift in the American diet to a healthier place,” he said. “After all, most of the worst trends in that diet over the last 20 years coincided with people eating less at home. ” One big question, of course, is whether America’s new cooks will stay in the kitchen once food prices at the grocery store rise again. Inara Kalnins, a retired retail executive, said she had no plans to return to restaurants. She began cooking for herself about a year ago, after finding a deal for Blue Apron meal kits on Groupon, the online commerce site. Before that, her stove was used to heat up leftovers from restaurants or a roast chicken from the grocery store. Now she’s in her kitchen three times a week, preparing meals from Blue Apron that she often shares with friends and neighbors. “I’m chopping and zesting and eating foods I’ve never tried before,” she said, “with ingredients I would have never thought of buying, like Meyer lemons and watermelon radishes. ” When she vacationed with a friend on a remote island off the Maine coast this summer, the mail boat delivered Blue Apron meal kits. “I’ve ordered so many times that I’m able to gift meal kits to friends,” Ms. Kalnins said. “I’ve given one to a friend whose wife passed away, and to my brother, who was used to eating out of a can. ” | 0fake |
Support For Banning Assault Rifles Skyrockets After Orlando Shooting | After the horrific terrorist attack in Orlando, which became the deadliest shooting in American history, a new poll from CBS shows that support for banning assault rifles has skyrocketed across the nation.The poll, conducted June 13th and 14th, shows that 57 percent of Americans support banning them, while 38 percent oppose. But the most surprising thing about these numbers is that in December of last year, only 44 percent of Americans supported a ban. That s a thirteen point difference in just six months.The poll also shows a shocking statistic almost half of Republicans (45 percent) support the ban, while 78 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of Independents do.According to the poll:On whether laws governing gun sales should be made more strict, Americans seem split along party lines. A majority 57 percent believe that laws should be stricter, while 11 percent believe they should be less strict. About three in ten Americans think they should be kept as is.Not surprisingly, Republicans were in the minority on this issue as well.The overwhelming majority of Americans support such a ban, and only one candidate wants to see that happen Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump doesn t because, in his own words, there are already too many of them on the streets so it would be fruitless (but deporting 11 million immigrants in this country? No problem).There is no doubt that the number has risen thanks to the ever eminent threat of mass gun violence plaguing this nation, and the attack in Orlando certainly didn t ease any fears.When it comes to the issues of expanding background checks, all political ideologies are in agreement. Over 92 percent of Republicans, 97 percent of Democrats, and 82 percent of Independents support stricter, universal background checks.If this trend continues, guns will become a serious policy point in the upcoming election (as it should be), and with the two candidates taking completely different approaches, the difference could not be starker.Featured image via David McNew/Getty Images | 1real |
Too early to say if new legislation needed for Brexit transition deal: PM May's spokeswoman | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is not yet able to say if new legislation will be needed to implement a Brexit transition deal, Prime Minister Theresa May s spokeswoman said on Thursday, hours after a junior Brexit minister said the position was that it would be necessary. We are looking to negotiate and agree an implementation period, we will do whatever is required to implement that, but it s a bit early to say exactly what that would be because it will be determined by exactly how we negotiate, the spokeswoman said. | 0fake |
What's really behind Clinton's Benghazi grilling? | Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review and a former CNN producer and correspondent. Follow her @FridaGhitis . The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.
(CNN) The unmistakable smell of hypocrisy permeating the latest congressional hearings on Benghazi is so pungent that few people believe the claims from the panel's leaders that they are only searching for the truth. Almost three-quarters of Americans now believe the investigation is motivated by a quest for political gain rather than by a genuine wish to get at the facts.
It's no wonder. Other national tragedies, other terrorist attacks, other major failings of U.S. operations overseas have received limited attention -- sometimes none at all -- from congressional investigators. A comparison of the way Congress responded to other U.S. security disasters that deserved close scrutiny strongly suggests all you need to know about the partisan, electoral politics at play in Washington today.
To be sure, the events of Sept. 11, 2012 , in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens , and three other Americans were killed in Benghazi constituted a calamitous failure and most certainly warranted a congressional investigation.
But that investigation already happened, over and over and over. What we see now is clearly political theater, a maneuver by the Republican majority aimed at eroding support for the likely Democratic presidential candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Vast majorities of Democrats and independents see it that way, and almost half of all Republicans agree.
While Benghazi has been the subject of seven congressional investigations, in addition to one by an accountability review board, there are countless cases where Congress spent little time and money examining what went wrong.
For example, Congress does not appear particularly interested in looking at what caused the disaster a few weeks ago, when the U.S. bombed a hospital operated by the charity Doctors Without Borders, in Kunduz, Afghanistan, even though the mistake cost nearly two dozen lives and harmed America's efforts in the area.
But that tempered interest is hardly a fluke. In fact, the enthusiasm with which Congress has jumped to investigate the Benghazi debacle is unprecedented.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, a Joint Inquiry in Congress looked at five previous major terrorist attacks or attempted attacks against the U.S. to see where intelligence had failed. The incidents included the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the 1999 "Millennium" plot, and the strike on the USS Cole in 2000.
These were not minor or inconsequential terrorist operations. They were deadly and they foreshadowed what came later. The embassy bombings, two simultaneous explosions in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, killed more than 200 people and left more than 4,000 injured.
Congress held a handful of hearings, but no formal investigation. The investigation was conducted by the FBI and ultimately resulted in the indictment of several men, including one Osama Bin Laden.
Not one of these five terrorist plots against the U.S. produced a level of congressional interest even remotely approaching what we see now on Benghazi and on Hillary Clinton. No investigation took as long. Even that joint congressional investigation was completed in 10 months.
If congressional leaders believe concern for the safety of diplomatic personnel warrants the magnitude and duration of their efforts, it's curious that Congress spent so little time reviewing the Africa embassy bombings, or any of the many other attacks on American diplomats who have died in the line of duty over the years; people like 33-year-old John Granville, a diplomat working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, shot to death in Khartoum, Sudan in 2008, or David Foy, 51, killed in a massive blast outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan in 2006.
If the issue is the failures of security, of intelligence, or of judgment that have cost the lives of U.S. citizens on dangerous assignments, it's curious that the events of an awful day in late 2009 at Camp Chapman in Afghanistan did not merit this kind of scrutiny. That was when seven Americans working for the CIA were killed when a man who was supposed to be an informant, invited by American agents to be the base, turned out to be a radical jihadi, a suicide bomber who blew himself up. The dead included Jennifer Matthews, 45, one of the CIA's top al Qaeda experts. That incident was investigated by the CIA, not Congress.
