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Warriors, Resilient at Home, Cruise Against the Cavaliers - The New York Times | OAKLAND, Calif. — Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors, is fairly open about the fact that he plays favorites. When it comes to shooting the basketball, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are allowed to do whatever they want. They can chuck shots from the bleachers. Bad shots do not exist for them. “That’s the rule,” Kerr said, adding, “I trust their judgment. ” Draymond Green has not earned the right to be included in their elite little group — not yet, anyway. But he was at his dynamic best in the Warriors’ victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday night in Game 2 of the N. B. A. finals. He buried . He defended. He rebounded. And he helped carry the Warriors to a series lead at Oracle Arena. “I don’t come into the game saying, ‘Oh, I have to shoot a lot more,’ ” said Green, who finished with 28 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists. “Like, that’s not me. That’s not what I do for this team. But at the end of the day, if the game says shoot, you’re supposed to shoot. Because usually when you don’t, it turns into a disaster. ” The Cavaliers are in a world of trouble ahead of Game 3, which is scheduled for Wednesday night at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. The Warriors can sniff a second straight championship, can sense the final act in their season. After setting an N. B. A. record by winning 73 games in the regular season, they need two more for another title. “Everything changes when we go to Cleveland,” Kerr said. “We know that. We have unbelievable respect for this team, and we’ve got to go on the road and try to do it again. ” Curry scored 18 points, and Thompson added 17 — two more relatively muted efforts for them as defenders collapsed on them. But they found Green with so much open space on the perimeter, he could have been lounging on a beach towel and sipping a cool drink. “Tonight,” Thompson said, “he was one of us. ” Green relished his opportunities. He shot 11 of 20 from the field and 5 of 8 from range. Kerr was miffed about only one of Green’s attempts, when he pulled up in transition and did a little dance before he let the ball fly. It was not what Kerr considered a shot. Green made it anyway. “He becomes our safety valve when there’s pressure,” Kerr said. “He becomes an open shooter when they’re stepping out on Steph or Klay. So it’s a good situation for him. ” LeBron James collected 19 points, 9 assists and 8 rebounds, but he said he was disappointed with his performance, citing his 7 turnovers. The Cavaliers committed 18 as a team, which led to 26 points for the Warriors. “It’s hard for me to kind of pinpoint what’s not working and what could work right now,” James said. “Obviously, not much work is working, especially offensively. ” But James did not benefit from much help. Kyrie Irving had 10 points, and Kevin Love scored 5 points before he departed for the locker room early in the second half with dizziness. He was placed in the league’s concussion protocol. The Cavaliers shot 35. 4 percent over all. It looked as if they were hoisting shots in a stiff wind. “They were tougher than us and more aggressive,” Cavaliers Coach Tyronn Lue said. While the Warriors are celebrated for their shooting, they also broke out their lunch pails and hard hats. When Love caught an inadvertent elbow to the back of the head midway through the second quarter, Green went straight at the rim for a layup. He punctuated the play by flexing his biceps as Love writhed in pain nearby. The victory was not without its challenges for Golden State. Curry picked up his fourth foul early in the third quarter and took a seat on the bench. But when the Cavaliers threatened, Green answered with another his fourth of the game. Curry returned at the start of the fourth quarter. He promptly swished a from another ZIP code. The lead was 23. Curry and Thompson had both struggled Thursday in Game 1, when they combined to score just 20 points on shooting. Propped up by their bench, the Warriors won by 15 — a result that portended danger for the Cavaliers. If they could not capitalize when Curry and Thompson were not playing good basketball, what did they expect to do once those two players started making shots? And rest assured, they would start making shots. Their problems would not persist forever. Ahead of Game 2, the Cavaliers said they wanted to operate with more pace, a familiar refrain for them this season. But playing fast is a dicey proposition against Golden State, which employs players with advanced degrees in transition basketball. The Warriors actually stumbled through a sluggish start, a Lamborghini stuck in second gear. After James went baseline for a spinning layup that put Cleveland ahead by 4 early in the second quarter, Kerr had seen enough. He called a timeout so he could share some words of wisdom with his players. They promptly hit the gas. Green sank a . Curry buried a jumper. And the Warriors continued to apply pressure, building a lead late in the second quarter. Golden State’s lead grew and grew over the course of the second half, each possession feeling more like a celebration for the fans at Oracle. Outside the visiting locker room, a mountain of luggage was waiting for the Cavaliers by the start of the fourth quarter. They could not leave town fast enough. | 0fake |
Spain makes largest cocaine bust in 18 years | MADRID (Reuters) - Spain has made its largest cocaine bust in 18 years, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday, after more than 5,800 kg of the drug were discovered on a container ship traveling from Medellin in Colombia. The ship, stopped in the southern port of Algeciras, was carrying bananas from Colombia to El Prat de Llobregat, the location of the international airport in Catalonia, the ministry said. Three people had been arrested in relation to the haul, including the Spanish head of the import company using the container, and more arrests have not been ruled out with at least two more under investigation, it said. The cocaine, which was discovered Nov. 28 and had a street value of some 210 million euros ($250 million), was divided into 1 kg blocks and marked to identify its eventual distribution to a number of destinations and organizations, the ministry said. ($1 = 0.8430 euros) | 0fake |
20 Wines for Under $20: The Fall Edition - The New York Times | I hear it all the time: Where should I look for the best wine values? The answer is simple: They are all around you. You have to keep your eyes and ears open, and even so, sometimes they are hard to find. But in my research for this latest installment of 20 Under $20, I have reaffirmed some key principles for getting the most wine for your money. Why? Simply because the diversity of wines available from, say, France or Italy (home to a vast number of ancient, indigenous grapes) far exceeds the variety made in the United States, where few producers depart from the handful of most popular grapes. That said, five of my 20 choices are American, exceeded by only the six from France. Even that price is more than many people want to pay. For those who wish to spend less, many sound bottles are available for less than $15. But I am not searching for sound. I want exciting and distinctive, which often requires more expensive farming and winemaking. I am willing to pay a little more because exciting wine is important to me. That’s an individual decision, but the fact remains that your chances of finding distinctive bottles grow exponentially in the $15 to $25 range. You will not find most of these bottles at the supermarket, and even if you have a great wine shop, you still will not find all these bottles. But you may find a few, and those that you don’t find immediately are worth keeping in the back of your mind for when you happen upon them in another vintage or on a restaurant list. Most wines are good values because they do not have the sort of pedigree that almost always raises prices. Many come from regions, made from grapes. Trying them requires a commitment to the unknown. Exceptions exist, of course, like the bottle of Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon on this list. You may love some of these wines. Others not so much. Distinctive bottles can often be polarizing. So be prepared not to love everything you try. This is the corollary to finding a great wine shop. Even great stores won’t have everything. Arcane, complex American laws governing distribution of alcoholic beverages virtually assure that every state will have a very different selection. But if they can’t find the exact bottle you are looking for, good wine merchants can often suggest something similar. Trust them (and see above on keeping an open mind). Peter Lauer Mosel Saar Riesling Barrel X 2015, $19. 99 This is a beautiful, delicate, lightly sweet riesling of the type that was classically called kabinett and is now sometimes referred to as feinherb. It’s well balanced, with flavors of apples, peaches and minerals, from an excellent vintage. I love wines like these in the spring, but who doesn’t need a little springtime in autumn? (Vom Boden, Brooklyn, N. Y.) Domaine Trapet Alsace Pinot Auxerrois Ox 2013, $17. 99 Domaine Trapet Père et Fils is an excellent Burgundy estate, and now, by virtue of a marriage, it also has an outpost in Alsace. This lovely white, made with the workhorse auxerrois grape (sometimes known as pinot auxerrois) is chalky, creamy and minerally with a rich texture, but not heavy at all. (Polaner Selections, Mount Kisco, N. Y.) Luyt Chile Itata Valley Pipeño Portezuelo 2014, $18. 99, 1 liter País, as the mission grape is known in Chile, was the first European grape planted in the New World, brought by missionaries to California in the 16th century. You don’t see much wine made from mission in California, but Luyt, a Frenchman who moved to Chile, makes juicy, tart, delicious reds from grapes he finds in the southern Itata Valley. An added benefit: This is sold by the liter. ( Selections, New York) António Lopes Ribeiro Dão Casa de Mouraz Encruzado 2013, $18. 99 Encruzado is a rare, relatively unknown white grape grown in the Dão region of Portugal, but if this bottle from António Lopes Ribeiro’s Casa de Mouraz is at all representative, it is absolutely worth seeking out. This wine is fresh and floral, light and sleek, yet structured with intriguing mineral flavors. (Savio Soares Selections, Brooklyn, N. Y.) Gutiérrez Colosía Jerez Oloroso Sangre y Trabajadero NV, $19. 99, 375 milliliters Despite a brief bubble of interest in sherry, it remains a top value and one of the great secrets of wine lovers. Even those who’ve embraced the wonders, though, often stop with fino and amontillado. Oloroso is the great sherry frontier, and this is a wonderful example: savory, steely, deeply mineral, bone dry with a core of caramel. Serve with a steak. (Coeur Wine Company, New York) Roagna Dolcetto d’Alba 2014, $17. 99 Nebbiolo is renowned for its complex, soulful Barolos and Barbarescos. Barbera is valued for its juicy, zesty reds. Which leaves dolcetto, the among the three red grapes in the Piedmont region of Italy. That oversight can often make it a great value. This bottle, from a superb producer, is pure and refreshingly bitter, direct, honest and delicious. (Polaner Selections) Domaine Zafeirakis Tyrnavos Malagousia 2015, $15. 99 A new generation of Greek producers is nurturing obscure, indigenous grapes like the white malagousia. This bottle, from Christos Zafeirakis in Trynavos in the Thessaly region, is zesty, peachy and balanced, with lingering flavors that will go well with seafood. Zafeirakis’s red limniona is likewise a great value. (Dionysi Grevenitis Wildman Sons, New York) Lise Bertrand Jousset Montlouis sur Loire L’appétillant Brut Nature NV, $18. 99 Sparkling wines from the Loire Valley, made with chenin blanc, are often wonderful values. This one, from Montlouis, is lovely: creamy, chalky and deliciously rich. It is also, as the French like to say, digestible, meaning both that it will go down very easily and will go very well with food. May I suggest chicken? (Fruit of the Vines, Long Island City, N. Y.) Foxglove Paso Robles Zinfandel 2013, $17 Bob and Jim Varner make excellent chardonnays and pinot noirs from the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Central Coast. Foxglove is the Varner winery’s second label, and the 2013 zinfandel offers an excellent taste of the Varner style: exuberant, yet well focused. This is the sort of zinfandel I love to drink in the fall, fresh and floral with plenty of spicy fruit flavors. Jo Landron Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Le Fief du Breil 2013, $17. 99 Muscadet is perennially one of wine’s great values. The region, near the mouth of the Loire River on the Atlantic, offers fascinating terroirs and excellent producers, yet attracts little attention — hence low prices. This wine, from the terrific Jo Landron, is creamy and energetic, full of rocky, earthy, herbal flavors. The best Muscadets are subtle, and so demand close attention, but they are well worth it. (Martin Scott Wines, New York) La Marca di San Michele Castelli di Jesi Verdicchio Classico Superiore “CapoVolto” 2014, $17. 99 Verdicchio is one of many grapes that gave Italian white wine a bad name over the years, but when done right, as with this bottle from La Marca di San Michele, it is delightful. This wine, from organic grapes grown in the eastern province of Ancona, is fresh and lively, with the flavor of apricots and a mild bitterness reminiscent of almonds. (Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, Calif.) Banshee Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2014, $19. 99 This is a rare example of a moderately priced California chardonnay with an excellent pedigree. The grapes come from the Sonoma Coast, an amorphous designation that can be meaningless, but in this case includes grapes from the superb Heintz Vineyard and the Green Valley region. Ross Cobb is a fine winemaker, and, while this is in the California style of bold fruit framed by toasty oak, it has plenty of acidity and no artifice. Bravo. Domaine Nicolas Gonin Dauphinoises Persan Mondeuse 2013, $19. 99 Thank goodness this wine exists. It comes from a region in eastern France and is made from two grapes that have practically disappeared, persan and mondeuse. Yet it’s an utter joy: fresh, honest and slightly funky with warm flavors of red fruits and herbs, and only 10 percent alcohol. Knock it back with sausages and be thankful that what used to be still is. (M. F. W. Wine . Elenteny Imports, New York) Brun Terres Dorées Beaujolais l’Ancien Vieilles Vignes 2014, $16. 99 Whatever the season, I always crave Beaujolais. It’s a staple because it’s so versatile and delicious. Many producers are doing great work there today, but Brun has been doing it for a long time. This straight Beaujolais, from one of the region’s less acclaimed terroirs, is surprisingly rich. It’s bright, earthy and joyous, great at any time. ( Selections) Giornata Central Coast Il Campo Red 2014, $19. 99 This is a field blend of Italian grapes grown in California, including sangiovese, aglianico, barbera and nebbiolo. It’s bright, balanced, sunny and focused, not complex but refreshing and tremendously satisfying. It comes from the people who make Broadside, a 20 Under $20 favorite for its delicious, cabernet sauvignon. Borja Pérez González Ycoden Daute Isora Ignios Orígenes Listán Negro 2013, $19. 99 The Canary Islands are a wonderful source for intriguing wines. This one, made from listán negro grapes grown in Ycoden Daute Isora, the western region of Tenerife, is reminiscent of good cabernet franc, pure red fruit leavened by the strong presence of herbal flavors. It’s deep, long, brisk and lingering. (David Bowler Wine, New York) Grochau Cellars Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Commuter Cuvée 2014, $17. 99 Grochau Cellars is new to me, but judging from this bottle, it’s an excellent source for that rare treat: pinot noir from good terroirs, grown and produced conscientiously. Commuter Cuvée shows bright aromas of red and black fruit fruits intermingled with herbs and flowers. It’s fresh, easygoing and ready to drink. Guímaro Ribeira Sacra Tinto Mencía 2014, $16. 99 If you like reds that combine fresh fruit flavors and a distinctive sense of place, keep in mind Ribeira Sacra and the mencía grape. This immensely satisfying bottle is fresh and earthy, with flavors of bright red fruit infused with an almost slatelike minerality. It is unoaked and direct, not intended for long aging. (A José Pastor Gourmet, Richmond, Calif.) Route Stock Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Route 29 2013, $19. 99 Route Stock is a label owned by Wilson Daniels, a big wine importer. I wouldn’t ordinarily look to it as a source for wines (other than its imports, of course). But this is a very good, straightforward Napa cabernet sauvignon, well shaped and lightly tannic, with flavors of dark fruits, earth and herbs that are unexaggerated. How often can you find that for $20? Bring on the burgers and lamb chops. Château Peybonhomme Les Tours Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux Quintessence de Peybonhomme 2012, $19. 99 The regions of Bordeaux, like Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux on the right bank of the Gironde, are often touted as sources of great bargains. I don’t often find that to be true, but this is an exception. This wine, made from biodynamically grown merlot mixed with a small percentage of cabernet sauvignon, is lightly tart and, as with all good Bordeaux, absolutely refreshing. (Fruit of the Vines) | 0fake |
Shell Fired by ISIS at U.S. and Iraqi Troops May Have Contained Chemical Agent - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Fighters with the Islamic State fired a shell onto a military base in northern Iraq, home to American and Iraqi troops, that may have contained a chemical agent, military officials said on Wednesday. The shell did not explode, and the officials said no American or Iraqi troops were injured in the attack. The soldier who brought the shell in for testing has not shown any blistering in the 24 hours since handling it, said the military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation. While the unexploded shell initially tested positive for a mustard agent, a second test was negative. Additional tests have been ordered. The attack, which was first reported by CNN, occurred at a base being used to prepare Iraqi forces for the offensive to retake Mosul from the Islamic State. Defense Department officials said that in the past few months Islamic State fighters have fired several shells containing mustard agents at Iraqi, Kurdish and American troops, and said the attacks generated a “moderate level of concern on a basis. ” Last summer, the Islamic State used chemical agents — again, mustard gas — in an attack on Kurdish fighters in northern Syria and Kurdish news media outlets reported another mustard gas attack a few weeks later on Kurdish fighters in Makhmur, Iraq. | 0fake |
Be Sure to Join Our Election Night Live Blog/Open Thread Tomorrow Evening | by Yves Smith
This unprecedented election season is finally coming to a close. Join us for commentary and discussion as the results roll in.
