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A Sick Little Boy Just Found a Heart Donor Hours After FLOTUS Prayed Over Him | First Lady Melania Trump has been busy praying over sick children during her 9 day trip overseas and it seems at least one of her prayers may have been answered.In fact, mere hours after Mrs. Trump prayed over a little boy whose heart was failing, doctors told her they had found a donated heart that could end up saving his life. But you won t hear that on your nightly news.After she and her husband, President Donald Trump, visited the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis this week, it came out in the news that Mrs. Trump is, in fact, a practicing Catholic.In their travels to the Holy See, Mrs. Trump also visited a Bambin Ges Hospital, a Vatican-supported hospital in Rome. There, Melania met with many of the pediatric ward s sick children, taking pictures with them and reading them books before spending some time praying at the hospital chapel, the Daily Mail reported. If that wasn t awesome enough, Mrs. Trump, who s fluent in five languages, also reportedly spoke to the children in their native Italian. She also left heartfelt, handwritten messages for the children before she left.But something else very special happened at that hospital the First Lady also reportedly prayed by the bedside of a little Greek boy who s been waiting on a heart transplant.On Wednesday, just hours after spending time together, FLOTUS tweeted from her official account that she d been told doctors had identified a donor heart for the little boy.A little boy who I visited today & had been waiting for a heart transplant will be receiving one! #Blessings #Faith pic.twitter.com/DZU3ojxXVC Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) May 24, 2017 This is such a heartwarming and positive story Don t count on the press reporting on this!Read more: mrctv | 1real |
Merkel and the refugees: How German leader emerged from a political abyss | BERLIN (Reuters) - Near the end of a recent campaign speech in northern Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel turned to Europe s refugee crisis of 2015 and offered her audience a comforting dual message. Germans should be proud of the warm welcome they gave hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, many of them fleeing war and persecution in the Middle East, she told an audience of over 1,000 gathered in the fishing village of Steinhude. Then she shifted gears: What happened in 2015 cannot, should not and must not happen again. It is a phrase she has used repeatedly in market squares across Germany as she campaigns for a fourth term in a federal election on Sept. 24 that she is widely expected to win. [nL5N1LQ0H1 Two years since she opened Germany s borders to asylum seekers to avert what she says was a looming humanitarian disaster, and saw her popularity slide as a result, Merkel has climbed her way out of the deepest hole of her political career. There are many factors behind her comeback. But few are as important as her skill at spinning a narrative about the refugee crisis that many Germans can support, whether they cheered or condemned her actions of 2015. Merkel is not running on a policy of open borders and that fits perfectly with the mood in the country, said Robin Alexander, author of a best-selling book on the German government s handling of the refugee crisis. Many people like the image of Germany as a model of humanitarian virtue. At the same time they know the country could not continue to welcome refugees like it did. It is this set of feelings that Merkel is appealing to. By the end of 2015, 890,000 asylum seekers had entered Germany, many without proper identity checks, overwhelming local communities. Merkel s actions divided Europe and led to a surge in anti-immigrant sentiment. The hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party seems sure to enter parliament for the first time. A year after her decision, and following a series of small-scale attacks in Germany by Islamist militants, her popularity ratings had plunged 30 points to 45 percent and she faced questions about whether she would run for chancellor again. Yet today, 63 percent of Germans say she is doing a good job and, according to a Bertelsmann Foundation survey this week, 59 percent believe the country is on the right track. It has been a long, difficult road back, said one of her top aides. But we have gotten to a point where the refugee issue is no longer a negative for Merkel in the election campaign. Merkel has been helped by external events such as Britain s vote for Brexit last year and Donald Trump s election victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, both of which reinforced her appeal as a guarantor of stability. A decision by Macedonia in early 2016 to shut its border with Greece stemmed the flow of refugees, easing pressure on Germany. And the country has not suffered a large-scale Islamist attack, an event which might have triggered a voter backlash. But Merkel s knack for understanding how Germans tick has also been crucial. At many of her public appearances, she is confronted by anti-immigration protesters who try to drown out her speeches with whistles and chants of Merkel must go! . In Steinhude, a woman held up a sign showing Merkel s diamond-shaped hand pose over a German flag with a blood-spattered bullet hole in the middle. I offer you terror, death and chaos , the sign read. But the dozen or so protesters were dwarfed by supporters who applauded her message. I m not sure if there was another way to handle the refugee crisis. Those refugees had to go somewhere, said Willi Kordes, 70, who runs a sewage treatment firm in nearby Vlotho. I don t trust anyone to do it better. Working in her favor in the election is the fact that many of Germany s other established parties, including the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), led by her main challenger Martin Schulz, backed her open-door policy. The AfD, running a racially-tinged campaign that has put off some voters, has come off its 2016 highs in the polls. The one mainstream party that has offered a hardline alternative, the Christian Social Union (CSU), is the Bavarian sister party to Merkel s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). A vote for the CSU is akin to a vote for Merkel. A crucial factor behind Merkel s rebound has been the decline in asylum seekers entering Germany. About 280,000 arrived in 2016, with another drop likely this year. Merkel takes credit for this, pointing to a deal she brokered between the European Union and Turkey, under which Ankara has cut the number of migrants crossing into Europe via its territory. But critics say the closing of Balkan borders which Merkel publicly opposed was the real driver. Some see parallels with her behavior in the euro zone financial crisis, when European Central Bank President Mario Draghi s pledge to do whatever it takes to keep the currency bloc together, allowing her to stick to a hard line towards euro states such as Greece without fear of consequences. In the refugee crisis, it has been countries like Macedonia, Turkey and Hungary - which shut down routes the refugees used - that have done Merkel s dirty work , allowing her to maintain the image of a caring leader who helped people fleeing war. The approach has helped Merkel extend her control over the political centre. Some right-wing voters may have fled for the AfD but polls suggest young, urban voters who traditionally lean left could fill the gap. Germany s economy has been strong enough to absorb the influx of refugees without big cracks emerging in society. In reaction to its Nazi past, Germany has emerged as a more open, tolerant country than many assumed when the crisis hit. A survey published this month ranking the top fears of the Germans put terrorism at the top. But a separate poll for the Bild newspaper showed they do not see curbing immigration as a priority. Germans are astonishingly global, liberal and open to the world, said Menno Smid, head of the Infas Institute for Applied Social Sciences, which released a survey last month showing broad acceptance of refugees in Germany. We are the winners from globalization. The economic factors that led to Trump simply don t exist. | 0fake |
UK's May to pitch status quo Brexit transition to parliament | LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May will pitch her plan for a Brexit transition period with unchanged access to European Union markets when she briefs lawmakers on Monday about her latest negotiating trip to Brussels. May secured an agreement last week to move previously-deadlocked talks forward onto the topic of interim and long-term trading arrangements. On Monday she will report back to parliament on those talks, setting out the framework of a time-limited implementation period designed to smooth Britain s EU exit and provide clarity for businesses and citizens. This will help give certainty to employers and families that we are going to deliver a smooth Brexit, May will say, adding that the guidelines agreed last week point to a shared desire with the EU to make rapid progress on a deal. The outline of the transition period that May will present is consistent with plans she has previously set out, and remains subject to negotiation in Brussels. During this strictly time-limited implementation period which we will now begin to negotiate, we would not be in the Single Market or the Customs Union, as we will have left the European Union, May will say according to advance extracts of her statement. But we would propose that our access to one another s markets would continue as now, while we prepare and implement the new processes and new systems that will underpin our future partnership. END-STATE TALKS But the plan is not guaranteed to be universally accepted by lawmakers in May s Conservative Party, which is still deeply divided over the best route out of the bloc, and for some even the principle of leaving the EU. May is reliant on the backing of all members of her party to put her Brexit plans into action, having lost her parliamentary majority in an ill-judged snap election earlier this year which left her needing the support of a small Northern Irish party. On Saturday, some Conservatives who want to see Britain make a more radical break with the bloc baulked at a suggestion by Finance Minister Philip Hammond that the implementation phase would amount to recreating the status quo with the EU. May will say that during the interim period, Britain wants to begin registering EU citizens arrival in the country in preparation for a new immigration system, and would hope to agree, and possibly even sign, post-Brexit trade deals with non-EU states. As well as briefing parliament, May is expected to meet key ministers on Monday to discuss the even thornier issue of what the country s long-term relationship with the EU should be - the first time since the June 2016 vote to leave that she has broached the topic with senior cabinet members. A full cabinet discussion on the so-called end state of the Brexit talks is then due on Tuesday. One of the key pro-Brexit voices in the cabinet, foreign minister Boris Johnson, on Sunday set out his own long-term view, warning May that Britain must avoid becoming subordinate to the EU. | 0fake |
U.S. infrastructure legislation back on Congress' radar | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s pledge to bring massive investments in U.S. infrastructure projects showed new signs of life on Friday after lying dormant for weeks, as leading Republican lawmakers said proposals from the administration could be in the offing. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, told reporters he expects to receive “some kind of recommendation on an infrastructure bill, a subject that we frequently handle on a bipartisan basis,” but gave no details or timing. He has previously voiced concern over adding to budget deficits with a new injection of federal funds for road, bridge and other construction projects like the ones President Barack Obama secured from Congress in 2009, especially after a major highway funding law was enacted about a year ago. Some Republicans and Democrats in Congress are increasingly criticizing Trump’s administration for being slow to get behind his legislative initiatives during the first month of his presidency. Trump’s plans to create an infrastructure council led by two New York billionaire friends, developers Richard LeFrak and Steven Roth, have yet to be launched, a spokesman for LeFrak said. During his presidential campaign, Trump said he would push for a $1 trillion infrastructure program to rebuild roads, bridges, airports and other public works projects. He said he wanted action during the first 100 days of his administration, which now seems unlikely. The Republican president has talked about creating a tax credit to encourage private sector investment in many of these projects. But Democrats say that would fail to spur enough rebuilding and put taxpayers on the hook for a tax credit to wealthy developers, who they said would build toll roads that taxpayers would then have to pay to use. Democrats want a more direct federal role in sparking a construction boom. In an interview on Tuesday, Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said he had “no doubt that it (infrastructure investment) is a priority for the administration.” Diaz-Balart chairs a House subcommittee that would control the flow of Washington money that might be needed to fund some of the public works projects. Several lawmakers and aides speculated the initiative could be attached to tax reform legislation that Republicans want to advance this year, but no decisions have been made. Writing an infrastructure bill involves seven or eight committees, there are complicated tax and spending questions at stake, and lawmakers are divided. There are also questions over what would qualify as an infrastructure project, with rural areas, for example, clamoring for more broadband internet service. Senator John Thune, a member of the Republican leadership who chairs the commerce and transportation panel which has a say on any bill, said he had little information on the content or status of legislation. Asked about McConnell’s comments, Thune said, “Maybe he knows more about it since he’s married to the secretary of transportation,” Elaine Chao. | 0fake |
BUSTED: Trump’s Pick For Top USDA Scientist Is NOT A Scientist At All | The USDA, responsible for everything from our food safety to climate change, is soon to get a new Chief Scientist who under the 2008 Farm Bill will be chosen from among distinguished scientist with significant experience in agricultural research, education, and economics. The problem is, Trump s choice for this high-responsibility position is Sam Clovis, who has none of these credentials.Clovis is a business professor at Morningside College, is publicly skeptical of climate change and has never even taken a science course during his graduate studies. What s worse is that he is most known for being a conservative talk show radio host for Impact with Sam Clovis in Iowa. Touting that the only reason Obama wasn t impeached was because of his race, he came out as a fierce pro-Trump advocate while running an unsuccessful camping for Senate in 2014.As the current senior White House advisor for the USDA, Clovis has been described as Trump s eyes and ears at the agency. Clovis also takes credit for recruiting Carter Page, Trump s foreign policy advisor who s being scrutinized for his ties to Russia.The appointment of Clovis as the USDA Chief Scientist was compared to appointing someone without any medical credentials to lead the National Institutes of Health, by Obama Administration Scientists.Clovis has expressed repeatedly that he does not believe in climate change, and has called efforts for climate action simply a mechanism for transferring wealth from one group of people to another. He has promised that the Trump USDA will take a new direction, focusing on lessening regulation and boosting trade, rather than addressing climate change.Catherine Woteki, a Ph.D. holder in nutrition and the USDA s undersecretary for research states, access to safe food and clean air and water is absolutely fundamental to personal security, and adding that scientific research is critical to the job. Food system are widely recognized by the national security community as being part of critical infrastructure. It looks like our access to safe food, fresh water, and clean air are now in the hands of non-scientists who wants to use the USDA for capital gains instead of the security of our natural resources.Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images | 1real |
HILLARY CLINTON TRIES TO FIRE UP THE MINORITY VOTE WITH LIES ABOUT ‘VOTER SUPPRESSION’ | 1real | |
Trump points to Congress on Puerto Rico assistance | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said federal assistance cannot stay “forever” on the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico following recent hurricanes, and that Congress must determine how much disaster funding to provide. In a series of posts on Twitter, also said the island’s electrical grid and infrastructure were already a “disaster” before Hurricane Maria struck last month. | 0fake |
COINCIDENCE? CHOBANI SCORES MAJOR CONTRACT WITH MOOCH’S GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM After Airing Naked Lesbian TV Ad To 3% Of Population [VIDEO] | Are there any coincidences in the quid pro quo world of Obama s Chicago style politics? Here s the link story we posted about Chobani and their naked lesbian ad. The video of their ad can be seen below:New York yogurt manufacturer Chobani just landed a massive U.S. Department of Agriculture contract for school lunches after years of lobbying lawmakers and President Obama on its products.The upstate-New York Greek yogurt maker will be distributing its products to schools nationwide next year as a USDA-approved meat substitute for school lunches, capping off a pilot program in a dozen states made possible by extensive lobbying efforts.Chobani Greek Yogurt first gained approval by the USDA for school lunches in 2013 as part of a pilot program after U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and other New York lawmakers pressured USDA officials to include it in a pilot program for four states. The USDA s typically years-long approval process for new products was miraculously slashed to only about 8 months for Chobani.That pilot program was expanded last year to a dozen states after reportedly positive feedback from students, Syracuse.com reports. After at least three calls from the persistent senator, (U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom) Vilsack helped arranged a Sept. 20, 2012 meeting in Schumer s Capitol Hill office with Kevin Concannon, the key official for food, nutrition and consumer services, the New York Daily News reports.Chobani owner Hamdi Ulukaya was also named by President Obama as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship, which included a closed-press meeting with the president at the White House, according to the Daily Sabah.The special treatment was undoubtedly the result of Ulukaya s savvy political sense.According to a Green Monsters! blog about the original pilot program: Chobani has made a significant financial investment to be at the forefront of this new program and potentially come out as the victor. The New York-based company has already paid $80,000 to Cornerstone Government Affairs to lobby Congress on its behalf. Among its lobbyists are former agricultural department employees.The lobbying firm was also hired following New York Senator Charles Schumer s petition to the USDA asking that Greek yogurt be added school lunch program.The decision on Greek yogurt came rather quickly in just eight months although the agriculture department typically takes years to assess a new product. The tofu industry waited a decade before an ok, reports NY Daily News.Senator Schumer also worked with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York to push the Greek yogurt pilot program through. Both senators see it as a win-win for the children and the diary industry.The financial benefit has the potential to be quite considerable for New York in particular. Five years ago, the New York dairy industry was producing barely any revenue. Now it generates almost 40 percent of the $6.5 billion in U.S. yogurt sales annually. Businessweek magazine has even called upstate New York the Silicon Valley of yogurt. So, after a couple of years of lobbying and a pilot test program, Chobani the top selling Greek yogurt brand in the U.S. landed a contract for schools in all 50 states in April. The initial contract is worth $148,019 for the first two months of the 2015-16 school year, Syracuse.com reports.The government will then seek quarterly bids for the remainder of the school year.Chobani s fast-track to school cafeterias across the U.S. with a contract awarded faster than other companies have even gained approval for their products raises the same question Green Mosters! blogger Kristina Pepelko first raised in 2013: is the National School Lunch Program and the tightened restrictions on school food truly designed to produce healthier students, or are special interest lobbyists driving menu recommendations from Washington, D.C.?Chobani s senior director of nutrition and regulatory affairs, Robert Post, obviously wants the public to believe it s the former. This is an important step that Chobani is taking in its continued mission to bring nutritious, delicious and natural food to all people of all ages, he said in a statement. Allowing children to have healthy and delicious options for their lunch tray ingredients is one of the most important things Chobani can do as a company, and we decided to offer out products at significantly reduced prices as we want to extend our mission beyond our cups and into the communities we live in, Post said.Chobani officials have not disclosed the significantly reduced prices for their products, or the potential value of the new government contract, Syracuse.com reports.Via: EAG News | 1real |
TRUMP SAYS “NO” To Pro-Amnesty Koch Brother’s Influence…Won’t Meet With Them | Meanwhile, the Koch brothers are denying they were attempting to meet with Trump. They re probably too busy schmoozing with open-borders Paul Ryan and other more easily influenced politicians. Hillary will most surely be working overtime to capture those unspent millions that won t be going to Trump Trump tweeted this tonight:I turned down a meeting with Charles and David Koch. Much better for them to meet with the puppets of politics, they will do much better! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2016The Kochs are effectively indifferent between Trump and Clinton, though several Trump allies within the network have encouraged the billionaire donors to at least meet with the billionaire candidate. Donors who contribute at least $100,000 to the network are invited to hear from Charles Koch and Republican leaders both about the Kochs political work along with their philanthropic and policy-focused spending.Some Koch donors, upset by the leadership s unwillingness to back the Republican nominee, have called for the Freedom Partners retreat to feature a poll to decide whether to marshal their resources toward his White House bid. But Holden said unequivocally that a decisive survey of that kind would not happen.May, 2014 Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank notes that, More than 100 times on the Senate floor in the past few months, the Senate s top Democrat has invoked Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into conservative causes and campaigns. According to Reid, the Koch brothers are about as un-American as anyone I can imagine and are attempting to buy America. Well, if it is true and what these billionaires are truly engaged in a diabolical plot to undermine the country, then Reid must count himself as one of their prime accomplices.Guess who is putting up lots of money to pressure House Republicans to pass a massive amnesty and immigration increase bill similar to the one Reid championed in the Senate? That would be none other than the Brothers Koch. Immigration ReformThe Kochs have assembled a political operation some consider to be on par with the Republican National Committee, using a constellation of nonprofit organizations to drive elections and policy fights in recent years. They today have 1,200 paid staff members in 38 states.Yet their refusal to back Trump whose language on immigration and trade is found to be too incendiary by the libertarian-inspired Kochs is a leading reason why Trump is expected to be massively outgunned by Clinton and her allies in the advertising wars.The Koch network initially said they would spend $889 million in the lead-up to 2016, with about one-third of that figure dedicated to political activity. Yet Koch officials have scaled back their ambitions, with Holden saying Saturday that the sum was merely a wish list number. They are now on pace to spend about $750 million, including about $250 million on politics.About $20 million in television has already aired, network officials said, with another $20 million still planned for the fall. The network is currently active in five Senate races, and is currently weighing how to get involved in one more: Marco Rubio s reelection fight in Florida. Via: wmtw TV | 1real |
Colombia urges ELN rebels to turn over body of Russian hostage | BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia s government on Tuesday urged the ELN rebels to turn over as soon as possible the body of a Russian-Armenian hostage killed in April, while a commander with the guerrillas said they were in touch with the Russian embassy about the matter. Arsen Voskanyan, 42, was seized by the rebels in northwestern Choco province in November. The group claimed he was collecting endangered frogs and accused him of wanting to smuggle wildlife overseas. The National Liberation Army (ELN) is currently in peace talks with the government in a bid to end more than 53 years of war. The two sides, who are meeting in Ecuador, said on Monday they had agreed on a bilateral ceasefire starting in October and extending into next year, which includes a ban on kidnappings. The ELN unit that had been holding Voskanyan told Reuters he was shot when he grabbed a hand grenade in an effort to escape. ELN leaders in Quito later confirmed his death. We are urging the (ELN) negotiators in Quito to facilitate the return of the Russian s body to his family, the negotiators have been in touch with the embassy, head government negotiator Juan Camilo Restrepo told journalists. They said they have given instructions and have the utmost willingness to return the body of the Russian citizen as soon as possible, I hope they fulfill it, quickly, Restrepo added. The ELN s head negotiator, Pablo Beltran, said in Quito that Voskanyan had been buried and confirmed the group was in touch with the Russian embassy in Ecuador. Colombia s long and many-sided conflict has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions. | 0fake |
Federal judge rules Ohio can purge inactive voters | CLEVELAND (Reuters) - A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Ohio’s secretary of state was within his rights to strip thousands of inactive voters from the rolls, rejecting a legal challenge by civil liberties activists who claimed that the purge disenfranchised minorities and the poor. The decision by U.S. District Judge George C. Smith in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union could impact the presidential race in Ohio, a key swing state seen as potentially pivotal in the Nov. 8 election. No Republican has won the White House without carrying Ohio. The ACLU charged in its lawsuit that Ohio Secretary of State John Husted’s policy of removing from the rolls voters deemed inactive over a six-year period violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 because it targets minorities and lower-income voters who tend to favor Democrats. Smith disagreed, finding that the policy was not illegal because it removed voters from the rolls only after they failed to vote and then did not respond to a change of address confirmation. “Ohio’s procedures of maintaining the voter registration rolls ensure the integrity of the election process,” Smith wrote. Husted has said that the policy has been in place since the 1990s under both Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. “While today’s ruling reaffirms that the process Ohio has used for over two decades is constitutional and in line with state and federal law, the best news is that we can put another wasteful lawsuit behind us and focus on the important work of running elections in Ohio,” Husted said in a statement. | 0fake |
Trump Says He Never Makes Mistakes, Then Immediately Makes A Mistake (VIDEO) | In perhaps the clearest example of the small, but egregious way Donald Trump lies about even the little things, he got caught screwing up less than 2 seconds after announcing that he doesn t make mistakes. It unfolded like a scene from a comedy, Trump, angry at his plummeting poll numbers and numerous scandals, complained that the press were obsessed with looking for flaws in his White House. Rather than admit he s only human, Trump doubled down on his absurd contention that he s never wrong. One mistake and it s no good. But we just can t make mistakes, right? So we don t make mistakes. Ready for the punchline?Trump next passes the conversation over to Ken. Go ahead, Ken. That wasn t Ken. That s Chuck Canterbury, the head of the National Fraternal Order of Police.Oops.While flatly stating that you never make mistakes is a ridiculous thing to lie about, it only serves to highlight the general level of dishonesty that is rampant in Trump s White House. He s so incapable of admitting he s wrong that Trump goes to great lengths to never apologize for anything he s ever said no matter how false. Trump never apologized for linking Ted Cruz s dad to the JFK assassination. His apology for six years of promoting birtherism turned out to be a sorry, not sorry publicity stunt. He can t even admit his unfounded claim that Obama wiretapped his phones was a complete fabrication.But here s the really scary part. A lie as obvious as I never make mistakes brings us to an unsettling truism: If a person will lie about the little things, what will he do to cover up the big ones?Featured image via YouTube | 1real |
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 |
Can Trump Survive the Media Onslaught? | You are here: Home / *Articles of the Bound* / Can Trump Survive the Media Onslaught? Can Trump Survive the Media Onslaught? November 23, 2016, 12:48 pm by Cliff Kincaid Leave a Comment 0
Accuracy in Media
With CNN and MSNBC depicting the incoming Trump administration as the advent of a Fourth Reich, it should be obvious that the President-elect will have to go beyond his blistering tweets to cultivating sympathetic media and getting his own message out in a systematic way. But is the Trump transition team up to the job?
President Obama was ahead of the curve in this regard, having established an office of “Progressive Media and Online Response” to cooperate with “progressive” media sources. The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign understood this form of “outreach” as well, as we saw in the WikiLeaks disclosures of how they colluded with major media outlets and reporters. Trump has used tweets, meetings with the press, official statements, and an occasional video. But much more will be needed if the President-elect hopes to survive the transition with a team in power that can get things done and communicate directly with the American people.
In addition to Trump’s tweets, which serve a legitimate purpose, the President-elect should consider a position that is comparable to what the Obama administration had, albeit with a focus on conservative and alternative news media. Trump appears to have great confidence in Dan Scavino , who now carries the title of Director of Social Media & Senior Advisor to President-elect Trump. Scavino has a fascinating bio and has worked for Trump nearly half his life, including as the former Executive Vice President and General Manager of Trump National Golf Club, Westchester. But it’s not clear what role he is playing in the presidential transition.
What Obama did is worth studying. Jesse Lee was named as the White House Director of Progressive Media and Online Response in 2011. He helped Obama win a second term. According to Lee’s bio , he previously worked as Online Programs Director in the White House and in the New Media department for the Presidential Transition team doing online outreach. He also had worked in online communications for the Democratic National Committee leading up to the 2008 election, served as Senior New Media Advisor to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for the 110th Congress, and helped the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launch its online program from 2004 to 2006.
His current effort , as special assistant to the president and “director of rapid response,” includes dissemination of propaganda points about the greatness of Obamacare and other Obama administration initiatives.
While the Trump administration is being painted by the media as an extension of the White Power movement, it’s clear that the Democrats, including Obama, are going on the attack. Together, the media and the Democratic Party are functioning as the new obstructionists, determined to thwart progress and destroy the next administration’s nominees. Trump calls the media names and issues tweets, but there doesn’t seem to be much else being done in response to this coordinated assault.
A group called UltraViolet has placed full-page ads in The Arizona Republic, The Lincoln Star Journal, and The Reno Gazette Journal attacking Republican senators Jeff Flake (AZ), Deb Fischer (NE), and Dean Heller (NV) “for failing to speak out” against Trump’s appointment of Stephen Bannon, “a white supremacist and domestic abuser,” as chief White House strategist. The first charge is apparently a reference to Bannon’s Breitbart News having covered groups which talk about protecting the European heritage and Judeo-Christian traditions of the United States and other Western nations. Some of these groups are controversial and out of the conservative mainstream. But the idea that they are in favor of white supremacy is ludicrous. The “domestic abuser” charge against Bannon was dismissed as a spurious accusation made by an angry spouse in a divorce case.
Significantly, UltraViolet is run by Nita Chaudhary, who is married to Obama White House official Jesse Lee. She served as the Democratic National Committee’s first Director of Online during the 2004 cycle and started her career at People for the American Way. She was also the National Campaigns and Organizing Director at MoveOn.org Political Action.
Publicly, Democrats are saying that they intend to work with the Trump administration on some issues. Consider that the University of Arizona just took out a full-page ad in Politico, advertising a statement from the “ National Institute for Civil Discourse ,” whose members include such prominent Democrats as former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, a Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. The statement signed by Reich and others says Americans should move beyond the “bitter” election and “ensure that America’s next chapter is civil and respectful…”
Despite talk of “civil discourse,” Reich has just written a column titled, “The Trump Administration Will Be the Most Dangerous Since Richard Nixon.” And he writes this before Trump takes office!
Rather than take a wait-and-see attitude, Reich has also written a column , “The First 100 Day Resistance Agenda,” in which he advises, “Get Democrats in the Congress and across the country to pledge to oppose Trump’s agenda. Prolong the process of approving choices, draw out hearings, stand up as sanctuary cities and states.” He also suggests, “Boycott all Trump products, real estate, hotels, resorts, everything. And then boycott all stores (like Nordstrom) that carry merchandise from Trump family brands.”
Reich is a Democrat double-talker who puts his name on a statement promising peace and harmony, while telling the far-left to do everything possible to obstruct and destroy the next administration.
Reich’s double-talk will not be worthy of any media scrutiny, of course.
One way to overcome this onslaught is to continue to go on the offensive, not only against the media but also the media’s darlings, such as Hillary Clinton. When the liberal media see that Trump is apparently backing away from holding Mrs. Clinton accountable for her corruption, they know they are winning the information war and that they have the President-elect on the run.
