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DuPont freezes payments to pension plan for 13,000 employees | Council approves cleanup funding
Current retirees’ pensions and health care benefits will not be affected.
DuPont says it hopes to save $550 million over the years by freezing those pensions. It says it also will stop giving future retiree health benefits to staff currently younger than age 50, saving an additional $50 million.
The Wilmington, Del.-based pesticides and materials maker, which employs about 50,000 after spinning off such companies as Axalta and Chemours in recent years and laying off 5,000 management, research, and other staff last winter, says it has followed Lockheed, Johnson Controls and other large manufacturers in switching workers from guaranteed pensions to 401(k) savings plans, whose value rises and falls with the investment markets.
In 2007, DuPont stopped adding new hires to the pension plan. It continued to boost promised benefits to plan members still working at the company.
Since then, it has assigned new workers to 401(k) retirement plans. Instead of guaranteeing pensions whose value rises with years of service, the company pays the equivalent of up to 9 percent of employees’ salaries into investment accounts if they set aside up to 6 percent of their pay.
Workers put that money into funds from a menu of investments, in hopes they can stretch the tax-protected accounts, plus Social Security, to pay their way in retirement.
The freeze will take place in 2018 if the company stays on schedule to complete its planned merger with Dow Chemical Co. and split into separate pesticide, materials and specialized-products manufacturing companies, according to spokesman Daniel Turner.
Turner said the freeze was not connected to the Dow deal. Under CEO Edward Breen, DuPont has been cutting jobs, closing plants and consolidating vendors in an effort to boost profits and streamline operations in advance of the reorganization.
“Sadly, the ongoing cash buyout of 18,000 vested pensioners and today’s action to end pension accruals and health benefits project a company with little concern for those who have stayed with the company in order to build security for their families in the future,” Lawrence Craig Skaggs, a retired DuPont lobbyist, told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Since the Dow merger was announced in 2015, Skaggs has posted details and questions concerning DuPont retirement issues at his 6,300-member DuPont Pensioners Facebook site.
“We remain concerned that the DuPont pension plan,” which covers 133,000 current workers and retirees, “is less than 70 percent funded,” Skaggs added, citing Labor Department reports.
Retirees have been pressing DuPont and Dow to put more assets into retirement plans before they divide the companies, to ensure the plans remain solvent.
Pensioners in corporate plans that run out of cash typically are rescued by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which imposes limits on early retirement and payments above insured levels.
Earlier this year, DuPont offered some retirees who are not yet collecting pensions the options of taking their money in lump-sum payments, or replacing their pensions with insurance annuities, backed against loss by state insurance guaranty funds. Recommended for you | 1real |
THE DEMOCRAT WHO WROTE A PAPER About How Women Fantasize About Being Gang Raped Draws Larger Crowds Than GOP Presidential Candidates | The producers vs. the looters The man honeymooned in a Communist country. He even wrote a paper about how woman fantasize about being gang raped. Combine all of that with the fact that he subscribes to the disturbing belief of Socialism and a reasonable person might believe it would all add up to a failed Presidential campaign. In the America of the past that would undoubtedly be the case. But in the Progressive hell the United States has now become a candidate with those credentials just seems to draw an ever larger crowd of supporters.Politicus USA reports that Socialist presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, attracted a good size crowd during his recent visit to Denver, Colorado. So large in fact it was a larger crowd than any Republican candidate has attracted so far:Bernie Sanders drew a bigger crowd than any Republican candidate, as 4,500 supporters filled his event in Denver.According to the Sanders campaign: Thousands of cheering and chanting Coloradans one of the biggest crowds for any presidential candidate so far this campaign showed up here on Saturday night to hear Bernie Sanders tell them they were sending a message to the billionaire class that You can t have it all. This is our country too. By the university s count, 4,500 people were in the gym, atrium and lacrosse field to see Sanders, the candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination and a U.S. senator from Vermont.Sen. Sanders drew the second biggest crowd of the entire campaign in Denver. The only bigger crowd by official count wasHillary Clinton s rally in New York last weekend. Sen. Sanders is pulling off the most impressive feat of the campaign. People are excited and showing up for his events.Unlike Ted Cruz who drew a big crowd for his campaign launch by holding it a university event that students were forced to attend, the enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders is real. He doesn t pay actors to come to his rallies and support him like Donald Trump did If the Progressive website s claim is true, IF, then this would possibly signify a disturbing trend where the United States is embracing the Socialist mantra more than it has previously.But most likely, the fact that no one Republican candidate has yet to attract a large amount of public support at their rallies is just a result of the large field of Republican candidates, and the fact that the voters on the political right are just tired of establishment, cookie cutter politicians who will say anything to get elected. And then do as they please once in office.As the number of candidates is whittled down on the Republican side either the crowds will appear to support that one candidate or, as they did during the last presidential election, they ll stay home. Which, if history and Hillary s lack of luck on her presidential runs hold, could possibly mean that Bernie Sanders may be the next United States President.God help us if that cold day in hell becomes a reality. We ve seen the damage one Progressive President who denies being a Socialist and a Marxist has done to this nation. Image the destruction a full fledged, proud to be Socialist President would do .Via: Progressives Today | 1real |
Taliban claim responsibility for Kabul attack | A gunman killed three U.S. contractors and wounded a fourth Thursday evening at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said.
A local Afghan was also killed in the attack at about 6:40 p.m. on the military side of the airport, said U.S. Army Col. Brian Tribus, a spokesman for the NATO-led Resolute Support mission. An Afghan air force official told Reuters the shooter was an Afghan soldier.
Tribus would not confirm whether the dead Afghan was the gunman or a member of the security forces. He provided no information about the victims or their duties.
"This incident is under investigation," he said. "Further information will be released as available and appropriate."
The Taliban subsequently claimed responsibility for the attack.
The unnamed Afghan officer described the Americans as "advisers" and said "no one else was there to tell us the reason" for the attack.
In the past several years, more than 142 members of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Taliban insurgents have been killed in so-called green-on-blue insider attacks by Afghan security forces.
The shooting was apparently the first of its kind since U.S. and NATO forces ceased their combat mission a month ago.
In August, an Afghan solider killed Army Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene, who was overseeing preparations for the transition. Greene was the highest-ranking U.S. officer to die in combat since 1970 | 0fake |
Trump vs. Clinton: Debate will mark biggest moment of election | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton, suddenly vulnerable in the presidential race, is under pressure to deliver a strong performance against Republican Donald Trump in their first debate on Monday, a moment that could be the most consequential yet of the 2016 election. Political veterans involved in preparing for past presidential debates said Clinton should drive home how she would run the country during uncertain times and draw a contrast as the steady, experienced alternative to the untested Trump. For his part, Trump needed to show enough gravitas to convince skeptics that he is ready to be commander in chief, they said. The 90-minute face-off at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, the first of three debates, takes place at a time when Clinton’s once-comfortable lead in opinion polls over the former reality TV star has evaporated. History shows that a single bad debate performance can alter the trajectory of a U.S. presidential race. Reuters/Ipsos polling shows about 20 percent of the electorate remains undecided, far higher at this stage in the campaign than the 12 percent undecided four years ago. The TV audience for the debate is expected to be a record, easily surpassing the record 46.2 million households who watched the first encounter between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, according to the Nielsen ratings company. “I am going to do my very best to communicate as clearly and fearlessly as I can in the face of the insults and the attacks and the bullying and the bigotry that we have seen coming from my opponent,” Clinton said on Tuesday on the Steve Harvey Radio show. Anita Dunn, who helped President Barack Obama prepare for debates against Republican nominee John McCain in 2008, said Obama succeeded at their first debate by steering the conversation repeatedly back to the struggling U.S. economy even though the event was supposed to be about foreign policy. She said she expected Clinton to try to exploit Trump’s weaknesses and emphasize her strengths. “The contrast between them is what you want to hone,” she said. The debate will be the best opportunity for two candidates, both widely seen by voters as untrustworthy, to put to rest questions about their fitness for the White House with the Nov. 8 election fast approaching. Even the candidates’ body language will be closely scrutinized, just as it has been in past elections. Brett O’Donnell, a debate coach who helped President George W. Bush in his 2004 debates and McCain in 2008, said Bush did not put in the necessary work for his first debate against Democrat John Kerry that year and it showed. Quickly put on the defensive, Bush blinked rapidly and slouched behind the lectern. Kerry was judged the winner. Bush got more serious about the debates after that, O’Donnell said. Clinton had a shaky performance at a Sept. 7 NBC “Commander-in-Chief” forum where she became prickly in response to questions about her handling of classified emails while serving as U.S. secretary of state. “Presentation is very important, and Hillary has to work on that. Her presentation at the ‘Commander-in-Chief’ forum was not very good. She didn’t come off as likeable. She came off as sour and defensive,” O’Donnell said. Clinton is spending most of this week in debate preparations with a small circle of top aides at her home in Chappaqua, New York. Clinton aides said she is preparing for two scenarios: One in which Trump is measured and serious, and another in which he is freewheeling and makes inflammatory personal attacks. Trump relied on his famed spontaneity to fire off one-line zingers to dismantle 16 Republican rivals during the primaries, dispatching “low-energy” Jeb Bush or “lying Ted” Cruz and “little Marco” Rubio. He has repeatedly called Clinton “crooked Hillary” at rallies. “You’re just not sure who is going to show up,” said Jennifer Palmieri, a senior adviser to Clinton. “He may be aggressive or he may lay back. That’s hard to game out necessarily so I would say most of the focus is on what points does she want to make.” A Trump supporter, Republican U.S. Representative Chris Collins of New York, said Trump understands that he needs to put forth a presidential demeanor. “I think the seriousness of that can’t be understated and that we’re going to see the debate prep making sure that she’s not going to be able to pull him somehow off the message,” he said. Rick Lazio, a Republican former congressman from New York, found Clinton a tough opponent when he faced her in a U.S. Senate debate in New York in 2000. He was seen as bullying, lost the debate and the election, and now says Trump will need to treat Clinton carefully. “What he has to avoid is a sense that he is name-calling, highly disrespectful, badgering, anything like that,” he said. ROLE-PLAYING Former Republican Senator Judd Gregg, who played Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry in George W. Bush’s mock debate sessions in 2000 and 2004, said Bush began preparing in early June unbeknownst to the news media and for a while did two practice sessions a day. For that reason, he said, he suspects Trump is doing more preparation work than he lets on. “I have to believe he is doing something because it would be foolish to go in there and not practice at hearing lines,” he said. A Republican source close to the campaign said former Fox News Chief Executive Roger Ailes has been coaching Trump but that the former reality TV star does not want to be over-prepared. Trump spokesman Jason Miller said Trump is preparing for the debates but “there’s nobody who’s playing the role of Hillary Clinton.” “Mr. Trump prepares for everything that he does,” he said. | 0fake |
Hurricane Irma wreaks 'total carnage' on Barbuda: prime minister | LONDON (Reuters) - The Caribbean island of Barbuda is a scene of total carnage after the passage of Hurricane Irma and the tiny two-island nation will be seeking assistance from the international community to rebuild, its prime minister said on Thursday. Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, told the BBC that about half of Barbuda s population of some 1,800 were homeless while nine out of 10 buildings had suffered some level of devastation, many of them total destruction. We flew into Barbuda only to see total carnage. It was easily one of the most emotionally painful experiences that I have had, Browne said in an interview on BBC Radio Four. Approximately 50 percent of them (residents of Barbuda) are literally homeless at this time. They are bunking together, we are trying to get ... relief supplies to them first thing tomorrow morning, he said, adding that it would take months or years to restore some level of normalcy to the island. | 0fake |
‘I’m Here to Help,’ Trump Tells Tech Executives at Meeting - The New York Times | The meeting between Donald J. Trump and the nation’s tech elite was hyped as something out of “The Apprentice”: The new boss tells his minions to shape up. It turned out to be a charm offensive, a kind of “Dancing With the Silicon Valley Stars. ” “This is a truly amazing group of people,” the said on Wednesday in a conference room at Trump Tower in Manhattan. The gathering included Jeff Bezos of Amazon Elon Musk of Tesla Timothy D. Cook of Apple Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Alphabet, Google’s parent company and Satya Nadella of Microsoft, among others. “I’m here to help you folks do well,” Mr. Trump said. He kept going in that vein. “There’s nobody like you in the world,” he enthused. “In the world! There’s nobody like the people in this room. ” Anything that the government “can do to help this go along,” he made clear, “we’re going to be there for you. ” And that was just in the first few minutes. The candidate who warned during the presidential campaign that Amazon was going to have antitrust problems, that Apple needed to build its iPhones in the United States instead of China, was nowhere to be seen. Even after the press was ushered out, the meeting continued its genial way. Among the topics discussed, according to several corporate executives and a transition official briefed on the meeting, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, were vocational education and the need for more of it, the promise and peril of trade with China and immigration (Mr. Trump wants “smart and talented people here”). The also asked the executives to see if they could not apply data analysis technology to detect and help get rid of government waste. There are plans for quarterly meetings of a smaller group of tech executives, to be organized by Mr. Trump’s and adviser, Jared Kushner, said one of the executives briefed on the meeting. They will focus mainly on immigration and education issues. The meeting lasted more than 90 minutes, longer than expected. Mr. Trump was seated next to Peter Thiel, the tech investor who is a member of the ’s transition team. In another sign of Mr. Trump mixing family, business and government hats, three of his adult children — Donald Jr. Ivanka and Eric — also attended. “I won’t tell you the hundreds of calls we’ve had asking to come to this meeting,” Mr. Trump told his guests. Everyone laughed. To get to the conference room, the tech leaders entered the golden elevators of Trump Tower the same way anyone would — by punching a button. This gave the news media, cordoned off a few feet away, time to shout questions. None of the executives took the bait. Neither did they talk on the way out, although by that time the building was being closed for Trump Tower’s holiday party. Safra Catz, the of Oracle who attended the meeting, gave a thumbs up. Mr. Bezos later issued a statement that said he found the meeting “very productive. ” “I shared the view that the administration should make innovation one of its key pillars, which would create a huge number of jobs across the whole country, in all sectors, not just tech — agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing — everywhere,” he said. The technology world had been in turmoil as the meeting drew near. Some argued the chief executives should boycott the event to show their disdain for Mr. Trump’s values. Others maintained they should go and forthrightly make their values clear. And still others thought they should attend and make their accommodations with the new reality. “There is a wide spectrum of feeling in the Valley,” said Aaron Levie, the chief executive of the cloud storage company Box. Complicating the debate was the fact that the most fervently elements in Silicon Valley seem to be the and venture capitalists, few of which were invited to the meeting. (Alex Karp, the chief executive of Palantir Technologies, was the only head of a privately held tech company at the meeting.) Some tech companies were also notable for their absence. Twitter, the ’s medium of choice for communication, was not invited. Twitter declined to comment on why it was not included. A campaign official complained last month in a Medium post that Twitter had killed a #CrookedHillary emoji. On Wednesday, Sean Spicer, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said that Twitter had been left out of the meeting because of space considerations in a gathering that many other technology executives were “dying to get into. ” In the days and hours before the meeting, various factions made their positions clear. A group of engineers and other tech workers issued a statement asserting that they would refuse to participate in the creation of databases that could be used by the government to target people based on their race, religion or national origin. The proclamation immediately drew more than 500 signatories, including employees at Google, Apple and Microsoft. During the campaign, Mr. Trump did not rule out the idea of a database of Muslims. Another group of entrepreneurs assembled virtually this week with the same goal of preventing any erosion of civil liberties. They also accepted “a responsibility to partner with communities where the effects of rapidly changing technologies have hurt our fellow Americans. ” Among those signing were Aileen Lee, a venture capitalist Dave McClure, of the 500 incubator and Lenny Mendonca, an angel investor. Mr. Levie, of Box, was a Hillary Clinton supporter but believes in engagement with the new administration. “We have to face reality that this is the next four years, and the best way to make sure our values are upheld is actually push on them,” he said. Other tech chief executives also took the same route. Hours before Mr. Trump’s meeting with tech leaders, the announced that Mr. Musk and Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive, would be among those joining his Strategic and Policy Forum, which is already stacked with businesspeople from finance and other industries. Ginni Rometty, the chief executive of IBM, had previously joined the forum. More than values and policy are at stake in the relationship between the administration and the Valley. Money is, too. In the wake of Mr. Trump’s victory, Forrester Research is cutting back its growth estimate for the United States tech market in 2017 to 4. 3 percent from 5. 1 percent. One reason is simple caution, as large multinational manufacturers navigate a new and unpredictable administration. Another reason: less tech spending by the government. “There are so many cabinet secretaries who are explicitly hostile to the mission of their agencies,” said Andrew Bartels, a Forrester principal analyst. As for 2018, there are so many ways things could go that a forecast is impossible. “It’s up for grabs,” the analyst said. So, too, is the relationship of Mr. Trump and the tech industry. For the moment, though, Silicon Valley seems to have dodged a bullet. | 0fake |
Trump Was Asked What He Has In Common With His Daughter. His Answer Is CREEPY |
Republican nominee Donald J. Trump has been very vocal about his creepy sexual fetishization of his daughter Ivanka – and yet another deeply uncomfortable video has surfaced of him hitting on his daughter.
During a 2013 tapping of the “ Wendy Williams Show ,” Donald Trump and daughter Ivanka appeared together as guests.
Wendy asked each to name what they have in common, during a reoccurring segment called “Fave Five.” While Ivanka safely and logically responded, “real estate” and “golf.” Trump, however, gave the game an incestual twist, replying “Sex.”
Considering Donald J. Trump’s record at subjecting Ivanka to his perversion, this shouldn’t even be surprising, but it is absolutely disgusting. It is shocking and just plain gross. In 2006, Trump allowed Howard Stern the go-ahead to call Ivanka a “ piece of ass ,” and agreed with this assessment (no pun intended) of his daughter.
That same year he went on “ The View ,” telling the ladies that he wouldn’t disparage he posing for “Playboy” and that if she wasn’t his daughter he would be dating her. In 2003, he appeared with buddy Howard Stern, bragging about how his daughter’s has the “ best body ,” saying: “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body. She made a lot money as a model—a tremendous amount.”
Trump’s lack of discretion when referring to Ivanka is very, very weird and further proves that Trump is only capable of putting the women he interacts with into two camps: those he would have sex with and those he wouldn’t. That Ivanka is his daughter does not change this. She is a woman he would have sex with, and nothing more. He pitifully can’t even name anything they have in common. All that comes to mind is, as admitted by him, is sex.
Maybe Republicans should spend their time investigating Trump possibly molesting members of his own family instead of trying to needlessly take down Clinton, before her term (inevitably) starts.
Watch it here: | 1real |
NEWT GINGRICH ON WAR AGAINST TRUMP: “99% of State Dept. Donations Went to Hillary” [VIDEO] | 1real | |
An Immigrant’s Instinct to Aid Others Collides With Financial Need - The New York Times | In 2007, Rey Canunayon and his wife, MaryGwen, immigrated to the United States from the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. In doing so, they were fulfilling their family’s dreams. For years, her parents had requested that the Canunayons join them in New York City. But her parents died before that could happen. Mr. Canunayon felt remorse about not honoring their wishes while they were alive. Still, he and his wife wanted to embark on the adventure and make the move. “America is a great nation, a kind nation, a nation of greener pastures and milk and honey and endless possibilities,” Mr. Canunayon said. When the couple arrived, they stayed with Ms. Canunayon’s family in New Jersey. Life was exciting, even relaxing, Mr. Canunayon said. But as they settled in a new country, he struggled to find work and grew despondent. “Oh, my God, I have cried a river because I was in a depression,” said Mr. Canunayon, now 46. He found relaxation riding the subway, one station to the next, so long as it kept moving. “When you come from a place where you are so familiar, your own country, you have friends, relatives, connections, a career. And then you’re stripped of everything except your dignity it’s really hard,” he said. Eventually, the couple were able to move into an apartment of their own in Elmhurst, Queens. They also secured employment. He works at a laundry, while his wife, 49, is a babysitter, a midwife and a nanny. In October 2015, they received their green cards. Beyond that, Mr. Canunayon, who left a career in nonprofit work in the Philippines, has recommitted himself to working to help people and neighborhoods change for the better. Only this time, he is not collecting a paycheck for it. “God gave knowledge for free, skills for free, talent for free, so I’ll give it for free,” Mr. Canunayon said. He volunteers at the couple’s place of worship in Elmhurst, St. Adalbert Roman Catholic Church. He also helps other Filipino immigrants. “I cannot imagine myself not sharing the skills and talent that I have,” he said. But because this effort doesn’t come with a salary, it doesn’t help pay the bills. It took one episode, when the Canunayons received a $600 medical bill for lab tests in September, for them to plummet into financial instability. “It was a big problem, Mr. Canunayon said. “What will happen to us if we can’t pay the rent?” He came across a possible solution on one of his volunteer outings for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and the Filipino Consulate, where he was helping people renew their passports. He mentioned his financial problems to Greg Hankins, a volunteer he had met that day. Mr. Hankins encouraged him to contact another group, Community Health Advocates. It is operated by the Community Service Society, one of eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The Community Service Society did help, providing $641. 45 in Neediest Cases money to cover the couple’s outstanding medical bills. They also got help obtaining health insurance. While grateful for the assistance, they continue to worry about everyday challenges: making ends meet, sending money back to their families and carefully monitoring their finances. “It’s the same situation, financially struggling and trying to get myself back into the saddle,” Mr. Canunayon said. He continues to search for jobs in the nonprofit sector. In the Philippines, he worked in research, advocacy and policy legislation, which led to the development of sustainable organic agriculture to feed the poor. The cause was personal: Many members of his family are farmers. He has not given up hope that he will find a job that lets him continue his passion for service while providing a decent income. “I would be killing myself if I did something else,” he said. “It would deplete my energy. When you work on the things you most love doing, it’s not work. ” | 0fake |
U.S. charges two with bribing African officials for China energy firm | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has charged a former Senegalese foreign minister and a former top Hong Kong government official with links to a Chinese energy conglomerate with bribing high-level officials in Chad and Uganda in exchange for contracts for the mainland company. Chi Ping Patrick Ho, 68, of Hong Kong, and Cheikh Gadio, 61, were charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, international money laundering and conspiracy, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement on Monday. It said Gadio, a former foreign minister of Senegal, was arrested in New York on Friday. It added that Ho, a former Hong Kong home affairs secretary who heads a non-governmental organization based in Hong Kong and Virginia, was arrested on Saturday. “Wiring almost a million dollars through New York’s banking system in furtherance of their corrupt schemes, the defendants allegedly sought to generate business through bribes paid to the president of Chad and the Ugandan foreign minister,” Joon Kim, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was quoted as saying in the statement. No one could be reached at the embassies of Chad and Uganda in Washington late on Monday. The missions did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment. In a statement, the U.S. Justice Department said the case against Ho involved two bribery schemes to pay high-level officials of Chad and Uganda in exchange for business advantages for a Shanghai-headquartered, multibillion-dollar energy firm. This energy company funded a non-government organization (NGO) based in Hong Kong and Virginia that Ho heads, the statement said, without naming the Shanghai company or the NGO. Ho is the secretary general of the Hong Kong-based China Energy Fund Committee, a mainland-backed think-tank that describes itself as a charitable, non-government organization. China Energy Fund Committee is fully funded by CEFC China Energy, a Shanghai-based private conglomerate, according to the think tank’s website. The organization did not respond to an email requesting comment. CEFC China Energy said in a statement posted on its website late on Tuesday that: “As a non-governmental, non-profit organization, the fund is not involved in the commercial activities of CEFC China Energy.” CEFC does not have any investment in Uganda, the company said in the statement, and its investment in Chad had been acquired via a stake bought from Taiwan’s state-owned Chinese Petroleum Corp and it had not dealt directly with the Chad government. “The company will continue monitoring this matter and will take necessary measures based on developments,” it said. CEFC has been a key player in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative, which aims to bolster China’s global leadership ambitions by building infrastructure and trade links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular news briefing Tuesday that he was not aware of the specific details of the case. “I want to emphasize that the Chinese government consistently requires Chinese companies abroad to operate lawfully and abide by local laws and regulations.” Idriss Deby has been Chad’s president since 1990. Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa served as the president of the U.N. General Assembly in 2014 and 2015. Ho’s attorney, Ed Kim, of Krieger Kim & Lewin LLP, declined to comment to Reuters. Bob Baum of Federal Defenders, who represented Gadio for the bail argument, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ho was ordered detained after appearing in court on Monday, the Justice Department statement said. It said Gadio appeared before a judge on Saturday and is being held until he can meet the conditions of a $1 million bond, according to court records. The Justice Department said a $2 million bribe was paid to Chad’s president, who then provided the company with an opportunity to obtain oil rights in Chad without international competition. The department said in the statement that Gadio was the go-between and was paid $400,000 by Ho via wire transfers through New York. The Justice Department accused Ho of being involved with bribes and promises of future benefits to Uganda’s foreign minister in exchange for help in obtaining business advantages for the Chinese company. | 0fake |
U.S. Senate Passes Bipartisan Bill Claims to Facilitate ‘Better Public Access’ to Gov’t Records | 21st Century Wire says..We ll believe it when, and if we are even allowed to see it (redacted) Mary Clare Jalonick AP/All GovWASHINGTON The Senate on Tuesday backed legislation to make it easier for Americans to obtain government records.The bipartisan bill, passed by voice vote, would require federal agencies to consider the release of government information under a presumption of openness as opposed to a presumption that the information is secret.The legislation aims to reduce the amount of exemptions the government uses to withhold information and would create a single portal through which individuals can submit a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request. Currently, FOIA requests are handled by each separate agency, each with its own rules about how to submit a request. Today s vote sends a clear message that the American people have a fundamental right to know what their government is doing, Cornyn said.( ) We cannot leave it to the next president to decide how open the government should be, Leahy said. We have to hold all presidents and their administrations accountable to the highest standard. Republicans in Congress have complained that the Obama administration hasn t been fully transparent in sharing records with lawmakers and the public, while the White House has criticized Congress for exempting itself from the requirements. FOIA does not apply to Congress.The House passed a similar bill in January. Because the two bills are not identical, the House will have to act again to send the legislation to President Barack Obama. Maryland Rep. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, urged Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to promptly pass the Senate bill, saying FOIA reform is long overdue Continue this story at All GovREAD MORE FOIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire FOIA Files | 1real |
Trump froh, dass er sich ab morgen endlich nicht mehr zurückhalten muss | Dienstag, 8. November 2016 Trump froh, dass er sich ab morgen endlich nicht mehr zurückhalten muss New York (dpo) - Bald kann er wieder ganz so sein wie er ist: Nach Monaten taktischer Zurückhaltung und höchster Achtsamkeit auf Seriosität und Political Correctness freut sich Donald Trump eigenen Angaben zufolge bereits auf die Zeit nach der Präsidentschaftswahl – ganz unabhängig von deren Ausgang. "Egal ob ich gewinne oder verliere: Ab morgen kann ich endlich wieder ich selbst sein und muss mich nicht mehr ständig zusammenreißen", freute sich Trump heute in einem Interview mit dem Fernsehsender Fox News. "Diese ständige Rücksichtnahme war in den letzten Monaten echt anstrengend. Ich musste wirklich jedes Wort auf die Goldwaage legen, damit ich niemanden beleidige." Zu mehreren Bevölkerungsgruppen wären Trump noch ganz andere Dinge eingefallen, hätte er sich nicht mit aller Kraft beherrscht: "Gerade Mexikaner habe ich betont sachlich als 'Mörder und Vergewaltiger' beschrieben, da hätte ich durchaus auch ausfallend werden können", so Trump. Vom Wahlkampf jedenfalls hat der Geschäftsmann die Nase gestrichen voll: "Wissen Sie, wievielen Frauen, die glatte Zehns waren, ich nicht an die Pussy greifen konnte, weil ich Kandidat war? Meine Tic-Tac-Packung von letztem November ist immer noch nicht aufgebraucht, weil ich so wenig geküsst habe. Was bin ich froh, wenn das alles endlich vorbei ist!" Dabei kann Trump auch einer möglichen Niederlage positive Aspekte abgewinnen. "Selbst wenn ich die Wahl verlieren sollte, bin ich immerhin wieder frei", erklärte er. "Ob ich dann so richtig vom Leder ziehe und das Land in einen Bürgerkrieg stürze oder einfach wieder wie früher die nackten Kandidatinnen meiner Schönheitswettbewerbe ausspanne, weiß ich nocht nicht. Ich würde aber auf jeden Fall das beste aus der Zeit machen und meine Freiheit genießen." Am liebsten würde er jedoch die Wahl gewinnen. "Selbst als berühmter Milliardär kann man sich nicht so austoben wie als US-Präsident. Das wird ein Feuerwerk! Wenn ich erstmal frei von dem Zwang bin, immer auf Umfragen achten zu müssen, beginnt der Spaß erst richtig. Mächtigster Mann der Welt sage ich da nur", so Trump mit einem Augenzwinkern. | 1real |
The President Has Much Power Over Immigration, but How Much? - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — President Trump’s executive order on immigration has prompted a constitutional showdown that could leave a mark on the law for generations and seems likely to end in a landmark Supreme Court decision. A ruling by the court on Mr. Trump’s travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries could help answer some crucial legal questions: How much independent constitutional authority does the president have over immigration, and how much power has Congress given him? The likely answer to both questions: a lot. But other parts of the Constitution may temper or defeat that power. Among them are the due process and equal protection clauses and the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion. Here is a look at the leading arguments in the case. Many trial judges around the country have blocked aspects of Mr. Trump’s executive order. But none have issued an order as broad as the one by Judge James Robart, a federal judge in Seattle, who blocked the key parts of the executive order, which had suspended travel from the seven countries and limited the nation’s refugee program. The case is now before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. That court on Saturday declined to issue an immediate stay of Judge Robart’s order, but it indicated that it would weigh in soon after additional briefs were filed, with the last one due Monday afternoon. After it rules, an appeal to the Supreme Court seems likely. Judge Robart’s brisk ruling contained almost no reasoning. By contrast, Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, of the Federal District Court in Boston, issued a decision on Friday refusing to block the program and discussing the legal arguments in detail. Judge Gorton also sketched out the broader picture. “The rich immigrant history of the United States has long been a source of strength and pride in this country,” Judge Gorton wrote. “Conversely, the public interest in safety and security in this dangerous world is strong as well. ” The balance, he wrote, tipped in favor of Mr. Trump. Article II of the Constitution confers authority on the president, the Supreme Court has said, to conduct foreign affairs and address immigration. In their brief to Judge Robart, lawyers for Washington State, one of the two plaintiffs, along with the State of Minnesota, said there were constitutional checks on these powers. “While courts generally give more latitude to the political branches in the immigration context, this does not mean that the political branches can act with impunity,” the brief said. “Federal courts,” the brief said, “have no more sacred role than protecting marginalized groups against irrational, discriminatory conduct. ” In the Ninth Circuit, the Trump administration said judges were to decide cases involving national security. “Unlike the president,” the administration’s brief said, “courts do not have access to classified information about the threat posed by terrorist organizations operating in particular nations, the efforts of those organizations to infiltrate the United States, or gaps in the vetting process. ” Noah G. Purcell, the solicitor general of Washington State, appeared to concede in court that there were areas in which Mr. Trump was entitled to act. But he asked the court to protect people whose lives had been changed by Mr. Trump’s order in a flash. “The focus of our claim,” he said, “is on people who have been here and have, overnight, lost the right to travel, lost the right to visit their families, lost the right to go perform research, lost the right to go speak at conferences around the world. And also people who had lived here for a long time and happened to be overseas at the time of this order, which came with no warning whatsoever, and suddenly lost the right to return to the United States. ” On Friday, defending Mr. Trump’s executive order in a Seattle courtroom, Michelle Bennett, a Justice Department lawyer, cited Youngstown Sheet Tube Co. v. Sawyer, a 1952 decision in which the Supreme Court rejected President Harry S. Truman’s assertion that he had the authority to seize steel mills during the Korean War. The most famous part of the decision is a concurrence from Justice Robert H. Jackson, which set out a framework for considering clashes between presidential power and congressional authority. The president has the most power when he acts with congressional authorization, Justice Jackson said, and an intermediate amount when Congress is silent. The president’s power is at its “lowest ebb,” Justice Jackson wrote, when Congress has forbidden a particular action. Truman’s actions fell into the third category, Justice Jackson wrote. Ms. Bennett, by contrast, said Mr. Trump’s order was in the first category. “Here we have the president acting pursuant to power that Congress gave him, which means, under the Youngstown steel seizure case, he’s acting at the apex of his power,” she said. A key part of immigration law does give the president broad power. It says, “Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. ” But another part of the law forbids discrimination “because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence,” but only “in the issuance of an immigrant visa. ” The Trump administration argues that the power to bar entry, the subject of the first law, is broader than the limits on issuing visas. Lawyers for Washington State have said that the executive order violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against government establishment of religion because its provisions on the refugee program favor minority religions. “President Trump and his advisers have made clear that the very purpose of this order is to tilt the scales in favor of Christian refugees at the expense of Muslims,” they wrote in their brief to Judge Robart. The Trump administration urged the Ninth Circuit to reject arguments based on religious discrimination, even though Mr. Trump has said he meant to favor Christian refugees. Judicial consideration of the president’s motives, the brief said, would violate the separation of powers. “The more searching inquiry envisioned by the states would create substantial problems, by permitting probing of the president’s subjective motive in issuing the order,” the brief said. The states challenging the order face the initial hurdle of demonstrating that they have suffered the sort of direct and concrete harm that gives them standing to sue. Judge Robart ruled that they did, relying on a decision from the federal appeals court in New Orleans, which said Texas could sue to challenge President Barack Obama’s plan to defer the deportation of millions of unauthorized immigrants and allow them to work. “The executive order adversely affects the states’ residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations and freedom to travel,” Judge Robart wrote. He said the states had been hurt because the order affected their public universities and their tax bases. In its Ninth Circuit brief, the Trump administration called the states’ asserted injuries “attenuated and speculative” and did not address the Texas decision. In court in Seattle on Friday, Ms. Bennett said the government disagreed with the Texas ruling. | 0fake |
DC Women’s March Aftermath: Streets Littered With Trash | 21st Century Wire says So much for caring about the environment and individual responsibility Protesters in DC who claim to be there protesting for women s rights (even though it seemed quite clearly to be a women against President Trump protest) are taking criticism for leaving the city with tens of thousands of placards and signs laying about on the sidewalks, streets, in front of national monuments, the White House, and Trump International Hotel. No problem, the government will pay for it RTThey may have attracted the headlines, but the anti-Trump protesters who attended the massive Women s March in Washington DC, are now drawing criticism for abandoning their placards at landmarks and on the capital s streets.Organizers say that more that 2.5 million people took part in demonstrations around the world on Saturday, as protesters voiced opposition to President Donald Trump while also calling for the protection of civil liberties.People are leaving their signs on paths leading to the White House #WomensMarch #washington pic.twitter.com/cR6yAEeZzA earthboy (@earthboy17) January 22, 2017The largest of the events was held in Washington, DC where over half a million people took to the streets, according to AP. Many, if not most, of the protesters came equipped with placards criticising Trump and highlighting their various causes.Following the march, tens of thousands thousands chose to leave their signs outside various DC landmarks including the White House and the Trump International Hotel.This action received significant support on social media, with some people supporting it as a graphic, lingering illustration of the sentiments behind the mass gathering.Thousands of signs find their final resting spot leaving a message for Trump outside of the White House. #womensmarch #womensmarchdc pic.twitter.com/KMwgjzLjDV Jaime (@wojo4hitz) January 22, 2017#WomensMarch protestors are also leaving their signs in front of the White House.Lots of them. pic.twitter.com/bcgHxtbVbf Jack Jenkins (@jackmjenkins) January 21, 2017People are leaving their Women's March signs outside the Trump Hotel https://t.co/elQ9ewsCvI pic.twitter.com/Zx4RpAsAHQ Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 21, 2017Many others however, were critical of the move, describing it as selfish littering. I guess the environment or personal responsibility isn t something they re concerned about, Conservative blogger The GOP report wrote on Twitter.Seeing this pic all over time lines. How can leaving signs as trash all over be 'beautiful'?? "Beautiful end to the #WomensMarch" pic.twitter.com/vrvw7yT7zG FionaRavenHunter (@LisaFlanery) January 22, 2017I get idea of leaving #WomensMarch signs @ Trump Hotel & White House, but who do we think will have to clean this up? FYI not Trump. pic.twitter.com/ny2AhPw9tm Joseph Kitchen (@josephlkitchen) January 22, 2017Video of a man wearing a pro-Trump Make America Great Again hat cleaning up rubbish received more than 4,000 retweets and 5,000 likes Man wearing a Make America Great Again hat picking up trash after the women's march in Washington, D.C. #WomensMarch pic.twitter.com/47ZjcagM31 Caleb Ecarma (@calebecarma) January 21, 2017Continue this report at RTRead More Election News at: 21st Century Wire Election CoverageSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER@ 21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Failed Investigations of JFK’s Murder | Failed Investigations of JFK’s Murder November 21, 2016
More than a half century later, John F. Kennedy’s assassination still resonates not only because of its historical importance but because the investigation was more a cover-up than a pursuit of truth, says researcher Gary Aguilar.
