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Grizzly Miss-Steppe: How Washington Post Rewrote its Fake News Story on ‘Russian Hack’ of Vermont Power Grid | MEDIA MELTDOWN: Many now believe that Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos has transformed the Washington Post from a paper of record into the world s most expensive fake news blog.Kalev Leetaru ForbesThe Washington Post sparked a wave of fear when it ran the breathless headline Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont, U.S. officials say. The lead sentence offered A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials and continued While the Russians did not actively use the code to disrupt operations of the utility, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a security matter, the penetration of the nation s electrical grid is significant because it represents a potentially serious vulnerability. Yet, it turns out this narrative was false and as the chronology below will show, illustrates how effectively false and misleading news can ricochet through the global news echo chamber through the pages of top tier newspapers that fail to properly verify their facts.The original article was posted online on the Washington Post s website at 7:55PM EST. Using the Internet Archive s Wayback Machine, we can see that sometime between 9:24PM and 10:06PM the Post updated the article to indicate that multiple computer systems at the utility had been breached ( computers plural), but that further data was still being collected: Officials said that it is unclear when the code entered the Vermont utility s computers, and that an investigation will attempt to determine the timing and nature of the intrusion. Several paragraphs of additional material were added between 8PM and 10PM, claiming and contextualizing the breach as part of a broader campaign of Russian hacking against the US, including the DNC and Podesta email breaches.Despite the article ballooning from 8 to 18 paragraphs, the publication date of the article remained unchanged and no editorial note was appended, meaning that a reader being forwarded a link to the article would have no way of knowing the article they were seeing was in any way changed from the original version published 2 hours prior.Yet, as the Post s story ricocheted through the politically charged environment, other media outlets and technology experts began questioning the Post s claims and the utility company itself finally issued a formal statement at 9:37PM EST, just an hour and a half after the Post s publication, pushing back on the Post s claims: We detected the malware in a single Burlington Electric Department laptop not connected to our organization s grid systems. We took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alerted federal officials of this finding. From Russian hackers burrowed deep within the US electrical grid, ready to plunge the nation into darkness at the flip of a switch, an hour and a half later the story suddenly became that a single non-grid laptop had a piece of malware on it and that the laptop was not connected to the utility grid in any way.However, it was not until almost a full hour after the utility s official press release (at around 10:30PM EST) that the Post finally updated its article, changing the headline to the more muted Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say and changed the body of the article to note Burlington Electric said in a statement that the company detected a malware code used in the Grizzly Steppe operation in a laptop that was not connected to the organization s grid systems. The firm said it took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alert federal authorities. Yet, other parts of the article, including a later sentence claiming that multiple computers at the utility had been breached, remained intact.The following morning, nearly 11 hours after changing the headline and rewriting the article to indicate that the grid itself was never breached and the hack was only an isolated laptop with malware, the Post still had not appended any kind of editorial note to indicate that it had significantly changed the focus of the article.This is significant, as one driving force of fake news is that as much of 60% of the links shared on social media are shared based on the title alone, with the sharer not actually reading the article itself. Thus, the title assigned to an article becomes the story itself and the Post s incorrect title meant that the story that spread virally through the national echo chamber was that the Russians had hacked into the US power grid.Only after numerous outlets called out the Post s changes did the newspaper finally append an editorial note at the very bottom of the article more than half a day later saying An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid. Yet, even this correction is not a true reflection of public facts as known. The utility indicated only that a laptop was found to contain malware that has previously been associated with Russian hackers. As many pointed out, the malware in question is actually available for purchase online, meaning anyone could have used it and its mere presence is not a guarantee of Russian government involvement. Moreover, a malware infection can come from many sources, including visiting malicious websites and thus the mere presence of malware on a laptop computer does not necessarily indicate that Russian government hackers launched a coordinated hacking campaign to penetrate that machine the infection could have come from something as simple as an employee visiting an infected website on a work computer.Moreover, just as with the Santa Claus and the dying child story, the Post story went viral and was widely reshared, leading to embarrassing situations like CNBC tweeting out the story and then having to go back and retract the story.Particularly fascinating that the original Post story mentioned that there were only two major power utilities in Vermont and that Burlington Electric was one of them, meaning it would have been easy to call both companies for comment. However, while the article mentions contacting DHS for comment, there is no mention of any kind that the Post reached out to either of the two utilities for comment. Given that Burlington issued its formal statement denying the Post s claims just an hour and a half later, this would suggest that had the Post reached out to the company it likely could have corrected its story prior to publication Continue this story at ForbesREAD MORE MSM FAKE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire MSM Watch FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 1real |
GOP Senator Loses His Sh*t On Twitter Over Trump’s Colorado ‘Temper Tantrum’ (TWEETS) | On Monday morning, Donald Trump appeared on Fox & Friends and raged over his loss in Colorado. The Republican frontrunner s tantrum was so bad that it caused a GOP Senator to absolutely lose his shit on Twitter.Senator Cory Gardner was livid that Trump has been bashing the state after his loss, especially since the rules for delegate counts were set up months ago. However, it was only after his embarrassing defeat that he decided he no longer wanted to play by the rules typical Trump. After all of the whining, Senator Gardner decided to put The Donald in his place in an epic rant:If you can t figure out the Colorado GOP delegate process how can you figure out how to balance the national budget? Cory Gardner (@CoryGardner) April 12, 2016 If you cannot navigate the @cologop convention what is your plan for Putin? #copolitics Cory Gardner (@CoryGardner) April 12, 2016How can you protect Israel at the UN when you re completely baffled by the @cologop convention process? -CG #copolitics Cory Gardner (@CoryGardner) April 12, 2016 How on earth are you going to defeat ISIS if you can t figure out the @cologop convention? -CG #copolitics Cory Gardner (@CoryGardner) April 12, 2016The answer to those questions, of course, is that he has no plans. He never has. He tells his poorly educated supporters that he does, but he can t give out all of his secrets because someone might steal his ideas. His supporters, in turn, tell everyone else this load of baloney as if it s completely normal that a man who is running for President of the United States is refusing to tell people what he is going to do for the country. The senator had a lot more to say:Spoke to dozens of Trump supporters this weekend, listened to his surrogate speak twice, not 1 person complained abt process until he lost. Cory Gardner (@CoryGardner) April 12, 2016 .@tedcruz showed up to the @cologop convention. @realDonaldTrump only sent a surrogate. Cruz swept. Elections are won by those who show up. Cory Gardner (@CoryGardner) April 12, 2016Darryl Glenn came out of nowhere to win @cologop convention for US Senate. That should be the story. Not @realDonaldTrump s temper tantrum. Cory Gardner (@CoryGardner) April 12, 2016I ve attended CO GOP conventions for years. It requires organization & attn to grassroots to win. Cruz had it. Trump didn t. End of story. Cory Gardner (@CoryGardner) April 12, 2016That should be the end of the story, but Trump is a terrible loser. Instead of just admitting that Cruz won fair and square, someone must have cheated. It s a conspiracy!The reality is that Trump throws these fits because it furthers the narrative that he is the underdog fighting against the big, bad GOP establishment. And because his supporters do not have the common sense of a toddler, they believe him.It s not every day that a Republican senator so thoroughly owns Trump, so we must give credit where credit is due: bravo Senator Gardner.Featured image via Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images (altered) | 1real |
U.S., backed by China, proposes tough N.Korea sanctions at U.N. | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States presented a draft Security Council resolution on Thursday it negotiated with China that would dramatically tighten existing restrictions on North Korea after its Jan. 6 nuclear test and create the toughest U.N. sanctions regime in over two decades. The draft, seen by Reuters, would require U.N. member states to conduct mandatory inspections of all cargo passing through their territory to or from North Korea to look for illicit goods. Previously states were only required to do this if they had reasonable grounds to believe there was illicit cargo. The United States used the nearly two months of bilateral negotiations that at one point involved President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, diplomats said, to win China’s support for unusually tough measures intended to persuade its ally North Korea to abandon its atomic weapons program. The proposal would close a gap in the U.N. arms embargo on Pyongyang by banning all weapons imports and exports. There would also be an unprecedented ban on the transfer to North Korea of any item that could directly contribute to the operational capabilities of the North Korean armed forces, such as trucks that could be modified for military purposes. Other proposed measures include a ban on all supplies of aviation and rocket fuel to North Korea, a requirement for states to expel North Korean diplomats engaging in illicit activities, and blacklisting 17 North Korean individuals and 12 entities, including the National Aerospace Development Agency or ‘NADA’, the body responsible for February’s rocket launch. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told reporters the new measures, if approved, would be “the strongest set of sanctions imposed by the Security Council in more than two decades.” Several council diplomats predicted a Saturday meeting to adopt the draft but Russian deputy U.N. ambassador Petr Iliichev told Reuters Moscow needed time to study the draft and the earliest likely vote would be next week. The draft was the result of seven weeks of tough negotiations between the United States and China, North Korea’s neighbor and main ally. “This is a very robust resolution,” a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. “Clearly this took a long time ... it was a difficult process.” North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 because of its multiple nuclear tests and rocket launches. China and the United States had differed on how strongly to respond to Pyongyang’s most recent test, with Washington urging harsh punitive measures and Beijing emphasizing dialogue and milder U.N. steps confined to non-proliferation. The Global Times, an influential Chinese tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party, said in an editorial that North Korea “deserves the punishment” of new sanctions, but China should “cushion Washington’s harsh sanctions to some extent.” “China insists the sanctions should focus on striking North Korea’s ability to continue developing nuclear weapons. It is the fundamental difference between China’s policy and that of the U.S., South Korea and Japan. China holds unswerving goodwill toward North Korea, which Chinese society hopes Pyongyang can understand,” it said. Diplomats said a sharp tightening of restrictions was necessary since Pyongyang has proved its determination to flout at all costs attempts at constraining its nuclear and missile programs. They said they hoped the latest measures would make it harder for North Korea to continue with that policy, keeping up the pressure on the country’s leadership without making the country’s impoverished population any poorer. “Pyongyang has prioritized the pursuit of these massively expensive programs over absolutely everything else,” the U.S. official said. “So is New York action going to automatically convince the regime’s leaders to cease? I think we’re realistic on that point.” However, he added that “this resolution will be felt, it will have an impact ... The DPRK (North Korea) have never been subject to the kind of pressure that is in the resolution.” Power said the measures were aimed at the country’s leadership, and “careful not to punish the North Korean people.” In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing on Thursday: “We hope and believe this new resolution can help effectively constrain North Korea from further developing its nuclear missile program”. There will also be further restrictions aimed at making it more difficult for North Korea to press ahead with its nuclear and missile programs. Pyongyang is currently banned from importing and exporting nuclear and missile technology and is not allowed to import luxury goods. The list of banned items will be expanded. The U.S. official said one of five annexes to the resolution lists 31 ships owned by North Korean shipping firm Ocean Maritime Management Company Limited, which will be blacklisted. Also new, countries will be required, not just encouraged, to freeze the assets of North Korean entities linked to Pyongyang’s nuclear or missile programs and to prohibit the opening of new branches or offices of North Korean banks or to engage in banking correspondence with North Korean banks. | 0fake |
LOL! WHY THIS LIST OF GOP “Leaders” Have NO Business Condemning Trump | The list of hypocrites and sore losers who are taking aim at Trump instead of the real enemy, Hillary Clinton, is getting longer every minute. Mitt just can t seem to get over the fact that Trump is wildly more appealing to Americans from every walk of life than he was in 2012. Mitt has learned some painful lessons in where he went wrong by watching Trump s successes. Trump is a fighter. From the outset, Trump made it clear that he would not allow the media to control the narrative. Romney s inability to fight back cost him the election and he knows it. While there is no question Romney is a wonderful family man, there is a question about why he has remained silent about Hillary and her criminal dealings while focusing all of his energy on destroying Trump. His condemnation of Trump comes as no surprise. Sadly, his condemnation of Hillary is nowhere to be found. Sorry Mitt, but your embarrassing behavior is hardly the mark of a true team player Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America's face to the world. Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) October 8, 2016Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL).@realDonaldTrump should drop out. @GOP should engage rules for emergency replacement. Mark Kirk (@SenatorKirk) October 8, 2016In June 2015, many in the GOP were calling for Senator Kirk to step down after making a comment about fellow Senator Lindsey Graham on a hot mic that many considered to be very offensive: He s a bro with no ho, Kirk said of Graham. That s what we d say on the South Side. Really? A bro with no ho? That s what we d say on the South Side?He was referring, of course, to Republican presidential hopeful and confirmed bachelor Sen. Lindsey Graham, and the speculation that Graham would have a bevy of rotating first ladies. CTOhio Governor John Kasich (R)Sore loser #1 Ohio Governor John Kasich had no intention of voting for Trump. He and Jeb! win prize for biggest sore losers who couldn t find their way out of their own pity parties to support Trump and the GOP when the RNC was held in his own state. Kasich s statement is about as meaningful as his candidacy was to GOP voters. This little ankleI will not vote for a nominee who has behaved in a manner that reflects so poorly on our country. FULL STATEMENT: https://t.co/7zUFPXvXPA John Kasich (@JohnKasich) October 8, 2016 Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (R)Now that we have the biggest loser out of the way, let s focus on the second biggest loser in the GOP the guy who believed (much like Hillary) that it was his turn for the nomination. When things didn t work for the open-borders candidate, he grabbed his binky and went home to Barbara and George Sr where they agreed to work together as a family unit to openly disrespect Donald J. Trump who beat him fair and square in the primaries, in spite of the $150 Million he received from large donors against Trump s self-funded campaign.As the grandfather of two precious girls, I find that no apology can excuse away Donald Trump's reprehensible comments degrading women. Jeb Bush (@JebBush) October 7, 2016Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)The 3rd biggest loser Marco Rubio was supposed to win it all. He was the establishments Golden boy this time around. Things fell apart for him however when America started to question his policies on immigration. At about the same time, Trump s nonexistent campaign was catching fire after he boldly proclaimed he would make defending our borders and getting illegal immigration under control in America. No one in the out-of-touch GOP could have predicted America felt so strongly about the crisis we as a nation are facing after 8 years of Obama s reckless open-borders policies. Rubio was stunned by his brutal defeat and he s never recovered.Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)After taking a shellacking in the primaries, by a formidable opponent, Senator Cruz had the opportunity to make things right after he was invited to speak at the RNC. He chose instead to use his time in front of millions of Republicans to promote himself instead of embracing the man who America chose to be the GOP candidate. At the beginning of the primaries, I donated to Cruz s campaign more than once. I am now sorry I ever supported him.Every wife, mother, daughter every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. https://t.co/AVSEBastVc Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 8, 2016By the way, does anyone remember when Ted Cruz was being accused of having multiple affairs. Does anyone remember when Cruz was put on the spot and asked directly if he had been having affairs on his wife, Carly Fiorina jumped in and answered the question for him. Notice he skillfully deflected and never answered the question. We re not suggesting he is guilty, but it is curious that he never answered the question.Senator John McCain (R-AZ)And then there s the guy who hasn t done a single thing for conservative in years. While we appreciate and respect the great sacrifices Senator John McCain made for our nation, it should not offer him total immunity from being a complete a*shole and a sellout to conservatives. In addition to my well known differences with Donald Trump on public policy issues, I have raised questions about his character after his comments on Prisoners of War, the Khan Gold Star family, Judge Curiel and earlier inappropriate comments about women. Just this week, he made outrageous statements about the innocent men in the Central Park Five case.We ve had just about enough of his pandering to the Left. His defense of Kzir Khan, Muslim father of a fallen-soldier with ties to Hillary Clinton and Valerie Jarrett was despicable. He may have been hero on the battlefield, but he s been a coward in the Senate when it comes to standing up for conservative principles. And oh yeah, there s that one time when John McCain called his wife Cindy a cunt :John McCain s temper is well documented. He s called opponents and colleagues shitheads, assholes and in at least one case a fucking jerk. Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain s hair and said, You re getting a little thin up there. McCain s face reddened, and he responded, At least I don t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt. McCain s excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days. HPBut we won t talk about that because he s a war hero. Only Trump is responsible for the words he used 10 years ago.There were several other of the usual suspects we all expect to see trashing Trump, the ones who usually vote on the other side of the aisle, or those who haven t passed a single piece of meaningful legislation who are just trying to pander to their blue states, but the best denouncement of Trump came from of all people, former husband of Maria Shriver of the Kennedy clan, actor and Governor of California, Arnold Schwarznegger and oh yeah the guy who fathered a son with the MARRIED family housekeeper and then hid his existence from his wife and children.As proud as I am to label myself a Republican, there is one label that I hold above all else American. My full statement: pic.twitter.com/biRvY8S3aZ Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) October 8, 2016Hey Arnold, there s a big difference between talking about having an affair with a married woman and actually HAVING an affair with a married woman oh yeah and then there s that whole illegitimate child thing | 1real |
SAUDI BILLIONAIRE Who Used Sharia Law To Make Fortune, Donates $10 MILLION To Yale University To Build Islamic Law Center | Because every American Ivy League school needs an Islamic Law Center Saleh Abdullah Kamel, a Saudi banker who is now worth billions of dollars thanks to his success with Sharia-compliant financing, has donated $10 million to Yale University as part of a successful effort to build an Islamic Law Center at the Ivy League school. Mr. Kamel s extraordinary generosity will open up exciting new opportunities for Yale Law School and for the entire university, said Yale President Peter Salovey. The Abdullah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization will enhance research opportunities for our students and other scholars and enable us to disseminate knowledge and insights for the benefit of scholars and leaders all over the world. Professor Anthony Kronman, a new co-director of the Islamic Law Center, said of the school s new addition: The contemporary challenges of Islamic law are broadly relevant to political events throughout the entire Islamic world and those are developments that are watched by a much larger audience of people who in many cases have not much knowledge at all of the history and traditions of Islamic law. It s the responsibility of universities to teach and instruct and that obligation applies with particular force where an issue or a subject tends to be viewed in an incomplete or inadequate or even caricatured way. There the responsibility to teach and enlighten is even stronger, he added.Noticeably left out of the press release is the fact that Mr. Kamel s Dallah Al Baraka Group, for which he is the Chief Executive, has been investigated by U.S. officials for bankrolling al-Qaeda s operations worldwide.Moreover, the bank was founded by former al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden along with a group of Sudanese jihadists, the State Department has alleged, according to the Wall Street Journal.And in the 1998 New York City trials of al-Qaeda members, witnesses testified that Mr. Kamel s bank had previously transferred hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to al-Qaeda to help them buy an airplane, the report stated.Additionally, Kamel s father s name appears on the Golden Chain, a list of alleged al-Qaeda funders that was confiscated by Bosnian authorities after raiding an al-Qaeda front group in 2002.The new Yale Islamic Center becomes the latest of many Saudi-funded influence operations on American university campuses throughout the continental United States. Some more notable Saudi-funded campus outfits include the $20 million Prince Alwaleed Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University and the $20 million Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. More Saudi-backed Professorships and Islamic Centers have made their way to Columbia University, Rice University, the University of Arkansas, University of California in Los Angeles, the University of California/Berkeley, and countless other institutions.Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
Refusing to sit on lead, Trump gets bitter in Republican debate | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump, his face red with emotion, lashed out at rivals Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz on Saturday at the most acrimonious debate to date between Republican presidential candidates, shouting insults and casting aside a pledge to be more measured. The New York billionaire went into the CBS debate with a head of steam, having won New Hampshire last Tuesday and holding a big lead in polls in South Carolina a week before Republicans vote on Feb. 20. Rather than play it safe, Trump responded to every comment leveled his way, interrupted his opponents at will and called them liars repeatedly in an emotional outburst that could raise more questions about whether he has the temperament to serve in the White House. He made his most blistering attacks against Bush and his brother, former President George W. Bush, who has many admirers in the Republican establishment. It was hard to declare a winner in the debate amid the constant volley of insults, not all of them from Trump. Cruz and fellow Senator Marco Rubio also took pointed jabs at each other over illegal immigration. But Trump dominated the debate conservation on Twitter with 40 percent of the mentions, according to data from the micro-blogging platform. Trump’s combative style has set the tone for much of the campaign but in recent days he had pledged to pursue a more measured, positive approach. At the debate, that strategy lasted only through his comments about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was found dead on Saturday. Trump was quickly goaded when Bush criticized Trump’s past statements that Russia has a role to play in Syria. Russia, Bush said, is not attacking Islamic State militants but instead helping Syrian President Bashir Assad, who Washington wants to leave power. Trump blasted Bush’s brother for launching the Iraq war in 2003 over claims, later proven false, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. “A big, fat mistake,” said Trump, noting that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had also occurred on Bush’s watch. “George Bush made a mistake,” Trump thundered. “We all make mistakes. But that one was a beauty ... They lied! They said there were weapons of mass destruction. And there were none.” Many in the crowd booed Trump and the Republican front-runner dismissed them as “lobbyists and special interests” supporting the former Florida governor. Bush, who has wilted in the past under assault from Trump, stood firm this time. He will campaign with his brother George on Monday in North Charleston, South Carolina. “I’m sick and tired of him going after my family,” Bush said. “My dad is the greatest man alive in my mind. While Donald Trump was building a reality TV show, my brother was building a security apparatus to keep us safe. And I’m proud of what he did. “He had the gall to go after my mother,” Bush said, reminding the audience that Trump had criticized his 90-year-old mother, Barbara Bush, wife of former President George H.W. Bush. “My mother is the strongest woman I know.” “She should be running,” Trump responded. Bush provoked another outburst from Trump by saying the Republican nominee should be someone “who doesn’t brag, for example, that he has been bankrupt four times.” “That’s another lie,” Trump said. “I never went bankrupt.” Trump also was drawn into a fight with Cruz over whether the real estate developer is sufficiently conservative. Trump called himself a “common-sense conservative,” which Cruz dismissed. “If Donald Trump is president he will appoint liberals to the Supreme Court,” Cruz said. “You are the biggest liar,” Trump said sharply. As they tried to talk over each other, Cruz chided Trump by saying, “Donald, adults do not interrupt each other.” Ohio Governor John Kasich, who finished second in the New Hampshire primary last Tuesday and who pushes an optimistic message, called for calm. “These attacks, some of them are personal. I think we’re fixing to lose the election to (Democratic front-runner) Hillary Clinton,” he said. Cruz and Rubio renewed their battle over who is the toughest on illegal immigration with Cruz insisting that the Florida senator, as part of a Gang of Eight senators who sought a compromise on legislation in 2013, was for “amnesty” but now is against it for political purposes. He insisted that Rubio had said in Spanish on Univision that he would not rescind an executive order signed by President Barack Obama in support of the children of illegal immigrants. Rubio shot back: “I don’t know how he knows what I said on Univision because he doesn’t speaking Spanish.” As the crowd roared, Rubio said Cruz is “telling lies... He’s lying about all sorts of things and now he makes things up.” Before the clashes broke out, the Republican candidates urged Obama not to nominate a successor to Scalia, saying it should be up to the next president to decide. (Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott and Mary Milliken) SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters’ editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage. | 0fake |
Democrats aim to turn anti-Trump sentiment into votes in Virginia | WOODBRIDGE, Va. (Reuters) - Legislative candidate Jennifer Carroll Foy’s first bid for office puts her on the front lines of a Virginia statewide election being watched for early hints on how voters feel about President Donald Trump. Citing Trump’s victory as a tipping point that pushed her to run, the 35-year-old public defender is one of 49 Democrats vying for Republican-held seats in the state’s House of Delegates, up from 29 two years ago. The races will test whether Democrats can convert Virginians’ unfavorable opinion of the Republican president in polls into votes and start clawing back some of the almost 1,000 legislative seats lost nationwide under Democratic President Barack Obama. Foy, long frustrated by her state legislature’s attitude toward women’s rights, is seeking a suburban Washington seat in one of the 17 Republican-controlled districts that voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton last year. “Trump was just confirmation that we’re regressing and not progressing,” Foy told Reuters. “Enough is enough. If it’s not me (to run), then who? If it’s not now, then when?” Republicans hold a 66-34 advantage in the lower house of the Virginia legislature. Stephen Farnsworth, a political analyst at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, expects Democrats will make significant gains, especially by focusing on suburban districts. But a takeover of the chamber would require a collapse of Trump supporters, he told Reuters. “A Democratic majority in the House of Delegates is going to require a tidal wave,” Farnsworth said. The national mood has made Virginia Democrats hopeful. Opposition to Trump has galvanized hundreds of thousands of Americans and fueled huge turnouts at street protests since the New York real estate developer’s January inauguration. A poll by the Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School out May 22 showed 59 percent of Virginia voters disapproved of Trump’s performance, compared with 36 percent who approved. “We’ve got two things going for us in this upcoming election, and that’s going to keep energy high,” said David Toscano, Democratic leader in the Virginia House. “Voting for somebody, and also voting against somebody.” Mark Walter, president of the national Republican State Leadership Committee, said his party was watching Virginia but that it was difficult to tell how voter feelings about Trump would affect the races. In New Jersey, the only other state holding statewide elections this fall, Democrats already control both chambers. The Virginia Republican Party is unfazed by the surge of challengers. Republicans had $6.5 million for House races by the end of March, compared with the Democrats’ $2.8 million, according to the most recent numbers from the state elections department. “We’re doing what we’ve always done,” Chairman John Whitbeck said in an interview with Reuters. “Raise a lot of money, knock on a lot of doors and win a lot of seats.” Toscano, the House Democratic leader, said his party’s candidates would use congressional Republicans’ efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature domestic legacy, as a campaign issue, as well as Trump’s brief hiring freeze for most federal workers. The party also will cite Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe’s legacy of adding thousands of new jobs and billions in capital investment as a selling point, Toscano said. McAuliffe cannot run again due to term limits, but the edge fellow Democrats have in the race to replace him is expected to give the party’s House hopefuls a boost. Democrats consider the 2nd District, home to sprawling housing subdivisions, strip malls and the Quantico Marine base, one of the party’s best bets to pick up a seat. Clinton won the district by 21 points in November, helping her win a state that was once reliably Republican in presidential elections. Foy and fellow Democrat Josh King will compete in the June 13 primary. The winner will face Republican Laquan Austion in November for the seat being vacated by the Republican incumbent, who is not seeking re-election. All three candidates say voters are more concerned about local issues, such as traffic jams, education and pollution from power plant coal ash, than Trump. “Obviously, the Trump effect is in the air, but we’re focusing the energy into what we can do locally,” said King, 36, a deputy sheriff who narrowly lost the 2015 election for the seat. | 0fake |
FATHER OF HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL STAR SHOT AND KILLED BY ILLEGAL ALIEN INTRODUCES TRUMP TO THOUSANDS IN AZ [Video] | They shot him in the head with a 45. They found out from the coroner that he was on his back (like this)with his hands up and they shot him through his hands and through his head. Now that s the original Hands up don t shoot, cuz that really happened. And Mr. Trump is willing to go out and sacrifice, he doesn t need money, he doesn t need power, he s powerful already. He has a name, he has what he needs, but he loves America. He loves America. He wants to make it good again. Jamiel Shaw Sr., the father of a high school student killed by an undocumented immigrant, will introduce Donald Trump on Saturday at a rally in Phoenix, Trump campaign officials tell CNN.Shaw s son, a high school football star, was shot and killed in Los Angeles in 2008 by a gang member born in Mexico. On Friday, Trump met in Los Angeles with Shaw and other family members of victims of crimes perpetrated by undocumented immigrants. He then gave a lengthy press conference in which he consistently railed against illegal immigration.Shaw said Friday that Trump s recent comments about illegal immigration resonated deeply with him. He s speaking for the dead. He s speaking for my son, he said. He s speaking for the people who can t speak for themselves that demand that somebody do something. At Friday s press conference, Trump claimed Mexico was sending its criminals to the United States. The fact that they are sending criminals and prisoners into our country and there are people stupid enough to put them in jails or let them roam the street, which is even worse, I have to respect (Mexico) for it, Trump said. I don t know it you know, (former Cuban leader Fidel) Castro, many years ago, opened up his prisons and sent his prisoners to the United States, he continued. In a much more sophisticated manner, Mexico is doing the same thing. Here is Jamiel Shaw Sr. s introduction today:Trump, who announced his White House campaign bid last month, sparked national outrage by saying that some people crossing the border into the United States from Mexico were rapists and criminals. A slew of corporations, including Macy s, NBC and ESPN, responded to his inflammatory remarks by severing business ties with the real estate magnate.Despite the backlash, Trump has doubled down on his rhetoric.And the support that he is receiving from Shaw and others demonstrates that the businessman s message is appealing to some* (many) voters who view illegal immigration as a serious problem. *edit by 100% FED UP!Via: CNN | 1real |
Band Calls Out Austin’s SXSW Festival over Immigration Rules | A New York band member called out Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival over its contract that demands foreign musicians follow U. S. immigration law. The festival is scheduled to run from March in Austin. [Felix Walworth, a drummer from Brooklyn, New Told Slant, dragged the SXSW festival into the middle of the national immigration debate when he tweeted to his approximately 6, 000 followers he is canceling the band’s appearance at the upcoming festival. The band’s Facebook page describes itself as a “bedroom punk band from New York, the music of Felix Walworth. ” Walworth’s complaint revolves around a provision in the festival’s participation contract that states the organization will contact U. S. immigration authorities if international artists violate the conditions of their immigration visas that prohibit working in the U. S. After looking through this contract sent to me by sxsw I have decided to cancel Told Slant’s performance at the festival pic. twitter. — Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017, According to Walworth, the agreement states, “International Artists entering the country through the Visa Waiver Program (VWP,) B visa, or any visa may not perform at any public, or SXSW Music Festival DAY OR NIGHT shows … ” The photo of the alleged contract wording cuts off at this point. He claims the contract states that artists violating this provision of the agreement will be removed from their “official showcase,” and possibly replaced. It further claims SXSW will cancel the artist’s hotels booked through their housing service and cancel their credentials. Most notably, the agreement allegedly states SXSW “will notify the appropriate U. S. immigration authorities of the above actions. ” Shortly after his initial tweet, Walworth added, “Can our first step toward coalition as artists with radical politics be to cancel all our official showcases at sxsw? I’m serious just do it. ” Can our first step toward coalition as artists with radical politics be to cancel all our official showcases at sxsw? I’m serious just do it, — Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017, SXSW officials responded in a statement published by Austin360. com that the wording in the contract has been in place for many years and is not a response to the current status of immigration issues that followed the election of President Donald Trump. “In the era, it looks different than how it was intended, and how it was received in the past,” SXSW managing director Roland Swenson told the local music news outlet. “But we’ve come out strongly against the travel ban, and we’ve really been going the extra mile to make sure these bands don’t get screwed over when they enter the country. ” “Most South by Southwest acts are able to perform here on the condition that they’re not getting paid and they’re not doing any other shows than ours, “Swenson explained. “That keeps them from having to go through getting a work visa and all that, which is time consuming and expensive. ” He said the wording in the agreement is an attempt to warn international performers what could possibly happen to them if they violate the rules surrounding their visas. “We have never reported international showcasing artists to immigration authorities,” SXSW officials stated in the press release. The statement continues: We were sorry to learn that one of our invited performers chose to cancel his performance at this year’s SXSW Music Festival due to a misunderstanding of our policies regarding international artists. We understand that given the current political climate surrounding immigration, the language that was published seems strong. Violating U. S. immigration law has always carried potentially severe consequences, and we would be remiss not to warn our participating acts of the likely repercussions. Language governing SXSW’s ability to protect a showcase has been in the artist Performance Agreement for many years. It is, and always was intended to be, a safeguard to provide SXSW with a means to respond to an act that does something truly egregious, such as disobeying our rules about pyrotechnics on stage, starting a brawl in a club, or causing serious safety issues. The organization provided Austin360. com with the text of the contract sections in question. The SXSW Performance Agreement states: If SXSW determines, in its sole discretion, that Artist or its representatives have acted in ways that adversely affect the viability of Artist’s official SXSW showcase, the following actions are available to SXSW: Artist will be removed from their official SXSW showcase and, at SXSW’s sole option, replaced. Any hotels booked via SXSW Housing will be canceled. Artist’s credentials will be canceled. SXSW will notify the appropriate U. S. immigration authorities of the above actions. Officials continued, saying, “We hope never to be put in the position to act on this. Indeed, we spend a great deal of time communicating with international artists concerning numerous issues, including how to avoid issues at U. S. ports of entry. ” In what officials described as an informational addition to the agreement made many years ago, SXSW added the following language to the agreement: 1. 4. Foreign Artists entering the country through the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) B visa or any visa may not perform at any public or unofficial shows, DAY OR NIGHT, in Austin from March 2017. Accepting and performing at unofficial events (including unofficial events aside from SXSW Music dates during their visit to the United States) may result in immediate deportation, revoked passport and denied entry by US Customs Border Patrol at US ports of entry. For more information, please visit these pages: 1. 4. 1. (B Visa ESTA) ””>””>”ltr” lang=”en”>the managing director of sxsw accused me of pasting together two parts of the contract to make it sound worse than it is. Here’s a video: pic. twitter. — Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017, Swenson later updated his initial statement and said the language is in two different places in the agreement, but “those two sections did appear in sequence on SXSW’s invitation letter. ” Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX. | 0fake |