Meeting personally with The New York Times, as Trump did on Tuesday, will not mollify his critics. The media will see such a meeting as a sign of weakness. He needs to reach out to allies in the media who are willing to cover him and his administration in a fair and objective manner. Another way to do this is to open up the White House press briefings of his new administration to conservative bloggers and media outlets. There’s no reason to reserve front-row seats for what he once called the “crooked media.” Let them stand in the back with their hands raised. Cliff Kincaid
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid . 0 | 1real |
KING OBAMA Plans To Finish Term Traveling Around The World | There are so many reasons for this little coward to leave America and travel abroad for the duration of his term. Does he have knowledge of an imminent attack on America and wants to be overseas when it happens? Is he using taxpayer money to travel around the world campaigning for UN Secretary General? Perhaps he wants to be on the other side of the world when criminal proceedings against Hillary heat up? Plotting against America for seven straight years can be exhausting. Maybe he just needs a break? Or perhaps it s just as simple as wanting to hit some international golf courses on our dime. Whatever his reasons, we can be sure that the American taxpayer will once again, be stuck with a hefty bill as this fraud travels across the globe contributing to the greatest danger our nation faces as he spews dreaded CO2 into the environment.While Obama s scorched-earth policies continue to ravage America and beyond, the president will be busy touring the world for much of the duration of his term.The purpose is to seal his foreign policy legacy, according to Politico.Obama is planning to travel the globe to seal his foreign policy legacy https://t.co/iUK6SvPv8O | Getty pic.twitter.com/iwe5Zub5te POLITICO (@politico) December 29, 2015Hold onto your hats folks, it could be a bumpy ride.According to Politico:Obama has asked aides to set a busy international travel schedule for him in his final year, with half a dozen trips already in the works and more potentially coming together. The travel will be aimed at cementing a foreign policy legacy he hopes will include the Trans-Pacific Partnership, increased attention to Asia, an opening of Latin America, progress against the Islamic State and significant global movement on climate change.Air Force One will tack on a lot of miles courtesy of American taxpayers, and no doubt, folks stuck at home trying to make enough money to pay increased healthcare premiums (if they re lucky enough to have a job) will be treated to countless photo-ops of the president here, there, and everywhere.All this and more wasn t lost on those who didn t appreciate the news of Obama s legacy Via: BPRWe d love to know why you think Obama will spend the duration of his term overseas . | 1real |
Jeb seeks to shake shadow of Bush family name | Nashua, New Hampshire (CNN) Jeb Bush took the podium at the mainstay presidential primary event "Politics & Eggs" in Manchester Friday morning, flanked by photos of his father and older brother.
The pictures of the two presidents, Bush said, "bring back really fond memories."
And yet, the likely 2016 presidential candidate would prefer that New Hampshire voters ignore them.
As the former Florida governor mulls a presidential bid, his biggest political asset among establishment figures and donors—his family—is a liability with activists. And it's a particularly acute problem in the Granite State, home to the first-in-the-nation primary that helped sink President George H.W. Bush's re-election bid in 1992 and supported President George W. Bush's biggest primary challenger, John McCain, in 2000.
In a two-day swing through the state featuring stops in Concord, Manchester and Nashua, the younger Bush sought to reverse his family's fortunes.
"I'm going to have to show my heart, show who I am, tell my story," he said. "It's a little different than the story of my brother and my dad. This may come as a shock to you, but you have brothers and sisters so you may appreciate this: We're not all alike. We make our own mistakes in life, we're on our own life's journey."
Thursday night in Concord, Bush joked that he is not running "to try to break the tie between the Adams family and the Bush family"—the only two in American history to produce father-and-son presidents.
He was self-effacing when asked about a match-up with Hillary Clinton, which would mean one of their two last names had been on primary or general election ballots in seven of the last eight presidential elections.
"I have enough self-awareness to know that that is an oddity," Bush said.
He also tried to disarm his skeptics. Asked at the New Hampshire GOP's summit—the event that drew the entire Republican field into the state for Friday and Saturday—about the prospects of a dynastic Clinton vs. Bush election, he said: "I don't see any coronation coming my way, trust me."
"I mean, come on," he added. "What are you seeing that I'm not seeing?"
Bush hasn't officially entered the presidential race yet. But his Right to Rise political action committee has hired three key staffers in New Hampshire. Rich Killion, a Concord-based strategist who worked on Mitt Romney's 2008 campaign and has guided scores of local races, will lead Bush's efforts in the state. Rob Varsalone, who was George W. Bush's top in-state aide in the 2004 election and is close to Sen. Kelly Ayotte, and Nate Lamb, who was Scott Brown's field director in his unsuccessful Senate race last year, are also on board.
At the New Hampshire GOP summit, Bush sought to strike a forward-looking tone.
"We will not win if we just complain about how bad things are," Bush said. "We also have to offer a compelling alternative so that more and more and more people join our cause."
He didn't mention any GOP foes by name, but—through the cloak of an assault on President Barack Obama—took a veiled shot at the three freshman Republican senators who have entered the race so far: Florida's Marco Rubio, Texas's Ted Cruz and Kentucky's Rand Paul.
Bush said that "accomplishment matters" and, suggesting that his time as Florida governor is better preparation than Congress, added: "The big desk is different than perhaps United States senator or another job."
Bush didn't throw much red meat to hardline conservatives, standing by his controversial stand in favor of immigration reform during his stops in New Hampshire, downplaying the importance of same-sex marriage and defending his calls for higher education standards, even as he said the federal government shouldn't push Common Core on states.
But his biggest selling point was the eight years he spent as Florida's top executive, saying his record is an "I'm-not-kidding conservative one."
The summit's attendees—particularly those who remembered the Bush family's first two presidents—said it wasn't his policies that concerned them, less than one year away from the state's primary.
"The Bush family has been terrific, but I think we need a change," said Jim McHugh, a 63-year-old consulting business owner from Portsmouth.
"It's probably not fair to him, simply because his dad and his brother were president, but I think I would like to see someone new," said Donna Slack, a 66-year-old Greenland retiree.
"I certainly don't have anything against him personally. I think he did a wonderful job in Florida," she added.
Bush earned strong reviews, though, from University of New Hampshire students—both of whom were in their early teenage years when Bush's brother was president, and who weren't alive when his father left office.
"He's extremely personable, compared to some other candidates," he said. "Some crowds I've seen him speak at are not exactly his type of conservatives, but I think he really knows how to adapt to every situation."
Michael Raccio, 21, another UNH student, said Bush "really impressed me," but he'll probably back a more conservative contender, like Cruz, because Bush "didn't address illegal immigration, and he has a shaky record on that."
"I was looking for him to address why he was in favor of giving in-state tuition to illegal immigrants in addition to giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, and he never mentioned a thing," he said. "So I'm still left with a couple questions." | 0fake |
WOW! Donna Brazile Was Warned To Protect Herself After Seth Rich Murder…When Brazile Asked Hillary To Use Some of Her Millions To Help Find Rich’s Murderer…Hillary Abruptly Ended Phone Call | Is former DNC Chair Donna Brazile attempting to tie Hillary to the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich in her new book Hacks ? What does Brazile know? Is she in danger if she says too much? Is Brazile offering just enough information, so that authorities are pressured into looking into a connection with Hillary and Seth Rich s murder? From her book Hacks :I felt some responsibility for Seth Rich s death. I didn t bring him into the DNC, but I helped keep him there working on voting rights. With all I knew now about the Russians hacking, I could not help but wonder if they had played some part in his unsolved murder. Besides that, racial tensions were high that summer and I worried that he was murdered for being white on the wrong side of town. [My friend] Elaine expressed her doubts about that, and I heard her. The FBI said that they did not see any Russian fingerprints there.Daily Caller Brazile repeatedly returns to the subject of being haunted by Rich s murder, even though other Democrats have pounced on anyone who suggested that the murder was anything other than a robbery gone wrong. The DNC data staffer was killed days before Wikileaks began publishing its emails, and his valuables were not taken.100 Percent Fed Up The private investigator, Rod Wheeler, who was hired by the Rich family to get to the bottom of the murder of their son, DNC staffer Seth Rich, offered startling information on the Rich murder case when he appeared on the Sean Hannity show on May 15, 2017. Wheeler spoke about the mystery of why they can t locate the computer Rich used. They went on to discuss clues in the case that point to collusion between the DC police and the DNC. The most shocking information comes at the 4:20 mark when Wheeler says that a high ranking official at the DNC wanted to know why he was snooping around.Rod Wheeler: Here s one other thing that is going to be startling I m just gonna say this right now. I reached out to the police department way back in March when the family first hired me right..to get involved. I didn t hear anything from the police department for 2-3 days.Guess what I learned yesterday from the family of Seth Rich? The police department did not call me back because someone, a high ranking official at the DNC check this out a high ranking official at the DNC when I called the police department, they got that information and called the Rich family wanting to know, why was I snooping around? Shorty after WND wrote a story that outed Donna Brazile as the high ranking DNC representative who allegedly called the police to ask why a private investigator was snooping into Rich s death, Twitter SUSPENDED WND s account!Here s the title and an excerpt from the WND article:BOMBSHELL: DONNA BRAZILE WARNED OFF PRIVATE EYE ON SETH RICH MURDEREx-DNC chairwoman reportedly asked cops why investigator is snooping into mysterious case Alicia Powe and Liz Crokin wrote the story that was also posted to and deleted from the social media platform by Twitter: Former Democratic National Committee interim chairwoman Donna Brazile is the high-ranking DNC representative who allegedly called police and the family of murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich and demanded to know why a private investigator was snooping into Rich s death, the private eye revealed to WND Monday. The high-ranking DNC official that called the police after I inquired about Rich s case was Donna Brazile, veteran homicide detective Rod Wheeler told WND. Why shouldn t I reveal who it was? Brazile, who was also a CNN contributor and a Hillary for America donor at the time, was caught providing Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton with questions that would later be asked of Clinton at a televised CNN town hall. In an interview with Fox News before the election, Brazile denied leaking the questions to Clinton. But in a March 17, 2017, column for Time magazine, she finally admitted doing so, saying it was a mistake I will forever regret. According to WND, their Twitter account was suspended because of this Seth Rich investigation bombshell.Daily Caller But Brazile says she had a spook, with connections to the intelligence community, who told her after the killing that she needed protection for herself, including cameras, alarms and backup power at her house, and that she heeded his advice.I knew the campaign had over $3 million set aside in a legal fund. Could she help me get this lawsuit started? And don t forget the murder of Seth Rich, I told her. Did she want to contribute to Seth s reward fund? We still hadn t found the person responsible for the tragic murder of this bright young DNC staffer. You re right, she said. We re going to get to that. But she really had to go. She had made the call and checked it off her list, and I accepted after we said our goodbyes that I might never hear from her again. | 1real |
Trump extracts pledge from Boeing on Air Force One costs | PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump extracted a promise from Boeing Co’s chief executive on Wednesday that the cost of replacing Air Force One would not exceed $4 billion, his latest move to use the bully pulpit to pressure companies to help advance his economic agenda. Trump met with Dennis Muilenburg of Boeing and Marillyn Hewson, chief executive of Lockheed Martin Corp - two defense companies he has made an example of since his Nov. 8 election, sending defense shares tumbling with his complaints about projects he said are too expensive. He paraded the two CEOs in front of the cameras at the ornate front door of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is spending Christmas. “Trying to get the costs down, costs. Primarily the (Lockheed Martin) F-35, we’re trying to get the cost down. It’s a program that’s very, very expensive,” Trump told reporters after meeting with the CEOs and a dozen Pentagon officials involved with defense acquisition programs who he said were “good negotiators.” Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has vowed to address government procurement costs as part of his industrial policy, which also includes taking a hard line on Chinese trade practices and renegotiating multilateral trade deals. Also on Wednesday, Trump named economist Peter Navarro, an economist who has urged a hard line on China, to head up his White House team on industrial policy. He also appointed billionaire investor Carl Icahn as a special adviser on regulatory issues, and said Icahn would help him choose the next chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Muilenburg, whose company was caught off guard by Trump’s broadside earlier this month on the costs for replacing aging Air Force One planes, called his meeting “productive” and spoke admiringly of Trump’s “business head-set.” Trump has said Boeing’s costs to build replacements for Air Force One aircraft - one of the most visible symbols of the U.S. presidency - are too high and urged the federal government in a tweet to “Cancel order!” “I think we’re looking to cut a tremendous amount of money off the price,” Trump said on Wednesday. The Boeing 747-8s are designed to be an airborne White House able to fly in worst-case security scenarios, such as nuclear war, and are modified with military avionics, advanced communications and a self-defense system. The company is currently under contract for $170 million to help develop plans for the planes. Trump has said the planes, which are in the early stages of development and are not expected to be ready until 2024, would cost more than $4 billion. “We’re going to get it done for less than that, and we’re committed to working together to make sure that happens,” Muilenburg said, telling reporters he gave Trump a “personal commitment” that costs would not run out of control. Trump has publicly pushed other corporations to change tack, taking credit for forcing United Technologies Corp and Ford Motor Co to alter plans to outsource jobs abroad. Ford, however, said it had no plans to close any U.S. plants. Asked whether he had secured concessions from Lockheed Martin on its F-35 fighter jet program, which he has complained was “out of control,” Trump said it was to soon to know. “It’s a dance, you know, it’s a little bit of a dance. But we’re going to get the costs down and we’re going to get it done beautifully,” he told reporters. Lockheed Martin CEO Hewson, who left Mar-a-Lago without speaking to reporters, said in a statement that her meeting was “productive” and gave her the opportunity to talk about progress in cutting costs. “The F-35 is a critical program to our national security, and I conveyed our continued commitment to delivering an affordable aircraft to our U.S. military and our allies,” Hewson said. The costs of the F-35s, used by the Marine Corps and the Air Force, and by six countries, have escalated to an estimated $400 billion, prompting it to be described as the most expensive weapon system in history. [nL1N1E717N] Among the Defense Department officials who met with Trump was Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan, the F-35 program chief for the Pentagon. | 0fake |
TRANSGENDER TARGET SUING Good Samaritan Who Saved Girl From Being Stabbed To Death [VIDEO] | The timing couldn t possibly be any worse ***WARNING*** GRAPHIC VideoTarget is smack dab in the middle of a PR nightmare. The news of Target suing this good samaritan couldn t have come at a worse time In 2013, everyone agreed that Michael Turner saved the life of a teenaged girl who was attacked in a Pennsylvania Target store. Now, Target is suing him.When she was sixteen, Allison Meadows was shopping in an East Liberty, Pennsylvania, Target store when Leon Walls rushed into the outlet and stabbed her.With the assistance of surveillance video, Walls was convicted of attempted homicide for his attack on the girl.Here is the horrific video of the stabbing and more importantly, of the heroic act by Michael Turner (who Target is suing) that saved her life:The only reason the girl did not suffer more injuries is because Michael Turner interceded and, along with several other men, confronted Walls. Turner himself chased Walls out the store with a baseball bat.Unsurprisingly, Meadows was extremely thankful for Turner s efforts. I thank him, Meadows has said. I thank him every time I see him. But Meadows launched a lawsuit against Target, saying the store s lack of security put all shoppers, not just her, in danger.Target, however, is less grateful for Mr. Turner s heroics. And now the retailer is suing him for endangering the store s customers.According to the company s filing, Target says Turner and several others chased the suspect toward the store s entrance after the attack on the girl. The store insists Turner put other shoppers at risk with his actions.The victim of the stabbing and her family are furious with the retail chain and say Target is just trying to shift the blame away from its own security failures. Suing Michael Turner is just Target s way of trying to blame someone else for what happened under their own roof, the Meadows family attorney said. The family certainly doesn t blame Mr. Turner and they are thankful he was there that day. Target is already getting negative publicity; the chain is the subject of a major boycott effort due to its announcement that it is allowing men to use women s bathrooms and changing rooms.Despite the uproar over its decision not to mention the loss of up to $6 billion in stock values Target doubled down on its policy.Via: Breitbart | 1real |
Subscribe and Save on Amazon? Don’t Count on It - The New York Times | WHAT do subscriptions to a newspaper, magazine or Netflix account have in common? Once you sign up, you expect to pay the same rate every month. Yet that’s not the case at Amazon when you subscribe to its Subscribe Save program, which automatically refills orders for household staples like instant coffee, napkins or trash bags. Amazon’s subscription program, which was introduced in 2007, lets consumers register to have their favorite consumables delivered regularly — monthly, for example — in exchange for a discount of at least 5 percent off each order. Buried in the company’s terms and conditions is that the Subscribe Save discount is applied to the price of the item at the time that the order is placed. And on Amazon, prices change frequently — including sometimes rising. I learned this the hard way while reviewing an email summary of my Amazon subscriptions. A pack of lint rollers that I had subscribed to for more than two years recently jumped to $18. 04 a pack, up from $12. 44 since the last delivery a few months ago, or almost a 50 percent increase. A quick web search revealed other consumers were also surprised by price jumps for Subscribe Save items. One Amazon customer said he signed up for a $10 box of chewing gum and was charged $100 for the same product a month later. In Amazon’s online forums, dozens of people posted about prices of Subscribe Save items fluctuating, with some calling the program a “bait and switch” subscription scheme. Amazon declined to comment. The company emails people 10 days before a recurring subscription delivery, when it informs customers of a new price of their item so they can change or skip the order. Any sticker shock, analysts said, may be the result of Amazon’s complex pricing system coming into conflict with consumer expectations of a traditional subscription. Jared Wiesel, a partner at Revenue Analytics, a pricing and sales consulting firm, said of Amazon, “I think they’ve violated the psychological concept of a subscription with their customers in changing prices like this. When people think of a subscription, they think of locking in a set cadence of receiving a good. ” Amazon, the top online retailer in the United States, has not said how many customers use Subscribe Save. Yet its program is prominent among a growing number of internet retailers that are finding success in sales models, such as Dollar Shave Club, the subscription razor company that recently sold for $1 billion to Unilever, or the Honest Company, which lets parents subscribe to baby products like diapers and wipes. Amazon’s dynamic pricing system, in which it frequently adjusts item prices based on a sophisticated set of variables like supply and demand, time of day and prices offered by competitors, is the company’s way of making it look as if you are always getting the best deal, Mr. Wiesel said. Prices of goods can also fall, of course. But even when prices decline, people need to beware because Amazon’s pricing tends to fluctuate more widely and more frequently than at your local grocery store or Walmart, Mr. Wiesel added. In traditional retail, the major price changes typically happen during promotions, he said. To get a preliminary view into whether people can save — or not — with Amazon’s program, I plugged prices of 50 featured Subscribe Save items into a spreadsheet and looked at their price histories over the previous six months. I compiled the results with the web tool Camel Camel Camel, an Amazon price tracker. Prices of most items, including dishwasher soap and toilet bowl cleaner, changed frequently. As often as weekly, prices rose, dipped and rose again like a roller coaster. In extreme cases, prices for items like instant coffee and napkins jumped between 90 and 170 percent. (Prices below reflect subscription discounts.) • Folgers Coffee, 30. Tub In June: $6. 64 In August: $12. 50 This week: $7. 59 • Vanity Fair Napkins In May: $7. 94 In June and July: $21. 46 This week: $15. 36 ______ Only five of the Subscribe Save items held steady. • Sparkle Paper Towels Over six months: $25. 99 • Death Wish Coffee Over six months: $19. 99 After the service’s 5 percent discount, the paper towels cost $24. 69 and the coffee cost $18. 99. Not bad. ______ In the end, whether you save money depends on when your subscription order is placed and what items you buy. The downside of buying through Amazon’s subscription program is the lack of predictability, Mr. Wiesel said. “I’ve never seen this type of price fluctuation in a store,” he added. Some highlights over the last six months (with subscription discounts applied): • GermGuardian Air Purifier Replacement Filter Low: $18. 06 High: $33. 24 • Honeywell Humidifier Replacement Filter Low: $4. 67 High: $11. 27 • Lysol Disinfecting Wipes ( ) Low: $8. 95 High: $17. 91 ______ Mr. Wiesel noted that it would be tough for Amazon to revise its subscription program to offer items at fixed rates. A majority of sales on Amazon are purchases, and dynamic pricing is fundamental to how the company operates. If, for example, Subscribe Save prices remained static, those customers could miss out when prices go down for purchases of the same products. If you truly want to save money on Amazon, one approach is to sign up for price alerts on Camel Camel Camel to get an email when a price drops to a desired amount. When that happens, manually reorder — yes, that’s an extra step — your instant coffee, toilet cleaner or lint rollers. Sucharita an analyst for Forrester Research who follows Amazon, said the retailer was probably pushing prices up to test how loyal customers are to products and how much more they are willing to pay for them. Yet the sharp price changes on Subscribe Save items caught her by surprise. “It doesn’t seem as as Amazon typically is,” she said. “That’s what’s unusual. ” | 0fake |
IAEA says North Korea's rapid weapons progress poses new, global threat | SEOUL (Reuters) - The United Nations nuclear watchdog s chief said on Friday North Korea s sixth nuclear test conducted on Sept. 3 showed the isolated country has made rapid progress on weapons development that posed a new, global threat. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have increased markedly since the test, which led to a new round of sanctions against the North after a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution. (The) yield is much bigger than the previous test, and it means North Korea made very rapid progress, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Yukiya Amano told reporters in Seoul. Combined with other elements, this is a new threat and this is a global threat, he said after a meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha. Amano said the IAEA did not have the capacity to determine whether the North had tested a hydrogen bomb, as Pyongyang has claimed. What is most important for now is for the international community to unite, Amano said. Tensions had already flared after North Korea tested two more intercontinental ballistic missiles and other launches as it pursues its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of international pressure. South Korea said on Thursday the North could engage in more provocations near the anniversary of the founding of the North Korean communist party and China s all-important Communist Party Congress. Insults and threats hurled between the North s leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump have aggravated the situation further. Members of the international community have urged both countries to resolve matters peacefully while boosting pressure on Pyongyang to curb its weapons programs. A U.S. State Department official said on Thursday China was making progress in enforcing sanctions imposed on North Korea, and urged skeptical members of Congress not to rush to enact new measures before giving Beijing s efforts a chance to take effect. | 0fake |
German would-be partners have very different immigration ideas | BERLIN (Reuters) - Leading figures from Angela Merkel s conservatives and the Social Democrats (SPD) outlined differing visions on how their possible government would approach immigration, as Germany s would-be coalition partners prepared for talks in the New Year. Chancellor Merkel s 2015 decision to open the doors to more than a million migrants, many fleeing war in the Middle East, transformed Germany s demographic landscape and boosted the far right, hurting her bloc and the SPD in September s election. In separate interviews, Thomas Strobl, deputy leader of Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU) and SPD foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel outlined ways of winning back disenchanted supporters. Strobl told the Heilbronner Stimme newspaper Germany should cap the number of new immigrants at 65,000 a year, the level in 2012, and far below the limit of 200,000 that the conservatives had previously advocated. But Gabriel, whose party s restive membership would be unlikely to accept such a draconian cap, suggested municipalities around Germany and Europe could be compensated financially if they agreed to shelter refugees. That way municipalities would decide themselves how many refugees to take, he told the Funke newspaper group. That would avoid citizens gaining the impression that refugees get everything and we get nothing. Germany has argued in vain for the stream of migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa to be divided proportionately between the European Union s member states, with poorer, more ethnically homogenous eastern members particularly set against the idea. The EU could establish a program to help municipalities in poorer countries with the financing, Gabriel added. Merkel, for whom a renewed conservative-SPD grand coalition is her best chance of securing a fourth term as chancellor, has blamed her Sept. 24 election losses on concern at migration and now favors a tougher stance on deporting migrants accused of crimes. The SPD s membership, which must ratify any government deal, is cautious about repeating the experience of a grand coalition, for which voters rewarded it with a drubbing in the polling booths. While Gabriel is not a member of the SPD s negotiating team, his proposal could prove popular with the party s broadly more pro-European rank-and-file, and especially with party leader Martin Schulz, a former European Parliament president. In a further sign the center-left party is trying to distinguish itself from the conservatives, party deputy chairman Hubertus Heil said the next government should allocate 12 billion euros more to education over the next four years. The money was needed to fund investment in digital learning methods, he told newspaper Bild am Sonntag, insisting that the federal government had to play a bigger role in education, traditionally a state-level competency. Exploratory talks between the parties are due to begin on Jan. 7, and Merkel hopes to reach a deal by mid-January. | 0fake |
US-Saudi Plan: Let 9,000 ISIS Fighters Walk Free from Mosul – to Fight in Syria | Patrick Henningsen 21st Century WireJudging by both the words, and deeds of the Obama White House and its political diplomatic appointees led by perfidious John Kerry and caustic Samantha Power all evidence to date points to the US wanting to escalate its war on Syria while happily baiting a military confrontation, and World War scenario with Russia and its allies in the process. If this latest leak is indeed true and time will certainly tell whether or not it is, it would constitute one of the most egregious violations of both US and international law by the United States government and its theocratic dictator partner in Saudi Arabia.Washington s own anti-terror legislation expressly forbids colluding to provide logistical or material support for terrorist groups, and this US-Saudi venture would be the latest in a long list of violations According to news released today (see report below), US President Barack Obama has been briefed that the operation to liberate the ISIS stronghold in Mosul in Iraq is scheduled for the second half of October. Here s what makes this a potential shocker: the operation allows for safe passage for 9,000 ISIS fighters on the proviso that they are transferred from Iraq to eastern Syria in order to help US plans for regime change there. At the time of the assault, coalition aircraft would strike only on a pre-agreed detached buildings in the city, which are empty, the source said. According to him [the source], the plan of Washington and Riyadh also provides that the rebels move from Mosul to Syria for the attack on the government-controlled town of troops. Essentially, Washington and Saudi Arabia, will allow 9,000 ISIS (Islamic State) fighter FREE passage into Syria if they agree to join Washington s regime change operations there. This could also include, eastern regions of Syria to follow a major offensive operation, which involves the capture of Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra, the source added.Before you write this story off as some ornate Russian psychological operation, consider the long trend arch. The US along with its generous Gulf sidekicks, have already established a solid track record of aiding and abetting ISIS not just in Syria, but in Iraq too.The record shows that the US is guilty on a number of counts If the Mosul leak is true, then it wouldn t be the first time that the US has provided cover in the military pantomime the world has come to know as the fight against ISIS. When large ISIS convoys crossed the Syrian desert to invade and occupy the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in May 2015, the US Coalition airforce did nothing, and allowed ISIS to take and destroy part of the world s great historic cultural heritage, along with the murder of scores of innocent civilians.Professor Tim Anderson from Sydney University states: U.S. weapons with Israeli ammunition were used by Islamic State group when taking over Palmyra. The extremists also had U.S. military rations. The U.S., which since 2014 claimed to be conducting a war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and which had air power and sophisticated surveillance of the region, did nothing to stop the huge ISIS advance on Palmyra. The US isn t even shy about its laissez-faire policy with ISIS in the field, with the New York Times openly boasting, Any airstrikes against Islamic State militants in and around Palmyra would probably benefit the forces of President Bashar al-Assad. So far, United States-led airstrikes in Syria have largely focused on areas far outside government control, to avoid the perception of aiding a leader whose ouster President Obama has called for. Following the derelict incident, New York Times reporters Hwaida Saad and Kareem Fahim, were still kicking and screaming for regime change like petulant children at the news of ISIS fleeing and Palmyra being liberated by the Syrian Army and Russians. They said that, Mr. Assad s contention that his government is a bulwark against the transnational extremist group has been bolstered, but added that his foes and some allies argue that he must leave power as part of a political settlement to end the war in Syria. In other words: we still want regime change! This says volumes about who is really enforcing New York Times editorial lines (either the US State Dept, or the CIA, take your pick).More importantly however, is what kind of message an US statement like that sends to ISIS, as well as Al Nusra and other terrorist brigades inside Syria, which is basically, we do not need to worry about US air strikes, only Syrian Army and Russian strikes. This situation really sums up the utter fraud and contempt of the US deception in Syria, and it s no surprise that the Russian Foreign Ministry are reticent to extend themselves any more where the US is concerned.Then, in March 2016, when ISIS fled Palmyra, back across the desert towards Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa the great and powerful US Coalition airforce actually helped ISIS in a number of ways, including allowing them free passage once more.In late August, we were told that the Turkish Army, alongside allied Syrian rebels (terrorist group Faylaq al-Sham) backed by the US air cover, invaded Syria in order to capture the ISIS-held town of Jarabulus, Syria, this supposedly to cut off ISIS s last open route into Turkey. But what happened to ISIS?The NYT even admitted that, it appeared that most of the militants had fled without a fight. Here, ISIS appears to have been given advanced warning by either US or Turkish