If it's terrorism that justifies the obsessive attention to Benghazi, it's interesting that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the worst terrorist attack before 9/11, was not the target of a slew of congressional panels the way Benghazi is. The only report from Congress on the Oklahoma bombing was privately released by Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who was searching for an elusive "foreign connection." The attack, which killed 168 people, was investigated by the FBI.
Yes, all of those happened years ago. But what about the Boston bombings of April 2013? They did warrant an investigation by the Homeland Security Committee, which produced a couple of reports. That's a minuscule investigation compared with the Benghazi work by congressional committees including, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Senate Committee On Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and others, each of which has already conducted its own investigation and issued its own report.
What happened in Benghazi back in 2012 was horrific and it is crucial that the U.S. learns from its mistakes. Investigating what exactly went wrong is an imperative. But what is unfolding in Washington is not about that. History proves it. That's the whiff so many people detect. We know what it is. | 0fake |
Better to review Iran deal than withdraw from it: Trump U.N. pick Haley | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It would be better for the United States to carefully review the 2015 Iran nuclear deal rather than unilaterally withdraw from it, Nikki Haley, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, said on Wednesday. “I think what would be more beneficial at this point is that we look at all the details of the Iran deal, we see if they (the Iranians) are actually in compliance. If we find that there are violations that we act on those violations,” Haley told lawmakers at her Senate confirmation hearing. | 0fake |
Jay Carney: Obama supports Hillary Clinton | Obama has maintained neutrality in the primary and recently met with Clinton's opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders , at the White House. Still, his comments on the race have seemed to favor his former secretary of state, if only slightly.
Jay Carney told CNN's Brooke Baldwin on Wednesday that's no accident -- and the President does want Clinton to win.
"I don't think there is any doubt that he wants Hillary to win the nomination and believes that she would be the best candidate in the fall and the most effective as president in carrying forward what he's achieved," said Carney, a CNN contributor.
The White House declined to comment on Carney's comments Wednesday. Carney said Obama won't make an official endorsement until the race is decided, but his intentions are clear. "I think the President has signaled, while still remaining neutral, that he supports Secretary Clinton's candidacy and would prefer to see her as the nominee," Carney said. "He won't officially embrace her unless and until it's clear that she's going to be the nominee. I think he is maintaining that tradition of not intervening in a party primary." Clinton has made a point to draw from her closeness with Obama on the campaign trail, attacking Sanders for criticizing the President and seeking a primary challenger to him in 2012 | 0fake |
US Media Weaponizes “Economic Outlooks” | New Eastern Outlook | Country: Thailand Thailand is currently undergoing a sensitive period with the passing of the nation’s long-lived, revered head of state, King Bhumibol Adulyadej . Indeed, the mood across the country is somber, however, the actual business of the nation continues on with many Thais realizing that moving forward is the best way to honor their late king. And despite Thais continuing to work, factories continuing to produce, agricultural goods continuing to be cultivated, processed, and shipped domestically, regionally, and internationally, the Western media – driven by corporate-financier and political special interests – has attempted to upend confidence in the Thai economy by suggesting that somehow toned-down entertainment venues will overturn the entire economy. And some in the Western media have attempted to claim the one year of official mourning in Thailand could even affect the rest of Asia. But back in reality, sound economic fundamentals and actual political stability determine a nation’s positive economic outlook – and Thailand possesses both. The Financial Times in an article titled, “Can Thailand’s economy handle a year of mourning?,” claims that: Many Thais are putting off weddings, vacations and other “joyful events” as the country begins a one-year period of mourning. This is in addition to a 30-day ban on “entertainment” that has forced infamous bar districts, like Bangkok’s Soi Cowboy, to pull down their shutters out of respect for the late king. Although some bars have resumed operations with workers dressed all in black, the nighttime landscape of the capital remains dramatically quiet. Even after the entertainment ban is lifted, it is hard to say how quickly the nation’s mood will bounce back. While Thailand is noted for its tourist and entertainment venues, they contribute a relatively small percentage (9-16% of GDP) to Thailand’s overall economic activity. Most tourist destinations in Thailand continue to operate as normal. And while the nation’s more infamous entertainment industry is indeed expected to see a downturn, the total number of people employed by it represents at most, only 0.5% of the nation’s total workforce. Attempts to claim that the year of mourning may lead to political instability are also questionable. The king’s heir and his decision to postpone ascending to the throne until the end of the mourning period next year is in fact a sign of confidence that the nation can safely mourn, without rushing the succession process. If political stability in Thailand is compromised, it will be because of external forces. The nation’s political opposition are a spent force, and US attempts to stir up division and chaos by intensifying violence in the nation’s deep south have so far been unsuccessful. Both the opposition and prospects of violence in the south expanding depend entirely on the US’ ability to support them both – and both Thais and foreign observers alike have become increasingly adept at exposing this foreign support. Weaponizing Economic Outlooks The Financial Times is not the only Western media source attempting to portray Thailand as looking into an economic abyss. The entirety of the Western media has also attempted to perpetuate this narrative, not because careful analysis has helped them arrive at this conclusion, but because of a concerted effort to use Thailand’s moment of perceived sociopolitical weakness to undermine the current political order and help return to power Western-backed political parties – more specifically – those allied to ousted ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The “weaponizing” of economic outlooks has long been employed by the Western media. Portraying a nation’s economy as faltering helps spread panic across fickle investors, encouraging them to invest elsewhere and drawing away much needed capital to sustain economic growth. However, despite this, Asia finds itself in a position where the majority of its economic activity is done regionally. What Western papers and news channels say is increasingly irrelevant to the plans and ambitions of these regional players. As for Thailand’s economy in particular, the current government is on track, repairing the agricultural industry after gross mismanagement by Shinawatra’s administration, including a devastated rice industry. It is also investing in the increased use of technology and innovation across all sectors of the economy. Beyond that, Thailand still serves as an attractive nation for companies to build and operate factories, and Thailand itself sees its own domestic industry maturing and increasingly exporting goods of their own abroad. Agriculture, industry, energy, education, and service industries – which employ the vast majority of Thais – have basic fundamentals that will remain unaffected by the nation’s year of mourning. The superficial examples the Western media cites are cited specifically to prey on the ignorance and misconceptions their ill-informed audiences have regarding Thailand and its economy. Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook” . Popular Articles | 1real |