Trumps Uses KIDS As Human Shields In Latest Campaign Lie | Donald Trump has shown throughout the presidential campaign a repeated habit of lying again and again about every issue under the sun. Trump seems to be so enamored of lying that he often does so without any logical reason behind it even for a politician.The Associated Press did some digging into yet another Trump claim and it turns out that he s lying, this time about children.Attacking government-funded universal pre-K programs, Trump said that he favored programs administered by private businesses, instead of the government. As an example he cited programs supposedly utilized by his own businesses.He said, They call em Trump Kids. Another one calls it Trumpeteers, if you can believe it. I have em. I actually have em, because I have a lot of different businesses. But it turns out those programs aren t for Trump s employees.But the two programs Trump cited Trump Kids and Trumpeteers are programs catering to patrons of Trump s hotels and golf club. They are not for Trump s employees, according to staff at Trump s hotels and clubs across the country. Trump Kids is described on the Trump Hotel Collection website as a special travel program designed to help make your next family vacation a big hit. Its offerings include kid-friendly amenities like kiddie cocktails, coloring books and no-tear bath amenities. The Trumpeteer Program is described on the website of Trump National Golf Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a program created specifically for our youngest members, ages three to twelve, which offers daily and evening child care, monthly newsletters and weekly events! AP also interviewed Trump employees and asked if they provide child care. They said no. The AP also checked out employee handbooks from Trump s business, and none of them mention child care services. When they asked the campaign about the candidate s lie, they responded with a stock statement and avoided answering the question directly.It s just one more example of how Trump and his campaign is trying to lie its way into the White House. Luckily, it doesn t seem to be working.Featured image via Flickr | 1real |
Syria declares victory over Islamic State in Deir al-Zor | BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian government declared victory over Islamic State in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Friday, a big blow to the jihadists as their last stronghold in Syria crumbles. Deir al-Zor, on the west bank of the Euphrates River, is the largest and most important city in eastern Syria, and is the center of the country s oil production. The armed forces, in cooperation with allied forces, liberated the city of Deir al-Zor completely from the clutches of the Daesh terrorist organization, the military source said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. The army, backed by Russian bombers, Iran and Shi ite militias, is advancing toward the last significant town held by Islamic State in Syria, Albu Kamal, which is also located on the western bank of the Euphrates. A rival offensive by Kurdish and Arab militias supported by a U.S.-led coalition with air strikes and special forces, is pressing Islamic State on the eastern bank. Iraqi forces on Friday said they had begun their own final offensive against Islamic State on the Iraqi side of the jihadist territory that straddles the border between the two countries, entering the city of al-Qaim. Islamic State had for years besieged a government enclave in Deir al-Zor until an army advance relieved it in early September, starting a battle for jihadist-held parts of the city. The army captured al-Hamidiya, Sheikh Yassin, al-Ardhi and al-Rashidia districts in recent attacks and the al-Hawiqa district was the last to be held by the jihadists, a military media unit run by the army s ally Hezbollah reported. Engineering units were searching streets and buildings in those districts for mines and booby traps left by Islamic State, the military source said. | 0fake |
DUP leader spoke to PM May on Brexit border | BELFAST (Reuters) - The head of the Northern Irish party which props up the British government spoke to Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday shortly after telling supporters she would not allow a Brexit deal that creates regulatory divergence between the region and Britain. Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster spoke to May by phone shortly after her statement in Belfast, a party source told Reuters. The source declined to reveal the content of the call, but said the DUP was in continuing contact with May. May agreed on Monday to keep Northern Ireland in regulatory alignment with the European Union after Brexit, Irish government sources said, creating the possibility of divergence between regulations in Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. | 0fake |
Trump Jr., Manafort agree to negotiate over interviews by Senate panel | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said on Friday President Donald Trump’s eldest son and his former campaign manager have agreed to negotiate whether to be interviewed by the panel in its Russia probe. The committee said in a statement it would not immediately issue subpoenas requiring Donald Trump Jr. and former campaign manager Paul Manafort to testify at a public hearing set for Wednesday “but reserve the right to do so in the future.” The committee also said it has issued a subpoena for Glenn Simpson, whose firm compiled a dossier on then-candidate Donald Trump during the campaign, to appear at the hearing after he declined to voluntarily attend. (Clarifies Trump Jr. and Manafort have agreed to negotiate whether to be interviewed, not will be interviewed) | 0fake |
Can The American People Defeat The Oligarchy That Rules Them? | SPECIAL TO BUSINESS WEEK, MINDY KATZMAN, AUTH. EDITOR--Paul Craig Roberts in front of a portrait of Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury. | 1real |
HOW PRESIDENT EISENHOWER Solved The Illegal Immigration Problem In America | Since this article was written in 2006, the illegal immigration crisis in America has exploded. Barack Obama, his fellow Democrats, leftist organizations (and even some Republicans beholden to corporations who desire cheap labor in America), have desperately tried to shame Americans into accepting amnesty as the only option to solve this crisis. One doesn t have to look too far to see how miserably they have failed. Americans are not interested in giving up our jobs, our national security or the future of our country so the Democrat party can have a monopoly on voters, or to make it easier for business and corporations to hire cheap labor. It is no accident that Donald Trump experienced a meteoric rise in the polls after he boldly proclaimed he would make building a wall on our southern border a priority. The media tried to shame him, only causing him to double down, claiming he would not only build the biggest and best wall on our southern border, but he claimed that Mexico would pay for it. This article is for all of the naysayers who believe the illegal immigration crisis can t be solved. The problem can be solved. We just needed a President with a backbone, who loves his country, is willing to take bold moves to secure our nation and most of all, a President who truly believes Americans come first.Over fifty years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America s southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and points beyond.President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents less than one-tenth of today s force. The operation is still highly praised among veterans of the Border Patrol.Although there is little to no record of this operation in Ike s official papers, one piece of historic evidence indicates how he felt. In 1951, Ike wrote a letter to Sen. William Fulbright (D) of Arkansas. The senator had just proposed that a special commission be created by Congress to examine unethical conduct by government officials who accepted gifts and favors in exchange for special treatment of private individuals.General Eisenhower, who was gearing up for his run for the presidency, said Amen to Senator Fulbright s proposal. He then quoted a report in The New York Times, highlighting one paragraph that said: The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexican wetbacks to a current rate of more than 1,000,000 cases a year has been accompanied by a curious relaxation in ethical standards extending all the way from the farmer-exploiters of this contraband labor to the highest levels of the Federal Government. Years later, the late Herbert Brownell Jr., Eisenhower s first attorney general, said in an interview with this writer that the president had a sense of urgency about illegal immigration when he took office.America was faced with a breakdown in law enforcement on a very large scale, Mr. Brownell said. When I say large scale, I mean hundreds of thousands were coming in from Mexico [every year] without restraint. Although an on-and-off guest-worker program for Mexicans was operating at the time, farmers and ranchers in the Southwest had become dependent on an additional low-cost, docile, illegal labor force of up to 3 million, mostly Mexican, laborers.According to the Handbook of Texas Online, published by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical Association, this illegal workforce had a severe impact on the wages of ordinary working Americans.The Handbook Online reports that a study by the President s Commission on Migratory Labor in Texas in 1950 found that cotton growers in the Rio Grande Valley, where most illegal aliens in Texas worked, paid wages that were approximately half the farm wages paid elsewhere in the state.Profits from illegal labor led to the kind of corruption that apparently worried Eisenhower. Joseph White, a retired 21-year veteran of the Border Patrol, says that in the early 1950s, some senior US officials overseeing immigration enforcement had friends among the ranchers, and agents did not dare arrest their illegal workers.Walt Edwards, who joined the Border Patrol in 1951, tells a similar story. He says: When we caught illegal aliens on farms and ranches, the farmer or rancher would often call and complain [to officials in El Paso]. And depending on how politically connected they were, there would be political intervention. That is how we got into this mess we are in now. Bill Chambers, who worked for a combined 33 years for the Border Patrol and the then-called US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), says politically powerful people are still fueling the flow of illegals.During the 1950s, however, this Good Old Boy system changed under Eisenhower if only for about 10 years.In 1954, Ike appointed retired Gen. Joseph Jumpin Joe Swing, a former West Point classmate and veteran of the 101st Airborne, as the new INS commissioner.Influential politicians, including Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas and Sen. Pat McCarran (D) of Nevada, favored open borders, and were dead set against strong border enforcement, Brownell said. But General Swing s close connections to the president shielded him and the Border Patrol from meddling by powerful political and corporate interests.One of Swing s first decisive acts was to transfer certain entrenched immigration officials out of the border area to other regions of the country where their political connections with people such as Senator Johnson would have no effect.Then on June 17, 1954, what was called Operation Wetback began. Because political resistance was lower in California and Arizona, the roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two states. Another 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country.By mid-July, the crackdown extended northward into Utah, Nevada, and Idaho, and eastward to Texas.By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had left the Lone Star State voluntarily.Unlike today, Mexicans caught in the roundup were not simply released at the border, where they could easily reenter the US. To discourage their return, Swing arranged for buses and trains to take many aliens deep within Mexico before being set free.Tens of thousands more were put aboard two hired ships, the Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried the aliens from Port Isabel, Texas, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles south.The sea voyage was a rough trip, and they did not like it, says Don Coppock, who worked his way up from Border Patrolman in 1941 to eventually head the Border Patrol from 1960 to 1973.Mr. Coppock says he cannot understand why [President] Bush let [today s] problem get away from him as it has. I guess it was his compassionate conservatism, and trying to please [Mexican President] Vincente Fox. There are now said to be 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the US. Of the Mexicans who live here, an estimated 85 percent are here illegally.Border Patrol vets offer tips on curbing illegal immigration One day in 1954, Border Patrol agent Walt Edwards picked up a newspaper in Big Spring, Texas, and saw some startling news. The government was launching an all-out drive to oust illegal aliens from the United States.The orders came straight from the top, where the new president, Dwight Eisenhower, had put a former West Point classmate, Gen. Joseph Swing, in charge of immigration enforcement.General Swing s fast-moving campaign soon secured America s borders an accomplishment no other president has since equaled. Illegal migration had dropped 95 percent by the late 1950s.Several retired Border Patrol agents who took part in the 1950s effort, including Mr. Edwards, say much of what Swing did could be repeated today. Some say we cannot send 12 million illegals now in the United States back where they came from. Of course we can! Edwards says.Donald Coppock, who headed the Patrol from 1960 to 1973, says that if Swing and Ike were still running immigration enforcement, they d be on top of this in a minute. William Chambers, another 50s veteran, agrees. They could do a pretty good job sealing the border.Edwards says: When we start enforcing the law, these various businesses are, on their own, going to replace their [illegal] workforce with a legal workforce. While Congress debates building a fence on the border, these veterans say other actions should have higher priority.1. End the current practice of taking captured Mexican aliens to the border and releasing them. Instead, deport them deep into Mexico, where return to the US would be more costly.2. Crack down hard on employers who hire illegals. Without jobs, the aliens won t come.3. End catch and release for non-Mexican aliens. It is common for illegal migrants not from Mexico to be set free after their arrest if they promise to appear later before a judge. Few show up.The Patrol veterans say enforcement could also be aided by a legalized guest- worker program that permits Mexicans to register in their country for temporary jobs in the US. Eisenhower s team ran such a program. It permitted up to 400,000 Mexicans a year to enter the US for various agriculture jobs that lasted for 12 to 52 weeks. Via: CS Monitor | 1real |
SHOCKING TESTIMONY Confirms Comey Used Fake Russian “Golden Showers” Dossier to Target Trump [Video] | During congressional testimony, the CEO of Hermitage Capital was speaking about the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). During the testimony the origin of the Fusion GPS Russian Dossier was discussed (please see our previous report on this below). The Hermitage Capital CEO revealed that the Russian government actually paid Fusion GPS to create the fake Golden Shower propaganda dossier on candidate Trump. Here s the kicker: That same dossier was used by the FBI in June/July 2016 to generate the FISA surveillance warrants against the Trump campaign.Yes, that means FBI Director Comey used the fake dossier commissioned by Russia to attack Trump, as the framework to launch his FBI investigation into candidate Donald Trump and Russian collusion.Soooo why is Mueller still investigating President Trump?Entire video of Testimony Below:Graham s questioning begins at the 48:40 point:Foreign Agent Registration Requirements William Bowder, a Russian market investor, testifies at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on foreign agent registration requirements, as well as what he knows about Natalia Veslnitskaya, a Russian attorney who met with Donald Trump, Jr. in 2016. OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON THE DOSSIER:EXTRAORDINARY DETAILS EMERGE About How Senator John McCain Got Dirty Dossier On President Trump From Ex-Spy Where s The Media Outrage?Where was the media s outrage when a sitting United States senator, John McCain went on a wild goose chase, that led him overseas, in an effort to obtain what he believed was incriminating evidence that could be used to harm President Trump? How is it okay for Senator John McCain to actively seek dirt on a sitting president, but not okay for Donald Trump Jr. (who is NOT a government official) to meet with a Russian lawyer in an attempt to discover potential dirt on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton?Sen. John McCain commented on Tuesday about Donald Trump Jr. s meeting with the Russian lawyer. How serious do you think this particular shoe is? Raju asked, referring to Donald Trump Jr. s meeting with Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya after being promised dirt on Clinton that was reportedly part of a Russian government effort. I don t know. But it s certainly another shoe that s dropped that needs to be pursued and looked at, McCain said. TPMWatch RINO Senator John McCain express his concern overt the seriousness of Donald Trump Jr. s meeting with the Russian lawyer about the lifting US sanctions on Russian adoption. It s curious that the reporter never asked McCain about his efforts to smear our president with a unsubstantiated dirty dossier from an ex-spy:Before we go any further into the messy details of John McCain s international dealings to find dirt on our sitting president, it s worth mentioning that as far as we know, no one was murdered as a result of Donald Trump Jr. s meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who entered the US without a visa under extraordinary circumstances thanks to the efforts of Barack Obama s DOJ. The same cannot be said about McCain s dealings with the dirty dossier on Trump. Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya is also said to have ties to Fusion GPS, the sketchy secretive Washington firm that commissioned the dubious intelligence dossier on Donald Trump.According to the Daily Caller The Russian lawyer who offered Donald Trump Jr. damaging information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly has ties to the opposition research firm that commissioned the dossier on President Donald Trump.When the June 2016 meeting took place, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was in New York to defend Prevezon, a Russian holding firm accused of laundering money for corrupt Russian businessmen. Veselnitskaya had been working on the case for years with assistance from Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that compiled the Trump dossier.Fusion GPS denied any knowledge of, or role in, facilitating the meeting between Veselnitskaya and Trump Jr.According to The Sun: A FORMER KGB spy chief suspected of helping Brit spook Christopher Steele compile the Trump dirty dossier has been found dead in his car under mysterious circumstances.Oleg Erovinkin, described as a key source behind the widely discredited document, was found dead in the back of his car in Moscow on Boxing Day.Today, the Daily Mail reports: Sen. John McCain said he did what any citizen would do in turning over the dirty dossier, which contained unconfirmed secrets about the president-elect, over to the FBI.The Guardian charted the path of how the dossier came to be and how it was that McCain got his hands on the controversial documents.In turn, that firm outsourced the research to a retired western European former counter-intelligence official, with a long history of dealing with the shadow world of Moscow s spooks and siloviki (securocrats), explained the Guardian.Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal identified the ex-spy as Christopher Steele.The Guardian pointed out that just because a Democrat was willing to pay for the information that didn t mean that said Democrat was Hillary Clinton s campaign or the Democratic National Committee.Sometimes donors seek out this information in order to ensure they ve made a sound investment.***Yeah okay!***The contractor, who the Guardian didn t name, but the Wall Street Journal identified as Steele, reportedly found the information that he dug up to be concerning. He and another ex-British diplomat, Christopher Burrows, run their own company, Orbis Business Intelligence. If the allegations were real, their implications were overwhelming, the Guardian wrote.On November 18, at the Halifax International Security Forum, McCain was introduced to a former senior western diplomat who had set eyes on the documents and knew who put them together, telling the Arizona Republican that the individual was highly reliable. That man can now be named as Sir Andrew Wood, British ambassador to Moscow from 1995 to 2000.Wood told the Independent that he had met McCain, spoken to him about Trump, and about the potential for him to be compromised.In a carefully nuanced statement he said: Yes I did meet Senator McCain and his aides at the conference. We spoke about the kind of activities the Russians can be engaged in. We also spoke about how Mr Trump may find himself in a position where there could be an attempt to blackmail him with Kompromat [a Russian term for compromising material] and claims that there were audio and video tapes in existence. He added: I would like to stress that I did not pass on any dossier to Senator McCain or anyone else and I did not see a dossier at the time. I do know Christopher Steele and in my view he is very professional and thorough in what he does. He did not however address whether he told McCain there was a dossier and how to get it.Clearly, somebody did.From there, McCain dispatched a trusted emissary who flew across the Atlantic to meet the source of the documents at an airport that the Guardian did not name.The aide was instructed to look for a man with a copy of the Financial Times and that s how the individuals met, with the source taking McCain s emissary back to his house and giving the American a copy of the documents.Within 24 hours, the dossier was in Washington, though the contents of the file couldn t be verified without an investigation. McCain, the Guardian said, was worried that his actions might be interpreted as revenge for some of the controversial comments Trump made about him such as knocking the fact that the longtime senator had been a prisoner of war.However, McCain decided to hand over the documents to FBI Director James Comey on December 9. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI, McCain said Wednesday in a statement about that matter. That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue, McCain said.For entire story: Daily MailRead more: CT | 1real |
Hungry South Sudanese refugees risk death in return home for food | PALORINYA, Uganda (Reuters) - Oliver Wani found sanctuary from South Sudan s civil war in a Ugandan refugee camp. But when the food ran out, he returned home only to be killed in the conflict he had fled. The 45-year-old farmer was one of more than a million South Sudanese living in sprawling camps just across the border in northern Uganda, seeking refuge from the four-year war that has devastated their homeland. But funding gaps and organizational problems often delay or reduce their meager rations, driving some desperate families back to the lands they fled and underscoring the struggle to cope with Africa s biggest refugee crisis in two decades. Refugees from South Sudan have been arriving in Uganda at an average rate of 35,000 a month this year. The Bidi Bidi camp was home to 285,000 people at the end of September, according to the U.N. s refugee agency, making it the biggest in Africa. The U.N. agency (UNHCR) said funding had only covered 32 percent of $674 million requested to help refugees in Uganda in 2017 and the U.N. s World Food Programme (WFP) said it was facing a $71 million shortfall for the next six months. Wani, who cared for his elderly parents, received no food in October because distributions had been delayed, his father Timon said. The memory of the crops Oliver had left behind proved too tempting and he returned to South Sudan to find food. Two weeks later, other returning refugees recognized his remains alongside another dead refugee on a forest path in South Sudan, where the ground was littered with bullet casings. He went back to look for food, said Timon, a tall, thin man who wiped away tears with his handkerchief as he spoke at a memorial service for his first-born child in the Palorinya refugee camp. I m heartbroken. The four-year war in oil-rich South Sudan, a country only founded in 2011, has forced more than a third of its 12 million citizens to flee their homes. Tens of thousands have died, some in ethnic killings, others from starvation and disease. Palorinya is the second biggest camp in northern Uganda after Bidi Bidi and alone houses 185,000 refugees. Each refugee is supposed to get 12 kg of grain, 6 kg of dry beans, cooking oil and salt each month, but the U.N. s WFP said this was delayed in October because grain was scarce in Uganda and the roads to Palorinya were bad. Food distributions did not start camp until Oct. 26, WFP said. It takes two weeks to complete a distribution, so tens of thousands of refugees did not get any food that month. Desperate, some returned to the war zone. At least eight refugees from Palorinya were killed in South Sudan after returning to look for food in October, according to family members and the Anglican church, which tracks civilian deaths. In August and September, when rations were distributed normally, just two refugees from the camp were killed when they returned to find food, the church diocese in South Sudan s volatile Kajo Keji region said. Modi Scopas John, chairman of a Refugee Welfare Committee in Palorinya, said refugees were returning home every day. If you have nothing to eat, what do you do? he asked, perched on a plastic chair under a spindly tree. You have to look for food. Wani was killed in Kajo Keji, where the government and two rebel groups are battling for control in a war sparked by a feud between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar. Next to Wani lay the body of Yassin Mori, 35, who had also left Palorinya to look for food, according to Mori s two brothers who ventured into South Sudan to look for him. Mori left two wives and nine children behind. Now we need support because we are left with his children and widows, Taha Igga, one of the brothers, said at a memorial service in the Ugandan refugee camp. Mutabazi Caleb, from aid group World Vision, which runs the distributions, said that Palorinya is two months behind other camps in its food distributions. WFP said it had substituted half the cereal ration with money in September in some other camps so refugees could buy food and was expanding its infrastructure to prevent future delays. But refugees said even when food arrives, it doesn t last a month. Of the 12 kg of grain, refugees said they sell one to pay for grinding the rest into flour, and another to buy soap, which is in short supply. They also complained that the beans were sometimes inedible. They are not okay, others are rotten, and they are smelling, said mother-of-four Liong Viola, 32, picking through her sack of shriveled legumes during an Oct. 26 distribution. WFP country director El Khidir Daloum said it was investigating the complaint and, is committed to providing our beneficiaries with the highest quality of food . John, the Refugee Welfare Committee chairman, said he urged people to stay in the camps. At least let us die here of the hunger rather than go back to South Sudan and be killed like a chicken, he said. But hungry refugees often ignore the pleas. At dusk last Saturday, Pastor Charles Mubarak packed extra clothes into a plastic bag to take back into South Sudan where he hoped to harvest cassava fields he left behind when he fled in January. As a family, we are 10 in number, and I m not in position to feed them, he said. If I get killed I get killed once, but dying of hunger is too difficult. Mubarak kissed each neatly folded shirt as he placed them in the bag. If they give us the food rations, I wouldn t think of going back to South Sudan, he said. Food is life. | 0fake |
Man fakes heart attack to avoid repeated ‘thanks’ to same person | November 12, 2016
A Romford man has admitted feigning a cardiac arrest in order to prevent a situation whereby he would have had to thank the same person up to five times for holding a series of doors open for him.
Office worker, Dave Simmons, 35, explained that his workplace contains a number of long corridors, partitioned into sections by a series of five double-doors.
“A guy I don’t really know got to the first door before me,” Explained the embarrassed HR assistant. “He noticed I was following so he held it open for me. I thanked him, and you’d think that was that. Well, not by a long chalk.”
“When we got to the second door, we both realised what was going to unfold,” Said Simmons who had just been forcibly ejected from the local A&E department. “So he held the second door and I thanked him again.”
“As etiquette requires, we both snorted a laugh and shook our heads but by this time we realised that a third door was coming up and we were both crippled with embarrassment – I mean, what’s the protocol here? I don’t know, that’s for sure.”
“So after the third door I just laughed too loud and about halfway up the next bit of corridor I grabbed my chest, hit the deck and started making an alarming wheezing noise. I could tell we were both relieved.”
The door-holder in question was an office temp who had only been working at the building for a few days and it was he who called the ambulance.
“It’ll take me a while to get over this,” Said the minimum-wage earner. “It was so embarrassing, but thanks to Mr. Simmons’s quick thinking I’ll know what to do next time. Probably put it on my CV.”
Simmons says the fact that he may face legal proceedings for misuse of the emergency services does not make him regret his actions.
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat – no pun intended.” He said, clearly intending the pun. UniversalExile | 1real |
Watch: Outraged Hunters, Fishermen Vow To Take Back Malheur (VIDEO) | A video uploaded to the Facebook page operated by the North American sportsman Association, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA), shows members tearing down a tarp that previously covered the sign marking the entrance to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.As the video plays, the words Removing extremists attempts to grab our public lands appear clearly across the bottom of the screen. It s a bold-faced grab, BHA member Mark Heckert says angrily. This is an illegal occupation by force. I don t care what face they put on it, that s exactly what it is. A declaration on the organization s Facebook page reads: BHA refuses to allow those who want to steal your public lands get away with this. According to the organization s website, BHA s membership rolls include hunters, fisherman, hikers, backpackers and other outdoor enthusiasts from all across the U.S. and Canada.Earlier this month, Addicting Info reported on an open letter from the badass birders who also declared war on the Bundy terrorists.BHA members share the sentiments of the birding community, with one major difference. Many of these men and women also have guns.As the group s About page on Facebook notes: Some of us hunt with center-fire rifles and shotguns, others with muzzle-loaders or archery gear Unlike the Oregon terrorists, BHA members have not threatened to use their weapons to take back THEIR land from the YallQaeda terrorists. But they have made it abundantly clear that will not allow THEIR land to be stolen by these right wing extremists.During a press conference held by Ammon Bundy shortly after the group of armed anti-government nuts seized control of the Wildlife Refuge, Bundy said his goals are to open the land up to ATV riders and pick-up truck drivers, all in the name of right wingers freedom to destroy whatever the goddamn well feel like destroying.In stark contrast to Bundy s repulsive mission, BHA members are conservationists, who have pledged to protect public land and care for it, so that it can be enjoyed by generations to come. Among the group s stated goals is to protect wild spaces like Mulheur from excessive off-road vehicle use, which damages the land and threatens wildlife species.Members of the group take the following pledge:As a North American hunter and angler,As you can see from the video below, these guys don t take that pledge lightly.// < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>BHA refuses to allow those who want to steal your public lands get away with this. It s time to restore law and order, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. #keepitpublicPosted by Backcountry Hunters & Anglers on Tuesday, January 12, 2016 BHA currently has more than 160,000 followers on Facebook and several thousand additional fans on Twitter. I can only assume that their membership will continue to grow, as the video below makes its way across the social media stratosphere.*Featured image credit: video screen capture Backcountry Hunters and Anglers on Facebook | 1real |
U.S.-backed SDF to let Syrian Islamic State fighters leave Raqqa | AIN ISSA, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Islamic State fighters are set to abandon Raqqa in a withdrawal agreed with U.S.-backed Syrian militias that have them surrounded, a militia spokesman said on Saturday, as the jihadists defeat in their former Syrian capital edged closer. Officials gave conflicting accounts on whether foreign fighters would also be leaving the city, where the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been battling to defeat Islamic State since June. SDF spokesman Talal Silo said the foreign fighters would be left behind to surrender or die , without saying when the evacuation of Syrian fighters would take place. But Omar Alloush, a member of Raqqa s Civil Council, said the evacuation would include foreign fighters. He said it would take place overnight into Sunday. The jihadists would be taking some 400 civilians with them as human shields, he said. The final defeat of IS at Raqqa would be a milestone in efforts to roll back the theocratic caliphate the group declared in 2014 in Syria and Iraq, where earlier this year it was driven from the city of Mosul. IS used Raqqa as a base to plan attacks against the West. The Kurdish YPG militia, which dominates the SDF, told Reuters earlier on Saturday that Islamic State was on the verge of defeat in Raqqa, and the city may finally be cleared of the jihadists on Saturday or Sunday. The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State said a convoy was due to leave Raqqa on Saturday, in an arrangement agreed by local parties. It described the arrangement as a civilian evacuation and said it would not condone any arrangement that allowed terrorists to escape Raqqa without facing justice . Coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon said the coalition s stance was that IS fighters must surrender unconditionally, but added that he could not comment on who would be in the convoy. He said difficult fighting was expected in the days ahead. The coalition statement said the arrangement brokered by the Raqqa Civil Council and local Arab tribal elders on Oct. 12 was designed to minimize civilian casualties and purportedly excludes foreign Daesh terrorists . The coalition believed the arrangement would save innocent lives and allow Syrian Democratic Forces and the coalition to focus on defeating Daesh terrorists in Raqqa with less risk of civilian casualties , it said. Tribal leaders from Raqqa said the SDF had agreed to allow safe passage out of the city for Syrian Islamic State fighters still inside, and they were organizing a mechanism for them to leave. Its statement made no mention of the fate of Islamic State s foreign jihadists, but said the remaining fighters in the city were only a small number besieged in one or more positions in the city, who have no choice but surrender or death . Alloush earlier told Reuters that the IS fighters would go to remaining territory held by the group in Syria. Negotiated withdrawals of combatants facing defeat have become a common feature of the six-year-long Syrian war. An activist group that reports on Raqqa, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, said on its Facebook page that dozens of buses had entered Raqqa city overnight Friday from the countryside to the north. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that reports on the war, said Syrian Islamic State fighters and their families had already left the city, and buses had arrived to evacuate remaining foreign fighters and their families. The Syrian army, which is supported by Iran-backed militias and the Russian air force, declared another significant victory over Islamic State on Saturday, saying it had captured the town of al-Mayadin in Deir al-Zor province. The eastern province is Islamic State s last major foothold in Syria, and it is under attack there from the SDF on one side and Syrian government forces supported by Iran-backed militias and Russian air strikes on the other. Islamic State fighters had previously agreed to an evacuation last August, from an area on the Syrian-Lebanese border. But as their convoy moved toward Islamic State-held territory in eastern Syria, coalition planes blocked its route by cratering roads, destroying bridges and attacking nearby Islamic State vehicles. | 0fake |
Google Party Over? Alphabet Cracks Down on Costs, Layoffs Ensue, Division CEOs Quit | Google Party Over? Alphabet Cracks Down on Costs, Layoffs Ensue, Division CEOs Quit by IWB · October 27, 2016
Wolf Richter wolfstreet.com , www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
Third CEO of an Alphabet division to leave since June.