intelligence, as they left the contested town of Jarabulus quietly, but in droves. In reality, Turkey twisted this operation in order to attack and degrade Kurdish militias including the US-backed artificial construct called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and pro-Kurdish People s Protection Units (YPG) and Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian affiliate of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Iraq and Turkey all of whom are meant to be fighting ISIS. Instead, they are now busy dodging Turkish artillery rounds. Confusing, yes, but true nonetheless.It s also common knowledge now, that top of the line US weaponry is being used by ISIS, both in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Syria as well. In fact, if not for US weapons and supplies (along with US air intervention, or noninterventions), ISIS would have struggled to maintain many of the strategic positions it enjoys today. For the last 3 years, US officials have been dodging this issue, and when they do admit this is true, their patronizing party line is that, this must be a mistake, if they do have US weapons, we didn t mean it. As if the world was born yesterday.Perhaps the most flagrant violation by the US-led forces in aiding and abetting ISIS took place on Sept 17, 2016, when the US-led Coalition bombed Syrian Army positions outside of Deir ez-Zor near al-Tharda Mountain, killing some 80 soldiers and injuring 100 more. As if by design, an ISIS offensive began immediately following the US massacre of Syrian soldiers. Clearly, this bold move by the Pentagon paved the way for a major ISIS advance.To any normal observer, the US attack was a belligerent act of war that effective destroyed an already fragile bilateral ceasefire agreement, and yet the US response was to somehow blame Russia for calling an emergency UNSC meeting to discuss the incident. Judging by this response, it s pretty clear that US wants to see the Syrian Conflict carry on for a while, and it will need groups like ISIS to make that happen. The other problem with Washington s hollow righteousness in the Middle East is that there are key members of the US-led Coalition who are financing ISIS, Al Nusra Front, Nour al Din Zinki, and Arar al Sham (all moderate terrorists we re told) militants in Syria, Iraq and beyond. This fact was recently admitted by former US Secretary of State and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, as revealed in this week s batch of Wikileaks emails. Clinton writes: While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region. Add to that the multiple exposures over the last 3 years of the US CIA illegally trafficking lethal arms to Al Nusra and other terrorists through covert operations like Timber Sycamore.Still, US and NATO member state officials and their media gatekeepers continue to deny it and play dumb, rather than come clean that the United States and its partners in the region are helping, not hindering ISIS terrorism.Some might ask: why would they do a thing like that? By now, the answer should be simple, but threefold:What s so comical yet even more tragic, is how prominent the topic of ISIS factors into all of the vapid national security debates and media panels in this year s US Presidential election, and in the dumbed-down coverage of the delusional US mainstream media, led by Pentagon surrogate CNN, and hopeless FOX News. Judging by their prosaic coverage , neither the networks, nor Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump have the slightest clue of what the reality on the ground is. Instead we here, My ISIS plan is better than yours! The US political conversation has gone beyond ridiculousness.The corps of US military and CIA media spokesman aren t much better. The sad part is some of them do know what is really happening, but would rather lie to the American public.With so much double dealing, who can you trust? Certainly not anyone in Washington.More on the White House s latest dangerous proposition .RTThe US and Saudi Arabia have agreed to grant free passage to thousands of Islamic State militants before the Iraqi city of Mosul is stormed. The jihadists will be redeployed to fight against the government in Syria, a military-diplomatic source told RIA Novosti. More than 9,000 Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS, ISIL) militants will be redeployed from Mosul to the eastern regions of Syria to carry out a major offensive operation, which involves capturing Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra, the source said.According to the anonymous diplomatic source, US President Barack Obama has already sanctioned an operation to liberate Mosul, due to take place in October.During the storm of the city in northern Iraq the US-led coalition s planes would only strike detached, vacated or uninhabited buildings, while keeping terrorists as targets, he said.In September, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter confirmed that Washington would send an additional 600 troops to Iraq to help liberate Mosul at the request of the local authorities.The source suggested that redeployment of IS militants is necessary because Washington must somehow counter Russia s achievements in Syria, try to diminish their importance. Apart from the purely political dividends, the other purpose of this operation, obviously, will be to discredit the success of Russian Airspace forces. And, of course, it s an attempt to undermine Syrian President (Bashar) Assad, he said.The leadership of Saudi Arabia s General Intelligence Directorate will be the mediators and guarantors of the agreement on safe passage for the jihadists from Mosul, he claimed.The source added that a similar scheme had been used by the US and its allies during the liberation of the Iraqi city of Fallujah Continue this story at RTREAD MORE SYRIA NEWS: 21st Century Wire Syria FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
FBI Agents Destroy Donald Trump After He Attacks The Agency And James Comey | Donald Trump went on quite a tweetstorm this morning, lashing out former Director of the FBI James Comey and the agency. Trump is losing his sh*t after his former national security adviser flipped in the investigation into any possible collusion between his campaign and Russia. On his former FBI Director, Trump called him a liar, writing, I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie! Then he claimed his FBI is the worst in History! and said it was in tatters. After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters worst in History! he wrote. But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness. After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017That tweet prompted a statement from the President of the FBI Agents Association in a series of tweets. Every day, FBI Special Agents put their lives on the line to protect the American public from national security and criminal threats, FBIAA President Thomas O Connor wrote. Agents perform these duties with unwavering integrity and professionalism and a focus on complying with the law and the Constitution. This is why the FBI continues to be the premier law enforcement agency in the world, he continued. FBI Agents are dedicated to their mission; suggesting otherwise is simply false. James Comey also weighed in. I want the American people to know this truth: The FBI is honest. The FBI is strong. And the FBI is, and always will be, independent. Me (June 8, 2017) pic.twitter.com/OZ1ZiBrMNL James Comey (@Comey) December 3, 2017Former President Barack Obama s Attorney General Eric Holder also took a shot at Trump s tweets. Nope. Not letting this go. The FBI s reputation is not in tatters, Holder tweeted. It s composed of the same dedicated men and women who have always worked there and who do a great, apolitical job. You ll find integrity and honesty at FBI headquarters and not at 1600 Penn Ave right now. Nope. Not letting this go. The FBI s reputation is not in tatters . It s composed of the same dedicated men and women who have always worked there and who do a great, apolitical job. You ll find integrity and honesty at FBI headquarters and not at 1600 Penn Ave right now Eric Holder (@EricHolder) December 3, 2017What the FBI agents are saying is that Donald Trump is fake news.Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images. | 1real |
Duterte tells regional leaders, U.S. not to lecture Philippines on rights | VIENTIANE (Reuters) - Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday defended his country’s human rights record at a regional summit in Laos, urging East Asian leaders and the United States to help Manila eradicate the scourge of illicit drugs. Duterte swept to power in May on promises to wipe out crime and corruption within six months, pledging to wage a war on drug dealers and crush widespread addiction in a country of 100 million. The toll in his government’s two-month war on drugs reached 2,400 last week, with police saying about 900 people died in police operations, and the rest were “deaths under investigation”, a term human rights activists call a euphemism for vigilante and extrajudicial killings. Setting aside a prepared speech, Duterte spoke for more than five minutes about human rights and his campaign against drugs during the East Asian Summit in the Laotian capital of Vientiane, according to one Indonesian diplomat at the meeting. “Let me tell you about human rights,” the diplomat quoted Duterte as saying while displaying a picture of Filipinos killed by American soldiers about a century ago. “This is my ancestors being killed, so why now we are talking about human rights? We have to talk of the full spectrum of human rights.” Duterte spoke after Obama had delivered a speech that referred to human rights. Duterte’s drive has won popular support at home but the killings have drawn expressions of concern from the United States, a close Philippine ally, and the United Nations. In a tirade before the Laos summit, Duterte insulted U.S. President Barack Obama and the White House responded by cancelling a two-way meeting. Philippine officials this week handed out a 38-page pamphlet at the summit that praised Duterte’s drug campaign. | 0fake |
Indy 500 Drivers Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti Robbed at Gunpoint at Indianapolis Taco Bell | Two Indy 500 drivers, Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti, were robbed at gunpoint at about 9:40 p. m. while sitting in line at an Indianapolis Taco Bell restaurant that is only a half mile from the race track, police reported. [Only a few hours after Dixon won the pole position for the 101st running of the Indianapolis 500, the two drivers accompanied by Dixon’s wife, Emma were confronted by two teenagers, one of whom was armed with a gun, Indy’s Fox 59 reported. A police report of the incident noted, “The victims stated two males robbed them at gunpoint and fled north on Berwick (Avenue) on foot. ” The thieves took the drivers’ wallets, IDs, credit cards, and cash, police reported. Police later arrested a and a and charged them with the crime. The older suspect was also charged with resisting arrest. Earlier in the day, Dixon, who drives for Honda Motors, was awarded the pole position with the fastest speeds in 21 years. The New driver finished with a average of 232. 164 mph, easily surpassing starters, Ed Carpenter at 231. 664 and defending Indy 500 champ Alexander Rossi at 231. 487, ESPN reported. Dixon last won the 500 in 2008 and Franchitti, a Indy winner, retired from racing in 2013 after breaking his back in a serious crash. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 0fake |
Bulgaria freezes assets of independent media publisher | SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria has frozen assets and property and bank accounts belonging to businessman and media owner Ivo Prokopiev, who said the state was trying to silence the country s independent media. The Commission for Illegal Assets Forfeiture is preparing to file a claim against Prokopiev and his businesses to seize assets and property worth 199 million levs ($119 million), which it believed were derived from a rogue privatization of a plant 17 years ago, said the commission s chairman, Plamen Georgiev. Bulgaria, one of the European Union s poorest and, according to Transparency International, its most corrupt country, set up the commission in the 2000s to confiscate the illegally obtained assets of corrupt businessmen and officials and organized crime bosses. Prokopiev, 46, denied any wrongdoing. He said the commission has been used to intimidate the journalists at the influential financial newspaper Capital and the news website Dnevnik. He is the majority owner of both. He also said a Bulgarian court had ruled in 2004 that nothing was wrong with the privatization of mineral maker Kaolin, the basis of the accusations against him. We are witnessing how a state institution with very wide powers is being used as a bat and an instrument for repression, Prokopiev told a news conference. We do not have any doubt about the ultimate goal of this .... to subdue the editorial position of two of the few independent media in Bulgaria. Georgiev told a news conference a regional court in Bulgaria had frozen shares and stakes of Prokopiev in over 40 companies on commission s request, but said the actions would not impede the work of the news organizations. Five right-wing political parties that are not represented in the parliament protested against the commission s move. Some political analysts also saw it as an attempt to silence the independent newspapers in the country. This act really seems to be directed against people who are representatives of free media in Bulgaria, said Daniel Smilov, an analyst with Sofia-based Center for Liberal Strategies. Bulgaria ranked 109th out of 180 countries, lower than any EU member, in the 2017 World Press Freedom Index compiled by the Paris-based organization Reporters Without Borders. Bulgaria ranked 51st in 2007, when it joined the EU. | 0fake |
WOW! TX Congressman On IMPEACHMENT And REMOVAL Of Hillary If She Wins Election | Fox News host Bill Hemmer asked Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX), If she wins next Tuesday, what happens to that investigation? McCaul: Well that s something I ve been talking about that hasn t been mentioned very much, and that is, this investigation will continue whether she wins or not. But assuming she wins, and the investigation goes forward, and it looks an indictment is pending, at that point and time under the Constitution, the House of Representatives would engage in an impeachment trial, they would go to the Senate and impeachment proceedings and removal would take place https://twitter.com/TEN_GOP/status/793918006359298048 | 1real |
California Today: Capturing the ‘Firefall’ at Yosemite - The New York Times | Good morning. (Want to get California Today by email? Here’s the .) Please note: We will pause for Presidents’ Day and be back on Tuesday. For a couple of weeks each February, Yosemite’s Horsetail Fall puts on a show when the setting sun appears to transform its ribbon of water down the face of El Capitan into glowing lava. That’s if conditions cooperate. The phenomenon only works when the sun is lined up just so, the skies are clear and the mountains are snowy enough to fuel the waterfall. A bit of mist whipped up by the wind helps to get the full effect. Pamela Marcelino, a Postal Service worker in San Francisco, made the drive to Yosemite last Saturday to capture the firefall. More than 150 other photographers were there, cameras poised, she said. “And you just wait for that moment, holding your breath,” Ms. Marcelino, 41, said. Then, the glow fades in gradually, peaks and fades out in a matter of roughly 10 minutes. And it’s over. Since last weekend, photographers have been posting dozens of their images to Instagram. Here are a handful that they shared with us: (Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.) • Rain will continue today, with central and southern parts of the state facing heavy rain, flash floods and potential mudslides in some neighborhoods. [AccuWeather] • “It’s not just Oroville”: Record precipitation this winter is straining water control systems statewide, with the most areas lying in the Central Valley. [Los Angeles Times] • An atmospheric river is set to hit Northern California on Monday, and experts say the heaviest rain may fall “right into the Oroville area. ” [The Mercury News] • Yesterday’s “Day Without Immigrants” saw participation statewide, and some school districts had up to triple the rate of absences in certain schools. [The Orange County Register] • Our Culture department is divided over “La La Land. ” Some of us love it. Others hate it. [The New York Times] • All of BART’s 669 railcars will have working security cameras by July 1, officials have promised. [The San Francisco Chronicle] • In the past six years, Big Oil has spent $122 million to shape regulation and legislation in California. [The Nation] • The actor Tom Lenk recreates fashion looks spotted on the red carpet with potato chip bags and other trash. [The New York Times] • For a nation of immigrants, the United States has worked hard to keep foreigners out, writes Eduardo Porter. [The New York Times] • Radio documentary: The bullet train’s vexed crawl up California. [KALW] • Later this month ABC will air an about gay rights called “When We Rise,” which was written by Dustin Lance Black and focuses largely on San Francisco. [The New York Times] This May marks 80 years since the Golden Gate Bridge opened, but today is a darker anniversary: Eighty years ago, 10 laborers fell from the bridge to their deaths, breaking what Life magazine called a “historic record” of safety at a construction site. Up until that day, just one worker had died — remarkable for a time when the rule of thumb in construction was to assume one death for every $1 million spent. The bridge cost $35 million, or about $590 million in today’s dollars. The bridge’s nearly perfect record was due to the obsession with safety protocols from its chief engineer, Joseph Strauss, along with an innovation he brought that was in 1930s construction: a safety net to catch falling workers. Nineteen workers fell to the net while the bridge was being built, forming what they called the “Half Way to Hell Club. ” But on Feb. 17, scaffolding on the side of the bridge fell and ripped through the net, taking the 10 laborers with it. A plaque near the bridge honors the men who died. — Tim Herrera Want to submit a photo for possible publication? You can do it here. California Today goes live at 6 a. m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. Follow him on Twitter. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended U. C. Berkeley. | 0fake |
Barbra Streisand: ’I Don’t Know How We’re Going to Take Four Years’ of ’Disgraceful’ Trump - Breitbart | Monday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” in responding to the ongoing story that started at Sunday’s Golden Globes awards ceremony with remarks by actress Meryl Streep criticizing Donald Trump and continued with tweets from Trump calling Streep “overrated” and a “flunky” for former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, actress and singer Barbra Streisand weighed in by wondering how we could take “four years of this. ” Streisand said, “I thought she said what she said beautifully. And It’s easy enough to see the video online of Trump mocking — you just showed it — I completely agree with Meryl. It was heartbreaking moment and so beneath the dignity of the presidency, let alone any respectful person. What we need more is kindness and common decency. And what he did, how he reacted and how he needs — he has the need to talk back and insult anybody who doesn’t agree with him, and that’s pretty disgraceful. ” She continued, “What’s the signal to little children who watch television and see this behavior of the soon to be president of the United States? Little girls were heartbroken when Hillary Clinton didn’t get to to be president. So I think it’s what they see. Children will listen, I sang that in a song once, and you know they will see and they will learn. And you know I’m in the middle of having my teeth cleaned. You caught me at a disadvantage. ” She added, “That is why you cant trust anything he says because if you get on his wrong side, he will blast you negatively … He had a New Year’s Eve party, but he wasn’t generous to give that to his followers as a president. He had to charge for it and put that money into this club. Don’t you think that’s a little strange?” She concluded, “I was very proud of her. She’s a wonderful actress and that he had to denigrate her talent because she spoke out. Why is he not sitting through briefings rather then tweeting this nonsense and rating wars with Arnold Schwarzenegger? I don’t know how we’re going to take four years of this. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
Unhinged NBA Coach: ‘White People Especially’ Need To Be Made ‘Uncomfortable’ [Video] | San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is a total ass. There is no other way to say it! This jackwagon claimed on ESPN2 s The Paul Finebaum Show Monday that people have to be made to feel uncomfortable, specifically singling out white people. It s no secret that he doesn t like President Trump and has made disparaging remarks about the president in the past. Now he says he thinks all white people should be made to feel uncomfortable? What a way to piss off your white fans! Wow!WHO MADE THIS GUY THE ONE WHO DECIDES WHO S COMFORTABLE AND WHO ISN T? Well, because it s uncomfortable, and there has to be an uncomfortable element in the discourse for anything to change. Whether it s the LGBT movement, women s suffrage, race, it doesn t matter. People have to be made to feel uncomfortable, and especially white people because we re comfortable. We still have no clue of what being born white means, he stated.POPOVICH RESPONDS TO SPURS BEING UNINVITED TO THE WHITE HOUSE:Popovich on #Warriors White House visit being rescinded #Spurs #NBA pic.twitter.com/aY3KyV3uJL Jabari Young (@JabariJYoung) September 25, 2017NBA COACH IS A SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR? WHO KNEW? If you read some of the recent literature, you ll realize there really is no such thing as whiteness, but we kind of made that up. That s not my original thought, but it s true, Popovich said.He added, Because you were born white, you have advantages that are systemically, culturally, psychologically there. And they have been built up and cemented for hundreds of years. But many people can t look at it. It s too difficult. It can t be something that is on their plate on a daily basis. People want to hold their position, people want the status quo, people don t want to give that up. And until it s given up, it s not going to be fixed, the coach stated.REALLY???Read more: Daily Caller | 1real |
WORLD WAR 3 Hillary Clinton Foundation Holocaust ISIS Saudi Weapons of Mass Destruction YEMEN | source Add To The Conversation Using Facebook Comments | 1real |
McConnell on if Mexico Will Pay for the Border Wall: ’Uh, No’ - Breitbart | Thursday in an interview with POLITICO Playbook, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ( ) signaled Mexico would not pay for the border wall as President Donald Trump has proposed. When asked, “Do you believe Mexico will pay for it,” McConnell said, “Uh, no,” ( Politico) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
Hillary Said We ‘Owe Donald Trump The Chance To Lead’ — Here Is Why She Is Dead Wrong | Sometimes, it sucks to take the high road. When they go low, we go high has, sadly, led to loss and now, in defeat, Hillary Clinton is being way too nice even still.No, seriously. Go check her Twitter right now. In case you can t, here are some screenshots that might make you feel a little sick: It s generic, tin-can conceding politician stuff, but she s still wrong, and shouldn t be saying those things. See, here s the deal. Republicans are going to use this election say they have a mandate from the American people to basically do whatever the hell they want.But they don t. They spent eight years blocking President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party from doing almost anything they wouldn t even hold a vote on President Obama s SCOTUS nominee. Add that to the fact that Donald Trump likely lost the popular vote, and that Republicans lost seats in the House of Representatives (despite outrageously gerrymandered districts that very literally make democratic votes count less) and a seat in the Senate, and the reality here is that Republicans barely managed to win an election that was heavily rigged in their favor.Unfortunately for progressive causes and the millions of people that will be adversely affected by Whitelash 2016, it s unlikely that Democratic senators will be willing to take things as far as their colleagues across the aisle. It s hard to see Democrats stomping their feet and shutting down the government, for example. The Tea Party, by contrast, will do literally anything to accomplish their goals, and call this principled. In American politics, it looks like the willingness to stick by ideology no matter what is more of a winner than being reasonable or pragmatic.The truth is that we don t owe Republicans a damn thing. At this point, all we can hope is that the Democrats in the Senate keep a strong spine, stay principled, and refuse to let Republicans accomplish as many parts of the most conservative platform in history as possible. They have no mandate. The people did not vote for this. And it s up to what few blue leaders we have left to do everything they can to control the damage.Featured image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 1real |
Donald Trump’s New Willie Horton-style Ad Could Get Latinos Killed (VIDEO) | A new campaign ad from reality TV star and current Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump exploits the death of 17-year-old Jas Shaw in order to further the racist narrative Trump launched his campaign with. In the ad, Shaw s death at the hands of undocumented immigrant Pedro Espinoza is used as an argument to elect Trump president. Jas Shaw was a 17-year-old football star who was gunned just outside his home, a narrator says as the words gunned down appear in white bold letters against a red background on top of the photo. His killer? An illegal immigrant gang member who just got out of prison. The 30-second ad, which will soon air in South Carolina ahead of the Feb. 20 Republican primary, features Jas Shaw s father, Jamiel Shaw, who has endorsed Trump for president and appeared on the campaign trail with him. In the ad, Shaw says Trump is the only candidate who will end illegal immigration. Trump is the only one saying: You re going to be dealt with. We re going to enforce that, Shaw says in the ad. We re going to enforce that. That s a beautiful thing. It is, of course, impossible to end all illegal immigration and Trump s proposal to deport 11 million people is similarly a stupid and unworkable idea that has been derided by people on both the left and the right.But Trump doesn t actually care about how practical the idea is. He is pandering to base, racist impulses on the right and from the day his campaign launched he has been exploiting bigotry in order to advance politically.The new ad is the direct 2016 descendant of 1988 s Willie Horton ad, in which images of a black murderer were used by Republican supporters of President George H.W. Bush (who were also connected to Roger Ailes, now the head of Fox News) to attack Democratic presidential nominee as soft on crime. Trump s anti-Latino, anti-Muslim rhetoric has already resulted in assaults on Latinos by perpetrators who said Trump inspired them, as well as incidents at Trump rallies of Muslim and black protesters being physically and verbally assaulted by Trump backers.An ad broadcast on television during a heated primary simply ramps up the outrage felt by many on the right and give them the excuse of another ethnic target.The mainstream media has studiously avoided pointing out the hate motivating Trump s campaign, either out of fear of backlash from conservatives or just out of the sense that a continued Trump campaign is good for ratings.Featured image from YouTube | 1real |
Faster Growth? Two Things Trump Supporters Won’t Like - The New York Times | Donald J. Trump wants us to dream bigger about the economic future. We shouldn’t be content with the roughly 2 percent annual growth that has been the norm this century, he has said. And he thinks he can bring about the kind of robust growth of 4 percent or more that was commonplace in decades past. But the closer you look at the math of economic growth, the more you see the inherent contradictions in trying to make that happen. The two strategies that would most directly help achieve that goal clash with other planks of Mr. Trump’s economic agenda. Economic growth can happen two ways: More hours are worked, or more economic output is generated from each hour of labor. But if the economy quickly became more productive, it would, at least in the short run, also risk the livelihoods of some of the very people whom Mr. Trump pledges to help. And the surest way to increase the number of hours worked is to allow more immigration, which would be directly at odds with Mr. Trump’s stance on that topic. In other words, if an era of faster growth is really going to arrive, it will probably involve some changes that Mr. Trump’s supporters very much don’t want to happen. Low productivity growth has been one of the chronic problems of the economy in the last decade, and an important contributor to the low growth rate, even if economists aren’t entirely sure why it’s happening. If we want living standards to rise over time, we need productivity to rise. But the connection between productivity gains and higher incomes can take time to play out. Often it means disruption — job loss — for workers whose jobs are rendered unnecessary. And that has been especially true for the last few decades, and for people at the middle and lower end of the pay spectrum. As my colleague Claire Cain Miller wrote, some of the very innovations that have helped improve workers’ productivity are also the main culprit behind the decline of manufacturing jobs. These advances have made the United States richer — with jobs like designing software systems and taking medical images. But that’s not much solace for former manufacturing workers who haven’t found lucrative or rewarding work in growing fields, a group that is at the core of Mr. Trump’s campaign appeals. It’s not just manufacturing. Consider one innovation that could plausibly become a reality in the years ahead: trucks that drive themselves. Over time, that will make the United States economy more productive and raise incomes. But if you are one of the 1. 7 million truck drivers in the United States, making an average of $42, 500 for a job that doesn’t require advanced education, it should be concerning. It’s plausible to imagine a majority of those jobs going away over the next decade, which will be a boon for the countless industries that rely on trucks to bring in supplies and distribute finished goods. That will raise G. D. P. the broad measure of economic growth. But it would be daunting for any of those drivers who can’t find a job with similar pay, especially during some lag period. The experience with manufacturing does not give much reason for optimism that workers will have success finding lucrative jobs after a innovation the way economics textbooks might predict. It’s possible that the next wave of productivity gains could come from industries that affect professionals more than the workers who form the core of Mr. Trump’s coalition. Think of artificial intelligence software that could one day replace doctors in diagnosing diseases (or at least make them able to serve more patients at once). If that happens, the question will be whether those displaced workers can adapt any better than the steelworkers of 30 years ago — and if not, how to deal with masses of workers who are as disconnected from the modern economy as their counterparts seem to be. More people can make more stuff. That is the simple, brutal math behind G. D. P. and it’s the other central challenge of reconciling Mr. Trump’s economic growth ambitions with his other policy priorities. By extension, the more people there are in the United States with the desire to work, the higher the nation’s economic output will be. One major factor in the sluggish growth of the last few years is that the United States labor force isn’t growing the way it used to. The peak of the baby boom is nearing retirement age. And unlike in the second half of the 20th century, the proportion of women who work is stable, not rising. A straightforward way of increasing the labor force would be to increase the number of immigrants, especially those with advanced skills, whose economic output is the highest. Here’s some fun with labor force math. There are about one million legal immigrants per year. If you doubled the rate of legal immigration and ensured that 75 percent of those extra million people would join the labor force, it would mean a boost to the labor force of 750, 000 people per year over current levels. The Congressional Budget Office currently projects that the labor force will grow by 0. 5 percent a year over the coming decade. But if you add in those extra people under this hypothetical, that rate would rise to 1 percent. It would put a president a good bit closer to achieving an ambitious economic growth goal, all else being equal. Of course, Mr. Trump has made hostility to immigration a hallmark of his campaign, and there seems to be little appetite for any major expansions of immigration in Congress or in public opinion, let alone a doubling. Mr. Trump has argued that there is a vast untapped pool of American workers who are not in the labor force at all, and there is truth to that. But the pool may not be as large — or have as much potential to improve growth — as he suggests. The Economic Policy Institute, for example, calculates that these “missing workers” — people who are neither working nor looking for work but would be in a fully healthy economy — number about 2. 3 million people. If they were successfully pulled into the job market over the next decade, they would provide only about an 0. 15 percentage point annual boost. In other words, unless Mr. Trump wants to entertain immigration policies that are contrary to his campaign messages, demographics will be a major headwind making his growth promises all but impossible to achieve. Perhaps there is a broader lesson in all of this. Life is full of . And so is economic policy. | 0fake |
Trump clear on China's stance on call with Taiwan's Tsai: ministry | BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Monday U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team are clear on China’s position regarding his telephone call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday. “The world is very clear on China’s solemn position. The US side, including president elect Trump’s team, is very clear China’s solemn position on this issue,” said foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang at a regular press briefing in Beijing. Taiwan is the most sensitive issue between China and the United States, he said. He did not elaborate on how China had made its position clear to Trump and his team, and declined to speculate about what was behind the call between Trump and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. The unusual call prompted China to lodge “stern representations” with the “relevant U.S. side” on Saturday. U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence played down the significance of the call with Tsai, saying it was a “courtesy” call, not intended to show a shift in U.S. policy on China. China’s state press on Monday also sought to minimize the telephone call’s importance, saying it merely reflected Trump’s foreign affairs inexperience, not a shift in U.S. policy toward Taiwan, which China sees as a breakaway province. | 0fake |
Comment on The Savior: A post-modern fairy tale by Glenn47 | Posted on October 30, 2016 by Dr. Eowyn | 2 Comments
By Mark S. McGrew
In the year 4874, an ancient document was unearthed. It described how the consciousness of the inhabitants of the earth changed from evil to goodness approximately 3,000 years ago.
We have translated this to our best ability.
And it came to pass, that the world was ruled by an evil Queen. A foul stench was laid upon the peoples of the earth.