Japan's new party vows to scrap over-reliance on fiscal, monetary steps | TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike s new party on Friday unveiled an election platform that seeks to distance her Yurinomics policies from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s aggressive stimulus, by cutting reliance on fiscal spending and monetary easing. Launched less than two week s ago, Koike s Party of Hope will take on Abe s ruling coalition in a national election called for Oct. 22. It has made populist calls to freeze a scheduled sales tax hike in 2019 and phase out nuclear power, in an effort to set itself apart from the government on key issues, but the fresh approach on the economy was given its own catchy name. We ll carry out Yurinomics that brings out private sector vitality, without relying excessively on monetary easing and fiscal spending, the Party of Hope said. While maintaining the Bank of Japan s massive monetary easing for the time being, the government and the BOJ should work together to seek a smooth exit strategy, it added. Yurinomics is a piece of political branding to counter Abenomics - the name given to the aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus measures and structural reforms Abe has adopted since returning to power in December 2012. Five years on, Abe s government can point to some signs that his strategy is finally fostering stronger economic growth and defeating deflation. Appointed by Abe, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda still wants to give his money-printing ways more time to work, whereas the Hope party wants to debate a strategy to smoothly end them. Abe called the snap election last week in the hope his Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition will secure a simple majority in parliament s lower house, from its two-thirds super majority earlier. Amid signs that voters are disillusioned with Abe after nearly five years in power, Koike s Hope party, pitched as a reformist, conservative alternative to Abe s equally conservative LDP, has clouded the outlook, however. By putting monetary policy on the table, Koike s platform could spur debate among a lot of lawmakers about the need to fix some of the things they think are wrong, and quantitative easing could be a candidate, said Shuji Tonouchi, senior market economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. Right now, the market impact is limited because the chances of her party forming a government are low. The new party says Yurinomics - derived from Koike s first name - will focus on deregulation and tax firms massive internal reserves - worth around 300 trillion yen ($2.66 trillion) to encourage them to put unused cash to better use. It will also freeze the scheduled sales tax hike in 2019 and help low-income households with a basic income policy that regularly pays a set amount of money to all citizens. While the Party of Hope s conservative approach on defense and constitutional reform resembles that of Abe s LDP, its economic policy has a more populist streak, analysts say. Basic income is being called for in some countries facing growing social inequality, so I m not totally rejecting the idea, said Hiroshi Shiraishi, senior economist at BNP Paribas Securities. But without a secure source of revenue, it s simply impossible. Abe s ruling coalition has pledged to proceed with the sales tax hike and use the revenues for child care and education. Koike said her party would build on Abenomics to bring the benefits of the economic recovery to more households. We need to carry out a more meticulous economic policy and social reform that would strike people s heart, Koike told a news conference, where she reiterated that she would not stand in the coming election. Her party is open to debate on a possible revision of the constitution s pacifist chapter 9, whose literal interpretation would ban the maintenance of armed forces. In an interview, Abe told Kyodo news agency he wanted to win support from other parties, including Koike s, for the LDP s campaign pledge for a revision to provide a firm legal basis for Japan s military, the Self-Defence Forces. Koike, 65, a former defense minister and member of Abe s LDP, has not made clear whom her party would back as the next prime minister. She defied the LDP to run for governor last year, defeating the ruling party candidate by a landslide before leading her small local party to a huge victory on a reformist platform in a July Tokyo assembly election. ($1=112.8300 yen) | 0fake |
COL OLIVER NORTH: FIVE FACTS That Prove Obama’s Policies Led To The Rise Of ISIS [Video] | Col Oliver North lists the 5 irrefutable facts that confirm that Obama s policies led to the rise of ISIS. Please watch and share! | 1real |
Two U.S. Marines Under Investigation For Threatening Attack On Gay Bars | Two U.S. Marines are reportedly under investigation following a potential threat against the LGBTQ community posted on social media.According to the Marine Corps Times an active duty Marine posted an image to Facebook which shows a uniformed corporal holding a rifle in a menacing manner. The message Coming to a gay bar near you, appears on the image.Here s the image, courtesy of the Marine Corps Times.In the comments section the person who posted the photo wrote Too soon? The image was posted to a closed Facebook group for West Coast-based male Marines, called Camp MENdleton Resale. The group has more than 25,000 members.According to Michael Moss, founder of the Facebook group where the image was posted, the photo was immediately removed from the group and reported to authorities. We do not tolerate hate speech, Moss said in a Facebook post.The California-based 1 Marine Expeditionary Force (1 MEF) is investigating the man who posted the photo to the group page, as well as a second Marine who apparently uploaded the image to Facebook.First Lt. Thomas Gray, a spokesman for I MEF, told the Marine Corps Times that the man in the photo has been identified and is part of the on-going investigation. Gray declined to provide more information about the individual, saying: We cannot discuss details of an ongoing investigation, but I can tell you the command is taking this incident seriously. The MEF released a public statement regarding the investigation, which reads: The Marine Corps does not tolerate discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, gender or religion. This type of behavior and mindset will not be allowed, and it is not consistent with the core values of honor, courage and commitment that are demonstrated by the vast majority of Marines on a daily basis. Officials said they will take appropriate action, against the individuals involved.The threatening post came on the heels of the Pulse Orlando mass shooting. While some have implied that the post was meant to be a joke, there s nothing even remotely funny about gun violence or threats of terror against the LGBTQ community.Featured image via Marine Corp Times via Facebook | 1real |
Japan refueling U.S. missile defense ships keeping watch on North Korean threat: source | TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan s navy is supplying fuel to U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) ships in the Sea of Japan, in a sign of deepening co-operation between the allies amid the growing threat from North Korea, a source said. By providing fuel to the U.S. Aegis destroyers as well as its own BMD ships, Japan hopes to ensure patrols can be maintained without unnecessary gaps, said the source, who has knowledge of the operation. The refueling began in April, the Nikkei financial daily reported earlier. North Korea threatened on Thursday to sink Japan with nuclear weapons for dancing to the tune of the United States for backing a U.N. Security Council resolution that imposed fresh sanctions on Pyongyang. The U.S. Navy s Seventh Fleet usually has around six Aegis ships assigned to BMD operations around Japan. Japan operates four ships of its own. They are armed with interceptors designed to shoot down warheads in space before they plunge to their targets. Around half of the ships would normally be at sea at any one time. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s administration in 2015 won lawmaker approval to expand the role of the nation s Self Defence Forces (SDF) under the pacifist constitution to allow them to take on a bigger role in the alliance with Washington, including resupplying and defending U.S. ships. Japan has delivered fuel to U.S. ships in the past under ad hoc legislation, including vessels deployed to support military operations in Afghanistan a decade ago. But this is the first time it has been undertaken under the new security law. Japan s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga at his regular morning press briefing on Thursday said that this kind of co-operation would be undertaken by the allies. He declined to comment on the Aegis ship fuel shipments saying it could reveal details of SDF and U.S. Navy operations. | 0fake |