Lambert will kick off the election night live blog at 8:30 PM tomorrow evening. With the presidency and the Senate majority in play, there’s a lot to watch. The presidential and vice presidential live blogs were lively, so we expect another evening of incisive and often humorous conversation. 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 1real |
The Latest Delusion From Devin Nunes Will Make You SICK — This Is Exactly Why He Can’t Be Trusted | Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Wednesday that the Democrats are not serious about the investigation into Russia s interference in the 2016 presidential election. We re beginning to figure out who s actually serious about the investigation because it appears like the Democrats aren t really serious about this investigation, he told reporters, according to Politico.This is the same Nunes who snuck onto the White House grounds to meet an unnamed source last week, then switched cars and ditched aides, then vanished into the night so that the next day he could make an announcement to defend alleged president Donald Trump. Nunes, while refusing to name his source, said that he had seen evidence that Trump associates were incidentally surveilled after the election.The top Democrat on the committee, Adam Schiff, and other Democrats, are calling for Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia probe. Nunes has refused to do so.Nunes alleges that the Democrats have not given him a witness list and added that as far as he knew they had done very little to read the documents provided by the intelligence agencies, according to Politico. So, at the end of the day here, we re going to get to the truth, we re going to find out who s actually doing a real investigation, Nunes said.Nunes, who literally went around the very committee he chairs, to bring Trump evidence amid one of the biggest scandals to ever hit the White House, claims that Democrats aren t serious about a probe into Russia s meddling of our election.Sure, accuse the other side of what you re guilty of, Rep. Nunes.So far, only one Republican lawmaker has stepped forward to call for Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation. Hopefully, more Republicans will locate their conscience in order to disallow a hostile foreign government from underminding our election process in the future.Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images. | 1real |
Hearts & Mines: The US Empire’s Culture Industry | Published on Oct 29, 2016 Hearts and Mines: The US Empire’s Culture Industry From Katy Perry training alongside US Marines in a music video, to the global box-office mastery of the US military-supported Transformers franchise, it’s clear that the US national security state is a dominant force in global media culture. How and why is this so? This book covers the production, profit and power of US Empire’s culture industry — a nexus between the US state and globalizing media firms and the source of entertainments that promote US Empire as a way of life around the world. With: * Tanner Mirrlees, Assistant Professor of Communication and Digital Media Studies, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and * Scott Forsyth, Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Arts, York University. The launch was co-sponsored by the Centre for Social Justice, the Global Labour Research Centre, the Socialist Project, and Union for Democratic Communication. Recorded in Toronto, 20 October 2016. NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS PLEASE COMMENT AND DEBATE DIRECTLY ON OUR FACEBOOK GROUP CLICK HERE Note to Commenters Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com
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What will it take to bring America to live according to its own propaganda? =SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.= free • safe • invaluable If you appreciate our articles, do the right thing and let us know by subscribing. It’s free and it implies no obligation to you— ever. We just want to have a way to reach our most loyal readers on important occasions when their input is necessary. In return you get our email newsletter compiling the best of The Greanville Post several times a week. | 1real |
null | Its a disgrace , they have wrecked the FBI , its worse than Hoover and thats saying something , they have to make a stand sometime ,its getting like Alcapone arresting Alcapone . What a mess . Trump should make something out of this stopping honesty in the FBI is an outrage of the highest order. Your brave guys/girls but where is the help you deserve ///???? No one is against the FBI They just hate crooks in their undermining the whole legal syatem if you could call it that . You have to give Sibel Edmons some credit she named Hillary as part of the Dirty dozen . Looks like they are trying to destroy thm going on who they keep putting in charge. | 1real |
Netflix Ceo: TV’s Future includes Hallucination Pills | Netflix Ceo: TV’s Future includes Hallucination Pills 10/27/2016
INDEPENDENT
The future of TV might everyone taking hallucinogenic drugs, according to the head of Netflix.
The threats to the streaming TV company might not be Amazon or other streaming services, but instead “pharmacological” ways of entertaining people, Reed Hastings has said.
And just as films and TV shows are a supposedly improved version of other entertainments, those same things might eventually become defunct, he said. In the same way that the cinema and TV screen made “the opera and the novel” much smaller, something else might be on the way to do the same thing, the Netflix boss said at a Wall Street Journal event.
Those challenges could come from anywhere, he said. They might not be another form of screen: “Is it VR, is it gaming, is it pharmacological?” Mr Hastings asked the event.
He went on to say that it might be possible that in the coming years someone will develop a drug that will make people get the same experiences that at the moment come from streaming services like Netflix. Apparently making reference to The Matrix, he said that we might be able to take one pill to escape into a hallucination and then another to come back.
“In twenty or fifty years, taking a personalized blue pill you just hallucinate in an entertaining way and then a white pill brings you back to normality is perfectly viable,” Mr Hastings said. “And if the source of human entertainment in thirty or forty years is pharmacological we’ll be in real trouble.”
His references to The Matrix – and to being in “trouble” – recall arguments that have recently been made by tech billionaires including Elon Musk and Sam Altman. Both have suggested that it might be possible that we are part of a simulated universe – something that they said might be part of a virtual reality world, but could just as easily be the result of a drug-induced hallucination.
Mr Hastings didn’t indicate whether or not Netflix would look to make such drugs itself, or how it would fend off any companies that did. But it does sound a little like something out Black Mirror, which Netflix is showing the new season of at the moment. | 1real |
How the Iranian-Saudi Proxy Struggle Tore Apart the Middle East - The New York Times | Behind much of the Middle East’s chaos — the wars in Syria and Yemen, the political upheaval in Iraq and Lebanon and Bahrain — there is another conflict. Saudi Arabia and Iran are waging a struggle for dominance that has turned much of the Middle East into their battlefield. Rather than fighting directly, they wield and in that way worsen the region’s direst problems: dictatorship, militia violence and religious extremism. The history of their rivalry tracks — and helps to explain — the Middle East’s disintegration, particularly the sectarianism both powers have found useful to cultivate. It is a story in which the United States has been a supporting but constant player, most recently by backing the Saudi war in Yemen, which kills hundreds of civilians. These dynamics, scholars warn, point toward a future of civil wars, divided societies and unstable governments. F. Gregory Gause III, an international relations scholar at Texas A M University, struggled to name another region that had been torn apart in this way. Central Africa could be similar, he suggested, referring to the two decades of interrelated wars and genocides that, driven by meddling regional powers, killed five million. But in the Middle East, it is just getting started. Saudi Arabia, a young country pieced together only in the 1930s, has built its legitimacy on religion. By promoting its stewardship of the holy sites at Mecca and Medina, it could justify its royal family’s grip on power. Iran’s revolution, in 1979, threatened that legitimacy. Iranians toppled their authoritarian government, installing Islamists who claimed to represent “a revolution for the entire Islamic world,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. The revolutionaries encouraged all Muslims, especially Saudis, to overthrow their rulers as well. But because Iran is mostly Shiite, they “had the greatest influence with, and tended to reach out to, Shia groups,” Dr. Pollack said. Some Saudi Shiites, who make up about 10 percent of the population, protested in solidarity or even set up offices in Tehran — stoking Saudi fears of internal unrest and separatism. This was the opening shot in the sectarianization of their rivalry, which would encompass the whole region. “The Saudis have looked at Iran as a domestic threat from the from 1979,” Dr. Gause said. Seeing the threat as intolerable, they began looking for a way to strike back. They found that way the next year, when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Iran, hoping to seize territory. Saudi Arabia, Dr. Pollack said, “backed the Iraqis to the hilt because they want the Iranian revolution stopped. ” The war, over eight years of trench warfare and chemical weapons attacks, killed perhaps a million people. It set a pattern of struggle through proxies, and of sucking in the United States, whose policy is to maintain access to the vast oil and gas reserves that lie between the rivals. The conflict’s toll exhausted Iran’s zeal for sowing revolution abroad, but gave it a new mission: to overturn the regional order that Tehran saw as an existential threat. That sense of insecurity would later drive Iran’s meddling abroad, said Marc Lynch, a political scientist at George Washington University, and perhaps its missile and nuclear programs. The 1990s provided a pause in the regional rivalry, but also set up the conditions that would allow it to later explode in such force. Saudi Arabia, wishing to contain Iran’s reach to the region’s minority Shiite populations, sought to harden rifts. Government programs promoted “ incitement in schools, Islamic universities, and the media,” Toby Matthiesen, an Oxford University scholar, wrote in a brief for the Carnegie Endowment. These policies, Dr. Matthiesen warned, cultivated sectarian fears and sometimes violence that would later feed into the ideology of the Islamic State. In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, a Saudi ally. The United States, after expelling the Iraqis, established military bases in the region to defend its allies from Iraq. This further tilted the regional power balance against Iran, which saw the American forces as a threat. Iraq’s humiliating defeat also spurred many of its citizens to rise up, particularly in poorer communities that happened to be Shiite Arab. In response, Dr. Gause said, “Saddam’s regime became explicitly sectarian,” widening divides to deter future uprisings. That allowed Iran, still worried about Iraq, to cultivate allies among Iraq’s increasingly disenfranchised Shiites, including militias that had risen up. Though it was not obvious at the time, Iraq had become a powder keg, one that would ignite when its government was toppled a decade later. The 2003 invasion, by toppling an Iraqi government that had been hostile to both Saudi Arabia and Iran, upended the region’s power balance. Iran, convinced that the United States and Saudi Arabia would install a pliant Iraqi government — and remembering the horrors they had inflicted on Iran in the 1980s — raced to fill the postwar vacuum. Its leverage with Shiite groups, which are Iraq’s largest demographic group, allowed it to influence Baghdad politics. Iran also wielded Shiite militias to control Iraqi streets and undermine the occupation. But sectarian violence took on its own inevitable momentum, hastening the country’s slide into civil war. Saudi Arabia sought to match Iran’s reach but, after years of oppressing its own Shiite population, struggled to make inroads with those in Iraq. “The problem for the Saudis is that their natural allies in Iraq,” Dr. Gause said, referring to Sunni groups that were increasingly turning to jihadism, “wanted to kill them. ” This was the first sign that Saudi Arabia’s strategy for containing Iran, by fostering sectarianism and aligning itself with the region’s Sunni majority, had backfired. As Sunni governments collapsed and Sunni militias turned to jihadism, Riyadh would be left with few reliable proxies. As their competition in Iraq heated up, Saudi Arabia and Iran sought to counterbalance each other through another weak state: Lebanon. Lebanon provided the perfect opening: a frail democracy recovering from civil war, with parties and lingering militias primarily organized by religion. Iran and Saudi Arabia exploited those dynamics, waging a new kind of proxy struggle “not on conventional military battlefields,” Dr. Gause said, but “within the domestic politics of weakened institutional structures. ” Iran, for instance, supported Hezbollah, the Shiite militia and political movement, which it had earlier cultivated to use against Israel. Riyadh, in turn, funneled money to political allies such as the Sunni prime minister, Rafik Hariri. By competing along Lebanon’s religious lines, they helped drive the Lebanese government’s frequent breakdowns, as parties relied on foreign backers who wanted to oppose one another more than build a functioning state. With Iran promoting Hezbollah as the nation’s defender and Saudi Arabia backing the Lebanese military, neither had a full mandate, and Lebanon struggled to maintain order. As the foreign powers escalated their antagonism, Lebanon’s dysfunction spiraled into violence. In 2005, after Mr. Hariri called for the withdrawal of Syrian troops, he was assassinated. (Hezbollah has long been suspected.) Another political crisis, in 2008, culminated with Hezbollah overpowering Sunni militias to seize much of Beirut. Saudi Arabia requested United States air cover, according to a WikiLeaks cable, for a force to retake the city. Though the intervention never materialized, the episode was a dress rehearsal for the turmoil that would soon come to the wider region. When the Arab Spring toppled governments across the Middle East, many of them Saudi allies, Riyadh feared that Iran would again fill the vacuums. So it rushed to close them, at times with force. It promised billions in aid to Jordan, Yemen, Egypt and others, often urging those governments to crack down. After protesters rose up in Bahrain, a Saudi ally whose Sunni king rules over a majority Shiite population, Saudi Arabia sent 1, 200 troops. In Egypt, Saudi Arabia tacitly supported a 2013 military takeover, seeing the military as a more reliable ally than the elected Islamist government it replaced. As Libya fell into civil war, it backed a general who was driving to consolidate control. Though Iran has little influence in either country, Saudi Arabia’s fear of losing ground to Iran made it fight harder to retain influence wherever it could, analysts believe. Syria, an Iranian ally, reversed the usual dynamic. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states steered money and arms to rebels, including Sunni Islamists. Iran intervened in turn, sending officers and later Hezbollah to fight on behalf of Syria’s government, whose leaders mostly follow a sect of Shiism. Their interventions, civil war scholars say, helped lock Syria in the stalemate that has killed over 400, 000. The United States has struggled to restore the region’s balance. President Obama has urged Iran and Saudi Arabia “to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace,” he told The Atlantic. But Dr. Lynch called this plan for “a equilibrium” between the Mideast powers “ . ” The nuclear agreement with Iran, instead of calming Saudi nerves, hit on fears that “the United States wants to abandon them in order to ally with Iran,” Dr. Lynch said, calling the belief “crazy” but widespread. Mr. Pollack said he often heard Sunni Arab leaders express this as a metaphor. “They would say, ‘What is wrong with you people? You have this good, loving, loyal wife in us, and this crazy mistress in Iran. You don’t understand how bad she is for you, and yet you endlessly run off to her the moment that she winks at you,’” he recounted. The White House looked for other ways to reassure Saudi leaders, facilitating arms sales and overlooking Saudi actions in Egypt and Bahrain. Then came Yemen. A rebel group with loose ties to Iran ousted the president, deepening Riyadh’s fears. Saudi Arabia launched a bombing campaign that inflicted horror on civilians but accomplished little else. The assault receives heavy American support, though the United States has few interests in Yemen other than counterterrorism and sometimes criticizes the campaign. In exchange, Riyadh acquiesced to the Iran deal and began to follow Washington’s lead on Syria. But the underlying proxy war remained. Asked when the struggle might cool, Mr. Pollack said he doubted that it would: “Where we’re headed with the Middle East is the current trend extrapolated, with more failed and failing governments. ” In Yemen, this is already “reorganizing Yemeni society along sectarian lines and rearranging people’s relationships to one another on a basis,” Farea an analyst, wrote in a Carnegie Endowment paper, which cited similar trends across the region. Continued crises will risk sucking in the United States again, Mr. Lynch said, adding that no American president was likely to persuade Saudi Arabia or Iran to stay out of regional conflicts that it saw as potentially existential threats. Donald J. Trump will enter office having echoed Saudi Arabia’s view of the region. Iran “took over Iraq,” he said at a rally in January. “They’re going to have Yemen. They’re going to have Syria. They’re going to have everything. ” Mentioning both the and Hillary Clinton, Dr. Gause said he doubted that any administration could reset the Middle East’s power struggles. “I do not think that the fundamental problem of the region,” he said, “is something that either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton could do that much about. ” | 0fake |
10 Ways Russia is Preparing For World War 3- LIVE STREAMING NEWS COVERAGE | November 2, 2016 at 9:44 am
{Texas} This is most important that you share this video with the World.This is how easy it is to steal elections and this is what they have been doing for years .This is why the elections never change this country.I am absolutely angered by this revelation / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fob-AGgZn44 | 1real |
Russia Refuses To Let In Muslim ‘Refugees’, Says Middle East Needs To Solve Its Own Problems! | Russia refuses to join any scheme to help Syrian refugees and blames Western powers for Europe’s migration crisis. A trickle of migrants have entered Russia – but the country has granted asylum to only two Syrians so far this year.