She gave the land of her people to foreigners, taking away their power. And the foreigners were arrogant with their stolen gains. They offended the citizens.
And the Queen gave the industries of her citizens to foreigners. And the foreigners were arrogant, hiring only their own kind and displacing the citizens. And the foreigners brought with them, the lazy of their families. The thieves and the liars and the most vile in the families of the foreigners, ruled over the citizens.
And to the worst of the worst, in the foreigner’s families, were given unto them, the fruits of the citizens’ labor, while the evil Queen laughed down at the citizens.
And the citizens were homeless in their own villages. And the citizens were insulted and violated at will by the foreigners.
The people had only one thing of value left to them that was impossible for the evil Queen to take from them: Their faith. The people prayed.
The people in the village of the Queen prayed. And they sent messages, as a bird tweeting, to the villages nearby and those villages sent messages to the villages nearby and those people sent messages to the villages nearby, until the whole world knew to pray for a savior. And the whole world prayed for a savior.
And it came to pass, after generations, that there was a savior, being prepared, being trained to defeat the evil Queen. And the people prayed harder and longer and more loving, now to protect their young savior and to guide him in righteousness.
And one day, when the Queen was addressing her citizens, a violent wind came from the north, blowing her pantsuit away and the people saw her secrets. And she became known for her true self.
The evil Queen tried to punish the wind and it came again, exposing her generals and she swore to conquer the wind. She ordered all of her people to not feel the wind, to deny it existed. And the wind grew harder and became stronger again.
And the wind blew over all parts of the earth and cried out to all good men, “Join me!”. And the people joined. From village to village across all the lands, they joined.
And on a dark windy night, the people were all joined in a field and the crowd was all of the good and right thinking people of the earth and it was quiet.
A lone voice cried out, “He is coming!” and he pointed to a star in the heavens. And the people saw that he was coming. On his left was a red angel and on his right was a green angel to guide and protect him. And the people saw that he was coming. They prayed for his safety.
They huddled together in fear as they felt the power of his chariot coming from the sky.
His chariot stopped in front of the multitudes and he spoke to them. They were calmed. They were excited. They knew him. They had seen him before without knowing his true purpose. And now, standing amongst them, he was unveiled and the people liked what they saw and what they were hearing. After generations of lie upon lie sent upon their lives, he spoke the truth. And the people were amazed at his truths.
And in the back of the crowd of people, several mountain ranges away, it was difficult to hear him and the people in the back whispered to the ones in front of them, “What does he say?”. And those people asked the people in front of them, “What did He say?”. And those people asked and the asking continued to the front of the crowd. And one man answered back in a whisper to the people behind him and those people whispered to the ones behind them, the words that were spoken by their savior and the whisper turned into a voice and the voice became a shout and the shout became a great noise and the great noise became like thunder echoing across all the lands of the earth, the words of the savior, “LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP, LOCK HER UP!!!”
And the people knew there was a savior standing before them. And they cheered and they cried with joy, knowing that their prayers had been answered.
And he told them, before he departed in his chariot, “You must help. You must work. You must spread my words to all.”
When his chariot, with the green angel on his right and his red angel on his left began to leave, the people heard and felt the power of his wings and the people felt the warmth of his love. And the people in the back of the multitudes saw his chariot go into the Heavens, from where it had come. And the people believed him because he told them to believe in their own righteous honor. He did not say they were deplorable and irredeemable.
And the people did work and they did spread his word. And through the word of the people, the evil Queen’s soldiers lost faith and they refused to fight the people again. And the words of the savior, being repeated by the people, caused the most trusted of the evil Queen’s advisers to flee. And all of her servants fled. All the evil people of the Queen hurried to escape the people. They hid in their caves and in the forests. And she was left alone, with only her drink. And she drank.
And she drank until she was in such a stupor that the people quietly entered her palace and removed her.
And the foreigners were driven out of the lands and permitted to take nothing with them.
When all was prepared and the savior knew his people were righteous, He came back and one by one, he drained the swamp, eliminating the corrupt politicians and the corrupt lawyers and the corrupt jesters and all the corruption was destroyed. There was much destruction and much death at the hands of the savior, for he was savior only to the good and the honest and the just of this world.
The ungood, the dishonest and the unjust were sent away and prohibited from annoying the people anymore and the savior ignored them and let them die in their own time in their own way. And they died in very short time, because the people would not give them work, or food, or shelter or rest.
And he told the people, “Now you must work, and work hard, to rebuild your lives and rebuild your fortunes and to care for your children, and teach them my words and teach them my actions, for someday I must leave you.”
And for a great time, there were no wars on the earth, for most of the leaders of nations had seen that the savior was a good man, an honest man and a just man. And they came from all parts of the earth to make peace with him.
And the leaders who did not hear his words and see his actions and learn from them were destroyed. And there was peace for 1,000 years, until this was written and evil does not exist anymore. Rate this: | 1real |
null | Although I may differ greatly with Trey Gowdy's political views he appears to have an integrity that I can admire. I would not mind him replacing Paul Ryan as Speaker. | 1real |
TWO NEW JERSEY MOMS Attacked By Community For Exposing Islamic Indoctrination In Middle School…Thomas More Law Center Steps Up To Defend Them [VIDEO] | Two New Jersey mothers appeared on the Tucker Carlson show to explain why they re upset about Islamic propaganda being taught at their sons Chatam, NJ middle schools, while prohibiting any mention of Christianity. The Chatam community turned on the two moms immediately after they appeared on Carlson s show. Watch their appearance here:Astonishingly, seventh graders in this public school are taught: May God help us all find the true faith, Islam. Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented: The promotion of Islam is worse than what the mothers presented to Tucker Carlson. After viewing one of the videos which the seventh graders were directed to watch, I can t imagine any objective person saying this is not Islamic indoctrination. Clueless school administrators across our nation are allowing this type of indoctrination to take place and it s up to vigilant parents to stop it. Libby and Nancy should have been praised, not pilloried. Watch the video shown to the 7th grade students here:Libby Hilsenrath and Nancy Gayer, with sons in different classes in the seventh grade, detailed their concerns in person to the Chatham Board of Education at their February 6, 2017 public meeting. Superintendent Michael LaSusa indicated that any change to the curriculum was unlikely, and the next day also refused their request to meet privately with him to discuss their concerns.Students had been shown a subtle propaganda cartoon video, 5 Pillars, which opens with two boys, one of them a Muslim, kicking a soccer ball. The Muslim teaches the non-Muslim the 5 Pillars of Islam. Additionally, a subtitle of bright, multi-colored words of various shapes pronounces a form of the Islamic conversion creed: There is no god except Allah and Prophet Muhammad is His messenger. The cartoon ends with a sad non-Muslim boy, who suddenly smiles when the Muslim boy invites him to join him at the mosque for noon-day prayers. Something the teacher can t personally do, but does through the cartoon. Clever!See the 5-minute video here: Clearly, seventh graders had been presented with a sugarcoated, false depiction of Islam. They had not been informed of the kidnappings, beheadings, slave-trading, massacres, and persecution of non-Muslims, nor of the repression of women all done in the name of Islam and the Koran.Libby Hilsenrath and Nancy Gayer were subjected to personal attacks throughout their campaign to stop Islamic indoctrination at the Chatham Middle School. They were defamed as bigots and Islamophobes , hateful , ignorant , xenophobes , intolerant , racist , closed minded , sad and ignorant in social media, and the list goes on. The attacks significantly intensified after their appearance on the Tucker Carlson Show.Commenting on the community s reaction, Nancy Gayer stated: It s just not fair that within this unit of study the Chatham school district taught one religion to the exclusion of all others, and for the community to be so unkind and unwelcoming towards us, just for having raised legitimate questions as concerned parents. Libby Hilsenrath added, One of my fundamental obligations as a parent is to guide the religious and secular education of my children. That s why I will continue the fight against the Islamic indoctrination now taking place at Chatham, regardless of the personal attacks. Libby Hilsenrath and Nancy Gayer asked the board to review the curriculum and requested that either the Islam lessons be removed or that the school spend equal time on the study of Christianity and other religions.Nancy Gayer contrasted the World Cultures and Geography lessons on Islam to her son s previous experience in fourth grade when he was precluded from including a short quote from the Bible, he who lends to the poor, lends to the Lord. (Prov 19:17) The quote was a part of his video presentation related to gathering warm clothes for underprivileged children. Nancy said that her son s teacher informed him that the brief Biblical quote belongs in Sunday school, not in the classroom. Obviously, based upon the World Cultures and Geography lessons being taught to children within the same school district, this abridgment of religious speech does not apply to Islam.The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, today announced that it is representing two Chatham, New Jersey mothers who are being pilloried by their community. | 1real |
The Daily Traditionalist: Jeff Schoep and the NSM | Radio Aryan October 29, 2016
Matthew Heimbach brings us the last show of the week accompanied by Jason Augustus and special guest Jeff Schoep from the National Socialist Movement. Jeff tells us how he has been involved in White Nationalism for around 25 years and reminds us of the sacrifices that many good men have made over that time to promote our cause, being imprisoned or physically attacked for their beliefs. The NSM is a political movement as well as being involved in street activism, so they are involved in a lot of community outreach work. Jeff talks about how their roots go back to George Lincoln Rockwell and the only groups that have legitimate ties to his movement are the New Order and the NSM. He was taught by the people who had learned from him and public service was always a part of what they were doing.
Jason asks what it was like to be a political skinhead involved in National Socialism and what changes he has seen in his time. Years ago a fight just used to be a fight, but nowadays you can be hit with hate crime charges as well, which can lead to lengthy prison sentences and ruined lives, just for a fistfight that may not have even involved racial politics. You cannot even defend your life any more without being charged with hate crime, as we have seen recently in Britain, where activists have received serious jail time for defending themselves against violent antifa in Kent. Jeff is banned from Britain as well as Matt, not due to any criminal activity but just because his speech is politically incorrect. Matt reminds us that the reason for this is because they have no answer to our talking points. They cannot debate us so they always seek to shut us down.
The NSM will be taking an important role in the new Nationalist Front alliance with the TWP and Jeff talks about previous attempts to do this before, where good people have tried to broker a peace between the various organisations but due to petty reasons were never able to achieve it. He explains how the main problem has always been personality issues, where people have an issue with someone and then make up stories about them to cause problems.
The TWP and the NSM will be at a national rally together at the state capital of Pennsylvania on November 5th and all are welcome, especially other organisations. Jeff reminds us that although it is good to be promoting stuff on the internet, real political change has always been made on the streets. He suggests that if people are worried of being caught on camera, they should just wear a hat and sunglasses. Matt points out that he has never met anyone at an event that he has ever then gone on to have problems with on the internet.
For the last part of the podcast Jeff talks about how he has worked to modernise the NSM, distancing them from German symbols and concentrating on American ones instead. He has taken some flak for this but believes that if we want to win, then we will have to start taking risks, after all, who dares wins.
Presented by Matthew Heimbach and Jason Augustus with special guest Jeff Schoep
The Daily Traditionalist: Jeff Schoep and the NSM â DT 102816 | 1real |
Clinton campaign struggled to balance unions, environmentalists - emails/WikiLeaks | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton struggled with how to secure the endorsement of labor unions while announcing her opposition to the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a project they supported but environmentalists opposed, according to leaked emails published by Wikileaks on Friday. Before announcing in September 2015 that she opposed TransCanada Corp’s proposal to build a pipeline from Canada to the United States, her campaign sought to “soften the blow” to labor unions by offering an energy infrastructure plan that would create jobs, according to the emails. The internal campaign emails from August 2015 reveal the difficulty Clinton had in appeasing both unions and environmentalists as she fought for her party’s nomination ahead of the Nov. 8 election. Wikileaks published the Clinton emails just hours after the U.S. government accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations. In the emails, Clinton advisers discussed how to frame the candidate’s “energy infrastructure” plan, which would call for replacing old pipelines, repairing rail tracks and improving the electric grid in a way that would appeal to labor unions, who had yet to endorse her at that stage. “Could we mention that ... as we transition HRC wants to create more careers within the new energy economy? Careers is their buzz word,” wrote Nikki Budzinski, labor outreach director for Hillary for America. Clinton had long avoided taking a firm position on Keystone, which had been pending for seven years, as she sought her party’s nomination last year. As secretary of state, Clinton said in 2010 she was inclined to approve it. Rival Senator Bernie Sanders had been a staunch opponent of the pipeline. President Barack Obama did not reject the pipeline until November 2015. Labor unions have pushed for approval of the pipeline, saying it would create thousands of construction jobs while environmentalists opposed it because it would increase greenhouse gas emissions from Canada’s oil sands. The emails show that North America’s Building Trades, representing builders and construction workers, contacted the campaign after hearing that Obama would announce his denial of the pipeline in late August and that Clinton would say she “encouraged” him to make the decision. “We are so close to getting bldg (sic) trades [endorsement] and if we do this right, it will be ok even though they won’t like it,” wrote Amanda Renteria, the campaign’s national political adviser. The Building Trades union endorsed Clinton in November and the Laborers’ International Union of North America endorsed Clinton in December. Clinton’s struggle to please both green and labor groups is likely to emerge as a key challenge if she is to win the presidency. A decision over another pipeline, the Dakota Access, has sparked major protests from Native American and environmental groups. The Obama administration temporarily halted construction, frustrating unions. “These types of decisions made by this administration get dumped in the presidential race and it’s kind of unfair,” Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, told Reuters in an interview last month. “We don’t like all of Clinton’s energy policies but we think it’s reasonable.” | 0fake |
EXCLUSIVE - Ted Cruz on School Choice Week: Let’s Unleash American Exceptionalism for Every Child - Breitbart | Every child deserves an equal opportunity to learn. Yet today millions of children across our nation find themselves trapped in failing schools, barring them from the chance to receive the education they need to climb out of poverty and up the economic ladder. [All parents and students who want educational choice should have it. Yet in Texas alone, 105, 000 kids are waiting to be admitted to charter schools, and throughout the nation, more than a million children await acceptance into charter schools. While there remains an enormous task before us to give every child access to a quality education, I am encouraged by progress that has been made in my home state of Texas. Since 2000, the number of charter schools in Texas has more than tripled. And currently before the Texas Legislature are significant measures that will continue to expand school choice across our state. The facts are unequivocal — school choice improves students’ test scores, keeps them in school longer, saves taxpayer dollars, provides a safer learning environment, and increases competition and quality in traditional public schools. School choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century — it’s opening doors for children to pursue their talents and ambitions, and it’s providing some of our poorest students a ticket to a better life and more promising future. Now is the time to open the gateway of opportunity to children across the country. We need to expand charters, vouchers, education savings account programs, and educational options for all children, regardless of their race, ethnicity or zip code. Today, Texans are rallying in Austin to raise awareness for the opportunities the Texas Legislature has this session to make meaningful inroads in further expanding school choice across our state. I stand in support of them and proudly stand with our state leaders, like Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and many others who are working hard to make the dream of education equality a reality. Together, we can unlock the gates of opportunity, and unleash the potential of every child to become the next success story in our nation’s long history of exceptionalism. | 0fake |
Donald Trump REFUSED To Answer This Clever Question About Abortion | Republican front runner Donald Trump has once again confused everyone on one of his policies by completely reversing and flip-flopping several times in the span of just a few days. This time, he chose the controversial topic of abortion because he s a misogynist and degrading women just comes so effortlessly and naturally to him.First, the business mogul p*ssed everyone off by saying that women who got abortions should face some sort of punishment. Then, the disgraced candidate frantically backpedaled and said abortion should be left to the states , and that it wasn t women that should be punished, but the doctors who perform the abortions! After that, Trump said that abortions laws were set and should stay the way they are, before his campaign clarified his statement and said that the laws should remain the same until Trump is president. As this back-and-forth nonsense went on, the media was pummeling Trump for not being able to make up his damn mind, and for being horrendously offensive.Now, Trump is trying to avoid even more backlash by straight-up refusing to answer questions on the topic of abortion, as America tries to understand what exactly Trump s position on it really is. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd discovered this when she recently tried to interview Trump for her Sunday column entitled Trump Does It His Way . Dowd said she posed this clever question to the front runner: When he was a swinging bachelor in Manhattan, was he ever involved with anyone who had an abortion? Trump s answered by evading the question entirely. He said: Such an interesting question. So what s your next question? Trump also gave a pathetic justification for his original punishment comments on abortion that he d made earlier in the week. He told Dowd: This was not real life this was a hypothetical, so I thought of it in terms of a hypothetical. So that s where that answer came from, hypothetically. Dowd also asked Trump how he possibly expected to win the election when he had completely turned off and disgusted 73 percent of American woman. Trump simply murmured, It was 68 percent, actually. Featured image via Gage Skidmore | 1real |
Lawyer Who Kept Hillary Campaign Chief Out of Jail in DOJ Hillary Probe | Lawyer Who Kept Hillary Campaign Chief Out of Jail in DOJ Hillary Probe November 1, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
Peter Kadzik kept Hillary's campaign chief out of jail. And he hopes to do the same for her.
Hillary's people have gone on the warpath against the FBI. Their allies are Obama's political appointees at the DOJ. And this is who is in their corner.
The Justice Department official in charge of informing Congress about the newly reactivated Hillary Clinton email probe is a political appointee and former private-practice lawyer who kept Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta “out of jail,” lobbied for a tax cheat later pardoned by President Bill Clinton and led the effort to confirm Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Peter Kadzik, who was confirmed as assistant attorney general for legislative affairs in June 2014, represented Podesta in 1998 when independent counsel Kenneth Starr was investigating Podesta for his possible role in helping ex-Bill Clinton intern and mistress Monica Lewinsky land a job at the United Nations.
“Fantastic lawyer. Kept me out of jail,” Podesta wrote on Sept. 8, 2008 to Obama aide Cassandra Butts, according to emails hacked from Podesta’s Gmail account and posted by WikiLeaks.
Kadzik’s name has surfaced multiple times in regard to the FBI’s investigation of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for using a private, homebrewed server. After FBI Director James Comey informed Congress on Thursday the FBI was reviving its inquiry when new evidence linked to a separate investigation was discovered, congressional leaders wrote to the Department of Justice seeking more information. Kadzik replied.
“We assure you that the Department will continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible,” Kadzik wrote on Oct. 31.
Kadzik had been an attorney with Dickstein Shapiro LLP for 18 years before he represented Podesta in the Clinton/Lewinsky investigation. He was hired in 2000 as a lobbyist for tax cheat Marc Rich, who was controversially granted a pardon by President Bill Clinton during Clinton’s final days in office. Kadzik got the job “because he was ‘trusted by [White House Chief of Staff John] Podesta,’ and was considered to be a ‘useful person to convey [Marc Rich’s] arguments to Mr. Podesta,’” according to a 2002 House Oversight Committee report.
Marc Rich? Funny you should mention his name. FBI boss Comey was the prosecutor in that case. And the FBI recently released material from the investigation into that case.
So there's a lot of Clinton history coming full circle here. | 1real |
BREAKING: Republican House Intel Chair THREATENS The Press After Asking About Russia (VIDEO) | There is something going on right now within our government that is very, very concerning. With evidence stacking up against Donald Trump and his administration regarding connections to Russia, the Republican party seems to be defending him. Part of that defense seems to be a direct threat agains the press for having the audacity to use their First Amendment right to hold the *president accountable and tell the whole story.During a press conference with House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA), instead of answering questions about Russia, he turned the questions on their head and told the press that if they are found trying to seek answers from the Russian embassy that they will be the ones investigated.In an effort to deflect, Nunes said: I m sure some of you are in contact with the Russian embassy, so be careful what you ask for here, because if we start getting transcripts of any of you or other Americans talking to the press do you want us to conduct an investigation on you or other Americans because you were talking to the Russian embassy. I just think we need to be careful. What the hell is happening? The press will be investigated for trying to report the story? How about investigate Donald Trump and his administration. How about hold him accountable for his many actions. How about demanding to see his tax returns so we can see his financial ties for the safety and security of the nation. How about instead of threatening reporters, you put party politics aside and work for the American people as you were elected to do.Wow. Just, wow.This isn t okay AT ALL.Watch here:Featured Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1real |
Hillary's 33,000 emails might not be 'missing' after all | THE DELETER OF THE FREE WORLD Hillary's 33,000 emails might not be 'missing' after all Files backed up on multiple platforms never subpoened by FBI Published: 19 mins ago
(New York Post) For months now, we’ve been told that Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 missing emails were permanently erased and destroyed beyond recovery. But newly released FBI notes strongly suggest they still exist in several locations — and they could be recovered, if only someone would impanel a grand jury and seize them.
In a May interview with FBI agents, an executive with the Denver contractor that maintained Clinton’s private server revealed that an underling didn’t bleach-clean all her subpoenaed emails, just ones he stored in a data file he used to transfer the emails from the server to Clinton’s aides, who in turn sorted them for delivery to Congress.
The Platte River Networks executive, whose name was redacted from the interview report, said PRN tech Paul Combetta “created a ‘vehicle’ to transfer email files from the live mailboxes of [Clinton Executive Services Corp.] email accounts [and] then later used BleachBit software to shred the ‘vehicle,’ but the email content still existed in the live email accounts.” | 1real |
Why Hillary Clinton wins even when she loses | We're not with her. That's what Democratic voters in West Virginia said Tuesday night, with Hillary Clinton losing to Bernie Sanders. Although the loss was not unexpected, Clinton's campaign sure seems like one long slog of speeches, handshakes and voter selfies on the way toward the 2016 convention in Philadelphia.
This extended campaign, however, is actually the best thing that could have happened to Clinton. She has benefited enormously from the presence of Sanders. Now Team Clinton must build on lessons learned from the primaries as they prepare to run against Donald Trump in the general election.
Then look at Clinton these days, speaking out about income inequality, campaign finance reform, and the evils of the big banks on Wall Street. Hmm, where could those winning themes have come from? From Bernie, thank you, who proved that progressive voters are tired of not having a voice in national politics. His success pushed Clinton to the left, and she is a better candidate for it.
Despite Clinton's experience as first lady, senator, and secretary of state, there is an understandable tendency of many Democratic voters to be wary of anything resembling a Clinton "coronation." | 0fake |
Lindsay Lohan’s Strange Accent: Another Telling Sign of a Mind Control Slave | Lindsay Lohan’s Strange Accent: Another Telling Sign of a Mind Control Slave November 3, 2016 94
A video of Lindsay Lohan giving an interview with a strange accent has lead to wild speculation from fans and media. However, to those in the know, this is yet another telling symptom of MK programming, from someone who has already displayed many other symptoms.
There’s a difference between speaking with a funny accent as a joke and speaking with a completely different speech pattern in all seriousness. One is the result of goofing around and the other is the result an alter-persona. - Advertisement -
Lohan’s new accent was noticed while giving an interview to a reporter in Greece. Here’s the video.
Lindsay, who is mainly based in England and Greece and was recently in a relationship with a Russian billionaire (MK handler?), was explaining to the journalist about why she has opened up a Nightclub in Athens called Lohan. After a Daily Mail article on the subject, Lohan “joked” and gave her accent (and alter-persona) a name: Lilohan.
As stated in previous articles, victims of Mind Control are programmed with alter personas that have their own history, identity and accent (read my full article on Monarch Programming here ). The programming is so pervasive that the same person can speak different languages with different accents effortlessly – while the core persona cannot. For this reason, the spontaneous yet constant usage of a different accent is one of the main tell-tale signs of MK programming. And Lindsay Lohan has been identified her, on Vigilant Citizen, to be a Beta Kitten slave a long time ago. The entertainment industry has been very keen on proving this fact through symbolic pictures. Lindsay posed countless times as Marilyn Monroe who is the prototype of Beta Kitten Programming. In this photo by Tyler Shields, Lindsay lays on a bed while men get undressed. One cannot come up with a more graphic way of portraying the life of Beta Kitten slaves. Industry slaves must work with creepy photographers such as Terry Richardson. Bonus industry slave sign: One Eye sign. In another shoot with Terry Richardson, Lohan appears genuinely traumatized.
In past years, Lohan has floated in and out of rehab (aka re-programming) while increasingly appearing to be “out of it”.
Another famous person who has been displaying the same Beta Kitten symptoms is Britney Spears. Here’s an article about her speaking with a different accent in 2008 – around the time of her infamous head-shaving meltdown. Britney Spears Lapses Into a British Accent
Britney Spears has a new accessory to go with her pink wig: a British accent.
In the last several weeks, Spears, 26, has been videotaped numerous times trading her Louisiana twang for U.K. inflections.
“She had the English accent thing going the whole time” while shopping at Kitson last Thursday, according to a source. “It didn’t stop.”
Even when angry, the accent appears. On an L.A. shopping trip to Macy’s on Jan. 13, she screamed at the paparazzi, “Get out of my G—— face!” – in a British accent.
So is it all in fun or has she flipped her pink wig?
“When someone has dissociative identity disorder” – formerly known as multiple personality disorder – “each identity is split off from the other,” says L.A. psychologist Renee A. Cohen, who is not treating Spears. “Each identity would have its own name, memories, behavioral traits and emotional characteristics.”
Cohen says the critical question is: “When Britney uses the British accent, or appears to take on another identity, does she know she’s Britney Spears?”
“Otherwise, she could simply be behaving this way for attention, for sympathy, or any other reason,” adds Cohen. “It’s foolish to attempt to diagnose her without a formal evaluation.”
One possible influence could be Spears’s maternal grandmother, Lilian Bridges, who was originally from England.
Also, Spears’s new beau, photographer Adnan Ghalib, grew up in Birmingham, England.
According to paparazzi who trail the singer around the clock, one thing is for sure: the pink wig means something’s changing.
“When she puts on the pink wig, you just know something crazy is about to happen,” said one paparazzo.
– Source: People.com
While media is wondering what kind of accent Lindsay was speaking with (sounds Greek to me), we should rather wonder: Why would a 30 year old woman speak, in all seriousness, with a strange accent and a completely different speech pattern? Most of the time it is the result of a multiple-personality disorder (MPD) – which is a symptom of Monarch mind control. It is there, right in our face, but very few are actually seeing it. TAGS | 1real |
Russia's Putin says defeat of terror in Syria imminent | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he had all grounds to believe that Moscow, along with Damascus, would soon defeat terrorists in Syria. He said that the Syrian peace process was developing in a positive way, though there were still problems. He said there was a proposal to hold a Congress of Syrian peoples, bringing together representatives of all ethnic groups in Syria. | 0fake |
Ex-GOP Congressman Shreds Fellow Republicans For Not ‘Howling’ For Trump’s Impeachment (VIDEO)
| At this point, every Republican who refuses to have a spine and stand up to Donald Trump s ignorance and tyranny is just as guilty of endangering the country as America s unworthy POTUS and one GOPer is letting them know it.Recently, former U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) trashed his fellow GOPers for being so weak and whimpering when faced with Trump s numerous scandals, particularly Russia s possible interference in the 2016 election. Directly calling out how weak the Republican Party has been at upholding their own values and loyalty to the U.S. Constitution, Inglis stated that conservatives need to get their act together and actually start taking the Russian meddling seriously. This is particularly noteworthy because former Director of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson says it s a fact that Russia interfered in the election. Inglis said: The president needs to understand that this is an investigation of an attack by a hostile power at the very heart of our republic. If he were wise, he would open up the doors and say, Let s look into it, come and see what all I ve got because we ve got to know what happened here. While Trump has never been one to take advice from anyone (no matter how much smarter they are), Inglis suggested that the best way Trump could get on America s good side is to simply stop getting in the way of the investigation and actually cooperate for once.Pointing out a double standard in the Republican Party, Inglis stated that if it had been Hillary Clinton as POTUS and she had fired FBI Director James Comey for reopening an investigation on her email server, the GOP would be up in arms. He said: Republicans would be howling about that, we would be talking about impeachment. We d be talking about obstruction of justice, but as it is, we re sort of whimpering. We re not after this thing. We need to really be after it. You can watch Inglis shred the GOP for its hypocrisy below:Featured image via Pool /Getty Images | 1real |
IRONY ALERT! DC’S DAY WITHOUT WOMEN Literally Led By A Man…Event Turns Into Anti-Trump Rally: “He is wrong. We have to stop him.” [Video] | We hope these women realize they were being used by George Soros and other leftists to protest Trump instead of to celebrate women! | 1real |
“DIFFICULT” CHELSEA CLINTON CAUSES HIGH TURNOVER AT CLINTON FOUNDATION | Like mother like daughter? Chelsea is very difficult according to insiders. We know from former Clintonites that Hillary can cuss like a sailor and really hammer people so perhaps this is a case of YOU ARE WHAT YOU KNOW CHELSEA KNOWS BEING DIFFICULT TO WORK WITH Chelsea Clinton is so unpleasant to colleagues, she s causing high turnover at the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, sources say. Several top staffers have left the foundation since Chelsea came onBoard as vice chairman in 2011. A lot of people left because she was there. A lot of people left because she didn t want them there, an insider told me. She is very difficult. Onetime CEO Bruce Lindsey was pushed upstairs to the position of chairman of the board two years ago, so that Chelsea could bring in her McKinsey colleague Eric Braverman. He [Braverman] was her boy, but he tried to hire his own communications professional and actually tried to run the place. He didn t understand that that wasn t what he was supposed to be doing, said my source. He was pushed out. Matt McKenna was Chelsea s spokesman, and then he wasn t. Now he works for Uber. Ginny Ehrlich, the founding CEO of the Clinton Health Matters Initiative, now works for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.Via: NY Post | 1real |
Houthi-Saleh Alliance Takes Control over More Villages in Saudi Arabia’s Jizan Province - Russia News Now | This post was originally published on this site
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The Houthi-Saleh Alliance has taken control over several strategic villages in al-Khobeh region, killing tens of Saudi soldiers and destroying their military hardware.