Five years ago, when Google announced that it would build a super-high-speed fiber-optic network in Kansas City, and then roll it out in other cities, it started an effort to own and control the data pipelines going into homes and businesses.
Given how frustrated consumers are with their ISPs, it seems people couldn’t wait for Google Fiber, now operated by Alphabet’s Access. Google then spent a fortune building out the network in select cities around the country. This could have been huge . At a huge cost.
“Amazing bet,” is what Craig Barratt, senior VP at Alphabet and CEO of Access, called Google Fiber in a blogpost yesterday. In the same breath, he also announced that they would “pause” the build-out of Google Fiber in cities where it had been planned, that there would be layoffs and reassignments, though he didn’t say how many, and that he’d “step aside” as CEO of Access.
His replacement has not been announced.
He’s the third CEO of an Alphabet division to part ways since June. He prefaced this whole debacle this way:
And thanks to the hard work of everyone on the Access team, our business is solid: our subscriber base and revenue are growing quickly, and we expect that growth to continue. I am extremely proud of what we’ve built together in five short years.
Google Fiber is one of two big entities in “Other Bets” of the Alphabet empire, whose CEO Larry Page and new-ish CFO Ruth Porat are trying to crack down on ballooning costs.
The other big entity in “Other Bets” is Nest Labs, which makes internet-connected thermostats and the like. In a brilliant move, Google had acquired it in 2014 for a breath-taking $3.2 billion. But by now, this move has become very unbrilliant.
In June, Tony Fadell, Nest co-founder and CEO, quit after internal disputes over this focus on spending. Some key Nest employees moved to Google’s new hardware division. And the entity is in turmoil.
In August, Bill Maris, CEO of Google’s venture capital arm, GV, also left.
Earlier this year, Alphabet got second thoughts about its ambitious robotics efforts and put Boston Dynamics up for sale. It had acquired the experimental robot maker in 2013 for $500 million. But tensions soon arose, and co-founder Andy Rubin bailed out in 2014. No deal yet.
Then there was, infamously, Google Glass….
So Google Fiber is in good company. It will cease efforts to install a fiber network in 10 cities where it had been planned but not fully committed, according to Ars Technica . In addition, San Francisco was supposed to get Google fiber for sure, but that has now been cancelled too.
The 11 cities where Google Fiber has been nixed: Chicago, Dallas, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Tampa.
In “this handful of cities” and also “in certain related areas of our supporting operations, we’ll be reducing our employee base,” Barratt wrote. Hence the layoffs.
Google Fiber has already been rolled out in Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Kansas City (Missouri and Kansas), Nashville, Provo (Utah), Salt Lake City, and The Triangle (North Carolina). And it’s still publicly committed to building the network – subject to change, I suppose – in Huntsville (Alabama), Irvine (California), San Antonio, and Louisville.
In June, Google Fiber announced that it would acquire Webpass, a 13-year-old company that provides high-speed wireless internet in Boston, Chicago, Miami, San Diego, Oakland, and San Francisco. A wireless network is a lot cheaper to install in urban areas with multi-family housing than fiber-to-the-home.
About 9% of the employees at Access will lose their jobs, though some people could be reassigned to entities of Alphabet, according to Ars Technica:
The source did not say exactly how many employees that percentage represents. Access includes more than just Google Fiber, so the percentage of Google Fiber employees being laid off or reassigned is probably a little higher.
Alphabet headcounts are hard to come by, but this Bloomberg report says Access has about 1,500 employees. The Information report indicates that Google Fiber had about 1,000 employees before the layoffs. If both of those numbers are accurate, then the percentage of Google Fiber employees being laid off or reassigned to other parts of Alphabet might be around 13.5 percent.
Google Fiber apparently has not hit its subscriber goals, and fiber construction is a costly endeavor. While the company isn’t giving up on fiber entirely, it may be able to deploy Internet service at a lower cost using wireless technology.
“It’s billions of dollars a year just to maintain this stuff, and Google doesn’t want to spend that kind of money on just being another player in that market,” Jan Dawson, an analyst with Jackdaw Research, told Bloomberg .
“I think the new CFO put an end to the experiment that wasn’t really going anywhere,” Chetan Sharma, an independent wireless industry analyst, told Bloomberg .
So serving up digital ads is still Alphabet’s main business, and flourishing. Controlling the high-speed pipeline to get these ads into homes and businesses, and grabbing whatever data can be grabbed by ISPs via deep-packet inspection and other methods still seems to be part of the plan, but now through cheaper and less glamorous wireless services and no longer through the holy grail of data pipelines, optical fiber. And so goes another huge dream to diversity away from advertising. | 1real |
Colombia names new peace negotiator with ELN, seeks ceasefire extension | BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia s President Juan Manuel Santos on Tuesday named Gustavo Bell as the government s chief negotiator in peace talks with Marxist ELN rebels and said the government will work toward extending a ceasefire with the insurgent group. Bell, who was vice president under President Andres Pastrana from 1998 to 2002 and is currently ambassador to Cuba, replaces Juan Camilo Restrepo, who guided talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN) since they began in February. Santos said in a televised address the government hopes to extend a ceasefire that began in October and ends on Jan. 9. With the ELN, we have for the first time achieved a stoppage of hostilities that, while not perfect, has been positive. We will work toward improving it and extending it in January, Santos said. The ELN on Sunday said it is willing to continue the ceasefire if there is sufficient progress in peace talks. It said it would assess the government s willingness to overcome hurdles. The ELN and the government have been in negotiations in Quito for 10 months, after a long and secret exploratory phase, in a bid to end more than 53 years of war. Santos, who leaves office next year, signed a peace accord in late 2016 with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has now become a political party and hopes to fight the government at the ballot box. The ELN s first-ever ceasefire is being supervised by the Roman Catholic Church and the United Nations. The 2,000-strong ELN, which has regularly bombed oil infrastructure and taken hostages, has continued kidnapping despite the ceasefire. An indigenous leader in Choco province died in October after being taken by the group. | 0fake |
CLASSIC! COLLEGE SNOWFLAKE Demolished By The GREAT Andrew Breitbart [VIDEO] | 1real | |
The ‘Saddest’ Polar Bear Lives in a Mall in China - The New York Times | BEIJING — In a shopping mall in southern China, a polar bear named Pizza paces past murals of icebergs in his glass enclosure. He shakes his shaggy head under artificial lights. He crouches by an air vent to sniff the outside world. All are distress behaviors, say Chinese animal welfare advocates, who on Tuesday called on Zhu Xiaodan, the governor of Guangdong Province, where Pizza lives in an aquarium at the Grandview Mall in Guangzhou, to move the bear to a more appropriate environment. Pizza has become known as “the world’s saddest polar bear,” the advocates, from 48 organizations, wrote in an open letter to Mr. Zhu. They added that they hoped that “the Guangdong government would close Grandview Polar Sea World. ” Hundreds of animals are housed in small enclosures over several floors of the mall, including arctic wolves and beluga whales. They share the retail emporium with an electronic games arcade for children, a movie theater, a supermarket and leading domestic and international clothing brands. Escalators in an atrium run past signs advertising Swarovski and Estée Lauder products, noodle restaurants and coffee shops. The activists say Pizza’s plight is part of a disturbing trend in China: exhibiting wild animals in malls to attract customers as more people turn to often cheaper and more convenient . At a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday, representatives of four of the animal welfare groups showed reporters photographs of an elephant used to sell cellphones outside a mall on the outskirts of Beijing and sea lions offered for interactions with shoppers who spend more than 500 renminbi, about $75, at another mall in Beijing. A “mall zoo” similar to Grandview is under consideration in Shijiazhuang, in Hebei Province, they said. “Animals deserve so much better than being enclosed in a glass box, with very little in it, to attract shoppers,” said Hu Chunmei of the Endangered Species Fund. “It shows a complete lack of regard for their welfare. ” In Beijing, squirrels, parrots, llamas and goats, as well as domestic animals such as cats and dogs, are sometimes displayed in cages or glass enclosures in shopping malls. At lunchtime, the crowds massed around them can be several people deep. Asked to comment this week, the Grandview Mall aquarium defended itself against the criticism, which has spread around the world. Recently, the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in England offered to take in Pizza — an offer indignantly declined by the aquarium. “Pizza is very healthy,” it said in an emailed statement, adding that the aquarium was engaged in scientific education and research and in the protection of biodiversity. “You can’t entirely separate animal welfare from these social benefits. ” The aquarium is no different from other facilities in China or the world, the statement said. It has 130 specialists caring for its hundreds of animals, it said. News reports that Pizza is suffering in inadequate conditions are distorted and have been referred to the authorities, it said, in a thinly veiled warning of possible legal action. Pizza is popular with shoppers, according to reports in the Chinese news media, with thousands of people visiting on peak days to take selfies and knock on the glass. Wild animals like polar bears require a large natural habitat to maintain their physical and mental health, said Wendy Higgins, a spokeswoman for Humane Society International. “Their environment is so unique. They’re such animals, and they start to decline quite rapidly in captivity,” Ms. Higgins said in a telephone interview. “Pizza spends every single day on his own with nowhere to hide, just subjected to people banging on the glass and taking photographs,” she said. Qin Xiaona, the director of the Capital Animal Welfare Association, said that criticism by the mall management, which has accused the activists of doing foreigners’ bidding, was an insult to China’s people and culture. “They say, ‘You are using a Western point of view’ in order to oppose us,” Ms. Qin said. “But we can’t forget that we have a tradition in China of ‘respecting heaven, caring for animals.’ ” She added, “Because of economic competition, we’ve regressed,” leading to the widespread abuse of animals — and people — in recent decades. “We want to revive our tradition,” she said. Yu Hongmei of VShine, an organization in Dalian, agreed on the impulse behind the campaign to help the animals at Grandview Mall: “It’s not foreign. It’s our tradition, too. ’’ China has not had an animal welfare law since the 1930s, under the Nationalist government of Chiang who was defeated by the Communists in 1949. A Wildlife Protection Law came into force in 1989 and was updated in July, but it allows the capture and breeding of wild animals for commercial purposes and permits the use of wild animals for public displays and performances. A draft law on animal cruelty that would extend protection to pets, farm livestock and laboratory animals was proposed in 2009 but has yet to be adopted. Practices such as the dog meat festival in Yulin continue to attract headlines. Calls to the Guangzhou provincial government and the Guangzhou Industrial and Commercial Bureau for comment on Tuesday went unanswered. | 0fake |
WOW! Coláiste Lurgan Sing In English For A Change And It’s Shit | 0 Add Comment
WWN’s VIRAL TEAM has been monitoring some of the 400 Irish sites which regularly post the latest Coláiste Lurgan videos and the Galway gang are back with another song!
The melodies are note perfect, and the chorus brings forth that by now familiar wave of goosebumps on the skin, but in a strange departure from their other work this latest ditty is in English and so it’s shite.
It’s hard to put our finger on why 60 girls and boys singing their hearts out in an emotionally evocative fashion leaves us cold, when on the previous 40 occasions we were floored, stunned and totes in awe and had bags of grá for them.
Their stirring version of Eminem’s classic ‘Smack That’ should have left us feeling 179% more Irish than we already feel, but alas the choice to sing in English robs the song of any greater meaning, therefore garnering not so rave reviews.
A casual look below the video in the comments section of Youtube reveals we’re not the only ones who feel this way.
“In English? Die #feelingbetrayed,” wrote one livid internet user in English.
Calls for a government inquiry to be launched have been growing in momentum this morning with Twitter user @Gra32 summing up everyone’s feelings.
“Is this some sort of sick joke?” @Gra32 queried.
At the time of this article’s publication, Coláiste Lurgan has yet to apologise. | 1real |
WOW! NAVY SEAL BLASTS HILLARY: “You Are An Ignorant Liar” [VIDEO] | This is a MUST WATCH!According to American News, Raso began by calling Clinton out for a lie she told an audience in order to make herself appear as courageous as American soldiers. Of course, he was referring to the lie Clinton told about dodging enemy fire in Bosnia. I remember landing under sniper fire, Clinton once said. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicle to get to our base. It was a moment of great pride for me. Raso pointed out that video footage proves Clinton was greeted warmly with handshakes that day. She tried to blame her lie on a mistake, calling it a misstatement. In my 12-year military career, I never heard an excuse like that from my leadership, Raso told reporters. It s impossible to even imagine that happening. Only someone completely arrogant, ignorant and disrespectful of what happens in war could say something like that, he concluded. Hillary was willing to lie in order to take advantage of that feeling of gratitude and awe Americans have for those who serve. Via: Conservative Post | 1real |
No message received from Philippines about changing alliance: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has received no formal communication from the Philippines government about making specific changes to the alliance between the two countries, the White House said on Wednesday during a regular news briefing. Earlier in the day during a visit to Japan, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated comments about his country’s ties with long-time ally Washington, saying he might end defense treaties. | 0fake |
‘More Extreme than Justice Scalia’ — Left-wing Activists Sound the Alarm Over Gorsuch - Breitbart | activists reacted immediately to Donald Trump’s choice of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat. [“He represents an existential threat to legal abortion in the United States and must never wear the robes of a Supreme Court justice,” an online statement from NARAL read. Other organizations agreed. “Donald Trump’s nominee, Neil Gorsuch, has an alarming history of interfering with reproductive rights and health. He ruled that bosses should be able to deny women access to birth control coverage,” wrote Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards in a fundraising letter calling for supporters to donate. The organization also debuted a hashtag #NoRoeNoGo for activists to share. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune, described Gorsuch as “more extreme than Justice Scalia. ” “Gorsuch has proven himself hostile to environmental protection, women’s rights, and the rights of workers and cannot be trusted to protect our air, our water, or our communities,” he said in a statement. Climate change alarmist group NextGen also opposed Gorsuch’s nomination in a statement from billionaire funder Tom Steyer. “In light of Trump’s despotic tendencies and Russia’s role in his election, the Senate must reject any nominee whose allegiance to our Constitution and our most fundamental rights is in doubt,” he wrote in a statement. | 0fake |
How Social Isolation Is Killing Us - The New York Times | My patient and I both knew he was dying. Not the long kind of dying that stretches on for months or years. He would die today. Maybe tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, the next day. Was there someone I should call? Someone he wanted to see? Not a one, he told me. No immediate family. No close friends. He had a niece down South, maybe, but they hadn’t spoken in years. For me, the sadness of his death was surpassed only by the sadness of his solitude. I wondered whether his isolation was a driving force of his premature death, not just an unhappy circumstance. Every day I see variations at both the beginning and end of life: a young man abandoned by friends as he struggles with opioid addiction an older woman getting by on tea and toast, living in filth, no longer able to clean her cluttered apartment. In these moments, it seems the only thing worse than suffering a serious illness is suffering it alone. Social isolation is a growing epidemic — one that’s increasingly recognized as having dire physical, mental and emotional consequences. Since the 1980s, the percentage of American adults who say they’re lonely has doubled from 20 percent to 40 percent. About of Americans older than 65 now live alone, and half of those over 85 do. People in poorer health — especially those with mood disorders like anxiety and depression — are more likely to feel lonely. Those without a college education are the least likely to have someone they can talk to about important personal matters. A wave of new research suggests social separation is bad for us. Individuals with less social connection have disrupted sleep patterns, altered immune systems, more inflammation and higher levels of stress hormones. One recent study found that isolation increases the risk of heart disease by 29 percent and stroke by 32 percent. Another analysis that pooled data from 70 studies and 3. 4 million people found that socially isolated individuals had a 30 percent higher risk of dying in the next seven years, and that this effect was largest in middle age. Loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline in older adults, and isolated individuals are twice as likely to die prematurely as those with more robust social interactions. These effects start early: Socially isolated children have significantly poorer health 20 years later, even after controlling for other factors. All told, loneliness is as important a risk factor for early death as obesity and smoking. The evidence on social isolation is clear. What to do about it is less so. Loneliness is an especially tricky problem because accepting and declaring our loneliness carries profound stigma. Admitting we’re lonely can feel as if we’re admitting we’ve failed in life’s most fundamental domains: belonging, love, attachment. It attacks our basic instincts to save face, and makes it hard to ask for help. I see this most acutely during the holidays when I care for hospitalized patients, some connected to I. V. poles in barren rooms devoid of family or friends — their aloneness amplified by cheerful Christmas movies playing on televisions. And hospitalized or not, many people report feeling lonelier, more depressed and less satisfied with life during the holiday season. New research suggests that loneliness is not necessarily the result of poor social skills or lack of social support, but can be caused in part by unusual sensitivity to social cues. Lonely people are more likely to perceive ambiguous social cues negatively, and enter a — worsening the problem. In this way, loneliness can be contagious: When one person becomes lonely, he withdraws from his social circle and causes others to do the same. Dr. John Cacioppo, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, has tested various approaches to treat loneliness. His work has found that the most effective interventions focus on addressing “maladaptive social cognition” — that is, helping people how they interact with others and perceive social cues. He is collaborating with the United States military to explore how social cognition training can help soldiers feel less isolated while deployed and after returning home. The loneliness of older adults has different roots — often resulting from family members moving away and close friends passing away. As one senior put it, “Your world dies before you do. ” Ideally, experts say, neighborhoods and communities would keep an eye out for such older people and take steps to reduce social isolation. Ensuring they have easy access to transportation, through discounted bus passes or special transport services, can help maintain social connections. Religious older people should be encouraged to continue regular attendance at services and may benefit from a sense of spirituality and community, as well as the watchful eye of fellow churchgoers. Those capable of caring for an animal might enjoy the companionship of a pet. And loved ones living far away from a parent or grandparent could ask a neighbor to check in periodically. But more structured programs are arising, too. For example, Dr. Paul Tang of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation started a program called linkAges, a service exchange inspired by the idea that everyone has something to offer. The program works by allowing members to post online something they want help with: guitar lessons, a Scrabble partner, a ride to the doctor’s office. Others can then volunteer their time and skills to fill these needs and “bank” hours for when they need something themselves. “In America, you almost need an excuse for knocking on a neighbor’s door,” Dr. Tang told me. “We want to break down those barriers. ” For example, a college student might see a post from an older man who needs help gardening. She helps him plant a row of flowers and “banks” two hours in the process. A few months later, when she wants to cook a Malaysian meal for her boyfriend, a retired chef comes by to give her cooking lessons. “You don’t need a playmate every day,” Dr. Tang said. “But knowing you’re valued and a contributing member of society is incredibly reaffirming. ” The program now has hundreds of members in California and plans to expand to other areas of the country. “We in the medical community have to ask ourselves: Are we controlling blood pressure or improving health and ?” Dr. Tang said. “I think you have to do the latter to do the former. ” A great paradox of our digital age is that we seem to be drifting apart. Increasingly, however, research confirms our deepest intuition: Human connection lies at the heart of human . It’s up to all of us — doctors, patients, neighborhoods and communities — to maintain bonds where they’re fading, and create ones where they haven’t existed. | 0fake |
TRUMP SAYS “YES” To Federal Funding For Planned Parenthood…Under One Condition…And You’re Gonna Love It! | Sounds like a great deal, right? After all, Planned Parenthood insists that only 3% of its business involves abortions, and they get $500 million from the federal government. That way, they could focus that much more on all their work in pre-natal care! And yet The White House, concerned about the possible political repercussions of the Republican effort to defund Planned Parenthood, has proposed preserving federal payments to the group if it discontinues providing abortions.The proposal, which was never made formally, has been rejected as an impossibility by officials at Planned Parenthood, which receives about $500 million annually in federal funding. That money helps pay for women s health services the organization provides, not for abortion services. Let s be clear: Federal funds already do not pay for abortions, Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said on Monday. Offering money to Planned Parenthood to abandon our patients and our values is not a deal that we will ever accept. Providing critical health care services for millions of American women is nonnegotiable. This deal seems pretty straightforward, even if the White House never quite made it official. Planned Parenthood wants to keep receiving Title IX funds intended for low-income women who need actual health care that could be provided by other clinics, especially those which offer actual pre-natal health care. If that was the case, they could get rid of the supposed three percent of their business that deals with abortions and use those resources to expand other offerings, including services they already claim to do but don t actually provide at all. Their refusal to even consider the idea speaks volumes about their values, as do their abortion sales quotas.Their annual report shows overall revenue at $1.146 billion, which includes $553.7 million from government funds, and only $309.2 million from non-government health services revenue fees. If abortions only amount to 3% of their revenue, that would be $34.38 million for 332,000 abortions, or $103 per abortion (gross, not net after costs) if no other revenue was being used to cover it. These numbers don t add up with the 3% claim.Trump s deal makes this much clear, at least: Planned Parenthood values its abortion mill much more than it values $500 million in government funding each year. That really tells us all we need to know about their 3% claim, their values, and the use of taxpayer dollars to subsidize the operations of the world s leading abortion mill. TownhallBy now, Femi-Nazi s are probably starting to get the idea that they re not dealing with your average spineless politician. Time to pull out the pussy hats and take to the streets ladies. As a conservative woman, I can assure you that the recent women s march (anti-Trump, pro-abortion publicity stunt) was an epic fail. Pro-life female supporters of President Trump are pretty much in agreement that it was the best imaginable way to convince more people to join our team. The vile and disgusting way these women conducted themselves in their fight to keep federal funding alive for the legalized murder of babies, was enough to make undecided women run as far away from them as possible | 1real |
Senator Grassley to meet Garland despite opposition to nominee | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has invited Judge Merrick Garland to breakfast, but absent from the menu will be any promise of hearings on President Barack Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. A spokeswoman for Grassley said that the Republican senator spoke with Garland late on Monday and extended the invitation “where they could discuss the nomination and why the Senate will not consider a nominee until the next president takes office.” The Senate Judiciary Committee is in charge of holding hearings on Supreme Court nominees chosen by the president and deciding whether to recommend full Senate confirmation. Most of the Senate’s 54 Republicans have indicated opposition to confirming any high-court nominee of Obama’s, saying the choice should be made by the next president, who would be elected on Nov. 8 and sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. Despite the wall of Republican opposition to Garland, who is considered a moderate federal appeals court judge, Obama and his fellow Democrats continue to push for Senate confirmation this year. Garland already has made several “courtesy calls” to senators, mostly Democrats, and will continue his visits to Capitol Hill this week. If he were to be confirmed, Garland - nominated to fill the vacancy created by the Feb. 13 death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia - would tilt the Supreme Court to the left for the first time in decades. The race for a replacement for Obama, who is completing his second and final term as president, is in full swing now with billionaire businessman Donald Trump leading two other Republican candidates and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. But it could be weeks or months before the two political parties settle on their respective candidates. A date for the breakfast meeting has not yet been set, Grassley’s spokeswoman said. | 0fake |
International reaction to arrest of Reuters reporters in Myanmar | (Reuters) - Several countries, the United Nations and journalist groups are demanding the release of Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo from detention in Myanmar. The reporters were arrested on Dec. 12 after being invited to meet police officials on the outskirts of Yangon. They had worked on stories about a military crackdown in Rakhine state, scene of around 650,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh since August. Myanmar s Ministry of Information has said the reporters illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media, and released a photo of them in handcuffs. It said the reporters and two policemen faced charges under the British colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years, though officials said they have not been charged. Their exact whereabouts are not known. We and their families continue to be denied access to them or to the most basic information about their well-being and whereabouts, Reuters President and Editor-In-Chief Stephen J. Adler said in a statement calling for their immediate release. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are journalists who perform a crucial role in shedding light on news of global interest, and they are innocent of any wrongdoing, he said. Here are comments on their detention from governments, politicians, human rights groups and press freedom advocates around the world: Two U.N. human rights experts called on Thursday for Myanmar to release the two reporters, saying it was putting Myanmar on a dangerous path by using the Official Secrets Act to criminalize journalism. Journalism is not a crime. These detentions are another way for the Government to censor information about the military s role in Rakhine State and the humanitarian catastrophe taking place, said Yanghee Lee and David Kaye, who are the U.N. special rapporteur on Myanmar and on freedom of expression respectively. - A spokeswoman for Norway s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Wednesday: Norway expects the Myanmar authorities to ensure the full protection of their rights and to release the journalists as quickly as possible. - Human Rights Watch said the detentions appeared to be aimed at stopping independent reporting of the ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya. Brad Adams, the group s Asia director, said, Their secret, incommunicado detention lays bare government efforts to silence media reporting on critical issues. - In Washington, the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called for their immediate release. This is outrageous, said Senator Ben Cardin. It just brings back the memory of the horrible practices with the repressive military rule. - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last week the United States was demanding their immediate release or information as to the circumstances around their disappearance. On Tuesday, the State Department reiterated the U.S. demand for the reporters immediate release. - Republican Thom Tillis and Democrat Chris Coons, leaders of the U.S. Senate Human Rights Caucus, said they were gravely concerned about the reporters arrests and that press freedom was critical to ensuring accountability for violence against the Rohingya. Democratic congressman Ted Lieu, a member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, called the arrests outrageous and a direct attack on press freedom. - Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kano said in response to a question from a Reuters reporter on Tuesday, Freedom of the press is extremely important, including in order to protect fundamental human rights. The Japanese government would like to watch (this matter) closely. Tokyo-based Human Rights Now called on Japan on Wednesday to take a stronger stance. - The European Union urged Myanmar on Monday to release the reporters as quickly as possible. A spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said, Freedom of the press and media is the foundation and a cornerstone of any democracy. - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said countries should do everything possible to secure the journalists release and press freedom in Myanmar. It is clearly a concern in relation to the erosion of press freedom in the country, he said. - Britain, Holland, Canada and Sweden have demanded the release of the Reuters reporters. Australia has expressed concern and Bangladesh has denounced the arrests. - Vijay Nambiar, former special adviser on Myanmar to the U.N. Secretary-General, said in a statement to Reuters on Monday that the detentions had caused widespread disappointment within and outside the country that is likely to further damage the international reputation and image of Myanmar, already under stress as a result of its handling of the Rakhine crisis. - President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani called on Myanmar to protect media freedoms and release the reporters. - The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) called on Myanmar to immediately disclose the reporters whereabouts. All detainees must be allowed prompt access to a lawyer and to family members, Frederick Rawski, ICJ s Asia-Pacific Regional Director, said on Monday. - The Committee to Protect Journalists said the arrests were having a grave impact on the ability of journalists to cover a story of vital global importance . - Reporters Without Borders said there was no justification for the arrests and the charges being considered against the journalists were completely spurious . - Advocacy group Fortify Rights demanded Myanmar immediately and unconditionally release the Reuters journalists. - Myanmar s Irrawaddy online news site called on Dec. 14 for the journalists release in an editorial headlined The Crackdown on the Media Must Stop. It said it is an outrage to see the Ministry of Information release a police record photo of reporters handcuffed as police normally do to criminals on its website soon after the detention. It is chilling to see that MOI has suddenly brought us back to the olden days of a repressive regime. - The Southeast Asian Press Alliance said the journalists were only doing their jobs in trying to fill the void of information on the Rohingya conflict. - The Protection Committee for Myanmar Journalists, local reporters who have demonstrated against prosecutions of journalists, decried the unfair arrests that affect media freedom . - The Foreign Correspondents Club of Myanmar said it was appalled by the arrests and gravely concerned about press freedom in Myanmar. - The Foreign Correspondents Club in Thailand, Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club and Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong have issued statements supporting the journalists. | 0fake |
WATCH: Texas Lt. Gov. Goes Full Racist, Blames Black Lives Matter For Dallas Shooting | Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is known for making inflammatory comments after national tragedies in public. He is the guy who tweeted a picture with a bible verse that reads, Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows, right after the Orlando massacre.So, it shouldn t be too surprising that Patrick s post-Dallas shooting commentary is a giant pile of racist bullsh*t. Last Thursday during an interview on Fox News (of course), Patrick claimed that the protestors who were present at the protest during the shooting were hypocrites for running away while shots were being fired. All those protesters last night, they ran the other way, expecting the men and women in blue to turn around and protect them. What hypocrites. I understand the First Amendment. I understand freedom of speech, and I defend it. It is in our Constitution and is in our soul, but you can t go out on social media and mainstream media and everywhere else and say that the police are racist or police are hateful or the police are killers. Calling Black Lives Matter protesters hypocrites for running away when shots are being fired into a crowd shots that hit both protestors and police is just plain ugly. From all accounts, the protestors in Dallas and the local law enforcement were working together to make sure that the event was safe. Patrick went on to rant: I do blame people on social media, with their hatred towards police. I do blame, I saw Jesse Jackson I think it was on Fox the other night calling police racist without any facts. I do blame former Black Lives Matters protests. Last night was peaceful, but others have not been, Patrick went on to say.Yeah seriously, Patrick said that. Black Lives Matter is to blame for the actions of one individual who had no previous role in the movement.As far as Patrick s insistence on shutting up about the wholesale slaughter of black lives on social media goes it s never going to happen. Millions of people are standing up and saying enough is enough. Black lives matter. There are racist police officers out there. Initialized racism must end.You can watch the interview below.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNRun_af0h0Featured image from video screenshot | 1real |
null | I hate to see this happening to my European brothers and sisters, but the silver lining here is the rapidity of this whole vile transformation, which has awakened millions to what's going on. It's the whole "frog slowly boiling to death" thing. Here in America, our demographic annihilation has proceeded at just slow enough a pace for long enough that normies have allowed it to happen without even realizing it until now, when it's too late. The white European political resistance will be swift and formidable simply because of the cataclysmic nature of the invasion. White Americans waited too long-- our invaders are already out-voting us. | 1real |
null | However, the man added that as soon as the Muslims realized they were
not in a mosque and that the shawls were of religious importance to
Judaism, “they immediately apologized, folded the shawls and explained
that they’d just looked for a place to pray.”
Sounds pretty grown up to me. They were Turks though, not Barbarians. | 1real |
Why Trump Won; Why Clinton Lost | WashingtonsBlog
By Robert Parry, the investigative reporter who many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. Originally published at Parry’s Consortium News (republished with permission).
In the end, Hillary Clinton became the face of a corrupt, arrogant and out-of-touch Establishment, while Donald Trump emerged as an almost perfectly imperfect vessel for a populist fury that had bubbled beneath the surface of America.
There is clearly much to fear from a Trump presidency, especially coupled with continued Republican control of Congress. Trump and many Republicans have denied the reality of climate change; they favor more tax cuts for the rich; they want to deregulate Wall Street and other powerful industries – all policies that helped create the current mess that the United States and much of the world are now in. A sign supporting Donald Trump at a rally at Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the Arizona State Fairgrounds in Phoenix, Arizona. June 18, 2016 (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
Further, Trump’s personality is problematic to say the least. He lacks the knowledge and the temperament that one would like to see in a President – or even in a much less powerful public official. He appealed to racism, misogyny, white supremacy, bigotry toward immigrants and prejudice toward Muslims. He favors torture and wants a giant wall built across America’s southern border.