By Gary Aguilar
November 22 marks the 53 rd anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. If history is any guide, it’s likely some mainstream outlet will commemorate that dark day with reassurances that the Warren Commission was right that Lee Harvey Oswald did it alone, and that most doubters, who have been in the majority since the mid-1960s, are randy conspiracy theorists. That is the essential message by one of the experts likely to be cited this year, attorney Howard Willens. President John F. Kennedy in the motorcade through Dallas shortly before his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. (Photo credit: Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News)
One of the few still-living Warren Commission staffers, Willens followed up his 2013 book, History Will Prove Us Right, with a spirited defense of the Commission in the summer, 2016 issue of the journal, The American Scholar , which he co-wrote with another Commission staffer, attorney Richard Mosk. The piece , “The Truth About Dallas, ” is a celebration of the work and conclusions of the original investigation.
But Willens’s and Mosk’s defense of the work of the Warren Commission they served on is more notable for what they omit from the official record than what they include. “What the critics often forget or ignore,” they write, “is that since 1964, several government agencies have also looked at aspects of our work,” (p. 59) as if the Church Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) had reviewed and applauded the Commission’s work.
Indeed, they did look at it. But rather than plaudits, they issued stinging rebukes, principally for the Commission’s having been rolled by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and to a lesser extent, by the CIA and the Secret Service.
“It must be said that the FBI generally exhausted its resources in confirming its case against Oswald as the lone assassin,” the HSCA concluded, “a case that Director J. Edgar Hoover, at least, seemed determined to make within 24 hours of the of the assassination.”
In essence, the experienced investigators concluded that Hoover had divined the solution to the crime before starting the inquiry, and then his agents confirmed the boss’s epiphany. The intimidated Warren Commission went right along. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
And with good reason, only part of which Willens and Mosk tell. They admit that the “FBI had originally opposed the creation of the Warren Commission” and that Hoover “ordered investigations of commission staff members.” But they don’t tell that Hoover deployed one of his favorite dirty tricks to deal not only with support staffers, such as Willens and Mosk, but also with the commissioners themselves.
“[D]erogatory information pertaining to both Commission members and staff was brought to Mr. Hoover’s attention,” the Church Committee reported . (emphasis added)
Hoover’s Spy
Willens and Mosk also forgot to mention that Hoover had a personal spy on the Warren Commission, then Rep. Gerald Ford, who tattled on Commissioners who were (justifiably) skeptical of the Bureau’s work.
“Ford indicated he would keep me thoroughly advised as to the activities of the Commission,” FBI Agent Cartha DeLoach wrote in a once secret memo. “He stated this would have to be done on a confidential basis, however he thought it should be done.” Autopsy photo of President John F. Kennedy.
At the bottom of the memo, Hoover scrawled , “Well handled.” The success of Hoover’s machinations was obvious to subsequent government investigators. (Ford, of course, later became President upon the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974.)
The HSCA’s chief counsel, Notre Dame Law Professor Robert Blakey, a criminal investigator and prosecutor with vastly better credentials than either Willens or Mosk, was impressed with neither the Commission’s vigor nor its independence.
“What was significant,” Blakey determined, “was the ability of the FBI to intimidate the Commission, in light of the Bureau’s predisposition on the questions of Oswald’s guilt and whether there had been a conspiracy. At a January 27 [1964] Commission meeting, there was another dialogue [among Warren Commissioners]:
“John McCloy: ‘… the time is almost overdue for us to have a better perspective of the FBI investigation than we now have … We are so dependent on them for our facts … .’
“Commission counsel J. Lee Rankin: ‘Part of our difficulty in regard to it is that they have no problem. They have decided that no one else is involved … .’
“Senator Richard Russell: ‘They have tried the case and reached a verdict on every aspect.’
“Senator Hale Boggs: ‘You have put your finger on it.’ (Closed Warren Commission meeting.)” [Blakey & Billings, Fatal Hour– The Assassination of President . See also: North, Act of Treason ]
Testifying before the HSCA, the Warren Commission’s chief counsel J. Lee Rankin shamefully admitted , “Who could protest against what Mr. Hoover did back in those days?” Apparently not President Lyndon Johnson’s blue-ribbon commissioners.
The HSCA’s Blakey also reported that “When asked if he was satisfied with the (Commission’s) investigation that led to the (no conspiracy) conclusion, Judge Burt Griffin (a Commission staff member) said he was not.” [Blakey & Billings, Ibid.]
And author Gus Russo reported that Judge Griffin also admitted, “We spent virtually no time investigating the possibility of conspiracy. I wish we had.” [Russo, Live by the Sword ]
Clear Misgivings
Thus, despite their clear misgivings, the Commissioners bowed to the imperious FBI chief rather than conduct a thorough investigation. Notably, the Commission never once employed a rudimentary investigative tool . “The Commission,” the HSCA reported, “failed to utilize the instruments of immunity from prosecution and prosecution for perjury with respect to witnesses whose veracity it doubted.” [US Cong. House of Reps. Report of Comm. on Assassinations, 1979] Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy.
This policy had serious repercussions when the Commission confronted two key issues: published claims that Lee Harvey Oswald had been an FBI informant, and the possibility that Jack Ruby was mobbed up.
“The Commission did not investigate Hoover or the FBI, and managed to avoid the appearance of doing so,” the HSCA determined . “It ended up doing what the members had agreed they would not do: Rely mainly on the FBI’s denial of the allegations (that Oswald had been a Bureau informant).”
Hoover merely sent the Commission his signed affidavit declaring that Oswald was not an informant and also “sent over 10 additional affidavits from each FBI agent who had had contact with Oswald.” And with that, case closed.
Regarding Jack Ruby, the FBI had his phone records, yet failed to spot Ruby’s obvious, and atypical, pattern of calls to known Mafiosi in the weeks leading up to the assassination. After performing the simple, obvious task of actually analyzing those calls, the HSCA determined that, if not a sworn member of La Cosa Nostra, Ruby had ongoing, close links to numerous Mafiosi.
Thus the HSCA roundly rejected the Warren Commission’s conclusion that, “the evidence does not establish a significant link between Ruby and organized crime.”
The list of Warren Commission shortcomings that the HSCA assembled is not short. A brief summary of them runs some 47 pages in the Bantam Books version of the report (p. 289–336), which outlines what required much of the 500 pages of HSCA volume XI to cover ( available on-line ).
“The evidence indicates that facts which may have been relevant to, and would have substantially affected, the Warren Commission’s investigation were not provided by the agencies (FBI and the CIA). Hence, the Warren Commission’s findings may have been formulated without all of the relevant information.”
The Church Committee said that the problem was that “the Commission was perceived as an adversary by both Hoover and senior FBI officials.” “Such a relationship,” the Committee dryly observed , “was not conductive to the cooperation necessary for a thorough and exhaustive investigation.”
But the FBI did more than just withhold evidence from the Commission. Although they admit that the FBI destroyed a note Oswald wrote to Agent Hosty, and withheld that information from the Commission, Willens and Mosk don’t mention that Agent Hosty reported that his own personnel file, and other FBI files, had been falsified. [Hosty, Jr. Assignment: Oswald ]
Nor that author Curt Gentry learned from assistant FBI director William Sullivan that there were other JFK documents at the Bureau that had been destroyed. [Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover– The Man and His Secrets ]
Perhaps one of the reasons the public has remained mistrustful of the government’s conclusions, and the mainstream media reassurances, is the sort of selective presentation of evidence by ax grinders like Willens and Mosk who get heralded by our “responsible” media.
Gary Aguilar is one of the few physicians outside the government ever allowed to see the still-restricted JFK autopsy photos and X-rays. He has published and lectured on the topic of the JFK assassination for many years. | 1real |
UK government, including Johnson, united behind May's Brexit plan: spokeswoman | LONDON (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and the rest of Prime Minister Theresa May s top team of ministers are united behind the government s plan for Brexit, May s spokeswoman said on Monday. Johnson was accused by cabinet colleagues on Sunday of backseat driving on Brexit after setting out his own vision of the country s future outside the EU, days before May is due to speak about Britain s departure from the bloc. The foreign secretary s views are well known, he expressed them during the referendum campaign. What is important is that the foreign secretary and cabinet are united behind the government s plan for Brexit, May s spokeswoman told reporters when asked if it was helpful for ministers to set out their own visions for Brexit. The prime minister values the contributions of all of her cabinet colleagues, the spokeswoman added. | 0fake |
null | When the people fear their government there’s Tyranny , when the government fears the people there’s Liberty !!! | 1real |
Debbie Reynolds, Wholesome Ingénue in 1950s Films, Dies at 84 - The New York Times | Debbie Reynolds, the wholesome ingénue in 1950s films like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Tammy and the Bachelor,” died on Wednesday, a day after the death of her daughter, the actress Carrie Fisher. She was 84. Her death, following a stroke, was confirmed by her son, Todd Fisher, according to her agent, Tom Markley of the Metropolitan Talent Agency. Ms. Reynolds was taken to a Los Angeles hospital on Wednesday afternoon. According to the celebrity news site TMZ, she had been discussing funeral plans for Ms. Fisher, who died on Tuesday after having a heart attack during a flight to Los Angeles last Friday. [ Read Carrie Fisher’s obituary | Watch Debbie Reynolds perform ] On Tuesday, Ms. Reynolds had expressed gratitude to her daughter’s fans on Facebook. “Thank you to everyone who has embraced the gifts and talents of my beloved and amazing daughter,” she wrote. “I am grateful for your thoughts and prayers that are now guiding her to her next stop. ” Ms. Reynolds’s career peak may have been her Academy Award nomination for playing the title role in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (1964) a western musical based on a true story. Her film is probably “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) the classic MGM musical about 1920s moviemaking, in which she held her own with Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, although she was only 19 when the movie was shot and had never danced professionally before. Her fans may cherish her sentimental portrayals, like the title role in “Tammy and the Bachelor” (1957) in which she played a Louisiana moonshiner’s granddaughter who spouted folksy wisdom. Her greatest fame, however, may have come not from any movie role but from the Hollywood scandal involving her husband and a glamorous young widow. In 1955, Ms. Reynolds married Eddie Fisher, the boyish music idol whose hits included “Oh! My ” and “I’m Walking Behind You,” and the young couple were embraced by fan magazines as America’s sweethearts. Their best friends were the producer Mike Todd and his new wife, the film star Elizabeth Taylor. When Mr. Todd died in a crash in 1958, Ms. Reynolds and Mr. Fisher rushed to comfort Ms. Taylor. Mr. Fisher’s comforting, however, turned into a very public extramarital affair. He and Ms. Reynolds were divorced early the next year, and he and Ms. Taylor were married weeks later. That marriage lasted five years. Ms. Taylor left Mr. Fisher for Richard Burton, whom she had met in Rome on the set of “Cleopatra” (1963). Almost 40 years later, in an interview with The Chicago Ms. Reynolds said of Ms. Taylor, “Probably she did me a great favor. ” In her 1988 autobiography, “Debbie: My Life,” she described a marriage that was unhappy from the beginning. “He didn’t think I was funny,” Ms. Reynolds wrote of Mr. Fisher. “I wasn’t good in bed. I didn’t make good gefilte fish or good chopped liver. So what did he have? A cute little girl next door with a little nose. That was, in fact, all he actually ever said he wanted from me. The children, he said, better have your nose. ” Mary Frances Reynolds was born on April 1, 1932, in El Paso. Her father, Ray, worked for the railroad and struggled financially during the Depression. Her mother, Maxene, took in laundry to help make ends meet. As members of the Church of the Nazarene, they considered movies sinful. With the promise of a better job, Ray moved to California when Mary Frances was 7, and the family soon followed. Her career dream was to go to college and become a gym teacher, she often said, but when she was named Miss Burbank 1948, everything changed. Two of the judges were scouts, and she was soon under contract to Warner Bros. which changed her name. In 1950, she had her first screen credit in “The Daughter of Rosie O’Grady,” a musical comedy starring June Haver and Gordon MacRae. (Two years earlier she had a small uncredited part in “June Bride. ”) The same year, she played Helen Kane, the 1920s singer known as the girl, in “Three Little Words” and also appeared in “Two Weeks With Love,” in which she sang “Aba Daba Honeymoon” with Carleton Carpenter. The song became a huge novelty hit. Her roles seemed to mirror 1950s attitudes toward love, marriage and family. In 1955, she played a girl opposite Frank Sinatra in “The Tender Trap. ” In 1956, she starred with her new husband, Mr. Fisher, in “Bundle of Joy,” a musical remake of the 1939 comedy “Bachelor Mother. ” After the scandal, Ms. Reynolds rode on a crest of good will and was a popular in a long string of films, mostly lighthearted romantic comedies, including “The Gazebo” (1959) “Say One for Me” (1959) and “The Pleasure of His Company” (1961). She also played the title role in “The Singing Nun” (1966) appeared in “Divorce American Style” (1967) and was part of the ensemble cast of “How the West Was Won” (1963) a rare drama among her more than three dozen movie credits. “Drama’s unhappy, and playing someone unhappy would make me unhappy,” she told The Boston Globe in 1990. “Ain’t for me, honey. ” She took a stab at series television with a sitcom, “The Debbie Reynolds Show” (1969) in which she played a wacky Lucy wife who wanted to be a journalist like her husband. It lasted only one season. But she soon achieved a kind of immortality as the voice of Charlotte the selfless spider in the animated film version of E. B. White’s children’s classic “Charlotte’s Web” (1973). She had married Harry Karl, a wealthy shoe retailer, in 1960, but by the time they divorced in 1973, he had gambled away or otherwise misspent his fortune and hers. Ms. Reynolds set out to herself financially. She headed to New York that year to make her Broadway debut in a revival of the 1920s musical “Irene,” for which she received a Tony Award nomination for best actress in a musical. In 1976, she had a Broadway show, “Debbie. ” She made her last Broadway appearance in 1983, taking over the role originated by Lauren Bacall in the musical version of “Woman of the Year. ” She later toured the country with stage shows including a new version of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown. ” She had taken her musical and comedy talents to Las Vegas as early as 1960 and became a fixture there in the ’70s and ’80s. She and her third husband, Richard Hamlett, a Virginia real estate developer, established their own hotel, casino and museum there. But there were financial problems, and the property had to be sold in the ’90s. A decade or so later, it looked as if Ms. Reynolds would finally find a permanent home for her Hollywood memorabilia museum, this time in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. the home of Dolly Parton’s theme park, Dollywood. But that, too, fell through, and in 2011, a large portion of her collection was auctioned at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills. Two sales, the first in June and the second in December, took in a little more than $25 million, including $4. 6 million for the dress Marilyn Monroe wore in the famous scene in “The Seven Year Itch. ” For a while, Ms. Reynolds seemed to be better known as the mother of Ms. Fisher — who shot to stardom as Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” movies and wrote semiautobiographical novels — than as an actress or singer. Ms. Fisher’s 1987 book, “Postcards From the Edge,” made into a film starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine, reflected the sometimes difficult relationship between her and her famous mother. Ms. Reynolds’s career took something of a back seat to her personal life when she married Mr. Hamlett in 1984, but they divorced 12 years later. In 1996, Ms. Reynolds made an comeback when Albert Brooks cast her as his yet admirably widowed mother in “Mother. ” Her uncharacteristically comic performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination, though not the Oscar nomination that many had predicted. The next year, she played Kevin Kline’s mother in the film comedy “In Out. ” And beginning in 1999, she won new fans with a recurring role on the NBC sitcom “Will Grace” as Bobbi Adler, the Debra Messing character’s gregarious, uninhibited mother, who had a tendency to burst into song (show tunes, of course). Ms. Reynolds continued acting and doing voice work in both films and television into her late 70s. In 2013, she appeared as Liberace’s mother in the HBO movie “Behind the Candelabra,” with Michael Douglas as Liberace. She appears in the documentary “Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds,” which was shown at the New York Film Festival in October, and of which her son, Mr. Fisher, is a producer. She is survived by Mr. Fisher and a granddaughter, Billie Lourd. | 0fake |
It’s Trump’s World – The KKK Is Getting A Mainstream TV Show | On Monday, the election of Donald Trump became official. Last week, though, A&E, home of the Duck Dynasty clan, announced that they are giving a voice to the real Klan. The Ku Klux Klan is getting their own show.Beginning in January, A&E will be broadcasting a show called Generation KKK. This show isn t exactly like Duck Dynasty. Instead of a long-running reality show, this is being billed as an eight-part documentary. A&E denied that they will be giving a platform to the Klan, but it s doubtful the Klan would have agreed to do the documentary if it didn t humanize them.That meant finding a delicate balance between winning the trust of the Klan members and ensuring the show didn t propagate views the network s executives abhor. We certainly didn t want the show to be seen as a platform for the views of the KKK, said Rob Sharenow, general manager of A&E. The only political agenda is that we really do stand against hate. The struggles we were most drawn to were the struggles with the internal families, said Mr. James, an executive producer of the series, whose previous credits include TLC s I Am Jazz, about the transgender teenager Jazz Jennings. We had a stance, and we were clear with folks that we were hoping for them to see the light and to come out of this world. It s an incredibly destructive environment for anybody to be in, let alone children. Source: New York TimesOn one level, this might make sense. Perhaps some KKK members will become more sympathetic to people of color or LGBT people just by getting to know them, but there is a far greater risk, and that is normalization of the Klan.No one is saying this show is the result of Trump s election. In fact, it s been in the works since about the time Trump began his run, but there is a media trend of normalizing the deplorable (yes, that is the correct word). Even so-called liberal NPR has begun normalizing the alt-right hell, even the term alt-right normalizes racism, xenophobia, nationalism, misogyny and homophobia. Just a week after the election, NPR ran a story on Steve Bannon, who has long been giving a voice to neo-nazis and other deplorables through his blog, Breitbart.com. NPR called Bannon a national hero. Let s hear a defense of Steve Bannon, NPR host Steve Inskeep began, offering a view of exactly what direction this interview would take. Pollak started by launching into a gushing assessment of Bannon, calling him a national hero, and talking about how it s so great we ll have someone so calm under pressure in the White House. (Maybe this is true, though it contradicts accusations against Bannon of domestic abuse, sexual harassment and being a verbally abus[ive] bully who is prone to a lot of tirades by former staffers.) When Inskeep interjected to ask about Bannon s tireless work to turn Breitbart into the alt-right outlet of choice, Pollak attempted to distance the site from the movement it has nurtured on a steady diet of xenophobia, racism, sexism and anti-Semitism.Source: AlternetPerhaps if Clinton had won the electoral vote, Generation KKK would be slightly less offensive, but Trump, with his hiring of deplorables in his cabinet, is normalizing the KKK and racism in general. Trump ran a campaign of hate. He s putting together a coalition of hate. Is it any wonder that suddenly, hate is cool? We don t need to hear the views of the KKK. We know the views of the KKK. Generation KKK won t be educational, it will be obscene.Featured image via Martin/Flickr | 1real |
Irish border should see no queues post-Brexit: British minister | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain wants to reach an agreement with the European Union that would secure a frictionless border between EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland to avoid any need for queues on either side, junior Brexit minister Robin Walker said on Wednesday. Settling the border with Northern Ireland has become one of the main sticking points in Britain s talks on leaving the European Union. | 0fake |
Texas governor signs relaxed version of voter ID legislation | (Reuters) - Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed into law a more relaxed version of state voter-identification requirements than a previously enacted measure struck down by U.S. courts as racially discriminatory. The new measure was designed to remedy flaws the courts found in the original law by providing Texans an alternative to the type of government-issued photo ID they had been required to present in order to vote at polling stations. Voters will now be permitted to cast their ballots by furnishing some other documentation bearing their name and address, such as a bank statement or utility bill, if they also sign an affidavit attesting to having a “reasonable impediment” to obtaining a valid photo ID. Critics contend that the measure, passed by the Republican-controlled legislature last month and signed on Thursday by Abbott, a first-term Republican, is still aimed at discouraging racial and ethnic minorities, who tend to favor Democrats. They particularly object to provisions carrying a prison sentence of up to 10 years for lying on a voter-ID affidavit. The list of valid photo-IDs accepted under both the previous law and the revised measure includes a driver’s license, U.S. military identification, U.S. passport and concealed handgun permit, but not a student ID card. Texas ranks as the most populous Republican-dominated state, with the Republican Party winning every statewide race for elective office for more than 20 years. But shifting demographics have given hope to Democrats that they can eventually turn the state to their column. The original voter ID requirements were signed into law in 2011 by then-Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican. Considered one of the nation’s strictest such measures, it has been subject to years of court challenges, with the law’s opponents saying it could exclude up to 600,000 voters. Supporters of such laws have countered they are necessary to protect the integrity of the election system, despite little evidence of actual voter fraud. The U.S. Supreme Court declined in January to hear an appeal by Texas seeking to revive the original law’s requirements. | 0fake |
VIDEO: US Elections: More Voter Fraud Emerges | Establishment pundits were horrified when Donald Trump claimed that the system is rigged, and panicked when he wouldn t say whether or or he would respect the elections results if he lost. Like or not, the evidence shows that Trump is right. That s right: there is actual rampant voter fraud and election rigging in the United States.Watch this report by FOX News: SUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Senate Judiciary panel chief urges FBI to disclose any Trump probes | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley on Thursday called on the FBI to publicly confirm whether or not it is probing President Donald Trump, who said in a letter this week he had been assured that he was not under FBI investigation. In a statement, Grassley said that now-former FBI Director James Comey had previously briefed him and the panel’s top Democrat, and that the lawmakers “heard nothing that contradicted the President’s statement.” | 0fake |
Trump says waterboarding 'works' but will defer to Cabinet: ABC interview | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump, asked about the practice of waterboarding as an intelligence-gathering tool, said: “Absolutely I feel it works,” but added he would defer to his Cabinet on whether to use it. Trump told ABC in an interview to be broadcast later on Wednesday he would rely on the advice of CIA Director Mike Pompeo and U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, among others, about using the illegal technique. “And if they don’t want to do it, that’s fine. If they do want to do it then I will work toward that end. I want to do everything within the bounds of what we’re allowed to do if it’s legal ... Do I feel it works? Absolutely I feel it works.” Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, signed an executive order in 2009 banning waterboarding - a form of simulated drowning - and other Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, which are denounced by many lawmakers and rights groups as torture. | 0fake |
U.S. Labor Department to delay 'fiduciary' rule for 60 days pending review | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Labor Department will delay implementation of its “fiduciary” rule by 60 days while it undertakes a review on whether the rule may hinder Americans’ ability to get access to retirement investment advice, according to a filing in the Federal Register. The department’s rule, which requires brokers offering retirement investment advice to act in the best interest of their customers, has been heavily criticized by Republicans and Wall Street amid concerns it may make investment advice too costly. The delay of the rule, which was slated to take effect April 10, was prompted after President Donald Trump in February ordered the department to conduct the review on whether it should be revised or repealed. In order to delay the effective date, the department had to undertake a formal rule-making process. If the department ultimately decides on a repeal or change, it will need to undertake another rule-making process in the future. In addition to the 60-day delay, the department also said that other regulatory requirements in the rule for firms to provide disclosures and written representations of compliance to investors will not be mandated until Jan. 1, 2018. That date, the department added, is when it expects to complete its review. As of March 17, the department said it had received 15,000 comments in support of a delay, versus 178,000 comments opposing any delay. Despite the lop-sided results, the department said a delay is justified because time is needed to complete the presidentially mandated review. Rigid adherence to the original April 10 compliance deadline, the department said, could result in “an unduly chaotic transition to the new standards” and lead to “confusion, excessive costs, and needlessly restricted or reduced advisory services.” | 0fake |
Zimbabwean activist pastor arrested for criticizing Mugabe government | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean police arrested activist pastor Evan Mawarire of the #ThisFlag movement as he stepped down from his pulpit, accusing him of subversion for a series of social media posts that charged Robert Mugabe s government had wrecked the economy, his lawyer told Reuters on Sunday. Lawyer Harrison Nkomo said Mawarire was arrested and charged with subversion, which carries a maximum term of life imprisonment, for a Facebook video he posted on Saturday lambasting the government over its economic policies. Over the last few days, shortages of basic goods and fuel have emerged, resulting in panic buying by consumers. Prices of imported products are also going up, which businesses blame on shortages of foreign exchange. Mawarire has been at the heart of a protest movement against Mugabe s 37-year rule. In 2016, he led a stay-at-home demonstration that resulted in the first of his now three arrests for what the state says are attempts to overthrow the government. Mawarire was already due to face trial of subversion over the 2016 protests at a High Court trial on Monday. He is due to appear in court tomorrow on subversion charges emanating from last year. So we really don t know how the state will proceed, said Nkomo. Press and social media reports, including Mawarire s post, on shortages of basic goods and foreign exchange were meant to cause alarm in the country, said Ignatius Chombo, minister of home affairs, the ministry in charge of the police, said in a statement. Government is closely monitoring the press and social media reports in question with a view to taking decisive action to deal a telling blow to the perpetrators of the crime in terms of the laws of the country s justice system, Chombo said. A statement on the website of the United States embassy in Harare published on Friday said it would be monitoring the pastor s trial, and called for an end to arbitrary arrests and intimidation for political purposes. Mugabe, 93, has held power since independence from Britain in 1980. He is under mounting pressure from angry Zimbabweans, as well as his war veterans allies, who last year rebuked him as a manipulative dictator and called for him to step down. | 0fake |
Obama to meet with Republicans Ryan, McConnell next week: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will meet for the first time on Tuesday with Speaker Paul Ryan, the top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, to discuss budget priorities and ways to work together this year, the White House said on Friday. The get-together with Ryan, which also will include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, will provide a gauge of how much or how little legislative common ground the three leaders share as Obama completes his final year in office. “We certainly believe that there are areas of cooperation for the year ahead,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. It will be Obama’s first formal face-to-face meeting with Ryan since he was elected speaker three months ago. “While the House is focused on a bold agenda for 2017, the speaker appreciates the opportunity to see if we can find any areas of common ground in the year ahead,” Doug Andres, a spokesman for Ryan, said. During a closed-door meeting on Thursday with Democratic lawmakers, Obama said he does not expect Congress to get much done this year, according to an aide who was in the room. The White House has said there are only a few items on Obama’s legislative wish-list that have any chance of passing through the Republican-controlled Congress. They include reforming mandatory minimum prison sentences for non-violent drug offenses and taking steps to address an epidemic of heroin addiction and prescription drug abuse. Obama also wants Congress to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, but he faces resistance from Democratic lawmakers concerned about the TPP’s impact on jobs and the environment. The White House announced on Friday that Obama’s top legislative aide Katie Beirne Fallon, who was popular among Republicans and Democrats alike on Capitol Hill, is leaving after helping Obama secure enough votes for fast-track trade negotiating authority, the Iran nuclear deal and a budget deal. Fallon will be replaced by her deputy Amy Rosenbaum, a former aide to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. Obama’s meeting with Republicans comes one week before Obama delivers his final budget proposal to Congress. It also comes as Obama tries to make good on a pledge he made during his 2008 campaign to close the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama is set to deliver a plan to Congress about closing the prison that will include measures to house a small number of detainees in facilities in the United States. Lawmakers strongly oppose that idea. | 0fake |
WATCH DIRTY HARRY REID ON HIS LIE ABOUT ROMNEY’S TAXES: “HE DIDN’T WIN, DID HE?” | In case you missed it Sen. Harry Reid (R-NV), who announced last week that he will retire after his current term expires in early 2017, said he does not regret taking to the Senate floor in 2012 to accuse then-GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney of not paying his taxes. No, I don t regret that at all, he told CNN s Dana Bash. The Koch brothers no one would help me. They were afraid the Koch brothers would go after them, so I did it on my own. Bash said some viewed the charge as McCarthy-ite, but Reid didn t buy that explanation. He shrugged, saying, they can call it whatever they want. Romney didn t win, did he? Reid said somewhat amusingly. | 1real |
Ousted Catalan leader says will not return to Spain to testify | MADRID (Reuters) - Dismissed Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said on Wednesday he would ignore a court order to return to Spain to answer charges over the region s push for independence, but he could testify from Belgium. If Puigdemont fails to answer Thursday s High Court summons, an arrest warrant could be issued that would make it virtually impossible for him to stand in a snap regional election called by the Spanish government for Dec. 21. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy sacked Puigdemont and his government on Friday, hours after the Catalan parliament made a unilateral declaration of independence in a vote boycotted by the opposition and declared illegal by Spanish courts. On Monday, Spain s state prosecutor filed charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds against Puigdemont for defying the central government by holding an referendum on secession on Oct. 1 and proclaiming independence. Puigdemont traveled to Belgium at the weekend with other members of the dismissed Catalan administration and hired a lawyer. Those summonses are part of proceedings that lack any legal basis and only seek to punish ideas. This is a political trial, Puigdemont said in a statement signed by the legitimate government of Catalonia . The High Court summoned Puigdemont and 13 other former members of the Catalan government to testify in Madrid on Thursday and Friday on the prosecutor s charges. A judge will then decide whether those called to testify should go to jail pending an investigation that could take several years and potentially lead to a trial. The judge might also grant them conditional bail or order them to surrender their passports. If Puigdemont and his associates did not turn up, the judge would be more likely to order them jailed as a flight risk. The courts have also told the Catalan secessionist leaders to deposit 6.2 million euros ($7.2 million) by Friday to cover potential liabilities. Three former Catalan government advisors returned to Spain from Belgium late on Tuesday and were greeted at Barcelona s international airport by a small crowd chanting off to prison . Puigdemont said on Tuesday he would only go back to Spain when given unspecified guarantees by the Spanish government. He said he accepted the election called by Rajoy for December and Madrid said he was welcome to stand, though the legal proceedings might prevent that. Uncertainty over how the crisis will play out has prompted more than 1,800 Catalonia-based companies to move their legal headquarters out of the region and the government to lower its national economic forecasts for next year. On Wednesday, rating agency Moody s said the declaration of independence and the suspension of self rule were credit negative for the region and the country, and that associated uncertainty would damage sentiment and consumer spending. Moody s raised Spain s credit rating to Baa2 in 2014 as the country emerged from a prolonged economic slump. On Tuesday, Moody s affirmed Catalonia s long-term issuer and debt ratings of Ba3, saying the government s reinforced control compensated for the increased risks, in particular the region s rapidly deteriorating business climate. | 0fake |
Released Illegal Immigrant Accused of Raping, Murdering New Orleans Mother - Breitbart | NEW ORLEANS — An illegal immigrant once in federal custody but was released is now accused of raping and murdering a New Orleans mother in her home. [Irwin a illegal immigrant from Honduras, is facing murder charges after he allegedly raped, strangled, and stabbed Nancy Yahaira Gonzalez Rodriguez to death, according to . Before 2015, was arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in Texas for being in the U. S. illegally. However, ’s case was dismissed. Then, in April 2015, was arrested by the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) and charged with allegedly kidnapping, raping, and strangling a woman. The charges against though, were later dropped because of inconsistencies in the statements by the alleged victim, according to the district attorney. In that case, was allegedly friends with the victim when he entered her home. After speaking for about 30 minutes, said he was going to use the bathroom, but when he came back, he had a knife and forced the victim into a bedroom where he allegedly raped and strangled her. Now, is accused of murdering Gonzalez Rodriguez, whom police say he raped, strangled, and stabbed more than 20 times. When the victim was found, her son was sitting next to her crying. Under ICE’s newest enforcement policies in accordance with Trump administration’s crackdown, the agency places a ‘detainer’ on any illegal immigrant who is arrested by authorities. The detainer alerts local and state police that the arrested suspect is an illegal immigrant and must be turned over to ICE before being released from custody. But, in 2015, under the Obama administration’s lax enforcement of immigration, ICE only placed detainers on illegal immigrants who were convicted of a crime. This, according to ICE, is why there was no alert to the NOPD back in 2015 that was an illegal immigrant when he was arrested and charged for the rape and strangulation of his alleged previous victim. ICE does have a detainer on now. If for any reason the illegal immigrant is let out of New Orleans officials’ custody, he will be handed over to ICE for deportation. John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | 0fake |
WATCH HERO Singlehandedly Shut Down Anti-Trump Protest: “Hey! This is library!” [Video] | The video below is one of the highlights from the protests last year. Protesters at the University of Washington were firmly reminded that their shouting in a library was not appreciated. This is epic!About two dozen social justice warriors gathered in the normally quiet zone, a couple students wielding megaphones, and began to chant Who s got the power? We ve got the power! What kind of power? Equal power! The small protest took place about an hour after the inauguration, says the description on the YouTube video uploaded by KING 5 s Alex Rozier.But just as the momentum is getting louder, a lone voice calling Hey, hey hey! interrupts the protest. Everyone quiets down as the camera dramatically pans to a young man in a dark-blue buttoned up shirt and glasses. This is library! he scolds them.The protesters are stunned into silence for several moments, though a few feebly call out insults, including one woman who seems to ask if he s going to go back to Beijing. The man turns and leaves.Read more: barstoolsports.com | 1real |
Vox Claims North Korea’s Economy Doing ’Pretty Well’ | “Turns Out North Korea’s Economy Is Actually Doing Pretty Well,” the headline at Vox proclaims. The bulk of the article offers nothing to support this assertion. [The piece is based heavily on a “fascinating article” in the New York Times, which purportedly demonstrated how North Korea “has been experiencing economic success in recent years by taking steps toward allowing private enterprise to spread throughout the country. ” “According to the Times, some experts estimate that the North Korean economy could be growing between 1 and 5 percent per year. If North Korea’s economy is actually growing at the higher end of that estimate — say, around 4 percent — the country would be showing surprising resilience in the face of international sanctions,” Vox chirped. And then, four paragraphs in, Vox splashed a little cold water in its face and remembered which country it is talking about, admitting that North Korean quality of life is “nightmarish” and marked by “rampant food shortages,” leaving 70 percent of the population dependent on food aid and 40 percent of the people malnourished. Nevertheless, Vox persisted, gamely forging ahead with an argument that black markets and tiny marketplaces were prodding North Korea toward a uprising against centralized control. Late in the article, Vox mentions that 80 percent of North Korea’s consumer goods come from China but leaves out the more pertinent fact that North Korea gets almost all of its oil from China. China and a few other friendly states indulge the illicit trade that provides Pyongyang with much of the equipment and hard currency needed for its weapons programs. That is how North Korea “survives sanctions. ” The country’s economic system is basically a laboratory experiment in feral communist brainwashing financed by Beijing. China keeps this nightmare going because it loathes the notion of a reunified Korea allied with the United States and because it likes having a vicious attack dog snarling at the Western world and its Pacific Rim friends. China profits a great deal by promoting itself as the only hand that can tame the Kim regime. The cost of keeping North Korea’s “economy” afloat has been reasonable until now. That analysis is changing as Pyongyang closes in on nuclear ICBM technology, which is why Beijing seems to be dealing more sternly with the Kim regime than ever before. There is nothing more to the North Korean economic picture than this, which Vox slowly figures out by the end of its silly article, since not the faintest trace of the headline assertion that “North Korea’s economy is actually doing pretty well” remains by the final paragraph. It is actually a story about how starving and terrified North Korean citizens are trying to use a little market cooperation to survive the hideous communist economy they are trapped in. Black markets are the defiance of an economic system, not a component of it. Part of the problem here is an absurdity of scale. Four percent “growth” for a starvation economy is nothing. That is like saying a man with ten cents in his pocket who discovers a dime on the street has doubled his financial holdings. The low end of the growth estimate that served as the entire premise for the Vox article was one percent, which sounds more like the “totally stagnant economic backwater” Vox claims North Korea is not. Even that paltry estimate is based on the highly dubious assumption that any meaningful economic data can be extracted from the North Korean dungeon state. Communist tyrannies have a long history of manufacturing fraudulent data to make themselves look prosperous. “North Korea is doing pretty well” stories erupt almost every year, based on similarly flawed economic analyses that speculate the dungeon state’s economy might be growing a little. There was a previous boomlet of such media coverage in the summer of 2015, prompting The Diplomat to conduct a bit of debunking. After duly noting that all economic data from North Korea is suspect and pointing out that North Korean growth stories always ignore the many negative economic events plaguing the secretive nation, The Diplomat quoted blogger Joshua Stanton explaining that North Korea really has two economies and the larger one keeps the bulk of the population in a constant state of misery: North Korea’s economy is bifurcated between the in the provinces and the haves — the regime, the elites, and the donju (middle class) who are are mostly figures who trade with and on behalf of the regime, and largely supply the elite with goods that aren’t available to most North Koreans. Although there is more overlap between these economies today than there was five years ago, these remain two distinct economies for the most part. No, North Korea’s economy is not “doing well,” and there is little solid evidence that it’s doing better than it was last year. It endures the pressure of sanctions because China constantly relieves that pressure and because murderous totalitarian regimes can absorb a great deal of economic pain with their captive populations. Even a and dependent tyranny can afford to maintain a small ruling clique in high style. Only China can exert the type of pressure that would really hurt North Korea’s rulers. | 0fake |
Factbox: Trump's conflicting views on Obama Dreamer policy | (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to soon end an Obama-era policy that protects nearly 800,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally as children, a senior administration official said on Thursday. In the past, Trump has sometimes seemed supportive of the program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. At other times he blasted it. Following are some of Trump’s comments on the so-called Dreamer policy: February 16, 2017, news conference at the White House - “We’re gonna show great heart, DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me, I will tell you. To me, it’s one of the most difficult subjects I have because you have these incredible kids. In many cases, not in all cases. And some of the cases, having DACA and they’re gang members and they’re drug dealers, too. But you have some absolutely, incredible kids, I would say mostly. They were brought here in such a way - it’s a very - it’s a very, very tough subject. We’re gonna deal with DACA with heart.... But the DACA situation is a very, very - it’s a very difficult thing for me because you know, I love these kids, I love kids, I have kids and grandkids. And I find it very, very hard doing what the law says exactly to do and you know, the law is rough.” November 28, 2016, interview with TIME Magazine - “We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud.... They got brought here at a very young age, they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.” February 15, 2016, press conference in Hanahan, S.C. - “Wait, you mentioned dreamers. I want dreamers to come from the United States. I want the people in the United States that have children, I want them to have dreams also. We’re always talking about dreamers for other people. I want the children that are growing up in the United States to be dreamers also. They’re not dreaming right now.” August 16, 2015, NBC’s “Meet the Press” - “We’re going to keep the families together. We have to keep the families together...But they have to go...We will work with them. They have to go. Chuck, we either have a country, or we don’t have a country. Either we have a country or not.” | 0fake |
Doorway on Moon Found at Bancroft Crater, Google Map, Oct 2016, Photos | Paranormal | (Before It's News)
Date of discovery: October 26, 2016
Location of discovery: Bancroft Crater, Earths Moon
Google Earth Coordinates: 27°54’52.71″N 6°23’23.82″W
I found this entrance to an underground alien base inside of Bancroft crater. The dark opening measures 70 meters by 50 meters exactly. The outer edges measure 114 meters by 114 meters. I used Google ruler to measure this, so it is their statistics. The base entrance is just outside the shadow of the crater, which means it was placed there deliberately to be in the light and make entering and exiting it with smaller ships much easier. Similar base entrance have been found before. For instance, a very similar entrance was found on Google Mars and was 160 meters across, but with similar design. (Click here to view the Mars entrance) .