The Houthi-Saleh Alliance continued its advances in the province of Jizan , located in southern Saudi Arabia, taking full control over several strategic villages in al-Khobeh region, Arabic-language media reported on Saturday, citing a senior Ansarullah Commander, Nasreddin Ameri.
According to Ameri, tens of Saudi soldiers lost their lives and many more of them fled the battlefield after 12 hours of clashes with fighters of the alliance. He also added that “six armored Bradly tanks and two Abrams tanks of the Saudi Army were destroyed, while other Saudi military hardware was also set on fire by Yemeni troops.”
Last week, Saudi Arabia’s military bases, located in Assir, Jizan and Najran provinces of the kingdom, were pounded by artillery units of the Houthi-Saleh Alliance. As result, Saudi troops suffered heavy losses.
According to reports, Yemeni fighters and their allies struck gatherings of the Saudi forces, stationed in the northern part of Midi desert near the village of al-Mousem in Jizan province. The Saudi Mosan military base, located in the southern part of the kingdom, as well as the Manfaz border checkpoint in Assir province were also hit by the alliance. As a result of the attacks, a large number of Saudi soldiers were killed. Two armored vehicles of Saudi military were destroyed by the Houthi-Saleh Alliance near the al-Khazra border checkpoint. All members of the crews were killed.
Earlier in November, the al-Ahad information website reported that residents of more than 60% of Saudi Arabia’s villages, located along the border with Yemen , had been evacuated by the kingdom’s border guards. According to commander of the al-Arezeh Border Guards in the province of Jizan, Lieutenant Ali al-Amri, the evacuation was carried out on an order of senior Saudi officials.
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Top Senate Democrat calls on White House to release Trump-Russia meeting transcripts | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday urged the White House to immediately release transcripts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s May 10 meeting with Russian officials to the relevant lawmakers probing alleged interference by Russia in the 2016 U.S. election. “Given the gravity of the matter, we need to be able to quickly assess whether or not this report is true and what exactly was said,” Schumer said, speaking on the Senate floor amid reports that Trump disclosed intelligence information to senior Russian officials last week. “Producing the transcripts is the only way for this Administration to categorically prove the reports untrue.” | 0fake |
Lesbian Couple In New Jersey Insists State Is Forcing Them To Have Sex With Men (VIDEO) | Two women in New Jersey are suing the state for one horrific obstacle that is in their path to having children the women are lesbians, and they say the state is forcing them to have sex with men before they are allowed fertility treatments.According to the suit, the women were denied insurance coverage for their fertility treatments because of the wording of an N.J. law that requires women to prove their infertility not only through medical diagnosis, but through unprotected heterosexual sex. The law, the four women argue in the suit, discriminates against infertile gay couples trying to conceive.State law requires large insurance providers to cover costly fertility treatments for patients medically unable to have children. The couples take issue with how the law defines infertility, which includes the inability to become pregnant after one or two years of unprotected sex, depending on a woman s age. Insurance companies have been able to deny coverage to gay patients who, although they have been medically diagnosed infertile, do not fit the definition, the suit says.Source: New Jersey.comErin Krupas is infertile. Her doctor confirmed it, but that s not enough for New Jersey law. She needs to prove it by having sex with a man.You wouldn t think of a law like this existing in mostly blue New Jersey, but remember they did elect Chris Christie twice. He s still vehemently opposed to marriage equality, despite the fact that it s the law of the land. Christie didn t sign this archaic law, but you can bet he has no intention of making lives better for LGBT couples.I hate defending insurance companies, but they are caught in the middle here. Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield vehemently maintains that they do not discriminate against LGBT couples, but they have to follow state law. They are not being named in the lawsuit.Here s the video:Let s all hope this law is overturned. This is state-mandated rape. There s no other way to describe it. | 1real |
[VIDEO] Muslims Demand That Crosses Are Removed From A Catholic University Because They Find Them Offensive | [VIDEO] Muslims Demand That Crosses Are Removed From A Catholic University Because They Find Them Offensive Oct 28, 2016 Previous post
Obama continuously claims that Muslims do not what to change our culture and Sharia Law is not coming to the United States. Yet, Yale Law School has opened up an Islamic Law Center for students to study Sharia Law and in Germany, an 8-month pregnant woman was beaten for wearing a cross, because it’s against Sharia Law. Now, a professor at a rival college is upset that Washington D.C.’s Catholic University of America has crosses covering the classrooms and does not have a designated space for their Muslim students to pray.
Now, Muslims are complaining about crosses hanging up in the classroom of a Catholic University in Washington D.C. The complaint says that the crosses at the Washington D.C.’s Catholic Univeristy of America are “offensive” and prevent Muslims from praying within the vicinity of them. This may come as a shock to many, but it is just the latest occurrence of demands for the United States to implement and maintain Sharia Law adherence. The complaint was filed with the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights by a Professor Banzhaf from the rivaling college of George Washington University saying that there are in fact “too many crosses in every room of Washington D.C.’s Catholic Univeristy of America” which is a “human rights violation that prevents Muslim students from praying there.” Officials of the Washington D.C.’s Catholic Univeristy of America said that they were not aware of any complaints from any of the Muslim students who attended.
Professor Banzhaf already has a pending lawsuit against Washington D.C.’s Catholic University of America for terminating its policy of mixed-gender dorms. Professor Banzhaf also has a rather long history of filing civil rights lawsuits on topics that range from smoking to childhood obesity. Part of the lawsuit states the Catholic University “does not provide space – as other universities do – for the many daily prayers Muslim students must make, forcing them instead to find temporarily empty classrooms where they are often surrounded by Catholic symbols which are incongruous to their religion.”
Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society was quoted as saying that “this attorney is really turning civil rights on its head. He’s using the law for his own discrimination against the Catholic institution and essentially saying Catholic University cannot operate according to its Catholic principles.”
FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK | 1real |
Russia reacts to UN aid chief's Aleppo 'kill zone' remarks | Russia Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the UN (Photos by AFP)
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has accused the United Nations aid chief of arrogance and bias after he told the UN Security Council that Russian and Syrian airstrikes have turned Aleppo into a "kill zone."
During a Wednesday Security Council meeting, Churkin accused Stephen O'Brien of making "arrogant” and "outrageous" remarks and failing to recognize that Russia and Syria have been observing a humanitarian pause, which has been in place for the last eight days.
“The moratorium on flights has been in place for eight days. Give us at least one proof or leave those narratives for a romance you would probably write later," he said.
"If we needed to be preached to, we would go to a church," the Russian envoy added. UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien speaks during a press conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh on October 5, 2016.
On Tuesday, Russia announced plans to extend the week-long suspension of airstrikes targeting foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists in Aleppo.
Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military's General Staff said that Russian and Syrian jets had stayed 10 kilometers away from Aleppo since October 18, and that humanitarian corridors out of Aleppo remained open.
Rudskoi further expressed Moscow’s readiness to organize more ceasefires on the ground in Aleppo to allow wounded civilians to be evacuated. Smoke rises from buildings hit by militant shelling in a government-held neighborhood of the Syrian city of Aleppo on October 20, 2016.
Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, has been divided between government forces in the west and the militants in the east since 2012. In an attempt to free the trapped civilian population and to end the militants’ reign of terror in the east, the Syrian army, backed by Russian fighter jets, began a major offensive on September 22.
Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by deadly militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies. Loading ... | 1real |
Casualties in religious attacks in Afghanistan rise steeply: U.N. | KABUL (Reuters) - Civilian casualties in religious attacks in Afghanistan, primarily against Shi ite mosques, have significantly increased in the last two years, according to the United Nations. Some 850 casualties, of which 273 were fatal, have been recorded by the U.N.'s Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) since the beginning of last year in more than 50 incidents, nearly double the figure for the previous seven years. (goo.gl/93CjrE) The latest attacks took place three weeks ago at two Shi ite mosques, one in Kabul and the other in the central province of Ghhor, killing at least 72 people. Islamic State claimed responsibility for them and a string of others across the country in recent months. Sectarian violence has been relatively rare in Sunni-dominant Afghanistan, but since 2015 Islamic State has escalated fears by killing scores of Shi ites. The minority Shi ites accuse the government of ignoring their needs. UNAMA recommended further action by the Afghan government to protect people and places of worship from attack. | 0fake |
Senate confirms Huntsman as ambassador to Russia | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate confirmed former Utah governor Jon Huntsman on Thursday to be President Donald Trump s ambassador to Russia, sending an experienced diplomat to fill the crucial post in Moscow. The Senate confirmed Huntsman, who also served as ambassador to China under former Democratic President Barack Obama, by voice vote. Huntsman served as ambassador to Singapore under former Republican President George H.W. Bush. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had approved Huntsman unanimously earlier this week, as members from both parties praised his qualifications and experience. The Senate also confirmed three other diplomatic positions by voice vote: John Bass, currently the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, to be envoy to Afghanistan; career diplomat Justin Siberell to be ambassador to Bahrain and Wess Mitchell, a think-tank founder, to be Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Huntsman takes on the post in Moscow as congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller investigate allegations that Russia sought to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election on Trump s behalf, as well as potential collusion with Moscow by Trump associates. Moscow denies such activity and Trump dismisses any talk of collusion. Huntsman said at his confirmation hearing that there was no question Russia interfered during the 2016 campaign. | 0fake |
New Book Reveals HILLARY’S ANTI-SEMITIC SIDE: Blamed Bill’s Campaign Manager For Losing Congressional Race…Called Him A “F*cking Jew B*stard” | Hillary doesn t recall saying it, but Bill s campaign manager, Paul Fray clearly remembers her saying it. Just another Hillary lie what different does it make? Hillary Clinton is fighting a rearguard action to avoid further damage to her standing with the crucial Jewish vote in her campaign for a Senate seat after a claim that she once used an ethnic insult against one of Bill Clinton s aides.A book out today claims that 26 years ago she called Paul Fray, her husband s campaign manager at the time, a fucking Jew bastard .Mrs Clinton denied the allegation and pressed the president into supporting her, but the author, Jerry Oppenheimer, said: Three witnesses have now publicly acknowledged that she said it. I have never said anything like that, ever, Mrs Clinton said. I have in the past certainly, you know maybe, called somebody a name. But I have never used an ethnic, racial, anti-Semitic, bigoted, discriminatory, prejudiced, accusation against anybody. I ve never done it. I ve never thought it. Mr Clinton, who was trying to bring about a Middle East peace deal at Camp David, backed her up. I was there on election night in 1974 and the charge is simply not true, he said. She might have called him a bastard, I wouldn t rule that out. She s never claimed that she was pure on profanity. But I ve never heard her tell a joke with an ethnic connotation. She s so fanatic about it. It s not in her. Referring to a vast rightwing conspiracy in previous elections, he said: This is part of a pattern. They couldn t defeat me politically and they can t defeat her politically so they go after us personally. Accounts of the dispute on election night 1974, when Mr Clinton failed to win a congressional seat representing Arkansas, have appeared before without the ethnic insult.Those present at the inquest into the defeat were Mr Clinton, his then-girlfriend Hillary, his campaign manager Paul Fray, and Mr Fray s wife, Mary Lee. Neill McDonald, a campaign worker, was just outside the room and claims to have heard everything.The Frays and Mr McDonald are the three witnesses on whom Mr Oppenheimer, a former reporter on the National Inquirer tabloid, relies for the passage in his book State of a Union: Inside the Complex Marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton.Mr Fray, 57, said yesterday: I was a little defensive about it. I looked to the floor thinking How do I respond? I didn t mind being called a son-of-a-bitch, but when it came to attacking my culture, that s a whole nother ballgame. You ve got to understand it was the heat of the moment. We knew we had lost. It was a case of people lashing out at one another and it just got to that point. Mr Fray is actually a Southern Baptist but says that he is one-eighth Jewish through his great-grandfather.Mrs Fray said that her husband s recollection of the meeting, which lasted about an hour, was accurate. Mr McDonald said: I don t know what provoked it or what. I just remember that one little comment. Via: The Guardian | 1real |
Neo-Nazi Leader Calls Depeche Mode ‘Official Band Of Alt-Right’; The Band Has Other Ideas | Richard Spencer, the Trump supporting leader of the white nationalist alt-right movement is a fan of the 80s and 90s alternative rock band Depeche Mode, so much so that he said that the band, who sings about racial equality, is the official band of the alt-right. Um, no, they aren t and Depeche Mode was quick to let them know.When asked if he likes rock music, according to New York magazine s Olivia Nuzzi, Spencer joked, Depeche Mode is the official band of the Alt-Right. Though the lifelong Depeche Mode fan later told Rolling Stone, My tongue was firmly in cheek, the 38-year-old speaker-provocateur expounded on his love of the group, prompting a quick rebuttal from the left-leaning band. They aren t a typical rock band, in terms of lyrics and much else, he tells Rolling Stone. Depeche Mode is a band of existential angst, pain, sadism, horror, darkness and much more. It s not bubblegum pop, with frontmen who sing about luuuuv and sugarplum faries [sic]. There was a certain Communist aesthetic to an early album like [1982 s] A Broken Frame as well as titles like Music for the Masses but then there s a bit of a fascist element, too. It s obviously ambiguous, and as with all art, everything is multi-layer, contradictory and ambivalent.Source: Rolling StoneThis is all pretty funny since Dave Gahan, Depeche Mode s frontman, called Trump a nazi during the presidential campaign, and sorry Richard, it wasn t a compliment, although perhaps that s how Spencer took it:When asked about Trump, Gahan told Italian journalist Matteo Cruccu of Corriere della Sera in a video interview: The things that he s saying sound very similar to what someone was saying in 1935. That didn t work out very well! The things that he s saying are cruel and heartless and promoting fear. Source: Heat StreetNot surprisingly, Depeche Mode responded to Spencer with a firm and unambiguous Depeche Mode has no ties to Richard Spencer of the Alt-Right and does not support the Alt-Right movement.This is a statement the band made during the 80s about race relations. Enjoy:Featured image via Wikimedia | 1real |
KELLYANNE CONWAY: “Where The Hell Were Those Democrats When Veterans Were Dying Waiting For Care?” | Kellyanne Conway appeared on the Sean Hannity show with guest host Eric Bolling. She was clearly frustrated by the Democrats attempt to mischaracterize the repeal of Obamacare. The outspoken Kellyanne Conway blasted the Democrats, asking Eric Bolling, Where the hell were the Democrats when veterans were dying? She also reminded Bolling that President Trump signed the Veterans Choice Act last week, allowing veterans who can t get timely, quality health care at a VA facility, to access the private health care system.Watch: Where the hell were those #Democrats when #Veterans were dying waiting for care? ~ @KellyannePolls #AHCA #Trumpcare #MAGA pic.twitter.com/H1B2xXWHjg BRIAN FRASER (@bfraser747) May 6, 2017The American Health Care Act (HR 1628) passed by the House this week reduces taxes on the American people by over $1 trillion. For a list of taxes the bill abolishes that were imposed by Obama and the Democrat party in 2010 as part of Obamacare click HERE. | 1real |
Suspect Is Killed in Attack at Ohio State University That Injured 11 - The New York Times | A student at Ohio State University intentionally rammed a car into pedestrians on a busy campus sidewalk on Monday morning and then began slashing with a butcher knife, the authorities said, injuring 11 students and faculty and staff members, and setting off panic at one of the nation’s largest public universities. A university police officer fatally shot the suspect within about a minute of the attack, but the sprawling campus in Columbus, Ohio, remained on lockdown for about an hour and a half as people ran for cover and barricaded themselves in academic buildings and dorms. Investigators were looking into whether the attack was an act of terrorism and were seeking information on the student, Abdul Artan, a permanent United States resident from Somalia who was studying logistics management at Ohio State. The F. B. I. was investigating comments on Facebook indicating that he may have felt Muslims were being persecuted, an investigator said. Last summer the student newspaper, The Lantern, published an interview with Mr. Artan in which he complained about being afraid to pray in public as a Muslim, because of people’s negative perceptions of the religion. “I was kind of scared with everything going on in the media. I’m a Muslim, it’s not what media portrays me to be,” he told the newspaper. “If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don’t know what they’re going to think, what’s going to happen. But I don’t blame them. It’s the media that put that picture in their heads. ” The attack began at 9:50 a. m. Monday, when “this car suddenly appeared on the sidewalk,” said Angshuman Kapil, a graduate student. “It was in high speed, and it just hit whoever came in front of him. ” The car stopped only when it rammed a concrete block, he said. The driver leapt out, the authorities said, and began attacking people with a knife. A campus police officer, Alan Horujko, 28, shot Mr. Artan after he failed to follow orders to drop his weapon, and officials credited the officer with helping to save lives. All of the wounded were expected to survive, university officials said. Six people were hit by the car, and five had stab wounds or lacerations, doctors said. They were being treated at three hospitals. No evidence has emerged that Mr. Artan had any connection or allegiance to radical ideology. Though no terrorist group had claimed responsibility for the attack, the Islamic State was updating its online audiences on the rampage on Monday. Both the and the knife attacks are now established forms of aggression inspired by the Islamic State. An attacker in Nice, France, used a delivery truck to kill dozens of pedestrians in July, and chats between an attacker in Würzburg, Germany, and his Islamic State handler indicate he was initially told to use a car to carry out his assault that same month, before he settled on using an ax because he did not have a driving permit. The authorities in Ohio said that it was too soon to know what had motivated Mr. Artan, but that it was clear the attack had been deliberate. Mr. Artan’s Columbus home was surrounded by squad cars, crime scene tape and a bomb squad truck on Monday afternoon, and police officials said they were waiting for a search warrant. “This was done on purpose,” said Chief Craig Stone of the Ohio State University police. “To go over the curb and strike pedestrians and then get out and start striking with the knife — that was on purpose. ” The attack, initially reported as an “active shooter” by the university, stunned students who were returning to class after Thanksgiving break, leading to a warning and an admonition from campus officials to “Run Hide Fight. ” Haylee Gardiner, a sophomore, said she was on her way to a chemistry lab when the attack occurred. “I saw a bunch of people running, and when they were running, they were screaming and yelling,” said Ms. Gardiner, who scrambled to a residence hall for shelter. “And then all of a sudden, I heard four or five gunshots. ” Sean Cody, 23, from Akron, Ohio, was running late for his philosophy class, and after hearing a loud boom, he sprinted into a building to alert fellow students. “Then there was a bang, a dust cloud, then shouting and screaming, and people just booking it in every direction,” Mr. Cody said. “Then, 30 seconds, a minute later, there were gunshots. ” During the chaos, students huddled in locked rooms, and some took to Twitter, posting photos from inside barricaded classrooms. Ohio State administrators released little information about Mr. Artan, and parts of his background remained unclear. He was admitted to the United States in June 2014 as the child of a refugee, federal officials said, and was believed to be in his late teens or early 20s. He graduated cum laude from Columbus State Community College with an associate of arts degree, officials there said. He was on the Columbus State dean’s list in 2015. Officer Horujko, who joined the university police last year, had also been profiled in The Lantern. An Ohio native and a graduate of the university, he said he had decided to be an officer after working in campus safety as a student. As Ohio State officials took stock of the attack and made plans for classes to resume on Tuesday, they said they were thankful the injuries were not more severe and were optimistic that students would come together even if investigators discovered a link to terrorism. “Our campus community is extremely tolerant,” Michael V. Drake, the university president, said in an interview. “The concept of branding a whole community for the act of a few leads to an intolerance that can make the world a more difficult place for all of us. ” The episode was reported near Watts Hall, a building at the heart of the campus that houses materials science and engineering programs. Heavily armed SWAT teams swarmed the campus, and at one point could be seen making their way up a stairwell of a nearby parking garage. Monday’s violence followed a machete attack in February at a Mediterranean restaurant in Columbus, which also ended with the police killing the suspect. The restaurant’s owner told reporters that he believed he had been targeted because of his Israeli heritage. The attack on Monday was the latest episode over the last decade on an American college campus. Shootings at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University and Oikos University in California, among others, have led colleges nationwide to plan how to respond to an attack. Monday’s instruction to “Run Hide Fight” came from a training program used by Ohio State and other groups for reacting to active shootings. “We prepare for situations like this,” Dr. Drake said, “but always hope never to have one. ” Muslim leaders in Ohio praised the police for their response and urged the public not to make assumptions about the attacker’s motives. “We as yet know nothing about the motivation of the attacker, but we do know of his Somali heritage, and that will be enough for some people to falsely link this tragic incident to the faith of Islam and to the Somali and Muslim communities,” said Roula Allouch, national board chairwoman of the Council on Relations. “We must not jump to conclusions. It is important to let the investigators do their jobs. ” Gov. John Kasich also praised the police response, saying it showed “how much practice, how much training, how much expertise, how much coordination” existed among local law enforcement agencies. “We are a strong, tough, resilient community,” he said. Mayor Andrew Ginther of Columbus said that Monday was “one of those days you’re grateful for good training and great people across the board,” and urged unity in the days ahead. | 0fake |
How Healthy Are You? G.O.P. Bill Would Help Employers Find Out - The New York Times | A bill in Congress could make it harder for workers to keep employers from getting access to their personal medical and genetic information and raise the financial penalties for those who opt out of workplace wellness programs. House Republicans are proposing legislation aimed at making it easier for companies to gather genetic data from workers and their families, including their children, when they collect it as part of a voluntary wellness program. The bill, the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act, introduced by Representative Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina and the chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, would also significantly increase the financial costs faced by someone who does not join a company wellness program. The bill, which is under review by other House committees and has yet to be considered by the Senate, has already provoked fierce opposition from a wide range of consumer, health and privacy advocacy groups, as well as by House Democrats. Critics claim it undermines existing laws aimed at protecting an individual’s personal medical information from use by employer and others. “We strongly oppose any legislation that would allow employers to inquire about employees’ private genetic information or medical information unrelated to their ability to do their jobs, and to impose draconian penalties on employees who choose to keep that information private,” a group of advocates, including AARP, the American Diabetes Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Epilepsy Foundation, the March of Dimes and others wrote in a letter this week to Ms. Foxx. As wellness programs proliferate across the corporate landscape, workers are increasingly being asked by their companies to undergo health screenings and medical assessments. Employees can opt out of these programs, and personal information specific to a worker is not supposed to be shared directly with the company. The prohibition is aimed at preventing someone from being fired or otherwise discriminated against because of a serious medical condition. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has vigorously pursued legal action against some employers it claimed went too far and used these programs inappropriately, but the courts have largely been sympathetic to the employers’ arguments. Companies also complained that the regulations were confusing, and the commission issued final rules in May aimed at addressing some of their concerns. Companies defend the wellness programs, saying they keep workers healthier and help reduce insurance costs. But some studies have questioned the effectiveness of these initiatives. Critics argue that workers are essentially being coerced into giving up private medical information, such as their weight, their blood pressure and whether they are at particular risk for cancer. Under the Affordable Care Act, employers can entice a worker by offering as much as a 30 percent reduction in insurance payments. Although the financial incentives offered have typically been lower, an employee who refused to participate could lose as much as thousands of dollars in savings. The bill would also weaken the role of the E. E. O. C. in overseeing wellness programs and its ability to prevent violations of antidiscrimination laws established under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. Employers would be generally governed by rules established by different agencies. The bill “is trying to streamline the regulatory scheme,” said Kathryn Wilber, a senior official at the American Benefits Council, which represents employers’ interests. She said that companies remain committed to protecting the privacy of this information and that employers take this responsibility “very, very seriously. ” Bethany Aronhalt, a spokeswoman for the House committee, said the goal was to address employers’ concerns rather than to drastically change the laws protecting workers. “We want to ensure working families can continue to benefit from these voluntary programs, and so did the Obama administration,” Ms. Aronhalt said. “This legislation will reaffirm existing law and provide regulatory clarity so that employers can have the certainty they need to help lower health care costs for their employees. ” Opponents contend that the bill would leave workers much more vulnerable because the rules under the antidiscrimination laws would not apply if someone volunteered personal health information under a wellness program. “It just takes away the workplace protection,” said Jennifer Mathis, the director of policy and legal advocacy of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. The E. E. O. C. does not comment on pending legislation, a spokeswoman said. The bill would significantly increase the amount of money at stake by allowing an employer to offer higher incentives, up to 30 percent of the cost to cover the whole family, as opposed to 30 percent of an individual’s coverage cost. | 0fake |
Solar Snare: Spend Thousands and Cut Power Bills by $9 a Month - The New York Times | Does this seem like a red flag? You visit a company’s website, and when you click the “Executive Team” link, up pops “Oops, this page could not be found!” The photograph at the top of the page is of identical brown chairs around a conference table. All the chairs are empty. Maybe the executives at Global Efficient Energy are really shy. If that is the case, the Haggler strongly recommends that they delete the page. It leaves a impression of a company that describes itself as a “major player in the solar roof marketing since 2011” (Yes, there is either an extraneous or missing word in that description.) Clearly, the Fort G. E. E. could use some help shaping its public image. Especially because in recent months, more than a few of its customers have contacted the Better Business Bureau with complaints like this one sent to the Haggler: Q. Global Efficient Energy promised to cut our energy bill in half with a solar power system that it would install at our house. The system cost $19, 900, which we would pay off in monthly installments over the course of six or seven years. Once we owned the system outright, the company said, we’d pay next to nothing for energy. That sounded great. But after the company installed solar panels on our roof, fans in our attic and a bunch of foam and sealants, our electricity bill barely changed. We saved about $9 a month. I called to vent to the guy who sold us the system, but he had left the company. Now nobody will return my calls or emails. Having read online about other customers with similar problems, I’ve lost all faith in G. E. E. I’d like the system removed and our $19, 900 loan canceled. Can you help? Chad Gregg Forney, Tex. A. Mr. Gregg is right about the negative online chatter about G. E. E. On the website of the Better Business Bureau there are a few dozen complaints from some very customers. Three choice and recent excerpts: “After having the solar panels for two months we have not seen a decrease but rather an increase in our electric bill,” wrote one. “This experience has been the longest and most frustrating nightmare of our lives. ” “Company has set my financial goals back years,” wrote another. “This was the worst financial decision I ever made in my lifetime,” wrote a third. “They will only communicate with you when they want to sign you up for a sale. After spending $25, 000 I get on average 20 percent saving in electricity. ” Other customers on the B. B. B. site praised the company, and a 2014 Forbes column about home solar power installation companies included some very flattering paragraphs about G. E. E. At the time, the company was in six locations and had plans to open eight more offices, having grown in three years to $40 million in annual revenue from $5 million. What was the secret to G. E. E. ’s success? “It’s all about customers,” Abe Issa, the C. E. O. and founder, told Forbes. “Our sales, installation and customer service personnel are trained to build relationships with customers that will last a lifetime. ” A lifetime! Some of your customers, Mr. Issa, would settle for a few months, if those months included a bit of communication. When the Haggler contacted G. E. E. the chief financial officer of the company, David Noyes, quickly returned the call. He acknowledged that the company’s service had suffered because it had expanded too quickly and that it was in the process of closing offices to focus exclusively on Texas. He also said the company was adding customer service representatives. After studying some details, he concluded that Mr. Gregg was actually doing quite nicely with his system and would do even better through the rest of the summer. And thus commenced an extended negotiation. To Mr. Noyes’s credit, he reached out directly to Mr. Gregg, hoping to demonstrate, with a lot of statistics and technical terms, that the system was a money saver. (Note to readers: Don’t get involved with solar power if you dislike math.) When the Haggler asked for an update in early July, the two sounded far apart. Mr. Noyes had offered to add some solar panels at no charge. Mr. Gregg wanted nothing to do with G. E. E. anymore. This one seemed destined for the bin in the Haggler Cave of Justice marked “Permanent Impasse. ” But on July 22, Mr. Noyes left a message on the Haggler’s voice mail that heralded a breakthrough. “We’re giving him a full credit for his purchase and in fact buying out his loan,” Mr. Noyes said. “We are removing the solar panels and letting him keep the foam insulation. And he’s happy with it. ” When asked what had prompted this turn of events, Mr. Noyes wrote, “Basically, the economics were not working for him. ” The final deal was a little different from the one Mr. Noyes described on that voice mail message. G. E. E. later said it ended up leaving the solar panels on Mr. Gregg’s home. The Haggler assumes that Mr. Gregg is pleased, but certitude here is impossible. It turns out that as part of this arrangement, Mr. Gregg signed a confidentiality agreement. So he stopped answering questions. Others will have to speak now. Has G. E. E. improved its service, as promised? Write and let the Haggler know. | 0fake |