But American voters chose him in part because they felt they needed a blunt instrument to smash the Establishment that has ruled and mis-ruled America for at least the past several decades. It is an Establishment that not only has grabbed for itself almost all the new wealth that the country has produced but has casually sent the U.S. military into wars of choice, as if the lives of working-class soldiers are of little value.
On foreign policy, the Establishment had turned decision-making over to the neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks, a collection of haughty elitists who often subordinated American interests to those of Israel and Saudi Arabia, for political or financial advantage.
The war choices of the neocon/liberal-hawk coalition have been disastrous – from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya to Syria to Ukraine – yet this collection of know-it-alls never experiences accountability. The same people, including the media’s armchair warriors and the think-tank “scholars,” bounce from one catastrophe to the next with no consequences for their fallacious “group thinks.” Most recently, they have ginned up a new costly and dangerous Cold War with Russia.
For all his faults, Trump was one of the few major public figures who dared challenge the “group thinks” on the current hot spots of Syria and Russia. In response, Clinton and many Democrats chose to engage in a crude McCarthyism with Clinton even baiting Trump as Vladimir Putin’s “puppet” during the final presidential debate.
It is somewhat remarkable that those tactics failed; that Trump talked about cooperation with Russia, rather than confrontation, and won. Trump’s victory could mean that rather than escalating the New Cold War with Russia, there is the possibility of a ratcheting down of tensions.
Repudiating the Neocons
Thus, Trump’s victory marks a repudiation of the neocon/liberal-hawk orthodoxy because the New Cold War was largely incubated in neocon/liberal-hawk think tanks, brought to life by likeminded officials in the U.S. State Department, and nourished by propaganda across the mainstream Western media. Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona. June 18, 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
It was the West, not Russia, that provoked the confrontation over Ukraine by helping to install a fiercely anti-Russian regime on Russia’s borders. I know the mainstream Western media framed the story as “Russian aggression” but that was always a gross distortion.
There were peaceful ways for settling the internal differences inside Ukraine without violating the democratic process, but U.S. neocons, such as Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and wealthy neoliberals, such as financial speculator George Soros, pushed for a putsch that overthrew the elected President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
Putin’s response, including his acceptance of Crimea’s overwhelming referendum to return to Russia and his support for ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine opposing the coup regime in Kiev, was a reaction to the West’s destabilizing and violent actions. Putin was not the instigator of the troubles.
Similarly, in Syria, the West’s “regime change” strategy, which dates back to neocon planning in the mid-1990s, involved collaboration with Al Qaeda and other Islamic jihadists to remove the secular government of Bashar al-Assad. Again, Official Washington and the mainstream media portrayed the conflict as all Assad’s fault, but that wasn’t the full picture.
From the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, U.S. “allies,” including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel, have been aiding the rebellion, with Turkey and the Gulf states funneling money and weapons to Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and even to the Al Qaeda spinoff, Islamic State.
Though President Barack Obama dragged his heels on the direct intervention advocated by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama eventually went in halfway, bending to political pressure by agreeing to train and arm so-called “moderates” who ended up fighting next to Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and other jihadists in Ahrar al-Sham.
Trump has been inarticulate and imprecise in describing what policies he would follow in Syria, besides suggesting that he would cooperate with the Russians in destroying Islamic State. But Trump didn’t seem to understand the role of Al Qaeda in controlling east Aleppo and other Syrian territory.
Uncharted Territory
So, the American voters have plunged the United States and the world into uncharted territory behind a President-elect who lacks a depth of knowledge on a wide variety of issues. Who will guide a President Trump becomes the most pressing issue today. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking with supporters at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona. March 21, 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
Will he rely on traditional Republicans who have done so much to mess up the country and the world or will he find some fresh-thinking realists who will realign policy with core American interests and values.
For this dangerous and uncertain moment, the Democratic Party establishment deserves a large share of the blame. Despite signs that 2016 would be a year for an anti-Establishment candidate – possibly someone like Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Sen. Bernie Sanders – the Democratic leadership decided that it was “Hillary’s turn.”
Alternatives like Warren were discouraged from running so there could be a Clinton “coronation.” That left the 74-year-old socialist from Vermont as the only obstacle to Clinton’s nomination and it turned out that Sanders was a formidable challenger. But his candidacy was ultimately blocked by Democratic insiders, including the unelected “super-delegates” who gave Clinton an early and seemingly insurmountable lead.
With blinders firmly in place, the Democrats yoked themselves to Clinton’s gilded carriage and tried to pull it all the way to the White House. But they ignored the fact that many Americans came to see Clinton as the personification of all that is wrong about the insular and corrupt world of Official Washington. And that has given us President-elect Trump. | 1real |
’The View’ Co-Hosts Ask If Palin, Nugent, Kid Rock Visit the ’Saddest Day’ at White House Since the British Burned it Down? - Breitbart | Friday on ABC’s “The View,” the panel discussed the possibility of Ted Nugent, Kid Rock and Sarah Palin visit to the White House earlier this week being “the saddest day in the history of the White House since the British burned it to the ground in 1814?” Joy Behar asked, “So, is this the saddest day in the history of the White House since the British burned it to the ground in 1814?” Sunny Hostin said, “I think so. I think what was offensive to me was that Sarah Palin said she brought them because Jesus wasn’t available, so she’s comparing these folks to Jesus. ” Behar sarcastically added, “Oh, but they’re going to make America great again, these three. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
‘Is This the Spokesperson in Chief You Want?’ - The New York Times | When Donald J. Trump made provocative remarks on Wednesday about Russian intelligence services and Hillary Clinton’s email, readers of The New York Times responded with a record number of comments. More than 9, 220 comments on the article were approved by moderators, who review nearly every one before they are published on The Times’s digital platforms. Thousands more comments were posted on The Times’s Facebook page. The article became the on in The Times’s history. At his news conference, Mr. Trump said he hoped Russian intelligence services had hacked Mrs. Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish whatever they might have stolen, essentially urging them to commit cyberespionage. Here are excerpts from the comments, some of which have been lightly edited for clarity. Some readers said Mr. Trump’s comments showed he lacked and signaled that he could not be trusted to keep the nation’s secrets safe. “Trump doesn’t seem to have a grasp on what comes out of his mouth. In his attempts to look strong, and always be talking over others, he seems to be totally unable to control his outbursts and totally ridiculous statements. ” — Julius in New York. “The man’s lack of impulse control regarding what comes out of his mouth is the most worrisome aspect of his potential presidency. Regardless of what you believe about Hillary, is this the spokesperson in chief you want for our nation?” — GMS in Chicago. “Just imagine, for even a brief second, what he might say when he is president. Who he might talk to on the ‘red phone.’ Remember, when he talks he says what HE thinks is right, not what the world believes. ” — D. C. Researcher in Washington. Some readers said Mr. Trump was committing an act of patriotism by seeking to expose Mrs. Clinton’s email and were skeptical that he intended harm with his remarks. “I hate to say it, but if it was Russia, thank goodness that someone had the urge to expose another crooked and rigged system. If you will recall, Trump has said all along that the DNC and Clinton rigged the primaries … and he was right. ” — Florida Len in Florida. “If you listen to the whole quote it was obviously cheek, not . He was making a joke about Hillary deleting all of those emails. ” — Gary Taustine in New York. “I was astounded when commentators took Trump’s statement at literal face value. Let’s hope no one ever tells one of these people to go jump off a bridge. ” — Jim in New York. “Maybe the American people deserve to see them. She had them open for the [taking]. ” — Gary James Richards of Oak Ridge, N. J. on The Times’s Facebook page. Several commenters accused Mr. Trump of sedition or treason and demanded that he be punished. “That Donald Trump would encourage a tyrant like Vladimir Putin and his surrogates to meddle in our affairs is treason of the highest order. The fact that he would encourage our adversary for his own political gain shows he would stop at nothing to get what he wants. He doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than himself. I wouldn’t ever count on a turncoat traitor like Donald Trump to have my back under any circumstances. ” — JG in Old North Bridge, Mass. “To call on a foreign government to engage in espionage against your political opponent that is a former member of the government is sedition and the stuff of banana republics. ” — Erik in Boise, Idaho. Some readers suggested Mr. Trump was angling for the spotlight during the Democratic National Convention. “Trump just can’t stomach the fact that he is not front and center in the media this week, so he has to come up with something to divert the media’s attention to him. Pitiful excuse for a human, let alone a presidential candidate. ” — Lib in Utah. “This is just Trump’s latest stunt to take the news cycle away from the D. N. C. Stop wasting time parsing the meaning of this nonsense!” — Doctor Jay in New York. Some readers compared Mrs. Clinton’s fitness to lead the country in the wake of her email scandal with Mr. Trump’s request for Russia to produce the emails. Other readers said that equivalence was false. “If President Trump saw his approval ratings fall, he might well conspire with Putin to do something nefarious to raise his ratings, even if it meant selling the secrets or the principles of his country. Yes, Hillary is sometimes not completely trustworthy, but Trump has taken untrustworthiness to a new level. ” — John in Chevy Chase. Md. “The chief complaint about Hillary Clinton is that she seems inauthentic because she is overly cautious and measures her responses. Well, here’s a perfect example of the opposite of that. Is this who we want in charge? This should be taken very seriously. ” — MDNewell in Midlothian, Va. | 0fake |
DID OBAMA SHUT DOWN WIKILEAKS ABILITY TO EXPOSE HILLARY CAMPAIGN?…Internet Intentionally Cut Off! | The internet is one of the few, if not only, available ways for Julian Assange, who has been locked up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for more than four years, to maintain contact with the outside world.Facing extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, which he denies, the Australian computer programmer has been holed up in the embassy in West London since 2012.He claims the extradition is actually a bid to move him to a jurisdiction from which he can then be sent to the US, which is known to be actively investigating WikiLeaks.The unverified claims of state sabotage come as WikiLeaks continues to release damaging documents, most recently thousands of hacked emails from Hillary Clinton s campaign manager John Podesta.Earlier this month, Assange claimed his organization would aim to publish documents every week in the run up to US Election Day on November 8.Clinton s campaign has made unsubstantiated claims that WikiLeaks is working with the Russian government to help defeat the Democrat in favor of Trump.Last week the FBI reissued a statement saying it was working to determine the accuracy, nature and scope of cyber intrusions, but did not name any suspected perpetrators.Read more: RT | 1real |
Oklahoma Man Is Charged With Killing Lebanese-American Neighbor - The New York Times | He called the family “dirty Arabs” and tried to run over the mother with a car, the authorities said. An Oklahoma man’s animosity toward the family living next door, according to court records, took a fatal turn this month when he shot one of the sons on the porch of their house in Tulsa. The man, Vernon Majors, 61, was charged Tuesday with murder in the killing of his neighbor, Khalid Jabara, 37, on Aug. 12, according to a statement by the district attorney, Steve Kunzweiler. Mr. Majors, who had recently been released on bond after being suspected of hitting Mr. Jabara’s mother with a car, was also charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, threatening an act of violence and malicious intimidation or harassment — the last count a misdemeanor reflecting the years of racism and violence that the authorities say has pervaded the stretch of grass connecting their yards. Rebecca a friend who is serving as a spokeswoman for the Jabara family, said Mr. Jabara’s death had devastated the Lebanese community in Tulsa. “From a larger community’s perspective, what they see is a man shot and killed by a man who called them ‘dirty Arab,’” Ms. said in a telephone interview. “There is no nuance. When people are using ethnic and racial slurs, this isn’t just people being sensitive about it, but that they should be taken seriously. ” Marvin Lizama, Mr. Majors’s lawyer for the earlier case, said in an email on Tuesday that he had no comment on the new charges. St. Antony Orthodox Christian Church, where Mr. Jabara’s funeral was held last Thursday, posted a smiling photograph of him on its website, mourning the “tragedy” of his killing. “Those of us at St. Antony will always remember the young man who grew up in our parish,” the announcement said. “Khalid had a huge heart. ” The Committee said that Mr. Jabara was clearly targeted because of his ethnicity. “The unfortunate murder of Jabara is a reflection of the impact and power of hateful rhetoric in politics and the society at large,” the group said, adding that allowing such to continue “will lead to additional hate crimes against minority and immigrant communities. ” News of Mr. Jabara’s death found a home on social media with the trending #justice4khalid, where it was given broader context within the national discussion on race and violence. Nearly 3. 6 million Americans trace their roots to an Arab country, many with ancestral ties to Lebanon, according to the Arab American Institute. While Oklahoma is not among the states with large populations, it does have a community in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Ms. a lawyer and former employee of the institute, said. Like others in Tulsa, the Jabara family, who are Orthodox Christians, can trace their roots back to a village in southern Lebanon called Marjayoun, which families fled to escape war. Mr. Jabara’s parents moved with Khalid and his older sister Victoria in 1983 and settled in the United States, where his younger brother Rami was born, Ms. said. While his siblings have moved away, Mr. Jabara had stayed to help with his parents’ catering business and medical care. “Khalid’s heart was big,” his sister Victoria Jabara Williams said in a Facebook post. “He cared for our entire family, our friends and people he didn’t even know. ” Mr. Majors, also known as Stanley Vernon Majors, moved next door to the Jabara family in 2011, Ms. said. While it was not immediately clear when the troubles started, family and court records document a history of animosity and of calls to the police to report racial slurs, harassment and threats by Mr. Majors. In 2013, Mr. Jabara’s mother, Haifa, took out a protective order against Mr. Majors, which court records show that he violated. In September 2015, Mr. Majors rammed Ms. Jabara with his car, and he was charged with assault and battery, according to the documents. Ms. Jabara had broken bones and a collapsed lung, the family said. In May 2016, the district attorney’s office tried to keep Mr. Majors in jail to await trial, citing his “wanton disregard for the life of the victim and the safety of the public. ” Mr. Majors, however, was able to make bail and was released. According to the police and Ms. Mr. Jabara was home with his father on Aug. 12 when he called the police out of fear of Mr. Majors. Officer Leland Ashley said the police received a call from the Jabara house saying that Mr. Majors had banged on a window. Ms. Williams said her brother had called the police to report that Mr. Majors had a gun. The police responded but left without taking any action. Then, just before 7 p. m. Officer Ashley said, a neighbor reported that there had been a shooting. Mr. Jabara was taken to the hospital, where he died of his wounds. Mr. Majors was arrested, hiding near a library, about 11 p. m. the officer said. Mr. Kunzweiler, the district attorney, said in an emailed statement before announcing the charges that the family “did everything they were supposed to do and the system failed them. ” Ms. Williams said her family had lived “in fear of this man and his hatred for years. ” “He should not have been released without monitoring,” she wrote. “Yet he was released and put back next door to us, the family he assaulted just months before. This is troubling at any time, but profoundly disturbing given the current climate of our country and the increase nationally in cases of hate crimes. ” | 0fake |
DEMS TELL KANYE WEST TO SHUT UP AND SING: Banned From Giving Advice To Obama At Pricey Fundraiser | It s nice to see freedom of speech is alive and well in the godless party of America Maybe Barack and the Dem s should listen to what Kanye has to say. After all, it appears after years of behaving like a vapid rapper, he s taken a liking to Dr. Ben Carson and his message to America: As soon as I heard Carson speak, I tried for three weeks to get on the phone with him. I was like, This is the most brilliant guy. But then again .that s likely the reason the Dem s don t want Kanye to speak If the Democrat party attempts to silence a popular black entertainer who supports a 100% black man for President (who grew up in the ghettos of Detroit) shouldn t Americans be a bit concerned about blatant discrimination?Kanye West, who says he s plotting his own 2020 presidential bid, will perform at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in San Francisco attended by President Obama on Oct. 10.But don t expect West to unleash one of his rants: He ll be required to stick to performance only.A source said, There will be restrictions . . . Kanye won t be able to lecture the president about how to run the country. West will debut songs from his next album, Swish, at the event, for which tickets cost up to $10,000.DNC member Robert Zimmerman quipped, Kanye will be an exciting draw, especially compared to the Republicans booking Wayne Newton or Clint Eastwood. We all know how well that turned out. Via: NYPost | 1real |
Sessions says he will discuss Comey with Senate panel | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a letter on Saturday that he will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday to address matters former FBI Director James Comey brought up this week in testimony to the same panel. In a letter seen by Reuters, Sessions told Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, that the intelligence committee is the “most appropriate” place to address matters that came up during Comey’s hearing on Thursday. The letter did not say whether Sessions planned to give public testimony or to appear before the panel behind closed doors. “In light of reports regarding Mr. Comey’s recent testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, it is important that I have an opportunity to address these matters in the appropriate forum,” Sessions said in the letter. The committee “is the most appropriate forum for such matters, as it has been conducting an investigation and has access to relevant, classified information,” he added. The Senate panel is investigating allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In March, Sessions removed himself from any probe into alleged Russian meddling in the elections, but maintained he did nothing wrong by failing to disclose that he met last year with Russia’s ambassador. In testimony to the Senate panel on Thursday, Comey accused President Donald Trump of firing him to try to undermine the FBI’s investigation of possible collusion by people in Trump’s campaign with Russia’s alleged efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. Comey’s appearance raised new questions about the attorney general’s relationship with Russian officials and others with ties to President Vladimir Putin. One question is whether Sessions had any undisclosed meetings with Ambassador Sergei Kislyak or other Russians during the campaign or after Trump’s inauguration. In the most eagerly anticipated U.S. congressional hearing in years, Comey told lawmakers the Trump administration had lied and defamed him and the Federal Bureau of Investigation after the president dismissed him on May 9. Sessions had planned to appear before the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees, but the deputy attorney general will take his place, the letter said. | 0fake |
Eine Kapelle für die Zarenfamilie | Eine Kapelle für die Zarenfamilie Max Vetrov / RIA Novosti
Die Abgeordnete der russischen Staatsduma Natalja Poklonskaja während der Eröffnungszeremonie einer Kapelle in Simferopol: Die Kapelle ist den Leidensduldern der Zarenfamilie gewidmet. Facebook | 1real |
15 Foods That Contain The Mother Of All Antioxidants | -Onions -Red peppers
Notice they are all healthy foods we often don’t get enough of? This is another big issue with our diets. We consume a lot of junk, meat, dairy and processed foods, items that clinically have been proven to be the number one causes of heart disease and illness yet we consume them in huge quantities. The key is to limit these and eat a lot of fresh, lively foods that provide nutrients and don’t ask the body to perform a mega job to digest.
You can also increase your exercise as glutathione production increases when you exercise. Breathing and sweating are also great ways to get rid of toxins in the body.
Glutathione Protects Against Chronic Illness
What makes glutathione so important and powerful is that it recycles antioxidants. When your body is dealing with free radicals, it is essentially passing them from one molecule to another. They might go from vitamin C to vitamin E to lipoic acid and then to glutathione where they are cooled off. Antioxidants are recycled at this point and the body can now regenerate another glutathione molecule to go back at it again.
Glutathione is crucial for helping your immune system fight chronic illness as it acts as the carrier of toxins out of your body. Like a fly trap, toxins stick to glutathione and they are carried to the bile into the stools and out of the body. Glutathione is also powerful enough that it has been shown to help in the treatment of AIDS greatly. The body is going to get in touch with oxidants and toxins, the more we can deal with those the better our body will be at staying strong, this is why glutathione is so important.
Dr. Mark Hyman has given 9 tips to increase your Glutathione levels. Check them out!
1. Consume sulfur-rich foods. The main ones in the diet are garlic, onions and the cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, kale, collards, cabbage, cauliflower, watercress, etc.).
2. Try bioactive whey protein. This is great source of cysteine and the amino acid building blocks for glutathione synthesis. As you know, I am not a big fan of dairy , but this is an exception — with a few warnings. The whey protein MUST be bioactive and made from non-denatured proteins (“denaturing” refers to the breakdown of the normal protein structure). Choose non-pasteurized and non-industrially produced milk that contains no pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics. Immunocal is a prescription bioactive non-denatured whey protein that is even listed in the Physician’s Desk Reference.
3. Exercise boosts your glutathione levels and thereby helps boost your immune system, improve detoxification and enhance your body’s own antioxidant defenses. Start slow and build up to 30 minutes a day of vigorous aerobic exercise like walking or jogging, or play various sports. Strength training for 20 minutes 3 times a week is also helpful.
One would think it would be easy just to take glutathione as a pill, but the body digests protein — so you wouldn’t get the benefits if you did it this way. However, the production and recycling of glutathione in the body requires many different nutrients and you CAN take these. Here are the main supplements that need to be taken consistently to boost glutathione. Besides taking a multivitamin and fish oil, supporting my glutathione levels with these supplements is the most important thing I do every day for my personal health.
4. N-acetyl-cysteine. This has been used for years to help treat asthma and lung disease and to treat people with life-threatening liver failure from Tylenol overdose. In fact, I first learned about it in medical school while working in the emergency room. It is even given to prevent kidney damage from dyes used during x-ray studies.
5. Alpha lipoic acid. This is a close second to glutathione in importance in our cells and is involved in energy production, blood sugar control, brain health and detoxification. The body usually makes it, but given all the stresses we are under, we often become depleted.
6. Methylation nutrients (folate and vitamins B6 and B12). These are perhaps the most critical to keep the body producing glutathione. Methylation and the production and recycling of glutathione are the two most important biochemical functions in your body. Take folate (especially in the active form of 5 methyltetrahydrofolate), B6 (in active form of P5P) and B12 (in the active form of methylcobalamin).
7. Selenium. This important mineral helps the body recycle and produce more glutathione.
8. A family of antioxidants including vitamins C and E (in the form of mixed tocopherols), work together to recycle glutathione.
9. Milk thistle (silymarin) has long been used in liver disease and helps boost glutathione levels. | 1real |
GOP Rep. Wants You to ‘Look At All The Good’ That Came From The Charleston Massacre (VIDEO) | According to GOP Congressman Sean Duffy, we need to stop talking about terrorist acts committed by white people in the United States and hop on board the Trump Train. During an interview Tuesday morning with CBB s Alisyn Camerota, Duffy completely lost it when asked why the Trump administration seems determined to ignore any and all terrorist acts committed by white people as they focus on banning entry from seven countries that have not produced a deadly terrorist attack within our borders since 9/11. You don t have a group like ISIS or Al Qaeda that s inspiring people around the world to kill innocents, Duffy said when confronted with white terrorist attacks like the recent mosque massacre in Canada. That was a one-off. Pretending that the attack in Canada is the only recent example of a white extremist slaughtering innocents, Duffy continued harping about ISIS. How about the Charleston church shooting, Congressman? Camerota asked. He was a white extremist. That doesn t matter? At this point, things got crazy. Duffy explained that the Charleston massacre matters, but only because because good things came from it: It does matter. It does matter. Look at the good things that came from it. Nikki Haley took down the Confederate flag. That was great! Naturally, he didn t mention the numerous African-Americans who were killed, or that the white supremacist who murdered all those people followed the same ideology as he does. This sort of statement is crazy and insulting to the victims and their families and the Congressman s response makes him look awful, but he only managed to get crazier when he claimed that former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who is quite alive, is dead: Look at Gabby Giffords, the Marxist who took her life, a leftist guy, and now you see violence and terror in the streets all across America. Watch the interview below:But what about white terrorism, the CNN reporter asks this Congressman. & his response is exactly the problem. https://t.co/orG1grV3HY deray mckesson (@deray) February 7, 2017Read more:Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Instant View: Republicans pull Obamacare repeal bill | (Reuters) - Republican leaders of the House of Representatives pulled legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system from consideration on Friday due to a shortage of votes, despite desperate lobbying by the White House and its allies in Congress, dealing a stiff setback to President Donald Trump. DANIEL MORGAN, SENIOR PORTFOLIO MANAGER, SYNOVUS TRUST COMPANY, ATLANTA, GEORGIA: “There’s a bit of a relief rally. There were worries going into it... but it’s a mixed bag. “It does now open the door for maybe they table the whole thing and just move on, and I would think the next thing on the docket would have to be tax reform. The market, to me, is more interested in tax reform than it is in changing Obamacare. “In a way, for me, sitting on $600 million worth of investments, I think it’s great. Let’s move and get into tax reform, and then get into the infrastructure bill.” PETER JANKOVSKIS, CO-CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, OAKBROOK INVESTMENTS LLC, LISLE, ILLINOIS: “The market is relieved it’s not going to go down to a defeat, and it’s hopeful they’ll come to some sort of agreement over the weekend. The market is hoping for an agreement as a stepping stone to additional agreements.” “News report suggested that the likely outcome was they were going to lose. I would think the expectations are that they’re pulling it so they can work on it.” “The last few days, market has sort of traded on the back foot on anticipation of the vote that would happen at some point this week. Generally, risk sentiment has been undermined off of that, especially with this steady drip of news that indicated lacking support for the bill. And now, I think, it sort of lifted that uncertainty, at least temporarily, for the rest of the day. Maybe just lifting the uncertainty premium has markets breathing a sigh of relief for now.” PARESH UPADHYAYA, DIRECTOR OF CURRENCY STRATEGY, PIONEER INVESTMENTS, BOSTON: “The initial market interpretation is a positive sign. It seems like it is taking that Trump wants to instead of sinking it, he wants to give it another shot. It seems like they think he is working to get something on his agenda to be passed by Congress. Or perhaps it’s a sign that if healthcare reform is shelved, Trump will focus on tax reform. It’s more a knee jerk reaction. “There are still a lot of hard questions regardless to tax reform. He can’t force people to change their vote on social media. Good old fashion politicking is needed to build consensus. “If this stronger dollar has legs, it depends on the next step. If there is a pivot to taxes from healthcare, the market has to see the plan.” RAHUL SHAH, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, IDEAL ASSET MANAGEMENT, NEW YORK: “From an investor viewpoint, it shows that Trump will not be able to easily pass his agenda. That being said, healthcare is more difficult to pass than tax cuts and the infrastructure bill that he’s proposing. “In one sense that’s a negative, but on the other hand it also might give some relief to investors who are concerned about some of Trump’s more controversial proposals like increased tariffs and a border adjustment tax. “You could see this as a glass half empty or a glass half-full, gridlock is not something that’s unheard of on Wall Street, so I think stocks should be OK going forward.” “I think the most important thing is that this changes the perception of the relationship between Trump and Congress. For the last few months the assumption has been that Congress would do whatever the Trump plan called for, and that apparently is not going to be the case.” PETER KENNY, SENIOR MARKET STRATEGIST, GLOBAL MARKETS ADVISORY GROUP, NEW YORK: “I don’t think it’s going to have a huge impact on equities, although it may have more of an impact on biotech and healthcare. “This is now an indication that the president’s agenda is probably going to be more ambitious than Congress can manage. It is probably going to mean that equity markets are going to have to factor in a degree of dysfunction that investors were hoping they wouldn’t have to. Which means it will likely have a muted impact on equity performance moving forward. “There is very little on the horizon as of right now, as a result of this thing being pulled, that is going to fuel a significant move higher in prices. This is largely going to homogenize any sort of volatility moving forward and is probably going to be a cap on any near-term performance in terms of the upside. “The fact this bill, which the President has said flat-out he will make it work for all Americans in general, can’t pass is an indication this agenda is going to be more ambitious than this Congress can work with. This doesn’t even include the Democrats. It is not just divided between Democrats and Republicans, it is divided between progressives, Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians. It is an indication that investors should not expect the kind of velocity in terms of agenda accomplishments they were expecting when he was elected.” MARGARET PATEL, SENIOR PORTFOLIO MANAGER, WELLS FARGO ASSET MANAGEMENT, BOSTON: “It looked like the market was worried that the Trump agenda would get completely bogged down in the healthcare issue, and now that they’ve taken the healthcare issue off the table, I think the market is more optimistic that they can do other things that are more doable that are not so complicated, such as regulatory reform and lowering taxes. It does seem like a positive move to shelve an issue that’s so complex and very expensive no matter what the plan, move on to something that is a little bit easier, which would be lowering taxes.” BRIAN BATTLE, DIRECTOR OF TRADING, PERFORMANCE TRUST CAPITAL PARTNERS, CHICAGO: “It didn’t pass and it didn’t fail so any conjecture about the ultimate meaning is premature. President Trump is getting a lesson in varsity Washington politics.” STOCKS: S&P 500 pares losses to end session down fractionally; Dow ends down 0.29 percent; Nasdaq ends up 0.19 percent BONDS: 2- and 10-year Treasury yields rise from session lows FOREX: The dollar index edges up by gains against the euro and yen | 0fake |
George Clooney: Trump and Bannon the Real ’Hollywood Elitists’ | Actor George Clooney unloaded on President Donald Trump and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon in an interview, calling the pair the real “Hollywood elitists. ”[In a conversation with French news outlet Canal Plus, the lashed out at those who criticize Hollywood celebrities for speaking out about politics. “When Meryl [Streep] spoke, everyone on that one side said, ‘Well, that’s elitist Hollywood speaking,” Clooney said, according to the Hill. ” Trump, he added, “collects $120, 000 a year from his Screen Actors Guild pension fund. He is a Hollywood elitist. ” The Money Monster star was referring to Streep’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globes in January, in which the actress bashed the president for what she called his “disrespect” and his “violence. ” Clooney told Canal Plus that Streep had “every right to speak up. ” The actor also took aim at Bannon, whom he called a “failed film writer and director. ” The White House chief strategist has produced 16 films, including the documentaries The Undefeated and Torchbearer. “He wrote a Shakespearean rap musical about the L. A. riots that he couldn’t get made,” Clooney said. “He made a lot of money off of Seinfeld. He’s elitist Hollywood, I mean that’s the reality. ” Clooney was a heavy contributor to former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and hosted a $33, 400 fundraiser for her last year at the Studio City home he shares with wife Amal Clooney. In a letter sent to donors on behalf of the candidate last year, Clooney called Trump a racist who “hates Muslims” and who “thinks that committing war crimes is the best way to make America great again. ” The actor also previously called Trump a “xenophobic fascist. ” While attending the Cannes Film Festival in May, Clooney confidently told reporters that Trump would not win the election. “There’s not going to be a President Donald Trump,” he said. “Fear is not going to be something that drives our country. We’re not going to be scared of Muslims or immigrants or women. We’re not actually afraid of anything. We’re not going to use fear. So that’s not going to be an issue. ” The actor appeared to soften his position on Trump in January, when he told the Associated Press at the premiere of his Syrian relief worker documentary The White Helmets that he hopes the president will “do a decent job. ” But in his interview with Canal Plus this week, Clooney said it was still “hard to imagine” that Trump is president. “We have a demagogue in the White House,” he said. “We need the fourth estate, which is journalists, to hold his feet to the fire. ” Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 0fake |