Scott C. Waring
Thanks http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ Check out more contributions by Jeffery Pritchett ranging from UFO to Bigfoot to Paranormal to Prophecy | 1real |
UK Teenager Charged After Terror Alert in London Tube Station | Get short URL 0 1 0 0 A 19-year-old was charged on suspicion of making or possessing an explosive substance after a terror alert in London’s North Greenwich Underground Station, local media reported.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Last week, UK transport police evacuated the station after a suspicious item was found on one of the trains. It was later blown up in a controlled explosion.
According to the BBC, Damon Smith was charged on suspicion of making or possessing an explosive substance with intent to endanger life, while the Metropolitan Police said he also faced a charge of intent to cause serious injury to property.
The UK security agency, MI5, said earlier this month that the level of terrorist threat to Britain was severe. ... | 1real |
TRUMP SPOKESPERSON THREATENS Trump Rally On Martha’s Vineyard During Obama’s Vacation | If the Trump campaign arranges a rally while Obama is vacationing on Martha s Vineyard, there will be an awful lot of people making road trips to Massachusetts Trump campaign social media director Dan Scavino, Jr. raised the possibility of the Trump campaign holding a rally on Martha s Vineyard during President Barack Obama s two week vacation there that starts on Saturday.Scavino made the statement on Twitter in response to CBS News reporter Mark Knoller s tweet about Obama s vacation plans.POTUS has it made! We should have a #TrumpRally on the Vineyard next week #TrumpTrain #MakeAmericaGreatAgain https://t.co/zTmRT6mYy3 Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) August 5, 2016Via: GP | 1real |
Mexican Report Says Investigators Botched Search for 43 Students - The New York Times | MEXICO CITY — The Mexican government has refused to release an internal review that found investigators broke the law in their search for 43 missing students, a conclusion that threatens the legal foundations of a case that has roiled Mexico. The report says crucial suspects were arrested and moved illegally, throwing into question any evidence they provided. The investigators’ conduct, in the words of the government report, violated “the right to truth” and damaged the victims’ right to justice. The students’ disappearance from the southern city of Iguala in September 2014 remains an open wound in Mexico, evidence of the country’s failure to protect its citizens and impunity within a corrupt criminal justice system. Now the report provides the first evidence from inside the attorney general’s office showing how the case was mishandled. The internal review was completed four months ago, 177 pages printed out and ready for delivery to the students’ parents. The families arrived expectantly for a meeting with the attorney general on Aug. 18, bearing posters of their missing sons. But the inspector general of the attorney general’s office told them that his superiors needed to approve the report first, which he said was a simple formality. That approval never came. Instead, the report is still under study, according to the attorney general’s office, which gave no indication when it would be finished, if ever. The inspector general who prepared the review, César Alejandro Chávez Flores, abruptly resigned four weeks after that meeting. A copy of the report obtained by The New York Times suggests why it remains in bureaucratic limbo. It depicts a series of violations, including the government’s top investigator’s taking a suspect to identify the supposed crime scene without a defense lawyer present. A record of that visit was never placed in the case file, and the site was left unguarded overnight. The existence of the internal report, and that of the first draft of a broader audit by the inspector general’s office, were first made public by the magazine Proceso and by the investigative journalist Anabel Hernández in a book about the case. The choice not to approve the report and release it to the families “was a clear sign of a lack of political will, not only from the attorney general’s office but from the federal government, to finish the internal investigation,” said Santiago Aguirre, deputy director of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center in Mexico City and the families’ legal representative. “It showed us that the inspector general tried to do honest work and that he couldn’t find the political and institutional conditions to carry his work to its final consequences,” Mr. Aguirre added. But the attorney general’s office said legal reasons prevented it from releasing the report. The inspector general who succeeded Mr. Chávez Flores did not “recognize” the report’s conclusions because it lacked unspecified required formalities. “As such, it is a document that is legally nonexistent,” a spokeswoman, Natalia Briseño, wrote in an email. She added that the review was continuing. The possibility that the report will be suppressed is a worry for the Commission on Human Rights, which is evaluating the case’s progress and has pressed the government to open new lines of investigation. “We’re quite concerned and disturbed about the allegations raised recently,” said the commission’s president, James L. Cavallaro. He added that the review was “clearly an important document, and we hope and expect to receive it. ” The students were part of a larger group of young men who were studying to become rural teachers at a college in the village of Ayotzinapa, in the Pacific state of Guerrero. They had arrived in Iguala on Sept. 26, 2014, to commandeer buses to travel to Mexico City a few days later. But as the five buses left the city, municipal police officers attacked them and three students were killed. The police also attacked a bus carrying teenage soccer players, killing three more people, apparently mistaking their bus for one of the students’ buses. During a chaotic night, students traveling on two buses disappeared, hauled off by the police and, officials have said, handed over to the local drug gang, Guerreros Unidos. The government’s account of what happened next rests on a series of confessions from suspected drug hit men who said they had killed the students and burned their bodies on a giant pyre in a remote garbage dump. The next day, they scooped the ashes into plastic bags and threw them into the nearby San Juan River. Only one student’s remains have been identified from the charred bones found at the riverbank. But the inspector general’s report describes how six suspects, picked up in different locations in one day, spontaneously confessed with identical wording that they were members of Guerreros Unidos, and admitted to having killed the students and burning the remains. The subsequent arrests, based only on those statements, were arbitrary and illegal, the review said. Under the Mexican Constitution, an illegal arrest nullifies any evidence obtained as a result. There were other problems. Dates were muddled, records missing. An investigating prosecutor signed documents in two different places on the same day. What the report describes is not uncommon in Mexican criminal investigations, experts say. In their zeal to close cases, the Mexican police and prosecutors have long skirted the law. Suspects are picked up to give a statement and then held on the slimmest of proof on suspicion of ties to organized crime. Although the police are adapting to a broad overhaul in Mexico’s justice system intended to eliminate those practices, “old habits die hard,” said Agustín Acosta, a prominent criminal defense lawyer who is not involved in the students’ case. The day after the arrests, one suspect was released to the lead investigator, Tomás Zerón de Lucio, who flew him to the river. There, the suspect later said, he was told to point to a spot on the riverbank. None of the activities of that day — Oct. 28, 2014 — were included in the case file. Mr. Zerón’s presence at the river with the suspect, Agustín García Reyes, was first noted by a group of outside experts from the Commission on Human Rights. Among the experts’ findings, which they presented in April, was detailed evidence that 17 suspects were tortured, including Mr. García Reyes and two other suspected gang members detained the same day. The inspector general’s internal investigation was a response to the experts’ report. The attorney general at the time, Arely Gómez, also asked the inspector general to begin the broader audit. The Times has obtained a copy of the audit’s first draft. Ms. Gómez is now the federal comptroller. Mr. Zerón has said the riverbank visit was appropriate police procedure. The omission of that visit in the case file was inadvertent, he said. In September, he resigned as the head of criminal investigations at the attorney general’s office. But Mr. Zerón, who has worked closely with President Enrique Peña Nieto for almost a decade, was immediately appointed as the technical secretary of the National Security Council. The first draft of the broader audit raises many of the same questions that the experts from the Commission on Human Rights first identified. It asks why the federal police and the local military battalion stood by while the municipal police attacked the students’ buses. The draft calls for further investigation and interrogations to determine whether that negligence amounts to obstruction of justice. One of the enduring mysteries of the case is why the municipal police were never stopped by the state and federal authorities in Iguala. If the state police had acted, the students and others who were attacked that night “would not have been injured or killed” the way they were, the draft concludes. | 0fake |
Teen BRUTALLY Hits Back At Trump And His Sexual-Assault Supporting Fans With Epic T-Shirt | Trump rallies are not for the meek. They re for the racist, misogynistic violent dregs of society and they re for the super brave who oppose them and who may well get beaten up for having the gall to attend. 18-year old Anna Lehane took a chance, though, and attended an Oct. 10 rally while wearing a deliberately inflammatory t-shirt.It didn t say Black Lives Matter, which is what both of her friends wore. Her shirt read this: Grab my pussy. I dare you. Now that Trump rally is over, here is picture of this bold young protester s message pic.twitter.com/ZCnCHWTqBQ Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) October 11, 2016That is a bold message, particularly for a young woman at a Trump rally. She told The Huffington Post: I made the shirt as a protest to people in the public spotlight on such a global platform making such disrespectful, degrading and misogynistic comments and still being taken seriously. It s patently disgusting that Trump is even still in the running for President, and still has the following he does, after we learned that he brags about sexually harassing and assaulting women. It s exposed a fundamental and sickening flaw in right-wing culture in the U.S.Some are questioning the foolhardiness of such a t-shirt. If Lehane had gotten grabbed, no doubt many would blame her for inviting it with that t-shirt. And she did get a lot of lewd comments about it from what she called creepy old men at the rally.Then there s this guy, on Twitter, who basically said something similar to what a lot of white people say about black people protesting police brutality there s a time, a place and an appropriate way to make a statement. That comes from discomfort with the message, and is intended to silence. Nonetheless:@tripgabriel @MarkRosner3 That isn t brave. It s vulgar and stupid. Jason M. Kates (@JasonMKates) October 11, 2016@Shapunkin The shirt is vulgar. There s no arguing that. It s stupid to wear vulgarity. I suppose some stupid people would argue that. Jason M. Kates (@JasonMKates) October 11, 2016Newsflash: Protesting is supposed to be disruptive and scary. It s supposed to make us uncomfortable. Otherwise the message is totally lost. That s why did Lehane did it: I felt disillusioned then with the opinions of [Trump] and any woman who supports him, Lehane tells ELLE.com over the phone, You can t control how I vote by grabbing my whatever. The fact that I m a woman doesn t mean that I m easily influenced or controllable or someone who shouldn t be taken seriously.' Indeed, women aren t being taken seriously with this. Many of us have come forward with our own, painful stories of harassment and assault something we shouldn t have to do to be heard and still gotten slapped down as though we don t matter. When we stand up for ourselves in light of Trump s sexual assault boasts, we re told everything from, That s boys being boys; you re being too sensitive, to This is why progressives lose, to Other issues matter much more than this, to You need to understand that they were just words. And so much more.Please.Wearing that kind of a shirt at a Trump rally is brave. You can t make a point, and drive home a message, when you do it the way other people want you to do it. Lehane seems to know that, which is why she did what she did.Featured image via screen capture from embedded tweet | 1real |
Black Agenda Radio for Week of Nov 21, 2016 | News, information and analysis from the black left. Black Agenda Radio for Week of Nov 21, 2016 Submitted by Nellie Bailey a... on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 20:44 2016 presidential campaign Green Party: Part of the Solution
“I fully expected that we were going to get at least five percent of the vote,” said Green Party vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka . “I suspect that when push came to shove, particularly in those swing states, people held their nose and voted for the lesser evil.” Nevertheless, it is essential that the Greens continue to put forward “transitional demands that are meant to galvanize people and win concessions from the state, but also that you keep people focused on the fact the real objective is to transform this system, to take power from the capitalist state.” No World War, But Plenty of Domestic Oppression
“I think the threat of World War Three has receded significantly,” said author, activist and historian Paul Street . However, “I don’t know if I’ll think that of Trump in two years,” he added. “The more immediate dangers seem to be: police statist assaults on undocumented Latino immigrants, a registry of Muslims, and a potential designation of Black Lives Matter and civil rights activists as quasi-terrorists. The other great, existential threat is runaway climate change because Trump has pledged to thoroughly deregulate energy.” Saving Mumia and Others from a Curable Disease
Activists in the Free Mumia movement plan a rally on December 9, in Philadelphia, to pressure prison officials to treat the political prisoner and thousands of other inmates suffering from hepatitis C. “Healthwise, Mumia is not doing good at all,” said Pam Africa , of Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal. “He has the appearance of good health, but he’s itching all over” and “his health is declining.” A judge ruled that Pennsylvania prison officials are obligated to treat Abu Jamal, but he used a technicality to avoid ordering that the cure actually be administered. Pam Africa said next month’s rally will also highlight unsafe, blackish water in prisons. At one facility, she said, “young people coming into the prison are losing their hair.” U.S. Election Ran on “Fear” and “Betrayal”
“It is accurate to say that economic discontent played a part” in Hillary Clinton’s defeat at the polls, said Mumia Abu Jamal . But he thinks other factors were at least as important. “The Trump campaign represented, not just fear, but profound paranoia, and also white revenge for the darkening of America.” However, “if Trumpism represented vengeance, then Clintonism represented betrayal,” because the Democrats failed to stand up on issues vital to their base constituencies. Torture, Anyone?
Former Kansas Republican congressman Mike Pompeo is likely to be named CIA director in the Trump administration. “He’s a big fan of torture,” said Ray McGovern , a former CIA analyst who now spends most of his time trying to rein in the national security state. McGovern told Paul Jay, of The Real News Network, that Pompeo “visited Guantanamo, he said it was great, and then said, “As far as I can see, those prisoners are gaining weight.’” President Obama must share the blame. “If Obama had the strength of his convictions, he would have gotten rid of the torturers in the CIA,” said McGovern. “He let them stay, and now they’re having a celebration.” Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: one hour. | 1real |
Lawyer for Berkeley Republicans in Coulter Case Slams ACLU for Absence - Breitbart | Attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who is representing the Berkeley College Republicans in their free speech case against the University of California, Berkeley over failing to allow Ann Coulter to speak on campus on equal terms, slammed the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for ignoring the case. ”[“I don’t see the ACLU here in this room, which is unfortunate,” Dillon said, after listing several prominent Democrats who join her in opposing Berkeley’s efforts to restrict Coulter’s speech. Asked whether there was “something special” about suing UC Berkeley, the home of the Free Speech Movement, Dillon answered: “I never thought I’d be on the same side of an issue as Willie Brown, Bernie Sanders, Bill Maher, Keith Ellison, and every other person who’s a lawyer. Now, there are some amateur lawyers, like Howard Dean, who looks up a case on the Internet and then thinks he’s a Supreme Court scholar — and, you know, some of our members of Congress who play lawyers on TV, apparently. But no, I think I don’t know any lawyers, serious lawyers practicing constitutional law, who think that this is appropriate. “And I have had dozens and dozens of emails and calls from lawyers who don’t know me, around the country. They all start with, ‘I don’t support what Ann Coulter says, but,” you know, or, ‘I hate what Donald Trump stands for, but you’re absolutely right on this, and this cannot stand.’ “And nor should it stand if it were happening on a conservative college campus and it were liberal students whose views were being marginalized. ” She noted that her passion for free speech issues was born when she was a student at Dartmouth, when some students were expelled for criticizing a music professor in print. “Who represented us in the hinterlands of New Hampshire? The American Civil Liberties Union came in to represent my colleagues on the Dartmouth Review. ” She remarked, in that context, that the ACLU’s absence at Berkeley was noteworthy. As Breitbart News noted last month, Dhillon once served on the board of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the ACLU. She is a noted Trump supporter, and serves as the vice chair of the California Republican Party. She is reportedly under consideration to be named to lead the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice. Dhillon is also representing Trump supporters who were attacked by rioters outside a Trump rally in their lawsuit against the city of San Jose for failing to protect them from the mob. Critics say the ACLU has been drifting in a left direction for many years, often abandoning its absolute adherence to basic civil liberties in favor of a redistributionist, and concept of rights. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 0fake |
Sarah Palin Accuses Ted Cruz Supporter Rep. Steve King Of ‘Huffing Ethanol’ | Sarah Palin is having a rough day. It began with an awkward interview with NBC s Today Show when Palin fumbled and gibberished her way through a softball question about whether she really blamed Barack Obama for her son Track s PTSD (she clearly did).And then, during her introduction of Donald Trump during an Iowa rally on Monday, she attacked a longtime ally, Iowa congressman Steve King, and accused the far-right member of the House Crazy Caucus of huffing ethanol.From TPM: It s dirty business but why would a conservative guy want to say something that he knows isn t true? Palin asked the crowd. Maybe he s forgotten some of his heart in the heartland. Maybe he s been hanging out in a corn field too long huffing ethanol. Steve King endorsed Ted Cruz and, during an appearance on MSNBC, King accused Trump of buying off Palin in exchange for his assets and resources. A few things here.1) The first rule of conservatism remains: Don t try to be funny. It never works.2) You might recall how Palin expressed admiration for King during her infamous off-prompter speech in which she inexplicably blurted, Steve very strong, he goin rogue. 3) If anyone knows the impact of huffing fumes, it s Palin. In fact, she might ve been high or drunk during her Trump introduction today like always.4) I wonder how Iowa residents feel about Palin insulting their famous congressman, while also insulting ethanol as being nothing more than something one can huff. 5) It s worth repeating: Stop trying to be funny, conservatives.6) Now, Ted Cruz? Ted Cruz might actually be more tolerable if he huffed something. Anything.7) Palin thinks it s smart politics to emphasize the notion that huffing ethanol can get you really, really high. I m sure the children of Iowa Republican caucus-goers will thank her for it. Featured image via video screen grab. | 1real |
Waters: I Believe Trump ’Colluded With the Russians,’ I Haven’t Seen Any Evidence to Back That Up - Breitbart | While speaking with the Washington Post’s “Cape Up” podcast, Representative Maxine Waters ( ) stated, “I believe that this president has colluded with the Russians,” and vowed to “keep working until he’s impeached. ” Later in the interview, she admitted that she hasn’t seen any evidence to back up the collusion charge. Waters said, [relevant remarks begin around 4:00] “I believe that this president has colluded with the Russians, with the Kremlin, with the oligarchs — perhaps — of Russia to undermine our election system, and thus undermine our democracy. I do realize that you can’t just speculate about this. You’ve got to connect the dots. You’ve got to get the facts. ” She added that she would “keep working until he’s impeached. ” Later on, [relevant exchange begins around 19:15] Waters repeated her charge, saying, “I think that he absolutely colluded. ” Host Jonathan Capehart then asked Waters if she had seen anything to back any of the accusations she’s made up. Waters pointed to intelligence agencies’ documentation that Russia was behind the hacks of the DNC. Capehart followed up by asking Waters if she had seen evidence to back up the collusion charges. Waters answered, “No, we have not. And that’s why investigations are so important, to drill down and to connect those dots and to get the facts. What we have is a lot of smoke, that causes us to want to know more about what has happened. Why is it there are so many people around him [who] are connected to oil? Why is it that Michael Flynn, who, evidently has a great relationship with Putin, who has received payments for speeches, and who’s spent a lot of time in Russia, and was accused of talking about sanctions, he lied about it and he got caught?” ( Grabien) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 0fake |
Tillerson avoids public conflict with Trump over budget | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While he has swallowed a big budget cut and had the White House veto his chosen deputy, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is avoiding a public conflict with U.S. President Donald Trump over his department’s budget, six current and former U.S. officials said on Thursday. Instead, Tillerson privately resisted a 37-percent budget cut that some White House officials sought and he convinced Trump he needed more time to identify where savings could be made, two current and one former official told Reuters. As a result, the White House proposed on Thursday a reduction of some 28 percent on U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid. “Tillerson isn’t opposed to cutting the budget at all, but he figured out that he couldn’t win head-to-head battles with the president and the people close to him, so he’s pursuing a different strategy, arguing that he can’t make wise decisions about what to cut until he’s more familiar with his department and its budget,” said one of the current officials, a State Department veteran. Tillerson said in Tokyo on Thursday that his department’s current spending is “simply not sustainable,” and that he accepted the “challenge” Trump had given him. “He is making a very sensible calculation,” said a former U.S. official, noting that Congress, not the president, holds the purse strings and is almost certain to reject many of the administration’s proposed cuts. “You state your loyalty to the president, and then you know that you will not actually have to live with the president’s budget.” It is not yet clear, however whether Trump and Tillerson have significant policy differences or if he can defend his department against some of Trump’s closest aides such as Steve Bannon who want to dismantle parts of the federal government and limit U.S. engagement with the world, said three of the current and former officials. The former Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) CEO has faced multiple challenges in his first weeks as chief U.S. diplomat, including unpredictable policy pronouncements from Trump. White House officials vetoed Elliot Abrams, Tillerson’s choice for deputy secretary, the department’s second-highest post, one of the current officials said. With that job still vacant, it has not been possible to fill the department’s other senior positions. Despite that defeat, Michael Anton, a National Security Council spokesman, said the White House holds Tillerson in high regard. “President Trump has the utmost confidence in the Secretary of State and looks forward to Mr. Tillerson implementing a bold agenda to revitalize American foreign policy,” Anton said. A White House official said Tillerson has had good access to the president, including multiple lunches, dinners and meetings. Tillerson dined with Trump on Monday, the night before he flew to Asia. Tillerson has kept a low profile since joining the administration seven weeks ago, spending little time with key State Department officials and only holding his first news conference on Thursday in Tokyo. He has drawn criticism from many State Department officials who believe he has failed to cultivate potential allies in Trump’s cabinet and on Capitol Hill. Chas Freeman, a seasoned diplomat since the Nixon administration, said Tillerson’s low-key style might be a survival tactic. “If he says something, he runs a big risk of getting crosswise with Trump,” Freeman said. “This may be a Fabian strategy,” referring to the Roman statesman Fabius who defeated the Carthaginian general Hannibal by avoiding frontal conflict. | 0fake |
In Afghanistan’s Farm Belt, Women Lead Unions and Find New Status - The New York Times | SHIBAR, Afghanistan — In this lush farm belt deep in central Afghanistan, women have been the organizing force behind a new wave of small village farm unions. That seems to have brought some changes. In a reversal of tradition, husbands tend to walk after their wives, trailing a couple of steps behind with sleeves and faces. And critically for this impoverished region, the unions have established modest supply chains at the market in the center of Bamian Province. Over just a few years, they have introduced new vegetables to their humble dinner plates. “In the old days, only potatoes and wheat were grown here,” said Zainab Husseini, a high school biology teacher and the farming union leader in the village of . “Now we introduced cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, beans and other vegetables. ” The unions, in updating agricultural traditions, have helped ensure a more reliable and diverse food supply in an often region. In the process, the women who run the groups are finding new status and empowerment. They are no longer greeted as the mother of Ahmad or the wife of Mahmoud, but rather “union leader Gul Bahar” or “deputy union leader Reza Gul. ” The unions have put the women of Bamian on the front line of a critical struggle: the effort to shape a sustainable Afghan economy, away from dependence on foreign aid. Agriculture must surely be a crucial part of the program if that is to happen. Close to 40 percent of the population remains below the poverty line of $1. 35 a day, Afghan officials say. According to the World Bank, more than 80 percent of the Afghan population — and about 90 percent of the poor — live in rural communities. Agriculture is therefore central not just to countering widespread malnutrition in remote areas, but also to creating sustainable jobs. Assadullah Zamir, Afghanistan’s minister of agriculture, says one area that requires focus is linking farmers to local and national markets, and helping their crops compete with cheap imports by imposing tariffs on, for example, Pakistani vegetables. “The production has increased with programs and training, and the market is not enough it is not sufficient,” Mr. Zamir said. If Afghanistan can better manage its water resources and establish decent connections between farms and markets — a critical problem in the middle of a war where battles are fought with roadside bombs and security checkpoints — the agriculture sector could create two million to five million sustainable new jobs, or even double the industry’s percentage of the country’s gross domestic product, according to Afghan officials and economic analysts. But here in remote Bamian, the terrain itself poses a huge challenge to bringing crops to market. To get to Shibar, one must drive from the provincial capital of Bamian for about an hour, up a narrow dirt track carved along the mountains. The car slowly winds its way so high along the mountaintop that the clouds hang nearly at arm’s length. Then, even more slowly, as the path descends in spiraling bends, the car splashes through sudden creeks of snow melt that run through narrow gorges. After the Taliban destroyed giant Buddha statues in 2001, Bamian Province became associated mainly with one thing: potatoes. Lots of potatoes. In 2015, Bamian produced nearly 350, 000 tons of potatoes, about 60 percent of Afghanistan’s total consumption, according to the country’s Ministry of Agriculture. But an overabundance of that single product became a headache for farmers in Shibar, leaving them vulnerable to trader exploitation and struggling to meet their own basic food needs for most of the year. During harvest season, the potatoes are sold wholesale at prices: roughly $150 a ton. The farmers have no way of holding on to the potatoes for the winter months, when wholesale prices double. The approximately 500 cold storage facilities built in Bamian with the help of the Afghan government in recent years are simply not enough. (The smaller facilities hold about 15 tons, and the larger community ones about 60 tons.) That realization forced the Afghan government and its international partners a few years ago to encourage growing new crops, and women like Ms. Husseini took the lead in Shibar. About five years ago, Ms. Husseini tapped into a local women’s rights group she was leading to form small farmers’ unions and seek help from the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture. The ministry, which formally recognized the unions in 2013, provided sample plots where farmers could plant improved seeds and learn new techniques from visiting trainers, like using different plant spacing or drip irrigation systems. “In the old days, the potatoes were this small,” Ms. Husseini, the union leader in said, picking up a tiny rock. “When traders would come, they would set aside half of it as not good. Now they want all of it. Each potato weighs one kilogram on average. ” There are now eight village farmers’ unions in Shibar, each comprising about 30 women. In addition to improving potato production, they have turned to new vegetables and, more recently, even started fruit orchards. In her small vegetable plot, Najia, the deputy union leader in grew lettuce, cabbage and tomatoes last year. The lettuce brought her about $70, the tomatoes about $80 and the cabbage about $40. Najia is also in charge of the unions’ relations with the market in Bamian’s provincial capital, supplying fresh vegetables to six shops that they have established deals with — a very small market, but a start. Every time other union members have crops to sell, they all bring their produce to Najia, who arranges for a vehicle to take them to the market. But getting to the market is incredibly costly: Renting a small truck to take the goods there on the bumpy, narrow road out of Shibar costs about $20 — a large sum, considering how little the farmers currently make. The Afghan government, which often uses nongovernmental organizations as implementing partners, prioritizes the extremely poor for many of its agricultural projects. So even a small grant like giving a family a sheep or a cow, as well as teaching them ways to grow and sell their products, makes a big difference. “When we go back two years later, for example, each of them have expanded that to at least three or four sheep, or sold some of the sheep to buy a cow,” said Dr. Mariam Habib, who ran one of these programs in Bamian. With their increased economic activity and their handle of the cash flow, women say they also notice a change in their standing in the community. “Everyone invites me to parties, and they even consult me on matters now,” one gaptoothed older woman, waving her hands, told a visiting delegation of officials recently. She could not be reached for identification afterward. But in Shibar, as they increase production and earn more, some of the female union leaders bemoan a compromise that is forced on them: The new potatoes taste different. “The new potatoes are now white in the middle and have a great market, but they don’t taste the same,” said Asma, the deputy chief of one union. For her own cooking, she grows the old seeds. | 0fake |
Looking Beyond November 8th - A Song of Oligarchy and Doom | link Hello again ATS! Though we are two weeks out from Election Day as I sit to write these words – I find myself already looking beyond Tuesday, November the eighth and at some of the things that I think will happen between now and 2020 as well as what I think the landscape will look like in the year leading up to that year's election. It won't be a popular opinion here on ATS, I am sure... But as of today I feel confident in saying that, short of some unprecedented and wholly unforseeable revelation or event – this years election is very likely a done deal. Hillary Clinton will almost certainly be the next President of the United States. With just two weeks remaining before Election Day ( as of this writing ), the meta-analysis of polls shows Clinton possessing nearly an insurmountable lead. While it is true that Trump enjoys a very passionate and enthusiastic base, he has done little to successfully expand that base. The potential for him to find a means of connecting with undecided and uncommitted voters is minimal and shrinks with each passing day. Having come to this view, I find myself free to look beyond the coming weeks and to try and get a handle on what a post 2016 world will look like. Frankly, gazing into my allegorical crystal ball, I see dark and threatening clouds gathering on our horizon. Clouds that could very well bring a storm of epic proportions our way. Election Night Blues The night of Tuesday, November the eighth could well be historic – in the worst of ways. This election cycle has broken several taboos and lowered the bar of political discourse in unprecedented ways. It has been a season of highly divisive hyperbole and rhetoric that has built-up a great deal of social tension. We currently sit atop a very, very dry powder keg of anger that is seething and highly volatile. Passions will be flaring among many as we watch the Election results stream in on our televisions, computers and phones. Many of those watching will be deeply, deeply emotionally invested in the outcome of this race. In this climactic moment we, as a nation, will be perilously close to critical mass. One spark away from potential disaster... Four years ago a man with some degree of fame was emotionally invested in that years election and he took to social media, Twitter, to vent his reactions in a paroxysmal spasm of emotion... That minor celebrity was one Donald J. Trump: Source Imagine for a moment what could happen if history repeats itself and this same man goes on a similar rant this Election night. Imagine the violence such a display could potentially trigger. Then stop imagining and take a deep breath... Such a reaction is not just possible – given the evidence, it is more than likely the probable outcome. Trump is currently heavily invested in telling his followers that the election is rigged, that they have no voice and that he is "the only one" who can save them. This is a very, very dangerous and unstable bit of social chemistry. Most Trump supporters, obviously, will not lash out in violence if their candidate loses the race – even if they personally feel that the outcome of the Election was not legitimate. However some Trump supporters, those in the extremes of what the media is currently calling "the alt right" very well could take to the streets in rage. Given some of the fringe support that Trump enjoys, I would honestly be surprised if such things were not already being planned by a handful of those on the fringe. The rhetoric of revolution has been abused of late – and there are always the few who take such statements far too literally... Across the line. Blunty put – if Election night comes and Trump loses – and if he takes to Twitter as he did four years ago – it could well result in a very long and bloody night. A catastrophic night that we will look back upon with shame. A night that could well poison our nation for years to come. Much Ado About Trump TV Many pundits and wonks have mused over the fact that it truly does appear that Trump has been laying the groundwork for a future media operation... Presumably a news network or service of some kind. I count myself among those who have been suggesting so for a fairly long time. However where I differ is that I don't see it as being quite so cut and dry any longer. While I do think that Trump's original thoughts ( or more the thoughts of those who influence Trump ) was to create a new media Conservative news venue... I think that it's now grown into something more. I think that Trump TV ( Or whatever they end up calling it - "Trump TV" is too generic. There's no inherent propaganda value in the name. I think something more like "Trump's MAGA Network" is probably more on point. ) will be used as a device to begin a new political party. More accurately to succeed where others have previously failed ( I’m looking at you Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck ) by congealing the various "Patriot", "Tea Party" and fringe right wing groups into one collective and singular entity – a party firmly rooted in extreme nationalism with enough religion and conservatism thrown in to gain wider appeal. My prediction is that Donald Trump will remain the focal point and figurehead of this coming movement – using this new network much as he currently utilizes his Twitter feed... A platform for him to vent his late night frustrations, angers and insecurities. His name will be predominantly used in the branding and messaging and Trump will be the face of it all. The most frequent speaker and guest. Imagine if The Apprentice had been a 24/7/365 live streaming show – and Trump had the power to walk in at any moment to say whatever happened to be on his mind... That is how I see Trump TV. However I don't see Trump being the driving force behind the actual message. Trump is a brand, after all. He has made his place in this world by putting his name on buildings he didn't build, shows that he didn't create and ideas he didn't originate. Trump works as a spokesperson – the guy who says "I’m not only the President of... But I'm also a member". The real people behind the curtain will be The Mercers ( Robert and Rebekah ), Steve Bannon and, to a lesser degree, Roger Ailes. As for on camera talents? I think the current obvious potential faces of this new media enterprise will be Hannity, O'Reilly and Lahren – though I'm honestly not personally sure if O'Reilly will make the jump. Money is money, after all, and Big Daddy Bill is sitting pretty comfortably atop the Fox news heap as his career winds down. Regardless, however, of who wins the backstage power war ( Other than the Mercers who are a lock ) and the on camera positions... The network itself will be the propaganda arm of the extreme right wing and I think it very well could end up pulling the national discourse much further to the right in the coming 4-8 years. Particularly with the subjects of national isolationism and national identity politics. | 1real |