Via UsualRoutine
Nonetheless, Russia blamed the West for Syria’s bloodshed and for the outflow of refugees. “We expect that for the most part that expenditures [for dealing with refugees] will fall on the countries linked to causing the catastrophic situation,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, according to Interfax news agency. Asked whether Russia would join any program to help refugees, Mr Peskov replied: “It’s hardly likely.”
Scroll Down For Video Below! He confirmed that some refugees from the Middle East had tried to cross Russian territory with the aim of reaching the European Union by crossing the border into Norway. Mr.Peskov warned that terrorists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant(Isil) could infiltrate groups of migrants, posing a possible security threat.
The Kremlin has recently provided Mr.Assad with more military support by sending a contingent of Russian troops to Syria. Their role appears to be to protect the Russian naval facility at Tartous, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, and provide training and expertise for the regime’s forces, which are responsible for the great majority of civilian deaths in the conflict. “The threat coming from Islamic State is evident,” said Mr.Peskov. “The only force capable of resisting it is the Syrian armed forces.”
Last week, President Vladimir Putin said that Europe’s migration crisis was “completely predictable”, adding: “These are the policies of our American partners. Europe blindly follows within the framework of its so-called duties as an ally – and then must bear the burden.”
| 1real |
Obama to hold final news conference on Wednesday: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Outgoing President Barack Obama will hold his final news conference as U.S. leader on the afternoon of Wednesday, Jan. 18 in the briefing room at the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said on Friday. He offered no specific time for the event. | 0fake |
Robert Reich PERFECTLY Breaks Down Trump’s 10-Step Plan For ‘Turning Lies Into Truth’ (VIDEO) | In a new video, Robert Reich breaks down the 10-step plan Donald Trump is using to turn lies into truths and how we can break the cycle.While many of us are inclined to think he is just a bumbling buffoon. Reich notes that the Wall Street Journal has refused to call Trump s lies, lies. Their reasoning? He isn t doing it on purpose, so it doesn t really count. He isn t lying intentionally. He s just an idiot who doesn t know what he s talking about. But Trump is actually succeeding at turning his many bogus falsehoods into near truths.Here s how:With this 10-step plan, Trump wins, Reich explains. But he doesn t have to. We each need to make sure we know the truth rather than just swallowing whatever lie Trump spouts out next. Don t let him confuse you. Trust the real facts, not the alternative ones.Reich also said that the media should stop mincing words and needs to report Trump s lies as lies. Watch Robert Reich explain how Trump is turning lies into truth, here:Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Partial power-share can end German political dilemma, some in SPD say | BERLIN (Reuters) - Wary of renewing a coalition with conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany s Social Democrats are instead contemplating a so-called cooperation arrangement that would see them agree on a minimal program but leave contested matters up for debate. With talks on a new government starting on Wednesday, the cooperation suggestion is seen by some in the party as an answer to the dilemma of a centre-left party that fears sharing power with conservatives blurs its identity in voters minds. Social Democrat leader Martin Schulz said he would lead the SPD into opposition after a disastrous showing in September s national election, but was forced to reconsider after Merkel s attempts at forming a three-way government collapsed, leaving Europe s economic powerhouse without a new government. But SPD members and lawmakers are reluctant to sign up for a simple repeat of the four-year Merkel-led grand coalition, after which voters rewarded the junior partner with its worst-ever post-war election result. In a paper seen by Reuters on Tuesday, lawmaker Matthias Miersch, leader of the SPD s parliamentary left caucus, suggested the two parties agree to cooperate on a minimal program while leaving other matters open. The idea, under which the SPD would contribute ministers to a Merkel-led cabinet, would allow the party to support Merkel s conservatives in areas where both parties were in agreement but leave other areas subject to ad hoc haggling between parliamentary parties. All options were discussed, said an SPD spokesman of an SPD parliamentary caucus meeting on Monday. No single model was settled on. Under Miersch s proposal, the two blocs would agree a common program in areas of broad agreement like house-building, a European investment program and climate policy. They would also agree which party provided which ministry. In some areas, including passing a budget and European and foreign affairs, the parties would agree always to seek a consensus, while in others they would agree to disagree, potentially seeking ad hoc majorities for their own measures from other parliamentary parties. The proposal could help win over party faithful, who must give their blessing to any SPD participation in a future government. But it is far from a done deal, with some of the SPD s own leadership believing early elections were better, party officials said. Merkel s own bloc has been clearer. I have no interest in half-agreements with the SPD, said Julia Kloeckner, vice-chair of Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU). Either you want to govern or you don t. Having all the ministerial jobs but no full government responsibilty is cherry picking. You can t be a little bit pregnant, she tweeted. | 0fake |
They Said What?!: Find Out What Reba McEntire, Whoopi Goldberg, And Pope Francis Have To Say | Email Ever wonder what’s on the mind of today’s most notable people? Well, don’t miss our unbelievable roundup of the best and most talked about quotes of the day: “ The government likes to get a bunch of people in a room and decide what’s best for us. If I were running the show, I’d have way less people and let them each have their own room. ” —Reba McEntire On government “ People ask me if I would do another Sister Act movie. All the time they ask me, pleading with me to do the film. They storm my dressing room on The View to throw the nun costume in my face. I find DVDs of Sister Act in my trunk, in my mail, sometimes in my drawers! I want to give the people what they want, but sometimes I’m not sure they really want what they think they want, you know? ” —Whoopi Goldberg On the responsibility of fame “ We hold our hands together in prayer in the hopes that God will put a dollar bill—which we signed beforehand—in between our palms, so that when we open them we can be amazed and delighted. So far it seems this privilege has only been granted to the pope. ” —Pope Francis | 1real |
Watch Kellyanne Conway Accuse Democrats Of ‘Interfering With Our Democracy’ By Opposing Trump (VIDEO) | At this point, it s hard to tell what the Trump administration will say next to attempt to deflect from anything at all involving The Donald and Russia.On Friday, White House spokesmoron Kellyanne Conway showed up on CNN to say that Democrats are just as bad as Trump s Russian allies who hacked and interfered with our election because they had the audacity to speak out against him. The president has said previously that he would be concerned about anybody interfering with our democracy, she said. We saw a lot of people interfering with our democracy by saying he couldn t win here at home. Trump may be concerned with that form of interference because fascists are typically concerned with criticism, but he has shown absolutely zero problems with Vladimir Putin s propaganda and hacking efforts meant to install Trump in the Oval Office.Allisyn Camerota asked Conway what Trump plans to do to stop Russia from further interfering in our election, but she well, she had nothing. Alisyn, I realize we just like to say the word Russia, Russia to mislead the voters, Conway said. And I know that CNN is aiding and abetting this nonsense as well, but you ve asked me this question three times now And you re not answering it, Kellyanne! Camerota said.The reason Conway refuses to answer is that Trump and his minions are totally OK with that kind of interference. But criticism from an opposing political party? They just can t handle it.Watch it below:Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Roused by Trump, First-Time Female Candidates Eye Local Seats - The New York Times | NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J. — Four years of increasing activism and growing political awareness recently brought Lacey Rzeszowski to Rutgers University here, to a packed room of nearly 280 women, each on the cusp of launching a bid for public office for the first time. Spurred by the 2012 shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn. she had pressured local and federal lawmakers on gun control legislation, first on the backs of postcards and then in live confrontations in town halls and congressional offices. Her advocacy led to calls for her to run for office, but Ms. Rzeszowsk had repeatedly declined. Now, seeking solace and inspiration following the 2016 presidential election and the Women’s March on Washington, Ms. Rzeszowski, 42, is squaring off in a tough race against a local Republican for a seat in the New Jersey Assembly. Political activism of all persuasions, ignited largely in response to President Trump, has swelled in the wake of the 2016 election. A monsoon of marchers swept through Washington following the inauguration, letters and phone calls flooded the White House and Congress, and protests erupted at congressional town hall meetings across the nation. But in the social media age, where protest movements often remain relegated to cable news screens and hashtags, some have wondered whether the fervor and energy would be reflected in local, state and federal ballots. The answer seems to be a resounding yes. A surge in demand for programs around the country like the one at Rutgers, along with a significant spike in small dollar for local races, suggests that the protest movement is producing a flood of led predominantly by new female candidates, on local ballots, from school boards to town councils to state legislatures. Emily’s List, the national organization dedicated to advancing Democratic women in politics, has been contacted by more than 10, 000 women saying they were going to run for local and state office in the four months since Election Day. In the two years leading up to the 2016 election, when the presidential election cycle was at its apex, the group said it had received fewer than 1, 000 contacts. Emily’s List has tripled the resources devoted to state and local races to help meet the demand. “What we’re seeing is not just in New Jersey but it’s happening all around the country,” said Debbie Walsh, the director at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. “Women are looking for a way to have a voice. They’re feeling that in ways that we haven’t seen the general public experience, the real understanding that elections have consequences. ” This is especially true in states like New Jersey that hold major local and statewide elections this year the deadline to file for primary elections in New Jersey is April 3. “It was the ride down on the New Jersey Turnpike, on a bus, watching all the buses heading to D. C.,” Ms. Rzeszowski said, describing the moment she decided to run as a Democrat, and try to unseat her former party, which she felt had moved too far to the right. She recalled her joy at seeing not just the streets of Washington, but the highways of her home state, flooded with protesters that finally pushed her into a declaration for office. Here at the “Ready to Run” program at Rutgers University — an annual event that features classes, conferences and training for women who want to run for office but are unsure of the next steps — attendance has climbed by nearly 300 percent compared with past averages, according to the event organizers. Since Ready to Run, a national, nonpartisan training program, was founded 18 years ago, sister programs have popped up around the country, from The Ohio State University to Oklahoma University to Chatham University in Pittsburgh. And at each event this year, attendance is soaring past previous records, often selling out for the first time in its history. New programs have popped up this year in Delaware, Mississippi and Connecticut. “I’ve had a few women email me and invite me just to come into their living rooms and say, ‘Teach us how to do this,’” said Gayle Ann Alberda, a former Republican strategist now teaching politics at Fairfield University in Connecticut and anchoring the effort to bring “Ready to Run” to the school. “They say ‘Hey, I’ll pay you, just come teach us how to run.’ And I’ve never seen this before. ” ActBlue, the Democratic software, has seen its users, who can be local or state or federal candidates and groups, raise $76 million in since the election. In the same time frame in 2015, its users took in $16 million. The interest, and the intent to actually take the big step and run for office, is so overwhelming that new groups are popping up across the country with the sole purpose of getting candidates ready. Run for Something, a national group started after the election to recruit and train Democratic candidates, initially expected 100 or so to show interest. More than 7, 500 have since put a hand up. The swell in interest certainly leans Democratic, and much of the protest and activism following the election of President Trump has come from those more aligned with liberal policies, but the surge is bipartisan in some states. In red Mississippi, a program similar to that at Rutgers is starting at the Stennis Center for Public Service Leadership, a federally funded center that promotes civic engagement. And in the small town of Starkville, Miss. more female candidates are running for municipal office than ever before, including six candidates for mayor. In Utah, another reliably Republican state, the Y. W. C. A.’s Real Women Run program saw more than 200 come out to one of the training sessions. “It’s only March, but it’s my interpretation that it’s more of a democratic surge in Utah because women don’t feel represented,” said Sheryl Allen, 73, a former Republican legislator from Bountiful, Utah, who helps run the Real Women Run program. She pointed to candidates like Kathryn Allen, a physician who is planning on challenging Representative Jason E. Chaffetz in the state’s 3rd Congressional District in 2018, as one of many examples. A lot of the women here at the Rutgers event seemed to share the energy of Ms. Rzeszowski, and pointed to the Women’s March as the inspiration for their planned runs. Lindsay Brown, a product manager who is lining up to challenge Representative Leonard Lance in New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District, cited the march’s “big outpouring of anger, sadness and hope that really inspired me. ” Christine Chen, a businesswoman from Bridgewater, first felt the push to run the day after the election, when she looked up local legislators to support in the face of her disappointment at the election, only to find her local representatives just as to her as the new administration. “It was very visceral, like my way of life was under threat,” she recalled, describing the months since November. She has formed a ticket of candidates in Legislative District 23, with Isaac Hadzovic and Laura Shaw running for State Assembly seats, and Ms. Chen for the State Senate. Some have found inspiration from the election of Mr. Trump himself, though not because they agreed with the president. While she often found his comments during the campaign caustic and controversial, Lucille Lo Sapio, 65, said his irreverence was the liberating force she needed to push her own name onto the ballot. “The fact that he could get up there and literally say anything, most of it untrue, but say it in such an inflammatory way, told me now I’m free to do that,” said Ms. Sapio, a “irreverent to very irreverent” political blogger aiming to be the first Democratic freeholder elected in Monmouth County, N. J. since 2008. “That’s the way I am, I don’t pull punches,” she said, admitting that she might yet push the envelope further. “The hardest thing for me is going to be not using any profanity. ” | 0fake |
Chicago Cop Executes Mentally Ill Black Teen, Then Sues Family For ‘Emotional Distress’ (VIDEO) | Cops are out of control when it comes to getting away with murdering black people with impunity and without consequence. The case you re about to read about just got much, much worse, though.As we recently reported, Chicago cop Robert Rialmo shot and killed Quintonio LeGrier when the teen called the authorities for help three times, only to be hung up on. Another casualty of the trigger-happy Rialmo was 55-year-old Bettie Jones. As if the murders weren t bad enough, the cops already investigated themselves and cleared themselves of all wrongdoing, as seems to be so typical in these cases. But it gets worse. Much worse.As if this family hasn t been through enough, Rialmo is now suing the LeGrier family for emotional distress after he murdered their child.Also, it smacks of a potential cover-up, because Mayor Rahm Emanuel was forced to release text messages relating to the shooting. One string alluded to his probing to see what the media what up to, and what kind of coverage this story was getting. Emanuel s texts say, in part: Media acting breathlessly? You are positive no public negative reaction? Further, the LeGriers lawyer, Bill Fourtis, has a very good point: Quintonio was shot in the back four times by this deranged cop. This lawsuit comes at an awfully convenient time just as details that make what happened that night look less than kosher become public, and just as the LeGrier family sues the city of Chicago for the wrongful death of their loved one.This cop needs to be in jail, as does everyone involved what is clearly a cover-up.Watch a news report on this developing story below:Featured image via video screen capture from Latest | 1real |