null | "Russian made"....I'm sure this will get some air play. | 1real |
Even Mitch McConnell Is Beginning To Turn On Trump; Is Impeachment Next? (VIDEO) | Donald Trump s Muslim ban is proving to be a lot more difficult and a lot less constitutional than his followers hope. While two courts in a row have struck Trump down, even Mitch McConnell is seeing the writing on the wall. He said on Sunday that the Senate will not defend Trump s questionably constitutional Muslim ban.On CNN s State of the Union, McConnell was asked about a couple of Trump s latest, including Trump s defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin s record of assassinating his political enemies, to which Trump essentially shrugged his shoulders and said that the United States does it too. McConnell called Putin a thug and then, without a shred of irony in his voice, complained that Putin wasn t legitimately elected.The subject then turned to Trump s claim that he only lost the popular vote because more than 3 million undocumented people voted. While McConnell didn t exactly deny this baseless claim, he did say that election fraud wasn t significant enough to have swayed the election and that any investigations should be left up to the state.Then it turned to Trump s latest priority, which is his Muslim ban. While Trump hasn t yet lashed out at the second court to put a halt to his ban, Trump did have a Twitter meltdown toward the first, who is a conservative George Bush Sr. appointee:The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017Because the ban was lifted by a judge, many very bad and dangerous people may be pouring into our country. A terrible decision Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017The judge opens up our country to potential terrorists and others that do not have our best interests at heart. Bad people are very happy! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017CNN s Jake Tapper asked McConnell if Congress would be willing to make the ban law, which would make the legality at least a bit less questionable. McConnell wanted nothing to do with it. I don t know that that s necessary, McConnell told CNN s Jake Tapper on State of the Union Sunday. I mean, the courts are going to decide whether the executive order the President issued is valid or not, and we all follow court orders. Here s the video in its entirety:McConnell is sending a clear message to Donald Trump and it s one he won t like. Even in our hyper partisan Congress, McConnell is not willing to step out on a political limb just because Trump is a Republican. This isn t exactly bravery on McConnell s part, but it does show that perhaps impeachment might not be far behind. McConnell would much rather work with a President Mike Pence.Featured image via video screen capture. | 1real |
Antarctica 'Guardians' Retaliate Against America With Massive New Zealand Earthquake | An amazing (but nearly 90% censored) Foreign Intelligence Service report circulating in the Kremlin today states that the Antarctica “guardians” swiftly retaliated against the United States this past week by “creating unleashing” a massive earthquake after the Obama regime sent “without invitation or permission” its Secretary of State John Kerry to initiate contact with them in the “barrier zone” that’s forbidden by all “known protocols” in dealing with these “entities”.
As the United States neared election day, Secretary of State John Kerry announced he would take a historic trip to the massive, frozen seventh continent, Antarctica.
He was flying over the South Pacific toward New Zealand the next day when the results began to come in .
A major 5.8 magnitude aftershock has rocked New Zealand's South Island, north of where two massive earthquakes measuring 6.3 and 7.8 struck less than 24 hours before.
Local media reported that six-foot-high waves were rolling into Kaikoura, a coastal city north of Christchurch, and at least one building had collapsed. Phone service and the power supply in Kaikoura appeared to be cut off so the extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
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Disclose TV SOURCE | 1real |
Heidi Cruz: Ted’s Failed Campaign Is Just Like The Fight To End Slavery | Being the wife of failed Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is no easy task, but Heidi Cruz has just proven that she s a nut job in her own right. Either that, or Ted damaged a few brain cells when he elbowed her in the face after suspending his campaign.Although Ted s disaster of a campaign ended a week ago, Heidi s not ready to give up just yet and why would she, considering that Cruz s family spent months claiming God wanted him to run for president, and he failed?! To try to save face, Heidi portrayed her husband s failure as just one part of a longer, bigger journey you know, just like the fight to end slavery! During a conference call with the Cruz campaign s National Prayer Team, Heidi made this baffling comparison between her husband s campaign and the abolition of slavery when she said: I don t want you to feel like any of this was in vain. I believe in the power of prayer. This doesn t always happen on the timing of man, and God does not work in four-year segments. Be full of faith and so full of joy that this team was chosen to fight a long battle. Think that slavery it took 25 years to defeat slavery. That is a lot longer than four years. Heidi also spoke on Ted s decision to end his campaign after Trump crushed him in the Indiana primary a win that marked Trump as the GOP s presumptive nominee. Heidi said: I want to assure all of you that this was not a race we gave up. This was a race that no longer had a viable path to victory, and it would ve been very demoralizing for you all and the troops to go through nine states of losses. We left on a high note. We left when there was no possible way that we were going to win. Mrs. Cruz also repeatedly said that this (failed) campaign was just the beginning for Ted although it s unclear what that actually means. Completely forgetting that Cruz is one of the most hated Republicans by fellow Republicans and many of his conservative colleagues wanted NOTHING to do with him, she said: We have changed the Republican Party. This is no longer about the establishment and the old way of doing things versus the Constitution. This party is now being deceived, but the old battles are behind us, the new ones are before us. It was our first national race, but we have changed the Republican Party by Ted being in the Senate and Ted running this race. Heidi tried to assure callers that her husband was planning an enormous agenda for when he got back to the Senate. We are not only keeping this band together, we have been having meetings five hours a day since the time we dropped out. Every single person in our leadership team in our campaign, Ted and I will probably be working with on a weekly basis in the next four years. The failed candidate himself joined the call later, expressing his disappointment that he was out of the presidential race but urged his fans to continue supporting him.Ted and Heidi are in for a rude awakening just like the outcome of his presidential campaign has proven, Ted is too unlikeable to gain a significant following and support for his ideas. It doesn t matter that God wanted him to be the president America s voters clearly don t. And certainly, comparing a presidential campaign to an emancipation movement probably isn t winning over anyone.Featured image via Scott Olson / Getty Images | 1real |