Japan's Abe says North Korea situation needs quick action | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The crisis around North Korea requires quick action, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Thursday, calling on world powers to press Pyongyang to abide by its U.N. obligations. North Korea must fulfil all U.N. resolutions, abandon its nuclear and missile programmes, Abe said at an economic forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok. The international community must unite to force North Korea to fulfil its U.N. obligations. | 0fake |
Rep. Ted Lieu Torches ‘Evil’ Donald Trump Over His Cruel Approach To Healthcare (TWEETS) | Donald Trump and Paul Ryan thought they d get to pass what could possibly be described as the most cruel approach to healthcare imaginable this past week. However, they couldn t even get members of their own party to go along with what was clearly a disaster. To that end, Trump, never one to take the blame for anything himself, decided to blame the Democrats for not voting with him on his horrible bill even though it could have passed through the House of Representatives without so much as a single Democratic vote. Now that this excuse won t fly, Trump is back to his old line: Let Obamacare explode. Well, Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) is calling Trump on his horrible approach to handling the Affordable Care Act. Taking to Trump s own favorite platform, Twitter, Rep. Lieu said to Trump: President Donald Trump: You truly are an evil man. Your job is to help Americans. Not intentionally try to destroy their lives. "President" @realDonaldTrump: You truly are an evil man. Your job is to help Americans. Not intentionally try to destroy their lives. https://t.co/2M94E1g39b Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 25, 2017Rep. Lieu them went on to remind Trump of the oath he took when he assumed the office of the presidency:Mr. "President": Art II of Constitution requires you to faithfully execute laws passed by Congress. Subverting #Obamacare violates your Oath https://t.co/2M94E1g39b Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 25, 2017So, in other words, if Trump tries to sabotage the law, he will be in violation of his Oath of Office. Then again, he violates it every day, so what s one more instance of said violations, right?Ted Lieu is correct, though. Donald Trump is evil. This whole thing was nothing but a massive ego trip for him, and he doesn t give a damn about the citizens of this nation.Featured image via By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump Threatens Public University Because Protesters Didn’t Let A Racist Bully Deliver His Hate Speech | Donald Trump is getting thrashed on the Internet right now for threatening a public university.Milo Yiannopoulos was going to speak at the University of California-Berkeley on Wednesday but the school chose to cancel the event after massive protests broke out on campus against the speech.Yiannopoulos is a racist right-wing bully who hates strong women. He is associated with the Alt-Right movement that includes white nationalists, Nazis, and white supremacists.As the Southern Poverty Law Center notes,The fact that Yiannopoulos has been photographed wearing a necklace with the German Iron Cross symbol, illustrates the diversity of opinion within the Alt-Right world. But, at the end of the day, neo-Nazis like Anglin, coat-and-tie racists like Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor, and oddball figures like Yiannopoulos have more in common, in terms of sharing a vision of society as fundamentally determined by race, than they disagree about.The protests against Yiannopoulos forced U.C. Berkeley to cancel the speech. And Donald Trump is furious about it.If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view NO FEDERAL FUNDS? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017That s right, Trump literally just threatened to punish a public university for not letting a racist deliver a speech due to mass protests by students.It s a pathetic and unprecedented attack that Twitter users did not appreciate.@realDonaldTrump U don t see the hypocrisy in ur statement? Free speech IS peaceful protesting. Stop trying to be a dictator. Kyle McMahon (@KMacMusic) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump Don t you try and ban free speech at WH press conferences? Or is that OK because dictators always have final say? Mike P Williams (@Mike_P_Williams) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump while violence is never the answer, supporting Nazis (who are violent) isn t either. We need more education. UCB is great! Jose Andrade (@jandrade) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump here we go. First you call journalists fake news. Now you ll go after universities. This is how civilisation ends. Matt Haig (@matthaig1) February 2, 2017.@realDonaldTrump has no remorse for refugees from war-torn countries, but is a staunch advocate of a white foreigner who is as vile as him. pic.twitter.com/QGCClNR9N3 Al x Young (@AlexYoung) February 2, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Vandalism was wrong but punishing the entire university for the actions of a few is so excessive, like banning a religion! Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) February 2, 2017This coming from a man who knows all about practicing violence on innocent people w different views, right @realDonaldTrump! pic.twitter.com/v5sj4jlvv6 Khary Penebaker (@kharyp) February 2, 2017Donald Trump is a total hypocrite. He literally encouraged violence at his rallies but now he is all of a sudden angry about violence at a protest?1,500 people showed up to peacefully protest Yiannopoulos. It only got violent after 150 masked agitators from an anarchist groups showed up and started attacking people and destroying property.One can hardly blame the university for something that was out of their control.Trump is also a hypocrite for whining in defense of free speech even though he has been attacking the free press and anyone who criticizes him. Also, hate speech is not free speech. And hate speech is what Yiannopoulos peddles.Once again, Donald Trump proves that he is out of his depth and is completely unqualified to be president.Featured image via Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
COLLEGE FACES $250,000 FINE For Punishing Praying Muslim Employees | When Columbia University s internal investigation of its chaplain for religious discrimination came up empty, an ex-employee went to the government. A former employee of Columbia s Office of the University Chaplain has alleged that they faced discrimination for their Muslim faith in a complaint filed with the New York City Commission on Human Rights last month.Now the Ivy League institution is facing fines up to $250,000 and could be ordered to reform its internal policies on religious accommodations, the Columbia Daily Spectator reports.According to Campus Reform, the Muslims on campus recently demanded a prayer space and a Muslim advisor.The complaint charges that University Chaplain Jewelnel Davis denied the employee s requests to work earlier shifts during Ramadan instead increasing their workload during that time and reprimanded them for taking daily breaks to pray, all while *allowing similar accommodations for non-Muslim employees. *Who else insists on praying 5 times a day during the workday?When confronted about this behavior, Davis allegedly responded that she was unused to accommodating such prayer breaks.Columbia s employee policy states that it will accommodate any religious practices that doesn t place undue hardship on the University.Does praying 5 times a day during the workday qualify as undue hardship ?We ve reported on Somali Muslims who tried to do the same thing in Minnesota and Colorado and failed. Work productivity is harmed greatly by taking so many breaks. The Muslims were fired from this company!MUSLIMS FIRED After Breaking UPS Rules File Lawsuit Claiming Rules Don t Apply to ThemSomali Muslims Stage Walkout On The Job In Protest Of Prayer Dispute And Then They Got A Dose Of RealityWe re hoping the policy isn t changed at Columbia to accommodate these Muslims. This is a slippery slope!Read more: Columbia Spectator | 1real |
Steven Mnuchin Is Confirmed as Treasury Secretary - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Steven T. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker and Hollywood film financier, to be Treasury secretary on Monday, putting in place a key lieutenant to President Trump who will help drive the administration’s plans to overhaul the tax code, renegotiate trade deals around the world and remake financial regulations. By a vote of 53 to 47, the Senate confirmed Mr. Mnuchin, who was Mr. Trump’s top campaign . During a long debate over Mr. Mnuchin’s credentials, Democrats argued that his experience on Wall Street exemplified corporate malpractice that led to the 2008 financial crisis. The new Treasury secretary will have little time to celebrate. He will be under pressure to help finalize the Trump administration’s tax plan, accelerate the rollback regulations and raise the government’s borrowing limit. The administration has said it will release a comprehensive plan to rewrite the tax code in the coming weeks, and it will have to deal with the debt ceiling next month. While Mr. Mnuchin’s financial acumen has been praised by Mr. Trump and Republicans in Congress, Democrats have argued forcefully that he is not up to the job. They have painted him as a symbol of everything that is wrong with corporate America. “He was part of the cadre of corporate raiders that brought our economy to its knees,” Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said on the Senate floor on Monday. There was also no shortage of . Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, referred to Mr. Mnuchin at the “foreclosure king. ” Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, described him as “greedy” and “unethical” while arguing the case against him. “Whether illegally foreclosing on thousands of families, skirting the law with offshore tax havens or helping design tactics that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis, Steve Mnuchin made a career — and millions of dollars — pioneering increasingly deceptive and predatory ways to rob hardworking Americans of their savings and homes,” Ms. Duckworth said. At a prickly confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee last month, Mr. Mnuchin was scolded by Democrats for failing to disclose nearly $100 million in assets and for not revealing his role as a director of an investment fund based in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven. After the hearing, Democrats on the committee accused Mr. Mnuchin of lying for saying that OneWest Bank had not engaged in the controversial foreclosure practice of “ ” when he was its chief executive. The Democrats on the committee twice boycotted a vote on his confirmation, leading Republicans to breach protocol and push Mr. Mnuchin’s vote to the full Senate on their own. Just one Democrat, Senator of Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, broke with his party and supported Mr. Mnuchin. In a sign of the backlash that Democrats will face for siding with any part of Mr. Trump’s agenda, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee warned that Mr. Manchin’s vote would not go unnoticed. “We will ensure that Joe Manchin hears from his West Virginia constituents who disapprove of his voting with Wall Street against working families,” the group said in a statement after the vote. For Republicans, the resistance was chalked up to political theater. On Monday, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, accused Democrats of making Mr. Mnuchin a political pawn and described their concerns as a stall tactic. “Under any objective standard, Mr. Mnuchin has ample experience, credentials and qualifications for this important position,” Mr. Hatch said. “My colleagues have done all they can under the rules — even to the point of casting aside some longstanding customs and traditions of the Senate — in order to delay his confirmation. ” While Mr. Mnuchin struggled to show fluency with some aspects of the job during his confirmation hearing, Republicans and Democrats generally agreed that he was well versed on economic issues. He also struck a more moderate tone than Mr. Trump on issues such as trade and dealing with China. And Mr. Mnuchin left some experts dumbfounded after suggesting that “there would be no absolute tax cut for the upper class” — a promise that appears to be at odds with plans presented by Mr. Trump and House Republicans. Mr. Mnuchin was not the only member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet to be confirmed on Monday night. The Senate also voted in favor of David Shulkin to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. A holdover from the Obama administration, Dr. Shulkin is currently the department’s under secretary of health and was approved by a unanimous vote. Mr. Mnuchin was the latest member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet to edge through the confirmation process on a largely vote. Last week, Tom Price was approved as secretary of health and human services and Betsy DeVos narrowly won confirmation to lead the Education Department. Things could become more complicated on Thursday, however, when Andrew Puzder, Mr. Trump’s choice for labor secretary, faces a committee hearing. Several Republicans on the committee have declined to support Mr. Puzder, a chain executive who critics say promotes policies that are harmful to workers. | 0fake |
Trump Is Scamming The Hell Out Of America, And Hillary Just Proved It In Under 2 Minutes (VIDEO) | People believe what they want to believe. When someone tells you they can solve your financial woes with a simple plan, you want to believe them. Donald Trump knew this and took advantage of people when they were at their most vulnerable. He promised a way to be successful, all while just simply making himself wealthy in the mean time.Well, guess what? He s finally being called out on his fraudulent scheme of Trump University and is even going to court over it.Also calling Donald Trump out for the scam artist that he is, is Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.Hillary went for the jugular and with good merit, stating: Well today we are learning about another scam, the so-called Trump University. The New York Attorney General is suing Donald Trump for fraud. And his own employees testified, I want you to hear this, his own employees testified that Trump U, you can t make this up, that Trump U was a fraudulent scheme where Donald Trump enriched himself at the expense of hardworking people Also adding: Trump and his employees took advantage of vulnerable Americans encouraging them to max out their credit cards, empty their retirement savings, destroy their financial futures all while making promises they knew were false from the beginning. This is just more evidence that Donald Trump himself is a fraud. He is trying to scam America the way he scammed all those people at Trump U. Concluding: It is important that we recognize what he has done because that is usually a pretty good indicator of what he will do. And on issue after issue, we see someone who is unqualified and unfit to be President of the United States. He is absolutely unfit to be president. He has no policy experience, no diplomatic experience, no experience whatsoever except for being the true scam artist that he is. He should be condemned, not praised, and we need to make sure he is defeated this November. Watch Hillary here:Trump himself is a fraud.He s trying to scam America the way he scammed all those people at Trump University.https://t.co/yMt4mGLwYO Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 1, 2016Featured Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 1real |
Lewandowski: Comey ’a Liar’ - Looking to Sign Major Book Deal - Breitbart | .@CLewandowski_: ”I think Jim Comey is in big trouble. .. Jim Comey is a liar.” pic. twitter. Saturday on “Fox Friends,” former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski accused former FBI Director Jim Comey of being a “liar” who is looking to turn his spotlight into a major book deal. “I think Jim Comey’s in big trouble because under oath in front of the committee he said things which we know to be factually inaccurate, not just in his testimony this week, but when he was the director of the FBI he’s had to come back and recant statements that he’s made … because Jim Comey’s a liar,” Lewandowski said. Lewandowski went on to address a rumor that Comey is about to sign a lucrative book deal, saying it is just another example of the Washington D. C. “swamp creatures” being “very real. ” “[W]hat we saw this week, I’m shocked by this news, is Jim Comey’s about to sign a $10 million book deal, right?” he continued. “It’s amazing how these guys go from government service to and people wonder why Washington is broken. This is what happens all the time. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 0fake |
Connecticut Governor Malloy says he will not seek re-election in 2018 | (Reuters) - Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy said on Thursday that he will not seek re-election in 2018, choosing to step down at the end of his second term in office. “I will focus all my attention and energy - I will use all of my political capital from now through the end of 2018 - to continue implementing my administration’s vision for a more sustainable and vibrant Connecticut economy,” Malloy, a Democrat who served two terms as governor, said at a news conference in Hartford, the state capital. A poll released on Tuesday by Morning Consult showed that Malloy was the second-least-popular governor in the United States, with 66 percent of respondents disapproving of the job he had done. That finding was based on a national poll of more than 85,000 registered voters and had a 3 percent margin of error. Malloy said he would spend the rest of his term focused on priorities including reforming the state’s budget practices to reduce its reliance on one-time maneuvers to meet expenses and reforming the state’s criminal justice system to make it easier for young offenders to have a second chance. | 0fake |
Democrats Go To War Over Health Care, Hold Senate Floor In Protest (VIDEO) | On Monday evening, Democrats held the Senate floor in protest of Trumpcare, the cruel GOP bill that would strip millions of their health care. The American Health Care Act has been kept secret since it hit the Senate, with only 13 Senators working on the bill. Most of the other senators, including both Republicans and Democrats, have not even been able to lay their eyes on the bill and have no idea what they are being asked to vote on.Republicans want to vote on the bill as early as possible and intend to keep the plan secret until they are sure they can push it through. Democrats are crying foul and demanding that Republicans post the bill online and give the American people 30 days to review it before a vote is held.It is estimated that if the AHCA were to pass, more than 23 million people would lose their health care. The bill guts protections for those with pre-existing conditions and is especially cruel to the elderly, who would find their premiums skyrocketing. Make no mistake, if Republicans repeal and replace Obamacare with Trumpcare, people are going to die. Lots of them.Senator Elizabeth Warren posted live video of Senate Democrats waging war against Trumpcare on the Senate floor. At the time of this writing, they had held the floor for more than three hours. You can watch her video feeds below:To the Democrats fighting for the health care of the American people, we say thank you.Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
MERYL STREEP PROBABLY FORGOT The Time Obama Actually DID Mock Special Needs Kids On Jay Leno Show [VIDEO] | Streep s shameful attempt to paint Trump as a heartless human being to Golden Globe Award viewers can be found near the middle of this clip:At tonight's #GoldenGlobes we honor Hollywood legend Meryl Streep with the prestigious Cecil B. Demille Award. pic.twitter.com/dxpeCDNXY6 Golden Globe Awards (@goldenglobes) January 9, 2017Now watch the video that proves Meryl Streep was fabricating (acting) her story out without real evidence that Donald Trump mocked a disabled reporter: | 1real |
This Guy Predicted Trump’s Win, And What He Has To Say Now Should TERRIFY Republicans | The media, and to a certain extent, the pollsters, got it seriously wrong when they predicted an easy win for Hillary Clinton in last year s election. Okay, technically it was, but our Electoral College said otherwise. One professor, though, warned the United States that Trump was going to win. Now, that same professor is predicting that Trump will be impeached.Allan Lichtman, a professor at American University, reached meme-status last fall for predicting long before anyone else that Trump would win, using a formula based on the popularity of the party in control of the White House that accurately predicted the eight previous presidential elections. Now Lichtman wants everyone to pay attention to the rest of what came through his crystal ball that Trump will now be impeached.Source: PoliticoTrump, naturally, loved Lichtman s initial prediction. #45 Elect even sent him a note. Taking time out of preparing to become the world s most powerful leader, he wrote me a personal note, saying Professor Congrats good call, Lichtman writes in The Case for Impeachment, an advance copy of which was shared with POLITICO. What Trump overlooked, however, was my next big prediction : that, after winning the presidency, he would be impeached. Trump, of course, didn t investigate any further. If he had, he would realize that Lichtman may have predicted Trump, but that doesn t mean he supports him. In fact, he calls the despot (my word) an existential threat to humanity. Lichtman s list of possible offenses that could get Trump to that point are familiar: charges of treason with Russia, abuse of power and emoluments violations. Lichtman also cites now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then a senator, who argued that a president could be impeached for offenses committed before he took office. Among those potential offenses, Lichtman lists Trump s housing violations, charity problems, potential violations of the Cuba embargo and Trump University.It s all part of a brief designed to be damning tour through Trump s history. It includes section headings like Trump Towers Become Vacant Lots and Lying His Way to the Presidency. It eventually leads Lichtman to the conclusion that Trump might serve himself up for impeachment: Trump s disregard for lying in sworn testimony, examined in the context of the Bill Clinton precedent, shows how Trump s opponents could set an impeachment trap for him through a civil lawsuit. It wouldn t take much. If Democrats regain the House in 2018, Trump s impeachment is all but guaranteed, but even now, if enough Republicans turn on him, it could easily happen.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
Zuma spokesman dismisses reports South African deputy president may be sacked | JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Jacob Zuma s spokesman said on Friday there was no basis for reports that the South African president would axe his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa, speculation about which has weighed on the currency and bonds. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, of which Zuma is leader and Ramaphosa deputy, has been riven by bitter infighting ahead of a party conference in December at which a new leader will be chosen. It s rumors and gossip, and we don t comment on them at all, Zuma s spokesman Bongani Ngqulunga told Reuters. Ramaphosa, a trade unionist-turned-business tycoon, is viewed as the most likely rival candidate to Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the former chairwoman of the African Union, who is Zuma s pick for the leadership and is the president s ex-wife. He has recently stepped up criticism of Zuma s scandal-plagued government. Asked in parliament on Thursday whether he might be sacked, Ramaphosa said only that he would accept the president s decision if he lost his job. On Friday, a spokesman for the deputy president said: We are aware of the speculation, but it is just speculation. Trade union federation Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (SACP), both partners in the ANC s ruling alliance, have endorsed Ramaphosa, 64, for the leadership. South Africa will elect a new president in 2019, and whoever the ANC picks in December is likely to take over from 75-year-old Zuma as the country s leader. Zuma is under pressure to step down before then, with a recent South African court ruling that nearly 800 corruption charges against him should be reinstated prompting more calls for the president to go. Zuma reshuffled his cabinet for the second time in seven months on Tuesday, irking some within the ruling alliance by sacking a minister belonging to the SACP and appointing a close ally to oversee an opaque nuclear deal. Analysts say Zuma may make further changes before December to strengthen his hand going into the ANC s elective conference. Speculation that he might remove Ramaphosa, who was the ANC s chief negotiator during the 1990s transition from apartheid, weighed on the rand and bonds, which underperformed emerging market peers on Friday versus a firmer dollar. Other emerging markets are weaker but not as much as the rand. That s because of lingering political uncertainty, especially these rumors about Zuma axing Ramaphosa, said currency dealer at TreasuryOne Wichard Cilliers. Ramaphosa told parliament on Thursday that if (Zuma s) decision is to remove me, I will accept that as a decision that will be taken by the president and I will continue serving the people of South Africa in one form, shape or another . Speaking on Friday, Ramaphosa returned to the subject of corruption within the government and state-owned companies, which is expected to be a main theme of his leadership campaign. Our state has been captured by people who ... want to milk the state, who want to rob our country of the money that belongs to the people, Ramaphosa told members of the National Education Health & Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) in Cape Town. Our state is now being talked about in the rest of the world in the most negative terms, captured by certain interests, by certain families, by certain individuals. Wealthy friends of Zuma, the Guptas, have been accused by ANC and opposition politicians of using their close relationship with the president and his allies to influence the awarding of government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Zuma and the Guptas have denied any wrongdoing and the Indian-born South African businessmen and their companies have not been charged with any crime in South Africa. Regulators in the United States and Britain are looking into links between the Gupta family, the South African government, and banks they may have used to move money as a corruption investigation escalates. In a statement on Friday, Dlamini-Zuma denied she had any links to the Gupta family. | 0fake |
Groups sue to obtain White House visitor logs | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A coalition of nonprofit groups on Monday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to obtain logs of visitors to President Donald Trump’s homes. The lawsuit accused the Secret Service, which maintains the logs, of violating the law by ignoring several requests for lists of visitors to the White House, Trump Tower in Manhattan, and the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Monday’s complaint was filed in Manhattan federal court by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the National Security Archive, and archive researcher Kate Doyle. The plaintiffs had requested the logs under the federal Freedom of Information Act. Similar litigation by CREW in 2009 prompted the Obama administration to disclose White House visitor logs on a delayed basis, and according to the complaint led to the release of 5.99 million records. A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Secret Service, said the department does not discuss pending litigation. The lawsuit was reported earlier by the Washington Post. The website where White House visitor logs were available went dark after Trump became president. That page now reads: "This page is being updated. It will post records of White House visitors on an ongoing basis, once they become available." (here) Several Democratic lawmakers last month called on Trump, a Republican, to make logs public again. Many FOIA lawsuits against federal agencies are filed in Washington rather than New York. But in August 2013, the federal appeals court in Washington said Congress did not intend to authorize FOIA requesters to obtain records “indirectly” from the Secret Service that they could not obtain directly from the President. That decision involved a request by the conservative group Judicial Watch for records of all White House visitors over seven months. It was written by Chief Judge Merrick Garland, whose Supreme Court nomination by Obama was never acted upon by Congress. Federal judges in Manhattan can use Garland’s opinion for guidance, but need not follow it. The case is Doyle et al v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 17-02542. | 0fake |
KATHY GRIFFIN Actually BRAGGED About Wanting To “Beat Down” 11-Yr Old Barron Trump 6 Months Ago | The outspoken liberal comedian posed for a photo shoot with controversial photographer Tyler Shields in which she was seen holding a bloodied mask of President Trump.Donald Trump was quick to condemn her on Twitter:TMZ later reported that 11-year old Barron Trump actually saw the image of his bloodied and decapitated father while watching TV.TMZ reports: Barron Trump was watching TV & saw @kathygriffin holding the severed head. He thought it was his dad. My heart is broken. Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) May 31, 2017Melania Trump weighed in on the horrific image her 11-yr old son was subjected to with this statement: As a mother, a wife, and a human being, that photo is very disturbing. When you consider some of the atrocities happening in the world today, a photo opportunity like this is simply wrong and makes you wonder about the mental health of the person who did it. It s a question a lot of comedians are asking themselves lately: What should comedy look like during the Trump presidency? Now more than ever we must absolutely go for all the absurdities, Kathy Griffin told Vulture at the Equality Now Gala Tuesday night. For me, that s Trump and all things Trump. It s not about trying to be an equal-opportunity offender anymore because Hillary got such a beat down. It s his turn. So I m happy to deliver beat down to Donald Trump and also to Barron. You know a lot of comics are going to go hard for Donald, my edge is that I ll go direct for Barron. I m going to get in ahead of the game. So, of course, Griffin supported Rosie O Donnell when she tweeted a video asking if Barron Trump, 10-year-old son of Donald and Melania, was on the autism spectrum. After the beat down he gave her, she can say whatever she wants to say to that piece of shit, Griffin said before correcting herself. Oh, that s President Piece of Shit. Vulture | 1real |
New Turkish party could cost Erdogan support, dislodge main opposition: poll | ANKARA(Reuters) - A new Turkish political party founded by a former minister and vocal critic of Tayyip Erdogan could cost the president crucial support and potentially unseat the main opposition, a poll suggested on Wednesday. The survey by prominent polling firm Gezici showed that the Iyi Parti ( Good Party ), founded this month by the breakaway nationalist lawmaker Meral Aksener, could mark a dramatic shift in Turkish politics, eclipsing the secular CHP that dominated Turkish politics for large parts of the republic s history. While only five members of the 550-seat parliament have joined Aksener s party, the survey suggested it could win over voters from several parties, including Erdogan s Islamist-rooted AK Party as well as secular or nationalist groups. Although Turkey s next elections are not due until 2019, pollster Gezici asked 4,638 respondents how they would vote in the event of a snap election. Support for Erdogan s ruling AK Party, which has been in power since 2002, would fall to 43.8 percent, from 49.5 percent in the November 2015 parliamentary polls, the survey showed. Aksener s party would win 19.5 percent of the vote, beating the secularist People s Republican Party s (CHP) 18.5 percent, it showed. That would mark the first time since 2002 elections that the CHP - established by Turkey s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - was not the main opposition. The CHP won 25 percent of votes in 2015. The nationalist MHP, where Aksener previously served as a lawmaker and interior minister, and the pro-Kurdish HDP were both seen falling below the 10 percent threshold needed to enter the 550-seat parliament. The MHP was seen polling at 8.8 percent, from 11.9 in 2015. The HDP, whose leaders have been jailed in the crackdown that followed last year s failed coup, was seen taking 7.0 percent, from 10.8 in 2015. Gezici was one of the most accurate pollsters on the results of April s referendum to change the constitution. The poll was conducted between Oct. 10-15, days before the widely expected announcement of the formation of the Iyi Parti. Respondents were asked to choose from a list of potential political parties, including Aksener s party . Aksener was expelled last year from the nationalist MHP, the smallest of three opposition parties in parliament, after launching a failed bid to unseat party leader Devlet Bahceli, whose support helped Erdogan to a narrow victory in the April referendum that expanded his authority. Since her expulsion, the 61-year-old has become one of the most prominent voices in the country, frequently criticizing Erdogan and the government. In the case of the Iyi Parti not participating in potential snap elections, the AKP would win just over 47 percent, while the CHP would earn 26.8 percent, the poll showed. The AKP, founded by Erdogan, has held a majority in parliament for nearly 15 years. After winning almost 50 percent of votes in 2015, Erdogan and party officials said they aimed to win more than half the votes in the coming general elections. (This version of the story corrects sixth paragraph to show that CHP have been main opposition since 2002 elections, not decades) | 0fake |
Trump Is Physically Restrained From Tweeting By His Campaign | TRUMP'S INNER CHILD LOVES TO TWEET
Donald Trump has been known for putting his unfiltered thoughts on Twitter at all hours. It is here that he excoriates people who have hurt his feelings. Over the years, he has issued a stream of cruel and unrestrained insults, savaging his rivals and others. He declared on Twitter that Kim Novak, a reclusive 81-year-old actress at the time, "should sue her plastic surgeon," sending her into hiding. He derided the appearance of Carly Fiorina, angering female voters, and he criticized the mother of a slain American soldier, musing that as a Muslim woman, she was not "allowed" to speak.