Fox Sports 1’s Jason Whitlock Slams Sports Media for its Drive to the Left - Breitbart | Former ESPN host and Fox Sports 1 commentator Jason Whitlock slammed the sports media for its drift toward politics, criticized former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for his faux protests, and even stuck up for Breitbart Sports. [In a new interview with Michael McCarthy of Sporting News, Whitlock pokes his finger in the eyes of presumptuous sports reporters who think they speak for African Americans, slaps around a few major sports stars, and dishes about his treatment at ESPN. Long a lightning rod for his views, Whitlock has a long history in sports media. He’s been a columnist for the Kansas City Star, a star commentator for ESPN, a radio talk show host, a writer for Huffington Post, the central figure of a popular sports website, and a Fox Sports contributor. He was also on the other side of the divide, having been an offensive lineman for Ball State University’s Cardinals football program. The interview started off with Whitlock criticizing NBA star LeBron James for essentially sitting out games after partying too hard the night before, but the interview then jumped straight to Whitlock’s criticism of the leftward lurch of sports media. The topic kicked off as Whitlock slammed former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for his season of clueless protests. Even as he doubted that politics had kept Kaepernick from landing a new team as a free agent — Whitlock said Kaepernick is “delusional about his standing in the league” — the sports writer called the quarterback’s protests ill informed and muddled. “Kap is running around with Twitter idiots who love to play the race card,” Whitlock said. “No general manager or coach wants [black lives activist] Shaun King them in the New York Daily News about a quarterback who is trying to prove his blackness through public gestures. ” Whitlock went on to urge Kaepernick to “get new friends,” and stop hanging around with people coddling him over his protests. The sports firebrand also noted that he is one of the few who has the spine to point out that Kaepernick is likely dealing with a personal identity crisis due to his upbringing, too. Whitlock said, “I’ve angered the far left by pointing out that Kap has some understandable identity issues based on his unique upbringing and a society that is brutally harsh on people. Kap is not a thought leader on race or even informed about the issues. He was a guy who liked to kick it, lift weights and be a celebrity quarterback. The Niners benched him and he became a militant activist, which made him attractive to the movement. ” That brought the conversation to the tilt of the media, something Whitlock has criticized. Sporting News asked Whitlock if liberals are trying to “kill the golden goose” by corrupting sports coverage with politics. Whitlock was adamant that liberals really are ruining sports media with political content. “ political ideologues want to reshape sports culture to their liking,” Whitlock said. “Sports culture has long had a major impact on American culture. The values taught and celebrated in sports are conservative. The far left wants to change that. They want sports to have a liberal impact. ” The interviewer then asked about the charges made by Breitbart Sports that ESPN is too liberal. Sporting News labeled Breitbart Sports as an “ ” site trying to stir attacks against ESPN, but Whitlock shot that down, saying, “I think it’s unfair to pin this on the ‘ media.’ ESPN and most of the mainstream media have lurched farther left. That’s a complaint from middle America and, in my opinion, objective America. ESPN’s own ombudsman acknowledged ESPN’s hardcore progressive slant. ” Of course, Whitlock is referring to the piece written by ESPN Ombudsman Jim Brady last year exploring whether or not the network has drifted too far to the left. But, even as he spent several thousand words reviewing the claim, Brady ended up insisting that the network had not gone too far left. Despite Brady’s pronouncement, this year ESPN issued new guidelines in an effort to put a dampener on its talent’s penchant for spouting off on liberal political topics. Speaking of ESPN’s new guidelines, Whitlock sees the new rules as “confusing. ” Before wrapping up, among the other topics in the interview, Whitlock criticized college player Lonzo Ball’s outspoken and activist father, saying the man has “emasculated” his son with all his public shenanigans. Whitlock said LaVar Ball is “hurting” his sons’ basketball careers. “He’s making their careers about him rather than about them,” Whitlock continued. “LaVar is doing way too much. I hope he his role. ” Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com | 0fake |
Davi to Hollywood Elite: Invite Illegal Aliens and Refugees to the Oscars... or You’re Racists! - Breitbart | An open letter to the Hollywood Elite and the rest of America:[My Dear friends and colleagues, I have recently been pondering President Trump’s executive action with regard to our nation having extreme vetting and our immigration policy finally being enforced. It has pained me deeply to see such a violent reaction to something that, to my mind, makes absolute common sense. Let me begin by saying that I am from a family of immigrants that came to this country for a better life. They came to the US “legally,” assimilated, integrated, and learned English to the best of their ability, and demanded we speak it. As we all know, we live in a time in which there are forces who wish to destroy our way of life. There are thousands of illegal immigrant criminals in the United States whose country of origin will not take them back. These criminals are free on the streets of America. We have recently heard from a plethora of Hollywood stars on this issue — Meryl Streep, Robert DeNiro, Ashley Judd, Madonna, major agencies, musicians, singers and even the indomitable Shia LaBeouf. After much prayer on this issue, I must now stand in solidarity with all of my Hollywood elite brethren. They are right! The rest of you are wrong! It is now in this spirit that I make an appeal to all in Hollywood and the media for us to use the Oscars to take a stand for the entire world to see and hear. It is time for Hollywood to lead the way. I propose that Meryl Steep, Chelsea Handler, Richard Gere, Robert DeNiro, Christoph Waltz and others lead an Oscar first: let’s do away with the rules, barriers, and tickets to the Oscars and such as the swanky Vanity Fair party or the Weinsteins’ affair. I ask all migrants, all illegal immigrant criminals and all refugees to converge on Hollywood to come to the Oscars and all the even those held at the mansions or the Chateau Marmont or anywhere else. After all, we in the Hollywood community want to show all Islamic extremists that we have love in our hearts — and what better way to do that than by inviting them along on our most important night? It’s time the walls and electronic security gates come down. There are roughly 3, 600 seats to the Oscars we should have at least 2, 500 seats reserved for illegal aliens, refugees and migrants, or maybe even more. For those celebrities skipping the ceremony, each should invite at least 100 illegal aliens, refugees or migrants to come to their home to watch the Oscars with them. The Academy and the Vanity Fair people should also get the 150 criminals who have recently been deported from Los Angeles and bring them to the show as honored guests. I find it curious that when President Obama did the same exact thing — and more — in terms of enforcing the law on illegal immigration, the Hollywood elite were silent. Why were they silent then, but are so vocal now when President Trump is doing basically the same thing? Is Hollywood racist? Why — when Christians are being slaughtered in Syria, Iraq, and other places in the Middle East — is Hollywood silent? Of course, the people that wish death upon Christians, Jews, gay people and the West are greeted with open arms by the elite in Hollywood — so why can’t they come to our Oscar parties? Additionally, I am now pleased to announce that Hollywood and the recording industry no longer require the protection of the Men in Blue at any of their events! We do not need a country of laws only a country of illegal immigrants, refugees and migrants. How dare we ignore the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free … ” So now, we ask you all: please come to the Oscars on February 26th at the Dolby Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. We welcome you to our homes with open arms and love in our hearts. Together, let us celebrate the Progressive left and its policies, which have helped make blue collar America Tired, Hungry, and Poor. And the Oscar goes to … With love in my heart, Robert Davi | 0fake |
Speculation not helpful, British PM May tells Trump after attack tweet | LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday it was not helpful for anyone to speculate on investigations after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that the culprits behind a train bombing had been in the sights of the police. Soon after 22 people were injured in the attack on a busy underground train in west London, Trump tweeted: Another attack in London by a loser terrorist. These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard. Must be proactive! His comments appeared to point the finger at British police. Asked whether Trump knew something Britain did not, May said: I never think it s helpful for anybody to speculate on what is an ongoing investigation . Others chimed in, with May s former chief of staff, Nick Timothy, saying Trump s comment was so unhelpful from leader of our ally and intelligence partner . London and Washington have long boasted of their special relationship , close ties that were strained earlier this year when the United States leaked information on an investigation into a bomber who killed 22 at a Manchester pop concert. Trump told reporters after his tweet that he had been briefed on the London incident, and he also said he would be speaking with May, although it was not clear whether his reference to Scotland Yard came up on the call. A senior U.S. government official cast doubt on whether Trump was privy to information over whether the bomber in the west London attack was known or not. The official said that at this point, U.S. agencies had no information to back up any suggestion by Trump that Britain had advance warning or specific intelligence on the attack. At a White House briefing ahead of next week s U.N. General Assembly meeting, Trump s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said the president was referring generically to British efforts to combat terrorism and was not making a reference to any specific knowledge authorities in London may have had. I think he means generally that this kind of activity is what we re trying to prevent, and so these organizations that are responsible for it, whatever comes out of this investigation, that remains to be seen, McMaster said. Hours after Trump s tweet, Sky News cited security sources as saying they had identified a suspect in the attack, with the help of surveillance footage. | 0fake |
FEDS SPEND BIG BUCKS On Minority-Only Obesity And Smoking Prevention | The Obama administration has spent over $166 million federal dollars on the childhood obesity program started by Michelle Obama. What s curious about this is the breakdown in numbers and why only minorities. The Obama administration has been dolling out millions to minority only groups to prevent obesity and another program called Padres to prevent smoking. Some of the projects funded through the USDA are simply outrageous and reek of fraud and waste: The Latino Fathers Promoting Healthy Youth Behavior project is getting $998,484 so that academics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis can conduct an eight-week study that addresses paternal parenting practices related to the food and physical activity environment in the home. Don t forget that this is YOUR money being thrown around!The Obama administration just allocated another $10.8 million to tackle childhood obesity among minorities, including about $1 million to a project called Latino Fathers Promoting Healthy Youth Behavior that aims to prevent obesity among Latino youth in a culturally and linguistically-appropriate prevention program. It s part of a federal initiative called Childhood Obesity Challenge Area that has doled out north of $166 million since the president and his wife launched it in 2011.The cash flows through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and funds all sorts of outrageous projects like the disastrous healthy public-school lunches that have resulted in massive waste and caused uproar among students and parents. First Lady Michelle Obama made it her mission to tackle this particular cause because child and adolescent obesity has tripled in the past 30 years, according to information released by the USDA s special Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Childhood Obesity Prevention Challenge Area. Low income children and adolescents are more likely to be obese than their higher income counterparts, but the relationship is not consistent across race and ethnicity groups, the agency states.To deal with this epidemic the administration has dedicated a lot of taxpayer money, more than $166 million, according to USDA figures. This latest chunk is going to six universities that will find innovative ways to eradicate childhood obesity among this demographic. The Latino Fathers Promoting Healthy Youth Behavior project is getting $998,484 so that academics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis can conduct an eight-week study that addresses paternal parenting practices related to the food and physical activity environment in the home. Researchers claim that participation will increase father involvement in positive parenting practices to address youth energy balance-related behaviors. It appears that they convinced Uncle Sam to fund their project by claiming that few evidence-based interventions have specifically targeted Latino fathers of youth regarding parenting practices that impact youth behaviors. It will be modeled after another government-funded program called Padres designed to prevent tobacco and substance abuse among Latino youth by engaging families in culturally and linguistically-appropriate training.Read more: Judicial Watch | 1real |
WATCH HERO Singlehandedly Shut Down Anti-Trump Protest: “Hey! This is library!” [Video] | The video below is one of the highlights from the protests last year. Protesters at the University of Washington were firmly reminded that their shouting in a library was not appreciated. This is epic!About two dozen social justice warriors gathered in the normally quiet zone, a couple students wielding megaphones, and began to chant Who s got the power? We ve got the power! What kind of power? Equal power! The small protest took place about an hour after the inauguration, says the description on the YouTube video uploaded by KING 5 s Alex Rozier.But just as the momentum is getting louder, a lone voice calling Hey, hey hey! interrupts the protest. Everyone quiets down as the camera dramatically pans to a young man in a dark-blue buttoned up shirt and glasses. This is library! he scolds them.The protesters are stunned into silence for several moments, though a few feebly call out insults, including one woman who seems to ask if he s going to go back to Beijing. The man turns and leaves.Read more: barstoolsports.com | 1real |
Turkey summons U.S. consulate worker for questioning: Anadolu | ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish authorities summoned a U.S. consulate worker to testify on Monday over his relatives alleged links to last year s failed coup attempt, state-run Anadolu news agency said, days after the arrest of another consulate employee. Anadolu said the suspect was wanted for questioning after his wife and daughter were detained in the Black Sea city of Amasya. It did not say whether he had complied with the summons. The man s wife and daughter were detained over alleged links to the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, Anadolu said, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating the abortive putsch. The two were later brought to Istanbul for legal procedures, it said. U.S. consulate worker N.M.C., husband and father of the suspects in question, has no diplomatic immunity and has been called to the prosecutor s office to testify, Anadolu quoted a statement from the Istanbul prosecutor s office as saying. On Sunday, the U.S. mission in Turkey and the Turkish mission in Washington cut back visa services after Metin Topuz, a U.S. consulate employee, was arrested in Turkey last week. Washington said the charges linking him to Gulen were baseless. The prosecutor s office said that testimony from Topuz pointed to the two suspects detained in Amasya being high-ranking members of Gulen s network. Gulen has denied any role in the failed coup. | 0fake |
Facebook: ’We Need to Do Better’ After Cleveland Shooting Video Was Up for Hours - Breitbart | Facebook admitted in a statement that they “need to do better,” after a violent video of the Easter Sunday Cleveland shooting remained on the platform for hours without removal. [“As a result of this terrible series of events, we are reviewing our reporting flows to be sure people can report videos and other material that violates our standards as easily and quickly as possible,” said Facebook in their statement. “We disabled the suspect’s account within 23 minutes of receiving the first report about the murder video, and two hours after receiving a report of any kind … But we know we need to do better. ” “Keeping our global community safe is an important part of our mission,” they continued, adding “We are grateful to everyone who reported these videos and other offensive content to us, and to those who are helping us keep Facebook safe every day. ” Suspect Steve Stephens recorded himself approaching and then fatally shooting Robert Godwin Sr. before he fled the scene and managed to evade police until Tuesday, when a standoff with police officers led to his suicide. | 0fake |
Honduran helicopter crash kills six, including president's sister | TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The sister of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and five others died when the helicopter they were traveling in crashed on Saturday, the Honduran military said. Hilda Hernandez, 51, was a close advisor to her brother, who is embroiled in political turmoil in the wake of a Nov. 26 presidential election, which remains unresolved. She was previously the government s communications secretary. Two reconnaissance helicopters were sent to comb the missing Eurocopter AS350 Ecureuil helicopter s planned flight path from Toncontin international airport in capital city Tegucigalpa to Comayagua, some 50 miles (80 km) northwest, but because of inclement weather conditions land teams were sent in, the Honduran armed forces said in the statement. The remains of the aircraft were located and no survivors were found, the armed forces said, adding it would investigate the causes of the crash. A government source, who asked not to be named said: The six people aboard the aircraft, including Hilda Hernandez have been found dead. Honduras has been roiled by political instability following the presidential vote, with center-left Salvador Nasralla, a TV star, trailing conservative incumbent Hernandez by 1.6 percentage points according to the official count. The tally has been questioned by the two main opposition parties and a wide swathe of the diplomatic corps. | 0fake |
Neeraj Pandey announces film on 500/1000 ban: “A Wednesday Re-MODIfied” | Tweet
Neeraj Pandey is all set to release the sequel to his 2008 thriller drama A Wedenesday. The movie is titled A Wednesday: Re-Modified , and is centered on PM Modi’s masterstroke to abolish Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.