EU suspends funding for Cambodian election | PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The European Union has suspended funding for Cambodia s 2018 general election because the vote cannot be credible after the dissolution of the main opposition party, according to a letter sent to the national election committee on Tuesday. The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was dissolved by the country s highest court last month at the request of the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen after the arrest of opposition leader Kem Sokha for alleged treason. An electoral process from which the main opposition party has been arbitrarily excluded cannot be seen as legitimate, the letter said. Under these circumstances, the European Union does not believe there is a possibility of a credible electoral process. Some Western donors have condemned the CNRP dissolution as the most serious blow to democracy since an international peace deal and U.N.-run elections in the early 1990s ended decades of war and the Khmer Rouge genocide that killed at least 1.8 million Cambodians in the 1970s. A government spokesman said the EU decision would not affect the election, in which Hun Sen is expected to extend more than three decades in office that make him the world s longest serving prime minister. This is their will, spokesman Phay Siphan told Reuters on Tuesday. We have our own money. The European Union and Japan are the biggest donors to Cambodia s election commission, which is in theory independent. Asked if Japan would also suspend aid for the election, the Japanese embassy said it would continue to give assistance for electoral reform and would monitor the situation closely. It is of utmost importance to have next year s national election reflect the will of the Cambodian people, Hironori Suzuki, a counselor at the embassy, told Reuters by email. The United States last month said it would suspend funding for the election. It later said it would impose visa sanctions on those involved in the government s actions to undermine democracy. Kem Sokha, leader of the CNRP, was arrested for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government with U.S. help. He has rejected the accusation as a political ploy. The European Union in October warned Cambodia it could face EU action over duty-free access it enjoys under a deal for some of the world s poorest countries if the nation s human rights situation deteriorates further. Cambodia s biggest donor and investor is now China, which has voiced support for the opposition crackdown, saying it supports government efforts to ensure stability and economic development. | 0fake |
Rescued Canadian-U.S. couple reunited with family; receiving medical attention | TORONTO (Reuters) - A U.S.-Canadian couple freed in Pakistan this week, nearly five years after being abducted in Afghanistan, reunited with the husband s family on Saturday, the Associated Press reported. Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman arrived with their three children late on Friday in Toronto, where the husband said one of his children was murdered and his wife had been raped. Citing an email from Boyle, the AP reported the family had reached the first true home that the children have ever known after they spent most of Friday asking if each subsequent airport was our new house hopefully. Boyle, a Canadian, and Coleman, an American were kidnapped while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012 by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network. Pakistani troops rescued the family this week in the northwest of the country, near the Afghan border. The United States has long accused Pakistan of failing to fight the Haqqani network. The couple had three children while in captivity. Boyle opened his Friday media statement by saying he was delayed due to a medical emergency involving one of his children. AP, citing Boyle s email, said his daughter had a cursory medical exam and hospital staff were enthusiastically insistent that her chances seemed miraculously high based on a quick physical. Boyle made a brief statement at Toronto s Pearson International Airport late on Friday, calling on the Taliban to provide my family with the justice we are owed. God willing, this litany of stupidity will be the epitaph of the Haqqani network, he said. | 0fake |
WATCH HILARIOUSLY AWKWARD Moment Between Rick Perry And Al Franken: “Oh my Lord!” [Video] | Franken asked Perry if he enjoyed a meeting they recently had at his office:Franken: Thank you so much for coming into my office. Did you enjoy meeting me? Perry: I hope you re as much fun on that dias as you were on your couch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxrKlVv4UDA | 1real |
Trump Fan: Sexual Assault Victims Should ‘Grow a Set’ And Just ‘Get Over It’ (VIDEO) | After former reality show star Donald Trump was caught on video speaking casually about sexually assaulting women, it s clear that his supporters take no issue with that. Sexual assault is a soul-crushing experience but to them, the victim just needs to get over it. We ve heard Trump s defenders refer to the Republican presidential candidate s predatory grab them by the pussy comments in 1995 as simply locker room talk. Maybe they re speaking of the locker rooms at Rikers Island, who knows.It s not just Trump s angry white male supporters, but women, too. In light of recent allegations by up to 12 women who say Trump sexually assaulted or harassed them, CNN s Randi Kaye spoke to Donald s supporters at a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on Tuesday to get their take on it. Donald Trump really has the character of God: a loving, caring father, one woman told Kaye. Donald Trump is a man God chose for a time such as this. I think we ve all fallen short from what God expects, said another.Another said that people just try to pick on Trump and his character. One man said he s not looking for someone who is perfect, but he is looking for someone to save this country. That man originally supporter Ben Carson but now, he s on the Trump Train.As for Trump s infamous grab them by the pussy comments, one man said it bothered him but added, Is it a deal breaker? No. One woman said, Some of that the media has made it be worse than it is. The reported reminded her that his remarks are on tape. The woman said, Yeah, it doesn t bother me. I think those women need to grow a set, personally, she continued. You know, it s been a lot of years. Get over it. Watch:We re pretty sure if her daughter was sexually assaulted, she wouldn t be so dismissive. Or if it happened to her or her mother. But it s OK. It happened to someone else so get over it. Such caring conservatives.Reminder: Trump is due in court on December 16th on child rape charges.Don t forget to vote.Image via screen capture. | 1real |
Manufacturers, Wall Street getting Trump's ear in first 100 days | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Manufacturers and Wall Street have led the quest for business access to President Donald Trump in his first 100 days in office, with media companies and Silicon Valley seldom entering the presidential bubble, a Reuters review found. Since inauguration day on Jan. 20, top executives from at least 186 companies have visited with Trump or senior advisers at the White House or on presidential trips, including those to Mar-a-Lago, the private, seaside Florida club where he spends many weekends. Some of the meetings have been reported in the press. But Reuters analyzed more than 900 White House press pool reports to give the first big picture view, albeit an incomplete one, of who has had the most and least success at bending the president’s ear. Such access can be crucial for companies, with Trump regularly passing judgment and making proposals on business issues such as trade, taxes, immigration and regulation. The review showed Trump listening closely to some segments of Corporate America, though perhaps neglecting the dynamic technology and entertainment sectors, both powerful U.S. export industries. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc (AAPL.O), and other tech leaders met with Trump before his inauguration. Access sometimes means influence, but it was likely too soon to tell, after less than 100 days, whether Trump’s actions have disproportionately favored big manufacturers and Wall Street. Industrial power-houses have led the way on access, including companies with the clout to make significant hiring decisions: Ford Motor Co (F.N) CEO Mark Fields has met with Trump at least four times; General Motors (GM.N) CEO Mary Barra, at least four times; and Boeing (BA.N) representatives, at least three times. The Reuters review helps fill a blank in the Trump record that opened in mid-April when he put the White House visitor logs off-limits to the public. They had been mostly public under Obama. Transparency advocates have warned that Trump’s decision will make it harder to hold him accountable. “A public record of who has the president’s ear is more important than it has ever been,” said John Wonderlich, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit good-government advocacy group. The review showed about half of the companies that have made it into the Trump inner circle through April 21, day 92 of his presidency, were manufacturers or financial firms - asset managers, insurers and banks ranging from Wall Street giants such as Citigroup (C.N) to small community banks. Financier Stephen Schwarzman, who chairs a presidential advisory forum of business leaders, is CEO of the Blackstone Group (BX.N), the largest manager of private equity and real estate assets. He was spotted by the press pool aboard Air Force 1 on Feb. 3 when the president was traveling to Mar-a-Lago. Schwarzman also attended at least three meetings with Trump and other executives. Almost