Republican Viciously Attacks McCain: Give Me Your Job, You Clearly Can’t Do It | A Republican state senator from Arizona, Kelli Ward, has unleashed a veiled, but nonetheless vicious, attack against Senator John McCain in the wake of his brain tumor diagnosis, and her whole entire attitude positively reeks of someone trying to bury McCain before he s gone. In discussing who Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey could appoint to replace McCain, should he step down, she actually gave this as her reason for she should be the person to take his place: Because I have a proven track record of years in the state Senate of being extremely effective and of listening to the voice of the people that I represent. And you know, I made an extremely good showing against Senator McCain against all odds. Ward tried to primary McCain in 2016 and lost. She launched a campaign against Senator Jeff Flake for 2018 almost as soon as she lost to McCain. Furthermore, while she was running against McCain in last year s primaries, she said he was old and weak and could die while in office.All of this smacks of someone thinking, Oh look! McCain s going to die! I have another chance to take his seat! It s disgusting, really.If she were appointed to take McCain s place, she ll have some early enemies in the Senate because of her behavior. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WF) shredded her on Twitter over this:In all the ways I measure good Senate colleagues (honor, class, integrity) Kelli Ward falls short. Ppl like her aren t welcome in the US Sen Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) July 22, 2017People like Kelli Ward are what s wrong with politics today. The people of AZ deserve representatives with dignity & decency. Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) July 22, 2017Ward insists that this is about McCain s health and what s best for Arizona and the country as a whole, but really, she s just an grubby-handed opportunist. She s just like Trump, and the last thing we need in our government is more Trumps.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1real |
Like a good little sharia-compliant female, Prince Charles’ wife Camilla removes her shoes to enter a mosque in Abu Dhabi, but the Prince of Wales keeps his shoes on | BNI Store Nov 6 2016 Like a good little sharia-compliant female, Prince Charles’ wife Camilla removes her shoes to enter a mosque in Abu Dhabi, but the Prince of Wales keeps his shoes on The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall have visited the spectacular Sheikh Zaved Grand Mosque to promote religious tolerance. ( HAH! ) UK Daily Mail Charles was dressed in a linen suit and striped tie, while Camilla wore a blue headscarf, long jacket and trousers. Visitors to the mosque must remove their footwear, BUT Charles walked round in black shoes while his wife went barefoot with her head covered. The mosque was established in 2008 and sits at the entrance to Abu Dhabi City Island. It aims to work with research centres and religious, educational and cultural institutions within the United Arab Emirates and across the world. | 1real |
Former Trump aide nomination to be Singapore envoy stalled over Russia concerns | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The nomination to be ambassador to Singapore of K.T. McFarland, a former security adviser to President Donald Trump, has been delayed due to concerns about her testimony to Congress over communications with Russia, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Tuesday. “Her nomination is frozen for a while until that gets worked out,” Republican Senator Bob Corker told reporters at the U.S. Capitol. Trump earlier this year nominated McFarland, a former deputy national security adviser, to be the U.S. envoy to Singapore. The foreign relations committee approved the nomination in September despite the opposition of almost every Democratic member, but no vote on McFarland has been scheduled in the full Senate. McFarland said in a written response to a question from Democratic Senator Cory Booker, a foreign relations committee member, that she was “not aware” of communications between Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn and Sergei Kislyak, when Kislyak was ambassador to Russia. However, the New York Times reported on Monday that it had obtained an email McFarland sent on Dec. 29, 2016, the day former President Barack Obama’s administration authorized new sanctions against Russia, saying Flynn would talk to Kislyak that evening. Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his contacts with Russia, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors delving into the actions of Trump’s inner circle before he took office. | 0fake |
Amid Hills of Wine and Truffles, a Mission to Give Fungus Room to Breathe - The New York Times | BAROLO, Italy — Few places in Italy, and perhaps the world, have been so gifted with exquisite natural abundance as Barolo and its surrounding region. Not only does this land produce some of Italy’s best, and most expensive, wines. It is also home to the famed Italian white truffle, which can run 200 to 500 euros (about $225 to $560) for a knob that will sit in the palm of your hand. But what happens when those resources compete? Vines require clear hillsides, and truffles need thick and damp yet clean woods. Today, hillside after hillside of Barolo is planted in neat rows of vines more valuable than anything else that could be put on them. The forests, on the other hand, have been shrinking. Enter “Save the Truffle,” the brainchild of Carlo Marenda, 34, daytime project manager and passionate truffle hunter, and his associate, Edmondo Bonelli, 35, an environmental consultant. A year ago, the two men met in a chance encounter in a hilltop wood near Alba, the main town of this region in Piedmont, where Barolo is situated. They knew almost immediately that they shared a common goal and complementary skill sets. While Mr. Marenda had inherited two dogs and much knowledge from an older truffle hunter, Mr. Bonelli had the scientific skill to save the tasty tuber for future generations. “We both knew the time was ready to promote a new culture,” Mr. Bonelli said. Soon the two men started meeting with hundreds of truffle hunters and wine producers, and created a website under the “Save the Truffle” name, where they laid out their mission to restore the region’s woods. As they explain it, their mission is not about preserving merely a luxury product, but also the balance of the environment. “We don’t do it for the truffles. You might have only two trees in a hectare where they grow,” Mr. Marenda said. “If these abandoned trees get sick, it’s easy for the parasite to travel to the nearby organic wine production. The whole area is in danger. ” They started working with some wine producers who said they understood the importance of protecting the uncultivated forests around their vineyards and tending to them. Last month, “Save the Truffle” inspired a wider crowdfunding campaign, “Breathe the Truffle,” started by the Alba Truffle Show, an truffle fair in the autumn that allows hunters to sell their mushrooms directly. It hopes to fund the cleanup of four once woods in southern Piedmont, and is the first tangible sign of the community’s rising awareness of the need for greater harmony in the environment. “Truffle hunters were complaining more and more,” Mr. Bonelli explained. “Vineyards and wine sales were doing well, and they had time to focus on something that has a large fallout: environmental preservation. ” Especially in the past decade, the woods in and around Barolo have increasingly been neglected. As wine production has become more profitable, an estimated 30 percent more land has been converted to vineyards in the past 10 years, at the expense of surrounding areas. And the problem is not just that woods are under pressure. Farmers have also stopped collecting forest wood for heating, reducing their incentive to clear the forest floor. On a recent day, Mr. Marenda gave a brief tour of the mounting challenges for truffle hunters, pointing out one of the many slopes of Barolo’s mountains, often angled like the facets of a gem. On one side were rows of nebbiolo grapes, which make Barolo’s wine. On the other was an abandoned, untended wood of oak and poplar trees. The forest floor was so thick with weeds and underbrush there was no way for truffle hunters to enter. “Seven or eight years ago, we could walk into that wood,” Mr. Marenda said. “Now it’s hard even for dogs to explore it. ” Truffles, already tricky to find and certainly no cafeteria food, have become even scarcer. Still, they are big business here. In Italy, the largest zone in Europe for white truffle production, the overall truffle business, which includes the still delicious but less prestigious black truffle, can generate €400 million a year (nearly $449 million). Yet truffle hunting is an ancient activity whose success largely depends on increasingly fickle elements, like the weather and pollution. Climate change, while providing this region’s winemakers with some warm, dry years that have yielded excellent vintages, has not necessarily favored the truffle. Over the long term, if the trends continue, truffle production in certain areas may be reduced or even eliminated, hunters lamented. “White truffles need fresh soil also in the summer, and rain,” said Francesco Tagliaferro, an agronomist at Piedmont’s Institute for Plants and the Environment. “If it’s too hot, truffles do not grow much, or are not very tasty. ” But Mr. Tagliaferro explained that they can only estimate a production loss because official data is scarce. “There is the widespread vow to secrecy about the zones where hunters pick the truffles,” he explained. “And much of the production is sold by private individuals to their own private clients. ” Truffles are a mysterious universe. Italians use dogs to sniff out white truffles underground, and can only guess whether they will still grow in the same area the following year. Many call truffle hunting more of a craze or passion than a job. It is a secretive culture rooted in experience that in Alba has been passed from generation to generation for centuries. Mr. Marenda inherited some knowledge and his two hunting dogs from Giuseppe Giamesio, a truffle hunter in Alba, who believed that depleting the woods and polluting the environment did not damage just the truffle picking, but also the area’s beautiful hills and the planet. Mr. Giamesio used to travel to truffle fairs showing a handmade sign reminding hunters to be proud of and loyal to their territory. “The project is on the internet now,” Mr. Marenda said. “And so is his legacy. ” It is already reaching a wider audience. Their crowdfunding effort offers rewards for benefactors, and they hope to raise €50, 000 by the end of the year to help restore the local ecosystem. Through the Alba Truffle Show website, donors contributed €10, 260 in the first two weeks. “It’s a change in mentality that we also want to promote, and so we set the good example,” said Liliana Allena, the president of the Alba Truffle Show. “You may think we are raising money for a luxury product like truffle,” she said, “but we are actually raising environmental awareness for the entire territory. ” | 0fake |
Democrat Hilariously Mocks Paul Ryan During House Sit-In: ‘He’s Up In His Office Crying’ (VIDEO) | On Wednesday, the Democratic party staged a powerful sit-in to protest Congress inaction on gun safety proposals after the tragic mass shooting in Orlando last week. The sit-in was organized by Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and received the support and recognition from President Barack Obama as well as Americans all over the country who understand that the United States must become a safer place and that we can no longer allow innocent people to die as a result of senseless gun violence and relaxed gun laws.During the sit-in, Rep. Jim McDermott took it upon himself to mock one of the GOP s most prominent leaders, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI). Many GOPers had decided to go to lunch instead of vote on gun control measures, so the Democrats decided to have a little fun.It just so happened that the sit-in occurred on the very same day that Ryan was going to introduce his Republican alternative to Obamacare, and McDermott was reveling in the fact that the sit-in had probably ruined Ryan s day. McDermott told his fellow Dems: You threw a bomb under the door of his rolling out this health care bill. So if you re wondering where he is, he s up in his office crying. I mean, he had this thing all set, he had it all ready to go and we did this to him. You think you think there won t be payback? You don t know the Irish. You can watch McDermott slam Ryan in the footage below, which was posted to Facebook by McDermott s colleague Beto O Rourke (D-TX):Sadly, McDermott s insults toward Paul Ryan might have been the only tiny piece of justice the many gun violence victims and their families would get on Wednesday, considering the fact that Republicans care more about their Second Amendment rights than protecting innocent American citizens. We commend all of the Democratic politicians who participated in the sit-in, and all who spoke out against the GOP.Featured image via Mark Wilson / Getty Images | 1real |
Broke South Sudan hike fees, blocks aid despite appeal for cash | NAIROBI (Reuters) - South Sudan is hiking fees for humanitarians and blocking them from reaching hungry families, even as the oil-rich country appeals for nearly 2 billion dollars to help avert starvation amid a civil war, five aid groups told Reuters. The government and the United Nations announced on Wednesday that South Sudan needs $1.7 billion in aid next year to help 6 million people half its population cope with the effects of war, hunger and economic decline. But aid groups said bureaucracy, violence and rocketing government fees were stopping their work, despite a promise from President Salva Kiir to allow unhindered access after the United States threatened to pull support to the government in October. All the aid workers spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of expulsion from the country. Alain Noudehou, the U.N. s top humanitarian official in the country, said the increased fees are a major concern. [It] will take away from the resources we have to address the crisis, Noudehou, humanitarian coordinator for the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), said on Wednesday. Juba announced plans in March to charge each foreign aid worker $10,000 per annual permit but later dropped them. It revised the fees steeply upwards last month, however, requiring some foreign aid workers to pay $4,000 for a permit 16 times the old rate. At least two aid groups have paid, they told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Humanitarian Affairs Minister Hussein Mar Nyout said on Wednesday he had received many complaints over the new fees and restrictions on travel for some aid workers. This is not in the spirit of the president and we are going to implement the order of the president, he said in response to questions at a news conference. About one-third of South Sudan s 12 million population have fled their homes since the civil war began in 2013, two years after it won independence from Sudan. The United Nations describes the violence as ethnic cleansing. Earlier this year, pockets of the country plunged briefly into famine. The economy has nosedived, there is hyperinflation, and the government is unable to pay civil servants and soldiers because oil production has collapsed and official corruption is rampant. The confusion over permits delays aid, organizations said. Nobody understands who is giving directives and who is supposed to implement, said the head of one international aid group in South Sudan. He said customs have seized his organization s IT equipment, despite an import tax waiver for aid groups. Last week, a team of doctors said they were denied permission to travel outside the capital because they had not received work permits they had paid for. Another aid group said it is unable to bring in foreign medical staff to complete a government-approved project because authorities said even a consultant visiting South Sudan for a week had to pay $4,000 for a permit that takes months to obtain. The first issue is the inherent absurdity and impracticality of the rules, said an employee of the aid group. The second is that laws are being tried inconsistently by four government agencies that are at loggerheads. South Sudan expelled the Norwegian Refugee Council s country director last year, while some 28 aid workers have been killed this year, with nine shot dead in November alone, according to the United Nations. UNMISS staff are exempt from the work permit requirement but the government has forced some contractors to pay, in violation of an agreement with the U.N., an UNMISS spokeswoman said. Juba is not honoring a similar treaty exempting aid agencies receiving U.S. funding, a Western diplomat said. | 0fake |
Brexit talks warmer after May's speech, but no closure | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union and Britain made progress in the latest round of divorce talks, but not enough to move to the next phase of discussions on a transition period after Brexit or a future trade deal, top negotiators said on Thursday. We have had a constructive week, yes, but we are not yet there in terms of achieving sufficient progress. Further work is needed in the coming weeks and months, chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters, praising a new dynamic created by concessions made last week by Prime Minister Theresa May. She had hoped that a speech she made in Florence on Friday would unblock the three-month-old talks and pave the way for the EU to open discussions on a post-Brexit free trade deal, by allowing Barnier to tell EU leaders that there is sufficient progress on three key divorce issues - rights for expatriate citizens, the Northern Irish border and Britain s exit bill. Differences over the role of the European Court of Justice and how much London will owe Brussels remain major obstacles. Officials involved said there had been a better atmosphere this week. One EU official said May had averted the train crash which might have resulted from another week of stubborn deadlock. That would have increased risks of Britain simply crashing out of the Union into legal limbo in March 2019. British Brexit Secretary David Davis said the talks achieved considerable progress over the four days in Brussels. He repeated his eagerness to move on to discuss what happens after Brexit and the two-year transition period which May requested, during which Britain would remain in the EU single market. We must never forget the bigger picture. Britain wants to be the European Union s strongest friend and partner, he said, echoing May. I leave Brussels optimistic about this future. Officials said transition issues were not raised this week. Barnier said he would take stock of progress with leaders of the other 27 EU states at a Brussels summit in three weeks time, a week after the next negotiating round. But he gave no indication of how likely he is to recommend opening trade talks. And sufficient progress has been deliberately left undefined. EU diplomats doubt Barnier will be satisfied by October and many see a December summit as a more likely moment to open the trade negotiations. However, officials said there could be some blurring of the EU refusal to discuss post-Brexit issues if the sides narrow differences and gain confidence in settling terms. Barnier highlighted two key areas of disagreement - on the legal protection for the rights of the 3 million EU citizens in Britain and on a pre-Brexit settlement from Britain for a share of outstanding financial commitments made during its membership. New figures from EU auditors on Thursday showed that the sum at stake may be growing as talks continue, simply due to delays in the bloc s spending of already agreed payments. May said on Friday that Britain would ensure the other 27 were not out of pocket in the current EU budget period and that it would honour commitments . Barnier expressed disappointment that negotiators had made clear she meant to end those budget payments in 2020, even though payments from the current 2014-20 budget will go on for some years beyond that. And London had given him no detail on what other commitments it would meet. On citizens rights, he welcomed Davis confirmation that the treaty guaranteeing them should now have direct effect in British law. That tightens a link between what the EU negotiates and what its citizens can count on in future in British courts. But the Union continues to demand that people also have the right to pursue grievances at the EU s own court in Luxembourg - a red line for a British government keen to show voters who backed Brexit last year that they have taken back control. Welcoming a guarantee that Britain would safeguard rights in a way consistent with EU law , Barnier said: We failed to agree that the European Court of Justice must play an indispensable role in ensuring this consistency. | 0fake |
Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh to Be Relocated to Remote Island - The New York Times | DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh’s government is moving forward with a plan to relocate Rohingya refugees staying in camps near the country’s largest tourist resort towns to a remote island that is underwater for much of the year. A cabinet order on Thursday directed officials to have the refugees transferred to Thengar Char, an island in the Bay of Bengal that is lashed by high tides and submerged during the monsoon season. The suggestion that they be moved to the largely uninhabitable marshland several hours by boat from the mainland drew criticism from around the world. The relocation plan was last proposed in 2015, but the government quietly suspended it after criticism from international aid groups and rights activists. Its reinstatement follows the arrival of about 65, 000 Rohingya from Myanmar in October and November, after a crackdown by Myanmar’s army and attacks on security forces by Islamic insurgents. The United Nations has called the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group denied citizenship in Myanmar, the world’s most persecuted minority. John McKissick, head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Bangladeshi city of Cox’s Bazar, near the Burmese border, said in November that Myanmar’s government was trying to achieve an “ultimate goal of ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority. ” Since 1992, about 32, 000 registered Rohingya have been living in two United Nations camps near Cox’s Bazar, but estimates of unregistered refugees range from 200, 000 to 500, 000. Many of them live in two sprawling makeshift shelters close to the official camps, while others are scattered across southeast Bangladesh. Talk of forced relocation worries refugees who have lived in the Cox’s Bazar area for more than two decades. “We have been here for a long time,” one of them, Shafiul Mostafa, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday from one of the camps. “We have gotten to know our neighbors, and we can speak the local dialect, which is similar to our language. If we are taken to a new place, it will be very difficult for us. We won’t be able to communicate with anyone. ” The United Nations refugee agency, which runs the camps, criticized the relocation proposal in 2015, calling it “complex and controversial” and saying that departures would have to take place with the migrants’ consent. Now, the return of the plan has taken aid groups by surprise. “U. N. H. C. R. is concerned about this news and seeking details from the authorities,” Shinji Kubo, a representative of the United Nations refugee agency in Bangladesh, said by email. “Any move must be carried out through a consultative and voluntary process, and the feasibility of the proposed site must be assessed. ” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say a recent crackdown in Myanmar indiscriminately targeted the Rohingya, citing satellite imagery showing 1, 500 Rohingya homes burned down and widespread reports of mass killings and rapes. The cabinet in Bangladesh has directed officials to take steps to stop further “illegal entry of Myanmar nationals” and to prevent existing refugees from “mixing in with local populations. ” It also ordered officials to keep all illegal immigrants from Myanmar in designated areas, and to arrest them or push them back into those areas if they tried to leave. The order, which was posted on the cabinet’s website, said the arrival of Rohingya in recent months had raised tensions, created “physical risks” for local people, and caused social and economic problems in Cox’s Bazar. Critics of the relocation say the order has more to do with a desire to develop Cox’s Bazar, home to what the government promotes as the longest beach in the world, into a booming tourism destination to rival others in Asia. “Right now, people here are only building hotels and guesthouses,” said Hayat Khan, an executive at the Ocean Paradise Hotel in Cox’s Bazar. “You go to the beach for half an hour, and then there’s nothing more to do. You need cable cars, and theme parks like the Window of the World in Shenzhen,” he added, referring to a city in southern China. “For that, you will need a lot of investment, and a lot of land. ” Rohingya refugees and their leaders say that they were not consulted about the plan. “If the government wants something, we will have to obey them,” said Mr. Mostafa, the refugee. “At the end of the day, what we want or don’t want is not going to matter to anyone. ” | 0fake |
BREAKING NEWS: N. AMERICAN FAMILY Held Hostage During Obama Presidency RESCUED In Pakistan: “This is a country that did not respect us, this is a country that respects us now” [VIDEO] | In 2017, Kelli O Brien, the aunt of Joshua Boyle spoke publicly about the kidnapping of her nephew and his wife Caitlan Boyle who expresses her disappointment over the lack of response from Prime Minister Trudeau. Interestingly enough, Trudeau was visiting President Trump when Trump announced that he would soon be announcing some very good news would be forthcoming regarding the captured family s status.TODAY, Boyle and Coleman s families got some very good news! More winning An American woman, her Canadian husband, and their three children have been freed from captivity by Pakistani security forces, nearly five years after being taken hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan.The initial word came from a Pakistani Army statement and was confirmed by US officials.The couple, American Caitlan Coleman, 31, and her American husband, Joshua Boyle, 33, were kidnapped by the Taliban in 2012 while they were traveling as tourists in Afghanistan and were held in captivity since.Coleman was pregnant when she was kidnapped. The couple had two more children born in captivity.Here is a video showing Joshua Boyle and his wife Caitlin Coleman speaking to the camera while in captivity in January 2017: In a statement, the Pakistani Army said US intelligence agencies had been tracking the hostages and shared intelligence with Pakistan when the family was moved to the country. US officials confirmed there was intelligence about their location in recent days that was shared with the Pakistanis. The operation by Pakistani forces, based on actionable intelligence from US authorities was successful; all hostages were recovered safe and sound and are being repatriated to the country of their origin, the statement said. The success underscores the importance of timely intelligence sharing and Pakistan s continued commitment towards fighting this menace through cooperation between two forces against a common enemy. It is possible that the successful recovery of the family was what was being referenced Wednesday when President Donald Trump told a crowd in Pennsylvania that something happened today where a country that totally disrespected us called with some very, very important news. Trump did not disclose what country or any details involved but said one of my generals came in and they said, you know, I have to tell you, a year ago they would have never done that. This is a country that did not respect us, this is a country that respects us now. The world is starting to respect us again, believe me, Trump said appearing to reference Pakistan and that country s role in bringing about the recovery of the four hostages. CNN | 1real |
Watch Joy Behar And Trump Supporting Audience Member Go Head To Head (VIDEO) | While many in the United States have come to the logical decision that Donald Trump is stark raving mad, there are still those who apparently have made him their choice for president. One of those people was just in the audience for a taping of ABC s The View and was questioned by host Joy Behar after the show.When the woman who supports Trump (yes, woman) is asked why, she refuses to say why which if I may add is very Trumpian, because Trump always makes claims with nothing to back it up either he then explains that she voted for President Obama, but said that it was the biggest mistake of her life. Then she said she works in a hospital and hates Obamacare, even though moments later she said she s been unemployed for a year. She somehow thinks that Trump would actually be better for healthcare and the unemployed. When asked if maybe she should support Bernie Sanders, who wants to provided single payer and a better safety net, she adamantly refused.Now, not to speak ill of a woman who clearly doesn t understand how the parties operate and who stands for what, but it seems she wants to go back to a system that will harm her more than help her. And I think a lot of the blame for her misunderstanding comes down to misinformation and even lack of information being spread by not only candidates, but the media.This woman wants change. Sure. That s great. However, what she wants she s not going to find in Trump.Watch the back and forth here: Watch what happens when @JoyVBehar questions an audience member s support for Donald Trump: https://t.co/kQ9dGmHJ1O The View (@TheView) May 12, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Polls Tighten: Trump Gains 2.7 Percent In Poll Average In Two Weeks | Comment on this Article Via Your Facebook Account Comment on this Article Via Your Disqus Account Follow Us on Facebook! | 1real |
Someone Posted A Photo Of Steve Bannon’s Giant Face Zit And The Internet Just Can’t Handle It (TWEETS) | You know, for being a member of the master race, President Steve Bannon sure fails to look the part. On Wednesday, Argentinian-American comedienne Tamara Yajia posted a photo of Steve Bannon that highlighted a rather glorious pustule on his face. Yummy, she wrote to accompany the horrifying image.Yummy pic.twitter.com/8r0aKIfhJW Tamara Yajia (@DancesWithTamis) February 24, 2017Naturally, the internet gods accepted this offering gleefully and their servants amassed to join together in mockery of the white supremacist who is for some reason allowed to act as President while The Donald plays with his toys and tweets like a middle schooler.@DancesWithTamis that's the plastic bottle gin trying to escape his body Lyle Clip Art (@Kyle_Lippert) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis @DanKCharnley That can't be unseen. thatsmetrying (@CAcannotsleep) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis "master race" ?? Adam ??? (@fastjohnny) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis That is the most disgusting thing you have ever posted. Dave Davington ? (@TenSpeedDave) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis Evil comes out of his pores as well as his mouth. Juice (@juicesixtysix) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis he hasn't washed his face in 35 years and his skin is dying to escape his face. Marjie Cunningham (@missmarjiec) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis Please don't tease that 60 year old alcoholic teenager about his acne. He's very sensitive. Hootie the HOTY (@babygandolfini) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis Doesn't he look like he stinks? I bet he stinks. Denise (@DDavis2) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis I would rather eat your thyroid than look at close-ups of Bannon's rosacea-infused facial hair. Dean (@plugzero) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis @Anomaly100 Probably smells of Johnny Walker and stale farts .@margaretcho Donna DJD (@ddicorcia) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis @Anomaly100 My uterus just fell out. CarmenBella 2.0?? (@LaLaBellaxo) February 24, 2017@DancesWithTamis mmmm skin tags, liver spots, rosacea, open sores. He's a real fucking delight this one is. Arak (@rickydilly1949) February 24, 2017Apparently, not everyone was happy with the tweet but Yajia was perfectly happy to tell them exactly where they can fuck which is off. The idiots who unfollowed me for posting a pic of Steve Bannon s pus zit will never know that I m about to masturbate to glory hole p*rn, she wrote to the triggered little snowflakes who couldn t handle seeing Bannon s face besmirched.The idiots who unfollowed me for posting a pic of Steve Bannon's pus zit will never know that I'm about to masturbate to glory hole porn Tamara Yajia (@DancesWithTamis) February 24, 2017Bannon describes himself as a Leninist who wants to destroy the state who wants to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today s establishment. More revently, he admitted that all of Trump s his cabinet picks were intended to destroy the institutions they were chosen to lead.In short, fuck him and the monster living on his face.Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Quake Exposes Italy’s Challenge to Retrofit Its Architecture - The New York Times | CASETTA, Italy — Romano Camassi, a seismologist, picked up a speck as he surveyed the damage from this week’s earthquake on the green mountain crest where the village of Casetta, now ruins, once perched. “This is just ground, soil,” he said, sadly. “In so many buildings in this area, that was the material used to keep together the irregular stones found in the surroundings which people used to build their homes. ” Experts like Mr. Camassi, who was part of the first team from Italy’s Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology to arrive at the quake zone in central Italy, say the destruction was amplified by vulnerable buildings whose upgrades to codes were deemed too costly for many Italians to carry out, too complicated to finance and too cumbersome to get approved. Italy is beloved for its rich architectural history. But that beauty comes at a steep price: both the lives lost when nature reminds its borrowers who is boss, and the money required in the attempt to even the scales. The country has spent an average of 3. 5 billion euros a year, or $3. 9 billion, for the past 50 years to fix earthquake damage, according to the Italian Association of Builders. And, in the aftermath of Wednesday’s quake, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced yet another plan to rebuild and buttress Italy’s ancient infrastructure. Many experts maintain that Italy has among the world’s best standards already — at least on paper. But the problems in executing them are legion: money, corruption, tangled bureaucracy, shoddy construction and a lack of enforcement of national regulations at the local level. This quake, like many in the past, already seems likely to expose corners that were cut, contributing to the 280 or more deaths in about 80 villages in the area along the Apennines, Italy’s fragile spinal cord, where the 6. quake struck. Prosecutors quickly announced an investigation into why a school in Amatrice, the town of about 2, 600 where the most deaths occurred, and the bell tower in nearby Accumoli collapsed. The bell tower, which had recently been refurbished, killed an entire family when it fell. The school, built in the 1930s and renovated in 2012, was supposedly built to new standards. “You can have the best rules, but if the weak link is the human factor then it’s all over,” said Gianpaolo Rosati, a professor of structural engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan. “Unfortunately, we find ourselves always protesting about the same things. ” Perhaps the most central, and inescapable, problem is that Italy is old. About 60 percent of its buildings are estimated to be more than 100 years old. That means that most of the country’s architectural heritage was built before any of the modern standards were instituted. “You can’t ask that an ancient structure adhere to norms designed for modern structures, but you can try to improve them, that’s the path to take with the objective to save human lives,” said Donatella Guzzoni, an engineer and an expert in the preservation of historic buildings. “Italy has the best technologies to do this,” she added. “But it does come down to money. ” Casetta, a hamlet of about two dozen homes, sat on the hill north of Amatrice on the east side of the Tronto River that cuts this valley between two mountain chains. The area was among the most devastated by the quake for a combination of historical, economic and cultural reasons, Mr. Camassi said. “In many cases, they used rounded river stones, put next to one another by someone who ignored even the most ancient best construction practices,” he said. He pointed to a long cement beam hanging perilously from the debris of a house. “When residents decided to reinforce the buildings, they often substituted the light wooden roofs with cement beams and bricks like that, which only worsened the impact of the quake because they burdened the otherwise frail structure,” he said. Mr. Camassi and other experts pointed out that certifying an existing building to standards was difficult and often too expensive for most people. Just having a technical expert determine a building’s vulnerability has a price, Mr. Rosati said, estimating it would cost around 10, 000 euros to evaluate a small house. “The cost of reinforcing a building to meet standards can be around 300 euro per square meter, which means the owner of a largish apartment faces a cost of some 300, 000 euro,” he said, sometimes more than the apartment is worth. And it is not enough for just one homeowner to want to sleep a little easier. “The entire apartment building has to agree to do the same,” he added, and if the palazzos or apartment buildings are connected, the whole neighborhood must agree. Villages like Amatrice and Accumoli are loved for the charm of their narrow streets and spaces, where houses were built cheek to cheek over the centuries to use prime land, often atop narrow peaks. In those tightly packed places, the entire block must be reinforced or the buildings “interact” in an earthquake and can topple like dominoes, Mr. Rosati said. That is precisely the dynamic Mr. Camassi found in Casetta. “Neighbors built in different periods, different buildings with different materials, but adjacent,” he said. “So even those that would have resisted the quake were damaged or even taken down by the others. ” Farther up the mountain is Cossito, an idyllic village of little houses with red geraniums on the terraces. One narrow street divides a recently restored building from the town square, where almost all homes collapsed, killing at least three people. The village had only four families, Mr. Camassi said, and they all lost a member or a close friend. “We thought we did all we needed, but now we simply need to erase this house,” said Roberto Paganelli, a former police officer in the Carabinieri, who was retrieving items from his mother’s home. The building dates to 1864, he said, and was reinforced in the 1960s. The costs of evaluating and retrofitting old structures are prohibitive for many in this corner of Italy, an easy drive from Rome. Many of these homes were used only in the summer and were not primary residences worth a huge investment. In many cases, the residents are old, living on a pension and barely getting by. The state cannot oblige homeowners to upgrade their buildings unless there are obvious reasons to intervene. “We have norms, but they only apply to new buildings or important restorations,” said Luca Ferrari, the president of Italy’s Association of Seismic Engineers. “For the vast majority of buildings, we don’t have an classification, so no one knows whether they are dangerous or not during a quake. ” With a group of experts, Mr. Ferrari drafted guidelines to classify buildings, with parameters similar to the energy efficiency of a building. This work finished in April 2015, but the government campaign — and its fiscal incentives — to reinforce existing buildings were still lacking, he said. “This area is at very high seismic danger, and we know that in these small towns of the Apennine Mountains, there are vulnerable buildings,” said Filippo Bernardini, a geologist who worked on Mr. Camassi’s team. “Unless we build better, we offer no hope for the future. ” The alternative — razing ancient buildings to construct modern, palazzos — is hardly an option. “In other countries there is greater renewal of the architectural patrimony. They don’t think much about knocking something down to rebuild to different standards,” said Sergio Lagomarsino, an engineering professor at the University of Genoa. But, as Mr. Lagomarsino pointed out, Italy has a more conservative approach and is aware that preserving its heritage has value for the country. “In the face of an important building you can’t demolish a historic center and rebuild it with fake stones,” he said. “It would ‘denaturalize’ Italy. ” | 0fake |