The protagonist is an old chai wallah who is frustrated after serving chais from morning to evening to affluent people. The poor chai wallah is highly irritated when people emerge from luxurious cars offer notes of 500 and 1000 to him and ask “Chacha Chuttey kar do”. He sees it as a mockery to his honest profession at the hands of people who have no worth of Gandhi’s ideals or his currency notes.
Tired of large currency notes and the people who flaunt them he climbs to the roof top of an under construction building and calls the RBI Governor to share his ‘Man ki Baat’. He asks the governor to ban 500 and 1000 currency notes from Wednesday onwards. If not, he would detonate bombs kept in Chaipatti dabbas delivered as a Diwali gift by him to all banks in the city. The conversation that ensues is as below:
(Disclaimer: This conversation is in Hindi)
Chai Wallah (CW) : Aapke ghar me cockroach aata hai to aap kya karte hai Governor saab.Aap unko paalte nahi maartey hain. Ye dono note kaala dhan ban kar mere ghar ko ganda kar rhae the aur aaj main apna ghar saaf karna chahta hoon.
Gov: Tum ho kaun?
CW: Main wo hu jo apne pocket me itna chiller le kar rakhta hai ki kbhi usse koi 500 ka kbhi 1000 ka chutta karwa leta hai. Main wo hun jo month end hone pe ye sochta hai ki is baar savings account me minimum balance maintain hoga ya nahi, ya is baar IT walo ne kitna tax kaata hoga. Main wo hoon jo mahiney ki aakhri taarikh pe office jata hai to uski biwi har do ghante baad phone kar k puchti hai ki chai pee ki nahi, khana khaya ki nahi. Dar asal wo ye jaan na chahti hai ki salary mili ki nahi.
Main wo bhi hu jo kabhi Credit Card k line me fasta hai, kbhi Aadhar card k. Main wo bhi hoon jo saal me do baar SALE season ka wait krta hai. .Main wo hu jo jab shaan se apne imaandari k two wheeler pe nikalta hai to kbhi Mercedes ko side deta hai, kbhi Fortuner ko. Gaadi koi bhi brand ki ho bewajah side hota mai hi hoon. Bheed to dekhi hogi na aapne. Bheed me se koi bhi working class ko dekh lijiye main wo hoon. I am just a stupid Chai Wallah, sorry common man wanting to equalise everyone’s debts.
Gov: Aaj Achanak Ye Stupid Comman Man Kaise Jag Gaya, wo Bhi 100 kilo chai patti k saath.
CW: Kyun, Jag gaya to taklif ho rahi hai ?? Jindgi bhar ghut – ghut ke marte rahna chahiye tha mujhe…Dusro ko apne saamne amir hote dekhte rehna chahiye tha mujhe .. aur ye achanak nahi hua hai Governor sahab, Yu kahiye ki time nahi mila , fijul k media k uljhano me aur Videsh se kala dhan laane k chakkar me ye kaam jara neglect ho gaya, Lekin der aaye durast aaye.. Wo dono notes aaj hi ban honge…
Gov: Lekin ye do hi kyun? Aur bhi to hain 100 aur 50 k notes?
CW: Bas 100 aur 50 hi to hai humare paas saab inko ban kiya to khayega kya common man.
Gov: Tumhara koi apna kareebi kya tumse jyada rich hai ya jyada badi gaadi hai uske paas jisne tumahre Chai wala hone ka majak udaya?
CW: Kyun..mujhe us din ka wait krna chahiye jab koi apna, mere se jyada paise kama kar mujhe beijjat kar k chala jaaye. Jaan na hi hai to suniye. Ek marwadi tha jo roj mere dukaan pe aata aur 7 rupaye ki ek cutting chai pi k chal jaata. Naam nahi jaanta tha uska bas Udhaar khaatey me uska phone number rakha tha maine aur naam rakha tha Udhaari. Ek din wo ek kaali mercedes me aya aur 1000 ke dus note de kar bola “Chacha udhaar utaar dena aur KEEP THE CHANGE”.
Gov: To tum ye us last k english sentence k badle me kar rhe ho?
CW: Nahi nahi nahi…English me itna weak bhi nahi hoon. I always knew what CHANGE is. After all we brought the CHANGE in 2014. par ye acceptable nahi hai saab..ki koi bhi meri chai dukaan k saamne apne kaale dhan ki kaali gaadi me, kaale suit me aakar, apne kaale dhan k 1000 k note ko futkar kara le. Unhe fakra hai apne badi gaadiyon pe, 1000 aur 500 ki gaddiyon pe, Hawala transactions pe…mujhe fakra hai khud pe..ki main aise logon k 1000 aur 500 ke notes ko ban karwa raha hoon.
Gov: Tum saabit kya karna chahte ho?
CW: Main saabit kuch nahi krna chahta . Governor saab main bas aapko yaad dilana chahta hoon ki people live in poverty by force and not by choice. Aapko kya lagta hai ki jo log kaala dhan rakhte hain wo system se jyada inteligent hai? Arey internet pe ‘how to hide money in India’ search kar k dekhiye, teen sau baawan sites milengi ki kaala dhan kaise chupaye.
Gov: Tumhari ye home made add salt to toothpaste wali philosophy galat hai ..ye sahi tarika nahi hai. ? logon ko time to do.
CW: Haan..lekin aaj main tarikey k baarey me nahi! Natijey k baarey me soch raha hoon. Aap log saksham hai aise logon se niptaara paaney k liye. Par nahi..Why are you not nipping them in the bud. Mujhe yakin hai ki jo us din wo Udhaari apne black money ka note de kar Keep the change bola tha..wo ek bahut bada sawaal tha. Ki hum to aise hi black money hoard kar k amir ban jaayenge…ki tumse1000 aur 500 k futkar maangenge..Tum kya kar loge. Yes! They asked us this question… on a Monday, mocked us on a Tuesday… I am just replying on A Wednesday!
(Reported by Citizen Satirist Aayush . Originally published here .) | 1real |
BLACK LIVES MATTER TERRORISTS Take To Social Media: ANGRY Over Attention Given to FRANCE TERROR VICTIMS | There are no words for these selfish sub-humans Here are a couple of profiles from Twitter of the people tweeting about BLM being ignored because of Nice terror tragedy. They have both made their Twitter accounts private:We found this sweet self-described Georgia Peach listed as a Fashion Contributor at company called xoNecole.com Feel free to send a message to her boss on their Facebook page. Click HERE for link.Here s another pathetic Twitter user: @_nehoda_ who whined about the attention victims of the Nice terror attack were taking from the BLM movement. She s lists herself as living in London, but calls Egypt the motherland ?? Hmmm How does a Muslim woman living in London get hooked up with BLM terrorists in US?And then there s the other Muslim living in London who s a bit more brash with his tweets: Don't #PrayForNice we are fighting a civil war against whites. #BLM Andre Johnson (@LarryKingfisher) July 15, 2016Here are a few replies to Omar s tweet:Here are a few of this Muslim punk s remarks threatening a caliphate and boasting about how the Muslims have already won the war against the West:Here s real bright guy who s got nothing better to do than take to Twitter complaining about the plight of black people on the day after a major terror attack that killed over 80 people. Never mind that people just lost their husbands, wives, children, kids, friends, relatives or co-workers.Some white people die in Europe and now the media can ignore the plight of black people being exterminated #blacklivesmatter #NiceAttack Bob Schmidt (@bobschmidt857) July 15, 2016We tryna rise up for equality n somehow a 'muslim' attacks people? #BlackLivesMatter #FakeShit #NiceAttack Daye Hazit (@YurBoyDW) July 15, 2016The real tragedy about the #NiceAttack is that it takes the spotlight away from #BlackLivesMatter TheAltRightProfessor (@NationalistProf) July 14, 2016And finally this guy nails it:Nice job with PR #BlackLivesMatter Nothing makes people want to support you like whining about "getting the limelight stolen" by #NiceAttack Pink Snow kitty (@HugoThePinkCat) July 15, 2016 | 1real |
Rep. Diaz-Balart: Liberals Against Trump Who Favored Obama’s Cuban Ban ’Hypocrites’ - Breitbart | Florida Congressman Mario attacked the “double standard and hypocrisy” of opponents of President Donald Trump’s executive order on migrants from countries, noting that many did not oppose a similar move by President Barack Obama that stranded thousands of Cubans throughout the Western Hemisphere. [In a Monday post on Facebook, Rep. ( .) issued a statement clarifying the conditions of President Trump’s executive order implementing a hold on allowing migrants from seven countries to enter the United States. Noting that the “ban” — which has not stopped many from the seven nations who have cleared extra screening from entering the country — was “only temporary until the Trump administration can review and enact the necessary procedures to vet immigrants from these countries,” he added that he was disturbed by the lack of concern for Cuban refugees who suffered similar delays thanks to an Obama administration policy. “I am struck by the double standard and hypocrisy of those who are offended by this executive order, but who failed to challenge President Obama when he took similar action against Cuban refugees,” Rep. wrote, noting, “especially since President Obama’s action was meant to appease the Castro regime and not for national security reasons. ” Rep. concludes by clarifying that the seven nations mentioned in President Trump’s executive order — Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, and Libya — were part of a list compiled during the Obama years, and not the product of policy. The Trump administration chose the nations singled out in the Terrorist Prevention Act of 2015, adding an extra section on Syria given the rapid deterioration of that nation’s control of land in the face of a Islamic State onslaught and civil war between the forces of dictator Bashar and largely Sunni Muslim rebel groups. As Rep. notes, the Obama administration policy toward Cuba did not have a national security rationale. In his last week in office, President Obama repealed a longstanding executive order policy known as “Wet Foot,” which allowed Cubans who reach U. S. territory to remain here legally. The intent of the executive order was to protect Cuban refugees fleeing the political and economic oppression of the Communist Party that has ruled the island nation for over half a century. The execution of the “Wet Foot” repeal occurred hastily, and confused Custom and Border Patrol (CBP) officers into detaining Cubans with legal visas to enter the United States for hours. Among these were many elderly Cubans who had procured legal tourist visas from the U. S. embassy in Havana in order to visit their relatives at home. Elderly Cubans with health problems later told media in Miami that they had been detained and interrogated for hours, often without food, for suspicious behavior like mentioning the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. In addition to those stranded at airports with legal visas thanks to Obama’s policy, thousands of Cubans attempting to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico now have no way to escape the dire conditions in detention centers in nations like Panama. This week, 18 Cuban refugees announced a hunger strike to be allowed to either move north or settle in Panama, neither of which they have been allowed to do. The Mexican government has also ramped up operations to deport Cuban refugees while publicly condemning the Trump administration for considering deportations of Mexicans illegal present in the United States. Rep. appears to be alone among members of the House of Representatives in highlighting the relative lack of support for Cuban refugees from the left compared to the outpouring of rage by small leftist groups in American airports this weekend. Rep. Carlos Curbelo ( .) for example, issued a “ ” statement, expressing hope that the Trump administration will modify its policies once a more streamlined mechanism for vetting refugees is put in place: One Miami Republican lawmaker, @RepCurbelo, has commented on Trump refugee order https: . pic. twitter. — Patricia Mazzei (@PatriciaMazzei) January 28, 2017, Reps. Ileana ( .) and Albio Sires ( . J.) meanwhile, have vocally opposed parts of the executive order. “I object to the suspension of visas from the seven named countries and of the U. S. Refugee Admissions Program because we could have accomplished our objective of keeping our homeland safe by immediate implementation of more thorough screening procedures,” the Congresswoman wrote in a statement on her website. Rep. did add a statement similar to Rep. Curbelo’s, noting that the executive order is meant to be temporary. Rep. Sires has taken his objections further, supporting a bill to undo the executive order entirely. I signed onto @RepZoeLofgren SOLVE Act to rescind Pres. Trump’s executive order banning refugees immigrants from certain Muslim countries, — Albio Sires (@RepSires) January 30, 2017, The fifth in the House of Representatives, West Virginia Republican Congressman Alex Mooney, has at press time not issued any statements regarding either the repeal of “Wet Foot” or the Trump executive order. | 0fake |