all of Trump’s meetings were group encounters with 10 or more executives sitting down with the president and White House officials in events billed as listening sessions, roundtable discussions or town halls. A few were more intimate encounters, such as on March 18, when Ike Perlmutter, CEO of Marvel Entertainment, a Walt Disney Corp. (DIS.N) subsidiary, met with the president in Mar-a-Lago before having dinner with the president, first lady Melania Trump and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Perlmutter, however, was one of few executives from media companies seen by pool reporters in meetings with Trump. Information technology firms, which enjoyed significant access to former President Barack Obama, have had less access to Trump than legacy manufacturers such as auto and steel makers. IBM (IBM.N) CEO Ginni Rometty attended three meetings with Trump, but was one of only a few CEOs from big tech firms seen at the White House. Manufacturers and financiers also enjoyed access to the White House under Obama, according to a Reuters review in December 2015 of White House visitor logs. The recent Reuters review is not comprehensive since the press pool, though dogged and alert, may have missed some of Trump’s meetings with business leaders. The pool is a rotation of journalists from several outlets, including Reuters, who follow Trump and get briefings from White House officials on some, but not all of his meetings. | 0fake |
Trump hires Republican insider, conservative firebrand for White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday picked Reince Priebus, a Washington insider who heads the Republican National Committee, as White House chief of staff, signaling a willingness to work with Congress to advance his agenda when he takes office in January. But while giving the influential post to the low-key Priebus, Trump handed another senior White House job to rabble-rousing conservative media figure Stephen Bannon, his campaign chairman who helped engineer his surprise victory on Tuesday over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Priebus is a friend of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who distanced himself from Trump during the campaign but embodies the Republican establishment in Washington and will play a critical role in shepherding Trump’s agenda in Congress. Both Priebus and Ryan are from Wisconsin. But Bannon, former head of the right-wing Breitbart News website, has been fiercely critical of Ryan. Trump’s statement announcing the appointments said Bannon and Priebus would be “working as equal partners to transform the federal government,” with Bannon serving as chief strategist and senior counselor to the president. The White House chief of staff serves as a gatekeeper and agenda-setter for the president, but Trump’s statement mentioned Bannon’s job first. “I am thrilled to have my very successful team continue with me in leading our country,” Trump said in a statement. “Steve and Reince are highly qualified leaders who worked well together on our campaign and led us to a historic victory. Now I will have them both with me in the White House.” Before joining Trump’s team, Bannon spearheaded Breitbart’s shift into a forum for the “alt-right,” a loose online confederation of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semitics. Bannon’s hiring by Trump’s campaign this year signaled the businessman’s dedication to operating outside the norms of Washington. Under Bannon’s leadership, the Breitbart site presented a number of conspiracy theories about Clinton as well as Republicans deemed to be lacking in conservative bona fides. Critics have accused Bannon of harboring anti-Semitic and white nationalist sentiments. In a 2007 court filing during divorce proceedings, Bannon’s former wife accused him of making anti-Semitic comments on at least three occasions. As head of Breitbart, he repeatedly attacked the Republican Party establishment including Ryan, alienating many veteran Republicans. Bannon showed his willingness to engage in brutal political tactics when he instigated the appearance before a presidential debate of three women who said they had been sexually abused by his Democratic rival’s husband, former President Bill Clinton. Trump, who will succeed Democratic President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, has been contemplating the candidates for top jobs in the White House and in various Cabinet positions since Tuesday’s victory. Priebus’ appointment could anger some hardline Trump supporters who were counting on Trump to keep his campaign promise to “drain the swamp” of business-as-usual Washington insiders. Priebus is a longtime Wisconsin political operative who was credited with marshaling party resources for Trump’s White House bid. The Republican National Committee stepped in and ran most of the party’s get-out-the-vote effort this year in the absence of such an operation by the Trump campaign. While some Republicans fled from Trump during the campaign, Priebus was unwavering in his backing for the New York real estate developer. Priebus frequently traveled with Trump on the campaign trail and was seen as a positive force who helped rein in the unpredictable Trump in the closing weeks. Trump made his high regard for Priebus known on election night when he pulled him to the microphone to take a bow for his campaign efforts. Trump and his advisers already have hedged on some of his major campaign promises, including on immigration, healthcare and appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton. Trump, in an interview that aired on Sunday, backed away from his promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, saying some areas could instead be “fencing.” Trump, whose pledge to force Mexico to pay for a border wall was a centerpiece of his White House, said in “certain areas” he would accept fencing instead of a brick-and-mortar wall, according to his interview with the CBS program “60 Minutes.” “But certain areas, a wall is more appropriate. I’m very good at this, it’s called construction, there could be some fencing,” he said. In the “60 Minutes” interview, Trump said Americans alarmed by his election had nothing to fear. “Don’t be afraid. We are going to bring our country back. But certainly, don’t be afraid,” he said. Demonstrators in major U.S. cities took to the streets on Sunday for a fifth straight day to protest against Trump. Trump said in the interview that once he takes office, he would remove immigrants with criminal records who are in the country illegally. During the campaign, Trump said he would deport the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, most of whom are Hispanic. Ryan on Sunday backed away from Trump’s promise during the campaign of a “deportation force” to round up and deport immigrants in the country illegally. “We are not planning on erecting a deportation force. Donald Trump’s not planning on that,” Ryan told CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “I think we should put people’s minds at ease. That is not what our focus is. That is not what we’re focused on. We’re focused on securing the border.” | 0fake |
McPain: John McCain Furious That Iran Treated US Sailors Well | 21st Century Wire says As 21WIRE reported earlier this week, the unlikely mishap of two US Naval vessels straying into Iranian waters just hours before the President s State of the Union speech, followed by the usual parade of arch-neocons coming on TV in real time to declare the incident as an act of aggression by Iran against the United States is no mere coincidence.24 hours after the incident, the Iranians returned all 11 US sailors, unharmed and in good spirits. The only remaining casualty from this event was an incident of a common condition in Washington known as Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder suffered by a certain US Senator was mortified by the uneventful outcome which followed Daniel McAdams Ron Paul Institute The two US Navy riverine command boats intercepted in Iranian territorial waters yesterday were sent on their way along with the crew of 10 US sailors after brief detention on Iranian soil.According to news reports, the well-armed warships either suffered mechanical or navigational difficulties which caused them to enter Iranian territory (although it may well have been a game of cat-and-mouse to test the Iranian response). The US sailors were apparently treated well, enjoyed what appeared a decent meal in relaxed surroundings, and in the end apologized for the mistake and praised their treatment by the Iranians. Thanks to President Obama s policy shift on Iran toward engagement and away from isolationism, Secretary of State John Kerry was able to telephone