I wonder what GLP will be like the day after the election? | I wonder what GLP will be like the day after the election? Don't you? Re: I wonder what GLP will be like the day after the election? The servers will be smoking Peace is a lie, there is only passion.Through passion, I gain strength.Through strength, I gain power.Through power, I gain victory.Through victory, my chains are broken.The Force shall free me.Or something | 1real |
Foreign Payments to Trump Firms Violate Constitution, Suit Will Claim - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — A team of prominent constitutional scholars, Supreme Court litigators and former White House ethics lawyers intends to file a lawsuit Monday morning alleging that President Trump is violating the Constitution by allowing his hotels and other business operations to accept payments from foreign governments. The lawsuit is among a barrage of legal actions against the Trump administration that have been initiated or are being planned by major liberal advocacy organizations. Such suits are among the few outlets they have to challenge the administration now that Republicans are in control of the government. In the new case, the lawyers argue that a provision in the Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause bans payments from foreign powers like the ones to Mr. Trump’s companies. They cite fears among the framers of the Constitution that United States officials could be corrupted by gifts or payments. The suit, which will not seek any monetary damages, will ask a federal court in New York to order Mr. Trump to stop taking payments from foreign government entities. Such payments, it says, include those from patrons at Trump hotels and golf courses loans for his office buildings from certain banks controlled by foreign governments and leases with tenants like the Abu Dhabi tourism office, a government enterprise. “The framers of the Constitution were students of history,” said Deepak Gupta, one of the lawyers behind the suit. “And they understood that one way a republic could fail is if foreign powers could corrupt our elected leaders. ” The president’s son Eric Trump, who is an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said the company had taken more steps than required by law to avoid legal exposure, such as agreeing to donate any profits collected at hotels that come from foreign government guests to the United States Treasury. “This is purely harassment for political gain, and, frankly, I find it very, very sad,” he said in an interview on Sunday. The president’s lawyers have argued that the constitutional provision does not apply to payments, such as a standard hotel room bill, and is intended only to prevent federal officials from accepting a special consideration or gift from a foreign power. “No one would have thought when the Constitution was written that paying your hotel bill was an emolument,” one of the lawyers, Sheri A. Dillon, a partner at Morgan Lewis, said at a news conference this month. The legal team filing the lawsuit includes Laurence H. Tribe, a Harvard constitutional scholar Norman L. Eisen, an Obama administration ethics lawyer and Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine. Among the others are Richard W. Painter, an ethics counsel in the administration of George W. Bush Mr. Gupta, a Supreme Court litigator who has three cases pending before the court and Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham University law professor and former congressional candidate who has been studying and writing about the Emoluments Clause for nearly a decade. Ms. Teachout said the one place of potential concern was a nation like China, which rents space at Trump Tower in New York and is a major lender to an office building in New York that Mr. Trump controls in part. Foreign governments, Ms. Teachout and other ethics experts warn, could rent out rooms in Trump hotels as a way to send a message to the Trump family. “If you think other countries are not going to try to leverage relationships with Trump’s companies to influence trade or military policy, that is naïve,” she said. But Andy Grewal, a University of Iowa law school professor, argued in an academic paper published last week that a payment to a hotel owned by the Trump family, like the Trump International Hotel in Washington, would not violate the Emoluments Clause because the money is paid to a corporate entity and not to Mr. Trump directly. “There is no connection between the payment and performance of services by the president personally,” Mr. Grewal said. “It would be a lot of fun to watch,” he said of the lawsuit, “but I imagine it will be kicked out. ” Mr. Eisen said the legal team intended to use the lawsuit to try to get a copy of Mr. Trump’s federal tax returns, which are needed to properly assess what income or other payments or loans Mr. Trump has received from foreign governments. The plaintiff in the lawsuit is a liberal group known as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which until recently was controlled by David Brock, a Democratic Party operative and fervent supporter of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Eisen now serves as chairman of the organization’s board, and Mr. Painter is vice chairman. The lawsuit may run into trouble, other legal experts said, given that CREW, as the organization is known, must demonstrate that it would suffer direct and concrete injury to give it standing to sue. The group says it has suffered harm by having to divert resources from other work to monitor and respond to Mr. Trump’s activities. For example, the group said, it has answered hundreds of questions from news organizations. In a 1982 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a civil rights organization had standing to sue because its use of black “testers” to see whether landlords and home sellers were abiding by federal law had hurt its ability to conduct other activities. But in recent decades, and outside the context of civil rights violations, the court has often been skeptical of broad assertions of standing. Regardless of the lawsuit’s fate, it is just the first hint of the legal assault that the Trump administration will face. Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said it was separately looking for plaintiffs to file a lawsuit alleging that Mr. Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause. It hopes to find a hotel or that might compete against a Trump hotel as a party with standing to sue. The A. C. L. U. filed an extensive Freedom of Information Act request on Thursday asking the Justice Department, the General Services Administration and the Office of Government Ethics for all legal opinions and memos they have prepared addressing financial or ethical conflicts that Mr. Trump might face. It could potentially use those documents in litigation against the Trump administration. CREW filed a separate complaint with the General Services Administration on Friday over a provision that appears to prohibit the leasing of the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to an elected federal official. The building is the site of Mr. Trump’s hotel. Perhaps more important, the legal groups said they might challenge executive actions Mr. Trump is expected to take on topics like international trade deals, illegal immigration and climate change. | 0fake |
London mayor calls on British foreign minister Johnson to resign | LONDON (Reuters) - London Mayor Sadiq Khan called on British foreign minister Boris Johnson on Sunday to resign after a series of gaffes which he said had offended Libyans, Americans, the Spanish and others. Speaking on the BBC s Andrew Marr show, Khan said Johnson has to go . | 0fake |
Trump on Twitter (Aug 7): Fake News, Senator Richard Blumenthal | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - The failing @nytimes, which has made every wrong prediction about me including my big election win (apologized), is totally inept! [0638 EDT] - The Trump base is far bigger & stronger than ever before (despite some phony Fake News polling). Look at rallies in Penn, Iowa, Ohio....... [0658 EDT] - ...and West Virginia. The fact is the Fake News Russian collusion story, record Stock Market, border security, military strength, jobs..... [0704 EDT] - ... Supreme Court pick, economic enthusiasm, deregulation & so much more have driven the Trump base even closer together. Will never change! [0709 EDT] - Hard to believe that with 24/7 #Fake News on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYTIMES & WAPO, the Trump base is getting stronger! [0718 EDT] - Working hard from New Jersey while White House goes through long planned renovation. Going to New York next week for more meetings. [0732 EDT] - Interesting to watch Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut talking about hoax Russian collusion when he was a phony Vietnam con artist! [0747 EDT] - Never in U.S.history has anyone lied or defrauded voters like Senator Richard Blumenthal. He told stories about his Vietnam battles and.... [0752 EDT] - ...conquests, how brave he was, and it was all a lie. He cried like a baby and begged for forgiveness like a child. Now he judges collusion? [0801 EDT] - On #PurpleHeartDayI thank all the brave men and women who have sacrificed in battle for this GREAT NATION! #USA [1403 EDT] - The Fake News Media will not talk about the importance of the United Nations Security Council’s 15-0 vote in favor of sanctions on N. Korea! [1615 EDT] - How much longer will the failing nytimes, with its big losses and massive unfunded liability (and non-existent sources), remain in business? [1639 EDT] - I think Senator Blumenthal should take a nice long vacation in Vietnam, where he lied about his service, so he can at least say he was there [1648 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | 0fake |
Kenya president snubs vote crisis meeting, presses on with campaign | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta snubbed a crisis meeting called by the top election official for Thursday, saying he would instead spend the time campaigning for next week s presidential vote re-run. The first presidential vote in August, which Kenyatta won by 1.4 million votes, was annulled by the Supreme Court over procedural irregularities. The re-run is set for Oct. 26 but opposition leader Raila Odinga has pulled out, alleging a failure to improve oversight of the election, casting doubt on how the vote will proceed. Election board chairman Wafula Chebukati, in a stark message to political leaders on Wednesday, said he could not guarantee a credible vote under present conditions, and demanded Kenyatta and Odinga meet him for talks. The board, known as the IEBC, set the meeting for 1130 GMT in Nairobi but then said it had been postponed to an unspecified date and time. Chebukati later tweeted that he had met Odinga and was looking forward to meeting Kenyatta, though it was not clear if the president intended to respond to his call. Opposition demonstrations, which have led to confrontations between police and protesters, and divisive rhetoric by politicians have stoked uncertainty in Kenya, East Africa s largest economy and a stable Western ally in a chaotic region. Speaking at a campaign rally in the western town of Saboti late on Wednesday, Kenyatta said the priority was for Kenyans to go to the polls on the set date. We are not interested in telling the IEBC what to do. We want them to prepare so Kenyans can vote on the 26th, he said. However, Odinga, whose call for mass protests on election day has sparked fears that the crisis could turn violent, called for serious talks on the impasse after meeting Chebukati. Odinga said his withdrawal should force the commission to start a fresh 90-day electoral cycle, including fresh candidate nominations. The election board says the vote will go ahead. Chebukati s call for a meeting with the candidates followed the flight of one IEBC commissioner to New York. Roselyn Akombe said she had fled due to threats and said the planned election would amount to a mockery of democracy. The ruling Jubilee party filed a petition in the Supreme Court on Thursday alleging opposition politicians were in contempt of court for obstructing a re-run by withdrawing from the race and by ordering supporters to continue protests including during trainings of election staff in western Kenya. The current political climate indeed strikingly resembles the period prior to 2007-2008 post-election violence, said Francis Ole Kaparo, chair of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, a government body in charge of preventing hate speech. Following the disputed 2007 poll, more than 1,200 Kenyans were killed. | 0fake |
State Dept. Releases 7,000 Clinton E-mails But The White House Refuses To Release The Most Important Ones | The State Department released 7,000 Clinton e-mails today and plans to release a total of 55,000 but Mr. Transparency didn t! The most important communications from Benghazi are being kept from the American people until Obama s out of office in 2017. FLASHBACK VIDEO: Obama: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency. Via: FOX | 1real |
Alt-Right Predicted the Reopened FBI Investigation was a Sham |
The FBI won’t overturn its decision to not charge Hillary Clinton over her illegal activities involving classified emails, according to FBI Director James Comey.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) broke the news on Twitter:
FBI Dir just informed us “Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Sec Clinton”
We, here at the EU Times have reported back on 30 October 2016 that we believe the 2nd investigation is just a scam because if James Comey really wanted to indict Hillary Clinton then he would have done so back in July 2016 when he first investigated her.
Here’s a quote from our previous article, WE NAILED IT!
James Comey did not provide any recent proof he stumbled upon and neither will he until the election is over. Yes he’s technically not allowed to but he could just indict Hillary in a second if he truly wanted just for lying to the FBI or wiping the server to get rid of all the evidence after receiving a congressional subpoena.
Unfortunately we got it all wrong regarding the reason on why he reopened the investigation. We thought he did so just to protect himself from a possible Trump victory followed by a retaliation. We thought he would keep the case opened until after the election and then support the winner. We were wrong…
We did however predict that he was being blackmailed live on TV without anyone even noticing it, when Clinton said: “I’m confident whatever they are will not change the conclusion reached in July.” Whatever they are? Including crime and whatever is found? Such a declaration is a public warning to Comey.
So it appears that James Comey is totally in the sack for the Clintons. Only God knows what they have on him. The real reason on WHY he reopened the investigation has been told to Alex Jones of Infowars by Larry Nichols also on 30 October 2016 (top video).
Like the EU Times, Larry Nichols also predicted that the new investigation is a sham and he also nailed the reason. He told Alex the FBI reopened the investigation only to distract the media from Wikileaks. He even told Alex that by Saturday or Sunday before the elections, Comey would close the case and declare her innocent again. Larry Nichols also said that James Comey is compromised because the Clintons have heavy dirt on him which they use for blackmail.
Republican Representative Trey Gowdy also predicted the exact same thing . He also said that the 2nd FBI investigation on Hillary is a sham and that there will be no indictment with Loretta Lynch ordering around.
As a fun fact, all Democrats are praising James Comey now while only a few days ago they were calling him “Russian Agent” and “ Disgusting White Males “.
| 1real |
Hillary To Be Arrested? | October 29, 2016
Writes Graham Dugas:
Comey has an insurrection on his hands beyond the ability of anyone to control. These mutinous senior FBI agents have enough dirt to toss Obama, Comey, Hillary and others in jail. They also loathe the idea of being subjected to Clinton in the future as they know they will be forced to perpetrate more cover-ups and stain the bureau even more. They presented Comey and Obama with a choice…“give us Hillary’s head on a platter and we will be silent on Obama’s complicity in federal crimes [effectively a Nixon type pardon by omission of pursuit] and we will allow Comey to quietly be succeeded by a person of our choosing on an incoming Trump Administration.” OR ELSE THEY WILL GO PUBLIC. Comey could have been silent until after the election no matter what they found on Weiner’s laptop because they already have seen ALL the emails including the deleted ones. The fact that Comey is taking this action indicates that his hand is being forced and that he [and Obama] have accepted the terms offered by the insurrectionists in exchange for the face saving terms offered. This also dovetails with Assange saying his next batch [the FBI knows the contents of ALL of Podesta’s emails] will result in the arrest of Hillary. The FBI cannot weather another PR storm revealing them complicit in a cover-up. They also must be proactive and use Hillary’s arrest/indictment/forced withdrawal from the race as a lightning rod to quell a furious public by granting them their ‘pound of flesh’. No one likes Hillary, and don’t think that the Pentagon is going to silently sit still as one of their 4-Star generals get ramrodded for MUCH less than Hillary did. They are aligned with the insurrectionists at the FBI. Comey and Obama’s hand is being forced. Hillary is toast and going to jail. You will know this is true within a few days because the sheriff is about to slap the cuffs on Hillary. Weiner’s laptop is just a cover story. Tags: | 1real |
EVERY BAD THING We Can Say Goodbye To With Our Exit From The Paris Accord | The word nothing-burger has been tossed around so much lately but it s best used in referring to what the Paris Accord would do to change the climate. IT WOULD DO NEARLY NOTHING! If you heard President Trump s speech yesterday then you know this was one of the HUGE points within his remarks. The cost/benefit was so out of line and so unfair for America! It s safe to say that how much the accord would change climate is a nothing burger but the total loss to America would be HUGE!Here s a list from Breitbart News of the things you can say goodbye to now that our AWESOME President has removed us from the Paris Accord:Goodbye to American Last. The Paris agreement was basically an attempt to halt climate change on the honor system. Its only legal requirements were for signatories to announce goals and report progress, with no international enforcement mechanism. As a result, it was likely that the United States and wealthy European nations would have adopted and implemented severe climate change rules while many of the world s governments would avoid doing anything that would slow their own economies. The agreement basically made the U.S. economy and Europe s strongest economies sacrificial lambs to the cause of climate change.Industrial Carnage. The regulations necessary to implement the Paris agreement would have cost the U.S. industrial sector 1.1 million jobs, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These job losses would center in cement, iron and steel, and petroleum refining. Industrial output would decline sharply.Hollowing Out Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The industrial carnage would have been concentrated on four states, according to the Chamber of Commerce study. Michigan s GDP would shrink by 0.8 percent and employment would contract by 74,000 jobs. Missouri s GDP would shrink by 1 percent. Ohio s GDP would contract 1.2 percent. Pennsylvania s GDP would decline by 1.8 percent and the state would lose 140,000 jobs.Smashing Small Businesses, Helping Big Business. Big businesses in America strongly backed the Paris climate deal. In fact, the backers of the climate deal reads like a who s who of big American businesses: Apple, General Electric, Intel, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, General Mills, Walmart, DuPont, Unilever, and Johnson & Johnson. These business giants can more easily cope with costly regulations than their smaller competitors and many would, in fact, find business opportunities from the changes required. But smaller businesses and traditional start-ups would likely be hurt by the increased costs of compliance and rising energy costs.Making America Poorer Again. A Heritage Foundation study found that the Paris agreement would have increased the electricity costs of an American family of four by between 13 percent and 20 percent annually. It forecast a loss of income of $20,000 by 2035. In other words, American families would be paying more while making less.Much Poorer. The overall effect of the agreement would have been to reduce U.S. GDP by over $2.5 trillion and eliminate 400,000 jobs by 2035, according to Heritage s study. This would exacerbate problems with government funding and deficits, make Social Security solvency more challenging, and increase reliance on government s spending to support households. | 1real |
SHOCKER: Washington Post Publishes OpEd Critical of Pro-Israel Law Which Shuts Down BDS | 21st Century Wire says It s no secret that the US mainstream media enforces a very tight party line when it comes to saying anything about Israel. Generally speaking, any criticism of the Jewish State normally ends up in the editorial waste bin.The reason for this should be academic by now: powerful Israeli Lobby exists in Washington and with satellite branches across the US and Canada. The lobby s attack apparatus regularly coordinate media incursions and smear campaigns against any publication or journalist who dares to break rank and criticize Israel s appalling human rights record, endless violations of international law and flagrant ignorance of multiple UN resolutions. It consists mainly of the following organizations: the Anti-Defamation League (which devotes a large portion of its time and resources to defaming people it seeks to discredit), the quasi Masonic organization and godfather of the Jewish political attack organs B nai B rith International, and of course, the ADL s ugly step child, the dubious NGO Southern Poverty Law Center. These organizations enforce their strict public relations code through a collection of tactics like threats and boycotts, including targeting a publication s advertisers and sponsors, or featuring a journalist, media pundit, author or academic on one of their many Hate Lists , and by lobbing the standard charge of antisemitism against anyone who sounds remotely critical of Israel and its many failings.This week, David Cole, a national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Faiz Shakir national political director of the ACLU, penned a piece (see article below) in Jeff Bezos s recently acquired deep state propaganda mill, The Washington Post. In their impassioned piece, they posed the question of whether or not the recent US legislation called the Israel Anti-Boycott Act is moral in a modern democracy, or even legal for that matter. Incredibly, this new Pro-Israel law threatens fines and imprisonment to anyone who speaks of or campaigns to boycott, divest or sanction the Israeli state for its many and sundry documented international crimes. The level of tyranny inherent in this new piece of legislation is breathtaking to say the least. Simply put it s a direct attack on the US First Amendment. What s worse is that it s being orchestrated from outside of the United States by a foreign entity. The bill s target is the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is a global campaign that applies economic and political pressure on Israel to actually comply with international law (something the US government itself should also be doing). According to the authors, the new Orwellian law would also make it a crime to support or even furnish information about a boycott directed at Israel or its businesses called out by the United Nations, the European Union or any other international governmental organization. At its core, this law would constitute an anathema to any modern republican or democratic concept, and yet, this is what the Israeli Lobby seeks to impose on the people of the United States. So far, 45 US Senators have lined-up to support this bill, and not one member of Congress has joined the ACLU in denouncing it. On the Israeli payroll: US Senator Tom Cotton.Here s a fact that might be hard for some to swallow, but it s true: this law was only able to make it as far as it has because of the virtual stranglehold The Lobby has on nearly every member of the US House and Senate by way of lucrative campaign contributions to public officials by way of foreign lobbies like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and backed-up by public and media pressure campaigns which, for those who have dared to step off the reservation, have ruined many a career in Washington. This lop-sided situation not only threatens US democratic interests at home, but it s also a serious threat to US national security. What this also demonstrates is how easily US Senators will disregard the US Constitution for a few hundred thousand dollars stuffed into their campaign bank accounts by a foreign lobby. You can see their financials here and here.It s left many onlookers asking: what s going on at the Amazon Post? The article is certainly measured and very careful in its wording, but the fact that it was allowed to appear at all might indicate that the deep state is loosening its restrictions on speech on Israeli issues in the US mainstream media. We hope this is the trend anyway, although maybe not if the ADL, B nai B rith, and the SPLC have anything to say about it.By far, this is the biggest attempt yet by Israel at hijacking the US democratic system, albeit from within. If this bill passes, it will mark the near end of what remains of the sovereignty of the United States of America. That is no exaggeration.Here s the OpEd . By David Cole and Faiz ShakirThe right to boycott has a long history in the United States, from the American Revolution to Martin Luther King Jr. s Montgomery bus boycott to the campaign for divestment from businesses serving apartheid South Africa.Nowadays we celebrate those efforts. But precisely because boycotts are such a powerful form of expression, governments have long sought to interfere with them from King George III to the police in Alabama, and now to the U.S. Congress.The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, legislation introduced in the Senate by Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and in the House by Peter J. Roskam (R-Ill.), would make it a crime to support or even furnish information about a boycott directed at Israel or its businesses called by the United Nations, the European Union or any other international governmental organization. Violations would be punishable by civil and criminal penalties of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison. The American Civil Liberties Union, where we both work, takes no position for or against campaigns to boycott Israel or any other foreign country. But since our organization s founding in 1920, the ACLU has defended the right to collective action. This bill threatens that right.The Israel Anti-Boycott Act is designed to stifle efforts to protest Israel s settlement policies by boycotting businesses in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The bill s particular target is the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, a global campaign that seeks to apply economic and political pressure on Israel to comply with international law.Whether one approves or disapproves of the BDS movement itself, people should have a right to make up their own minds about it. Americans engage in boycotts every day when they decide not to buy from companies whose practices they oppose. Students have boycotted companies that sold clothing manufactured in sweatshops abroad. Environmentalists have boycotted Nestl for its deforestation practices. By using their power in the marketplace, consumers can act collectively to express their political points of view. There is nothing illegal about such collective action; indeed, it is constitutionally protected.In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., the Supreme Court in 1982 upheld the right of NAACP activists to hold a mass economic boycott of segregated businesses in Mississippi. The court stated that the boycotters exercise of their rights to speech, assembly, and petition . . . to change a social order that had consistently treated them as second-class citizens rested on the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values. This is not to say that all boycotters are automatically free speech heroes; indeed, BDS advocates have themselves at times shut down Israeli academics or speakers to the detriment of academic freedom. Thus, it s understandable that free speech advocates might not immediately identify BDS supporters as victims of censorship. But when government takes sides on a particular boycott and criminalizes those who engage in a boycott, it crosses a constitutional line.Cardin and other supporters argue that the Israel Anti-Boycott Act targets only commercial activity. In fact, the bill threatens severe penalties against any business or individual who does not purchase goods from Israeli companies operating in the occupied Palestinian territories and who makes it clear say by posting on Twitter or Facebook that their reason for doing so is to support a U.N.- or E.U.-called boycott. That kind of penalty does not target commercial trade; it targets free speech and political beliefs. Indeed, the bill would prohibit even the act of giving information to a U.N. body about boycott activity directed at Israel.The bill s chilling effect would be dramatic and that is no doubt its very purpose. But individuals, not the government, should have the right to decide whether to support boycotts against practices they oppose. Neither individuals nor businesses should have to fear million-dollar penalties, years in prison and felony convictions for expressing their opinions through collective action. As an organization, we take no sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But regardless of the politics, we have and always will take a strong stand when government threatens our freedoms of speech and association. The First Amendment demands no less.See the original article at the Washington PostREAD MORE ISRAEL NEW AT: 21st Century Wire Israel FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
SOCIALIST Bernie Sanders Asks Trump’s Pick For Education Sec If She’ll Agree To FREE College…Gets Embarrassing Public SMACK DOWN [VIDEO] | Besty Devos is Trump s conservative choice for Education Secretary. During her confirmation process leftist Bernie Sanders most important question had absolutely nothing to do with providing our kids the best education possible. Sanders had one burning question for Betsy Devos, and it had to do with what else? How can we give Americans something for free?Betsy Devos answer to Bernie was perfect | 1real |
VETERAN BIKER GROUP Helps Returning Soldier Force Out Illegal Ex-Con Squatters | HOW IS IT THAT SQUATTERS HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN LEGAL HOMEOWNERS?HOW TO TAKE OVER SOMEONE S PROPERTY AND GET AWAY WITH IT: Adverse possession is a principle of real estate law that gives anyone who possesses the land of another for an extended period of time in an actual, open, hostile and continuous manner the right to claim legal title to that land. The exact elements of an adverse possession claim may be different in each state. In Florida, the law prescribes continuous possession of at least seven years. In New Jersey, a squatter must be in possession of the property for 30 years, while in New York it s 10 years. In some states, the trespasser must have paid taxes on the property during this time period. Other states don t require payment of property taxes, but will apply a shorter time requirement for occupying the land if the trespasser has paid taxes.This is another case of criminals having more rights than the legal homeowners. Thank goodness for this veteran biker group that put the heat on these squatters. We ve done other articles on squatters and how they have more rights than the legal owners. Here s a great one that went viral it s pretty funny but happens more than you know: ONLY IN DETROIT: Squatting On The Squatter Takes A TurnSOLDIER RETURNS TO SQUATTERS:A soldier from New Port Richey, Florida says that squatters took over his house while he was stationed in Hawaii for two years, and when it came time to move back into his home with his wife, the squatters refused to leave.As reported earlier this week, Army Spc. Michael Sharkey says that he and his wife haven t lived in their Florida home in the two years that he s been stationed in Hawaii, but upon learning they could go back to Florida, they were shocked to discover that two ex-cons broke in, changed the locks, and were refusing to leave. Unfortunately for Sharkey, he was told that legally, there was nothing he could do to force them out. They are criminals, said Sharkey to WFLA. I am serving my country, and they have more rights to my home than I do. Police told Sharkey that they could do nothing about the couple, Julio Ortiz and Fatima Cardosa, since they already established residency, so the matter would have to be settled in a civil court.Ortiz claims that he made a verbal agreement with Sharkey s friend, who was overseeing the home while the soldier and his wife were gone, that they could live there for free as long as they did repairs on the house. Both Sharkey and his friend say those claims are lies, but Ortiz has continued to defend himself. The people that are in this house cannot produce any documentation, lease, agreement, anything that they belong in that house, said Sharkey.Once word got out that the squatters had taken over Sharkey s house, a group of military veteran bikers announced that they would be paying a visit to the home to peacefully make the squatters uncomfortable. That seems to be all it took because now, reports say that Ortiz and his girlfriend have packed up their belongings and are leaving the home for good.Via: America News | 1real |
Hillary Campaign Now in Bed with PAC Staff That Donated $500K to FBI Agent's Wife After Investigation | Getty - Justin Sullivan The Wildfire is an opinion platform and any opinions or information put forth by contributors are exclusive to them and do not represent the views of IJR.
Earlier this week, Americans learned that Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe's Super PAC, Common Good VA, donated $500K to Jill McCabe's senate run.
Jill just so happens to be the wife of Andrew McCabe — the current Deputy Director of the FBI — who oversaw the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server.
If that wasn't enough to give you trust issues, it turns out that Hillary Clinton herself headlined a fundraiser for Common Good VA. The event took place in June of 2015, just one month before the FBI officially launched its investigation into Clinton's email server.
According to The Daily Mail , the fundraiser that Clinton helped spearhead raised over a million dollars.
Clinton returned to Common Good in October of 2015 for another speech. That speech conveniently took place just one week before Jill McCabe received two donations, one on October 25th in the sum of $175,000 and the other on October 27th for $125,000.
In addition, one of Common Good's biggest donors, James Bernard , gave the PAC $100,000 just three days before McCabe got her October donations.
There's more.
Bernard is a big Hillary supporter, too. In fact, he's listed on her site as a “Hillblazer,” someone recognized for raising or contributing $100K or more to the campaign.
Yet, he's the not the only Hillblazer who donated to Common Good before McCabe was given her biggest campaign contribution.
Independent Journal Review discovered that Louisa Cohlan also donated $100k to Common Good. Her $100k donation took place on Sept 30th of 2015, which was one day before McCabe received a $150,000 from the PAC.
Cohlan has an interesting tie to the Clintons. In 2014 , Louisa and her husband Johnathan purchased a 4.1 million dollar vacation home that the Clinton family used while Bill was still president. 'Auction planned for home where Clinton family stayed during Skaneateles vacations' http://t.co/dsPxh4qkws #PLANY pic.twitter.com/8tkSMPVl9w
Other donors who contributed $100K to the PAC include:
Samuel Nappi, who is also a major Clinton Campaign donor and supporter.
The late Mark Weiner , a good friend of Bill Clinton and major fundraiser for the Democrat Party.
And Robert L. Johnson, America's first African American billionaire who also donated $100K to the Clinton Campaign
However, the deep ties Hillary's campaign has to Common Good go even deeper than that.
The Daily Mail's investigation revealed the ties Clinton's staff have to the PAC:
Zuzenak, who oversaw the donations to Jill McCabe, left Common Good VA last May to join the Clinton campaign as its Virginia field director.
He isn't alone in the move. Common Good VA's executive director Michael Halle also joined the Clinton campaign as battleground analytics director in the spring of 2015.
The group's former fundraiser, Amanda McTyre, is now a finance director for Clinton, and staffer Marissa Astor left to become an assistant Clinton campaign manager.
And the cake-topper, Clinton's current campaign manager, Robby Mook, also worked for the PAC prior to the campaign role he has now.