Czech tycoon Babis to be named prime minister but may struggle to find partners | PRAGUE (Reuters) - Czech President Milos Zeman said on Sunday he would name Andrej Babis prime minister, but the tycoon leader of the anti-establishment ANO party may struggle to find coalition partners despite his emphatic election win. ANO won 29.6 percent of the vote at the weekend s polls, nearly three times as much as its closest rival, but many parties expressed reluctance or rejected outright any coalition with it while Babis fights off fraud charges. Zeman said the charges were not an obstacle for Babis - the second richest Czech who has been compared to other tycoons-turned-political leaders Donald Trump and Silvio Berlusconi - to become prime minister. My aim is that when I appoint the prime minister, and that will be Andrej Babis, that there is certainty or at least high probability that this prime minister will be successful in a parliamentary vote of confidence, Zeman said in a live interview on news website www.blesk.cz. ANO will control 78 seats in the 200-seat lower house so still needs partners from the other eight factions to form a majority, but Babis s stance as an anti-establishment force has made it difficult to forge alliances. Opponents see Babis, worth an estimated $4 billion, as a danger to democracy because of his commanding leadership style and business and media power that they fear could pose conflicts of interest. Police allege Babis hid ownership of one of his firms a decade ago to receive a 2 million euro EU subsidy that was meant for small businesses. He denies wrongdoing. He moved his chemicals, food and media firms to a trust earlier this year when he held the job of finance minister, to meet conflict of interest legislation. The center-right Civic Democrats, who came second in the election with 25 seats, said they would remain in opposition. I have already ruled out talks with ANO on taking part in a government or supporting a government, party chief Petr Fiala said on Seznam.cz news website. Two small center-right parties, STAN and TOP09, also said they would not work with Babis. I can t legitimize him and create the appearance of normality, said Jan Farsky, election leader for STAN. Democratic forces got trounced but they will not regain strength by cooperation with Babis. That would finish them off, he told Reuters. The center-left Social Democrats of outgoing Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, who won just 7.3 percent of the vote, said they may enter talks with ANO, their current coalition partner, but only if Babis personally stays out of the cabinet. The centrist Christian Democrats, the third current coalition partner, also made any potential support conditional on Babis not being in the government. The liberal Pirate Party, which came third in the election, also said Babis s charges were obstacle to any cooperation. Babis has promised to stay out of the euro zone and pressure the European Union to counter immigration, but also to keep the country firmly in the EU and NATO. But a refusal by mainstream parties to work with ANO could lead Babis to turn to the Communists and the anti-EU, anti-immigration Freedom and Direct Democracy party (SPD) for political support. SPD chief Tomio Okamura said Babis should stay out of the cabinet if he were to consider support. His conditions for talks would be a tough stance against immigration, a ban on promoting Islam and a referendum on leaving the European Union, he said. The make-up of the cabinet will influence the country s tone in the EU, but unlike Poland s leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski or Hungary s Viktor Orban, Babis does not share the anti-liberal stance that has driven Warsaw and Budapest into deep spats with western partners. President Zeman said he would meet Babis on Monday to discuss the next steps but suggested the formal appointment would happen later. He said he would call the first session of the new parliament after the maximum 30 days allowed by the constitution, to provide time for coalition talks. | 0fake |
DNC Chair Tom Perez Joins Protesters Defending James Comey at the White House - Breitbart | Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez joined protesters outside the White House, as liberals gathered to protest President Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey. [“Mr. President, history has its eyes on you, and history is not judging you kindly,” Perez shouted as a few dozen protesters chanted and waved signs. ”I’m Peach” 🍑 pic. twitter. — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) May 10, 2017, Perez cited Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the importance of the rule of law. “We are a nation where, as Jeff Sessions once said, ‘Nobody is above the law,’” he shouted. He reminded the crowd that he once served as a career prosecutor in the Justice Department, a department that was “blind” and “independent,” and he believed that nobody was above the law. “I miss President Obama right now,” Perez said, claiming that Obama understood the importance of the department’s independence. Perez insisted that Trump’s actions were “unprecedented and unconscionable” and accused him of acting worse than former President Richard Nixon. Improv protest sign pic. twitter. — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) May 10, 2017, “This is absolutely worse than the Saturday night massacre,” he yelled, referring to Nixon’s decision to fire the Watergate special prosecutor. In response, the crowd shouted, “Worse! Worse! Worse!” He called for members of Congress to oppose confirmation of a new FBI director without first appointing a special prosecutor. “We must continue this effort that the facts come out, I am not afraid of the facts, I can handle the truth, the American people need to have the truth of what happened!” he shouted. Liberal protest at the White House — shouting ”Shame!” pic. twitter. — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) May 10, 2017, | 0fake |
Chicago Alderman Calls Flyers Urging Blacks to Report Illegal Immigrants to ICE ’Race-Baiting’ | Flyers urging Blacks in Chicago to report Hispanic illegal immigrants to U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is “” said a Chicago alderman. [The flyer that resembles a “Wanted Poster” says “CALL TO REPORT ILLEGALS. ” The poster adds, “Help Atty. General Jeff Sessions Help US Black People. ” It says in large bold letters with ice caps on the tops of the letters — “ICE EM. ” The public notice claims that a reward of “$$$$$$$$ 000 Per Illegal Reported $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$” is available. “The flyer offers the outrageous and baseless claims that Latino immigrants are taking jobs away from Chicagoans,” Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez told DNA Info. He urged, “Don’t fall for this phony argument. ” The placard states, “Sanctuary city Policies endanger the lively hood of every [A]merican, while violating federal law and destroying the black community. ” The flyer continues: Studies done by the Democratic Black Caucus have found that illegal immigrants create a burden on the black community and economy, majority are paid under the table. 72% of illegals have jobs biggest in construction and factory work, right here in Chicago. Alderman Lopez says he represents Blacks and Hispanics in the 15th Ward and called the flyer “a fraud” and “an effort by some nameless entity to divide us and get people to sell their own neighbors, like Judas Iscariot, for a few pieces of silver. We all know how history remembers Judas. ” The flyers have appeared in Englewood and Roseland and near a West Pullman construction site and on the West Side, DNA Info reported. Fox 32 reported that a spokesperson with ICE said the phone number is a correct tip line but called the flyer “fake. ” “These flyers, stickers, and posters are not issued by or sanctioned by ICE. These fake flyers are similar to the recent rash of false reports involving purported ICE checkpoints and random sweeps these reports are dangerous and irresponsible. ” 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 and Facebook. | 0fake |
TWO SOMALI MUSLIM MEN Arrested For Daytime Gun Fight In Olive Garden Parking Lot In City Ranked “#2 Best Place To Live In America” | Police on Tuesday arrested two people and were seeking a third after a shooting in Northwest Rochester, MN.In 2014, Rochester, MN was ranked No. 2 on Livability.com s second annual national list of the Top 100 Best Places to Live.Rochester, MN is now a gateway city for refugee resettlement and it is being systematically destroyed. Violent crime is at unprecedented levels. Daily reports of gunfights are not uncommon.Authorities received multiple emergency calls about 12:50 p.m., reporting shots fired in a parking lot at Minnwest Bank, 331 16th Ave. NW. According to Sgt. Frank Ohm of the Rochester Police Department, the incident involved three to four black males fighting, and shots were fired.One or two individuals ran south, and one or two individuals ran north away from the parking lot, Ohm added. Two suspects were arrested down the street and were taken into custody for further questioning.UPDATE: Attempted murder charges have been filed against the two Rochester men arrested as suspects in Tuesday s shooting near the Olive Garden restaurant.Arraigned Thursday were 21-year-old Abdi Abukar and 22-year-old Idris Haji-Mohamed. Conditional bail for the two suspects was set at $500,000.Multiple witnesses have identified Abukar as the one who was firing shots at a third man as he ran through the parking lot of the restaurant just before 1 p.m. The gun suspected of being used in the shooting was found near where the two men were apprehended. Police suspect a second gun was involved. And, at least one witness told police it appeared two men were shooting at each other. The man who was being fired at is still being sought.Police aren t sure what the motive was for the shooting because the two suspects have not given a statement. It s suspected it may be related to two recent shootings in the city. Pamela Gellar | 1real |
Trump pressures Democrats on Obamacare to get border wall deal | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump put pressure on Democrats on Sunday as U.S. lawmakers worked to avoid a government shutdown, saying Obamacare would die without a cash infusion the White House has offered in exchange for their agreement to fund his border wall. The escalated push to get Trump’s priorities, which Democrats reject, into spending legislation could jeopardize prospects for an agreement to keep the government open. If talks fail, the government would shut down on Saturday, Trump’s 100th day in office. “Obamacare is in serious trouble. The Dems need big money to keep it going - otherwise it dies far sooner than anyone would have thought,” the Republican president said in a Twitter post. In a second tweet, he added: “The Democrats don’t want money from budget going to border wall despite the fact that it will stop drugs and very bad MS 13 gang members.” MS-13 is a criminal gang with members of Central American origin. The president’s tweets appeared after White House budget director Mick Mulvaney accused Democrats of “holding hostage national security” by opposing $1.5 billion to help build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, one of Trump’s top campaign pledges. Democrats have said they would not support legislation that ends federal subsidies to help low-income people buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. The healthcare law was former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, which Republicans are trying to repeal and replace. On Sunday, Democrats called for Trump to stop making “poison pill” demands. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said negotiations between Democrats and Republicans in both the House of Representatives and the Senate were “going quite well” and that he was hopeful a deal could be reached. “The only fly in the ointment is that the president is being a little heavy handed, and mixing in and asking for things such as the wall,” Schumer told reporters. “We’d ask him to let us do our work, not throw in some last-minute poison pills that could undo it, and we could get this done,” he said. Trump wants money for the wall included in spending legislation that Congress must pass by Friday to keep the federal government operating through Sept. 30, when the 2017 fiscal year expires. Mulvaney and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus played down the danger of a shutdown. Mulvaney said talks between Republicans and Democrats could produce an agreement as early as Sunday. “I’m pretty confident we’re going to get something that’s satisfactory to the president in regard to border security within the current negotiations,” Priebus said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Trump had been clear about his desire for a wall. “I would suspect he will be insistent on the funding,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.” The White House is expected to address another Trump campaign promise this week with a Wednesday announcement on tax reform that Mulvaney said would offer “governing principles, some guidance, also some indication of what the rates will be.” But he said basic elements of the plan remained undecided, including whether to have deficit-funded tax cuts that would not be permanent. “You can either have a small tax cut that’s permanent, or a large tax cut that is short term,” he said. In a tweet on Saturday, Trump promised that a “Big TAX REFORM AND TAX REDUCTION will be announced next Wednesday.” Legislative text on tax reform is not expected until June, Mulvaney said. Spending legislation will require Democratic support to clear the Senate, and the White House says it has offered to include $7 billion in Obamacare subsidies to help low-income Americans pay for health insurance, if Democrats accept funding for the wall. Democrats showed no sign of softening their opposition to wall funding on Sunday and sought to place responsibility for any shutdown squarely on Trump and Republicans who control the House of Representatives and the Senate. “The Democrats do not support the wall,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The wall is, in my view, immoral, expensive, unwise.” Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, called on Trump to “back off.” “To think that he would consider shutting down the government of the United States of America over this outlandish proposal of a border wall ... that would be the height of irresponsibility,” he told CNN. | 0fake |
Clinton Aide Says Future WikiLeaks Releases Are 'Probably Fake' | Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waves as she takes the stage to speak at a fundraiser at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, Friday, Oct. 14, 2016.
Months of embarrassing leaks released by WikiLeaks and other sources related to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic leadership have time and again proven to be true , while allegations of Russia being behind the effort have not been substantiated with any evidence. Still, that’s the talking point the campaign continues to go with.
And indeed Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri today warned against believing any new things released by WikiLeaks that are embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, even though the other releases were spot on, insisting that anything else they release is “ probably fake .”
Friends, please remember that if you see a whopper of a Wikileaks in next two days – it's probably a fake.
— Jennifer Palmieri (@jmpalmieri) November 6, 2016
This isn’t a brand new claim, either, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D – CA) making claims as far back as August that any future mass leaks would probably include “ Russian lies ” designed to embarrass Clinton and the Democrats.