his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Zarif and quickly defuse what just months ago would have been a far more serious situation.This should be a good-news story about the value of diplomacy and reducing tensions with adversaries, but Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was having none of it. That Kerry expressed his appreciation to the Iranians for swiftly releasing the American sailors only showed the Obama Administration s craven desire to preserve the dangerous Iranian nuclear deal at all costs evidently knows no limit, said McCain in a press release.McCain was furious that Obama administration officials seem to be falling over themselves to offer praise for Iran s graciousness and was outraged that the Iranians dared interfere with the actions of US military vessels operating in Iranian waters.In the world of John McCain, only the United States has the right to national sovereignty. The US military has the right to act anywhere and everywhere and the rest of the world dare not raise a question.According to McCain, sovereign immune naval vessels are exempt from detention, boarding, or search. Their crews are not subject to detention or arrest. Imagine the tune McCain would have been singing if a well-armed Iranian naval vessel had been spotted in US territorial waters off the coast of New York. Would he have so rigorously condemned any US interference in the actions of Iran s sovereign naval vessels?Leave it to some clever Twitterers to post an example of the difference between US and Iranian detention.Copyright 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.READ MORE JOHN MCCAIN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire McPain Files | 1real |
Report: Trump Won’t Be Handling Foreign Or Domestic Tasks As President | Donald Trump is officially the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Mike Pence is officially the nominee for Vice President of the United States. According to a new report from the New York Times, guess who will be doing almost all of the work?Hint: it won t be Donald Trump.The report, published today, chronicles just how Trump came to settle on Pence instead of the likes of John Kasich, Newt Gingrich, Condoleezza Rice and so forth. But several paragraphs concerning former presidential candidate John Kasich shows the true side of Donald Trump, one that Democrats have been trying to warn the American public about for over a year:One day this past May, Donald Trump s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached out to a senior adviser to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who left the presidential race just a few weeks before Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer nonetheless: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?When Kasich s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of? Making America great again was the casual reply.And there you have it. What exactly does he mean when he says making America great again if he doesn t want to do the only things needed? Trump doesn t want the responsibility of actually being president, he just wants the title and the prestige. Instead of taking it upon himself to deliver on his promises, he s going to dump everything on Mike Pence and sit back and relax while the world crumbles (because everyone knows that wall isn t being built).Congratulations, Republicans, you really picked a winner. He hadn t even decided on who his Vice President would be when he figured out he doesn t want to put in the work to be President.Mike Pence is now poised to become the most powerful V.P. in American historyAnd Republicans say Democrats are lazy and Democrats disgrace the office of the presidency? Once again, the GOP is caught in a corner they can t back out of and it s all thanks to Donald J. Trump.On the second night of the Republican National Convention, Trump s youngest daughter, Tiffany, exulted that her father was a hard worker who never gave up, never stopped dreaming, and never stopped achieving. Well, it turns out he gave up being president of the United States before he has even started.Donald Trump, time and time again, has shown himself to be a lazy, pandering, egomaniacal, narcissistic blowhard. And, not surprisingly, he picked a vice president with the same attributes. I can t wait to see how his duped electorate tries to justify this. They will somehow blame it on Hillary Clinton or President Obama, because that s what Republicans are good at blaming others.If Democrats don t get out and vote, say hello to President Trump eh, President Pence.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
Super Bowl QB Peyton Manning Bankrolling This GOP Presidential Candidate (IMAGE) | When you sit down to watch the Super Bowl contest between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers, you may want to know that the man leading Denver to the field is a hardcore right-wing Republican.Peyton Manning, the Broncos quarterback and former superstar for the Indianapolis Colts, doesn t just occasionally donate to the Republican Party. In fact, Manning is a maxed out contributor to Jeb Bush s 2016 presidential campaign.In October of 2015 it was revealed that Manning donated $2,700 to Bush s campaign, the most an individual can contribute. While Manning may want his money back based on how the Bush campaign has underperformed so far, it s part of a pattern for the veteran player, who has often contributed to the Republican cause.Over the last ten years, Manning has donated $22,400 to political campaigns, all of that to conservative Republicans. He gave $10,200 to Senator Bob Corker, from Tennessee. Manning was a superstar player for the Tennessee Volunteers. Manning also gave money to Dick Lugar, who served as a senator for Indiana, around the same time Manning played for the Colts.At the presidential level, Manning gave money to George W. Bush in 2004, and was a maxed-out $5,000 donor to Mitt Romney s failed 2012 presidential campaign.Manning s wife Ashley joined her husband in supporting Republicans. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, she donated to Senator Corker as well, and also gave to Jeb Bush. Between the two Mannings, she was the only one to ever donate to a Democrat, former Senator Mary Landrieu, who hailed from Manning s birth state of Louisiana.His brother, Eli, the New York Giants quarterback, is also a maxed-out Jeb Bush donor.According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Broncos have donated $112,475 to conservative candidates and political committees. By comparison the Carolina Panthers have given $21,000 to support the right. While both teams have also contributed to liberal candidates, the numbers are much smaller $3,500 for the Broncos, $4,000 for the Panthers.Unlike Manning, Panthers quarterback Cam Newton has not been a political donor.Overall the NFL leans heavily in favor of Republican donors, most of that money coming from the billionaire owners who own the teams.Featured image via Flickr | 1real |
Bangladesh seeks support to move fleeing Rohingya to remote, flood-prone island | DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh is seeking international support for its plan to relocate Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar to a remote Bay of Bengal island that critics say is flood-prone and unlivable. More than 300,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh from Buddhist-majority Myanmar since the latest violence began on Aug. 25, joining more than 400,000 others already living there in cramped makeshift camps. The United Nations top human rights official on Monday slammed Myanmar for conducting a cruel military operation against the Rohingya, branding it a textbook example of ethnic cleansing . This is creating a huge challenge for Bangladesh in terms of providing shelter as well as other humanitarian assistance to them, Bangladesh s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday as Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali held talks with diplomats. He urged the international community to push Myanmar to find a permanent solution to this crisis and sought support for transportation of the Rohingya to Bhashan Char , also known as Thengar Char. Bangladesh, one of the world s poorest and most crowded nations, plans to develop Thengar Char, which only emerged from the silt off Bangladesh s delta coast 11 years ago and is two hours by boat from the nearest settlement. It regularly floods during June-September monsoons and, when seas are calm, pirates roam the nearby waters to kidnap fishermen for ransom. The plan to develop the island and use it to house refugees was criticized by humanitarian workers when it was proposed in 2015 and revived last year. Bangladesh, though, insists it alone has the right to decide where to shelter the growing numbers of refugees. | 0fake |