One thing is for certain: Such revelations will raise new questions about possible foul play and major conflict-of-interest surrounding Hillary's candidacy. Because with it all staring you in the face, everything seems all too convenient to just be a mere coincidence. | 1real |
I Voted Clinton. You Voted Trump. Let’s Talk. - The New York Times | “O. K. Craig,” the father asks, “you ready?” “Yeah, Dad,” replies the son. A raw, emotional and searching conversation followed. In the latest episode of The we brought together a young gay actor in California, who supported Hillary Clinton, and his father in Kentucky, who backed Donald J. Trump, to talk at length about how they feel about each other’s votes on Election Day. Their conversation is the third and final installment in our series of dialogues between different pairs of voters who are struggling with feelings of betrayal, mystification and fury over the Election Day decision of a person very close to them. In Part 1, we spoke with Kyle and Aaron, once close high school classmates from Illinois. In Part 2, we talked to Amy and Dawn, dear friends and from Wyoming. All of them had avoided talking about the election, knowing just how difficult the discussion would be. Until now. They were guided by a set of questions, prepared with the advice of social psychologists, that were designed to encourage honest and civil conversation. Subscribe to The on iTunes or Google Play Music to follow along as we release new episodes. Who they are: Craig, 26, and his father, who asked that we not use his name. The father lives in Louisville, Ky. where Craig grew up. Craig has since moved to California. Their relationship: They’ve grown more distant since Craig left home. Why it feels personal: Craig came out to his parents about a year ago. He grew up in a family where his father was openly derogatory toward gay people and other minority groups. His father has been struggling to accept Craig’s sexuality. The tension has heightened around the election, with Craig feeling betrayed by his father’s vote for Trump, and Craig’s father feeling pressured by his son to evolve in ways that are uncomfortable to him. “We’re from two different sides of the wall,” Craig’s father says. “This gay lifestyle and everything — I didn’t grow up with it. ” He describes once, when he was younger, being followed by a man who was trying to pick him up. “I just wanted to beat the hell out of him,” he tells Craig. And then he and his friends caught the guy to do just that. “I’ve come a long way as far as acceptance and tolerance,” he says, reflecting on that past. “I get that you have acceptance and tolerance,” Craig responds. “You accept me as your gay son. But to me that’s you being a good parent. And what I need — and what I’ve told you — is I need you to be more than accepting of me. I need you to be an ally. To support me is to just support me. I need you to support the ‘us. ’” When the conversation turns to the Confederate flag displayed in his garage, Craig’s father asks what is probably the hardest of the 19 questions: “Do you think I’m a sexist or racist?” After a pause, Craig answers. “Yeah. ” He brings up the derogatory language that his father used when he was a child, which his father acknowledges was a problem and says he’s working to change. “At the time I was ” the father says. “Now I’m maybe . ” “ what?” Craig asks. “I guess 40 racist. And 60, you know, O. K. I feel like I’m progressing with it. I feel like I’m trying. ” Who they are: Amy, 43. Dawn, 42. Both live in Green River, Wyo. Their relationship: and neighbors, the women and their families have grown extremely close. Why it feels personal: As the mother of a child with a disability, Amy was deeply offended by how Mr. Trump mocked a disabled reporter during the campaign. Dawn has her own personal stake in the election: Her husband works in the mining industry, a job she worried was threatened by Mrs. Clinton’s policies. “This election was different for me,” Amy tells Dawn. “If, say, John Kasich won, I would be like ‘Well, you win some you lose some.’ . .. I would not have been as upset as I have been, primarily because of some of the behavior that Trump has exhibited throughout the campaign. ” She continues: “Trump was not my first choice for the candidacy for the presidency,” Dawn says, though she is a Republican and votes Republican. She says she was “disturbed” by “the way he acts and the way he thinks he can do and say these things, and can get away with it and it’s okay. ” But ultimately, she tells Amy, “I had to refocus and reprioritize the reasons I wanted to vote for him. Not that I condone his behaviors, but the other issues were huge for me. ” She explains: Who they are: Aaron Lee Ponce Landaverde is 26. Kyle Hill is 25. Both live in Peoria, Ill. Their relationship: Attended high school together and were teammates on the wrestling and football teams. Why it feels personal: As an who supported Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Hill took offense at what Mr. Ponce Landaverde, a Trump supporter, posted on Facebook during the election. “I’ve heard race more than anything throughout this whole election, throughout this whole year,” Mr. Ponce Landaverde says. “This whole year is just race. I feel like there needs to be more unity in this country. ” He continues: Mr. Hill explained to his friend why, to him, race was a crucial factor in this election, and is a big part of why he is struggling to understand friends who voted for Mr. Trump. “A lot of what he has said, it’s disparaging for marginalized people in this country — Latinos, gay people, women — it’s disparaging,” Mr. Hill says. “To a certain extent, voting for Donald Trump after all he said, after all he’s done — you have to be somewhat comfortable with that in order to cast that vote for that man. ” He continues: From a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above. Or if you’re on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series. On your iPhone or iPad: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Podcasts” with a purple icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Tap on the “search” magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, type in “The ” and select it from the list of results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, tap on the “subscribe” button to have new episodes sent to your phone free. You may want to adjust your notifications to be alerted when a new episode arrives. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, tap on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. On your Android phone or tablet: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Play Music” with an icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen, search for the name of the series and select it from the list of results. You may have to scroll down to find the “Podcasts” search results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, click on the word “subscribe” to have new episodes sent to your phone free. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, click on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. | 0fake |
Trump changes tack, backs 'one China' policy in call with Xi | BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump changed tack and agreed to honor the “one China” policy during a phone call with China’s leader Xi Jinping, a major diplomatic boost for Beijing which brooks no criticism of its claim to self-ruled Taiwan. Trump angered Beijing in December by talking to the president of Taiwan and saying the United States did not have to stick to the policy, under which Washington acknowledges the Chinese position that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it. A White House statement said Trump and Chinese President Xi had a lengthy phone conversation on Thursday night, Washington time. “President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our ‘one China’ policy,” the statement said. A spokesman for Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in a statement it was in Taiwan’s interest to maintain good relations with the United States and China. The U.S. and Chinese leaders had not spoken by telephone since Trump took office on Jan. 20. Diplomatic sources in Beijing say China had been nervous about Xi being left humiliated in the event a call with Trump went wrong and the details were leaked to the media. Last week, U.S. ties with staunch ally Australia became strained after the Washington Post published details about an acrimonious phone call between Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. No issue is more sensitive to Beijing than Taiwan. China and the United States also signaled that with the “one China” issue resolved, they could have more normal relations. “Representatives of the United States and China will engage in discussions and negotiations on various issues of mutual interest,” the statement said. In a separate statement carried by China’s Foreign Ministry, Xi said China appreciated Trump’s upholding of the “one China” policy. “I believe that the United States and China are cooperative partners, and through joint efforts we can push bilateral relations to a historic new high,” the statement quoted Xi as saying. “The development of China and the United States absolutely can complement each other and advance together. Both sides absolutely can become very good cooperative partners,” Xi said. Taiwan’s top China policymaker, the Mainland Affairs Council, said it hoped for continued support from the United States and called on Beijing to adopt a “positive attitude” and “pragmatic communication” in resolving differences with Taiwan. China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, whose ruling Democratic Progressive Party espouses the island’s formal independence, a red line for Beijing, and has cut off a formal dialogue mechanism with the island. Tsai says she wants peace with China. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the “one China” principle was the political basis of Sino-U.S. ties. “Ensuring this political basis does not waver is vital for the healthy, stable development of China-U.S. relations,” Lu said. Lawyer James Zimmerman, the former head of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said Trump should have never raised the “one China” policy in the first place. “There is certainly a way of negotiating with the Chinese, but threats concerning fundamental, core interests are counterproductive from the get-go,” he said in an email. “The end result is that Trump just confirmed to the world that he is a paper tiger, a ‘zhilaohu’ – someone that seems threatening but is wholly ineffectual and unable to stomach a challenge.” Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University and who has advised the government on foreign policy, said Trump had created a lot of uncertainty but was now back on track. “Trump has reassured people that he will be a responsible president,” he told Reuters. “...This is good news for China, because stable U.S.-China relations are good for China. Now we can do business.” The United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, but is also Taiwan’s biggest ally and arms supplier and is bound by legislation to provide the means to help the island defend itself. Defeated Nationalist forces fled from China to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists. Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. China wants cooperation with the United States on trade, investment, technology, energy and infrastructure, as well as strengthening coordination on international matters to jointly protect global peace and stability, Xi said in the statement. The White House described the call, which came hours before Trump plays host to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as “extremely cordial”, with both leaders expressing best wishes to their peoples. There was little or no mention in either the Chinese or U.S. statement of other contentious issues - trade and the disputed South China Sea - and neither matter has gone away. A U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday that a U.S. Navy P-3 plane and a Chinese military aircraft came close to each other over the South China Sea, though the Navy believes the incident was inadvertent. China on Friday reported an initial trade surplus of $51.35 billion for January, more than $21 billion of which was with the United States. | 0fake |
MUST WATCH! New VIDEO Emerges Of Hillary Leaving NYC After FINALLY Losing The Election For The Last Time | Hillary may have finally lost the election yesterday, but to her credit, she had her head held high when she was spotted leaving New York. pic.twitter.com/NysPmPUGDQ Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) December 20, 2016 | 1real |
Chamber Of Commerce Exec Makes Trump Pay For Charlottesville, Urges Charities To Boycott Mar-a-Lago | Donald Trump s horrific defense of white supremacy after the Charlottesville, VA crisis is going to hurt him in ways he never thought it would. Not only has his already historically low approval rating taken yet another plunge (even amongst his own fan base), but people are lining up to attack Trump personally.One of those people is Laurel Baker, the executive director of the Palm Beach Chamber Of Commerce, who has decided to hit Trump where it will hurt most his wallet. Knowing damn well that Trump doesn t actually have a heart or conscience, Baker knows that Trump would at least be sensitive to his business going down in flames. To get his point across, Baker is urging charities to boycott Trump s Mar-a-Lago club and stop holding events there.Baker stated that this move against Trump was motivated by Trump s disgusting, disappointing response to the violence in Charlottesville. Baker told The Palm Beach Post, If you have a conscience, you re really condoning bad behavior by continuing to be there. Many say it s the dollars (raised at the events) that count. Yes. But the integrity of any or organization rests on their sound decisions and stewardship. Personally, I do not feel that supporting him, directly or indirectly, speaks well of any organization. People are listening. Already, Trump s beloved club has suffered the cancellation of events that were scheduled by both the American Cancer Society and the Cleveland Clinic. The American Cancer Society stated: Our values and commitment to diversity are critical as we work to address the impact of cancer in every community. It has become increasingly clear that the challenge to those values is outweighing other business considerations. Trump s horrific hatred and bigotry is not only ruining his presidency, it is ruining his entire brand. At the end of Trump s disastrous presidency, he might not actually have a business to run anymore if he keeps going this route. Americans have long complained about Trump s presidency being intertwined in his conflicts of interests, but there might be a way we can make it work in our favor. Boycotting Trump s business is one of the greatest ways Americans can protest against Trump, as it s one of the only things Trump actually cares about.Featured image via Ian MacNicol / Getty Images | 1real |
Muslim Family Restaurant Finds Creative Way To Tell Donald Trump To Go F*ck Himself | Donald Trump and his deplorable supporters are going to lose their shit when they hear about this.Since 1960, Mama Ayesha s restaurant has served Middle Eastern cuisine in Washington D.C. in the same spot. Since 2009, it has been the home of a special presidential mural featuring Ayesha standing in unison with the last ten presidents, including President Obama. This is Mama welcoming the presidents to DC, her great-nephew Abu-El-Hawa told the Washingtonian about the painting. She was the American dream. For a Muslim and Arab woman immigrant from Palestine to come here on her own and build this business, is a remarkable legacy. The painting was commissioned in 2007 and supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and was completed by artist Karla Karlisima Rodas, an immigrant from El Salvador.But Donald Trump will not be joining the ten presidents on the mural. And that s a good thing.When Ayesha passed away in 1993, she left the famous restaurant to her nephew, who is citing budgetary reasons for declining to add Trump to the mural. Our official position is that it is not in the budget, Abu-El-Hawa stated.In other words, Trump can go f*ck himself.Donald Trump does not deserve to be recognized in a mural that celebrates diversity. Mama Ayesha is a Palestinian woman linking arms with ten presidents, one of whom is the first African-American president. It would also be insulting to President Obama since Trump would be shown linking arms with him.And that just does not jive well considering Trump is a racist divider who panders to white supremacists and wants to ban Muslims from the country, which would be an insult to Ayesha.Here s a look at the mural via YouTube.The mural serves as Washington DC s largest postcard and it s safe to say that Trump is not someone who will make people want to visit our nation s capital.Cue the temper tantrum from Trump and his supporters in 3 2 1 Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 1real |
How Hillary Clinton Became a Hawk - The New York Times | Hillary Clinton sat in the hideaway study off her ceremonial office in the State Department, sipping tea and taking stock of her first year on the job. The study was more like a den — cozy and lined with bookshelves that displayed mementos from Clinton’s three decades in the public eye: a statue of her heroine, Eleanor Roosevelt a baseball signed by the Chicago Cubs star Ernie Banks a carved wooden figure of a pregnant African woman. The intimate setting lent itself to a interview than the usual locale, her imposing outer office, with its marble fireplace, heavy drapes, crystal chandelier and ornate wall sconces. On the morning of Feb. 26, 2010, however, Clinton was talking about something more sensitive than mere foreign affairs: her relationship with Barack Obama. To say she chose her words carefully doesn’t do justice to the delicacy of the exercise. She was like a technician, deciding which color wire to snip without blowing up her relationship with the White House. “We’ve developed, I think, a very good rapport, really positive about everything you can imagine,” Clinton said about the man she described during the 2008 campaign as naïve, irresponsible and hopelessly unprepared to be president. “And we’ve had some interesting and even unusual experiences along the way. ” She leaned forward as she spoke, gesturing with her hands and laughing easily. In talking with reporters, Clinton displays more warmth than Obama does, though there’s less of an expectation that she might say something revealing. Clinton singled out, as she often would, the United Nations meeting in Copenhagen the previous December, where she and Obama worked together to save the meeting from collapse. She brought up the Middle East peace proc ess, a signature project of the president’s, which she had been tasked with reviving. But she was understandably wary of talking about areas in which she and Obama split — namely, on bedrock issues of war and peace, where Clinton’s more activist philosophy had already collided in unpredictable ways with her boss’s instincts toward restraint. She had backed Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendation to send 40, 000 more troops to Afghanistan, before endorsing a fallback proposal of 30, 000 (Obama went along with that, though he stipulated that the soldiers would begin to pull out again in July 2011, which she viewed as problematic). She supported the Pentagon’s plan to leave behind a residual force of 10, 000 to 20, 000 American troops in Iraq (Obama balked at this, largely because of his inability to win legal protections from the Iraqis, a failure that was to haunt him when the Islamic State overran much of the country). And she pressed for the United States to funnel arms to the rebels in Syria’s civil war (an idea Obama initially rebuffed before later, halfheartedly, coming around to it). That fundamental tension between Clinton and the president would continue to be a defining feature of her tenure as secretary of state. In the administration’s first meeting on Russia in February 2009, aides to Obama proposed that the United States make some symbolic concessions to Russia as a gesture of its good will in resetting the relationship. Clinton, the last to speak, brusquely rejected the idea, saying, “I’m not giving up anything for nothing. ” Her hardheadedness made an impression on Robert Gates, the defense secretary and George W. Bush holdover who was wary of a changed Russia. He decided there and then that she was someone he could do business with. “I thought, This is a tough lady,” he told me. A few months after my interview in her office, another split emerged when Obama picked up a secure phone for a weekend conference call with Clinton, Gates and a handful of other advisers. It was July 2010, four months after the North Korean military torpedoed a South Korean Navy corvette, sinking it and killing 46 sailors. Now, after weeks of fierce debate between the Pentagon and the State Department, the United States was gearing up to respond to this brazen provocation. The tentative plan — developed by Clinton’s deputy at State, James Steinberg — was to dispatch the aircraft carrier George Washington into coastal waters to the east of North Korea as an unusual show of force. But Adm. Robert Willard, then the Pacific commander, wanted to send the carrier on a more aggressive course, into the Yellow Sea, between North Korea and China. The Chinese foreign ministry had warned the United States against the move, which for Willard was all the more reason to press forward. He pushed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, who in turn pushed his boss, the defense secretary, to reroute the George Washington. Gates agreed, but he needed the commander in chief to sign off on a decision that could have political as well as military repercussions. Gates laid out the case for diverting the George Washington to the Yellow Sea: that the United States should not look as if it was yielding to China. Clinton strongly seconded it. “We’ve got to run it up the gut!” she had said to her aides a few days earlier. (The Vince Lombardi imitation drew giggles from her staff, who, even 18 months into her tenure, still marveled at her pugnacity.) Obama, though, was not persuaded. The George Washington was already underway changing its course was not a decision to make on the fly. “I don’t call audibles with aircraft carriers,” he said — unwittingly Clinton on her football metaphor. It wasn’t the last debate in which she would side with Gates. The two quickly discovered that they shared a Midwestern upbringing, a taste for a stiff drink after a long day of work and a skepticism about the intentions of America’s foes. Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence analyst who conducted Obama’s initial review on the Afghanistan war, says: “I think one of the surprises for Gates and the military was, here they come in expecting a very administration, and they discover that they have a secretary of state who’s a little bit right of them on these issues — a little more eager than they are, to a certain extent. Particularly on Afghanistan, where I think Gates knew more had to be done, knew more troops needed to be sent in, but had a lot of doubts about whether it would work. ” As Hillary Clinton makes another run for president, it can be tempting to view her rhetoric about the world less as deeply felt core principle than as calculated political maneuver. But Clinton’s instincts are bred in the bone — grounded in cold realism about human nature and what one aide calls “a textbook view of American exceptionalism. ” It set her apart from her Barack Obama, who avoided military entanglements and tried to reconcile Americans to a world in which the United States was no longer the undisputed hegemon. And it will likely set her apart from the Republican candidate she meets in the general election. For all their bluster about bombing the Islamic State into oblivion, neither Donald J. Trump nor Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has demonstrated anywhere near the appetite for military engagement abroad that Clinton has. “Hillary is very much a member of the traditional American establishment,” says Vali Nasr, a strategist who advised her on Pakistan and Afghanistan at the State Department. “She believes, like presidents going back to the Reagan or Kennedy years, in the importance of the military — in solving terrorism, in asserting American influence. The shift with Obama is that he went from reliance on the military to the intelligence agencies. Their position was, ‘All you need to deal with terrorism is N. S. A. and C. I. A. drones and special ops.’ So the C. I. A. gave Obama an angle, if you will, to be simultaneously hawkish and shun using the military. ” Unlike other recent presidents — Obama, George W. Bush or her husband, Bill Clinton — Hillary Clinton would assume the office with a long record on national security. There are many ways to examine that record, but one of the most revealing is to explore her cultivation of the military — not just civilian leaders like Gates, but also its commanders, the men with the medals. Her affinity for the armed forces is rooted in a lifelong belief that the calculated use of military power is vital to defending national interests, that American intervention does more good than harm and that the writ of the United States properly reaches, as Bush once put it, into “any dark corner of the world. ” Unexpectedly, in the bombastic, presidential election of 2016, Hillary Clinton is the last true hawk left in the race. For those who know Clinton’s biography, her embrace of the military should come as no surprise. She grew up in the buoyant aftermath of World War II, the daughter of a Navy petty officer who trained young sailors before they shipped out to the Pacific. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was a staunch Republican and an anticommunist, and she channeled his views. She talks often about her girlhood dream of becoming an astronaut, citing the rejection letter she got from NASA as the first time she encountered gender discrimination. Her real motive for volunteering, she has written, may have been because her father fretted that “America was lagging behind Russia. ” Political conversion came later, after Vietnam and the ’60s swept over Wellesley College, where she spoke out against the establishment at her graduation. But even in the tumultuous year of 1968, she was still making her transition from Republican to Democrat, managing to go to the conventions of both parties. As a Republican intern in Washington that summer, she questioned a Wisconsin congressman, Melvin Laird, about the wisdom of Lyndon B. Johnson’s escalating involvement in Southeast Asia. It was after law school that she had her most curious encounter with the military. In 1975, the year she married Bill Clinton, she stopped in at a Marine recruiting office in Arkansas to inquire about joining the active forces or reserves. She was a lawyer, she explained maybe there was some way she could serve. The recruiter, she recalled two decades later, was a young man of about 21, in prime physical condition. Clinton was then 27, freshly transplanted from Washington, teaching law at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and wearing eyeglasses. “You’re too old, you can’t see and you’re a woman,” he told her. “Maybe the dogs will take you,” he added, in what she said was a pejorative reference to the Army. “It was not a very encouraging conversation,” Clinton said at a lunch for military women on Capitol Hill in 1994. “I decided, Maybe I’ll look for another way to serve my country. ” Some reporters have cast doubt on the veracity of this story, which she repeated in the fall of 2015 over breakfast with voters in New Hampshire: certainly, there’s no concrete evidence that it happened, and Bill gave a different account of it in 2008, substituting the Army for the Marines. Why would a professionally minded Yale Law graduate, on the cusp of marriage, suddenly want to put on a uniform? It’s impossible to decipher her possible motives, but Ann Henry, an old friend who taught at the university after Clinton moved to Little Rock, offers a theory: During those days, she recalls, female faculty members, as an exercise, would test the boundaries of careers that appeared closed to women. “I don’t think it’s made up,” she says. “It was consistent with something she would have done. ” Clinton’s next sustained exposure to the military did not come until she was first lady, almost two decades later. Living in the White House is, in many ways, like living in a military compound. A Marine stands guard in front of the West Wing when the president is in the Oval Office. The Mili tary Office operates the medical center and the telecommunications system. The Navy runs the cafeteria, the Marines transport the president by helicopter, the Air Force by plane. Camp David is a naval facility. The daily contact with men and women in uniform, Clinton’s friends say, deepened her feelings for them. In March 1996, the first lady visited American troops stationed in Bosnia. The trip became notorious years later when she claimed, during the 2008 campaign, to have dodged sniper fire after her military plane landed at an American base in Tuzla. (Chris Hill, a diplomat who was onboard that day and later served as ambassador to Iraq under Clinton, didn’t remember snipers at all, and indeed recalled children handing her bouquets of spring flowers.) But there was no faking the good vibes during her tour of the mess and rec halls. With her teenage daughter at her side, she bantered and joked with the young servicemen and women — an experience, she wrote, that “left lasting impressions on Chelsea and me. ” When Clinton was elected to the Senate, she had strong political reasons to care about the mili tary. The Pentagon was in the midst of a long, politically charged process of closing military bases New York State had already been a victim, when Plattsburgh Air Force Base was closed in 1995, a loss of 352 civilian jobs for that North Country town. New York’s delegation was determined to protect its remaining bases, especially Fort Drum, home of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, which sprawls over a hundred thousand acres in rural Jefferson County. In October 2001, a month after the terrorist attacks, Clinton traveled to Fort Drum at the invitation of Gen. Buster Hagenbeck, who had just been named the division’s commander and would be deployed to Afghanistan a month later. Like many of the officers I spoke with, he had preconceptions of Clinton from her years as first lady the woman who showed up at his office around happy hour that afternoon did not fulfill them. “She sat down,” he recalls, “took her shoes off, put her feet up on the coffee table and said, ‘General, do you know where a gal can get a cold beer around here? ’’u2009” It was the start of a dialogue that stretched over two wars. In the spring of 2002, Hagenbeck led Operation Anaconda, a assault on Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in the Valley that was the largest combat engagement of the war to date. When the general came back to Washington to brief the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Clinton took him out to dinner on Capitol Hill for her own briefing. They also spoke about the Bush administration’s preparations for war in Iraq, something which Hagenbeck was following anxiously. The general, it turned out, was more of a dove than the senator. He warned her about the risks of an invasion, which was then being inside the Pentagon. It would be like “kicking over a bee’s nest,” he said. Hagenbeck excused Clinton’s vote in 2002 to authorize military action in Iraq. “She made a considered call,” he says. And “she was chagrined, much after the fact. ” For him, what mattered more than Clinton’s voting record was her unstinting public support of the military, whether in protecting Fort Drum or backing him during a difficult first year in Afghanistan. Clinton’s education in military affairs began in earnest in 2002, after the Democratic Party’s crushing defeat in midterm elections moved her up several rungs in Senate seniority. The party’s congressional leaders offered her a seat on either the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or the Senate Armed Services Committee. She chose Armed Services, spurning a long tradition of New York senators, like Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob Javits, who coveted the prestige of Foreign Relations. Armed Services deals with more earthbound issues, like benefits for veterans, and it had long been the preserve of Republican hawks like John McCain. But after Clinton saw Armed Services as better preparation for her future. For a politician looking to hone credentials — a woman who aspired to be commander in chief — it was the perfect training ground. She dug in like a grunt at boot camp. Andrew Shapiro, then Senator Clinton’s adviser, called upon 10 experts — including Bill Perry, who was defense secretary under her husband, and Ashton Carter, who would eventually become President Obama’s fourth defense secretary — to tutor her on everything from grand strategy to defense procurement. She met quietly with Andrew Marshall, an octogenarian strategist at the Pentagon who labored for decades in the blandly named Office of Net Assessment, earning the nickname Yoda for his Delphic insights. She went to every committee meeting, no matter how mundane. Aides recall her on sitting alone in the chamber, patiently questioning a lieutenant colonel. She visited the troops in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving Day in 2003 and spoke at every significant military installation in New York State. By then — 30 years after she recalled being rejected by a Marine recruiter in Arkansas — Hillary Clinton had become a military wonk. Jack Keane is one of the intellectual architects of the Iraq surge he is also perhaps the greatest single influence on the way Hillary Clinton thinks about military issues. A bear of a man with a jowly, careworn face and hair, Keane exudes the supreme you would expect of a retired general. He speaks with a trace of a New York accent that gives his pronouncements a urgency. He is also a member of the complex, sitting on the board of General Dynamics and serving as a strategic adviser to Academi, the contractor once known as Blackwater. And he is the chairman of an aptly named think tank, the Institute for the Study of War. Though he is one of a parade of generals, Keane is the resident hawk on Fox News, where he appears regularly to call for the United States to use greater military force in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. He doesn’t shrink from putting boots on the ground and has little use for civilian leaders, like Obama, who do. Keane first got to know Clinton in the fall of 2001, when she was a freshman senator and he was the Army’s second in command, with a distinguished combat and command record in Vietnam, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. He had expected her to be intelligent, and politically astute, but he was not prepared for the respect she showed for the Army as an institution, or her sympathy for the sacrifices made by soldiers and their families. Keane was confident he could smell a phony politician a mile away, and he didn’t get that whiff from her. “I read people that’s one of my strengths,” he told me. “It’s not that I can’t be fooled, but I’m not fooled often. ” Clinton took an instant liking to Keane, too. “She loves that Irish gruff thing,” says one of her Senate aides, Kris Balderston, who was in the room that day. When Keane got up after 45 minutes to leave for a meeting back at the Pentagon with a Polish general, she protested that she wasn’t finished yet and asked for another appointment. “I said, ‘O. K. but it took me three months to get this one,’’u2009” Keane told her dryly. Clinton exploded into a raucous laugh. “I’ll take care of that problem,” she promised. She was true to her word: The two would meet many times over the next decade, discussing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Iranian nu clear threat and other flash points in the Middle East. Sometimes he dropped by her Senate office other times they met for dinner or drinks. He escorted her on her first visit to Fort Drum and set up her first trip to Iraq. They generally agreed to forgo talk of politics, but at a meeting in Clinton’s Senate office in January 2007, Keane tried to sell her on the logic of a troop surge in Iraq. The previous month, he had met with President Bush in the Oval Office to recommend that the United States deploy five to eight Army and Marine brigades to wage an urban counterinsurgency campaign only that, he argued, would stabilize a country being ripped apart by sectarian strife. His presentation angered some of Keane’s fellow generals, who feared that such a strategy would deepen Iraq’s dependency and prolong America’s involvement. But it had a big impact on the commander in chief, who soon ordered more than 20, 000 additional troops to Iraq. Clinton was another story. “I’m convinced it’s not going to work, Jack,” she told him. She predicted that the American soldiers patrolling in Iraqi cities and towns would be “blown up” by Sunni militias or Al Qaeda fighters. “She thought we would fail,” Keane recalls, “and it was going to cause increased casualties. ” Politics, of course, was also on her mind. Barack Obama was laying the groundwork for his candidacy in with a campaign that would emphasize his opposition to the Iraq War and her vote in favor of it — a vote that still shadows her in this year’s Democratic primaries. Obama was setting off on a drive that would net $25 million in three months, sending tremors through Clinton’s political camp and establishing him as a formidable rival. Although she disagreed with Keane about Iraq, Clinton asked him to become a formal adviser. “As much as I respect you,” he replied, “I can’t do that. ” Keane’s wife had health problems that had moved up his retirement from the Army, and he did not, as a policy, endorse candidates. Sometime during 2008 — he doesn’t remember exactly when — Clinton told him she had erred in doubting the wisdom of the surge. “She said, ‘You were right, this really did work,’’u2009” Keane recalls. “On issues of national security,” he says, “I thought she was always intellectually honest with me. ” He and Clinton continued to talk, even after Obama was elected and she became secretary of state. More often than not, they found themselves in sync. Keane, like Clinton, favored more robust intervention in Syria than Obama did. In April 2015, the week before she announced her candidacy, Clinton asked him for a briefing on military options for dealing with the fighters of the Islamic State. Bringing along three young female analysts from the Institute for the Study of War, Keane gave her a presentation. Among other steps, he advocated imposing a zone over parts of Syria that would neutralize the air power of the Syrian president, Bashar with a goal of forcing him into a political settlement with opposition groups. Six months later, Clinton publicly adopted this position, further distancing herself from Obama. “I’m convinced this president, no matter what the circumstances, will never put any boots on the ground to do anything, even when it’s compelling,” Keane told me. He was sitting in the library at his home in McLean, Va. which is lined with books on military history and strategy. His critique of Obama was hardly new or original, but much of it mirrors the thinking of Clinton and her policy advisers. “One of the problems the president has, which weakens his diplomatic efforts, is that leaders don’t believe he would use military power. That’s an issue that would separate the president from Hillary Clinton rather dramatically. She would look at military force as another realistic option, but only where there is no other option. ” Befriending Keane wasn’t just about cultivating a single adviser. It gave Clinton instant entree to his informal network of and retired generals. The most interesting by far was David Petraeus, a cerebral commander who shared Clinton’s ambition and whose life stories would mix heady success with humbling setbacks. Both would be accused of mishandling classified information — Clinton because of her use of a private server and email address to conduct sensitive government business, a decision that erupted into a political scandal Petraeus because he had given a diary containing classified information to his biographer and mistress (he was eventually charged with a misdemeanor for mishandling classified information). On Clinton’s first trip to Iraq in November 2003, Petraeus, then a general commanding the 101st Airborne Division, flew from his field headquarters in Mosul to the relative safety of Kirkuk to brief her congressional delegation. “She was full of questions,” he recalls. “It was the kind of gesture that means a lot to a battlefield commander. ” On subsequent trips, as he rose in rank, Petraeus walked her through his plans to train and equip Iraqi Army troops, a forerunner of the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. It worked to their mutual benefit: Petraeus was building ties to a prominent Democratic voice in the Senate Clinton was burnishing her image as a friend of the troops. “She did it the way,” he says. “She did it by pursuing relationships. ” When Petraeus was sent back to Iraq as the top commander in early 2007, he gave every member of the Senate Armed Services Committee a copy of the U. S. Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which he edited during a tour at Fort Leavenworth. Clinton read hers from cover to cover. Although Clinton’s reservations about the surge were valid — the stability that the additional troops brought to Iraq didn’t last — her opposition to it, like her vote for the war, came back to haunt her. This time, it was her ally Bob Gates who summoned the ghost. In his memoirs, Gates wrote that she confessed to him and the president that her position had been politically motivated, because she was then facing Obama in the Iowa caucuses. (Obama, he wrote, “vaguely” conceded that he, too, had opposed it for political reasons.) Clinton pushed back, telling Diane Sawyer of ABC News that Gates “perhaps either missed the context or the meaning, because I did oppose the surge. ” Her opposition, she told Sawyer, was driven by the fact that at that time, people were not going to accept any escalation of the war. “This is not politics in electoral, political terms,” Clinton said. “This is politics in the sense of the American public has to support commitments like this. ” The next time she found herself in a debate over sending troops into harm’s way, she voiced no such reservations. “We need maps,” Hillary Clinton told her aides. It was early October 2009, and she had just returned from a meeting in the Situation Room. Obama’s war cabinet was debating how many additional troops to send to Afghanistan, where the United States, preoccupied by Iraq, had allowed the Taliban to regroup. The Pentagon, she reported, had used impressive, maps to show its plans to deploy troops around the country. The attention to detail made Gates and his commanders look crisp and well prepared the State Department, which was pushing a “civilian surge” to accompany the troops, looked wan by comparison. At the next meeting, on Oct. 14, the team from State unfurled its own maps to show the deployment of an army of aid workers, diplomats, legal experts and crop specialists who were supposed to follow the soldiers into Afghanistan. Clinton’s fixation with maps was typical of her in the first great debate of the Obama presidency. She wanted to be taken seriously, even if her department was less central than the Pentagon. One way to do that was by promoting the civilian surge, the pet project of her friend and special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke. “She was determined that her briefing books would be just as thick and just as meticulous as those of the Pentagon,” a senior adviser recalls. She also didn’t hesitate to get into the Pentagon’s business, asking detailed questions about the training of Afghan troops and wading into the weeds of military planning. She resolved not to miss out on anything — a determination that may have been rooted in a deeper insecurity about her role in what was to become the most White administration of the modern era. On the morning of June 8, 2009, she emailed two aides to say: “I heard on the radio that there is a Cabinet mtg this am. Is there? Can I go? If not, who are we sending?” On Feb. 10, 2010, she dialed the White House from her home, but couldn’t get past the switchboard operator, who didn’t believe she was really Hillary Clinton. Asked to provide her office number to prove her identity, she said she didn’t know it. Finally, Clinton hung up in frustration and placed the call again through the State Department Operations Center — “like a proper and properly dependent secretary of state,” as she later wrote to one aide in a tone. “No independent dialing allowed. ” The Afghan troop debate, a drama of dueling egos, leaked documents and endless deliberations, is typically framed as a test of wills between the Pentagon’s wily military commanders and an inexperienced young president, with Joe Biden playing the role of devil’s advocate for Obama. While that portrait is accurate, it neglects the role of Clinton. By siding with Gates and the generals, she gave political ballast to their proposals and provided a bullish counterpoint to Biden’s skepticism. Her role should not be overstated: She did not turn the debate, nor did she bring to it any distinctive point of view. But her unstinting support of General McChrystal’s maximalist recommendation made it harder for Obama to choose a lesser option. (McChrystal was later fired by Obama after his aides made derogatory remarks about almost every member of his war cabinet to Rolling Stone magazine she was the exception. “Hillary had Stan’s back,” one of his aides told the reporter, Michael Hastings.) “Hillary was adamant in her support for what Stan asked for,” Gates says. “She made clear that she was ready to support his request for the full 40, 000 troops. She then made clear that she was only willing to go with the 30, 000 number because I proposed it. She was, in a way, tougher on the numbers in the surge than I was. ” Gates believed that if he could align Clinton the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen the commander of Central Command, David Petraeus and himself behind a common position, it would be hard for Obama to say no. “How could you ignore these Four Horsemen of national security?” says Geoff Morrell, who served as the Pentagon press secretary at the time. Just as Clinton benefited from her alliance with the military commanders, she gave them political cover. “Here’s the dirty little secret,” says Tom Nides, her former deputy secretary of state for management and resources. “They all knew they wanted her on their side. They knew that if they walked into the Situation Room and they had her, it made a huge difference in the dynamics. When she opened her mouth, she could change the momentum in the room. ” David Axelrod recalls one meeting where Clinton “kicked the thing off and pretty much articulated their opinion I’m sure that’s one that they remember. There’s no doubt that she wanted to give them every troop that McChrystal was asking for. ” Still, Clinton didn’t prevail on every argument. After agreeing to send the troops, Obama added a condition of his own: that the soldiers be deployed as quickly as possible and pulled out again, starting in the summer of 2011 — a deadline that proved more fateful in the long run than a difference of 10, 000 troops. Clinton opposed setting a public deadline for withdrawal, arguing that it would tip America’s hand to the Taliban and encourage them to wait out the United States — which, in fact, was exactly what happened. In the final days of the debate, Clinton also found herself at odds with her own ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry. He, too, held different views than she did on the wisdom of a surge, which he put into writing. On Nov. 6, 2009, in a long cable addressed to Clinton — and later leaked to The New York Times — he made a trenchant, convincing case for why the McChrystal proposal, which she endorsed two weeks earlier in a meeting with Obama, would saddle the United States with “vastly increased costs and an indefinite, military role in Afghanistan. ” Much of Eikenberry’s analysis proved prescient, particularly his warnings about the threadbare American partnership with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. It carried an extra sting because he was a retired Army general who was the commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. Clinton, who had not asked for the cable, was furious, fearing it could upset a debate in which she and the Pentagon were about to prevail. What the cable made clear was the degree to which the Afghanistan debate was dominated by military considerations. While Clinton did raise the need to deal with Afghanistan’s neighbor, Pakistan, her reflexive support of Gates, Petraeus and McChrystal meant she was not a powerful voice for diplomatic alternatives. “She contributed to the overmilitarizing of the analysis of the problem,” says Sarah Chayes, who was an adviser to McChrystal and later to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen. In October 2015, the persistent violence in Afghanistan and the legacy of Karzai’s misrule forced Obama to reverse his plan to withdraw the last American soldiers by the end of his presi dency. A few thousand troops will stay there indefinitely. And for all of Clinton’s talk about a civilian surge, it never really materialized. For Clinton, the Afghanistan episode laid bare a vexed relationship between her and Eikenberry, one of the few generals with whom she didn’t hit it off. A with graduate degrees from Harvard and Stanford, Eikenberry was brilliant but had a reputation among his colleagues for being imperious. Clinton had a similarly chilly relationship with Douglas Lute, another Army lieutenant general with a graduate degree from Harvard, who also fought with Holbrooke. “She likes the — McChrystal, Petraeus, Keane,” one of her aides observes. “Real military guys, not these retired who go into civilian jobs. ” “There’s no doubt that Hillary Clinton’s more muscular brand of American foreign policy is better matched to 2016 than it was to 2008,” said Jake Sullivan, her top policy adviser at the State Department, who plays the same role in her campaign. It was De cem ber 2015, 53 days before the Iowa caucuses, and Sullivan was sitting down with me in Clinton’s sprawling Brooklyn headquarters to explain how she was shaping her message for a campaign suddenly dominated by concerns about national security. Clinton’s strategy, he said, was twofold: Explain to voters that she had a clear plan for confronting the threat posed by Islamic terrorism, and expose her Republican opponents as utterly lacking in experience or credibility on national security. There were good reasons for Clinton to let her inner hawk fly. After the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. Americans’ concern about a major attack on the nation spiked. A poll taken after Paris showed that a majority, 53 percent, favored sending ground troops to Iraq or Syria, a remarkable shift from the sentiment that prevailed during most of Obama’s presidency. The Republican candidates were reaching for apocalyptic metaphors to demonstrate their resolve. Ted Cruz threatened to the Islamic State to test whether desert sand can glow Donald Trump called for the United States to ban all Muslims from entering the country “until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses. ” Yet such spikes in the public appetite for mili tary action tend to be transitory. Three weeks later, the same poll showed an even split, at 49 percent, on whether to deploy troops. Neither Trump nor Cruz favors major new deployments of American soldiers to Iraq and Syria (nor, for that matter, does Clinton). If anything, both are more skeptical than Clinton about intervention and more circumspect than she about maintaining the nation’s War II military commitments. Trump loudly proclaims his opposition to the Iraq War. He wants the United States to spend less to underwrite NATO and has talked about withdrawing the American security umbrella from Asia, even if that means Japan and South Korea would acquire nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Cruz, unlike Clinton, opposed aiding the Syrian rebels in 2014. He once supported Pentagon budget constraints advocated by his isolationist colleague, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Thus might the gen eral election present voters with an unfamiliar choice: a Democratic hawk versus a Republican reluctant warrior. To thwart the progressive insurgency of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton carefully calibrated her message during the Democratic primaries to align herself closely with Barack Obama and his racially diverse coalition. But as she pivots to the general election, that balancing act with Obama will become trickier. “There’s going to be a huge amount of interest in the press to ” Sullivan says. “It just so easily can become a sport that distracts from her ability to make an affirmative case. ” In showing her stripes as a prospective commander in chief, Clinton will no doubt draw heavily upon her State Department experience — filtering the lessons she learned in Libya, Syria and Iraq into the sinewy worldview she has held since childhood. Last fall, in a series of policy speeches, Clinton began limning distinctions with the president on national security. She said the United States should consider sending more troops to Iraq than Obama had committed, to help the Iraqis and Kurds fight the Islamic State. She came out in favor of a partial zone over Syria. And she described the threat posed by ISIS to Americans in starker terms than he did. As is often the case with Clinton and Obama, the differences were less about direction than degree. She wasn’t calling for ground troops in the Middle East, any more than he was. Clinton insisted her plan was not a break with his, merely an “intensification and acceleration” of it. It’s an open question how well Clinton’s hawkish instincts match the country’s mood. Americans are weary of war and remain suspicious of foreign entanglements. And yet, after the retrenchment of the Obama years, there is polling evidence that they are equally dissatisfied with a portrait of their country as a spent force, managing its decline amid a world of rising powers like China, resurgent empires like Vladimir Putin’s Russia and lethal new forces like the Islamic State. If Obama’s minimalist approach was a necessary reaction to the maximalist style of his predecessor, then perhaps what Americans yearn for is something in between — the kind of pragmatism that Clinton has spent a lifetime honing. “The president has made some tough decisions,” says Leon Panetta, who served as Obama’s defense secretary after Bob Gates, and as director of the C. I. A. before David Petraeus. “But it’s been a mixed record, and the concern is, the president defining what America’s role in the world is in the 21st century hasn’t happened. “Hopefully, he’ll do it,” he added, acknowledging the time Obama has left. “Certainly, she would. ” | 0fake |