None of Us Are Safe From Getting ‘Owned’ - The New York Times | In the escalating rhetoric of public shaming, being embarrassed online is tantamount to being wiped from the face of the earth. Whenever a host upbraids a public figure in a monologue or a pundit bests another in a Twitter fight, onlookers crowd around to declare the loser DESTROYED! or EVISCERATED! or ETHERED! or ANNIHILATED! But alongside these symbols of destruction has risen another, more apt metaphor for the dynamics of the modern media power play. In this one, the defeated party wasn’t killed, but possessed: They got OWNED. When the white nationalist Richard Spencer approvingly posted a song from “Cabaret” on Twitter in March, former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander swooped in to say: “Hey, buddy, that song you love was written by my uncle. He’s been married to my other uncle for 40 years. And he’s a Jew. ” A Twitter bystander waded into Spencer’s mentions and observed: “You get publicly owned with astonishing frequency, it’s really wonderful. ” Ownage can be politically urgent or purely irreverent. When the Slate editor Gabriel Roth complained about ’u200bWebster Dictionary’s overly attitude toward changes in usage — “I feel like @MerriamWebster is turning into the ‘chill’ parent who lets your friends come over and get high,” he wrote on Twitter — the account replied: “No one cares how you feel. ” Dozens piled on to rub it in: “You got owned by the dictionary. ” On the internet, where rhetorical victories are so fleeting, the phrase is oddly satisfying: It’s a passing but dramatic staking of argumentative ground. “Owned” is borrowed from hacker slang. If you got owned, that meant some hacker jimmied the lock on a virtual back door, snooped around your property and rifled through your stuff. The word speaks of a literal possession: annexing another person’s virtual space and stealing private information. But “you got owned” also animates a simple theft with a violent spark. Owning someone isn’t just about taking his things it’s about diminishing him as a person. With enough specialized technical knowledge, you can actually seize control of another human being, or at least the person’s virtual presence. Among hackers, ownage often works as a form of community discipline. In the early aughts, underground online zines like Zero for Owned — ZF0 for short — emerged as sites for hackers to detail how they broke into the systems of prominent security professionals and fellow hackers to shame them for overstating their skills. “We believe actions speak louder than words,” the first issue of Zero for Owned announced. “While you were talking trash, we were sifting through your files, reading your conversations, owning more boxes” — computers — “on your networks, and you had no idea. ” The zines spread around their targets’ website code and personal communications as punishment. By finding gaps in the technological skill of famous hackers, the creators of these zines justified the release of the private information the hackers had failed to protect. Now, as information security has become increasingly central to both global politics and personal relationships, “owned” has migrated from the online underground to the mainstream. There has never been a stronger relationship between who we are perceived to be and what kind of information we have. Recent concerns over “filter bubbles,” “fake news” and political memes churned out by Russian trolls lay bare the fact that our beliefs are controlled by the data we consume. Information silos make us vulnerable to being owned not only because of our ignorance — the things we don’t know — but also because of how little control we have over the things we do know. We’re constantly open to exposure. The hacking and release of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and from the Democratic National Committee didn’t reveal any bombshells, but they succeeded in scandalizing through the simple act of making the private public. Now President Trump tweets conspiratorially about “leaks” and “wiretapping,” fixated on the idea that his political rivals have acquired or released his secrets — and obsessed with the suggestion that he is somehow an illegitimate president. The threat of getting owned — being revealed as oblivious, uninformed or incompetent — works like a virtual Panopticon to keep people in a state of anxiety, keen to guard their own insecurities as they poke at other people’s flaws. For thinkers throughout history, owning things was seen not just as useful and pleasant, but also as a source of human virtue. Aristotle argued that “the meaner sort of workman,” by virtue of his lack of possessions, was “too degraded” to participate in politics and contribute to society. Hegel thought that owning things was a way for people to externalize their personal freedom. “It is in possession first of all that the person becomes rational,” he wrote in “Philosophy of Right. ” And of course there is the obvious strangeness in talking about people “owning” one another online in a nation where, for a very long time, people did own other people — and where many of them argued that this was an ennobling endeavor for everyone involved. The antebellum statesman John Calhoun defended owning slaves as a “positive good. ” More recently, our celebration of ownership has pointed inward. We speak approvingly of “coming into one’s own” or “being one’s own person. ” To be “ ” is to be confident and poised. Ownage just turns that back outward: Now we wield our superior knowledge and skills over our rivals. In the hacking context, owning someone is all about a display of superior technological abilities. When the word migrated from hacking to gaming, “owned” became a mantra for those who had mastered the game play or bested opponents. Now it extends to rhetorical force — a and withering joke or an irrefutable debate line. After the “Saturday Night Live” comedian Leslie Jones was hacked — her private photographs were stolen and spread across the web — Complex magazine’s Daniel Barna said that she “owned her hackers” in an “S. N. L. ” monologue. Ownage radiates power. “Owned” and its derivative, “pwned” (pronounced any number of ways, but mostly “poned”) are bits of leetspeak — “leet” as in “elite. ” If pidgin languages create a simplified slang to foster communication, leetspeak deliberately complicates the root language, replacing letters with numbers and symbols and swapping characters. It’s an ideal code for people who believe their mastery of the internet has raised them to a higher plane of existence. “Pwnage” creates an and an and furthers the fetishization of specialized knowledge down to the level of casual conversation. The mainstreaming of “owned” has always come with a bit of a wink, an acknowledgment that those most eager to lord their superior knowledge over others often have the biggest blind spots. That was the dynamic that fueled the hacker zines, in which the owners got owned. As the usage of “owned” spread, it also was mixed with stereotypes of hackers and gamers as being socially awkward. That underlying paradox of the gamer persona fueled the web series “Pure Pwnage,” which followed a kid named Jeremy who was highly skilled at video games but a failure at real life. Now ownage communicates dominance, but it also belies an underlying impotence. All of this has set the stage for ownage’s latest twist: the rise of the . If an own exposes another person’s ignorance, a reveals your own obliviousness. During the campaign, Bobby Jindal tried to insult President Trump on Twitter but ended up suggesting that only fools would donate to Jindal’s campaign: “We have met. You wrote a check. A fool his money are soon parted. A fool his dad’s money are parted sooner. ” Jindal owned himself. Recently Trump’s White House communications team circulated a flattering Washington Post article about how great the president’s budget was — headlined “Trump’s Budget Makes Perfect Sense and Will Fix America, and I Will Tell You Why” — except the article was satirical. That was a presidential . The most successful ownage finds hubristic targets, people who think they know more than they do. But ownage is itself a hubristic act — it turns knowledge into a tool for exploiting another person’s lack thereof. Owning someone sets you up to be owned yourself, sometimes in the same breath. The — and a related concept, “You played yourself,” the refrain of the motivational Snapchat user DJ Khaled — is a double entendre. In the you let yourself down by being so nakedly yourself. You fail, in the end, by being you. | 0fake |
Joy Behar: Trump’s Cutting Education ‘So We Can All Be as Dumb as He Is’ - Breitbart | Friday on ABC’s “The View,” Joy Behar said President Donald Trump wanted budget cuts to the Department of Education because he seeks to make us “as dumb as he is. ” Behar said, “Hello, and welcome to ‘The View.’ I’d like to wish a happy St. Patrick’s Day today to all of our Irish friends out there. And it is an honor of some of the first immigrants to come to this country, the Irish. They often on this day celebrate what they say the luck of the Irish. Of course, if you’re elderly, sick or poor, your luck as just run out. ” She continued, “I can’t help it. It’s so horrific and so horrendous. Just when you thought it was safe to stop talking about Trump, he unleashes his budget on us. He wants to cut clean water. He wants to stop helping old people and public education so we can all be as dumb as he is!” ( Daily Caller) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
MORE JOBS! DOW COMPANY CEO At MI Trump Rally: Announces New MI Plant: “We’re Not A ‘Red Tape’ Company, But A ‘Red Carpet’ Country For American Businesses” | While he was speaking, he made a welcome announcement to the crowd of Michiganders: We ve made a decision. We re going to announce a state-of-the-art innovation center in Michigan. We re going to put an R&D Center in place. This decision is because of this man and these policies. We could have waited. We could have put it anywhere in the world. Several hundred jobs on top of the thousands. We are not waiting. We are going ahead. We are going to use American hard work and American brains and we re going to fight for the Dow company out of the USA. I tingle with pride listening to you. To honor me to help you chair American Manufacturing Council. To put in place the investments that you talk about. You re paving the way with your administration with your policies to make it easier to do business in this country. Not a red tape country but a red carpet country for American businesses. America first, as you said. That s what we have to do. And you can count on me and the business leaders that we ll put on this team. This will be America s finest and brightest to help us solve these problems that you all have. We need to employ our youth. We need to help all of our citizens. We need to give you hope. We need to find a way back. To believe in ourselves again. I bleed America and I bleed Michigan. | 1real |
One dead, scores arrested in unrest over delayed Honduran vote count | TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - At least one protester died, over 20 people were injured and more than 100 others were arrested for looting in Honduras after a delayed and disputed presidential vote count sparked unrest amid opposition accusations of electoral fraud. Honduras was due to publish the final result of last Sunday s presidential election at 9 p.m. local time (0300 GMT) on Friday, the electoral tribunal said, but opposition complaints about the count appeared set to impede that. Election results initially favored opposition candidate and TV star Salvador Nasralla by five points with more than half the votes counted. They then swung in favor of U.S.-backed center-right President Juan Orlando Hernandez after the count came to a halt on Monday and resumed over a day later, sparking protests. The tribunal has said it will hand-count some 1,031 outstanding ballot boxes with irregularities - or nearly 6 percent of the total - after the count halted with Hernandez ahead by less than 50,000 votes, or about 1.5 percentage points. However, Nasralla s center-left alliance has called for votes to be recounted in three of Honduras 18 departments, or regions, and refused to recognize the tribunal s special count until its demands for a wider review were met. If Juan Orlando wins, we re ready to accept that, but we know that wasn t the case, we know that Salvador won and that s why they re refusing the transparency demands, said Marlon Ochoa, campaign manager of Nasralla s alliance. International concern has grown about the electoral crisis in the poor Central American country, which struggles with violent drug gangs and one of the world s highest murder rates. Police sources said at least one man had been shot and killed at a protest in the city of La Ceiba, while about 12 members of the military and police force had been injured in demonstrations that snarled traffic outside Honduras main port on Friday and around the country. At least 10 protesters were injured in the capital of Tegucigalpa, according to the city s Hospital Escuela. Military officials called for peaceful protests after police reports of looting in the capital and other cities. In the country s second-biggest city of San Pedro Sula, thick plumes of black smoke clouded the air as protesters burned tires and police tried to disperse the crowds with tear gas. More than 100 people were also arrested on suspicion of looting in San Pedro Sula on Friday, a police spokesman said, and local media carried footage of shops being plundered. People flocked to supermarkets on Friday, stocking up on food and provisions as major roads and supply routes were blocked across the country by angry protesters. Lines appeared outside gas stations and cash machines. Banks clogged up with people wanting to withdraw or deposit money. I m filling the tank with gas in case anything happens, the situation looks bad and there are protests all over the city, said Carlos Valle, a 61-year-old pensioner, as he joined a long line of vehicles waiting at a fuel pump in Tegucigalpa. Both Hernandez and Nasralla, a television game show host allied with leftists, claimed victory after the election, and the challenger has said he will not accept the tribunal s result because of doubts over the counting process. Leading a center-left alliance, the 64-year-old Nasralla is one of Honduras best-known faces and backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist ousted in a coup in 2009. Zelaya weighed into the debate on Thursday in a letter in which he accused the tribunal of electoral crimes on behalf of Hernandez, who himself was standing for re-election enabled by a contentious 2015 Supreme Court ruling. One of the four magistrates on the electoral tribunal on Thursday flagged serious doubts about the counting process. The Organization of American States (OAS) on Wednesday convinced both candidates to vow to respect the final result once disputed votes had been checked. But a few hours later Nasralla rejected the OAS accord, saying his opponents were trying to rob him. He urged supporters to take to the streets in protest. | 0fake |
Hillary Campaign Fakes It Most of the Time | Hillary Campaign Fakes It Most of the Time November 03, 2016 Hillary Campaign Fakes It Most of the Time
Newly-leaked emails show that a major figure in Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign urged the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to schedule meetings with other prospective presidential candidates to make the process appear less biased. The email, sent January 2015 before the official launch of Clinton’s campaign, is part of the latest dump of John Podesta emails by the online hacktivist group Wikileaks. The message, authored by campaign manager Robby Mook, is about a planned meeting between Clinton and then-DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz It also describes a meeting between Mook and White House political adviser David Simas. Mook’s message mostly deals with mundane political details, but at the end he makes an interesting comment that suggests an awareness of pro-Clinton bias at the DNC.
“I asked [Simas] that he make sure she [DWS] has meetings scheduled with other potential candidates, so they can credibly say they’re meeting with everyone.”
The sentence is brief but carries a clear implication: Mook is urging the DNC to set up meetings for the sole purpose of looking like it isn’t in the tank for Clinton’s campaign.
READ MORE: FOX'S CHRIS WALLACE GRILLS ROBBY MOOK OVER HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN SCANDALS
The emails supplement an ample amount of existing evidence that the DNC overtly favored Clinton during the presidential primary process, despite the fact it is supposed to be politically neutral between different Democratic candidates. For instance, then-deputy DNC Chair Donna Brazile fed primary debate questions to Clinton’s campaign, while leaked DNC emails from the summer showed a great deal of official hostility towards Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign.
Mook’s comment indicates the Clinton campaign was very aware of the DNC’s bias from the beginning of 2015, and was directly advising Wasserman Schultz on how she could make this bias less obvious. Article by Doc Burkhart , Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles Got a news tip? Email us at Help support the ministry of TRUNEWS with your one-time or monthly gift of financial support. DONATE NOW ! DOWNLOAD THE TRUNEWS MOBILE APP! CLICK HERE! Donate Today! Support TRUNEWS to help build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news
We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media Top Stories | 1real |
Najib will aim to win over voters in last budget before elections | KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak will aim to reduce unhappiness over rising costs of living when he unveils his 2018 budget on Friday, ahead of an election that must be held within 10 months. Prices rose sharply in Malaysia - where household debt is among the highest in Asia - after Najib cut subsidies and in 2015 imposed a broad-based consumption tax, denting his popularity. The leader also faces a political challenge from his mentor-turned-foe, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who called Najib a thief in connection with a scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Najib has denied any wrongdoing. Najib will bank on the new budget to shore up support before his five-year tenure ends in June. Given the coming election, it will be more surprising if he announces something not people friendly, said Brian Tan, a Singapore-based economist with Nomura. Stronger global commodity prices have aided the oil-dependent economy and given Najib some room to boost spending. But progress in narrowing the fiscal deficit - expected at 3 percent this year compared with 6 percent in 2009 - would plateau next year if the government focuses on pre-election spending, said Moody s analyst Anushka Shah. It depends on what they do... whether they spend it on handouts and be seen as more populist or whether they save it, in which case we should see a reduction in the deficit, Shah said. Most economists expect the new budget s fiscal deficit target will be slightly below 3.0 percent. Any widening of the deficit would disappoint foreign investors. They have gradually returned to Southeast Asia s third largest economy as the ringgit currency, after a tumultuous period, strengthened 6 percent against the dollar this year. Najib, who has pushed a pro-business stance since becoming premier in 2009, dismantled decades-old fuel subsidies after narrowly winning the 2013 elections, to stave off the threat of a sovereign rating downgrade. To bolster government revenue in 2018, Najib will likely broaden the scope of the goods and services tax imposed in 2015 to include e-commerce transactions, though he is unlikely to change the 6 percent rate. The extra revenue is expected to fund goodies for Malaysia s 1.6 million civil servants - a key vote bank for his Barisan Nasional (BN) ruling coalition - to mitigate the strain from pricier goods and services. Civil servants saw a salary hike between 7 and 13 percent in 2012, ahead of the 2013 polls. But the recent sharp price increases may be eroding support among them. The opposition naturally anticipates that the coming budget will have handouts to help the BN win votes in the election. Malaysians can expect many goodies... budgets are one of the political tools for Barisan Nasional to prepare them for general election, said Kerk Chee Yee of the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP). Najib, who is also finance minister, has already rolled out billions of ringgit worth of handouts for palm plantation settlers and armed forces veterans, and affordable housing projects, new schools and hospitals across the country. We have to ensure quality of life of Malaysians (by) introducing more affordable housing, steady level of income growth, managing cost of living and certain initiatives that can supplement income, Najib said on the government s official budget website. He is likely to maintain cash handouts to low income earners, provide tax breaks for middle income earners and expand policies to provide affordable housing. ($1 = 4.2240 ringgit) | 0fake |
OBAMA FAN CLUB PRESIDENT GEORGE CLOONEY Tells France: “There’s Not Going To Be A President Trump” [VIDEO] | There s nothing quite like an arrogant actor who lives in Europe, supports Hillary, blames the press for making Trump popular, and for not properly vetting him, while hanging out at the White House with the least vetted President in American history.George Clooney is making his disdain for Donald Trump known not just here in the United States but also overseas.The actor was interviewed by members of the international press at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday afternoon, and took some time to share with them his opinion of Trump. There s not going to be a President Donald Trump, said Clooney, who held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton last month in Los Angeles where tickets reportedly went for $353,400 per couple. That s not going to happen. Fear is not going to be something that drives our country. We re not going to be scared of Muslims or immigrants or women. We re not actually afraid of anything. That whole We re not afraid of Muslims thing ought to go over pretty well with the victims and families of victims who have been attacked in Paris twice over the past couple of years. Tell that to French residents who live in or near no-go-zones George. Of course, you wouldn t know, because you have the best security detail money can buy hypocrite!Clooney, who was on the Croisette to promote his film Money Monster, went on to say; Trump is actually a result in many ways of the fact that much of the news programs didn t follow up and ask tough questions. Via: Daily Mail | 1real |
Ex-Homeland Secretary Johnson to testify in Russia probe: House intel panel | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson will testify next Wednesday before the intelligence committee in the House of Representatives as part of its probe of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election, the panel said on Thursday. The committee said in a statement that Johnson would appear in an open session beginning at 10 a.m. ET on June 21 to answer questions related to the active measures Russia took to affect the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential vote. | 0fake |
Senate fight looms after Trump taps Exxon CEO as top U.S. diplomat | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump named the head of Exxon Mobil Corp, Rex Tillerson, as his choice for U.S. secretary of state on Tuesday and won backing from some Republican foreign policy figures ahead of a possible Senate fight over the oilman’s ties to Russia. The Exxon chief executive potentially faces difficulties getting confirmed in the Republican-controlled Senate. Some lawmakers worry about his links to Moscow and opposition to U.S. sanctions on Russia, which awarded him a friendship medal in 2013. But several Republican establishment figures, including former Secretaries of State James Baker and Condoleezza Rice, and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates vouched for Tillerson, 64, who has spent more than 40 years at the oil company. Rice and Gates, who have worked for Exxon as consultants, both issued statements of support on Tuesday. Their backing could be crucial for Tillerson receiving the approval he needs in the Senate, where Republicans will have a slim majority when Trump takes office on Jan 20. “The fact that Condi Rice, James Baker and Bob Gates are recommending Tillerson carries considerable weight,” said Republican Senator Jeff Flake, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. By choosing Tillerson, Trump adds another person to his Cabinet and circle of advisers who may favor a soft line toward Moscow, which is under U.S. sanctions for its 2014 annexation of Crimea and at the center of allegations that it launched cyber attacks to disrupt the U.S. presidential election. Republican foreign policy hawks in the Senate like John McCain and Lindsey Graham are likely to give Tillerson a rough time at a confirmation hearing in early January. “It’s very well known that he has a very close relationship with (Russian President) Vladimir Putin,” said McCain, the Republican party’s 2008 nominee for president. Republicans will have a majority of just 52-48 in the Senate, and only a few defections from their ranks would block Tillerson if every Democrat also opposed him. Trump, on a victory tour of states that backed him in the November election, told supporters in West Allis, Wisconsin, that Tillerson “will be a fierce advocate for American interests around the world.” He called him “a strong man, a tough man.” Trump upset U.S. allies during his campaign by calling for a better relationship with Russia and questioning the usefulness of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the U.S.-led military bloc created after World War Two to counter the Soviet Union. Trump has also pledged to confront China on trade and territorial issues and temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States, angering many Islamic countries. Tillerson has foreign experience from years of cutting deals with foreign countries for his company, the world’s largest energy firm. In 2012, Tillerson signed a deal with Russian state oil giant Rosneft to jointly develop oil fields in western Siberia. He has been chief executive of Exxon Mobil since 2006 but like Trump he has never held public office. Tillerson said in a statement that he shared the president-elect’s “vision for restoring the credibility of the United States.” Exxon Mobil said its board would meet soon regarding its transition. Trump was also poised to add another figure with close ties to the oil industry to his Cabinet. A source close to the transition said Trump had chosen former Texas Governor Rick Perry, whose state is a leading oil producer, as his nominee for energy secretary, with an announcement expected soon. Perry met Trump at Trump Tower in New York on Monday, part of a series of meetings that included rapper Kanye West on Tuesday. Trump also has offered the position of interior secretary to Montana first-term Representative Ryan Zinke, an ex-Navy SEAL commander who was an early Trump supporter, according to media reports. Trump appointed Stephen Miller, a top policy aide during the campaign, to be his senior adviser for policy. Miller had been an adviser to U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, whom Trump has nominated to be attorney general. In 2013, Putin bestowed a Russian state honor, the Order of Friendship, on Tillerson, citing his work “strengthening cooperation in the energy sector.” There also has been controversy over alleged Russian interference in the Nov. 8 presidential election, with the CIA concluding that Moscow had intervened to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. Tillerson’s “cozy ties to Vladimir Putin and Russia would represent an untenable conflict at the State Department,” Representative Eliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in a statement. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Trump and Tillerson were “pragmatic people” who could help America and Russia build a mutually beneficial relationship. A group of U.S. state attorneys general is investigating Exxon for allegedly misleading the public about climate change and some environmental groups are alarmed Exxon’s CEO could be America’s top diplomat. Exxon has said it has acknowledged the reality of climate change for years. Tillerson told a congressional hearing in 2010 he thought humanity contributed to climate change but the science was unclear about the size of the contribution. “It is extremely complicated,” he told the hearing. After Trump’s election, Exxon came out in support of the Paris Climate Agreement to combat climate change. There also are concerns among lawmakers about former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who an adviser to Trump’s transition team said was still under consideration for the deputy secretary of state role. Bolton has urged Washington to do more to counter China’s assertiveness in East Asia. | 0fake |
Republican Caitlyn Jenner Makes OUTRAGEOUS Claims About Hillary Clinton (VIDEO) | It s been really hard for the LGBT community to welcome Caitlyn Jenner with open arms and the reason played across television screens on Sunday evening. On the season two premiere of her show, I Am Cait, Jenner decided to talk about politics and it was all bad.Since Jenner announced that she was transgendered she has faced criticism for her defense of the Republican Party. It has left her looking as if she is completely out of touch with the community she says she wants to be a part of. Last year, on Ellen, she even went as far as to say that she doesn t not believe in same-sex marriage. After the incredible amount of backlash she received from those comments, you d think she would have stayed as far away from her GOP cheerleading as possible, but apparently she s not very bright (typical Republican).During the episode, the right-winger voiced a completely asinine opinion about Hillary Clinton: If we re unfortunate enough to get Hillary as our next president, we need her on our side, Jenner told her friends. Although she won t be she couldn t care less about women. She only cares about herself. What?Hillary Clinton has been a longtime supporter of women s rights. While Jenner s Republican buddies have fought tooth and nail to implant their elephants in women s uteri, Hillary has stood up for us along with the rest of the Democratic Party. Anybody who disputes this has clearly not been paying attention. Maybe Jenner believes that the only way to support women is by making our health care choices for us, limiting our rights, fighting against equal pay and every other dig the GOP has taken at us because they think we are all stupid.As if her Clinton comment wasn t ignorant enough, what she said about the Republican Party was mindblowing: All of em. None of the Republicans [say], Oh, I hate trans people or I hate gays. Nothing like that, They do more, I want a thriving economy so every trans person has a job.' I don t feel like they re out to get us, Jenner said. Every conservative guy out there believes in everybody s rights. She s absolutely right, Republicans have never said, We hate gays! They just say things like this:Oh yeah, those certainly sound like comments from people who believe in protecting everybody s rights, don t they?This is why the trans and LGB community doesn t trust Jenner. She claims that Hillary Clinton only cares about herself, but she needs to take a hard look in the mirror, because Clinton is not the problem here.Watch:Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
Bridgewater's Dalio says Trump's populist policies could hurt world economy | (Reuters) - Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates LP, said he is increasingly concerned about the Trump administration’s “populist” policies that could hurt the world economy. The detrimental effects of these policies could be more powerful than the beneficial effects of Trump’s pro-business policies, Dalio and co-Chief Investment Officer Bob Prince said on Tuesday. “We are now in a period of time when how this balance tilts will be more important to the economy, markets, and our well-beings than normally dominant drivers such as central bank policies,” Dalio and Prince said in a note. “While there is a lot of potential to improve fiscal policies and make beneficial structural reforms, there is also a significant risk that his populist policies could hurt the world economy (and worse).” In November, Dalio said Trump’s policies would have a “broadly positive” effect on the U.S. economy and that bond prices likely made a “30-year top.” Trump on Friday put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily barred travelers from Syria and six other Muslim-majority countries. Bridgewater oversees about $150 billion in client assets. | 0fake |
Seahawks’ Richard Sherman DROPS THE MIC On Those Who Ignore Police Brutality (VIDEO) | There s a lot being said about football players across the NFL standing together in unity against police brutality. This is even more pertinent now, as even more black men have been gunned down in the street just this week by police.Using his press conference to bring further awareness to this topic was none other than Seattle Seahawks star cornerback Richard Sherman. He said: I m not going to answer any questions today, and it s no offense to you guys, but the state of things in the world today is very interesting. I think you have players that are trying to take a stand and be aware of social issues and try to make a stand and increase people s awareness and put a spotlight on it and they re being ignored. Whether they re taking a knee or whether they re locking arms, you know, they re trying to bring people together and united them for a cause. And I think that the last couple days a couple more guys have gotten shot and killed in the middle of the street and more videos have come out of guys getting killed, and I think people are still missing the point.The reason these guys are kneeling. The reason we re locking arms is to bring people together. To make people aware that this is not right. You know, it s not right for people to get killed in the street. Sherman then explains how he s been proactive in the community and even needing to go so far as to train young people of color on how to behave with the police, but still being fearful that they might get shot. He says, that s an unfortunate time to be living. Especially when people are being killed for no reason.He then has some choice words by those who are supposedly offended by those standing up against police brutality by quietly using their First Amendment right of dissent and protest to bring awareness to the plight. Sherman says: When a guy takes a knee, you can ignore it. You can say he s not being patriotic. He s not honoring the flag. I m doing none of those things. I m saying straight up, this is wrong and we need to do something. And something most certainly needs to be done, and done now.Watch Sherman speak here:Wow this is a must-watch.Seattle Seahawks Richard Sherman addresses police killings of African American men at presser, then walks out. pic.twitter.com/GOAOSgufAx Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 22, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
What do the protesters believe they are protesting? | OffGuardian | written by Admin
A victory for freedom, justice and human happiness it isn’t. Those currently frothing at the mouth about the dawn of a new golden age of peace and equality really should know better. A billionaire and friend of billionaires just won an election. 1789 it isn’t.
But Clinton would have blown up the world. Trump probably won’t. Which makes the current situation a very tiny, possibly temporary, but still vanishingly rare moment of sanity in a largely insane world. For that small reason alone sane people everywhere should welcome it for what it is.
So, what to make of those who don’t?
Hysteria. Fainting. Screaming. Pseudo-Leftists happy to support Obama’s imperialism and domestic tyranny, beating their chests and seeking counselling for PTSD because democracy happened. “Mass” riots of thousands (or is it only hundreds? Depends on your source) of outraged identity-politicians.
What do these protesters think they are protesting?
Fascism? Well, ok, but where were they during the past sixteen years during which America has been dragged by inches into becoming the proto-facist state it now is? Besides what is more fascist-populist that using riot and civil unrest to overturn a democratic vote?
Racism? Sexism? Climate-denial? Which of these offenses is worse than nuclear war? And where is it written in the US constitution that they justify the reversal of an election?
And what about those alt news types supporting the “protesters”? Do they agree with Change.org that the vote should be overturned by the electoral college and Clinton given the presidency because she has a vagina and her chums can mobilise mass-hysteria? Are they basically saying they were for Hillary all along, because the Pentagon and Wall Street and WW3 are the lesser of two evils?
If that’s not what they are saying, then what? Protest needs an aim, so what is the aim here? More Obama? Martial Law? Total societal disintegration?
All better than Trump?