These preemptive warnings appear to recognize the reality that more embarrassing information is likely to come out, and aiming to get out in front of the next batch by preemptively declaring them “probably” not true, whatever it turns out to be. | 1real |
Failure of German coalition talks would strengthen populists: EU's Oettinger | BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Union s budget commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Thursday he expected German parties exploring a three-way Jamaica coalition government to strike a deal, warning that a failure of talks would damage Europe and strengthen populists. There will be a Jamaica coalition ... nobody wants new elections, Oettinger told a business conference in Berlin. The possible three-way alliance Chancellor Angela Merkel is trying to form is also called a Jamaica coalition because the parties colors match those of the Caribbean country s flag. The Social Democrats (SPD), the second biggest party in the Bundestag lower house after Merkel s conservatives bloc, have decided to rebuild their forces in opposition after suffering their worst election result since 1933. | 0fake |
OOPS! ATTORNEY GENERAL LYNCH Slips Up: No Sign Of ‘Technical Interference’ From The Russians | 1real | |
MEDIA COULDN’T BE FOUND DURING BENGHAZI SCANDAL…But Watch Them Sprint After Hillary’s “Scooby” Van To Catch Her First Campaign Stop | Not that anyone should be surprised by the lap dog mentality of these second rate liberal hack journalists. They re the reason the most crooked woman in America is even a contender in this race. | 1real |
Right Wing Elites Declare Total War On Poor White Communities | For decades (centuries?), the right has perpetuated the myth of white superiority by pointing at black communities that are being crushed by poverty and crime. It was, they said, evidence that black people were inferior because white communities didn t have those kinds of problems.Republicans played to this racism with the Southern Strategy, which told poor white people that everything was OK as long as they were better than Those People. More importantly, if they just voted for the GOP, Republicans would stop Those People from taking their jobs/white women/opportunities/etc. And it worked really REALLY well. Poor white people flocked to elect Republicans who then gave trillions away to the rich and threw some crumbs at the poor people that elected them in the first place.But then the economy collapsed and while it hit the black community harder, millions of working class white people were suddenly in the same situation: No job, no money and no future. The result? A massive increase in dug and alcohol abuse, suicide and crime.In other words, they responded in much the same way economically devastated black communities did (but for your own safety, don t TELL them that!)Now, a rational person would look at this and say, Aha! So it s NOT some kind of moral failing on the black of Those People! It s Poverty and the lack of Economic Opportunities! But the conservative elite are not rational. They re the new French Aristocracy. They re so dedicated to the premise that the Have Nots are morally, intellectually and spiritually inferior that they have begun to turn on their own base despite their matching skin tone.Over at the National Review Online, the right wing s premiere thought leader, you will find a growing hostility to poor white people. In a piece by Kevin Williamson, you will find this lengthy screed denouncing the Republican base for siding with Trump against their masters:It is immoral because it perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been victimized by outside forces. It hasn t. The white middle class may like the idea of Trump as a giant pulsing humanoid middle finger held up in the face of the Cathedral, they may sing hymns to Trump the destroyer and whisper darkly about globalists and odious, stupid term the Establishment, but nobody did this to them. They failed themselves.If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog you will come to an awful realization. It wasn t Beijing. It wasn t even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn t immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn t any of that.Nothing happened to them. There wasn t some awful disaster. There wasn t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence and the incomprehensible malice of poor white America. So the gypsum business in Garbutt ain t what it used to be. There is more to life in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality about how the Man closed the factories down.The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul. I was shocked at the tone. The absolute loathing for poor and working class whites is so thick you couldn t cut it with a chainsaw. This is the kind of hatred usually reserved for black people and liberals. But it s obvious this is not a newly formed opinion by Williamson. The dripping condescension of Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs reveals a long held contempt for what conservative elites like Williamson usually refer to as The REAL America. And just to make sure the conservative elites are on board with how terrible and degenerate these poor (white) people are, NRO s David French quotes that entire segment above and then adds his own hate:These are strong words, but they are fundamentally true and important to say. My childhood was different from Kevin s, but I grew up in Kentucky, live in a rural county in Tennessee, and have seen the challenges of the white working-class first-hand. Simply put, Americans are killing themselves and destroying their families at an alarming rate. No one is making them do it. The economy isn t putting a bottle in their hand. Immigrants aren t making them cheat on their wives or snort OxyContin. Obama isn t walking them into the lawyer s office to force them to file a bogus disability claim.He goes on and on and on about how they ve been seduced by welfare checks and food stamps and now they re just lazy (sound familiar?).These two rich and privileged men are finally dropping the charade that the real war in this country is based on race. It never was. Race was a ruse used by the rich to keep the poor squabbling while they stole the country. But now that the 1% has broken the economy for EVERYONE, not just minorities, poor white people are furious at the people that promised them they would be better than Those People.The rich and their mouthpieces can t help but be enraged by the lack of gratitude on display. Did they not drop crumbs for the poor to feast upon? Did they not pass laws to make life even worse for blacks and gay people? Now the poor whites that give the rich their political power are expecting to be treated like people? How DARE they?!We are witnessing the end of conservative politics as we know it. The rich were able to keep the poor distracted with shiny objects and race baiting but now they re in open warfare against each other with no realistic way to mend the schism between the greed of the rich and the needs of the poor.Get more popcorn, it s going to be quite a show.Featured image author generated | 1real |
Trump Spokesperson Katrina Pierson Caught In Blatant Lie, Threatened With Lawsuit (VIDEO) | Trump Spokesperson Katrina Pierson Caught In Blatant Lie, Threatened With Lawsuit (VIDEO) By Andrew Bradford
The Donald Trump for President campaign is filled with liars. From the candidate himself to the people who attempt to defend him on television, the default position for anyone who gets a paycheck from Trump is dishonesty. And perhaps no one better personifies this than spokesperson Katrina Pierson, who went so far on CNN this morning that she was threatened with a lawsuit.
Pierson appeared, along with Democratic strategist Angela Rye, and Pierson began her lies by saying the American middle class is in trouble due to the economic policies of the Obama administration. Rye countered with facts : “I would like to go back to something Katrina mentioned, which was the middle class is hurting. Well I would go to what we’ve learned from the census bureau last year which is the middle class, and poor people, had the best year they’ve had ever since — in 2015. In quite some time rather. I won’t say ever. It says that real median household income was $56,500 in 2015. That is an increase from $53,700 the year prior. I would also point to you the fact that the unemployment rate is much lower than when President Obama started.”
Then host Carol Costello played a video clip of Trump referring to “ghettos,” and that led Rye to comment: “People like Donald Trump actually take for granted the fact that they have readily available access to capital.”
Pierson began spitting and sputtering, so Rye told her: “I know you don’t want to hear this because the truth burns.”
Unable to come up with a reasoned defense, Pierson went personal, alleging that when Rye worked for the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), she “ran (it) into the ground.”
Rye replied: “I ran the CBC into the ground? That’s laughable.”
When Carol Costello asked Pierson exactly what she was referring to, Pierson told her : “The record is out there. Look at where the finances were.”
Rye: “Let me just help you. Good luck with that lie. That’s crazy, what you’re talking about. That’s slander. I could sue you, Katrina.”
Only problem is, if she did sue Pierson, she might not get much money. Pierson, you may recall, was arrested in 1997 for shoplifting and was also accused of illegally collecting unemployment benefits. Those who live in glass houses should never ever throw rocks at others, Katrina.
Featured Image Via CNN Screengrab About Andrew Bradford
Andrew Bradford is a single father who lives in Atlanta. A member of the Christian Left, he has worked in the fields of academia, journalism, and political consulting. His passions are art, music, food, and literature. He believes in equal rights and justice for all. To see what else he likes to write about, check out his blog at Deepleftfield.info. Connect | 1real |
Watching My Surgeon Cut Into My Knee - The New York Times | What if the surgeon started slicing into my knee before it was completely numb? That was my biggest fear, while weighing whether to remain alert and watch the operation on the cartilage in my right knee, or to be put to sleep, preserving my peaceful ignorance. Rational or otherwise, my reasons for staying awake — an option increasingly taken by patients, the subject of the accompanying article — prevailed. 1) I don’t like general anesthesia’s side effects. 2) For a long year, my knee pain had resisted straightforward diagnosis and treatment. I wanted an ! glimpse of the problem. 3) Ever since I was a child, I have watched when the doctor gives me an injection. Not because I am brave, masochistic or even curious. On the contrary. Looking away, I imagine something far scarier. So watching a medical procedure has always been a form of . (Related: As more patients stay awake for surgery, doctors have to watch what they say.) There I lay on the operating room table at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, jabbering nervously to the anesthesiologist, waiting for the spinal block, an injection that was supposed to render the lower part of my body numb, to kick in. I didn’t know the etiquette. Was I permitted to talk? Or would that distract everyone? How would they know when the block was working? Was I already talking too much? Was that beleaguered exasperation in the anesthesiologist’s eyes? I thought they had given me a sedative. Is this me on sedatives? A blue surgical cloth had been draped over my hips. A nurse hoisted a bare limb and began washing it with sterilizer. How odd, I thought: Why have they brought a mannequin leg into the O. R.? Maybe a Halloween joke? I peered closely and recognized the chipped summer toenail polish. Wait. That leg belonged to me. The regional block was working. My surgeon, Dr. Robert G. Marx, strode in, greeting everyone, just another day at the office. We were ready to begin. He called for music. It so happens that about seven lifetimes ago, I was a disc jockey. The experience left me a little judgmental, perhaps, about others’ musical tastes. What would I put on the playlist “Music for Watching One’s Own Surgery”? (Rod Stewart, “The First Cut Is the Deepest” Louis Armstrong, “Mack the Knife”?) It would certainly not include Dr. Marx’s choice: Rush, the Canadian band. But Dr. Marx was raised in Canada. (So many other musicians to choose from: Neil Young! Oscar Peterson! Drake! No, not Justin Bieber. Please.) Now he was bopping around, looking pumped. And there was my favorite right knee, naked, powerless in his hands. So I said nothing. To a civilian like me, arthroscopic surgery is astonishing. Although I couldn’t see what Dr. Marx was doing, he narrated as he made two incisions: one for a tiny camera, the other for a tiny instrument. Then, on an overhead monitor, video appeared. Now we could all have a good look around my knee innards. Very cool. Cartilage is relatively bloodless, shiny and white. “There’s your honker!” Dr. Marx explained, using his highfalutin medical term for the floating fragment of my medial meniscus. Whenever I attacked stairs, that piece tugged on the highly sensitive knee capsule, dense with nerves. I felt relief and affirmation. This pain had not been in my head. The fragments looked like rubbery slivers of squid sashimi, fluttering in dark video tunnels. Dr. Marx quietly pointed out that because I’d had this surgery once before (under general anesthesia) after today I would not have much medial meniscus remaining. Anxiously hanging on his every word, I did not find the news reassuring. The wistful, shimmering mirage of my 5K morning runs dimmed. But I felt better prepared for whatever the surgical outcome might be. For I could see exactly what he was talking about. Then he went after the honker and its progeny, elegantly chewing them up with an arthroscopic biter and smoothing down the edges with a shaver so that the remnants resembled a normal meniscus. Afterward, as I waited for the regional block to wear off, I was alert, with none of the chills or grogginess that bedeviled me with general anesthesia. I left the hospital a patient, with new respect for the operating room staff members. And a speech to deliver to Dr. Marx about his musical taste. | 0fake |
Samsung, After Combustible Galaxy Note 7, Unveils New Smartphone - The New York Times | SAN FRANCISCO — Dogged by combustible smartphones and recalls of other devices, Samsung Electronics is hoping to find a path to product redemption. The South Korean company on Wednesday introduced the Galaxy S8, its first major smartphone release since the scandal over its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, which were discontinued last year after some of the devices spontaneously caught fire. “It’s been a challenging year for Samsung,” said D. J. Koh, the company’s head of mobile devices, adding that Samsung was ready to start anew. The Galaxy S8 features a large 5. screen without adding bulk to the device. The company said it made room for the screen by reducing the size of the bezel — or the forehead and the chin — on the face of the device. Samsung also made the home button into a virtual button and shoved it under the display. With the Galaxy S8, Samsung also rolled out its virtual assistant, Bixby, to rival Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa. Similar to previous virtual assistants, Bixby responds to voice commands. Time — and sales — will tell whether the Galaxy S8 will restore confidence in Samsung’s smartphones. Last year, after the company received dozens of complaints about the Galaxy Note 7 overheating, and in some cases exploding, the company recalled the phones. But replacement phones continued to catch fire, and the company had to recall the devices a second time before killing the product altogether, sacrificing billions of dollars in revenue. The Galaxy Note 7 may still make a reappearance. On Monday, Samsung said that it might sell refurbished versions of the phone. Jan Dawson, an independent analyst for Jackdaw Research, said the Galaxy S8 could help Samsung recover as long as the product worked reliably. “Note 7 definitely did some damage to the Samsung brand, especially for people who had little or no personal experience with Samsung devices,” he said. “But as long as the S8 does well and doesn’t suffer from any of the same problems, the memories of the Note 7 issues will fade and Samsung will recover well.” Samsung last year also issued a separate recall for 2. 8 million washing machines in the United States. The machines were prone to detaching from the washing machine chassis, posing a risk of injury. The Galaxy S8 will arrive in stores next month with a starting price of $750. | 0fake |
TRUNEWS 10/27/16 Rob Kirby | Unspoken Secrets | TRUNEWS 10/27/16 Rob Kirby | Unspoken Secrets October 27, 2016 Will the media ever publicize the DARKEST secrets already released by Julian Assange? Today on TRUNEWS, Rick Wiles details the latest election defining revelations, as WikiLeaks exposes Bill’s generational ‘get rich’ scheme, run through the Clinton Foundation, and the elite's preparations for World War as an October Surprise. Rick also speaks with Rob Kirby, the financial analyst behind Kirby Analytics, regarding the Deutsche Bank’s magical earnings report, and the state of the largest economic bubble in human history.