These fulminations were mostly in response to his wounded, childish pride. They run counter-productive to the goals of his campaign. That is why the campaign has taken away his Twitter account. If he is to tweet he now has to get permission from an adult.
Kellyanne Comway, campaign chief, on TV yesterday denied that this is true. "I wouldn't take away the ability of a grown man to tweet." But an unnamed source in the campaign says that Trump political operatives have come to realize that they are "dealing with an infantile personality with a badly crippled ego.""He isn't a grown man, he more like a middle school mean girl," said a high level campaign official who spoke on the grounds that his identity would not be revealed."
Psychoanalyst Lloyd Pearson of Pasadena CA told this reporter that tweeting to millions and receiving positive feedback from the tweets "feed his juvenile, bottomless need for attention. Taking away from his ability to tweet has probably thrown him into a deep depression that even his over-sized campaign rallies won't cure."
A Trump aide confirmed this saying that Mr. Trump isn't sleeping well and often reaches for his iPhone and Samsung to Tweet at 3:00AM, but is physically restrained by a big, burley campaign aid stationed in Trump's bedroom to stop him from more self-destructive tweeting.
"He tries to push away the huge campaign aid, but he can't do it because his hands are so small," said a top Trump aide. Make Keith Shirey's | 1real |
Kerry confident U.S. and Philippines can 'work through' Duterte confusion | WASHINGTON/MANILA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is confident after speaking to his Philippine counterpart that the two countries can “work through” a period of confusion caused by anti-American rhetoric from President Rodrigo Duterte, the State Department said on Monday. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Kerry expressed concern in his conversation on Sunday with Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay about the tone of remarks by the Philippine president, who has sharply criticized President Barack Obama and talked of separation from Washington. At the same time, Kerry emphasized strong and stable ties between the longtime allies, while Kirby said Washington had seen no practical action by Manila to move away from those. Kerry’s conversation with Yasay came after Duterte provoked alarm last week by announcing a “separation” from the United States and realignment with China during a visit to Beijing. Although Duterte said later he did not really mean separation, his remarks added to concerns about the future of a U.S.-Philippine military cooperation pact seen as crucial to projecting U.S. power in Asia in the face of fast-rising China. Earlier on Monday, the most senior U.S. diplomat for Asia, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Daniel Russel, said in Manila that Washington remained a “trusted” ally to the Philippines and supported its blossoming ties with China. Russel was the first high-level visitor from Washington since Duterte’s remarks and Kirby said that both Russel and Kerry made clear the United States had every intention of continuing to meet its security commitments to the Philippines. “The tone and tenor of the discussions that they had ... and the assurances that the Philippine side gave to their commitment to keeping the relationship going was enough to lead the secretary and the assistant secretary to believe that we were going to be able to work through this,” Kirby told a regular news briefing. In his comments to reporters, Russel said he had candidly told Yasay that Manila’s friends were concerned about the high loss of life in Duterte’s campaign against drugs and reiterated the importance of due process. Russel said “a real climate of uncertainty about the Philippines’ intentions had created consternation in many countries,” including the United States. He said that worry extended beyond governments to corporate boardrooms and warned that it was “bad for business” in “a very competitive region.” Since Duterte took office on June 30, he has been scathing about U.S. criticism of his anti-drug campaign, in which about 2,300 people have been killed. But his ministers have repeatedly sought to soften his more outspoken remarks. Explaining Duterte’s “Goodbye America” remarks, Yasay said on Saturday the United States remained the “closest friend” of the Philippines but that Manila wanted to break away from a “mindset of dependency and subservience” and forge closer ties with other nations. Russel said Duterte himself had “already walked back” his remarks and added that Washington supported direct dialogue and negotiations between the Philippines and China. “We don’t want countries to have to choose between the U.S. and China,” he said. | 0fake |
Russian parliament to discuss ban on access for U.S. media: RIA | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian lawmakers are to discuss a proposal to bar representatives of U.S. media organizations from accessing the lower house of parliament, RIA news agency quoted the chair of one of the chamber s committees as saying. Olga Savastyanova, who chairs the chamber s rules and regulations committee, said her committee would consider a resolution containing the proposal next Monday. It would be put forward for approval of the chamber, known as the State Duma, on Tuesday or Wednesday, according to RIA. It s a ban on journalists who represent American media, all American media, visiting the State Duma, RIA quoted Savastyanova as saying. She represents the ruling United Russia party, which holds a majority of the seats in the chamber. U.S. authorities have designated Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT as a foreign agent, after intelligence officials alleged it tried to meddle in the U.S. presidential election last year. RT denies that. The Kremlin has pledged to retaliate in kind. At the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing the Russian authorities to designate some foreign media as foreign agents. The move to deny U.S. journalists access to the State Duma was a response to a similar move in Washington, RIA quoted Savastyanova as saying. RT on Wednesday night published a letter from the Executive Committee of the Congressional Radio And Television Correspondents Gallery saying the channel s Congressional press credentials had been withdrawn due to its registration as a foreign agent in the United States. That means RT s reporters will not be able to have as much access to Congress as other foreign media. | 0fake |
U.S.-backed forces, Syrian army advance separately on Islamic State in Deir al-Zor | BEIRUT/AL SHADADI, Syria (Reuters) - U.S.-backed militias and the Syrian army advanced in separate offensives against Islamic State in eastern Syria on Saturday, piling pressure on shrinking territory the group still holds in oil-rich areas near the Iraqi border. Syrian government forces fought their way to an air base on the outskirts of Deir al-Zor city that had been besieged for years by the jihadists, said a commander in the military alliance fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of mostly Arab and Kurdish fighters, meanwhile launched attacks against Islamic State in the north of Deir al-Zor province in an operation to capture areas east of the Euphrates river. The advances against Islamic State, another blow to its control over territory it held for years as part of a self-declared caliphate, will likely bring U.S.-backed forces and the Syrian government side, backed by Russia and Iran, into closer proximity. A U.S. warplane shot down a Syrian army jet near Raqqa in June and the SDF accused the Syrian government of bombing its positions, showing the risk of escalation between warring sides in a crowded battlefield. The Syrian conflict, which started as a popular uprising against Assad in 2011, has drawn in the United States, Russia and regional powers. Peace talks have failed to bring an end to a war where Islamist groups have increasingly dominated Syria s armed opposition. The SDF operation in Deir al-Zor province aims to capture areas in its northern and eastern countryside and advance towards the Euphrates, according to the Deir al-Zor Military Council, which is fighting as part of the SDF. The first step is to free the eastern bank of the Euphrates and the areas Islamic State still holds, Ahmed Abu Kholeh, head of the military council, told Reuters after the announcement. We re not specifying a timeframe but we hope it will be a quick operation, he said at the town of al-Shadadi in Hasaka province. Abu Kholeh would not say whether there were plans to advance on Deir al-Zor city itself. We don t know how the battles will go after this, he said. He said SDF fighters did not expect clashes with Syrian government forces, but if fired upon we will respond . The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported that SDF forces had advanced against IS in Deir al-Zor s northwestern countryside, seizing several hilltops and a village. Syrian government forces and their allies reached Deir al-Zor military airport on the other side of the Euphrates, where troops had been holed up since 2014, surrounded by Islamic State, the commander in the pro-Assad alliance said. The alliance includes Iran-backed militias and the powerful Lebanese Shi ite group Hezbollah. The advance came days after the army and its allies broke the siege of the main part of the city, which had been separated from the airport by IS attacks a few months before. Syrian troops also recaptured the Teym oilfield southwest of Deir al-Zor and seized part of a main highway running downstream to the city of al-Mayadeen, to which many IS militants have retreated, the British-based Observatory said. That advance would help block potential IS reinforcements from al-Mayadeen, it said. Islamic State in Syria still holds much of Deir al-Zor province and half the city, as well some territory further west near Homs and Hama, where government forces recaptured several villages on Saturday, pro-Damascus media reported. But the group has lost most of its caliphate which from 2014 stretched across swathes of Syria and Iraq, including oil-rich Deir al-Zor. The SDF is still battling to eject IS from the remaining areas it holds in Raqqa, northwest of Deir al-Zor and once the group s main Syria stronghold from where it planned attacks abroad. Talks between Russia, Iran and opposition backer Turkey in the Kazakh capital Astana are to take place next week, possibly followed by a separate track at the United Nations in Geneva in October or November. Assad s government has participated in previous rounds from a position of power as Damascus has clawed back much territory, including the main urban centers in the west of the country and increasingly eastern desert held by IS. Syria s non-Islamist opposition holds some pockets of territory in western Syria, and the SDF, which is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, controls much of Syria s northeast. | 0fake |
Donald Trump Is Changing His Campaign Slogan to Prove He’s Not Racist | After a week of nonstop criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike for comments many condemned as racially charged, Donald Trump claims to be altering his campaign to be a little more inclusive. While the presumptive G.O.P. has long promised to “make America great again,” Trump now says he’s adding two words to slogan to illustrate just how non-racist he really is.
“You know, I have the theme ‘make America great again,’ and I've added a couple of things,” Trump announced to supporters at a campaign rally in Richmond, Virginia, on Friday night. “Right now I’m adding make America great again—I’m adding ‘for everyone,’ because it’s really going to be for everyone. It’s not going to be for a group of people, it’s going to be for everyone. It’s true.”
The allegedly amended slogan, which has yet to appear on any official signage or Trump merchandise, comes after the presidential candidate spent the first half of June repeatedly denouncing Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge of Mexican heritage presiding over the Trump University class action lawsuit, as inherently biased against him. (Curiel was born in Indiana.) His comments were widely condemned by the Washington political establishment, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who suggested he may be an idiot, and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who called Trump’s statement the “textbook definition of a racist comment.”
Trump, who hasn’t apologized or taken back any of his comments, indicated on Friday that he realized his words have had a negative effect on his campaign and declared he is not a racist.
“I am the least racist person. The least racist person that you’ve ever seen. I mean give me a break,” he said at the rally. “I am the least racist person that you’ve ever looked at, believe me.” | 0fake |
Trump opponents urge U.S. Supreme Court to rule on travel ban | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Challengers to President Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries on Thursday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the policy’s legality even though it has been replaced with a revised plan. In separate letters to the court, the American Civil Liberties Union and the state of Hawaii said the justices should still hear the case, which had been scheduled for arguments next week but was taken off their calendar after the administration announced the reworked ban last month. The challengers, characterizing the new ban as an indefinite extension of the previous one, said individuals who sued have an interest in the expired measure being declared unlawful because they continue to be harmed by the new policy. Hawaii also told the court in a separate letter that it intended to challenge Trump’s latest travel ban by seeking on Friday to amend its existing lawsuit against the previous one. The Justice Department urged the justices not to hear the case, to throw out earlier lower court rulings that had invalidated the ban and to order that the legal challenges be dismissed. Trump’s three successive moves to block entry into the United States by people from several predominantly Muslim countries have been among his most contentious acts since taking office in January. Trump had promised as a candidate “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” The ACLU told the court that the plaintiffs who sued to stop the policy “retain an all-too-real stake in the outcome of the case” even though the original 90-day travel ban on people from six countries expired on Sept. 24. That order was signed by Trump in March and was enacted with some changes in June with the high court’s blessing. The justices on Sept. 25 asked all the parties to file court papers expressing views on whether the case was moot, meaning there was nothing left to decide, because the temporary ban expired. That ban had targeted people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. The new open-ended ban announced in a presidential proclamation on Sept. 24 removed Sudan from the list and blocked people from Chad and North Korea and certain government officials from Venezuela from entering the United States. Among the issues raised by the challengers is whether the ban discriminated against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on the government favoring or disfavoring a particular religion. A separate 120-day ban on refugees entering the United States that was part of Trump’s March order expires on Oct. 24. Hawaii’s lawyers said that even if the high court decided not to issue a ruling, it should still leave the lower court decisions in place. To do otherwise would allow the administration to effectively win the case by erasing rulings that had gone against Trump, Hawaii argued. The Justice Department said that it wants the lower court rulings tossed because the challengers will otherwise cite them in new litigation against Trump’s reworked ban. “The lower courts should be considering challenges to the proclamation anew based on its text, operation, and findings,” Justice Department lawyers wrote. The weekly behind-closed-doors meeting in which the justices consider next steps in cases before them is scheduled for Friday morning. The court could make an announcement at any time. The new ban could affect tens of thousands of potential immigrants and visitors to the United States. Opponents have said that like the earlier two orders from January and March, it was still effectively a “Muslim ban.” Even if the Supreme Court dismissed the older case, it may still have to weigh in on the issue in the future. Various challengers have filed suit against the reworked ban, and those cases potentially could reach the high court. | 0fake |
Arkansas Republicans Put The Word “Liar” In Hillary’s Name On Ballot | Comments
The signs that the Republican Party is purposefully doing everything they can to repress the vote and use every trick in the book to somehow sway voters is clear as day. As the Donald Trump campaign is hit with four different lawsuits over their voter suppression campaigns, it’s been discovered that the early voting ballots in Arkansas have a very disturbing “typo” on t hem.
Early voting ballots in Lanoke County read “Hilliary Clinton.”
Since the Republican Party has been demonizing Hillary Clinton for being “crooked” and a “liar” and a literal demon for years on end, it’s hard to imagine this being an honest “typo.”
It’s just another subliminal way that the right-wing is trying to tip the scales in favor of their candidate, who, we need not remind you, is actually an a pathological liar, a serial sexual predator, a thief, and a racist.
Watch NBC’s report here: | 1real |
Funding battle looms as Texas sees Harvey damage at up to $180 billion | HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday challenged Congress to raise the government’s debt limit in order to free up relief spending for Hurricane Harvey, a disaster that the governor of Texas said had caused up to $180 billion in damage. Harvey, which came ashore on Aug. 25 as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years, has killed an estimated 50 people, displaced more than 1 million and damaged some 200,000 homes in a path of destruction stretching for more than 300 miles (480 km). As the city of Houston and the region’s critical energy infrastructure began to recover nine days after the storm hit, the debate over how to pay for the disaster played out in Washington. Texas Governor Greg Abbott estimated damage at $150 billion to $180 billion, calling it more costly than Hurricanes Katrina or Sandy, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and New York in 2012. The administration of President Donald Trump has asked Congress for an initial $7.85 billion for recovery efforts, a fraction of what will eventually be needed. Even that amount could be delayed unless Congress quickly increases the government’s debt ceiling, Mnuchin said, as the United States is on track to hit its mandated borrowing limit by the end of the month unless Congress increases it. “Without raising the debt limit, I am not comfortable that we will get money to Texas this month to rebuild,” Mnuchin told Fox News. Republican lawmakers, who control both houses of Congress, have traditionally resisted raising the debt ceiling, but linking the issue to Harvey aid could force their hand with people suffering and large areas of the fourth-largest U.S. city under water. Beyond the immediate funding, any massive aid package faces budget pressures at a time when Trump is advocating for tax reform or tax cuts, leading some on Capitol Hill to suggest aid may be released in a series of appropriations. Katrina set the record by costing U.S. taxpayers more than $110 billion. In advocating for funds to help rebuild his state, Abbott said damage from Harvey would exceed that. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the city expected most public services and businesses to be restored by Tuesday, the first day after Monday’s Labor Day holiday. “Over 95 percent of the city is now dry. And I’m encouraging people to get up and let’s get going,” Turner told NBC News. Even so, Houston mandated the evacuation of thousands of people on the western side of town on Sunday to accommodate the release of water from two reservoirs that otherwise might sustain damage. The storm stalled over Houston, dumping more than 50 inches (1.3 m) on the region. Houston cut off power to homes on Sunday to encourage evacuations. The area was closed off on Sunday and military vehicles were stationed on the periphery to take people out. Karen Waltmon, 58, who was returning to her home in one of the neighborhoods, said she wondered if parts of the city would have to be razed. “I feel a lot of Houston is drying out, and I don’t want them to forget about us,” she said. About 37,000 refugees stayed overnight in 270 shelters in Texas plus another 2,000 in seven Louisiana shelters, the highest number reported by the American Red Cross. Some 84,700 homes and businesses were without power on Sunday, down from a peak of around 300,000, according to the region’s major electric companies. In Crosby, Texas, an Arkema (AKE.PA) chemical plant that ran out of electricity needed to keep volatile organic peroxide refrigerated will burn the remaining containers as a “proactive measure,” company and Harris County fire officials said in a statement. Officials last week evacuated residents and set up a 1.5-mile (2.4-km) perimeter around the area. Energy disruptions pushed up gasoline futures to a two-year high ahead of the holiday weekend, but major refineries started to come back online on Friday. Colonial Pipeline, the biggest U.S. fuel system, expects to reopen a Texas segment of its network on Monday, when it will resume transporting distillates from Houston to Hebert, Texas, the company said on Sunday, adding that it would be ready to start moving gasoline on Tuesday. Those repairs would restore to normal Colonial’s entire pipeline from Houston to Linden, New Jersey, relieving shortages between Texas and the U.S. Northeast. | 0fake |
U.S. nearing limits of diplomacy on North Korea: Trump adviser McMaster | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Friday the United States was approaching the limit of what sanctions and diplomacy can accomplish in terms of reigning in North Korea s weapons program. For those ... who have been commenting on a lack of a military option, there is a military option, McMaster told reporters at the White House, adding that it would not be the Trump administration s preferred choice. | 0fake |
Los emails de Hillary Clinton y la Hermandad Musulmana, por Thierry Meyssan | Los emails de Hillary Clinton y la Hermandad Musulmana por Thierry Meyssan La investigación del FBI sobre los emails privados de Hillary Clinton ya no está relacionada con una negligencia en materia de normas de seguridad sino con un complot tendiente a sustraer a los servidores del gobierno federal todo rastro de su correspondencia. Esto parece incluir intercambios de mensajes sobre financiamiento ilegal o la corrupción de terceros vinculados a las relaciones del matrimonio Clinton con la Hermandad Musulmana y los yihadistas.
Red Voltaire | Damasco (Siria) | 1ro de noviembre de 2016 ελληνικά English français Türkçe русский Deutsch Hillary Clinton y la jefa de su equipo, Huma Abedin. La reactivación de la investigación del FBI sobre los mensajes privados de Hillary Clinton ya no tiene que ver con un problema de seguridad sino con una serie de manejos que pudieran llegar incluso a caracterizarse como crímenes de alta traición.
Técnicamente, en vez de utilizar los servidores de seguridad del Estado federal, la secretaria de Estado usó un servidor privado que había instalado en su domicilio para poder utilizar internet sin dejar rastros en una máquina del gobierno federal. El técnico privado de la señora Clinton había limpiado ese servidor antes de la llegada del FBI, de manera que ya no era posible saber el por qué de la instalación de ese dispositivo.
El FBI observó inicialmente que el servidor privado no garantizaba el mismo nivel de seguridad que el servidor del Departamento de Estado. Por tanto, la señora Clinton había cometido una falta en materia de seguridad. Pero el FBI confiscó posteriormente el ordenador del ex miembro del Congreso estadounidense Anthony Weiner, el ex esposo de Huma Abedin, la jefa del equipo de trabajo de Hillary Clinton. Y en ese ordenador aparecieron una serie de correos electrónicos de la ex secretaria de Estado.
Anthony Weiner es un político judío, muy vinculado a los Clinton, que ambicionaba ser alcalde de Nueva York. Pero tuvo que dimitir como consecuencia de un escándalo esencialmente puritano: Weiner había enviado SMS eróticos a varias mujeres. Huma Abedin se separó de él oficialmente, pero en realidad no lo dejó.
Huma Abedin es estadounidense y se educó en Arabia Saudita. Su padre dirige una revista académica –en la que la propia Huma fue durante años secretaria de redacción–, publicación que recoge regularmente las opiniones de la Hermandad Musulmana. Su madre preside la asociación saudita de mujeres miembros de la Hermandad Musulmana y trabajaba con la esposa del presidente egipcio Mohamed Morsi, otro representante de la Hermandad Musulmana. Su hermano Hassan trabaja para el jeque Yusuf al-Qaradawi, el predicador y consejero espiritual de Al-Jazeera.
Durante un viaje oficial a Arabia Saudita, la secretaria de Estado visita el colegio Dar al-Hekma con Saleha Abedin –la madre de Huma– quien preside la asociación de Hermanas miembros de la Hermandad Musulmana. Huma Abedin es actualmente un personaje central de la campaña electoral de Hillary Clinton, junto a su director de campaña, John Podesta, quien fue jefe de personal de la Casa Blanca bajo la presidencia de Bill Clinton. Podesta es además el agente de influencia encargado de promover los intereses de Arabia Saudita en el Congreso de Estados Unidos, tarea por la cual percibe mensualmente la módica suma de 200 000 dólares. El 12 de junio de 2016, la agencia de prensa oficial de Jordania publicó una entrevista del príncipe heredero de Arabia Saudita, Mohamed Ben Salman, quien defendía la modernidad de su familia argumentando que la familia real saudita financió –ilegalmente– en un 20% la campaña electoral de Hillary Clinton… a pesar de tratarse de una mujer. Al día siguiente, la agencia anulaba el despacho que contenía esa información y afirmaba que su sitio web había sido pirateado.
Según un despacho de Petra, la agencia oficial de Jordania, fechado el 12 de junio de 2016, la familia real de Arabia Saudita ha financiado ilegalmente un 20% de la campaña electoral de Hillary Clinton. Huma Abedin no es la única persona de la administración Obama vinculada a la Hermandad Musulmana:
El medio hermano del presidente, Abon’go Malik Obama, presidente de la Fundación Barack H. Obama, es también tesorero de la Obra Misionaria de la Hermandad Musulmana en Sudán. Abon’go Malik Obama se halla directamente a las órdenes del presidente sudanés Omar el-Bechir.
Un miembro de la Hermandad Musulmana es miembro del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional estadounidense. Desde 2009 hasta 2012, fue Mehdi K. Alhassani. No se sabe quién lo sustituyó, pero la Casa Blanca negaba que hubiera un miembro de la Hermandad Musulmana en el Consejo de Seguridad Nacional, hasta que se supo que Alhassani era efectivamente miembro de la cofradía.
Rashad Hussain, embajador de Estados Unidos ante la Conferencia Islámica, también pertenece a la Hermandad Musulmana.
Otros miembros de la cofradía debidamente identificados ocupan cargos menos importantes en la administración Obama. Pero vale la pena mencionar en particular a Louay M. Safi, actualmente miembro de la Coalición Nacional Siria y ex consejero del Pentágono.
El presidente Barack Obama recibe a su medio hermano Abon’go Malik Obama en la Oficina Oval de la Casa Blanca. Abon’go Malik Obama es el tesorero de la Obra Misionera de la Hermandad Musulmana en Sudán. En abril de 2009, dos meses antes de pronunciar su famoso discurso en El Cairo, el presidente Obama recibió secretamente una delegación de la Hermandad Musulmana en la Oficina Oval. Anteriormente, había invitado a su investidura a Ingrid Mattson, la presidenta de la Asociación de Hermanos y Hermanas Musulmanes en Estados Unidos.
Por su parte, la Fundación Clinton empleó como responsable de su proyecto «Clima» a Gehad el-Haddad, uno de los dirigentes mundiales de la Hermandad Musulmana, quien había sido hasta entonces responsable de un programa de televisión coránica. Su padre fue uno de los cofundadores de la Hermandad Musulmana en 1951, cuando la CIA y el MI6 decidieron reactivarla. Gehad dejó la Fundación Clinton en 2012 para convertirse, en El Cairo, en vocero del entonces candidato a la presidencia de Egipto Mohammed Morsi, y posteriormente pasó a ser vocero oficial de la Hermandad Musulmana a escala mundial.
Sabiendo que todos los líderes yihadistas del mundo provienen de la Hermandad Musulmana o de la orden sufí de los Naqchbandis –los dos componentes de la Liga Islámica Mundial– sería interesante tener un poco más de información sobre las relaciones de la señora Clinton con Arabia Saudita y la cofradía.
Resulta, por otro lado, que en el equipo del adversario de Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, está el general Michael T. Flynn, quien trató de oponerse a que la Casa Blanca creara el Emirato Islámico (Daesh) y dimitió de su cargo de director de la Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA, la Agencia de Inteligencia del Departamento de Defensa) en señal de protesta. Y junto a él, también como miembro del equipo de Trump, figura Frank Gaffney, un « cold warrior » histórico, actualmente catalogado como « complotista » por haber denunciado… la presencia de miembros de la Hermandad Musulmana en el gobierno federal.
Por supuesto, desde el punto de vista del FBI, todo respaldo a las organizaciones yihadistas constituye un crimen, sin importar la línea política de la CIA. En 1991, el FBI –y el senador John Kerry– provocaron la quiebra del BCCI –banco pakistaní registrado en las Islas Caimán y ampliamente utilizado por la CIA en todo tipo de operaciones secretas con la Hermandad Musulmana, el mismo esquema que esa agencia estadounidense de inteligencia suele emplear con los cárteles latinoamericanos de la droga.
Thierry Meyssan | 1real |
Some in Oklahoma statehouse urge Obama impeachment over bathroom rule | OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Republican state lawmakers in Oklahoma have introduced a resolution urging the state’s congressional delegation to start an effort to impeach President Barack Obama over a White House recommendation that schools accommodate transgender students. The Obama administration told U.S. public schools last week that transgender students must be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice. The recommendation upset Republicans and raised the likelihood of fights over federal funding and legal authority. The Oklahoma resolution, introduced on Thursday night, calls on the state’s members of the U.S. House of Representatives to file articles of impeachment against Obama, the U.S. attorney general, the U.S. secretary of education and others over the policy. A vote has not yet been scheduled on the resolution. Legal experts told local media the impeachment call is on shaky ground since the recommendation offered non-binding guidance and did not have the force of law. Lawmakers in the socially conservative state took up another measure on Friday that would allow students to claim a religious right to have separate but equal bathrooms and changing facilities to segregate them from transgender students. That bill, introduced on Thursday night and referred to a Senate committee on Friday, could force schools into costly construction, which would be difficult for them to complete after lawmakers significantly cut education funding to plug a $1.3 billion state budget shortfall. State Representative John Bennett, a Republican, said in a statement the White House policy was “biblically wrong,” and a violation of state sovereignty. The Oklahoma bill would allow for segregation at school restrooms, athletic changing facilities and showers if a request is made to accommodate religious beliefs. It also allows the attorney general to file lawsuits to implement the changes. Impeachment advocates say Obama overstepped his constitutional authority. Troy Stevenson, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, an LGBT advocacy group said the measure promoted fear-mongering and was out of place “In a time when our state is facing an unprecedented economic crisis, our lawmakers should be focused on righting the ship rather than stigmatizing transgender youth,” he said in a statement. The measure was introduced just hours after state lawmakers approved a bill that would make abortions a felony punishable by up to three years in prison for doctors who perform them. Governor Mary Fallin, an anti-abortion Republican, vetoed the bill because it would not withstand a criminal constitutional legal challenge, her office said. | 0fake |
Strange Pings & ET Crash Retrievals | • ON AIR NOW: LISTEN LIVE Advertisement Home > Shows > Strange Pings & ET Crash Retrievals Strange Pings & ET Crash Retrievals Date Wednesday - November 23, 2016 Host George Noory Listen with Windows Player High Low Download MP3s Hour 1 Hour 2 Hour 3 Hour 4 IMPORTANT: Some mobile devices do not download MP3s. If this is the case, please use your desktop computer or download our mobile app or download our mobile app .
Investigative reporter Linda Moulton Howe will discuss the effects of the strange pinging sound being reported since the summer of 2016 in Canada; a steady increase in drought-stressed forests and ozone; and an important UFO-related story from the son of a USAF man who was working inside ET retrieval teams at alien crash sites.