Would be great to get some feedback here. Rate this: | 1real |
BUDGET DEAL Quadruples Number Of Unskilled Guest Workers | Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is officially a total sellout! He agreed to a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill with Obama late Wednesday night that increases unskilled guest workers allowed into America significantly. Under the bloated $1.1 trillion bill, the number of H-2B visas will nearly be up as much as four times as the previous levels. This allows unskilled illegals into this country to drive down wages. There is always the chance terrorists are embedded in the increase in visas as well. So it s business as usual in Washington where the american people come last #FIREPAULRYAN! The year-end spending deal unveiled early Wednesday morning includes a provision that would increase the number of guest worker visas available to unskilled foreign nationals seeking employment in the U.S.According to Ian Smith, an attorney with the Immigration Reform Law Institute, language inserted into the omnibus spending deal would nearly quadruple the number of H-2B visa workers admitted to the U.S. next year to about 250,000.The section of the more than 2,000-page omnibus bill that contains the provision, the immigration reduction group NumberUSA reports, is on page 701. It reads: SEC. 565. Section 214(g)(9)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(g)(9)(A)) is amended by striking 2004, 2005, or 2006 shall not again be counted toward such limitation during fiscal year 2007. and inserting 2013, 2014, or 2015 shall not again be counted toward such limitation during fiscal year 2016. H-2B visas are intended for low-skilled foreign nationals to work temporarily in nonagricultural positions when American workers are unavailable. According to recent reports, however, some employers have abused the system, devising strategies to hire H-2B visa holders over American workers.Via: Breitbart | 1real |
Reliving China's Long March ahead of party congress | JINGGANGSHAN, China (Reuters) - A man in Red Army garb hits the pavement during a simulated attack during a re-staging of part of the Long March. The scene brings alive an extraordinary chapter in China s history that established the supremacy of Chairman Mao Zedong and the Communist Party. Deep in the mountains of Jinggangshan in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, a classroom of bank tellers participates in an ideological boot camp that plays into Chinese President Xi Jinping s drive to further consolidate his grip on power. Jinggangshan is considered the cradle of the Chinese revolution and, in 1927, was the official birthplace of the Red Army, now known as the People s Liberation Army of China. Reliving the revolution, students walk the route of the Long March, a series of retreats by the Red Army, led by Mao, to evade the pursuing Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek between 1934 and 1935. I can feel the spirit of the revolution, said Wang Pingzhu, a 32-year old garment company employee from the southern province of Fujian. As soon as I got here I could see it along the road. I could imagine the scene at the time, she said. During the three-day course, participants visit historical sites, pledging allegiance to the Communist Party and Xi s dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation ahead of a key party congress next month. I think the Communist Party emphasizes this sort of education, to try to control the thinking of party members and at the same time control a portion of the population who still have faith in the party, so they can support the leadership, said Zhang Lifan, an independent political commentator. In reviving Maoism and courting powerful conservative elements in the party, Xi seeks to remind people that China s dramatic ascent to become the world s second-largest economy was not simply a case of ditching Marx for markets. The Red Culture training camp for private and public sector workers aims to rekindle faith in the founding principles of the party and drown out critics who say it has lost its ideological soul after more than three decades of free-market reforms. Its program fits with Xi s push for patriotic education and ideological control of the people, an agenda he has promoted since coming to power in 2012 and is expected to further build on in October s five-yearly leadership reshuffle. Under the leadership of President Xi, ideological belief education has set off a new wave in China, said Zuo Jianxing, a forestry official in the northern province of Inner Mongolia. Harking back to Mao s time still resonates with some of the population, 41 years after his death. But the fear is that the younger generation of Chinese may be too preoccupied with the fruits of capitalism to care much about Red Culture. That may explain why, five years after taking power, Xi continues to espouse old school Maoism as a way to reassert the primacy of the party. If the Communist Party loses power, they are finished, said political commentator Zhang. (This version of the story refiles to add dateline.) | 0fake |
Trump says Britain should leave EU: newspaper interview | LONDON (Reuters) - Donald Trump told Britons on Sunday he supported Brexit, repeating just days before the vote on June 23 that he thinks the UK would be better off outside the European Union. As the campaign to decide Britain’s EU membership restarted after a three-day hiatus following the killing of lawmaker Jo Cox, Trump, the presumptive Republican U.S. presidential candidate, said in a newspaper interview he was backing an “out” vote. “I would personally be more inclined to leave, for a lot of reasons like having a lot less bureaucracy,” he told the Sunday Times. “But I am not a British citizen. This is just my opinion.” The billionaire businessman also told the newspaper that he would seek to have good relationships internationally if he were elected president in November, including with David Cameron. The British Prime Minister has in the past called Trump’s proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States “divisive, stupid and wrong”. Trump said in May that Britain would be better off outside the EU because of high levels of migration. The latest opinion polls showed the ‘Remain’ camp recovering some momentum, although the overall picture remains one of an evenly split electorate. Trump, whose mother was Scottish, is due to be in Britain the day after the referendum, when he visits two golf courses he owns in Scotland. Trump also said that if he became president he would try to improve the trade deals the U.S. has with China, and work more closely with Russia and that could include co-operating with Russia in the fight against Islamic State. | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton’s Long, Grueling Quest - The New York Times | If there was a single moment that captured what would carry Hillary Clinton to the 2016 Democratic nomination, it came not during her campaign kickoff in New York last June, or in any of her speeches celebrating primary victories over Senator Bernie Sanders. No, it was the unscripted instant in which a blasé Mrs. Clinton coolly brushed from her shoulder a speck of lint, dirt — or perhaps nothing at all — as a House panel subjected her to more than eight hours of questioning in October over her handling of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. She may not be the orator President Obama is, or the retail politician her husband was. But Mrs. Clinton’s steely fortitude in this campaign has plainly inspired older women, black voters and many others who see in her perseverance a kind of mirror to their own struggles. And Mrs. Clinton’s very durability — her tenacity, grit and capacity for enduring and overcoming adversity — could be exactly what is required to defeat Donald J. Trump. As a politician’s wife, first lady, senator and secretary of state — and as a candidate for president — Mrs. Clinton, 68, has redefined the role of women in American politics each time she has reinvented herself. She has transfixed the nation again and again, as often in searing episodes of scandal or setback as in triumph. “She came on the public stage as someone who was a little different,” said Ann Lewis, a longtime adviser. “She attracted fascination, devotion and attacks — and the partisan attacks haven’t stopped. ” “Even as first lady, it was ‘Who does she think she is? ’” said Melanne Verveer, a close friend of Mrs. Clinton’s who was her White House chief of staff. Mrs. Clinton’s confidants say it is only fitting that, having overcome so many obstacles before, including some of her own making, she now faces an opponent so eager to go negative with her — and to refight the brawls that have defined her career. In her victory speech Tuesday night, Mrs. Clinton said the biggest influence on her life had been her mother, “and she taught me never to back down from a bully — which turned out to be pretty good advice. ” It was with that same grit that Mrs. Clinton picked herself up after a bruising defeat by Mr. Obama in 2008, when she assured a crowd of tearful female supporters, eight years ago to the day, that they had made 18 million cracks in “the highest, hardest glass ceiling. ” For 14 straight years, and 20 in all, Mrs. Clinton has been named the woman Americans admire most, according to a yearly Gallup poll. But her campaign, and the controversy over her use of a private email server as secretary of state, have taken a toll: Her favorability and trustworthiness ratings have plummeted. And she is being caricatured, once more, as a calculating and inauthentic career politician: Lady Macbeth, now in her own play. In the same way, her longevity and fame are not undiluted assets: The baggage she brings as a consummate Democratic insider, pointed up most damagingly in the enormous sums she commanded as a paid speaker to Wall Street banks, has weighed Mrs. Clinton down in an election cycle in which outsiders have had the wind at their backs. Mrs. Clinton’s career has not taken a predictable route by any stretch. She came of age in the feminist movement in the 1960s at Wellesley College — where she urged her peers to spurn incremental change and instead work at “making the impossible possible” — then was drawn to the South in furtherance of her husband’s ambitions. She was one of her husband’s chief campaign strategists and overseer of a failed health care effort, while holding her marriage together through his sex scandals and impeachment. But if she seemed to embody contradictions, they also reflected a society in which expectations of women, and women’s expectations for themselves, were rapidly changing. And it has always been hard to parse opinions about Mrs. Clinton and about powerful women in general. Roy M. Neel, who was a campaign manager for Al Gore in his 1992 run, said in an oral history of the Bill Clinton years that women in the South particularly disliked Mrs. Clinton, the first working mother to serve as first lady and the first — and, so far, the only — to have an office in the West Wing, because she “appeared to be something of an affront to their sense of who they were. ” If antipathies to Mrs. Clinton can be chalked up in part to Americans’ struggles to adjust to changing gender roles at home, at work and in politics, her history of political combat has also left scar tissue that, in part, defines the candidate she is: about the realities of Washington, but cautious and wary to a fault. Her prolonged contest with Mr. Sanders, whose campaign was not widely expected to survive the first few nominating contests, laid bare the cost of that restraint, both in style and substance. As voters have gravitated to Mr. Trump’s unchecked impulsiveness and Mr. Sanders’s unabashed idealism, Mrs. Clinton has displayed little of either. “This is not an incremental, cautious election, and being cautious is not her friend,” said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster. “Both primaries exposed the depth of anger and frustration and disgust,” she added. “She has had to, and will have to, adjust to it. ” For 14 months, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has been out of step with younger voters and with swaths of an angry electorate that has demanded more than the competence and hard work she has promised. Her difficulties with those voters could be a warning sign. While her husband could draw on the crisp centrist philosophy of the “third way” Democrats in 1992, when he devoted his candidacy to the “forgotten middle class,” Mrs. Clinton has struggled to hit upon as simple and clear a rationale for her campaign. And, though she has issued the most detailed policy proposals and positions of anyone in the race, what she truly believes remains a mystery for many voters. Mrs. Clinton has praised Mr. Obama’s accomplishments over the past eight years, and won roughly 77 percent of the vote among blacks through the May 10 contests, according to exit polls. But she has also promised to push harder than Mr. Obama in extending citizenship to undocumented immigrants, opposed his signature trade deal, and outstripped his plans to defeat the Islamic State by calling for a zone in Syria. She has praised her husband’s economic record as president and offered to put him in charge of reviving some of the regions. But Mrs. Clinton has also had to repudiate crucial parts of her husband’s legacy. It has not helped that her campaign has cycled through a slogans, from championing “everyday Americans” to “fighting for us,” “breaking down barriers,” and, most recently, “stronger together” — playing on Mr. Trump’s more divisive remarks about Mexicans, Muslims and other groups. As Mr. Sanders has demonized Wall Street and Mr. Trump has disparaged immigrants, and as they have vowed to reverse economic malaise, Mrs. Clinton has run on a flinty practicality. The most telling promise she has made is that she will not overpromise. “We don’t need any more of that,” she has told voters. But what she has lacked in rhetorical brio, she has made up for by listening to people’s problems and prescribing solutions. She has shed tears in conversations with a man whose mother had Alzheimer’s and a woman who lost a child to a gun accident. And she has shown a vulnerability she did not reveal in 2008, when she campaigned as a strong commander in chief, seeking to neutralize any doubts about whether she was tough enough for the Oval Office. “I am not a natural politician, in case you haven’t noticed, like my husband or President Obama,” Mrs. Clinton said in one of her debates with Mr. Sanders, a bracingly honest statement. To her supporters, there may be a kind of strange logic at work. Mrs. Clinton is somehow expected to project the mettle of a commander in chief, the charisma of a drinking buddy, the warmth of a favorite aunt, they say. “You’re required to be and smiley and also required to grow a hide like an elephant,” said Tina Brown, the journalist. “Which is it?” An impossible combination, they complain — and if she managed all that, there would no doubt emerge some other vital quality that she was failing to display, because there is no template yet for a female United States president. “People are so undecided about how they feel about female leadership, and it’s something people really struggle with,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York. “The ambiguity about Hillary is outside of her. It comes from people’s own perspectives. ” Attitudes about female leadership eventually may change, of course. And in talking to reporters on Monday, hours before reports that she had clinched the nomination, Mrs. Clinton looked past November to a time when female presidential candidates may not require quite so much durability to have a shot at the White House. “It’s predominantly women and girls, but not exclusively — men bring their daughters to meet me and tell me that they are supporting me because of their daughters,” she said. “And I do think it will make a very big difference for a father or a mother to be able to look at their daughter just like they can look at their son and say, ‘You can be anything you want to be in this country, including president of the United States. ’” | 0fake |
Campaign urges U.S. public pension funds to divest from owner of Trump hotel | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Advocacy groups launched petitions and sent letters on Wednesday urging two of the biggest U.S. public pension funds to divest from an investment fund unless it stops paying one of President Donald Trump’s companies to run a New York hotel. Reuters reported on April 26 that public pension funds in at least seven U.S. states periodically send millions of dollars to an investment fund that owns the upscale Trump SoHo Hotel and Condominium in New York City and pays a Trump company to run it, according to a Reuters review of public records. Two legal advocacy groups sent petitions to half a million of their members and letters urging state officials who oversee the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the New York State Common Retirement Fund to reconsider their investments in CIM Fund III, which owns the Trump SoHo. “The money used for this investment comes from mandatory deductions from the paychecks of public employees. These employees are thus forced to indirectly subsidize President Trump beyond the Constitution’s mandate of a fixed salary,” said the letters from Free Speech for People in Newton, Massachusetts, and Courage Campaign in Los Angeles. Article II of the U.S. Constitution bars the president from receiving additional payments beyond his salary from state governments. The fees that public pension funds pay CIM may fall into that category, several constitutional lawyers have told Reuters. The White House in June rejected the allegation that government payments to Trump’s businesses violated the Constitution and said “partisan politics” had motivated lawsuits challenging Trump’s continued ownership of his businesses. The advocacy groups urged the pension funds either to divest from the CIM fund or work with other investors to demand that CIM end its relationship with the Trump Organization. CalPERS declined to comment, but CalPERS officials disclosed in response to a public records request that the pension fund paid CIM $1,722,418 in management fees for the first three months of 2017. In a statement, a spokesman for New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli noted that the CIM fund was in the process of gradually selling off the properties it owns and said the New York state pension fund “has limited rights as an investor and does not make or control CIM’s investment choices.” CIM said in a statement that it “is committed to creating attractive investment opportunities for its investors and then overseeing those investments to produce the best outcomes possible for the funds it manages.” It added that the Trump SoHo was underperforming and said it was “working hard to restore its performance before we bring it to market.” The White House and the Trump Organization did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Democratic officials and lawmakers have also raised concerns over the payment chain between the public pension funds and the Trump SoHo. The public pension funds’ investments in CIM Fund III were cited in a June lawsuit that the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia filed against Trump, alleging that government payments to his businesses violated the Constitution. In May, the top Democrat on the Senate committee overseeing pensions asked the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to assess the constitutionality of the payments. The office said it was not authorized to probe presidential actions. | 0fake |
Taliban Chief Targeted by Drone Strike in Pakistan, Signaling a U.S. Shift - The New York Times | KABUL, Afghanistan — After months of failed Pakistani efforts to broker peace talks with the Taliban, an American drone strike against the leader of the Afghan militants signaled a major break with precedent as the United States circumvented Pakistan in an effort to disrupt the strengthening insurgency, officials said on Sunday. The Afghan intelligence agency said Sunday that the Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, had been killed in the strike in the restive Pakistani province of Baluchistan. The United States announced the strike Saturday but could not confirm that Mullah Mansour had been killed. Although there was still no official reaction from the main Taliban spokesman, some Taliban commanders on Sunday denied the reports, saying their leader was not in the area of the strike. Even if Mullah Mansour was not killed, the attack was significant, as it is believed to be the first American drone strike in Baluchistan, the de facto headquarters of the Afghan Taliban, after years of such attacks in other Pakistani and Afghan areas. The death of Mullah Mansour, who was consolidating his authority over a fracturing Taliban as the militants made major gains on the battlefield, would throw the insurgency into its second leadership crisis within a year. Still, it was unclear whether it could create any significant breathing space for the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani, which has struggled to bring the insurgency into negotiations. Even with no clear successor to Mullah Mansour, the issue of peace talks has long been seen as deeply unpopular among the Taliban’s most senior leadership. The strike in Baluchistan was also seen as a signal that the Obama administration was growing less patient with Pakistan’s failure to move strongly against the Taliban insurgency. While Pakistan’s powerful military establishment has quietly cooperated with the C. I. A. ’s campaign of drone strikes against Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban in the northwestern tribal areas, it has refused past requests from the spy agency to expand the drone flights into Baluchistan, former American officials said. The United States and the Afghan government have long pointed at the Taliban sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan, particularly in Baluchistan, as the main reason for the resilience of the insurgents despite a campaign against them that, at its peak, involved nearly 150, 000 international troops. But until the strike against Mullah Mansour on Saturday, consecutive administrations in Washington had resisted the temptation of going after Taliban sanctuaries out of fear of angering Pakistan. Instead, American officials focused on pressuring the Pakistani military to force the Taliban’s leadership into joining peace talks with the Afghan government. Pakistani officials were alerted to the attack against Mullah Mansour only after the strike, said a senior American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential operational details. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement Sunday denouncing the attack as a violation of the country’s sovereignty. The stance echoed Pakistan’s anger over the American raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Then, too, the United States informed Pakistan of the raid only after the fact. The Foreign Ministry said in the statement that a man carrying a Pakistani passport with the name Wali Muhammad, who entered from Iran on Saturday, had been targeted in the strike, along with his driver. It was not immediately clear if either was Mullah Mansour. American officials say President Obama authorized a strike against Mullah Mansour weeks ago as it became clear that the new leader of the Taliban had little interest in peace talks. Months of efforts involving Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States to initiate talks led nowhere, with Mullah Mansour only intensifying his attacks. The opportunity on Saturday, after a closer surveillance of his movements was activated, presented itself relatively quickly, in a matter of hours, and the military acted using the earlier White House authorization. It took the Afghan government until noon on Sunday to state that Mullah Mansour was dead. The Taliban brushed it aside as propaganda along the lines of similar claims in December. The Afghan government, at that time, said Mullah Mansour had been killed in fighting between rival Taliban factions, also in Baluchistan. “Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, the leader of the Taliban group, was killed around 3:45 p. m. yesterday as a result of an airstrike in Dalbandin area of Baluchistan Province in Pakistan,” the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, said in a statement. “He had been under close surveillance for a while, until his vehicle was struck and destroyed on the main road in the Dalbandin area. ” Mullah Hameedi, a top Taliban military commander in southern Afghanistan, confirmed a strike in the border area but denied that Mullah Mansour had been there. “We are going to persuade Mullah Mansour to publish his audio record to confirm he is alive,” he said. The United States did not offer confirmation of its own. “We are confident, but at this point we do not have indisputable facts that he is dead,” said Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, a spokesman for American forces in Afghanistan, said on Sunday. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking on Sunday in Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, was the first senior official to talk about the attack. He repeatedly referred to Mr. Mansour in the past tense. Asked if Pakistan had been kept in the dark about the operation until it was complete, Mr. Kerry would not say “when we communicated. ” But he indicated that he talked with Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani prime minister, on Sunday morning, after the strike was announced. “We have long said that Mansour posed an imminent threat to us and to Afghan civilians,” he said. “This action sends a clear message to the world that we will continue to work with our Afghan partners. ” Pakistan’s relatively muted reaction, similar to its standard protests against drone strikes by American forces, might be due to the fact that, according to Taliban commanders in recent months, Mullah Mansour had repeatedly resisted Pakistani officials’ pressure on him to join negotiations. “Mansour has not been cooperative in making progress on peace settlement discussions with Afghanistan,” said Seth Jones, an expert on Afghanistan at the RAND Corporation. “One red line for Pakistan has historically been a failure by Taliban operatives to accede to Pakistani priorities. ” Mullah Mansour rose to the Taliban leadership after the death of Mullah Omar in 2013 was revealed last summer. A former aviation minister lacking battlefield expertise, he ascended through the ranks of the insurgents gradually but was seen as a crucial figure in the Taliban’s regrouping after an initial defeat following the invasion in 2001. Once he rose to the movement’s No. 2 position, he began a campaign of sidelining rivals and creating a monopoly over resources and . After a very public leadership confirmation last summer in front of large gatherings of Taliban in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, Mullah Mansour had limited his movements, Afghan officials said. While the reason given to his subordinates was security — he narrowly missed an attempt on his life, attributed to dissidents within the Taliban ranks, in December — keeping the leader at a distance from the commanders followed a pattern that became routine under Mullah Omar. A persistent question over whether Mullah Mansour would strike a peace deal with the Afghan government was his deep involvement in narcotics, a trade that has prospered in insecurity. The United Nations, as well as the Afghan government, has described Mullah Mansour as resembling the leader of a cartel rather than an insurgency that has relied on religious justification for its long war. “Mullah Mansour was involved in smuggling and the mafia besides the leadership responsibility he had, which is why he was in favor of continuing the war to better run his businesses,” said Jawid Kohistani, an Afghan security and intelligence analyst. “That is why he wouldn’t cooperate for the calls for peace talks. ” When Mullah Omar’s death was revealed last summer, Mullah Mansour was a strong, though not unanimous, candidate for the job. But even as the Taliban under his leadership remained a formidable and violent force, Mullah Mansour struggled to unite the ranks. He quashed breakaway groups and sought to buy the support of other skeptical commanders, all while maintaining a publicity campaign that portrayed him as the head of a united command. Much remains unclear about the succession if he is dead. One leading candidate would be Sirajuddin Haqqani, one of Mullah Mansour’s most feared deputies, who has largely been running battlefield operations in recent months. While closely linked to Pakistan’s spy agency, Mr. Haqqani would struggle to gain the support of the wider Taliban as his small but lethal network has only in recent months fully integrated into the larger insurgency. Whether or not Mullah Mansour resurfaces as he did the last time he was reported killed, the United States’ expansion of its drone campaign into Baluchistan suggests “that the U. S. is losing patience with the promises of Pakistan,” said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington. “The Taliban insurgency will probably continue, but Pakistan has another chance to dissociate itself from backing the greatest threat to Afghan stability,” Mr. Haqqani said. | 0fake |
State Department to resume briefings in March after six-week hiatus | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department will resume news briefings the week of March 6, a spokesman said on Friday, breaking a silence under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that had caused consternation among American diplomats and contributed to confusion abroad about U.S. positions on key issues. The briefings, which in the past were televised and held daily, are watched closely by U.S. allies and adversaries for signals on American positions on major international crises and developments around the world. But they have been halted ever since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, a move that is unprecedented in at least the last three inter-party presidential transitions, according to online archives of briefing transcripts. The last televised news briefing at the State Department was held on Jan. 19, the last full day of Barack Obama’s presidency. The question-and-answer sessions allow reporters to press spokespeople on the nuances of U.S. foreign policy and the actions of diplomats abroad. “The Department will host press briefings beginning the week of March 6,” said Mark Toner, the State Department’s acting spokesman. “We continue to be responsive to media queries and breaking news on an ongoing basis.” Toner did not say if the briefings would be held every day, or if they would all be televised. In a statement earlier this week, Toner said the briefings might be made available to reporters outside Washington via remote video. Top officials in the Trump administration - including Vice President Mike Pence, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, Homeland Security chief John Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and Tillerson - have at times made conflicting or diverging statements from Trump himself on issues including U.S. support for the NATO alliance, support for the two-state solution to conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, attitudes toward the news media, and the role of the U.S. military in immigration operations. The diverging messages have raised questions in foreign capitals over who actually speaks for the Trump administration and which policies it will pursue. The silence from the State Department during the tumultuous first month of Trump’s presidency has also raised fears among current and former American diplomats that the department is being sidelined and is less able to help shape U.S. foreign policy. | 0fake |
WATCH: Bernie Sanders SCORCHES Trump For Abandoning Working Class To Help Wall Street | Donald Trump supporters who struggle to earn a paycheck continue to get screwed over and Bernie Sanders called Trump out for it on Sunday.On Friday, Trump met with Wall Street bankers and promised that he will gut Dodd-Frank regulations that prevent them from screwing over their customers. Specifically, Trump admitted that he is only interested in helping his rich friends instead of sticking to his promise to help the working class Americans who voted for him. We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank, because frankly I have so many people, friends of mine, that have nice businesses and they can t borrow money. They just can t get any money because the banks just won t let them borrow because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank. So we ll be talking about that in terms of the banking industry. Furthermore, Trump has stacked his administration with former Goldman Sachs employees despite criticizing Hillary Clinton throughout his campaign for her ties to the big Wall Street bank.On Sunday, Senator Bernie Sanders did not mince words as he called out Trump for being a fraud. It is hard not to laugh to see President Trump alongside these Wall Street guys, Sanders said on CNN with Jake Tapper. I have to say this, Jake, and I don t mean to be disrespectful. This guy is a fraud. Sander s reminded Tapper and viewers that Trump ran his campaign by promising to fight Wall Street. This guy ran for president of the United States and said, I, Donald Trump, I m going to take on Wall Street, these guys are getting away with murder. And then suddenly he appoints all these Wall Street billionaires, his major financial adviser comes from Goldman Sachs and now he s going to dismantle legislation that protects consumers. Indeed, Trump claimed during his campaign that he would be tough on Wall Street and would seek to restore laws that were passed after the Great Depression, like Glass-Steagall, that placed regulations on the financial sector designed to prevent the kind of banking practices that caused it in the first place and would also cause the Great Recession in 2008.Sanders also slammed Trump for appointing people who want to destroy Medicare and Social Security despite promising that he would protect both programs. This is a guy who ran for president, saying, I m not going to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Sanders said. And then he appoints all of these guys who are precisely going to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. In the end, while Sanders conceded that Trump put on a good show to dupe voters, I think he s going to sell out the middle class and the working class of this country. Here s the video via YouTube.Donald Trump does not care about the American people. He only cares about himself and his wealthy buddies. He s a hypocrite for palling around with Goldman Sachs executives and is a liar for making promises to his middle class supporters that he clearly had absolutely no intention of keeping. How many times do his supporters need to get duped before they turn against him?Featured image via Flickr/Flickr | 1real |
Abortion gaffes show Trump is the left-wing caricature of a conservative | In the wake of Donald Trump’s abortion gaffes, it should finally be clear that Trump is not a real conservative — he is the liberal caricature of a conservative.
In his now infamous interview with Chris Matthews, Trump not only declared that if abortion became illegal women who have abortions should face “some form of punishment,” but also asserted that “conservatives, Republicans would say, yes they should be punished.”
No, they would not.
This is not something a real pro-life conservative would say; it is something a liberal pretending to be a pro-life conservative would say.
Anyone remotely familiar with the pro-life cause knows that its advocates don’t want to punish women. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, explains that the focus of laws restricting abortion “is on protection, not punishment. Women were not punished by the legal system before 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision and there is absolutely no drive to punish her now.” As Mother Teresa famously put it, “Abortion is profoundly anti-women. Three quarters of its victims are women: Half the babies and all the mothers.”
Trump does not understand this, because he is deeply unfamiliar with what motivates pro-life Americans. The goal of the pro-life movement is to create a “culture of life” that upholds the dignity of every human person from conception to natural death. The objective is not punishment; it is to protect both mother and child.
Since Trump does not actually understand what pro-life conservatives truly believe, he mindlessly echoes the liberal caricature of pro-life conservatives. He mistakenly thinks this is what these conservatives want to hear. They don’t. This is, however, what liberals want to hear. They want a Republican candidate who feeds their false “war on women” narrative. They want to run against the caricature of the pro-life position, because the caricature is ugly. And Trump is giving them precisely what they want.
If that were not bad enough, Trump then went on to compound his problems by reversing himself. In an interview with John Dickerson on “Face the Nation,” Trump said that he would not change the law to protect innocent unborn life, declaring that “the laws are set. . . . At this moment, the laws are set. And I think we have to leave it that way.”
Leave it that way? This is something no pro-life conservative would say. It’s not even something a liberal pretending to be a pro-life conservative would say.
It’s something Hillary Clinton would say.
Trump then twice declined to answer when asked whether he thought abortion is murder, saying “I’d rather not comment on it” and “I just don’t think it’s an appropriate forum” before finally, on the third try, grudgingly saying “I don’t disagree.” Quite the profile in pro-life courage.
Trump likes to say he is a convert to the pro-life cause, just like Ronald Reagan. But Reagan would never have said that laws allowing abortion on demand should not be changed. As president, Reagan supported the “Human Life Bill,” which would have recognized the unborn as human beings and protected them as persons under our Constitution. Reagan would also never have said that women should be punished for having abortions. In his 1983 essay for the Human Life Review, “Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation,” Reagan declared: “We should not rest until our entire society echoes the tone of John Powell in the dedication of his book, ‘Abortion: The Silent Holocaust,’ a dedication to every woman carrying an unwanted child: ‘Please believe that you are not alone. There are many of us that truly love you, who want to stand at your side, and help in any way we can.’ ”
Much like when Trump referred to “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians,” his comments on abortion are a “tell” demonstrating that he does not possess a basic understanding of the first principles that animate conservative thought on the sanctity of life.
So let’s stop the charade. When it comes to the issue of life, Donald Trump is a caricature, not a conservative.