U.S. communications agency to unveil reform to business data services market | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is expected to unveil proposed reforms on Thursday to the $45 billion business data services market just four months after his Democratic predecessor abandoned a reform plan. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is set to announce reforms but will not propose completely deregulating the market, two officials briefed on the plan said. The proposal is set to be discussed at the FCC’s April meeting. An FCC spokesman declined to comment. Small businesses, schools, libraries and others rely on business data services, or special-access lines, to transmit large amounts of data quickly, for instance connecting banks to ATM machines or gasoline pump credit card readers. Special-access lines are used by offices, retailers, banks, manufacturers, schools and hospitals to move large amounts of data, and wireless carriers rely on them for the backhaul of mobile traffic. Major telecommunications and cable companies have met with FCC staff in recent weeks to talk about the issue, according to FCC records. Under President Barack Obama, then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler in April 2016 proposed a sweeping reform plan for business data services that aimed to reduce prices paid for services. Wheeler abandoned the proposal in November after Donald Trump was elected president. The data services market is an important business for AT&T Inc, CenturyLink Inc (CTL.N), Frontier Communications Corp and Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N), while Sprint Corp and other companies that use the lines say they are being overcharged. Wheeler had proposed maintaining and lowering lower price caps using legacy data systems with a one-time 11 percent reduction in prices phased in over three years. The proposal came under criticism from AT&T and the Communications Workers of America union. Sprint, which backed Wheeler’s proposal, told the FCC in a March 22 letter that “thousands of large and small businesses across the country are paying far too much for broadband because of inadequate competition.” Sprint argued “a small handful of companies are overcharging the very investors and employers that are critical to our economic growth and are using anticompetitive tactics to ensure that these businesses never have access to competitive alternatives.” AT&T argued Wheeler’s plan was “little more than a wealth transfer to companies that have chosen not to invest in last mile fiber infrastructure.” In a March 13 letter, AT&T suggested the FCC largely deregulate the market but leave rules in place where there is no competition. CenturyLink and Frontier in a March 20 filing urged the FCC to completely deregulate the market. | 0fake |
Heh : Hillary Literally Became the Definition of ‘Pathological Lying’ on Google Yesterday | Posted 10/31/2016 2:37 pm by PatriotRising with 0 comments Clinton image added to “Pathological lying” Wikipedia page
If you had happened to Google the term ‘pathological lying’ on Sunday evening, you would have been met with none other than the bright, smiling face of presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Before Wikipedia administrators put a temporary lock on the entry early Monday morning, the top Google result for the term was a link to the Wiki article displaying Clinton’s photo, along with the following quote defining pathological lying:
“It is a stand-alone disorder as well as a symptom of other disorders such as psychopathy and antisocial, narcissistic, and histrionic personality disorders, but people who are pathological liars may not possess characteristics of the other disorders. Excessive lying is a common symptom of several mental disorders.”
The revision history of the entry shows the picture of Clinton was originally added to the ‘pathological lying’ Wikipedia article on the morning of October 29th, but it wasn’t until the next night that the ever-vigilant internet community took notice and excitedly spread the word on Facebook and Twitter . Check out the Google Trends report for ‘pathological lying’ below:
Unsurprisingly, most reactions were supportive of the alteration to the Wikipedia article, once again showing the public’s general distrust of the presidential candidate. A poll conducted by Quinnipiac University last year asked voters to say the first thing that came to mind when they thought of Hillary Clinton. The most popular response was “liar,” followed by “dishonest” and “untrustworthy.” Maybe if the biggest names in journalism weren’t outright colluding with Hillary’s campaign , that poll would have been more widely reported. Maybe.
Due to the fact major media corporations are completely ignoring the corruption surrounding the Clinton campaign, it has been left to Wikileaks, independent media outlets, and the social media community to push this information into the public eye. Just a week away from the election, new evidence was discovered that prompted the FBI to announce they have reopened the criminal investigation into Hillary’s private email server.
With Republican nominee Donald Trump scheduled to appear in court to face rape allegations, there is a high possibility the next president of the United States will be facing criminal charges before they’re even inaugurated. If nothing else, this election cycle is proving that people want truth — and they’ll get creative to expose it. Do you enjoy reading Patriot Rising? | 1real |
Oregon Standoff Leaders Acquitted For Malheur Wildlife Refuge Takeover | Oregon Standoff Leaders Acquitted For Malheur Wildlife Refuge Takeover page: 1 link A federal court jury on Wednesday acquitted anti-government militant leader Ammon Bundy and six followers of conspiracy charges stemming from their role in the armed takeover of a U.S. wildlife center in Oregon earlier this year. Bundy and others, including his brother and co-defendant Ryan Bundy, cast the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as a legitimate and patriotic act of civil disobedience. Prosecutors called it a lawless scheme to seize federal property by force. This is news! I surely did not expect these guys n gal to get off. Someone lost their life during this event which is sad. Justice has spoken. Does this set a precedent going forward? The likelihood of this happening again in a similar fashion seems high given the current political climate. A more detailed article. | 1real |
First planned North Korea-U.S. contact in Trump administration canceled: WSJ | SEOUL (Reuters) - Plans for the first contact between North Korea and the United States after President Donald Trump took office were canceled after the U.S. State Department denied a visa for the top envoy from Pyongyang, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The talks, between senior North Korean foreign ministry envoy Choe Son Hui and former U.S. officials, were scheduled to take place on March 1 and 2 in New York but were called off after Choe was denied a visa, the Journal said. It was not clear what led the State Department to deny the visa but North Korea’s test-firing of a ballistic missile on Feb. 12 and the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half brother in Malaysia may have played a role, the report said. South Korean and U.S. officials have said they believe North Korean agents assassinated Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of Kim Jong Un, on Feb. 13. A U.S. State Department official denied so-called track two discussions had been scheduled. “The U.S government had no plans to engage in track 2 talks in New York,” the official said, declining comment on individual visa cases. A South Korean foreign ministry official declined to comment on the report of the canceled meeting in New York, saying the reported plan did not involve the U.S. or South Korean government. The meeting in New York would have been the first time a senior North Korean envoy would visit the United States since 2011 and the first contact between U.S. and North Korean representatives since Trump took office. Choe, director general for North American affairs at the North’s foreign ministry, has previously met former U.s. officials and academics, the last time in November in Geneva for informal discussions. Trump said in a Reuters interview on Thursday that he was concerned about North Korea’s ballistic missile tests and “it’s a very dangerous situation”. Trump did not ruling out meeting Kim at some point in the future under certain circumstances but suggested it might be too late. | 0fake |
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