HUD ASKS FOR $4 BILLION MORE AFTER SPENDING MILLIONS ON LOBBYING CONGRESS??? | The news broke this week that Obama wants to equalize housing for everyone. Social engineering is nothing new in this day of Obama. State s rights mean nothing to this group and if you disagree you re called a heartless racist. The HUD secretary, Julian Castro, was on Capitol Hill this week to testify about the HUD budget asking for $4 billion more. Below are two videos of Cong. Sean Duffy going at it with Castro. Please take the time to listen to the conversation. Castro gives ZERO information to Duffy. Doesn t that tell you something? HUD is just another bloated government entity that s actually lobbying the very body that they are part of Congress(see below)! Does this offend you as much as it does me? In the new President s Budget, HUD s funding level will increase to $49.3 billion, nearly $4 billion more than Fiscal Year 2015 s enacted level. A MUST WATCH! SEAN DUFFY(WI) WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO ACTUALLY ASKED CASTRO FOR SPECIFICS AND GOT NONE: The findings from HUD s internal watchdog expose a system in which offices around the country funded by the federal housing agency used tax dollars to campaign for favorable policies and larger budgets, government watchdogs found.The failure to police such expenditures gives good reason for taxpayers to be angry, experts told The Washington Times. You re using federal money to lobby Congress to get more federal money, said Mark Calabria, a former HUD official who then spent seven years overseeing the agency as a Senate staff member working with the Banking Committee. This is directly taking money that has been allocated by Congress to helping poor people and it s being diverted to lobbying, he said.Investigators said the housing agencies in cities across the U.S. failed to disclose roughly $2.5 million they spent on lobbying and that was only at nine of the 12 agencies that report engaging in lobbying activities.However, watchdogs worry that undisclosed lobbying still could be occurring at the 3,200 other agencies HUD oversees, but which do not acknowledge engaging in any lobbying at all.For a lack of control that has allowed its various offices to violate transparency and spending laws and take money that could have been used to provide housing the Department of Housing and Urban Development wins this week s Golden Hammer, a distinction given out by The Washington Times to mark examples of waste, fraud and abuse with taxpayer money.The Philadelphia Housing Authority failed to disclose lobbying activities for which it spent as much as $660,000 during the period 2006 to 2010, the report found. It also improperly spent $48,500 in federal funds on lobbying activities conducted through law firms, which the agency should be required to repay, the HUD inspector general said.The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh failed to disclose lobbying activities on which it improperly spent as much as $80,000 in federal funds in 2004 and 2005, and Home Forward in Portland, Oregon, failed to disclose lobbying activities conducted on its behalf.While inspectors think the examined housing agencies may have wasted only $129,000 in federal money, they cautioned the problem could be affecting many more offices than the ones investigators reviewed, and suggested a further investigation of the problem. Because HUD failed to implement adequate policies to monitor agencies compliance with lobbying requirements HUD lacked assurance that other agencies did not spend Federal funds on lobbying activities or violate other lobbying-related requirements, the inspector general report, released last week, found.HUD officials said the extremely small sample size investigators looked at does not warrant extensive changes at the agency to correct problems, and that additional steps to obtain, track and retain lobbying certificates and disclosures is not a necessary remedy. In light of these facts, the recommendations are overly burdensome to implement in relation to limited error rate and limited staff resources, said a letter signed by Milan Ozdinec, the deputy assistant secretary in charge of public housing. The suggestion that HUD staff take proactive steps to detect violations related to lobbying activities would present an enormous challenge to HUD staff, the statement said. To require staff to run queries on approximately 3,200 [public housing agencies] does not appear to be an effective control to cover 12 or so exception cases. The lobbying issues have escalated beyond the scope of a single watchdog, bringing in investigators from HUD s internal Office of Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office and the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Millions of Americans who have fallen on hard times veterans, single mothers, their children they all rely on HUD s programs, said Rep. Sean Duffy, Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.The agency s funding should not be diverted to illegal lobbying efforts or overpaying a lobbyist, said Mr. Duffy, at a Wednesday committee hearing examining HUD s policies.Part of the problem, the inspector general report found, was that HUD rarely monitored the housing agencies and instead relied on their word they were complying with lobbying laws. HUD accepted and relied on agencies certifications and disclosures without performing additional verification, the IG report found. HUD lacked reasonable assurance that agencies did not spend federal funds on lobbying activities, and the lack of accurate lobbying disclosures could create an appearance of a lack of transparency. HUD officials from the top down have urged their members and member agencies to lobby Congress in order to protect their interests.Last year, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan told an audience at the National Leagues of Cities Conference in Washington that local HUD officials should be lobbying their congressional representatives to restore funding to key programs.The same year, the agency s deputy secretary sent an e-mail to more than 1,000 people asking them to call senators in support of a funding bill for HUD, according to the Government Accountability Office. It is critical that your Senator hears from you NOW, the e-mail read. We need to maintain the current level of Republican support for the Senate [bill], acquire other Republican supporters and ensure vocal and active support from Democratic senators. The message then included a list of 17 U.S. senators that HUD wanted the public to focus on.Instead of using its time and resources lobbying Congress, HUD officials would be better off running their programs more efficiently, Mr. Calabria said. We the taxpayers are having to pay the public housing industry to lobby Congress on its own behalf, said Mr. Calabria, the director of Financial Regulations Studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank. If JP Morgan had used TARP money to go lobby Congress, we d all be greatly offended. Read more: WTMAXINE WATERS SPEAKS ABOUT HOW REPUBLICANS WANT TO JUST THROW EVERYONE OUT ON THE STREE (SARCASM) NOTICE THAT SHE CALLS HUD HOUSING OUR NATIONAL HOUSING SYSTEM : Today, we gather to discuss the Future of Housing in America. But frankly, if left to my Republican colleagues, that future looks very bleak for many of our most vulnerable populations, said Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Ranking Member of the Financial Services Committee. But as we will see here today, my colleagues have no interest in strengthening our national housing system. Their priorities are clearly reflected in the recently passed HUD funding bill, which drives investment in this agency down to historic lows undercutting programs which help families reach housing stability, Waters continued.HERE S DUFFY WITH SOME GREAT QUESTIONS FOR CASTRO FROM FEB 2015: | 1real |
HILLARY’S THUGS Spray Paint 20 Cars Outside Trump Rally [Video] | Several attendees left Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump s Saturday rally in Bangor to find their parked cars vandalized with white spray paint.A Bangor police spokesman said officers were seeking witnesses and reviewing video in the criminal mischief case at the New York City billionaire s us-against-them speech blasting a rigged system at the Cross Insurance Center.More than 20 cars parked between the Bangor Raceway and Buck Street were hit with lines of white paint. Attendees said the owners of some of the cars appeared to drive off without noticing without the vandalism.Paul Foster, a painter and Trump supporter from Eastbrook whose van was painted, said the rally couldn t have been more peaceful, but he blamed the vandalism on Trump opponents, saying there ain t no thinking about it, I know so. Trump supporters in Bangor, ME >> leave the rally to find their cars spray painted. pic.twitter.com/jW5UzkdkoB #BasketOfDeplorables (@betioserrano) October 15, 2016Read more: GP | 1real |
With Congress Deadlocked, White House Diverts Funds to Fight Zika - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday said it was shifting $81 million away from biomedical research and antipoverty and health care programs to pay for the development of a Zika vaccine, resorting to extraordinary measures because Congress has failed to approve new funding to combat the virus. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, told members of Congress in a letter that without the diverted funds, the National Institutes of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority would run out of money to confront the illness by the end of the month. That would force the development of a vaccine to stop at a critical time, as locally acquired cases of Zika infection increase in Miami. As of last week, 7, 350 cases of Zika had been reported in the United States, most in Puerto Rico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ms. Burwell said that 15 infants had been born with birth defects. The virus can cause abnormal brain development and other serious defects in children born to infected mothers. The local spread of the illness in the continental United States, with the first cases reported late last month, has raised the political stakes surrounding the federal government’s response. Hillary Clinton on Tuesday made a campaign stop in Wynwood, the Miami neighborhood that has had a rash of locally transmitted Zika cases, and pressed Congress to return from its break to approve emergency funding to fight the virus. President Obama and congressional Republicans have been at odds for most of the year over Zika. In February, Mr. Obama requested $1. 9 billion in emergency funding. Republicans balked, demanding a more detailed accounting of where the money would go. Lawmakers have feuded for months over how much money should be earmarked and how it should be spent. Last month, Democrats blocked consideration of a Republican measure that would have allocated $1. 1 billion to fight Zika but included provisions that would have banned funding for Planned Parenthood to provide contraception related to the virus, which can be sexually transmitted. The deadlock prompted the White House in April to shift $589 million in Ebola funding to the Zika effort, about of it designated for domestic use. On Thursday, Ms. Burwell said that her department had used most of that money, and that it would be gone by the end of August. “The failure to pass a Zika emergency supplemental has forced the administration to choose between delaying critical vaccine development work and raiding other worthy government programs to temporarily avoid these delays,” Ms. Burwell wrote. Democrats seized on the announcement to berate Republicans for failing to provide additional money for Zika. At a news conference, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, called on Representative Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker, to bring Congress back to advance such a measure. “Every possible option is being exhausted, and now we’re going into the National Institutes of Health, which is supposed to be a priority,” Ms. Pelosi said. Aides to Mr. Ryan said that shifting the funds was a step that the Obama administration had delayed to squeeze maximum political advantage out of the Zika issue. The National Institutes of Health announced last week that it had begun clinical trials of a Zika vaccine on 80 human subjects, and hoped to begin a second phase in “ countries” in early 2017. But without more funding now, officials said Thursday, the research would halt in its tracks. Ms. Burwell said she would transfer to the Zika efforts $34 million in N. I. H. funds that had been designated to find treatments for other diseases, including cancer and diabetes. Another $47 million will be transferred to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which supports the development of drugs and vaccines to respond to public health emergencies. That money will come out of a variety of accounts, including $19 million from a program that supplies heating oil subsidies for families and $4 million from substance abuse programs such as those for opioid addiction. Even then, Ms. Burwell said, the additional money will last only through next month, at which point agencies would have to “severely curtail many of their critical efforts” against Zika without action from Congress. In the last four months, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spent $60 million to help states protect pregnant women, $25 million to strengthen their Zika preparedness and response plans, and $16 million to help them create systems to quickly detect microcephaly and other syndromes. | 0fake |
White House says Trump opposes Senate's bipartisan Obamacare deal | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan deal from two senators to stabilize Obamacare by restoring subsidies to health insurers suffered major setbacks on Wednesday with the White House saying President Donald Trump now opposes it and senior Republicans speaking out against it. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, Senate Republican leadership member John Thune and others expressed hostility to the deal announced on Tuesday by Republican Lamar Alexander and Democrat Patty Murray. It was uncertain if it would ever come to a vote in a Congress controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans. The agreement would shore up Obamacare by reviving billions of dollars of federal subsidies to insurers for two years to help lower-income Americans obtain medical coverage. Alexander said on Wednesday that Trump had “completely engineered” the bipartisan proposal, but the president backed away from support he had expressed a day earlier. On Tuesday, Trump said the White House was involved in the negotiations and that the agreement was “a very good solution” for a short-term approach, but said on Wednesday he could “never support bailing out” insurance companies. Trump has cut off subsidies to the companies, saying Congress has not provided money for them and that they enrich insurers. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Trump did not support the deal in its current form, although she called it “a good step in the right direction.” “Look, we’ve said all along that we want something that doesn’t just bail out the insurance companies but actually provides relief for all Americans,” she said at a briefing. “And this bill doesn’t address that fact.” The confusion among lawmakers in both parties over Trump’s position on the healthcare deal and the lack of trust some of them have in the president come as Congress is entering a crucial period when important bills on federal spending, the U.S. debt limit and tax cuts are due for consideration. Thune said the agreement might have “stalled out” and that its future was an “open question.” Republicans have a 52-48 Senate majority, but other than Alexander only a few have publicly embraced the plan, including Senators John McCain, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mike Rounds and Bob Corker. “No way to pay for it,” Hatch said. “Oh my gosh, give me a break. I appreciate the innovation and the attempt to do it right. But it doesn’t help.” Trump, who campaigned on a promise to get rid of Obamacare but has been frustrated by the failure of Republicans in Congress to pass legislation to do so, also made clear he wanted broader legislation to repeal and replace the law. “Lamar Alexander’s working on it very hard from our side. And if something can happen, that’s fine,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “But I won’t do anything to enrich the insurance companies. ... They’ve been enriched by Obamacare like nothing anybody’s ever seen before.” Insurers say they do not profit from the subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement dubbed Obamacare, but pass them on directly to consumers to reduce deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket medical expenses for low-income people. Ending the subsidies, which are called cost-sharing reduction payments, could create chaos in the 2018 health insurance markets set up under Obamacare. Some leading insurers, including UnitedHealth Group, Aetna Inc and Humana Inc, have largely exited those markets, citing financial losses. Others including Anthem Inc have significantly reduced their presence in the state-based markets. Ryan gave no indication of willingness to consider the Alexander-Murray agreement. “The speaker does not see anything that changes his view that the Senate should keep its focus on repeal and replace of Obamacare,” Ryan spokesman Doug Andres said. The proposal drew broad Democratic support. Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer ripped Trump for his shifting stances on the Alexander-Murray deal. “This president cannot govern if, whenever the hard right frightens him and says: ‘Jump,’ he says: “How high?’” Schumer told reporters. “The president is pointing fingers,” Schumer said. “He blames (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell for obstruction. He blames the Democrats for obstruction. He’s the obstructionist in chief because he cannot stick to a position.” The proposal would meet some Democratic objectives, such as reviving subsidies for Obamacare and restoring $106 million in funding for a federal program that helps people enroll in insurance plans. In exchange, Republicans would get more flexibility for states to offer a wider variety of health insurance plans while maintaining the requirement that sick and healthy people be charged the same rates for coverage. Democratic attorneys general from 18 states and the District of Columbia who have filed a legal challenge to the subsidy cutoff asked a judge in California to direct the administration by Thursday to continue the payments. At a hearing on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco said he would likely rule on the states’ request next week. Murray, speaking to Reuters on Wednesday, said her agreement with Alexander was still very much alive. “Absolutely,” Murray said. “Lamar and I are working to have a good set of co-sponsors,” and hope to formally introduce it as a Senate bill on Thursday. | 0fake |
Trump Administration: Islamic State Defeat Remains Primary Focus in Syria - Breitbart | Defeating the Islamic State ( ) remains the United States’ primary goal in Syria, not toppling the country’s dictator Bashar according to officials in President Donald Trump’s administration. [Trump’s United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley suggested that U. S. regime change in Syria is likely. “Regime change is something that we think is going to happen, because all of the parties are going to see that Assad’s not the leader that needs to be taking place for Syria,” Haley told CNN. Some analysts and American lawmakers accused the Trump administration of sending mixed messages on its Syria policy, noting that while Haley indicated that getting rid of Assad is the administration’s priority, U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson maintained that the U. S. is focused on defeating ISIS. In separate interviews on Sunday, Tillerson and Trump’s national security adviser H. R. McMaster noted that the administration’s decision to bomb Assad last week is not a sign that America has shifted its primary focus from defeating ISIS to pushing the Syrian dictator from power. “Our priority is first the defeat of ISIS,” Tillerson told George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC News’s This Week on Sunday. “Once we can eliminate the battle against ISIS, conclude that — and it is going quite well — then we hope to turn our attention to agreements between the regime and opposition forces. ” Lt. Gen. McMaster agreed that defeating ISIS must come “first,” adding, “Then also, it has to be a significant change in the nature of the Assad regime and its behavior in particular. ” Asked about the alleged “mixed signals” on Trump’s Syria policy sent by Haley and the Tillerson, Lt. Gen. McMaster also told “Fox News Sunday” host, Chris Wallace: Both Secretary Tillerson and Ambassador Haley are right about this. What we really need to do, and what everyone who’s involved in this conflict needs to do is to do everything they can to resolve this civil war, to halt this humanitarian catastrophe, this political catastrophe, not only in Syria, but the catastrophe is affecting the greater Middle East, it’s affecting Europe and it’s a threat to the American people as well. And so, to do that, what’s required is some kind of a political solution to that very complex problem … we are not saying that we are the ones who are going to affect that change. Last week, President Trump ordered the U. S. military to strike an Assad base in northwestern Syria believed to have been housing the pilots who carried out a chemical weapons attack last Tuesday that killed as many as 100 people, including at least 27 children. Citing a senior U. S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Associated Press (AP) reports that Russia knew of last week’s chemical weapons assault in advance. “Russia’s got to tell us which one it is. Either they knew that there were chemical weapons and they knew there was going to be use and they just hid it from the international community, or they’re being played for fools by Assad by him having chemical weapons and they’re just in the dark and they don’t know anything about it,” declared Haley. Support from Iran and Russia has kept Assad in power. fighters, including members of the terrorist group Hezbollah, and Russian military forces are fighting alongside Assad troops. | 0fake |
Poland Steps Back From Stricter Anti-Abortion Law - The New York Times | WARSAW — After growing protests from Polish women and an embarrassing debate in the European Parliament, Poland’s governing party retreated Thursday from a proposed law that would have made virtually all abortions illegal. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the party, the Law and Justice Party, said that while the government agreed with the intent of such a law, it opposed the version proposed by an group. “Observing the social developments, we have come to a conclusion that this legislation will have an opposite effect to the one that was intended,” he said. “This is not the right way to proceed. ” The Polish government has clashed often with European Union officials, particularly over moves that effectively hobbled the country’s constitutional tribunal, the main check on the governing party. So the clash over abortion, a delicate social issue, was scrutinized throughout Europe for signs of how far Law and Justice could go in enacting its conservative agenda at a time of rising nationalism across the Continent. Poland already has among the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, providing exceptions only in cases of incest, rape, severely damaged fetuses and threats to the mother’s life. Three days after thousands of women dressed in black protested nationwide, 352 of the 428 lawmakers present in Poland’s lower house of Parliament voted against the proposal, which would have eliminated all of the exceptions but one: threat to the mother’s life. Tightening abortion laws has been a priority for the Catholic Church, which plays a powerful role in the country and is closely allied with Mr. Kaczynski’s party, which has a solid parliamentary majority. The vote came a day after a parliamentary body, the Justice and Human Rights Commission, surprised government opponents by voting not to support the legislation in Thursday’s second round of voting, presaging the measure’s defeat. The commission’s ruling was followed by 90 minutes of heated discussions that did not end until early Thursday. Stanislaw Tyszka, deputy marshal of the lower house of Parliament, ended the debate by scolding members. “You are behaving like mad monkeys,” he said. Law and Justice members had voted overwhelmingly to move the bill forward in the first round of voting last month, but party leaders had a change of heart. Party officials said they now objected to the bill in part because it would have punished women who received abortions, including potential prison terms. The bill also called for imprisoning doctors who performed abortions. Before Wednesday’s commission vote, the Conference of the Polish Episcopate posted a statement on its website saying that the church also does not support any legislation that calls for punishing women for having abortions. Krystyna Pawlowicz, a commission member and one of the governing party’s most outspoken politicians, posted on her Facebook page that the Episcopate’s position had effectively “authorized” the vote against the measure. Also on Wednesday, the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, held an emotional debate over the bill, a debate that Law and Justice had tried to avert as an intrusion into Poland’s sovereignty. Malin Björk, from Sweden’s Left Party, called the proposed law “a huge blow against women’s rights. ” Gianni Pittella, president of the European Parliament’s Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, said the legislation undercut European Union values “and threatens the right to health of women. ” Speakers for the Polish government said the debate should never have happened. “You are talking about something on which you don’t have the right to legislate,” said Jadwiga Wisniewska, a European Parliament member from Law and Justice. The government had insisted throughout the debate that the legislation had not been its project, but a proposal from citizen groups. Leaders of those groups reacted with outrage to what they saw as a betrayal. Joanna Banasiuk, a leader of Ordo Iuris, the group that had written the legislation, said that despite the anger, the organization would accept changing the measure to remove punishments for women. Another Ordo Iuris official, Mariusz Dzierzawski, took on the governing party’s leader directly. “Jaroslaw Kaczynski just honestly thinks that sick children should be aborted,” he said. Opposition politicians and leaders of the protests against the legislation were triumphant. “Kaczynski caved from the wrath of thousands of women,” said Marcelina Zawisza, from the Together Party that coordinated the street protests, on her Facebook page. “This is the first victorious battle in our fight for our dignity and rights. But the war is not over yet. ” Law and Justice officials said that the government intended to stick with the current law, for the time being, but was considering possible future changes. Prime Minister Beata Szydlo told Parliament just before Thursday’s vote that her government continued to believe that its main job was to protect human life from the moment of conception. She added that by the end of the year, the government would prepare a national program to support families with disabled children and women who give birth even after their fetuses have been found to have genetic disorders. Rafal Chwedoruk, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw, said the government was scrambling to do “damage control” over its miscalculation in pushing the issue. “This vote is obviously an attempt to put an end to this issue as soon and as painlessly as possible,” he said. | 0fake |
BOILER ROOM: As the Frogs Slowly Boil – EP #40 | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blogspot, ACR/21Wire contributor Randy J and Stewart Howe. In this broadcast we re going off the rails and off the cuffs, listeners will be hearing us go around the BOILER ROOM on a myriad of topics tonight including relief booths in the city, Sarah Palin s endorsement of Donald Trump, whether or not there is any hope in the political system, reported sexual assaults in Cologne, the Oregon standoff and El Chapo owning Fast and Furious weapons. If you want to participate, bring something interesting to throw into the boiler Join us in the ALTERNATE CURRENT RADIO chat room.BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! Live ACR player below Show goes live at 6 PM PSTThis week s topics: | 1real |
Donald Trump Vows to Create 25 Million Jobs Over Next Decade - The New York Times | Donald J. Trump unveiled a pledge on Thursday to create 25 million jobs over the next decade, but he offered few details on how he would achieve that ambitious goal as president. In remarks that may stir new consternation abroad, Mr. Trump told the Economic Club of New York that he would pay for his economic agenda in part by requiring allies to shoulder the full cost of American military resources deployed in their defense. Mr. Trump has long criticized the country’s defense arrangements, but on Thursday, he drew an uncommonly straight line between his promises and the “billions and billions of dollars” currently spent on “defending other people. ” He specifically mentioned Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea as “economic behemoths” that the United States should not pay to protect. “You could ask yourself, how long would Saudi Arabia even be there if we weren’t defending them?” Mr. Trump said in his speech. “And I think we should defend them, but we have to be compensated properly. ” He added, “I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear that. ” Speaking at the Waldorf Astoria, Mr. Trump largely reiterated a broad economic vision he outlined in Detroit last month, vowing to slash taxes on business and scale back federal regulations, and to redraft or void trade agreements he views as disadvantageous to the United States. But Mr. Trump’s remarks also underscored the opaque and improvisational nature of his policy agenda, which has been defined by a few grand promises but few concrete details. By putting a hard number on his promises — even if — Mr. Trump may be aiming to strengthen a campaign message that has been light on policy outside the issues of immigration and trade. And Mr. Trump has now twice revised his tax proposals during the campaign, first sharply scaling back plans for a $10 trillion tax cut and then, on Thursday, backing away from several ideas that drew criticism and mockery in the past. He partly rolled back his earlier proposals to reduce corporate taxation: Mr. Trump still proposes a 15 percent tax rate on corporate income, but it would no longer apply to business income reported on personal taxes, generally limiting the lower rate to the largest corporations. He also reduced a tax break that generated backlash because it would particularly benefit real estate developers. Mr. Trump also now proposes to cut federal taxes by $4. 4 trillion, not $10 trillion he insists the plan would ultimately cost the government only $2. 6 trillion in revenue, with the difference made up in economic growth. Mr. Trump spoke loosely and plainly enjoyed himself, repeatedly teasing the crowd about their own wealth and business ventures. He put his audience on notice that he would enlist some of them in government, to help renegotiate deals far larger than any they had dealt with before. “Hate to say it,” Mr. Trump joked, “but your companies are peanuts. ” But Mr. Trump also continued to cast himself as a champion of interests, and in his remarks invoked nostalgia for the heyday of the American auto industry, steel manufacturing and coal mining. And Mr. Trump attacked his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, for having described some of his supporters as “deplorables” for holding views she called bigoted. “My economic plan rejects the cynicism that says our labor force will keep declining, that our jobs will keep leaving and that our economy can never grow as it did once before,” Mr. Trump said. “And boy, oh boy, did it used to grow. ” Mr. Trump’s description of an economy growing more slowly than it did after World War II until 2000 is accurate. But his promise to return to that postwar growth rate and add 25 million jobs over the next decade would be difficult to attain, given the nation’s shifting demographics. Part of the downshift in the growth rate since 2000 was caused by a population that has grown less rapidly than in earlier eras. And that trend is unlikely to reverse, despite Mr. Trump’s criticism in his speech of “cynicism that our labor force will keep declining. ” The Congressional Budget Office projects employment will rise by 7. 1 million over current levels by 2026 amid an increase in the labor force of eight million people. In effect, to add 25 million jobs by then, the number of people who seek to work would have to increase more than three times as much as the economists at the budget office think likely. One way would be to encourage more Americans who neither work nor look for work to do so. This group includes parents and those who see few possibilities in the work force, and their numbers have risen substantially since 2008. But even if the percentage of working to returned to its peak of the spring of 2000, that would add only about 5. 2 million more potential workers compared with current levels. Another way would be to encourage people to retire later, extending the length of their careers. A third option would be to increase immigration levels sharply over the next decade so there are more potential workers born elsewhere. Beyond promising to put many more people to work, Mr. Trump pledged to attain 3. 5 percent annual growth in gross domestic product over the next decade — versus the 2 percent that has been routine in recent years and that the Congressional Budget Office projects for the decade ahead such growth would require a steep increase in businesses’ productivity. While not articulated in these terms, his plan imagines that the slump in productivity will reverse itself if Mr. Trump’s agenda of lighter regulation and lower taxes was put into effect. The revised version of Mr. Trump’s tax plan would still substantially reduce federal taxation, replacing seven tax brackets with three and taxing most income at lower rates. Under the plan, a married couple with $50, 000 in taxable income would pay 12 percent in taxes, or $6, 000, rather than 13 percent, or $6, 572, under current law. Families with more income would save more. The top tax rate would drop to 33 percent from 39. 6 percent. More Americans would avoid paying taxes entirely, although not as many as under Mr. Trump’s earlier proposal. Mr. Trump said he wanted a $30, 000 standard deduction for married couples instead of the $50, 000 in his last plan. He also proposed a new limit of $200, 000 on deductions by wealthy couples. Mr. Trump’s proposals drew a friendly reception from his audience, particularly for his plan to reduce taxation on businesses. But he also offered reminders of the distance that separates him from many of the financiers and business leaders who typically fund Republican campaigns. He repeatedly attacked foreign trade in harsh language, and for the second time this week questioned the independence and legitimacy of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Trump charged that rather than simply doing what is right for the economy, the Fed made “the political decision every single time. ” And there was perhaps a subtler reminder of the divisive nature of Mr. Trump’s campaign: Terry J. Lundgren, the chief executive of Macy’s and the chairman of the Economic Club of New York, did not attend the speech. Under Mr. Lundgren, Macy’s pulled merchandise from its shelves last year, after Mr. Trump — who retaliated by repeatedly taunting Mr. Lundgren from the campaign trail — described undocumented immigrants from Mexico as rapists and drug smugglers. | 0fake |
Paris Turns to Flower-Growing Toilet to Fight Public Urination - The New York Times | In cities the world over, men (and, to a lesser extent, women) who urinate in the street — al fresco — are a scourge of urban life, costing millions of dollars for cleaning and the repair of damage to public infrastructure. And, oh, the stench. Now, Paris has a new weapon against what the French call “les pipis sauvages” or “wild peeing”: a sleek and public toilet. Befitting the country of Matisse, the urinal looks more like a modernist flower box than a receptacle for human waste. You can even grow flowers in its compost. The Parisian innovation was spurred by a problem of public urination so endemic that City Hall recently proposed dispatching a nearly “incivility brigade” of officers to try to prevent bad behavior, which also includes leaving dog waste on the street and littering cigarette butts. Fines for public urination are steep — about $75. Even that was not deterrent enough, officials say. A small brigade of sanitation workers still has to scrub about 1, 800 miles of sidewalk each day. And dozens of surfaces are splattered by urine, according to City Hall. Enter the boxy Uritrottoir — a combination of the French words for “urinal” and “pavement” — which has grabbed headlines and has already been lauded as a “friend of flowers” by Le Figaro, the French newspaper, because it produces compost that can be used for fertilizer. Designed by Faltazi, a industrial design firm, its top section also doubles as an attractive flower or plant holder. The Uritrottoir, which has paint and does not use water, works by storing urine on a bed of dry straw, sawdust or wood chips. Monitored remotely by a “urine attendant” who can see on a computer when the toilet is full, the urine and straw is carted away to the outskirts of Paris, where it is turned into compost that can later be used in public gardens or parks. Fabien Esculier, an engineer who is known in the French media as “Monsieur Pipi” because of his expertise on the subject, said the Uritrottoir was more than the dozens of existing public toilets which dot the capital and are connected to the public sewage system. “Its greatest virtue is that it doesn’t use water, and produces compost that can be used for public gardens and parks,” he said. So far, Paris’s Gare de Lyon, a railway station that has become ground zero in the capital’s war against public urination, has ordered two of the toilets, which were installed on Tuesday outside the station, and the SNCF, France’s national railway, says it plans to roll out more across the capital if the Uritrottoir is a success. “I am optimistic it will work,” said Maxime Bourette, the SNCF maintenance official who ordered the toilets for the railway. “Everyone is tired of the mess. ” He said it remained to be seen whether the toilets were cost effective — he said the SNCF paid about $9, 730 for two, while it would cost about $865 a month to pay a sanitation worker to clean the toilets and take away the waste. A designer of the Uritrottoir, Laurent Lebot, 45, an industrial engineer who has also invented an vacuum cleaner, said Nantes, in western France, had ordered three for the spring. He had also had inquiries from local councils in Cannes, France Lausanne, Switzerland London and Saarbrücken, Germany. A large model can handle the outflow of 600 people a smaller model absorbs 300 trips to the toilet. “Public urination is a huge problem in France,” Mr. Lebot said. “Beyond the terrible smell, urine degrades lamp posts and telephone poles, damages cars, pollutes the Seine and undermines everyday life of a city. Cleaning up wastes water, and detergents are damaging for the environment. ” France is far from alone in combating public urination. In San Francisco, a street lamp whose base was damaged by urine recently collapsed, almost injuring a driver. The city has since installed public urinals adorned by plants. New York has also long suffered from drunken urinating revelers, but the City Council recently downgraded the offense, along with littering and excessive noise, as part of its effort to divert minor offenders from its already overstretched court system. Nevertheless, offenders face a fine of $350 to $450 if they commit a third offense within a year. In Chester, northwest England, the local government has clamped down on public urination amid concerns it was damaging the city’s medieval covered walkways. In France, the acrid smell of urine has been a particular blight on the nation’s capital stretching back centuries, and Mr. Lebot noted that the carbon of the straw had the added benefit of combating the odor of urine. His next challenge, he added, was to design an aesthetically pleasing public toilet that women could use. Among the steepest fines for an act of public urination — about $37, 500 — was meted out to Pierre Pinoncelli, a French citizen who urinated on the artist Marcel Duchamp’s Dadaist porcelain urinal “Fountain” in 1993 — considered a masterpiece of conceptual art — before hitting it with a hammer. In 2006, he was fined about $230, 000 after he attacked the artwork a second time. | 0fake |
Putin: "Russia Is Not Going to Attack Anyone" | ( ANTIWAR ) Complaining about Western “hysteria” surrounding repeated predictions of Russian military attacks on NATO member nations, Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to resolve two solid years of predictions to that effect with a straightforward assurance that “ Russia is not going to attack anyone .” Putin accused Western nations of having “mythical, dreamt-up problems,” and insisted the idea that Russia was going to attack the West was “ simply stupid and unrealistic .” He added that he believes the idea is being played up to justify bigger military spending.