In the first hour, multi-sensory clairvoyant Janie Boisclair talks about her contact with entities on the Other Side and specifically those who've shared insights on the first Thanksgiving meal in Plymouth, Massachusetts including who was there, what they ate and why. Website(s): | 1real |
Some members of Trump team can begin agency briefings: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team can now begin work with officials at certain government agencies as they prepare for the new administration to take over in January, the White House said on Thursday. “The President-elect’s team has now completed the necessary steps for an initial group of authorized individuals to begin receiving briefings and other materials from our transition teams at select agencies across the government,” said White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine in a statement. “We expect to receive additional names for a wider range of agencies from the President-elect’s team as the transition work continues, and we will facilitate those requests on a rolling basis,” Hoffine said. | 0fake |
As Dubai’s Skyline Adds a Trophy, the Architect Calls It Stolen - The New York Times | DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Few cities on earth can compete with Dubai for sheer verticality. The pale sands of this once forgettable port alongside the emptiness of the Arabian desert have proved fertile ground for all manner of skyscrapers. They rise as if conjured by an obsession with Las Vegas and a jones for altitude. The Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure on the planet, reaches twice the height of the Empire State Building. Now, Dubai is about to gain another landmark. The Dubai Frame, set to open this year, is literally and figuratively a frame imposed on the overwhelming view — two parallel towers linked by an observation deck. It is a marker of how far the city has traveled, drawing the eye from the drab buildings of the old settlement along Dubai Creek to the riotous profusion of skyscrapers stretching south to the Persian Gulf. It is a totem of Dubai’s ambitions. It may also be counterfeit. The architect whose initial design inspired the structure, Fernando Donis, has accused the Dubai municipality of breaching his copyright in a lawsuit filed in December in United States federal court. Nine years ago, Mr. Donis won an international competition to design the building, besting more than 900 other entrants. Yet he was not included in the project’s execution and was not compensated for his intellectual property, his lawsuit claims. “It’s shocking,” Mr. Donis said. “The Frame is mine, and they don’t want to grant that it is mine. The infringement doesn’t just victimize me. They have taken something from all architects — the protection of our ideas. ” Raised as a monument to Dubai’s aspirations as a center of international commerce, the Frame is now a physical manifestation of the crude system that erected it. Dubai’s ruling family has long pledged reforms aimed at bringing rule of law to a business realm often subject to the edicts of officials. But the city’s entrenched system leaves outsiders vulnerable to mistreatment — from professionals sketching blueprints to construction workers laying foundations. Both tend to arrive for similar reasons, using Dubai as an opportunity to advance their fortunes. Professionals come hoping to make their names. Migrant workers descend from some of the poorest nations on earth — Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines — seeking to support families at home. Both are prone to similar fates. Professionals can find themselves shortchanged and lacking redress in a system in which kinship can outweigh contract terms. Migrant workers frequently fall prey to shady recruiters proffering exaggerated wages. In crying foul, Mr. Donis joined other foreign professionals who have described a system in which proximity to power trumps the sanctity of law. In 2009, investors from the United States, Britain, Russia and elsewhere contended that they had been cheated by Al Fajer Properties, a developer founded by a sheikh who is part of the family. One British investor, Moses Oye, said the developer used falsified pictures to raise $140 million, making it appear that apartments in a development had already been completed though no construction had taken place. Calls for a probe by the Dubai government yielded no action, Mr. Oye said. “What do you do when the independent government agency trusted by the ruler of Dubai to regulate and monitor the real estate developer’s performance actually participates in a operation that deprives investors of their rights?” Mr. Oye said. A spokesman for Al Fajer denied wrongdoing, adding that any blame should fall on a local sales agent. Two years ago, dozens of investors in the Palm Jebel Ali — a manufactured archipelago shaped like a palm tree, and planned to include villas, a water park and six marinas — took the extraordinary step of writing to Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid pleading for clarity on the future of their holdings. The project is the work of Nakheel, now a developer started by a sheikh who served as a key adviser to the ruling family. Construction began in 2002. But as real estate prices plunged after the global financial crisis of 2008, Nakheel halted work while hanging on to deposits reaching 50 percent of the villa prices. Nakheel said it began offering refunds in 2011, but investors complained that they were not being made whole. The company maintains that it has “ ” plans to complete the project. A Nakheel spokesman did not respond to questions. Among migrant workers in Dubai, tales of mistreatment are legion. As a parade of workers returned to their dormitories from prayers at a nearby mosque on a recent afternoon, some complained that they receive less than what is due. Most are in debt to recruitment agents who arranged their jobs. The agents typically retain their passports, workers say. When things go awry, workers sometimes find themselves caught — unable to switch jobs, and unable to go home. One such worker is S. Ramesh, who arrived here last summer from India thinking he had found a way to support his family and who now worries he may never see his family again. On a recent morning, he stood outside a dormitory that houses workers constructing the Frame, begging for help. The United Arab Emirates, the federation that includes Dubai, has responded to such experiences with reforms for workers at both ends of the economic spectrum. The federation has strengthened contract law while protecting minority shareholders. It has made it permissible for migrant workers to switch jobs while outlawing payments to recruitment firms. But the niceties of the law contrast with the daily realities of the marketplace. Dubai’s economy is dominated by developers that function like arms of the government and have relationships with the family. “The ruler is earnest about it and recognizes the need for rule of law to continue to attract foreign investment and tourism,” said Christopher M. Davidson, a political scientist at Durham University in northern England, and an expert on the United Arab Emirates. “But in practice, you’ve got these layers of management below him that cut corners, give jobs to cronies and family members, and take bribes. That’s been a problem that has plagued Dubai. ” The lawsuit Mr. Donis filed seeks unspecified compensation for damages and a ruling that his copyright was breached. The Dubai municipality has “taken the Dubai Frame as its own without paying or crediting the person who created it,” said Edward Klaris, a New lawyer representing the architect. (Mr. Klaris is married to Robin Pogrebin, a writer for The New York Times.) “This is an egregious infringement of international copyright and a sad case of sovereign bullying that deserves to be corrected. ” The Dubai municipality did not respond to questions. In correspondence with Mr. Donis reviewed by The New York Times, the Dubai government dismissed his complaints, noting that he received a $100, 000 prize for winning the competition. City officials maintain Mr. Donis lacked local licenses needed to execute the project. Dubai is not the only place where architects decry stolen ideas. In China, where anything of value is susceptible to counterfeits, there has been a boom in replicas of landmark foreign buildings, from the Eiffel Tower to Tower Bridge. A copy of a famous modern development in Beijing, Wangjing Soho, by the British architect Zaha Hadid, who died last year, even popped up in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing. “Architecture is a field where intellectual property has been extended protection in the more recent past,” said James Conley, an expert on the history of copyright at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “Monarchy states play the game by their own rules. ” So much has changed here since the 1960s, when this smuggler’s paradise was home to only 40, 000 people and barely had electricity. In the decades since, Dubai has exploded into a modern metropolis of 2. 7 million, a global transportation hub, a regional financial center and a popular tourist destination. Yet beneath the surface, much remains the same. In Bur Dubai, the oldest part of the city, young men patrol the outskirts of a bazaar, wooing shoppers with promises of cheap copies of Rolex watches, Gucci handbags and Louis Vuitton luggage. “Real, genuine fakes,” one said. Three miles away, inside the gates of Za’abeel Park, scores of laborers apply a patina of gold to the sides of Mr. Donis’s creation. “They simply wanted to take the project and eliminate my name,” he said. From the observation tower atop the Frame, Dubai is supposed to shimmer with modernity. Lost in the haze are the dormitories honeycombed with rooms that house migrant workers. They are the inconspicuous force behind Dubai’s staggering development. Some eight million migrants reside in the United Arab Emirates, according to the United Nations, or roughly 84 percent of the population — the largest concentration on earth. Like every shiny structure in a city defined by them, the Frame depends on this influx for its existence. Kauser Sorker, 31, a laborer from Bangladesh, works at the Frame, erecting scaffolding. He earns 850 dirham a month (about $231) — enough to send money home to his wife and daughter, but not enough to see a different life ahead of them. “The company makes the promised payments,” he said, “but it’s not much. ” On a recent trip home to visit his family, his daughter treated him like a stranger. Here in Dubai, loneliness tears at him. “I am always thinking about my family,” he said. And yet the Frame workers are comparatively fortunate. Outside Mr. Sorker’s dormitory in the al Quoz industrial area, S. Ramesh stands on the cracked sidewalk, beseeching for rescue. Mr. Ramesh, who like many Indians uses a single initial, comes from outside the city of Hyderabad. He and his wife and their two children grew okra, corn and tomatoes, subsisting on less than $2, 000 a year. When the monsoon rains failed to arrive last June, their crops vanished into dust. They went to a Hindu temple and made an offering. A staffing agency offered to secure him a construction job in Dubai, promising he would earn more than $500 a month. Mr. Ramesh had to hand over two months of his future salary to cover the cost of arranging his contract, his air travel and his visa. His wife sold her wedding jewelry. When he arrived in Dubai, he was taken to a squat dormitory block on a street reeking of raw sewage. The next morning, the agent drove him to a building. He would not be doing construction, but rather cleaning apartments. From 5 in the morning until 7 at night, Mr. Ramesh vacuumed, dusted and scrubbed, he said, stopping only for a lunch break. Then he walked back to the dorm through the blistering Arabian heat, past an indoor ski area complete with snow. Four months after arriving, he had yet to be paid, he said. The agent tells him that his visa has proved more expensive than expected. Mr. Ramesh cleans the rooms of other migrant workers in exchange for minutes on their phones to call his wife in India. She sobs and tells him to come home. But the agent has his passport and has refused to refund his recruitment fee, he said. He has no money for a plane ticket. “There is a huge dependence on migrant workers who have employment terms that are no different than indentured servitude,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group that has documented abuses of migrant workers in the neighboring emirate of Abu Dhabi. “This is a system that’s put in place to entrap workers. ” The view engineered by Mr. Donis, the architect, crops out such everyday tragedies, spotlighting a futuristic tangle of glass and steel. Mr. Ramesh is beyond that frame. “This is my destiny,” he said. “I’m stuck. ” For Mr. Donis, Dubai was supposed to be the place for his solo debut. For eight years, he labored alongside a glittering star, the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. Mr. Donis handled the design for the CCTV tower headquarters in Beijing, an oddly angular structure that has gained international acclaim. He designed a new airport for Jedda, Saudi Arabia, but it was never built. Ditto an office building in Dubai. The competition, in 2008, beckoned as an invitation to create something prominent — “an iconic tall emblem structure that contributes to the new face of Dubai,” according to the rules. The municipality set a goal of attracting two million tourists a year to the site. The contest was overseen by ThyssenKrupp Elevator, a German industrial giant. It was governed by the rules of the International Union of Architects, an organization affiliated with Unesco that lays down a code of conduct for professionals. competitions had produced designs for the Sydney Opera House in Australia and the Pompidou Center in Paris. Mr. Donis, 44, had already spent enough time in Dubai to be struck by its audacity. “It’s incredible that a city can just be raised from scratch in such a short time,” he said. Unlike neighboring Abu Dhabi, which is rich in oil, Dubai has little of that precious commodity. City leaders folded the proceeds from what oil they had into infrastructure, making Dubai a major shipbuilder and container port. Then, they turned it into one of the busiest air hubs on earth, a gateway connecting Asia to Europe and North America. Successive waves of real estate development have constructed an empire of luxury apartments and resorts centered on hedonistic pursuits. Today, Dubai is a city where one can sit in a dining room atop a hotel and dine on truffles and caviar while gazing at beachfront villas set on an island shaped like a palm tree. “I was very critical of the architecture,” Mr. Donis said. “I thought, you could propose something else, something more serious. ” He sketched a slender, unadorned frame, a concept he had written about at length in his graduate studies. City leaders declared him the winner. They flew him to Dubai and honored him with a celebration dinner at the Raffles Hotel. He presented his vision to the crown prince. The contest rules endowed him with legal ownership of his idea: “The author of the preliminary design placed first will keep his copyright and his work may only be used by the Dubai Municipality when he has signed the corresponding contract. ” Yet almost as soon as contract negotiations commenced in June 2009, municipal officials signaled their intent to force Mr. Donis to transfer the copyright, according to hundreds of pages of correspondence reviewed by The Times. They haggled over fees. The municipality threatened to give the job to a local firm, according to the documents reviewed by The Times. Mr. Donis repeatedly lowered his demands for compensation while holding fast to the one thing he valued most — his copyright. But the municipality insisted on gaining the copyright, Mr. Donis said. It cited rules requiring that architects working in Dubai maintain a local registered office, meaning he could serve only as a consultant. In May 2011, Mr. Donis received an alarming email from Roxy Binno, an expert in the urban design and planning department of the Dubai municipality. His copyright covered only the “conceptual design,” the letter declared, whereas the municipality “owns the project now,” ostensibly meaning it had the authority to proceed absent a contract. Mr. Binno did not respond to repeated calls and emails posing questions. Mr. Donis raised the specter of legal action. He sought aid from ThyssenKrupp. He wrote a complaint to the International Union of Architects, addressing his letter to the of the union’s competition division, Tomaz Kancler. In an email to The New York Times sent in response to questions, Mr. Kancler said he and the union confronted Dubai officials with concerns that Mr. Donis was being unfairly excluded. “We realized the deviations from the rules,” Mr. Kancler wrote. The pressure produced an invitation for Mr. Donis to visit Dubai. There, the architect recalled, municipal officials assured him that a contract would soon be readied enabling him to keep the copyright. But when the proposed contract arrived, it offered only an advisory role. He had to hand over his copyright. He would be barred from promoting his work. The municipality could terminate the contract at any point. “It’s like you have no contract,” Mr. Donis said. He tried to negotiate further, but Dubai officials stopped responding. Construction began. In October 2012, he received a letter from Ramón Sotomayor, chief executive at the time for southern Europe, Africa and the Middle East for ThyssenKrupp Elevator. The issue Mr. Donis had been complaining about amounted to “a commercial disagreement,” Mr. Sotomayor wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by The Times. “ThyssenKrupp does not have any possibility to interfere. ” Mr. Donis ultimately named ThyssenKrupp a in his lawsuit. A ThyssenKrupp spokesman said the suit “has no basis at all,” because the company “had no role in the decision awarding the architecture contract for the Dubai Frame,” adding, “We will defend our position in court vigorously. ” Late in 2013, Mr. Donis was aghast to find photos on the web showing that the Frame had been transformed into a literal picture frame adorned with gold leaf — a departure from his stark, unornamented conception. He wrote one last time to the Dubai director general: “If the images published indeed show what seems to be the updated building design, the Dubai Frame — and I say this with the highest respect — will be far from becoming a masterpiece. ” These days, Mr. Donis works in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, more than 4, 000 miles away from Dubai. He catches glimpses of his creation via occasional news articles on the web. “It looks fantastic over all,” he said. “But they stole it. ” | 0fake |
Wilbur Ross, Trump's Commerce pick, offshored 2,700 jobs since 2004 | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billionaire Wilbur Ross, chosen by Donald Trump to help implement the president-elect’s trade agenda, earned his fortune in part by running businesses that have offshored thousands of U.S. jobs, according to Labor Department data attained by Reuters. As a high-stakes investor a decade ago, Ross specialized in turning around troubled manufacturing companies at a time when the U.S. economy was losing more than 100,000 jobs yearly due to global trade. A Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination to become commerce secretary is set for Wednesday. Supporters say Ross saved thousands of U.S. jobs by rescuing firms from failure. Data attained by Reuters through a Freedom of Information Act request shows that rescue effort came at a price: textile, finance and auto-parts companies controlled by the private-equity titan eliminated about 2,700 U.S. positions since 2004 because they shipped production to other countries, according to a Labor Department program that assists workers who lose their jobs due to global trade. [For a graphic click tmsnrt.rs/2iYIJWa] The figures, which have not previously been disclosed, amount to a small fraction of the U.S. economy, which sees employment fluctuate by the tens of thousands of jobs each month. But Ross’s track record clashes with Trump’s promise to protect American workers from the ravages of global trade. Recently, Trump claimed credit for saving 800 jobs at a Carrier Corp. factory in Indiana, even touring the plant to shake hands with employees. He has targeted Ford Motor Co (F.N) and other automakers to keep hundreds of jobs inside the U.S. borders. That disconnect could draw attention at his hearing, one of many scheduled this week for Cabinet nominees ahead of Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. “He is not the man to be protecting American workers when he’s shipping this stuff overseas himself,” said Don Coy, who lost his job at the end of 2016 when a company Ross created - International Automotive Components Group - closed a factory in Canton, Ohio and shifted production of rubber floor mats to Mexico, eliminating the final 16 jobs in a factory that once employed 450 workers. Ross resigned from the IAC board of directors in November 2014 and was named chairman emeritus. Ross did not respond to several requests for comment. His offshoring activities are not unusual in an era when globalization has lowered international trade barriers. Auto-parts maker Delphi Corp., for example, has offshored 11,700 U.S. jobs since 2004, while textile makers have offshored at least 17,000 jobs since then, the Labor Department said. As IAC shuttered its Canton plant in the final months of 2016, Ross argued on behalf of Trump that free-trade agreements hurt the United States. “When Ford offshores new production facilities to Mexico, that both boosts the Mexican economy and reduces investment in this country,” he wrote in September in a Washington Post opinion piece penned with Peter Navarro, another Trump economic adviser who has been tapped to direct a White House trade council. In a bid to reverse offshoring, Trump has threatened to impose “a big border tax” on automakers that choose to build cars in Mexico rather than the United States and has talked of resetting free-trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). A Trump transition spokesperson said personnel decisions at Ross’s auto-parts and textile companies were driven by the need to put operations near customers and keep U.S. plants competitive, echoing arguments made by other auto industry executives who face pressure from Trump. “Few people have done as much to defend American jobs and negotiate good deals for American workers as Wilbur Ross,” said the spokesperson, who asked not to be named. The offshoring figures for Ross’s companies came from the Labor Department’s Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which provides retraining benefits to some workers who lose their jobs due to outsourcing or cheap imports. The program does not cover everybody who is hurt by global trade: service-sector workers were not eligible until 2009, and those who don’t apply for the program don’t show up in its records. Only 1.6 million factory workers qualified for TAA benefits between 2001 and 2010, a time when the United States shed 6 million manufacturing jobs. Despite Trump's campaign rhetoric about countries like Mexico and China taking U.S. jobs, the TAA figures show globalization has claimed fewer jobs in recent years. The program covered roughly 80,000 workers last year, down from about 340,000 in 2009. [For a graphic, click tmsnrt.rs/2iYGJgR] Ross amassed a fortune, estimated by Forbes magazine at $2.5 billion, by buying up companies in struggling industries and returning them to profitability. Labor leaders such as United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard have said that Ross over the years saved thousands of manufacturing jobs. In one case, Ross bought two struggling North Carolina fabric makers out of bankruptcy to create International Textile Group (ITG) in 2004, as textile import quotas were being phased out. Between 2005 and 2011, the company laid off 1,268 U.S. workers as it set up operations in Mexico, China and Nicaragua, TAA records show. ITG CEO Ken Kunenberger told Reuters that those job reductions were primarily due to competition from cheap imports. ITG now operates six U.S. plants, down from nine in 2007, according to its annual reports. Ross sold the company in October for an undisclosed sum. Ross also created International Automotive Components Group in 2007 to buy up auto-parts makers around the world as the industry struggled with overcapacity and slowing sales. TAA filings show IAC eliminated 853 U.S. jobs because it shifted work from the United States to Mexico. “We tried every trick in the book to get them to stay but they just weren’t interested,” said Tim Scott, who served on the city council in Carlisle, Pennsylvania when IAC decided to close its plant there in 2009, shifting work to Mexico and Tennessee. An IAC spokesperson said the company has expanded in Mexico to be near the automakers that buy its parts, a common business strategy in the sector. IAC has expanded its workforce in Mexico and Canada by 42 percent to 8,500 since 2008, and by 10 percent in the United States to 11,000 over the same period, spokesman David Ladd said. In another venture, Ross combined several mortgage lenders into Homeward Residential Holdings Inc. in 2007, just as the housing market was collapsing. Homeward laid off 596 employees in Florida and Texas and shifted their work to India in 2012, according to TAA filings. That was a sizeable portion of the company’s global workforce, which it pegged at 2,800 a few months after the layoffs were announced. Ross sold Homeward in October 2012 for $750 million, which delivered a further return on top of $900 million in profits the company had already generated. “Homeward has been profitable in each year of its existence,” he said in a press release. | 0fake |
null | How "unfit and Fascist" was Hillary in your mind, Karl, and was it "obvious"?
Did it worry you that she was the driving force behind two wars (Libya and Syria) and responsible for as many deaths as Bush Jr is for his wars?
There are plenty of other serious objections to Hillary, but mass killing really does have to top the list. Did you endorse her bloody efforts, that is the interesting question. | 1real |
At least 54 killed after militants target mosque in Egypt's north Sinai: state media | CAIRO (Reuters) - At least 54 people were killed when suspected militants set off a bomb and opened fire at a mosque in Egypt s restive northern Sinai on Friday, state media and eyewitnesses said. Eyewitnesses reported ambulances ferrying casualties from the scene to nearby hospitals after the attack on Al Rawdah mosque in Bir al-Abed, west of Arish city. Another 75 people were wounded, MENA reported. President Abdel Fattah al Sisi convened an emergency security meeting soon after the attack, state television reported. Egypt s security forces are battling an Islamic State insurgency in north Sinai, where militants have killed hundreds of police and soldiers since fighting there intensified over the last three years. Militants have mostly targeted security forces in their attacks, but have also tried to expand beyond the peninsula by hitting Egyptian Christian churches and pilgrims. | 0fake |
29 Years Ago, Thomas Sankara, the African Che Guevara, was Murdered | shorty By Darío Mizrahi T homas Sankara was a young communist officer who attempted to take Burkina Faso out of the neocolonial orbit of France, but was murdered by his closest comrades. During Sankara’s short time in power, Burkina Faso became self-sufficient in grains. “He was the first to forbid female genital mutilation, and included women in all realms of public administration.” His killer, Blaise Compaoré, ruled for 27 years, until run out of the country in 2014 . This article previously appeared in The Dawn [3] . “He created the Communist Officers’ Group, which overthrew the government on November 7, 1982.” Earlier this month, Burkina Faso began to exhume the remains of the leader that founded the country in 1984. They seek to reveal the murderous conspiracy that ended his life, after four years of leading a revolutionary government. Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara was born on December 21, 1949 in what is known today as Burkina Faso, but was then still a French colony called Alta Volta . When he finished secondary school, at 19, he began a prolific military career that would be inextricably linked to politics. Just 14 years later, Sankara made a coup d’état through armed struggle and an overwhelming support from the population and assumed the leadership of the country. Back then, he was already a symbol throughout the continent. Thanks to a combination of charisma, courage and intelligence and his undoubtedly revolutionary convictions, the world began to talk about “African Che Guevara.” Just like the Argentine guerrilla, he had an early, tragic death, due to the betrayal of his closest comrade. Now, 28 years after his murder, and after the work to exhume his remains began, to unveil his mysterious end, Infobae interviewed Spanish writer Antonio Lozano, one of the most notorious experts on the Burkinese leader. As a corollary to his investigations, in 2006 he published The Sankara Case (Almuzara Ed), a novel that combines historical accuracy with fiction to retell his eventful life and tragic murder. The creation of a revolutionary leader “Sankara wanted to be a doctor, but his family was poor and his only option if he wanted to study was to attend a military academy. He was a Christian and that was always a part of his ideology,” Lozano says. “Surprisingly, at the time many of the professors of the military academy were Marxists”, Lozano explained, “so there he came into contact with these ideas. When he finished the first level of studies, his good grades allowed him to train as an Official of the Army in Madagascar, a country where there were constant popular revolts”. When he returned to Alto Volta, Sankara had strong convictions and thought that it was essential to break with the colonial oppression of his nation, which was one of the poorest of the planet. They sent him to the city of Pô, where his military and political career began. He had soldiers under his command which he taught his ideas. And on the other hand he worked with the poor people of the city and earned their respect and admiration. “When he went to Rabat, Morocco, to take a course he met Blaise Compaoré, who became a great friend and comrade-in-arms of his, and who would later do the revolution with him. When he returned to Alto Volta, he participated in a short war against Mali, where he shined for an incursion he did with his men and made him famous and praised by the population,” the historian says. “Sankara had strong convictions and thought that it was essential to break with the colonial oppression of his nation, which was one of the poorest of the planet.” I n 1981, he was appointed Secretary of Information of the State. But six months after, he announced his resignation in an explosive press conference, in which he denounced the authoritarianism of the government and the attempts to “put a gag on the people.” This consolidated his fame as one of the most notorious figures of the country. He had created, together with Campaoré and other members of the Armed Forces, the Communist Officers’ Group. This group overthrew the government on November 7, 1982, and appointed a new President: Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo. Sankara was appointed Prime Minister in January 1983. “Muammar Khadafi, who was already governing Linya and was one of the biggest figures of Arab socialism at the time, invited him to his country and considered him a comrade. At that time, every rally he held in Alto Volta was attended by thousands.” But France wouldn’t have this. “Due to the pressure of France and the right-wing coalition that was still in the government, he was imprisoned”, Lozano recounts. “So Compaoré and his allies started to act” to get him released, and “with the help of mass mobilizations of the Burkinese people”, they recovered Sankara from the claws of the metropoli. In August 4, 1983, they took the power through armed struggle. At 33, he was appointed president and the Sankara’s Revolution began. The foundation of a new country “He created a revolutionary process that was unheard of in Africa. On August 4, 1984, he changed the name of Alto Volta to Burkina Faso, which means “Land of the Honest People” which reflects his struggle against corruption, an endemic disease of African governments. He lead by example: he continued earning the same amount he made as Captain of the Army, sold all of the expensive cars owned by the state and adopted as official vehicle the cheapest car in the market, the Renault 5.” He decreased the salaries of all public officers, forbade the use of chauffeurs and mandated that all ministers had to travel in tourist class. He also stood against nepotisms and didn’t allow family-members to work for the state. His austerity was a characteristic that defined him until his death. “At the time he was murdered, his only possessions were a mortgaged house and three bikes” Lozano says. The other main axis of his administration was the incentive to education and culture. “In a single year, the alphabetization rate went from 12 to 36%, and it kept raising thanks to the rural schools he created throughout the country.” He also made great advances in health. He created vaccination commands that in just a few months immunized almost all Burkinese children against infectious diseases that were causing great harm. “At the time he was murdered, his only possessions were a mortgaged house and three bikes.” B ut the greatest revolution he led was the one in favor of women’s rights . He was the first to forbid female genital mutilation. He promoted the celebration of March 8 and included women in all realms of public administration. In the economic aspect, “he made an agrarian reform that redistributed land and gave out fertilizers and seeds to peasants, and created small dams. Through this, he managed to make Burkina Faso one of the few countries of the region to acquire self-sufficiency in the cereal supply, which is the base of the population’s diet.” Sankara knew that in order to be able to implement his agenda of reforms, he had to achieve “economic independence” for the country. This led him to confront the international financial system, and particularly the French one. Despite the declaration of independence, the country was still heavily tied to its former metropoli. The refusal to pay the external debt, which had been taken by previous governments, was one of his main measures. “In his last big speech, which he gave in September 1987 in the context of the General Assembly of the African Union, he defended these ideas once again and said that if they didn’t stand with him, he wouldn’t be there the following year. And, in fact, he didn’t live to see the 1988 assembly,” the biographer said. “He said that the only one with the ability to kill him was Blaise Compaoré, because he knew him better than anybody else.” S ankara had made powerful enemies, both inside and outside the country. “He saw the end coming. In an interview he gave 15 days before his death to a newspaper from Belgium, when they asked about potential conspiracies he said that the only one with the ability to kill him was Blaise Compaoré, because he knew him better than anybody else. His circle told him several times to cut him off because he was a threat. But his answer was always the same: he was like a brother.” Compaoré disagreed with many of Sankara’s policies, especially with the ones that restricted the acts of public officers. On October 15, 1987, an armed group entered Thomas Sankara’s office while he was in a meeting with the 12 members of the National Council of the Revolution. Sankara, who was 37 at the time, was murdered along with the rest of the attendants. Simultaneously, Compaoré made a coup d’état and became the President of Burkina Faso. He stayed in power for 27 years, until mass revolts forced him to flee the country in 2014. Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/thomas_sankara_murdered_29_years_ago | 1real |
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