Read more from Marc Thiessen’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. | 0fake |
Cruise Ship From Miami Docks in Cuba, Ending Decades-Old Freeze - The New York Times | MEXICO CITY — The first cruise ship in nearly 40 years to sail across the Florida Straits from Miami to Havana docked in the Cuban capital on Monday, cutting a ribbon of water that for years was a symbol of the political gulf between the two countries. Hundreds of Cubans stood near the dock and on Havana’s sea wall, snapping pictures with smartphones and filming the arrival of the ship, Adonia, which arrived in the port after crossing overnight from Miami. The ship is operated by Fathom Travel, a unit of Carnival Corporation. Isabel Buznego, a passenger aboard the cruise, was born in Cuba but left about 40 years ago, when she was 5. She said she was overcome with emotion when she first spotted the fortifications that protect Havana’s bay. “That really got to me,” Ms. Buznego said. The ship’s arrival on Monday caused a stir among the locals, too: So thick was the crowd as the American passengers disembarked that a passing tourist asked, “Who’s the celebrity?” The cruise was the latest stage in the surge of American travel to the island since President Obama announced the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba in December 2014. The arrival of a ship from Florida recalls the heady days before Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, when the island was a tropical getaway for Americans, and Cubans could board a ship in Havana and be in Miami within hours. Commercial sea traffic all but dried up when the United States broke off diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba in the early 1960s. The Florida Straits became a treacherous barrier that tens of thousands of desperate Cubans crossed, or drowned trying to cross, on rafts and leaky vessels. Plans for the cruise ran into trouble in April after it emerged that it would exclude passengers because they were barred by the Cuban government from entering the country by sea. That prompted a furor in Miami and Washington, and the Cuban government lifted the restriction. Robert L. Muse, a lawyer in Washington who specializes in laws related to Cuba, said the Cuban government’s concession was probably driven by diplomatic considerations, not because it was concerned about lost tourism dollars. “If it were purely about the money, they wouldn’t have backed down,” Mr. Muse said. With Washington eager for the détente to produce more commercial deals, the Cubans conceded “to keep the dialogue afloat,” he said. The last time an American cruise ship sailed to Cuba from the United States was in the late 1970s, during a brief thaw begun by President Jimmy Carter. Since the 2014 announcement of restored relations, several ferry and cruise companies have applied to the Treasury Department for licenses to carry American passengers to Cuba. So far, only Carnival and a French company, Ponant, have reported receiving a license to offer cruises to Cuba from American ports. The Treasury Department has issued a general license to American ferry operators, but they have yet to get permission from the Cuban authorities. For Cubans, the possibility of regular sea crossings to the United States brings the prospect of closer ties with their expatriate friends and relatives living there. Antonio Serrano, 53, a hospital worker who was watching the Adonia passengers arrive in Old Havana on Monday, said he was there to show returning Cubans that his “solidarity is strong. ” | 0fake |
BOOM! Danish Government Considers Seizing Migrant’s Valuables To Pay For Benefits | Is the European gravy train finally coming to an end?The Danish parliament is considering a bill to seize migrants valuables to pay for their benefits.The leftists are very upset about this commonsense legislation. Daily Sabah reported:A controversial Danish bill to seize migrants valuables to pay for their stay in asylum centers looks set to pass in parliament after the government on Tuesday secured a parliamentary majority.Parliament was set to begin a series of debates on the bill yesterday, ahead of a vote on Jan. 26. Faced with a storm of criticism, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, whose right-wing Venstre party is behind the plan, called it the most misunderstood bill in Denmark s history. His minority government and its right-wing allies, the far-right Danish People s Party (DPP), the Liberal Alliance and the Conservative People s Party, reached an agreement on the bill on Tuesday with the opposition Social Democrats, meaning it is now supported by a majority of parties in parliament.The amended bill would allow Danish authorities to seize migrants cash exceeding 10,000 kroner ($1,450), as well as any individual items valued at more than 10,000 kroner.Via: Gateway Pundit | 1real |
[VIDEO] CHRIS MATTHEWS IS “ASTOUNDED” WHEN CARLY FIORINA SCHOOLS HIM ON WHY HILLARY IS A “LIAR” | We re still wondering how Carly Fiorina was relegated to the happy hour debate while Gov. Kasich (and a few others we won t mention) were standing on the stage during the prime time debate Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina shut down MSNBC host Chris Matthews Thursday over her criticism of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton during the first GOP debate.Matthews took issue with Fiorina calling Clinton a liar in her closing statement, but Fiorina shot back that Clinton lied about Benghazi, the Middle East, and her private email server. First, I was very specific about the subjects about which I think she has lied. I didn t say she lied about everything, Fiorina said. I was very specific, very fact-based, actually. You are the one who has made a generalized comment now about her, not me. Matthews tried to interrupt the only female Republican candidate, but Fiorina spoke over him and explained why she thought Clinton lied. She then made her case why Clinton should fear debating her. I will debate her on the issues facing this nation, she said. I will debate her on her positions. I will ask her, for example, how she can possibly continue to defend Planned Parenthood. I will ask her why she continues to say she is a champion of the middle class while every single proposal she has put forward makes crony capitalism worse and worse and worse [and] makes income inequality worse. I would ask her why she declared victory in Iraq in 2011, why she called Bashar al-Assad a positive reformer, why she thought she could stop Putin s ambition, a man I have met, with a gimmicky red reset button. I will ask her why she got every policy wrong as secretary of state. That s how I ll debate her, on the issues. After their exchange, Matthews had only one thing to say to Fiorina, who was praised by the Washington Post as the first debate s winner. I see why you stood out tonight, he said.Via: WFB | 1real |
FOUL-MOUTHED MODEL Chrissy Teigen Blames President Trump For Mental And Physical Breakdown…Makes Hilarious Demands Of Him [VIDEO] | The 31-year old model, new mother and wife of Trump- hater, singer John Legend has been trashing President Trump on Twitter for quite some time. She reached a new low yesterday when she blamed him for her mental state and suggested he should be held financially responsible for her looks falling apart so fucking tired of this manically insane, incompetent president and this dumpster fire administration I'm gonna have to go on another med christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) May 4, 2017that is not a joke. I think I need to either up my dosage or talk to my doctor to "see what works for me" when the world explodes. christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) May 4, 2017Teigen blames Trump for having a tooth shaved down due to grinding of her teeth. Today I had a tooth shaved down because crippling anxiety makes me grind and rock my teeth on one side. I blame trump. christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) May 4, 2017Who knew Hollywood Trump haters would suddenly need Botox injected into their faces because of Trump. The best part is that Teigen not only blames Trump for Botox injections, but would also like him to pay for them.I also had Botox in my jaw muscle to relieve tension from constantly clinching. I was not like this before. Pay my bill, POS POTUS christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) May 4, 2017Watch Chrissy Teigen and her husband singer John Legend trash Donald Trump and brag about how long she s hated him: | 1real |
Rand Paul: With Ryan’s Obamacare Lite Premiums Will Continue to Rise - Breitbart | Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” while discussing the Republicans the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act dubbed Obamacare, Sen. Rand Paul ( ) said Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s ( ) proposal was “Obamacare lite” and that will cause premiums to continue to rise. Paul said, “I think it is basically Obamacare light. It keeps the subsidies, keeps the taxings for a year, then keeps the Cadillac tax forever, the tax on good insurance. It keeps the individual mandate, interestingly, Republicans have complained for years and we didn’t like the government was going to make you pay a meant, well now instead of paying the penalty to the government you pay the meant to the insurance industry. There is also in the insurance industries, the one primary thing that is wrong with Obamacare, this is what everybody, is that premiums are rising and — through the roof, soaring in the individual market. That will happen under the Ryan plan as well because it does nothing to fix the fundamental problem. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
Trump says he's sure Senator Paul will back Republican health plan | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Tuesday that he believes Republican Senator Rand Paul, a vocal critic of the Republican healthcare plan, will change his mind and support the proposal. “I feel sure that my friend @RandPaul will come along with the new and great health care program because he knows Obamacare is a disaster!” Trump tweeted. | 0fake |
Study Shows Democrats Are Better Drivers For This SHOCKING Reason (DETAILS) | You don t have to look beyond Washington to prove what we ve known for decades, Democrats are simply better people. Democratic policies actually help people while Republican policies help themselves and corporations.Beyond Washington, though, it s been proven that Democrats make better neighbors:Democrats are more likely to offer assistance to other members of their community: over the course of a year, they are more likely than Republicans to talk with someone who is severely depressed; help a friend or neighbor find a job; or help friends, neighbors, or family members with homework. I also noted a series of differences albeit not statistically significant ones showing that Democrats more frequently loan dishes or tools to their neighbors, help strangers carry their belongings, offer up their seat on a train or bus, allow strangers to cut ahead of them in line, and give food or money directly to someone in need.Democrats are also smarter and more rational:So for liberals to make a case for an idea or cause, they come armed with data, research studies, and experts. They are convinced of an idea if all the data checks out basically they assign meaning and value to ideas that fit within the scientific method, because that s their primary thinking style. Emotion doesn t play as big of a role in validation. Not to say that liberals are unfeeling, but just more likely to set emotion aside when judging an idea initially, and factor it in later. Checks out scientifically = valuable. Liberals can get just as emotionally attached to an idea, but it s usually not the primary trigger for acceptance of an idea.Conservatives would be less likely to assign value primarily using the scientific method. Remember, their thinking style leads primarily with emotion. In order for them to find an idea valuable, it has to be meaningful for them personally. It needs to trigger empathy. Meaning, they need some kind of emotional attachment to it, such as family, or a group of individuals they are close to in some way.None of that should be terribly surprising, especially if you ve ever encountered conservatives on Facebook, and we ve all encountered conservatives on Facebook. What is surprising, though, is this study, which says we re better drivers, or at least in blue states, there are a lot fewer traffic fatalities.In all, the 14 states with the highest fatality rates went into the red column, supporting Trump. In contrast, the 12 states with the lowest fatality rates were blues that favored Clinton. In these calculations, fatality rates were determined by counting the number of road deaths in 2015 per every 100,000 people.This isn t as weird as you might think. Republicans tend to thumb their noses at constraints to their freedoms. They can t drive 55. They also tend to live in less populated areas, whereas Democrats live in areas that have a lot of traffic. Nothing slows people down faster than 1000s of brake lights ahead of them. There s more though:Another likely factor behind high fatality rates in red rural states is that their residents tend to be poorer. As a result, Their cars are probably in worse repair. There can be a missing light in the back, or the clutch goes out, said sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of the 2016 book Strangers In Their Own Land, which explored views of conservatives in red state Louisiana.Hochschild also said a kind of cowboy mentality, a kind of deregulatory, anything goes culture exists in red states might lead to more reckless driving.They are also less likely to wear seat belts (that damn gubmint, telling people what to do).Really, though, this is just a metaphor Republicans in general. Republicans are reckless and don t give a crap about the safety of anyone who might get in their way. It s how the Republican Congress is run and it s how the roads in red states are run.Featured image via Wikimedia | 1real |
Foods Loaded With Sugar, Salt and Fat? Bring It - The New York Times | BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Dark chocolate is in. So, too, is beef jerky. And ice cream? You bet. Driven by definitions of what is healthy to eat, people are turning to foods they shunned just a couple of years ago. Studies now suggest that not all fat, for example, necessarily contributes to weight gain or heart problems. That has left companies scrambling to push some foods that they thought had long passed their popularity peak — and health advocates wondering what went wrong. Under the new thinking, not all fat is bad, and neither are all salty foods. A stigma among the public remains for sugar substitutes, but less so for cane sugar, at least in moderation. And all of those attributes are weighed against qualities like simplicity and taste. “I think the equation has changed,” said Steve French, a managing partner at the Natural Marketing Institute, a research firm, said. Edy’s ice cream, known as Dreyer’s west of the Rockies, is a case in point. Edy’s sold 10. 8 percent more of its Edy’s Grand Ice Cream, a ice cream, in the 52 weeks that ended Feb. 21 compared with the year before, according to IRI, a data and research firm. Other ice creams also had sales gains. Over the same period, Edy’s sold 4. 8 percent less of its Ice Cream, made with a process that lowers the fat content. When the product was introduced in 2004, it was promoted as having less fat and fewer calories — and sales soared. Now, that sort of marketing is gone. Instead, the company has retooled some of its products to make them with fewer ingredients and to include cane sugar rather than corn syrup, which many consumers don’t like. Labels on those ice creams will also tell consumers that they contain no genetically engineered ingredients. The devil, of course, is in the details of those new scientific findings. None of the new studies, for instance, recommend eating as much bacon as you want. “The new definition of modern health is very different from the traditional view, which was to reduce fat, sugar and sodium,” said Robert Kilmer, president of Nestlé Dreyer’s Ice Cream, a division of Nestlé USA. “Healthy now is about what’s in my food and where did it come from. ” Food companies have been working feverishly over the last several years to offer what consumers perceive as improved nutritional content and healthier food. Sales of products made from organic ingredients have risen sharply in recent years, for example. Mars Food, a division of the privately held Mars candy company whose brands include Uncle Ben’s and Dolmio, reduced sodium by over 20 percent in many of its products and recently announced a plan to go even further. And General Mills is eliminating artificial colors and flavors from its cereals — no more neon hues in Trix. But consumers are constantly recalculating the pros and cons of the foods they eat — leading to some unexpected foods rising in popularity. For example, in 2015, Americans checked the fat content on food labels less often than they did in 2006, according to research from the Natural Marketing Institute. They’re focusing more on the list of ingredients, a product’s environmental impact and animal welfare — the famous “Farm” episode in “Portlandia” in which a waitress can tell diners the name of the chicken they’ll be eating remains relevant five years after it was first shown. And don’t forget about taste. A majority of Americans say they value taste more than how healthy a food is. This can be frustrating for food executives, who spent years getting salt, sugar and fat out of a wide variety of products, paying high costs in development and marketing along the way. Michael Sharp, the research scientist at Nestlé who has presided over the reformulation of its ice creams, noted that all of the ingredients he is working to eliminate today were originally added to the product for good reasons. “The ingredients we’ve subtracted either had some functionality on their own or improved the functionality of other ingredients,” Mr. Sharp said. “Corn syrup adds a lot of body and bulk to a product — but the consumer doesn’t want it today. ” Nutrition experts are watching the shift warily. Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a research and advocacy group, noted that companies have gone a long way toward reducing or eliminating saturated fats, which raise cholesterol in the blood and increase the risk of heart disease. The American Heart Association and other health advocacy groups have long recommended limiting consumption of saturated fat. But in recent years, studies have suggested that maybe saturated fat is not as bad as once thought. One analysis of research on saturated fats, which generated some criticism, blurred the link between it and heart disease. Another study concluded that skim milk did not appear to restrict weight gain among young children. That rethinking seems to have encouraged some consumers to return to foods. Edy’s French Vanilla Grand ice cream, for example, has four grams of saturated fat in every . A of the same flavor in its variety, the recently less popular option, has 1. 5 grams of saturated fat. Similarly, the public appears to have been persuaded by some evidence that eating dark chocolate is good for the heart. Technavio, a market research firm, predicted that sales would increase an average of more than 8 percent a year through 2019. But the federal government also recommends a limit on total fat consumption — the combination of bad and good fats. An bar of Ghirardelli 72% Intense Dark chocolate supplies more than the government’s daily recommendation for saturated fat and more than of the recommendation for total fat. “There are recommended limits on total fat that I think have sort of gotten lost in the marketing,” Ms. Wootan said. “There’s nothing in science that tells you it’s healthy to eat as much fat as you want, just as long as it’s not saturated fat. ” Another sore point among nutritionists is the rising sales of jerky, once regarded as little more than a sodium delivery mechanism. Now, as consumers clamor for foods high in protein, jerky has become a popular option. One ounce delivers about a quarter of the daily recommended amount of protein and costs roughly $2. 50. Sales of meat snacks like jerky shot up 46. 9 percent from 2011 to 2015, to more than $2. 6 billion, according to Nielsen, a market research firm. “Jerky is manly, jerky is kind of rednecky and jerky can even be kind of offensive if people don’t know what it is,” said Troy Link, chief executive of Link Snacks, a snack food business. “So we changed things up and began calling it a protein snack, and now jerky is being eaten by health eaters who haven’t been involved in the category before. ” Link Snacks’ most popular product, Jack Link’s Teriyaki Beef Jerky, delivers 12 grams of protein and just 80 calories in a serving — and the daily recommended amount of sodium. Mr. Link said the company had worked to reduce the sodium in its products, along with getting rid of monosodium glutamate and nitrites. “For the most part, sodium has become good again, and I think certain fats have become good again, too,” he said. “At the end of the day,” he said, “people want something that tastes good. ” | 0fake |
Paul Manafort resigns from Trump campaign | Donald Trump’s outspoken campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, resigned Friday -- days after he was pushed aside for conservative media executive Steven Bannon -- and also amid growing speculation about his ties to Ukrainian politics.
“This morning Paul Manafort offered, and I accepted, his resignation from the campaign,” Trump said in a written statement to FoxNews.com. “I am very appreciative for his great work in helping to get us where we are today, and in particular his work guiding us through the delegate and convention process. Paul is a true professional and I wish him the greatest success.”
Manafort, who as a 26-year-old Republican operative, helped manage the 1976 convention floor for Gerald Ford in his successful showdown with Ronald Reagan, drew praise for steering the campaign through the final weeks of the primary process and the convention.
But he came under fire following a New York Times article over the weekend claimed handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments to him from ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian party between 2007 and 2012.
The document was found by investigators from Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators reportedly say the payment was part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.
Manafort strongly denied receiving any such off-the-book payments – calling the accusation “unfounded, silly and nonsensical” – and denied ever doing work for the government of Ukraine and Russia. He has worked on political campaigns there but maintains they were not government-sanctioned.
Those close to Trump praised Manafort, but did not dismiss a possible connection between his ouster and the Ukrainian controversy.
"I think my father didn’t want to be, you know, distracted by whatever things Paul was dealing with," Eric Trump, told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo in an interview airing on "Sunday Morning Futures."
Earlier this week, the campaign announced that Breitbart head Steven Bannon was being brought on as CEO, and GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway as campaign manager. While Team Trump initially insisted the new team members would work with Manafort, many predicted his days were numbered.
Sources told Fox News brinbging in Conway was the idea of Manafort, who believed she could help him get the developer to stay on script and avoid verbal gaffes. But bringing on Bannon was Trump's idea, the source said.
A source familiar with Manafort's thinking said the 66-year-old stepped down so that "Trump could stay focused on the campaign." He will "continue to work from the outside," helping with coordination in Washington, the source said.
It’s the latest shakeup for the Trump campaign, which canned campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on June 20, after the pugnacious former cop had a confrontation with a Breitbart reporter. The ouster of Lewandowski was seen as a victory in a behind-the-scenes power struggle for Manafort, who was brought on board in March largely for his convention and delegate wrangling experience.
Where Manafort at times expressed a desired to modulate Trump’s bombast, the brash Bannon has signaled he wants to “Trump to be Trump.”
After praising Manafort for helping his father's campaign through the tough primaries, Eric Trump ladded, "But again, my father just didn’t want to have the distraction looming over the campaign and quite frankly looming over all the issues that Hillary’s facing right now."
Manafort’s deputy, Richard Gates, is also on the outs. He now moves to the new role of campaign liaison to the RNC. | 0fake |
‘Suicide Squad’ Tops Box Office for Second Weekend - The New York Times | LOS ANGELES — anthropomorphic food. Meryl Streep as a clueless opera singer. A furry, folksy Disney dragon. Bank robbers in West Texas. It was a weekend of unusually new offerings at North American theaters, and it worked out well for Hollywood — for the most part. As expected, “Suicide Squad” (Warner) led the box office pack for a second weekend, taking in an estimated $43. 8 million, for a new domestic total of $222. 9 million, according to comScore. But the film also dropping 67 percent weekend to weekend, as its Rotten Tomatoes grade from critics caught up to it and the fanboy audience turned toward the animated “Sausage Party. ” Backed by a crackerjack marketing campaign, “Sausage Party” (Sony) collected about $33. 6 million, beating the prerelease expectations of some box office analysts and proving once again that audiences respond to original concepts. “Sausage Party,” with character voices provided by Seth Rogen and Kristen Wiig, was also relatively cheap: Sony and Annapurna Pictures split the $19 million in production expenses. “Pete’s Dragon” (Disney) was third. Ticket sales totaled $21. 5 million, a bit less than anticipated. This remake charmed most critics, but its crowd appeal was limited. Disney said on Sunday that 33 percent of the audience was under the age of 12. “Pete’s Dragon” cost about $65 million to make. Playing in less than half as many theaters, the Meryl Streep vehicle “Florence Foster Jenkins” (Paramount) began its run with $6. 6 million in ticket sales, on par with expectations for a period film aimed at older women. (Paramount said on Sunday that 97 percent of the audience was over the age of 25.) While Ms. Streep has lost some of her box office sizzle in recent years, she continues to be adored by critics, receiving strong enough reviews in this modestly budgeted film to spark early awards buzz. Also of note: “Hell or High Water” (Lionsgate and CBS Films) a $12 million Texas heist thriller that has received euphoric reviews and stars Jeff Bridges, began a slow, rollout, arriving in 32 theaters and collecting $592, 000, for a hefty average of $18, 500. | 0fake |
Jazz y Chistes: Toto Maigenys – I’ll Remember April | Jazz y Chistes #05: Muerte en otoño EL MUNDO TODAY PODCASTS Este sitio web utiliza cookies para analizar cómo es utilizado el sitio. Las cookies no te pueden identificar. Si continuas navegando supone la aceptación de la Política de Cookies. Estoy de acuerdo. Más info. | 1real |
5-YR OLD CHRISTIAN GIRL Forced To Live With Non-English Speaking Devout Muslims…Tells Her Christmas and Easter Are Stupid…Takes Away Her Crucifix | A white five-year-old girl told her mother Christmas and Easter are stupid and European women are alcoholics after being fostered to two Muslim families, it was claimed today.The child, who is a native English speaker, also refused to take back her favorite meal spaghetti carbonara because it contained bacon which Muslims do not eat.The child, who is a native English speaker, spent the past six months in two Muslim households after being placed into foster care in Tower Hamlets, east London.She was forced to live in Muslim foster homes where nobody spoke English and her carers took away her Christian cross and encouraged her to learn Arabic, according to The Times.Local authority reports describe how the little girl sobbed and begged not to be returned to her niqab-wearing carer s home, telling a social worker: They don t speak English. The reports detail how the child was very distressed and claimed the foster carer had removed her Christian cross and encouraged her to learn Arabic.The two placements were made by the scandal-hit Tower Hamlets borough council against the wishes of the girl s family.Local authorities are required to give due consideration to a child s religion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background when placing them into a foster home.The girl s mother is said to be horrified by the circumstances her daughter has been placed in.A friend told the newspaper: This is a five-year-old white girl. She was born in this country, speaks English as her first language, loves football, holds a British passport and was christened in a church. She s already suffered the huge trauma of being forcibly separated from her family. She needs surroundings in which she ll feel secure. Instead, she s trapped in a world where everything feels foreign and unfamiliar. That s really scary for a young child. Daily Mail | 1real |
LOL! THE BOSTON GLOBE Gets DESTROYED On Social Media After Publishing Article Criticizing Mitt Romney For Waterskiing During Health Care Vote | More manufactured news that exposes the hate our leftist media has for Republicans Even for those who haven t been in office in years.The Boston Globe set heads scratching Tuesday after the newspaper published a story on former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney s whereabouts during the Senate health care vote.The former Massachusetts governor is now a private citizen removed from the debate to repeal and replace Obamacare. But the Globe wrote a story highlighting Romney s daughter-in-law s Instagram post showing he was jetskiing at the time. While the Senate debated health care, Mitt Romney was waterskiing, read the original headline, which was later updated to read, Romney, long out of the political fray, takes to the water. It s been a contentious week in Washington, the Globe wrote. One Republican who appears to be unbothered by all the political tumult? That would be Mitt Romney. The piece, which appeared to criticized Romney for ignoring a debate that had nothing to do with him, earned Internet scorn. WFBAfter The Boston Globe got destroyed on social media, they changed their headline to this: Romney, long out of the political fray, takes to the water Guys.I found it. The dumbest story of all time. https://t.co/Y21anJWocP Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) July 26, 2017uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what was he supposed to be doing? I my dead gay son (@bennnnnnewsome) July 26, 2017Twitter user @hale_razor likened The Boston Globe s idiotic question to asking where Bill Belicheck was during the vote?And Belichick was watching game film. What's your point. Razor (@hale_razor) July 26, 2017Twitter user @bennnnnnnewsome asked what Romney was supposed to be doing during the health care vote. He also reminded The Boston Globe that Mitt Romney is not part of the US Senate with his second tweet:like, he doesn't work there, right? I my dead gay son (@bennnnnnewsome) July 26, 2017This Twitter user @OlegZeltser referred to The Boston Globe as a fish rag or a wrapper for dead fish, and reminded them of their hypocrisy for ignoring Obama s never-ending vacations while he was actually serving as our president:https://twitter.com/OlegZeltser/status/890194766859821056For anyone who doesn t know, the Romney family grew up spending their summers on the water in Canada. Mitt Romney is actually a pretty darn good water-skier. Here s a video of Romney slalom-skiing when he was governor of Massachusetts: | 1real |
WATCH: Reliable Sources Explains ‘Trumpbart’ And How It Will Shape The Election (VIDEO) | Steve Bannon, Donald Trump s new campaign CEO, is the former chairman of the radical alt-right media company Breitbart. On Sunday, Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter and former Breitbart spokesman Kurt Bardella explained that the site is the de facto SuperPAC of Donald Trump. The two, along with former NPR CEO, Ken Stern explained the significance of the merger.Stelter begins the segment by describing the political merger as Trumpbart. We could call it a political merger, Trumpbart. This week, GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway became the new face of Donald Trump s campaign, appearing all across TV. But it s Steve Bannon who may be the new inner voice of the campaign. Until Tuesday, he was the executive chairman of the far-right website Breitbart. On Wednesday, he became the Trump campaign s CEO. Stelter asks Bardell to describe Breitbart to people who may not be familiar with the media site. Bardell responds, saying: I think you look at it as the de facto SuperPAC of Donald Trump. And really for the last year, year and a half in the Republican primary, they have been the rapid response arm of the Trump campaign. Anytime anything, Bardell says before being interrupted by Stelter. Rapid response arm of the Trump campaign? Let s underscore that You re saying it s even, what, further to the right than Fox News? Oh my gosh, it s not even a they make Fox News look like MSNBC, Bardella clarifies. I think that any time that there was a controversy, something that Trump may have said that was generating headlines, Breitbart was the first destination that you could go to to see in real time what the Trump line of thinking was. It was the most sympathetic voice for Trump, and anytime that anyone in the mainstream media would in any way, characterize, or attack, or question Trump s tactics, they were the place that you could go to for that sympathetic ear for Trump. This merger comes at an odd time for the Trump campaign it might end up being Breitbart that benefits from the merger. Trump has already tried and failed to pivot to the center multiple times on his most controversial positions. Having Bannon on board his campaign is only going to make that task that much more difficult. Breitbart, on the other hand, has a spokesman who they can use to make whatever reactionary conspiracy they might have go mainstream.You can watch the segment below.Featured image from video screenshot | 1real |
NY Daily News Runs Most Explosive Trump Cover Yet; Says What We’re All Thinking (IMAGE) | The New York Daily News has never been subtle with their covers. This is especially true when the subject of said covers is Donald Trump. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that its Sunday cover will be one of its most explosive yet, considering that Trump spent his Saturday leveling an extraordinary claim at President Barack Obama: That Obama tapped the phones at Trump Tower during the presidential campaign.On the cover, the Daily News shows an unhinged photo of Trump, with a huge headline reading NUTS! Underneath are bullet points highlighting Trump s Saturday Twitter insanity and baseless claims. Here is the image, via Twitter:Tomorrow's front page NUTS!@realDonaldTrump claims Obama tapped his phones before election https://t.co/B1yJ9KalPd pic.twitter.com/cr2NgJ3UqH New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) March 5, 2017The NUTS! part is most important, of course. We can no longer afford to ignore a very important fact: The man currently occupying the Oval Office is dangerously unhinged. His behavior becomes more outrageous and erratic every day. He lies pathologically, peddles conspiracy theories, threatens the free press, decries any story he doesn t like as fake news, and holds his officials hostage and forces them to lie repeatedly to the American public as well.There have been some brave souls in Congress who have openly questioned the president s mental stability most notably Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA). However, the Democrats are not in control, so they can do nothing to put safeguards in place to keep Trump s instability from endangering the nation even more than he has already. So, it s time for the GOP to step up and put country before party, and admit that they know that Donald Trump is stark raving mad and has no business being president.Until then, thank you journalists at papers like the New York Daily News for speaking truth to power. It just might be the Fourth Estate that saves us after all.Featured image via Olivier Douliery Pool/Getty Images | 1real |
Pageant Silences Beauty Queen, a Critic of China, at U.S. Contest - The New York Times | After the Chinese authorities blocked the Canadian beauty queen Anastasia Lin from attending the 65th annual Miss World pageant in China last year, the event’s British organizers offered her a consolation prize, of sorts: They promised to allow her a chance to compete in the 2016 finals, which are currently underway in suburban Washington. What they did not tell her was that she could smile but not speak out publicly during the event, which is largely sponsored by Chinese companies. Over the past three weeks, as she and her fellow contestants have rehearsed for Tuesday’s finale, Ms. Lin, 26 — an actress, classically trained pianist and outspoken critic of Chinese human rights abuses — has been barred from speaking to the news media, friends and relatives said. They said that officials with the pageant have also refused to allow Ms. Lin to attend the American premiere of a movie in which she appears. The film, “The Bleeding Edge,” has angered Beijing with its dramatization of what human rights advocates describe as programs that harvest the organs of Chinese prisoners of conscience. And last week, when a State Department official requested a meeting with Ms. Lin, to discuss the continuing harassment of her father in China, pageant executives refused to let her go, a State Department official said. They relented only after Ms. Lin agreed to be accompanied by a pageant employee, who insisted on attending the meeting. The chaperone later turned down a State Department request to post a photo of the meeting on Twitter. Jacob Wallenberg, a friend who has spoken to Ms. Lin by phone, said pageant employees warned her that she would be ejected from the competition if she spoke to reporters. “They have specifically told her not to talk about human rights during the pageant, even though that is her official platform,” he said. “She is very frustrated. ” The Miss World organization declined to answer questions about the restrictions it has placed on Ms. Lin, but friends say they have little doubt about its motivations: Pageant officials, they said, are simply doing the bidding of the Chinese government, which has spent the past year trying to silence Ms. Lin, who was born in China but emigrated to Canada at 13. Since 2003, the Miss World pageant has been held six times in Sanya, a tropical city in southern China, and Chinese companies have become the main sponsors of the competition. The local government has spent $31 million to upgrade infrastructure for the competition, according to the Chinese media. Last year, after the Chinese authorities refused to issue Ms. Lin a visa to attend the finals, she flew to Hong Kong, hoping to obtain a visa at the border. She was turned away, and her photo disappeared from the pageant’s official website. “Why is a powerful country like China so afraid of a beauty queen?” she said at the time. Beijing’s efforts to silence Ms. Lin appear to have had the opposite effect. In the year since she was barred from the competition, she has been invited to speak at Oxford University, the National Press Club in Washington and the Oslo Freedom Forum. Ms. Lin has been especially outspoken on the repression of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that is banned in mainland China. Ms. Lin is a practitioner of Falun Gong, which the Chinese government has deemed “an evil cult. ” Sophie Richardson, the China director of Human Rights Watch, said that Beijing’s attempt to muzzle Ms. Lin highlighted its increasingly aggressive campaign to shape global public opinion about a government that takes a dim view of liberties. “Whether it’s choosing what movies you get to see or what information can be censored online, Chinese authorities are increasingly trying to insist that the restrictions they impose at home become the norm abroad,” she said. “That they deem it necessary to try to manipulate international beauty pageants would be puzzling or quirky if it weren’t indicative of a far more serious pathology. ” In Ms. Lin’s case, the attempted manipulation has taken a sinister turn. In an earlier interview, she described how public security officials harassed her father, the owner of a medical supply company in China, and forced customers to withdraw their business, pushing him into bankruptcy. Family members said Chinese officials had also refused to allow him to travel to Washington for the finals. The Miss World Organization has been aggressive in its effort to prevent reporters from speaking to Ms. Lin. Two weeks ago, pageant officials interrupted an interview she was giving to Jeff Jacoby, a Boston Globe columnist, at a hotel. “Two of them hustled Lin from the lobby, angrily accusing her of breaching the rules and causing trouble,” he wrote. “The third blocked me from talking to Lin, and assured me that my interview would be scheduled the next day. It wasn’t, of course. ” Such restrictions apparently do not apply to the Chinese media. Over the past few weeks, reporters from two Chinese media outlets have been given free rein to interview contestants. Marion Smith, the executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a organization that is sponsoring the premiere of Ms. Lin’s film on Wednesday, said he felt deceived by Miss World officials, who he said had assured him they were relaying messages to her about the upcoming event. “Turns out Anastasia never got any of them,” he said. Over the past year, Mr. Smith said he had become increasingly alarmed by the growing reach of the Chinese government. Cyberattacks that the F. B. I. say originated in China have repeatedly brought down the organization’s website, he said, and in June a teleconference symposium on the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 was disrupted by hackers. “At this point, nothing should surprise us when it comes to China,” he said, “but the fact that the Chinese Communist Party is so threatened by a Canadian beauty queen that they would subvert the operations of an international organization supposedly dedicated to greater global understanding and the free exchange of views is very disappointing. ” | 0fake |
49ers Fire Coach Chip Kelly, GM Trent Baalke - Breitbart | SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — The San Francisco 49ers fired coach Chip Kelly and general manager Trent Baalke on Sunday in the latest overhaul for a franchise that has fallen from perennial Super Bowl contender to the bottom of the standings in three seasons. [Team CEO Jed York announced the moves just hours after the Niners ( ) matched a franchise record for losses in a season by losing the finale to Seattle . “Despite my feelings for Trent and Chip, I felt the decision to change our football leadership was absolutely necessary,” York said in a statement. “The performance of this team has not lived up to my expectations or those of our fans, and that is truly disappointing. We all expected to see this team progress and develop as the season went on, but unfortunately that did not happen. That is why now is the time to find a new direction for this team. ” The team has been searching for success ever since cutting ties with Jim Harbaugh following an record in 2014. Harbaugh had led San Francisco to three straight trips to the NFC title game and one Super Bowl appearance from in the only stretch of success in the past 15 years for a franchise that has won five Super Bowls. Jim Tomsula was fired after going in 2015 and things only got worse under Kelly, whose once bright coaching star has dimmed after being fired by Philadelphia and San Francisco the past two years. This marks the first time in nearly four decades that a team fired coaches in successive years after just tenures. The only other time that happened since the 1970 merger came when San Francisco fired Monte Clark after the 1976 season and Ken Meyer the following year. The Niners then fired Pete McCulley midway through the 1978 season and interim coach Fred O’Connor after the year before hiring Bill Walsh to start a dynasty. “It’s frustrating we’re in this position again,” left tackle Joe Staley said before the news became official. “As a player you have to look at yourself first. What can I do next season to make sure we’re not in this position?” Kelly entered the NFL as one of the most highly sought coaches after his success in college at Oregon. After winning 10 games in each of his first two seasons in Philadelphia in Kelly was fired with a record for the Eagles late last season. He then lasted just one season with the Niners, raising more questions about whether his spread offense that was so successful at Oregon can work in the NFL. He never had much of a chance at success with San Francisco with a roster that featured Blaine Gabbert and Colin Kaepernick as the top two quarterbacks and had no playmakers on the outside. “We don’t control the roster, so I think the one thing is our job as coaches is to create an environment where our players have an opportunity to be successful, and that’s what we have to do,” Kelly said before getting the news in a meeting with York. “I don’t look at, ‘I wish I had this. I wish I had that.’ We were fortunate for the guys we had and we tried to coach them as hard as we could and as well as we could. ” Baalke helped build the roster that made three straight trips to the NFC title game from and one Super Bowl appearance. But the team has had declining win totals the past three seasons, including a record losing streak this season. “While we experienced our share of success over the years, I am disappointed at where we are today,” Baalke said in a statement. The 49ers lost 13 straight games at one point this season and their only wins came against the Rams. San Francisco set franchise worsts for points, total yards and yards rushing allowed in a season and blew four leads in eight home games. Now they will look for a fourth coach in four seasons. “When we lose like we did and have a season like we had, changes are made, or can be made,” receiver Torrey Smith said. “That’s from coaches to players. It’s all of us. We were all a part of the problem. That’s why our record is what it was. ” Baalke originally joined the Niners as a scout in 2005 and quickly worked his way up to director of player personnel where he helped manager Scot McCloughan put together many of the pieces of the team that would be one of the most talented in the league. Baalke replaced McCloughan as the top front office executive shortly before the 2010 draft and came away from that with a load of talent led by Anthony Davis, Mike Iupati and NaVorro Bowman. Baalke was given the title of general manager the following year when the Niners hired Harbaugh as coach and Baalke had another successful draft that featured pass rusher Aldon Smith and Kaepernick with his first two picks. The talent well went dry after that. Despite having 51 picks since 2012, Baalke has not added an impact player in any of those five drafts as he frequently drafted players with injuries and stayed away from skill position players. Since 2012, Baalke has had 15 picks in the first three rounds and used just one — running back Carlos Hyde in 2013 — on a quarterback, receiver or running back. | 0fake |
Margaret Flowers’ Retrospective on Running as a Green for the U.S. Senate | 2016 elections by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Adebayo
The major parties are more concerned with preserving their duopoly than with defeating each other. So-called “progressives” help preserve duopoly rule, failing “to understand that as long as they are complicit with the Democrats, they have no power.” Most people are actually more Green than Democratic in their views, but “have a hard time comprehending that there are more than two parties,” according to Green candidate Dr. Flowers. Margaret Flowers’ Retrospective on Running as a Green for the U.S. Senate by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Adebayo
“ The message of the Green Party resonates with people because we talk about real issues that they experience in their lives and solutions that they want to see.”