The Russian president also sought to dismiss allegations that he is plotting to rig the US elections to his own benefit, noting that the US is a great power and not some banana republic with an easily manipulated political system. Russia has repeatedly denied involvement in such plots.
NATO has played up the Russian threat to justify sending over 40,000 ground troops to the Russian border, with ever-growing numbers announced all the time. Such predictions started after the ouster of a pro-Russian government in Ukraine led to a civil war in that country’s east, with NATO military leaders repeatedly predicting Russian tanks rolling across Ukraine into NATO countries. | 1real |
How the next few weeks could determine the fate of Obama’s legacy | June is shaping up as a time of reckoning for President Obama — and his legacy.
Over the next three weeks, he could record significant wins on three of his most ambitious initiatives. Or have each of them blow up in his face.
And those outcomes are largely outside of the president’s control.
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers in the House are nearing a make-or-break vote on Obama’s broad Pacific Rim free trade deal with 11 other countries. At the Supreme Court, the nine justices will soon rule on a crucial provision in the president’s landmark 2010 health-care law, with the insurance plans of more than 6 million people in the balance. And in Geneva, U.S. and Iranian diplomats face a June 30 deadline to announce a deal on the future of Tehran’s nuclear program.
A string of victories would provide the administration political momentum heading into the final stretch of Obama’s presidency, as he begins to frame the story of his administration after years of fierce combat with Republicans. A string of losses would undermine the White House’s message of transformational progress just as the 2016 campaign for his successor heats up and his presidency is examined in the crucible of an election season.
“This is a consequential time for the administration,” said Simon Rosenberg, founder of NDN, a liberal think tank. “It’s reflective of the fact that Obama has been a very ambitious president, which sometimes runs counter to the D.C. media narrative.”
The hurdles facing the administration are distinct and unpredictable, and inside the West Wing, Obama aides, who said it reflects the extent to which the president is still driving the country’s political agenda, have compartmentalized their fight on each front. Teams of policy experts and political advisers are plotting strategies and working through various contingencies independently.
“It’s going to be a busy summer,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest, adding officials had “already expended significant political capital” in an effort to achieve some of these priorities.
But White House allies acknowledged that the president and his advisers are acutely aware of the stakes. The health-care law is considered Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, the trade accord is central to his economic agenda, and the Iran nuclear deal could reshape the security environment in the Middle East and stand as his defining foreign policy success.
“People are conscious of it. These are hugely consequential inflection points on the substance of his presidency,” said one former White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss his former colleagues freely.
Julie Smith, a former national security adviser to Vice President Biden, called the summer “determinative” for the president’s agenda. “A lot of what hangs in the balance will be determined in the next couple of weeks,” she said.
Obama has projected confidence as he wields the powers of the presidency to influence the debate where he can. He invited a handful of Democratic lawmakers who support his trade initiative to accompany him on Air Force One to a summit with European leaders in Germany this week.
The House plans to vote by next week on legislation, which the Senate has approved, that would give Obama additional authority to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The president has called the accord a linchpin in his bid to ensure that the United States remains the world’s dominant economic power in the face of China’s rise.
[READ: The odd bedfellows in the push for trade passage in the House]
It marks a rare chance for Obama to show he can work with the GOP, which largely supports his push, but he faces intense opposition from labor unions and progressive Democrats.
“I’m not going to hypothesize about not getting it done,” he said Monday during a news conference in Germany. “I intend to get it done.”
On health care, Obama was equally defiant. The Supreme Court is considering in King v. Burwell whether to strike down government subsidies for people who purchase coverage on the federal health insurance exchange. Obama on Monday called such an interpretation a “contorted reading” of the Affordable Care Act, and added that the case “probably shouldn’t have even been taken up” by the court.
The administration has insisted that there is no backup plan if the court strikes down the subsidies, which could force 6.4 million Americans to lose their insurance. Both sides on Capitol Hill are preparing for a political blame game if that happens. During an appearance Tuesday at the Catholic Health Association in Washington, Obama cast the health law as “woven into the fabric of America.”
“There’s something deeply cynical about the ceaseless partisan attempts to roll back progress,” he said. “You’d think it was time to move on.”
If the court guts the law, “it would be a terrible thing,” said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “But from the perspective of the parties, it would completely galvanize Democrats to make the Supreme Court a massive issue in the election.”
On the flip side, a loss for Obama in the courts would buoy Republicans who have denounced the law as a costly program that will impede the nation’s economic growth.
“Instead of jousting with reality again, perhaps he’ll consider the concerns of the constituents who write in every day to tell us how this law is hurting them,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday.
One of the president’s top legacy items got a legal reprieve Tuesday, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected state and industry challenges to a proposed rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants as premature.
The issue of Iran’s nuclear capability also came up during Obama’s meetings in Germany. White House aides have emphasized that he does not consider the June 30 deadline a soft target that could be pushed back more than a few days if an agreement is still being finalized.
“Iran has a historic opportunity to resolve the international community’s concerns about its nuclear program, and we agreed that Iran needs to seize that opportunity,” Obama said after meeting with his European counterparts.
The president has invested significant political capital in preserving the framework of the tentative deal that would scale back Tehran’s nuclear program for 10 to 15 years, slowing Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon, according to the administration. Republicans and some Democrats, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have denounced the agreement and argued that Washington is foolish to trust Tehran.
Robert Dallek, a presidential historian, said that no matter how these initiatives fare over the next several weeks, it will take years to evaluate whether Obama ultimately achieves his policy goals. Still, Dallek said, presidents naturally become more preoccupied with their legacy as they approach the end of their second term.
“They’re very mindful of what history’s going to say about them, and they’re eager to shape how history views them,” he said.
And for White House staff members, who have experienced significant turnover, the ticking clock adds to the anxiety as they race to lock in the president’s most ambitious initiatives.
“People who have been there a long time start thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I wish we could get this over with,’ ” said Joseph Hagin, who served as deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2008. “People are tired, people are leaving, and it’s depressing to the people who are staying. It’s really this summer when people start to realize it’s coming to a close. But you’ve still got to be on your game.” | 0fake |
OKLAHOMA LAWMAKER BLASTED FOR SAYING: “Shouldn’t Mosques Be Removed After 911 by ANTIFA Logic?” [VIDEO] | Oklahoma State Rep. John Bennett made a comment on Facebook that was has since been removed after local Muslims didn t see any moral equivalency between removing Mosques after 9/11 and removing Confederate statues. Everyone freaked out about his comment even the governor of Oklahoma. We d like to know what you think See below for more info on this Patriot!OKLAHOMA CITY A Facebook post by an Oklahoma lawmaker is receiving a lot of attention after the post suggested removing mosques from America.The post by Rep. John Bennett suggests that if Confederate monuments are being removed because of the Civil War, mosques should also be removed due to 9/11. If we re removing Confederate monuments after the Civil War, I think we should also be removing mosques after 9/11, his Facebook post said. It is not an idol. It s a place where serve the poor, take care of the hungry and cure the sick. Making this association is extremely irrational, said Imad Enchassi with the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City. This is a place where American Muslims, Oklahoma Muslims, proudly serve fellow Oklahomans. The post has since been taken down.NO FREE SPEECH ALLOWED We re all supposed to just fall in line with what we re told TRUTH IS THE NEW HATE SPEECH Bennett is one smart cookie! He called for a suspension of Syrian refugees way back in November of 2015:SALLISAW, OK State Rep. John Bennett, Sallisaw-02 (R) has called on Governor Fallin to suspend Oklahoma s effort in resettling Syrian refugees in Oklahoma. According to the New York Times article on October 21, 2015, there have been dozens of Syrian refugees settled in Jenks, OK since 2012, said Bennett. What s disturbing is that when I contacted the Jenks Police Department about this issue, they advised that the New York Times article was the first time anyone in their office knew about these resettlements. Bennett continued, Given the light of the Paris attacks and that some of the terrorists arrived in France as Syrian refugees, I am calling on Governor Fallin to immediately suspend any current plans to relocate Syrian refugees in Jenks or elsewhere in Oklahoma and to identify those that have arrived under the relocation program since 2012. Via: Forty Six NewsThis is the kind of lawmaker trying to protect the people from terrorism Bravo! | 1real |
Kendall Jenner Was Nice To A Police Officer In A Pepsi Ad, And The Left Is Mad - Breitbart | Pepsi is in trouble with the left. The diabetes sugary beverage company recently released an ad featuring Kendall Jenner as a protester, handing a can of Pepsi to a police officer during a rally. The left doesn’t like this because, apparently, you should never be nice to a policeman.[ If anything, the outrage from the left shows that leftist activists don’t know the history of their own movement. Photos of peace activists handing flowers to riot police were among the most iconic images of the 1960s, and became a common theme in subsequent demonstrations. Some are claiming that the ad was inspired by this photo from a Black Lives Matter protest. But images of protesters handing gifts to police officers have appeared so often in history that it could have been inspired by any one of them. Black Lives Matter activist and noted Jack Dorsey pal DeRay Mckesson was also offended by Pepsi’s ad, taking to his favorite social network to denounce it as “trash. ” If I had carried Pepsi I guess I never would’ve gotten arrested. Who knew? — deray mckesson (@deray) April 5, 2017, Mckesson was smart enough not to accuse Pepsi of trying to leverage social movements for private gain. Mckesson, we must remember, has used his Twitter account to hawk everything from Verizon data plans to Doritos. I just changed my @Verizon plan to the newly released Unlimited Plan. It’s a . #VZunlimited, — deray mckesson (@deray) February 13, 2017, Rainbow Doritos are a tasty way to support LGBT causes ”https: . ”>September 17, 2015, Deray has denied that these tweets are sponsored, at least in the case of Verizon. I guess that settles the matter then. Nothing to see here, folks! McDonald’s breakfast is coming, beginning Oct. 6th ”https: . ”>September 1, 2015, The new Dove men’s deodorant is the best I’ve ever used. Hands down. — deray mckesson (@deray) May 4, 2012, ACtivism pic. twitter. — Alex Nichols (@Lowenaffchen) September 28, 2015, Of course, it’s possible that Mckesson is telling the truth. Perhaps he really is just the most person on Twitter. At this point, though, I’m only surprised he hasn’t sold advertising on his vest like a NASCAR driver, Putting aside Mckesson’s unbridled love for mass market brands however, the wider outrage over Pepsi’s ad just doesn’t make sense. Over the past two decades, politics on the left has become a form of LARPing. (LARPing, or Roleplaying, is where people play as superheroes, like Green Arrow, Batman, or Gandhi). As early as the 1970s, activists were serious about achieving their political objectives. They were willing to kill, die, and go to jail in pursuit of their political ideals. They were brutal, immoral and deeply misguided, but they were also serious. Modern activism is nothing like that. It’s still violent, yes, but the masked “ ” burning down campuses and beating up Trump supporters show no willingness to accept that they may face consequences for their actions. Nor do they show any signs of the Weather Underground or the Baader Meinhof faction’s plans for the radical overthrow of western society. Involvement in activism, today, is not about remaking society or achieving political utopia. Today, it’s about : demonstrating to your peers and to society at large that you’re not a racist, not a sexist, not a homophobe, and so on. It’s about showing how bold and edgy you are. The masked protesters who threw firebombs at Berkeley were probably thinking less of how their actions would lead to a better world, and more about the cheers of approval they’d get from their buddies. In short, it’s about being cool. Celebrities — like Kendall Jenner — have encouraged this perhaps more than any other group. from Hollywood stars and pop singers has become so routine that when Lady Gaga didn’t attack Donald Trump during her Super Bowl performance, the left reacted with shock. A singer who simply sings, without making political statements, has become difficult to comprehend. Brands too, are relentlessly pressured by the left to endorse their cultural values. CEOs with conservative political values, like Brendan Eich, do not last. In ’s case, the CEO’s opposition to marriage was enough to spark a nationwide boycott. The presence of a single open Trump supporter, Peter Thiel, on Facebook’s board of directors, has led the left to agitate for his removal. Because of these twin pressures: to be seen as cool, and to avoid controversy, it has become impossible for brands not to be progressive. The left has made its values a path to social status, and instinctively kicks up a controversy when they are not respected. Faced with this, brands don’t have a choice. Pepsi was trying to suck up to leftists with its ad, not upset them. That much is clear from their grovelling apology and pledge to remove the ad following the outrage: Pepsi’s statement. pic. twitter. — Jennifer Maloney (@maloneyfiles) April 5, 2017, The left has made it impossible for brands to demonstrate any values other than progressive ones. In the case of celebrities, not demonstrating progressive values is seen as unusual. It is utterly surprising that Pepsi, and Kendall Jenner would kowtow to those values. Which, again, leads me back to the point I made at the start of this piece: It’s not a problem for the left that Kendall Jenner dressed as a protester to hawk Pepsi. It’s that she was nice to a police officer while doing so. You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitter and add him on Facebook. Email tips and suggestions to abokhari@breitbart. com. | 0fake |
HILLARY: “Trump Is Offensive To Women, But So Are Rubio And The Rest” | Really Hillary? Why don t you tell us about men who are offensive to women Donald Trump s remarks about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly are offensive, but the rest of the Republican field is equally offensive, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday. What Donald Trump said about Megyn Kelly is outrageous, but what the rest of the Republicans are saying about all women is also outrageous, Clinton said. They brag about slashing health-care funding, they say they would force women who have been raped to carry their rapist s child, and fail to put forward proposals that would help women earn equal pay. I think the guy went way overboard. Offensive, outrageous, pick your adjective, Clinton told reporters following a campaign event here focused on making college more affordable.*(*She really meant forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for free college for every American and illegal alien as a means for her to get the youth vote)Via: Washington PostAnd then there s that whole underage sex scandal where Bill was named as being an active participant with pedophile pal and donor, Jeffrey Epstein by former teen sex slave. No war on women here | 1real |
NATIONAL REVIEW, Conservatism Inc., Plan to Cave EVEN MORE On Immigration! | => A tsunami is a natural phenomenon. Mass immigration is government policy. Credit: VDare.com.
Conservatives are fond of saying, “Being a liberal means never having to say you’re sorry. ” Unfortunately, the same is true of Conservatism Inc. functionaries. They acknowledge conservatives are facing demographic extinction. They admit it is happening because of immigration. But they refuse to listen to the very people who warned them about this. Instead, they will continue skipping towards annihilation and drag the entire country with them.
Exhibit A: the recent cover story from National Review telling us, once again, how Republicans need to “adapt to a diversifying electorate or lose their influence” [ Can the GOP Overcome Demographic Change in Red States , by Tim Alberta, [ ]November 7 2016].
Incredibly, the hook of the story is the tale of an American couple who used to live in California before fleeing the state.
The state had been overrun, first by immigrants legal and illegal, their cultures and traditions in tow, and then by liberal politicians who seized control of the government by catering to these constituencies and turning their communities into Democratic garrisons. The state became majority-minority in 2001; whites are now 39 percent of its population and dwindling. In turn, the GOP is essentially extinct, representing conservative enclaves around California but irrelevant in statewide elections.
They fled to Arizona, but the same process of ethnic cleansing via mass immigration is underway there as well. So they are supporting Donald Trump in order to stop it.
Needless to say, author Alberta does not sympathize with their solution.
But Trump cannot deliver that; nobody can. The country will soon look very different. And the biggest contributor to that change—the single trend that could propel the GOP toward oblivion—is the ethnic diversification of the electorate.
Alberta’s brilliant suggestion: Republicans need to somehow win the votes of the very people this couple is fleeing from! Here's my @NRO cover story on America's demographic transformation and the dire implications for Donald Trump's GOP https://t.co/mMa98v1QLI pic.twitter.com/FYUTOkvcoi
— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) October 31, 2016
What makes this even more amazing is that Alberta acknowledges Republican failure to win a majority of non-white voters anywhere in the country.
He suggests there’s hope for Republicans in Texas. But as Steve Sailer has shown , the strong state identity and white bloc voting suggests Texas is a unique state, and even in this best-case example, Romney only won 37 percent of the Hispanic vote. Alberta also suggests Florida. But here too, it is older Cuban Hispanics who vote Republican, a declining demographic relative to the larger “Latino” community.
Alberta blandly blames the GOP for trying to “repel non-whites.” And as an example of someone who is doing the opposite and somehow winning over this demographic, Alberta points to…Paul Ryan!
Ryan, for example, has toured the nation’s poorest neighborhoods and met with community leaders to craft anti-poverty proposals, and has long been a supporter of comprehensive immigration reform.
But this isn’t a new idea. It’s just another attempt at “Jack Kemp conservatism,” which spectacularly failed to win minority support or even enough white votes . And despite Ryan’s boasting about opposing Prop. 187 , Hispanics don’t support Republicans who favor mass immigration. Even Alberta admits Ronald Reagan’s share of the Hispanic vote actually declined from 37 percent to 30 percent after he passed the nation-destroying 1986 Amnesty.
The central problem is something Alberta doesn’t mention at all, let alone confront. Non-whites do not want conservatism . They have nothing to gain from it. The black middle and upper classes (and its exemplars like Michelle Obama ) are a creation of Affirmative Action. Hispanics favor liberal economic policies by larger margins than they favor more immigration. Arabs are eager to jettison their supposed “white privilege” so they can get government benefits too.
At some point, one of these Beltway Right shills has to show some evidence— any evidence—that babbling about “enterprise zones” or an “opportunity society” actually wins over minority voters.
Why would any of these people want “limited government” when they can get handouts, privileged treatment and tributes to their tribal identities? Why would they want to assimilate to an “American” identity which is fundamentally a creation of European-Americans when they can receive more psychological and financial benefits from claiming they are the victims of racism and “white privilege?”
The demographic death spiral was not necessary. After all, Peter Brimelow warned conservatives ( in National Review!) that it was “ Time To Rethink Immigration ” back in 1992. He and Edwin S. Rubenstein told conservatives “demography is destiny” and broke down exactly what i mmigration would do to the Reagan coalition in their 1997 “ Electing A New People ,” also a National Review cover story (!) . But, as Brimelow noted when VDARE.com reposted the piece in 2000, the response was silence, without anyone even addressing the argument.
As we see from Alberta’s article, the silence continues when it comes to grappling with hard realities. William F. Buckley and the “ movement ” he created “ simply did not have the energy or the courage to adapt to the next generation of issues ” following the election of Ronald Reagan.
However, that “movement” was not idle when it came to purging the people who understood what was happening. Peter Brimelow , John O’Sullivan , Sam Francis , Patrick J. Buchanan and many others who accurately predicted what was coming were driven out of the Respectable Right. And Conservatism Inc. is left with people who not only won’t, but can’t intelligently interpret what is happening [ The Intellectual Rot at the Heart of the Beltway Right , by Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, April 9, 2016].
Alberta expresses the deluded hope that conservatives can, contra Brimelow’s warning, prevent demographics from becoming destiny. In contrast, despite the silly rhetoric about “Stronger Together,” progressives are refreshingly frank about their desire to use engineered population transfers to ensure liberal hegemony. “Ensure demographics is destiny” is one of the major strategic objectives listed by John Podesta in a memo given to a group of liberal billionaires in late 2007 [ Revealed: Liberal Money’s Longterm Strategy To Control Public Opinion And Secure ‘Advantageous’ Demographics , by Peter Hasson, Daily Caller, November 2, 2016].
Podesta boasts about an “emerging progressive majority” featuring “communities of color.” He confidently describes blacks as the Democrats’ “most reliable voting bloc” but speaks about Latinos in some detail. And, interestingly, he dismisses the mystical “ Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote” poll which many Beltway Right operatives evidently still believe .
Considered a swing group by many analysts, Latinos appear to have become much more Democratic over the Bush years. In the 2004 election, it was initially reported that they gave Bush 44 percent of their vote. However, the exit poll is now widely acknowledged to have been flawed and the generally accepted estimate is that Kerry carried Hispanics 58 percent compared to Bush’s 40 percent… Latino support for the Democrats appeared to go up substantially in 2006, with the group as a whole favoring Democrats by a 69 to 30 percent margin. The rapid increase in demographic importance of Latinos will continue for decades.
What can Conservatism Inc. do in response? Winning over minority voters with Paul Ryan-style strategies isn’t something that has never been tried: it has already been tried, and it failed.
But this demographic change is not a natural process. It’s the result of deliberate government policies and could be easily reversed. Even Mitt Romney acknowledged this with his fleeting reference to “self-deportation.” If conservatives want to save their movement, and the country, they need to change the demographic facts on the ground.
Of course, this is much harder than stopping America from becoming majority minority to begin with. But Conservatism Inc. wouldn’t listen. Now it has a much more serious challenge to deal with—one which will remain no matter how much wishful thinking Beltway hacks engage in. Still, acknowledging you have a problem is a first step towards solving it.
Perhaps at this late hour Conservatism Inc. could try heeding the warnings, and the proposed solutions, of those they cast into the outer darkness. If they don’t, conservatives, and the country, will face extinction. And they will have no one to blame but themselves.
A word to National Review . Don’t call it a grave. It’s the future you chose.
James Kirkpatrick [ him ] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc. (Reprinted from VDare.com by permission of author or representative) | 1real |
Canadian pastor escaped execution due to foreign citizenship: CBC | TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian pastor whom North Korea released this month after two years of imprisonment escaped execution and torture during his captivity because of his nationality, he told CBC News in his first interview since his return. Hyeon Soo Lim, the pastor from Toronto, said in an interview broadcast on Saturday that he was never harmed and that he would not hesitate to go back to North Korea if the country allowed him. A transcript of the interview was posted on the Canadian public broadcaster s website. If I m just Korean, maybe they kill me, Lim said. I m Canadian so they cannot, because they cannot kill the foreigners. Lim, formerly the senior pastor at one of Canada s largest churches, had disappeared on a mission to North Korea in early 2015. He was sentenced to hard labor for life in December 2015 on charges of attempting to overthrow the Pyongyang regime. He said North Korea treated him well despite forcing him to dig holes and break coal by hand all day in a labor camp. Lim told CBC News that he was coached and coerced into confessing that he traveled under the guise of humanitarian work as part of a subversive plot to overthrow the government and set up a religious state. North Korea let him go on humanitarian grounds. The announcement came during heightened tensions between Washington and Pyongyang, although authorities have not said there was any connection between his release and efforts to defuse the standoff over North Korea s nuclear program. Lim said he felt no anger at the Kim Jong Un regime for sentencing him to prison. No, I thanked North Korea, he said. I forgive them. | 0fake |
Ted Cruz’s Bitter End - The New York Times | If you listened much to Ted Cruz over these last furious months, you heard him talk frequently about “the abyss,” as in what this country was teetering on the edge of. If you listened to him over these last furious hours, you heard him mention the “yawning cavern of insecurity” that motivates Donald Trump and other bullies. Cruz should take up spelunking. He’s obviously fascinated by unfathomable depths, and with his loss in Indiana on Tuesday, his candidacy for the presidency is finished, giving him a whole lot of extra time. A new hobby is definitely in order. As we bid Cruz adieu, we should give him his due: He took a mien and manner spectacularly ill suited to the art of seducing voters about as far as they could go. He outlasted the likes of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. He outperformed Rick Santorum in 2012 and Mike Huckabee in 2008. Like him, Santorum and Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses and built from there, courting the religious right with particular fervor. But they lacked the intensity of Cruz’s professed disdain for Washington, which was his other big sales pitch, made at its moment of maximum potency. He peddled extravagant piety and extreme contempt in equal measure. If that sounds paradoxical, it is, and the tension between contradictory Cruzes is what ultimately did him in. He spoke out of both sides of his scowl, itching to be the voice of the common man but equally eager to demonstrate what a highfalutin, intellect he possessed. He wed a populist message to a plummy vocabulary. And while the line separating smart and smart aleck isn’t all that thin or blurry, he never could stay on the winning side of it. He wore cowboy boots, but his favorites are made of ostrich. Two peacocks in a pod, he and Trump, and what ghastly plumage they showed on Tuesday. Trump somehow saw fit to bring up a National Enquirer story linking Cruz’s father to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Cruz exploded, branding Trump a “pathological liar” and “serial philanderer. ” He also brought up an interview from many years ago in which Trump told Howard Stern that his effort to steer clear of sexually transmitted diseases was his “personal Vietnam. ” Where was this rant six months ago, when the Republican field was crowded and Cruz played footsie with Trump? Back then he was wagering that Trump would fade, and he wanted to be in a friendly position to inherit the billionaire’s supporters. But by Tuesday, Trump was the main obstacle between Cruz and the Republican presidential nomination, and Cruz has just one true compass: his own advancement. The nakedness of his vanity and transparency of his ambition were always his biggest problem. He routinely excoriated other politicians for while repeatedly hogging center stage, his remarks interminable — after his Iowa victory, for example, or when he presumptuously introduced Carly Fiorina as his running mate — and his pauses so theatrically drawn out that you could watch the entirety of “The Revenant” during some of them. He trashed “the establishment” and wore its rejection of him as a badge of honor only until it stopped rejecting him and its help was his best hope to wrest the nomination away from Trump. At that point he did dizzy cartwheels over every prominent endorsement that came his way. He took great pride in an adversarial relationship with the media, decreeing us irrelevant, until he went in hunt of a fresh excuse for losing to Trump and decided over the last few days that it was all our fault. We didn’t matter and then we did, depending on which estimation flattered him. He purported to be more than his peers but pettily mocked Michelle Obama for urging schoolchildren to eat leafy greens. When Heidi Cruz is first lady, he pledged, “French fries are coming back to the cafeteria. ” Heidi Cruz is not going to be first lady, so she’ll need some other platform for the promotion of calorie bombs and second chins. And where in her husband was the humility that a Christian faith as frequently proclaimed as his should encompass? It wasn’t evident when he stormed into the Senate in early 2013, an upstart intent on upstaging the veterans. There were flickers of it on Tuesday night, as he conceded defeat not just in Indiana but in the presidential contest, announcing that he was suspending his campaign “with a heavy heart. ” He articulated gratitude to those Americans — no small number of them — who had buoyed him. He went overboard in his praise of Fiorina, merely reminding us all of what an odd and oddly timed alliance theirs was. “An incredible, phenomenal running mate,” he called her, as if they’d been on some epic journey. It was less than a week long. How many phenomena could she accomplish in that time? He left Trump out of his remarks. There were no congratulations. There was no indication of whether he’d publicly back Trump in the months to come. There was nothing to purge the memory of what he’d said earlier Tuesday, when he described Trump as “a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country has ever seen. ” Yes, we have, and so has he, every day, in the mirror. That’s why he’ll undoubtedly be back to try for the presidency again. But this bid is moribund. It’s time for Cruz to rest in peevishness. | 0fake |
U.S. says North Korea's nuclear ambitions on table in China talks | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to use upcoming talks with top Chinese officials to discuss ways to bring greater pressure to bear on North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday. “The outcome that we’re looking for is North Korean agreement to negotiate the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel told reporters. “We have a vastly improved chance of getting that with China’s full cooperation, and we intend to use the (U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue) to game out how we can speed up the outcome that we’re both working to achieve,” he said. | 0fake |
Henningsen: Obama White House Colluded with Facebook to Fabricate ‘Russian Bot’ Conspiracy | WASHINGTON DC This week the Senate Intelligence Committee finally gave an update on its continuing investigation into whether Russia actually had anything to do with the 2016 Election. If anyone was expecting any actual evidence to be presented, they would have been sorely disappointed, again. Still, that s not going to stop Official Washington from burning though more public money to try and prove a conspiracy theory. The issue of collusion is still open, said committee chairman, Richard Burr of North Carolina (R). We have more work to do as it relates to collusion, but we re developing a clearer picture of what happened. Likewise, the committee s ranking Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, admitted they had nothing, but implored Americans to be on guard of the Russian. The Russian active measures did not end on Election Day 2016, said Warner. He maintains that the US should adopt a more aggressive whole government approach to combat Russian influence on the vulnerable minds of unsuspecting Americans.However, yesterday 21WIRE revealed via Consortium News that it was Senator Warner, along with the Obama White House, who colluded with Silicon Valley giant Facebook in 2016, with Warner making multiple trips to Palo Alto to pressure Facebook to produce some evidence that Warner and his colleagues could hold up as proof of Russian Bots using Facebook to interfere in the 2016 Election. As it turns out, this was fake news fabricated by Washington and its mainstream media partners.21WIRE editor Patrick Henningsen spoke to RT International yesterday about these developments, and how the US government is using their own fake news in order to shut down competition in the information sphere. By definition, that collusion between big government and corporations is classic fascism. Watch:. What I will confirm is that the Russian intelligence service is determined, clever, Senator Burr said. And I recommend that every campaign and every election official take this very seriously. Russiagate has really turned into a Vaudeville act.READ MORE RUSSIAGATE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Russiagate FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 1real |
NFL Commissioner Goodell Affirms Gambling Ban Despite Raiders Move to Vegas - Breitbart | Despite the recent move of the Raiders from California to gambling mecca Las Vegas, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has reaffirmed the league’s stance against gambling. [With the move to Vegas and the growth of sports betting websites such as Draft Kings, many have wondered just how hard the NFL will continue the fight to restrict gambling. But, Goodell’s recent comments seem to answer that question, at least for now, USA Today reports. “I would probably tell you that I think society has probably had a little bit of a change with respect to gambling in general,” Goodell said at the league’s annual meeting in Arizona on Tuesday. “I think we still strongly oppose it in that room, and otherwise, legalized sports gambling. The integrity of our game is No. 1. We will not compromise on that. ” Even with that negative assessment, Goodell did admit that Vegas isn’t the same, crooked city it once was. “But I also believe that Las Vegas is not the same city it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. It’s a much more diverse city. It has become an entertainment mecca. It’s the city in the country,” he added. “So I think when you look at it today versus what it was a decade or two ago, I think it’s a much different city. And they made a very compelling proposal, which the owners obviously approved overwhelmingly. ” Indeed, many polls have shown an increased tolerance for gambling among the pubic. Polls last year revealed that nearly half of respondents were in favor of legalizing sports betting. Governments are also hungrily eyeing sports betting as a likely new source of tax revenue, as well. Consequently, various bills have been introduced in Congress to lift the federal ban on sports betting. But, other signs pointed to new problems in the internet age when sports fan sites like Draft Kings and Fan Duel came under fire for corrupt practices last year. Yet, even with the controversies, it was reported that several pro sports leagues are looking to work closer with the gambling industry. Unlike the NFL’s Goodell, NBA chief Adam Silver recently went in the opposite direction on sports betting by softening his league’s stance against gambling. But, there is still faint hope for gamblers looking for football to favor them. In the end Goodell noted that the NFL reserves the right to change rules whenever it makes sense to do so. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 0fake |
NATO acknowledges Russia Moving Nuclear Missiles To Kaliningrad | NATO acknowledges Russia Moving Nuclear Missiles To Kaliningrad Page 1 06/28/12 7 "Godlike Productions" & "GLP" are registered trademarks of Zero Point Ltd. Godlike™ © 1999 - 2015 Godlikeproductions.com Page generated in 0.006s (10 queries) | 1real |
null | If this is really true our leaders are sicker than I thought. Its madness and and the people need to rise up in protest | 1real |
TAXPAYERS PAID SAME WOMEN WHO CRUSHED BABIES’ SKULLS FOR LIVING AND SOLD THEIR LUNGS TO ADVISE OBAMA ADMIN ON “Healthy Baby” BIRTHS | No conflict of interest here! Only the most pro-abortion president in the history of the United States would have an expert who butchers babies for a living being paid by the American taxpayer to advise on healthy baby births Deborah Nucatola the Planned Parenthood doc with the stone-cold heart and the lucrative skill of crushing babies in just the right spot has been advising the Obama administration on family planning policy since 2010.From April 2010 through April 2014, Nucatola was one of several experts the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Population Affairs (OPA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Reproductive Health tasked with creating federal guidelines for quality family planning services. A member of the Expert Work Group and the Technical Panel on Clinical Women s Services, Nucatola was actively engaged in the multistage process that produced the government s 2014 report, Providing Quality Family Planning Services (QFP).Her responsibilities as a technical consultant and an expert included analyzing research summaries and professional advisories, providing individual feedback on the government s initial recommendations, reviewing the CDC-OPA staff s core recommendations, giving her expert opinion, and then approving the recommendations. (See the report s appendices for the names of Expert Work Group members and technical experts, and detailed descriptions of the experts involvement in formulating the report s recommendations.)What s the goal of those government recommendations? To help clients achieve their desired number and spacing of children and increase the likelihood that those children are born healthy. Leave it to the Obama administration to tap an abortionist for expert advice on ensuring that children are born healthy an abortionist, mind you, who relishes butchering a 17-weeker and bagging up a tiny infant s heart, lung, liver to sell for a few extra bucks.Taxpayers Reward BarbarismThe barbaric nature of Nucatola s chosen work, however, is all too clear. That s reprehensible. Sen. Rand Paul and others have announced plans to defund Planned Parenthood in light of the Nucatola debacle. Good, but not enough.We need to delegitimize Planned Parenthood and delegitimize the cruel doctors whose expertise consists in knowing which parts of the unborn baby to crush in order to to harvest the money-producing parts intact. We need to insist that being an expert in baby dismemberment disqualifies instead of qualifies a doctor from being an expert consultant for the government an expert on making sure children are born healthy, no less.Planned Parenthood runs a bloody business. Many Americans are seeing, for the first time, the chilling, violent reality of abortion and the insatiable greed driving America s abortion business. Now, the question is: What is Congress willing to do about it?Read more of exclusive story: The Federalist | 1real |
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