The Democratic and Republican parties’ attempt to monopolize the presidential media cycle was challenged by candidates like Dr. Margaret Flowers, who ran for the US Senate on the Green Party ticket in Maryland. She used the electoral platform to speak directly to working class communities. Dr Flowers was profiled in a recent BAR article regarding the decision of the Maryland League of Women Voters to deny her the right to participate in the only televised senatorial debate. Undaunted, Dr. Flowers took to the stage and demanded to be recognized as an equal participate in the electoral process. She was escorted off stage by security forces under protest with audience members shouting: “Let her speak!”
Margaret is a Maryland pediatrician and mother of three. In 2007, she made the decision to stop practicing clinical medicine, which she viewed as antithetical to the welfare of working class and front line communities. Instead, she decided to “practice political medicine.” The class dynamics of health care is evident to her. “The wealth divide is one of our biggest health care problems” and is the cause of “the greatest disparity” in health outcomes. In 2009, she joined Physicians for a National Health Program, becoming a Congressional Fellow and opening a chapter in Maryland. She was arrested at a Senate Roundtable on Health Insurance for speaking on behalf of the single payer option. Margaret said in an interview: “our first goal was to have a seat at the table….If we couldn’t get a seat, at least we could expose the insincerity of the current attempt at healthcare reform and show that single payer was actively being excluded.”
Margaret views the struggle for health care as “part of a broader social, racial, economic and environmental justice movement.” She has organized campaigns to fight for state and federal single payer health care systems. In addition, Margaret provided leadership and took on corporations focusing on the issue of net neutrality, the concept that everyone should have equal access to the Internet regardless of their usage or ability to pay.
I met Margaret during the Freedom Plaza Occupy Movement in Washington, DC where she helped me organize the Occupy EPA demonstrations.
Below, Margaret provides her reflections and analysis on running as the 2016 Green Party candidate for the US Senate in Maryland.
Adebayo: What political and cultural lessons did you learn from running against the Democratic and Republican machines?
Flowers: Running for office in Maryland taught me that the major political party machines, especially the Democratic Party, are pervasive in our state. Their tentacles reach deep into the non-profit organizations, the media, the polling organizations and the universities.
There is a culture in the state that is trapped in the duopoly. People are so used to thinking in terms of just Democrats and Republicans that they have a hard time comprehending that there are more than two parties. It is almost like a habit. When confronted with the reality that the media, non-profits, polls and universities were excluding our campaign, the most common responses were that this is how it has always been or that they excluded us because they could.
It was disappointing that the Maryland League of Women Voters, which is supposed to be nonpartisan and educate voters about their choices on the ballot, imposed an arbitrary high polling criterion that was used to keep me out of debates. It was disappointing that a public university, the University of Baltimore, which sponsored the only televised senate debate in Maryland, shut down political discourse by excluding me even though I would have provided a perspective that was not heard in the debate.
It was interesting to see how the media and polling organizations create a Catch-22 situation for alternative party candidates. Early on in my campaign, when public pressure was applied, the Baltimore Sun published one article on my campaign that mostly argued that I had no chance of winning and that I was mostly like a Democrat. Their failure to cover my campaign early on, or to even mention that I was running when they covered the other candidates, made it less likely that I would reach potential donors and volunteers. This made it less likely that I would poll well, especially since there were few polls that included me and they were done in September. As a result, my low polling numbers were used to justify my exclusion from events.
When our campaign did reach people, we received a very welcoming response. People are interested in a broader discussion of the crises we are facing and solutions to them. The solutions that I support are widely supported by the public.
And finally, it was interesting to see how so-called progressive organizations are trapped inside the Democratic Party and fail to understand that as long as they are complicit with the Democrats, they have no power. They fail to understand that their undying support for Democrats basically means that they are taken for granted. Unfortunately, “progressive” organizations endorsed Van Hollen and Clinton, even though their platforms include support for fracking and war and only partial solutions to the crises in education, healthcare and other human rights violations. This support and undying commitment of so-called “progressive” organizations to the Democratic Party defies logic.
Adebayo: In your opinion, how can the Green Party use the momentum of your state campaign as well as the national Stein/Baraka campaign to create a more effective popular grass-roots movement?
Flowers: It is already happening. New Green Party locals are forming around the state of Maryland. The current locals are growing. Many of the people who are involved in the locals are also involved in advocacy and activism, so there is a natural synergy. It is our task now to continue to nurture and grow that for the next election and to encourage greater collaboration and visibility of the Green Party with local movements.
Personally, my next focus will be to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). We are organizing to stop it from being ratified by Congress after the election. If we stop that, it will be a huge victory of popular power over corporate power. We can build off that to encourage more people to rise up and demand that the political agenda protect people and the planet.
Adebayo: How do third party organizations, such as the Green Party, fight the political, financial and media dominance of the two major corporate parties?
Flowers: This is a David and Goliath fight, but we have truth and justice on our side. The message of the Green Party resonates with people because we talk about real issues that they experience in their lives and solutions that they want to see. We are working to expose the media blackout and to encourage people to demand that the media and debates are more inclusive. And we are learning to use social media platforms to reach people. One aspect of the campaign that is very heartening is the commitment of the volunteers. People are donating their skills in filmmaking and graphic design. People are doing regular outreach and visibility actions across the state. It is truly amazing and it energizes me to see it.
Adebayo: As you reflect on your Senate campaign, what strategies worked best to encourage activism and what stratagems could you have employed to elicit more public support?
Flowers: Running a statewide campaign is a challenge. Some of the best experiences that I had were doing one-on-one outreach around the state. I would definitely do more of that if I ran again. And holding volunteer training sessions is critical for people to develop comfort with outreach strategies. I am sure that there is more that I could do, but at this point I am still focused on completing this campaign. Then we will debrief more. Dr. Marsha Adebayo is the author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated: No FEAR: A Whistleblowers Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA . She worked at the EPA for 18 years and blew the whistle on a US multinational corporation that endangered South African vanadium mine workers. Marsha's successful lawsuit led to the introduction and passage of the first civil rights and whistleblower law of the 21st century: the Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (No FEAR Act). She is Director of Transparency and Accountability for the Green Shadow Cabinet and serves on the Advisory Board of ExposeFacts.com. | 1real |
Protests Erupt in South Korea After President Park Geun-hye Is Ousted - The New York Times | Silence fell over thousands of supporters of South Korea’s president, Park as the country’s Constitutional Court announced it was removing her from office on Friday. The unanimous ruling capped months of turmoil for a country that has been gripped by the corruption scandal that brought down Ms. Park. Since November, the center of Seoul, the capital, has been the site of weekly demonstrations, some of them enormous, demanding Ms. Park’s ouster. Her powers were suspended in December, after a legislative impeachment vote. Her opponents were in the streets on Friday for the ruling, cheering as the court verdict was read. Supporters of Ms. Park tried to pass a barricade of police buses protecting the Constitutional Court, which ruled that Ms. Park had “betrayed the trust of the people. ” Some of the demonstrators called for “destroying” the court. Some of Ms. Park’s supporters, most of them older South Koreans, attacked the police with flagpoles. As Ms. Park’s standing plummeted in recent months, her remaining backers tended to be people who fondly remembered her father, the Cold War dictator Park . Other protesters threw water bottles and pieces of pavement. The acting president, Hwang called for national unity and urged Ms. Park’s supporters to accept the court’s ruling. Three demonstrators, ages 60, 72 and 74, died during the unrest. One had fallen from the top of a police bus, a hospital official told The Associated Press. An additional 30 protesters and police officers were injured in the clashes, The A. P. said. | 0fake |
Pyongyang shown no interest in talks: State Department | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has shown no interest in pursuing talks on its nuclear and missile programs, the U.S. State Department said on Saturday after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged the United States was communicating directly with Pyongyang. “North Korean officials have shown no indication that they are interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearization,” spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. | 0fake |
US calls for end to Saudi airstrikes in Yemen | November 1, 2016 US calls for end to Saudi airstrikes in Yemen
The US has called for an end to airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen at a UN security council meeting, but critics pointed out that Washington continues to supply arms and provide other military support to Saudi Arabia.
The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, condemned missile attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia and said the kingdom had a right to defend itself.
But she added: “It is also incumbent on the Saudi-led coalition and the forces of the Yemeni government to refrain from taking steps that escalate this violence and to commit to the cessation of hostilities.
“After 19 months of fighting, it should be clear that there is absolutely no military solution to this conflict. Airstrikes that hit schools, hospitals and other civilian objects have to stop. In many cases these strikes have damaged key infrastructure that is essential to delivering humanitarian aid in Yemen.” | 1real |
Washington, DC, workers to get 16 weeks paid leave under city hall plan that taxes businesses | Washington, D.C., is poised to give workers in the city the most generous family-leave benefits in the country -- a plan that is backed by the Obama administration and would side-step Congress on such issues.
If approved, the legislation would give essentially every part- and full-time employee in the nation’s capital as much as 16 weeks of paid leave for such family matters as newborn care, illness or a sick relative.
The plan would be funded by an employer tax and was introduced last week with support from seven City Council members, enough to pass in the 13-person panel, in one of the most liberal cities in the country.
The Obama administration and other supporters argue lower-paid employees cannot afford to take off work for family matters and that 43 million U.S. private-sector workers have no employer-paid sick days.
“It’s important for women to take time at home when they have a child and for people to take time off when they have a sick family member," Dave Alpert, publisher of the news website Greater, Greater Washington, told FoxNews.com on Thursday. "But a lot of people cannot afford to go without pay to do that. This bill would allow them to not have to make the all-or-nothing choice."
Supporters also argue the United States lags far behind Europe in proving such benefits and that expanding such care would make the District of Columbia more competitive in the labor market.
However, businesses and other critics say the plan would over-burden some companies, particularly smaller ones and perhaps force them to leave.
“The D.C. Chamber of Commerce cannot support the legislation,” said group President Harry Wingo, suggesting, in part, a lack of adequate financial analysis. “This bill would be unprecedented and make the District of Columbia dangerously uncompetitive.”
The administration has thrown its full support behind the effort, making at least $1 million in Labor Department grant money available this year for cities and states.
In addition, agency Secretary Thomas Perez joined Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Obama, this spring on a cross-country promotional tour that also included blogs, web testimonials and an online Google Hangout chat.
“Across the country, state and local governments aren’t waiting for Congress to take action,” Perez said in April, after the “Lead to Leave” tour stopped in Providence, R.I.
He also reminded Americans that the administration is committed to expanding access to paid leave by “supporting cities and states seeking to enact paid leave policies” and that Obama in his 2015 State of the Union address called on them to pass legislation to expand sick pay for workers.
Obama has made some headway in efforts to increase wages and narrow the country’s so-called income-inequality gap, in part by using an executive order to increase the minimum wage for federal contract employees.
However, his efforts to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to at least $10.10 an hour have failed in the Republican-controlled Congress.
“This is of national interest, and the District is leading the way,” D.C. Councilwoman Elissa Silverman, an Independent, said Thursday about the family leave proposal, which she is co-sponsoring.
Silverman also pointed out that companies like Netflix and Facebook are offering similar deals to in part attract and keep employees, “not just out of the goodness of their hearts.”
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, has expressed support for the proposal but has also raised concerns about its potential fiscal impact on the city.
The D.C. plan, kick-started with at least $96,000 of the federal grant money, would create a fund by taxing city employers on a sliding scale.
The average annual cost would be roughly $385 per employee.
Employers would have to pay the equivalent of 1 percent of workers’ salaries of at least $150,000, or $1,500 a year.
Companies that pay the minimum wage ($10.50 an hour in the District) would pay about 0.6 percent, or about $131 annually for each employee.
Workers making up to $52,000 a year would be eligible for full wages or salary for a maximum 16 weeks. Those who make more would be eligible for the first $1,000 of their weekly income, plus a percentage of the remainder up to $3,000 a week.
Among the exceptions are the self-employed and people who travel into the District to work for a federal agency or office because the city cannot tax the U.S. government nor impose a commuter tax.
California, New Jersey and Rhode Island already have mandated policies on family leave, but the District’s offers more than twice as many paid weeks. | 0fake |
Канадская делегация не приедет для подписания соглашения о свободной торговле с ЕС | Короткая ссылка 27 октября 2016, 02:47 Делегация Канады не прибудет на запланированный 27 октября саммит, где должно было состояться подписание соглашения о свободной торговле (CETA) с Европейским союзом.
«Канадская делегация не поедет сегодня в Европу. Канада по-прежнему готова подписать это важное соглашение, когда Европа будет готова», — приводит ТАСС заявление официального представителя Министерства международной торговли Канады Алекса Лоуренса.Ранее стало известно, что переговоры между властями Бельгии и представителями регионов и сообществ страны, заблокировавшими подписание CETA, окончились безрезультатно и итоговый документ так и не был выработан.
Ранее были фактически приостановлены переговоры о заключении соглашения о свободной торговле ЕС и США (ТТИП). Подписывайтесь на наш Telegram , чтобы быть в курсе самых важных новостей. Для этого достаточно иметь Telegram на любом устройстве, пройти по ссылке и нажать кнопку Join. | 1real |
null | Don't those democratic reps have any cajones? They can have the mighty obozo write up an executive order besides him being CIC after all. | 1real |
Brother of man who killed Jews, soldiers in 2012 France attack jailed for 20 years | PARIS (Reuters) - The brother of a Franco-Algerian gunman who killed four Jews and three soldiers was sentenced to 20 years in jail on Thursday over a killing spree that heralded an era of Islamist-inspired attacks in which hundreds have since died in France. A court in Paris ruled Abdelkader Merah guilty of terrorist offences. He was found to have helped in the preparation of the attacks although he did not participate himself when his younger brother Mohamed Merah shot three Jewish children and one of their parents, and then three soldiers, in Toulouse in 2012. More than 240 people have been killed in France since then, primarily since early 2015. The biggest was a string of Islamist attacks in which gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 in Paris. Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence Abdelkader Merah to life behind bars, arguing that he was a religious radical who had mentored his younger brother and helped materially, notably in the theft of the scooter used in the killings at the Jewish Ozer Hatorah school in Toulouse, southwestern France. The judge sentenced the defendant to 20 years. A second man, Fettah Malki, was sentenced to 14 years for his role in providing the gun, ammunition and a bullet-proof vest to the attacker. Mohamed Merah, 24 at the time, was shot dead when he jumped, guns blazing, from the window of an apartment where he was holed up a few days after his killing spree in March 2012. The Merah killings were the first major incident of the kind since Paris subway bombs attacks in the mid-1990s by Islamist militants linked to the GIA group in Algeria, a former French colony. Abdelkader Merah denied being involved during a four-week trial where his lawyer demanded acquittal and accused public prosecutors of going after him because they could no longer pursue his brother. For the prosecution, French attorney general Na ma Rudloff said when pleading for a life-sentence that there was no doubt the older brother was guilty and devoted much of his time to mentoring his sibling. Abdelkader Merah made Mohamed Merah, she said. At the time of the killings, Interior Minister Claude Gueant said the younger Merah, who had both French and Algerian citizenship, had claimed affiliation with the al Qaeda militant group and said he wanted to avenge Palestinian children. He had been under surveillance by the intelligence service for several years after being identified in Afghanistan. At home in Toulouse he was better known by for his love of soccer, night clubs and motorbikes than any conspicuous religious devotion. | 0fake |
REPUBLICAN TURNS TABLES ON FBI: Deputy Director On The Hot Seat Now | GCHQ director Robert Hannigan is stepping down after only two years as chief of the cyber spy agency for personal reasons, the intelligence service has announced. Recall also that Judge Napolitano said three sources told him the British spy agency had something to do with the witch hunt on Trump: JUDGE NAPOLITANO was on FOX & Friends discussing the Obama administration s efforts to spy on Donald Trump. Three intel sources have disclosed to the network that Obama went to British intelligence to get the goods on Trump, but we may never be able to prove it JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Three intelligence sources have informed FOX News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn t use the NSA, he didn t use the CIA, he didn t use the FBI and he didn t use the Department of Justice He used *GCHQ. *GCHQ is a British intel agency.@Judgenap: Three intel sources have disclosed that Pres. Obama turned to British spies to get surveillance on Trump pic.twitter.com/IghCFm7qhO FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 14, 2017 Grassley began his investigation after the Washington Post reported on February 28 that the FBI, a few weeks before the election, agreed to pay former British spy Christopher Steele to investigate Trump.Prior to that, supporters of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign had paid Steele to gather intelligence on Clinton s Republican rival. In the end, the FBI did not pay Steele, the Post reported, after the dossier became the subject of news stories, congressional inquiries and presidential denials. It is not clear whether Steele worked under agreement with the FBI for any period of time before the payment deal fell through. The idea that the FBI and associates of the Clinton campaign would pay Mr. Steele to investigate the Republican nominee for president in the run-up to the election raises further questions about the FBI s independence from politics, as well as the Obama administration s use of law enforcement and intelligence agencies for political ends, Grassley wrote in a letter to Comey dated March 28.MCCABE HAS BEEN ON THE HOT SEAT BEFORE:BREAKING: CROOKED VA GOVERNOR, Close Hillary Friend Gave Wife Of FBI Official Overseeing Hillary Email Investigation $467,500The political organization of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, an influential Democrat with longstanding ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, gave nearly $500,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who later helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton s email use.Campaign finance records show Mr. McAuliffe s political-action committee donated $467,500 to the 2015 state Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, who is married to Andrew McCabe, now the deputy director of the FBI.The Virginia Democratic Party, over which Mr. McAuliffe exerts considerable control, donated an additional $207,788 worth of support to Dr. McCabe s campaign in the form of mailers, according to the records. That adds up to slightly more than $675,000 to her candidacy from entities either directly under Mr. McAuliffe s control or strongly influenced by him. The figure represents more than a third of all the campaign funds Dr. McCabe raised in the effort.Mr. McAuliffe and other state party leaders recruited Dr. McCabe to run, according to party officials. She lost the election to incumbent Republican Dick Black.A spokesman for the governor said he supported Jill McCabe because he believed she would be a good state senator. This is a customary practice for Virginia governors Any insinuation that his support was tied to anything other than his desire to elect candidates who would help pass his agenda is ridiculous. Among political candidates that year, Dr. McCabe was the third-largest recipient of funds from Common Good VA, the governor s PAC, according to campaign finance records. Dan Gecker received $781,500 from the PAC and $214,456 from the state party for a campaign that raised $2.9 million, according to records; and Jeremy McPike received $803,500 from the PAC and $535,162 from the state party, raising more $3.8 million that year for his candidacy.The governor could recall only one meeting with Mr. McCabe when he and other state Democrats met with the couple on March 7, 2015, to urge Dr. McCabe to run, according to the spokesman. Via: Washington Examiner | 1real |
Trump Takes Credit For Releasing JFK Files, But The Bill Requiring It Was Passed 25 Years Ago | Saturday morning, Trump was going through his usual routine of drinking six quarts of Red Bull while wistfully flipping through his Ivanka photo albums when a novel idea suddenly occurred to him. He raced to Twitter to let his eager followers know exactly what his plans were as the most powerful man in the world:Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 21, 2017That s right! Donald Trump will finally be opening that presidential book hidden in the Library of Congress (and found by Nicolas Cage) that contains all of the secrets passed down from president to president across the ages to reveal what really happened to JFK.Just kidding! Despite the fact that he tried to make it sound like it was his idea, and happening only under his authority, it turns out that the JFK FILES, as he so loudly put it, were scheduled to be released no later than next Thursday, October 26, 2017. Coincidentally, that date is exactly 25 years to the day after the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 was passed by the 102nd Congress.Okay, I m kidding again. Democratic Senator and American hero John Glenn introduced the bill in July of that year likely while production was wrapping up on Donald Trump s star cameo in the Hollywood blockbuster Home Alone 2: Lost In New York. Especially relevant in the text of the bill is Section 2, which discusses the reasoning behind Senator Glenn s proposal of it.Isn t it weird, how Trump really emphasized the fact that the JFK FILES were long blocked and classified and that he was gonna do something about it? I mean, besides the fact that all he s actually doing is allowing an existing law to, uh, continue to exist and carry out as planned. No, what s weird is WHO long blocked and classified those files. John Glenn (who may or may not know the truth about the moon landing) was kind enough not to name the sitting president he was indicting in this bill for obstructing the files release, but the math is pretty simple: From July to October of 1992, the entire time this bill was debated until its passage, the person referred to as the executive branch was former president (and even former-er CIA Chief) George H.W. Bush.A Republican. As usual.Anyway, thanks, Trumpykins! We really appreciate you, uh, not stopping this thing that was totally going to happen even if you d been hit by a meteor the day you admitted you were a sexual predator. I wonder how long the presidential records on all the crimes you ve committed since your inauguration will remain sealed.Featured image via Chris Kleponis (Pool)/Getty Images | 1real |
HOLY BETRAYAL OF AMERICA’S NATIONAL SECURITY: New Evidence Shows Hillary Emailed “Most Secretive” Classified Material On Private Unsecured Server | She s the most dangerous, self-centered woman in America Hillary for Prison 2016. Hillary Clinton s emails on her unsecured, homebrew server contained intelligence from the U.S. government s most secretive and highly classified programs, according to an unclassified letter from a top inspector general to senior lawmakers.Fox News exclusively obtained the unclassified letter, sent Jan. 14 from Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. It laid out the findings of a recent comprehensive review by intelligence agencies that identified several dozen additional classified emails including specific intelligence known as special access programs (SAP).That indicates a level of classification beyond even top secret, the label previously given to two emails found on her server, and brings even more scrutiny to the presidential candidate s handling of the government s closely held secrets. To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community] element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the confidential, secret, and top secret/sap levels, said the IG letter to lawmakers with oversight of the intelligence community and State Department. According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified IC element sources. Intelligence from a special access program, or SAP, is even more sensitive than that designated as top secret as were two emails identified last summer in a random sample pulled from Clinton s private server she used as secretary of state. Access to a SAP is restricted to those with a need-to-know because exposure of the intelligence would likely reveal the source, putting a method of intelligence collection or a human asset at risk. Currently, some 1,340 emails designated classified have been found on Clinton s server, though the Democratic presidential candidate insists the information was not classified at the time. There is absolutely no way that one could not recognize SAP material, a former senior law enforcement with decades of experience investigating violations of SAP procedures told Fox News. It is the most sensitive of the sensitive. Executive Order 13526 called Classified National Security Information and signed Dec. 29, 2009 sets out the legal framework for establishing special access programs. The order says the programs can only be authorized by the president, the Secretaries of State, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence, or the principal deputy of each. The programs are created when the vulnerability of, or threat to, specific information is exceptional, and the number of persons who ordinarily will have access will be reasonably small and commensurate with the objective of providing enhanced protection for the information involved, it states.According to court documents, former CIA Director David Petraeus was prosecuted for sharing intelligence from special access programs with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. At the heart of his prosecution was a non-disclosure agreement where Petraeus agreed to protect these closely held government programs, with the understanding unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention or negligent handling could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation. Clinton signed an identical non-disclosure agreement Jan. 22, 2009.While the State Department and Clinton campaign have said the emails in questions were retroactively classified or upgraded to justify the more than 1,300 classified emails on her server those terms are meaningless under federal law.The former federal law enforcement official said the finding in the January IG letter represents a potential violation of USC 18 Section 793, gross negligence in the handling of secure information under the Espionage Act. Via: FOX News | 1real |
JIM BEAM Fans Call For Boycott After Spokesperson and Liberal Actress Brags About Taunting VP Mike Pence For Defending Life | The decision of actress Mila Kunis to make monthly donations to abortion business Planned Parenthood in pro-life Vice President Mike Pence s name has generated a call for a boycott of Jim Beam on Twitter.Jim Beam global brand spokesperson Kunis told Conan O Brien Thursday that she donates to Planned Parenthood in Pence s name to protest his pro-life policies. O Brien asked Kunis to explain her prank: I apologize if I m offending anybody. It s not so much a prank as much as I disagreed with some of the stuff that Pence was doing and was trying to do. And so as a reminder that there are women out there in the world that may or may not agree with his platform, I put him on a list of recurring donations that are made in his name to Planned Parenthood.Every month, to his office, he gets a little letter that says like, An anonymous donation has been made in your name. I don t look at it as a prank, this is like, I strongly disagree, and this is my little way of doing it. It s a peaceful protest. Breitbart NewsThe new face of Jim Beam, the iconic bourbon brand, might not be quite what you expect. While a rough-around-the-edges cowboy or country rock star might seem to fit the bill Jim Beam has used Kid Rock at times in the past its newest spokesperson is the petite and beautiful Mila Kunis.The 30-year-old actress, who says she is a big fan of bourbon in general, is featured in two new 30-second Beam ads, as well as five other videos ranging in length from 15 seconds to more than three minutes. Ad WeekSome Twitter users are peacefully protesting in return by letting the makers of Jim Beam know they will be choosing the brand s competitors instead:Hey @JimBeam I didn't realize your spokesperson was so political & supported killing babies #AbortionHurts #BoycottJimBeam https://t.co/JwHkusu3xr Rockentowsky (@grendel_the) November 4, 2017Tell @JimBeam to stop having @MilaKunis as their spokes idiot #BoycottJimBeam pic.twitter.com/YFlqKFJ9X5 tom_simpson (@builditnow) November 3, 2017Just don't be surprised on that day you reap what you sow Kurt Watson (@crapshoot55) November 3, 2017 | 1real |
Comedian Margaret Cho Compares Donald Trump To Roman Emperor Nero | We re paying so much attention to Donald Trump, Comedian Margaret Cho told Addicting Info in a phone interview. Ms. Cho has openly endorsed Bernie Sanders, but has applauded Hillary Clinton s political efforts as well. What he has done to politics is a travesty. It s a real embarrassment to the nature of politics in America. This was a dignified profession. There is a circus element to him. It s almost like we re looking at Nero. Nero is infamously known as the most tyrannical and insane emperor s Rome ever had. After taking the throne at the age of 17, Nero had his mother killed, was known for overt self-indulging and had anyone who dissented against him killed. For leisure, Nero would wander the streets of Rome and murder people at random. After a fire burned most of Rome to the ground, Nero pointed the finger at Christians, which began a reign of persecuting and torturing anyone associated with the religion, similar to the rhetoric from Donald Trump against Muslims. A few years later, Rome finally rebelled against Nero s tyrannical rule, and Nero committed suicide, leaving no heir to the throne and a free for all among Rome s military generals to seize power.The rise of Donald Trump has invoked similar fears that such a tyrannical ruler could become President of the United States. Although, it is incredibly unlikely Donald Trump would ever reach the extent Nero did, with the support of a GOP majority in Congress, Donald Trump would likely reverse decades of progressive reforms Democrats have worked endlessly to push into legislation. The Supreme Court could possibly receive a judge incredibly unfit to be serving in such a capacity. Groups such as those who identify with the Muslim religion would be in even greater danger of their rights being taken away as Donald Trump has made proposals similar to those enacted by Adolf Hitler preceding the Holocaust during World War II. The comparisons to Hitler are not that far off, added Ms. Cho. It s a very dangerous time. Senator Ted Cruz doesn t offer any better of an option for Republicans, who may face a brokered convention as many leaders in the party don t want Donald Trump or Ted Cruz as their nominee either.Featured image via Flickr | 1real |
Head of Zimbabwe election commission quits, source says | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chairwoman Rita Makarau resigned on Friday, months before a vote whose credibility is crucial to the new army-backed government s efforts to re-engage international lenders and lure investors, a senior government source said. Makarau, seen as an ally of 93-year-old former president Robert Mugabe, gave no reason for her resignation, the official, who declined to be named, said. President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was sworn in two weeks ago in the wake of the de facto military coup that ended Mugabe s 37-year rule, pledged to hold elections as scheduled next year. Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa mentioned the credibility of the elections at least five times in a budget speech on Thursday, a sign of the vote s importance in shoring up Harare s democratic legitimacy. Opposition parties have demanded reforms to an electoral system they say is skewed in the ruling ZANU-PF party s favor. Makarau, who has been accused of being partisan, was overseeing an overhaul of the voters roll, which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change has described as shambolic . Makarau did not answer her mobile phone. A spokesman for the ZEC was unable to confirm Makarau s departure. | 0fake |
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