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THIS IS GREAT! ELECTORAL MAP Proves TRUMP Would Win If Election Held Today | Hillary has lost her lead in swing states OH, NV, IA and FL since the beginning of SeptemberNEW YORK CITY, New York As the first presidential debate looms later Monday evening just an hour from here on Long Island at Hofstra University, a Breitbart News analysis of current polling in the presidential election shows that Donald J. Trump the Republican nominee for president would win the election if it were held Monday and the polls are correct. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the election. With the exception of two states Maine and Nebraska the winner of a state wins that state s electoral votes on Election Day in the general election.The reliably red Republican states Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, and South Carolina are all expected to easily vote for Trump for president. That totals 164 electoral votes.Despite initial polling scares during the darkest days of Trump s campaign in also reliably red Georgia and Arizona, both of those states per recent polling have seemingly moved solidly into the Trump column. That s another 27 electoral votes, for a total of 191 electoral votes with the other red states.From there, add in Florida with 29 electoral votes. Most recent polling out of Florida with a couple rare exceptions has shown Trump with a slight or modest lead. One outlier poll from Monmouth drags the RealClearPolitics polling average in the four-way race between Trump, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, Green Party nominee Jill Stein, and Libertarian Gary Johnson down to a 0.1 percent Trump advantage in the Sunshine state. But the billionaire real estate mogul leads in four out of the last seven surveys, and the only other two where Clinton has any lead it is inside the margin of error. Trump has had a comfortable cushion in Florida since Labor Day, and in the last poll conducted partially before it, he tied Clinton. Assuming Trump can lock down Florida and its 29 electoral votes that he will need to win the White House, and add that to the rest he already has, he then hits 220 electoral votes.Move from there out to Nevada and Iowa for a total of 12 more electoral votes six per each state. In the three-way race in Nevada Stein is not on the ballot in the Silver State Trump has led in every poll in September, according to RealClearPolitics. During the course of the month, the man whose name is emblazoned across the top of a golden building just off Las Vegas Boulevard has steadily increased his lead from just a point in the first September poll by NBC News, The Wall Street Journal, and Marist, to two points in a Monmouth poll a week later, to three points in the latest two surveys from Fox News and KTNV/Rasmussen. His polling average is a 2.3 percent advantage over Clinton. It is so bad for Clinton in Nevada right now that even Politico ran a headline saying the state is giving Democrats heartburn. Iowa is the battleground state where Trump is most comfortable right now. Trump has had a comfortable lead in all three Iowa polls this month from Emerson, Monmouth, and Quinnipiac and the RealClearPolitics polling average currently gives Trump a 6.3 percent advantage in the Hawkeye State walking into the debate. Fit Iowa and Nevada in the Trump column and he is up to 232 electoral votes.Next up is Maine s Second Congressional District. Maine is one of those two funky states that splits its electoral votes by congressional district Nebraska, which is solidly in Trump s column, is the other and Trump is polling significantly ahead of Clinton there. The only three public surveys done in Maine s second district all of which were done in September give Trump massive leads outside their margins of error. The first, by Emerson, showed Trump with a five-point lead over Clinton at the beginning of the month in a four-way race. A second poll from Colby College/SurveyUSA done mostly after Labor Day gave Trump a ten-point lead, and that finding was confirmed by a later poll from MPRC a progressive group that had Trump up 11 points in Maine s Second District. He was also trending upward statewide, and in the RealClearPolitics average statewide only trails Clinton by 3.8 points. But for now, let s just give Trump the place that s firmly in his column the Second District and that is just one electoral vote. With that picture, he is at 233 total electoral votes.North Carolina, another state where Stein is not on the ballot, has seen Trump trend upwards in polling during September. There has not been, according to RealClearPolitics, a single poll conducted entirely in September that has shown Clinton leading in the Tar Heel State. Trump has been leading, or the two were tied, in every three-way race poll since a Quinnipiac poll conducted partially in August and partially in September was released. RealClearPolitics has Trump s polling average at a 1.8 percent advantage over Clinton in North Carolina, but his most recent poll from Fox News put him at a five-point lead there. If Trump locks down North Carolina s 15 electoral votes on top of everything aforementioned, that puts him at 248 total and in striking distance of the presidency.This brings us to the all-important state of Ohio. The Buckeye State is another where Clinton has not seen a lead in a public poll since the beginning of September in a CBS News/YouGov poll conducted from September 7 to September 9 that showed her up seven points. That outlier poll, the only one from Ohio this month showing her ahead in the four-way race, drags the polling average for Trump down to a two-point Trump advantage. Every other Ohio poll this month has shown Trump up, including separate Bloomberg, CNN, and Fox News polls that show Trump up five points each. The Suffolk University poll mid-month shows Trump up three, and the new Breitbart News Network/Gravis Marketing survey just out on Sunday evening shows Trump holding onto the lead, up a point on Clinton. CNN s Jeff Zeleny on Sunday noted that Hillary Clinton has essentially given up on Ohio, saying, So long, Ohio: It s been 20 days since Hillary Clinton stepped foot into this classic battleground state, and she s not expected to visit it again in the month of September. He said that while Hillary Clinton s campaign is still spending money there, Ohio, the mother of all battleground states, is not in her wheelhouse anymore. If Trump locks up Ohio s 18 electoral votes, and adds them to everything else, he is at 266 electoral votes.That means he would be one state away from the presidency. From where is it going to come?Read more: Breitbart | 1real |
Vendée Globe – Un skipper fait demi-tour après avoir découvert Jean-François Copé caché dans son bateau >> Le Gorafi | null | 1real |
Russia accuses U.S. of denying entry to senior military official | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia accused the United States of denying entry to a senior military official to conduct a joint Russian and Chinese briefing at the United Nations on Thursday that criticized U.S. missile defense systems as a global threat. U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood and Jeffrey Eberhardt, of the State Department Office of Multilateral and Nuclear Affairs, walked out of the briefing within minutes of it starting in a conference room at U.N. headquarters in New York. Alexander Emelianov, from the Russian Defense Ministry international cooperation committee, said Moscow had wanted to send a delegation led by Lieutenant General Tretyak Andrey, Russian Armed Forces chief of the General Staff Advisers Group. The entry visa was not given to them, Emelianov told the few dozen diplomats attending the half-hour briefing. The U.S. mission to the United Nations declined to comment on individual visa cases or the Russian and Chinese briefing. Russia and China have long been critical of U.S. missile defense systems, particularly the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in South Korea amid heightened tensions with North Korea over its ballistic missile and nuclear tests. The Russian Federation is confident that the unlimited deployment of the U.S. anti-missile defense is a serious threat to the global security and can further unleash the arms race and threaten the entire humanity, Emelianov told the briefing. Major General Zhou Shangping, deputy director-general of the Operations Bureau, the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, also briefed. The deployment of the THAAD system does little to upgrade the surveillance capability against the DPRK (North Korea), but significantly enhances the capability to monitor China s strategic depth and Russia s Far East, Zhou said. China and Russia have repeatedly demanded the United States halt the deployment of THAAD in South Korea. | 0fake |
Highlights: The Trump presidency on April 13 at 9:30 P.M. EDT/0130 GMT on Friday | (Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday: The United States drops a massive GBU-43 bomb, the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, in Afghanistan against a series of caves used by Islamic State militants, the Pentagon says. Trump says Pyongyang is a problem that “will be taken care of” amid speculation that North Korea is on the verge of a sixth nuclear test. Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China warns, while an influential Chinese newspaper urges Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Beijing’s protection. The Trump administration is focusing its North Korea strategy on tougher economic sanctions, possibly including intercepting cargo ships and punishing Chinese banks doing business with Pyongyang, U.S. officials say. Trump says “things will work out fine” between the United States and Russia, a day after declaring U.S.-Russian relations may be at an all-time low. Trump signals he could be moving closer to the mainstream on monetary policy, saying he has not ruled out reappointment of Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve chair as he considers his choices for the U.S. central bank. [nL1N1HL14B] Trump signs a resolution that will allow U.S. states to restrict how federal funds for contraception and reproductive health are spent, a move cheered by anti-abortion campaigners. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen presses Deutsche Bank to release information about issues including Trump’s debt and any bank meetings with Trump administration officials, saying he has “great concern” about possible conflicts of interest. EXPORT-IMPORT BANK Trump’s office says he plans to revive the hobbled Export-Import Bank of the United States, a victory for American manufacturers such as Boeing Co and General Electric Co that have overseas customers that use the agency’s government-backed loans to purchase their products. Top Wall Street bankers say they are having positive discussions about financial regulation in Washington, and downplay the idea U.S. policymakers may force their institutions to split up. The United States is pushing for trade to be a key issue in top-level economic talks with Japan, a source says, an unwelcome development for Tokyo, which is seeking to fend off U.S. pressure to reduce the bilateral trade imbalance. Trump’s administration has focused on one group of illegal immigrants more than others: women with children, according to eight Department of Homeland Security officials interviewed by Reuters about agency planning. | 0fake |
Popular ’Polandball’ Meme Page Suspended From Facebook - Breitbart | “Polandball,” a popular Facebook meme page, has been permanently suspended from the platform, losing over 350, 000 followers in the process. [The page, which focused on “ satire,” was notified by Facebook that they would be permanently deleted on Saturday for unknown reasons. “Hello, friends. Today Poland has received news that his old page will not be coming back. It was finally permanently deleted by Facebook on 3rd February, 2017, along with over 350, 000 fans, many years of laughs and comics that are now gone forever,” declared Polandball in a statement on their replacement page, which has accumulated over 25, 000 likes. “Something that you should understand is that it was not any particular group of people that got our page deleted, other than Facebook. They were the ones who decided to get rid of our page, and they did this because of the many times we were banned previously. They decided now was the time to end it. ” “We will not be giving up on Polandball and the wonderful community that has been made around it,” they continued. “Thanks to you all very much for being fans, we at Polandball love you. Please continue to support us and our misadventures in geopolitical satire. ” Facebook has repeatedly been criticized for removing comedy pages, some of which have had hundreds of thousands of fans. In December, Breitbart News reported on a Facebook group of nearly a thousand of the social network’s top page owners, most of whom had been affected by Facebook’s suspensions and were attempting to fight back under the #PowerToThePages hashtag. Several other Facebook page resistance groups have also popped up over the past two years. Devin Shire, a Facebook page owner and member of the meme page revolt that took place last year, was sanctioned on the social network after he posted a comedy picture of rapper Drake morphed into a Nintendo 64 controller. “Originally we only had my page Young Thugga La Meme, Everything Is A Social Construct, another page I admin Chair Memes, Digiannantonio Aesthetic, and Kevin 3 I believe, then we went reaching out to everybody we knew who had pages and had them reach out to every other page admin they knew,” said Shire in August on the topic of the revolt. “It was not easy trying to talk some pages into being apart of this because a lot of them feared the backlash they might receive from Facebook for trying to stand up for this issue. ” Like the #PowerToThePages movement, Shire’s revolt included many different affected page owners and garnered support from top content creators, including the Polandball. In July, a popular Facebook page called “Meninist,” which had nearly 400, 000 likes, was permanently suspended, only to be reinstated after Breitbart Tech called Facebook out on the bizarre move. In the same month, a meme page mocking Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was also removed, with the social network citing a joke image as the reason for deletion. Numerous other examples of Facebook censorship have taken place almost daily, including the suspension of gay conservative Lucian Wintrich after he used the word “fag,” the removal of a men’s rights conference page on the day of the conference, the censorship and restriction of WikiLeaks links, and the deletion of and even content. Despite the crackdown on harmless and inoffensive content, Facebook has refused to deal with real infringements upon their policies, such as the cartoon posted by the Black Panther Party of Mississippi’s page in July that portrayed a man in a black robe and mask slitting the throat of a police officer. When contacted for comment, Facebook said that it was investigating the suspension. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 0fake |
Loretta Lynch joins Obama in prodding Senate over NSA | Lynch warned that inaction from the Senate would cause "a serious lapse" in the government's ability to protect Americans.
A day earlier, Obama urged Congress "to work through this recess and identify a way to get this done."
"This needs to get done," he said during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
The National Security Agency's bulk metadata collection program, which has allowed the NSA to collect and store phone data on millions of Americans, will sunset on Monday unless Congress passes legislation by midnight on Sunday.
Obama and Lynch have endorsed the USA Freedom Act, the bill to make changes to the Patriot Act that overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives but came three votes shy of passage in the Senate this weekend. Obama said Tuesday that bill "strikes an appropriate balance; our intelligence communities are confident that they can work with the authorities that are provided in that act." Under that plan, phone companies would store their customers' metadata and the NSA would need to obtain a specific, targeted warrant to get a customer's data. His comments came after the Senate failed in a rare overnight session this weekend to pass the USA Freedom Act or a short-term extension of the Patriot Act's expiring provisions as reform opponents and the staunchest anti-surveillance advocates stood firm on their positions. The Senate now stands in recess until next Sunday, though Senate dealmakers are working this week to find a way to keep the programs from lapsing. Obama pressed the Senate to work through the recess to find "a way to get this done." "The House of Representatives did its work," Obama said. "The Senate did not act." | 0fake |
Carly Fiorina Says Donald Trump 'Taps Into an Anger' | Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said Sunday she could see how competitor Donald Trump's immigration rhetoric, which has gotten him in some hot water over the past few weeks, resonates with some voters.
Asked on ABC's This Week whether she would support him if he became the nominee, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO said, “I have been in New Hampshire now for six days, and I have not been asked a single question about Donald Trump.” Last week in the first-in-the-nation primary state, she said Trump didn't represent her or her party.
On the other hand, she said on ABC, “I think Donald Trump taps into an anger that I hear every day. People are angry that a commonsense thing like securing the border or ending sanctuary cities is somehow considered extreme. It's not extreme, it's common sense. We need to secure the border.”
While decrying illegal immigration in his campaign announcement speech on June 16, Trump called the Mexican immigrants entering the the U.S. criminals and “rapists.” The remark has caused business partners and fellow Republicans (though not all) to cut ties with or denounce the real estate mogul and reality TV star. | 0fake |
Trump-Supporting Alaska GOP Candidate Apparently Has No F*cking Clue Tweets Are Public (SCREENSHOTS) | Meet William Quayle Jr., who is trying to give Sarah Palin a run for the worst thing to ever come from Alaska.Quayle is a man who is voting for Donald Trump (but would have preferred Ted Cruz and previously criticized The Donald for his hateful rhetoric and lies) because he s angry about the state of our country and running for Juneau s city assembly because things need to change, dammit (or something). And boy, does he hate that Hillary Clinton lady largely because he buys into right-wing conspiracy theories that paint her as so sick she s likely to die any day now.Quayle s Facebook timeline is filled with right-wing memes and messages, including frequent references to convicted felon Dinesh D Souza s latest propaganda film, Hillary s America: But his obvious stupidity the climate change post, really? is not what is bringing this normally unimportant person into the spotlight it s his Twitter account, where he shares his love of large, full-figured women and their full-figured breasts and, of course, where he sends some of these women insanely creepy messages. The GOP candidate seems to spend much of his time harassing women most commonly model Chelsea Charms about fattening themselves up, inviting them to come live with him, and even encouraging them to get pregnant so their boobs would get much bigger : I do not wish to discuss about my fetishes, I am a heterosexual male and that is that, Quayle told KTOO-FM when asked about the posts. I do have original ideas that my competition does not have. All they want to do is tax and cut budget. He does not deny the account is his, and even at one point auto-posted some of his more awkward messages to Facebook:It s perfectly OK for someone to like large-breasted women. It s not OK to harass women whose photos you look at while you do unspeakable things to your little soldier (it can be safely assumed that this is the case based on his public messages).The election is Tuesday. May God have mercy on our souls if this guy manages to win.Featured image via Facebook/Twitter | 1real |
We’re Not F*cking With You: Trump Stole Part Of His First Presidential Speech From A Batman Villain (VIDEO) | If you thought it was hilarious that Trump s 2020 slogan was directly lifted from a promotional poster for The Purge, you re in for a treat when you realize that he quoted a Batman villain during his first speech as President. Today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, Trump told his tiny, tiny crowd of less than a quarter-million on Friday, But we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people. Trump says he wrote his speech himself, apparently after watching The Dark Knight Rises. The Internet was quick to notice similarities to a speech given by Batman villain Bane:Guys Donald Trump quoted Bane in his #Inauguration speech! pic.twitter.com/tVZQ4ppgPK Batman-News.com (@BatmanNewsCom) January 20, 2017Trump definitely quoted Bane about 4 times ? #TrumpInauguration pic.twitter.com/x9OttdDttk Manchester Guestlist (@VIPMCRuk) January 20, 2017"The Rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you, the people" pic.twitter.com/2v8U0V2R2C Jim Lee (@meanJim) January 20, 2017Trump plagiarized Bane from batman in his speech https://t.co/llNyQcAFUt Tyler Good (@tylerg00d) January 20, 2017Find a president who can do both @freshboyrdee @BatmanNewsCom pic.twitter.com/NrjOgNrQuT MEGATRON (@MEGATRON_BWC) January 20, 2017People are comparing Trump to Bane from Batman but if I remember correctly at least Bane stood up to Wall Street Danny Gold (@DGisSERIOUS) January 20, 2017Donald trump loves quoting villains in movies first the slogan from the purge and now bane from Batman La Flame (@brotado40) January 20, 2017I DID NOT plager .plajur .copy my speech from #Bane in #batman. FALSE NEWS .PROVE IT! #Inauguration #TrumpInauguration #trump45 #trump https://t.co/C2L4gjoNDQ Dogald J. Trump (@dogaldtrump) January 20, 20172016: Melania steals from a Michelle Obama speech2017: Trump steals from a Bane speech2018: Pence steals from an Emperor Palpatine speech Noah Kinsey (@thenoahkinsey) January 20, 2017Trump is giving the same speech that Bane gives in The Dark Knight Rises before he empties out the jail #Inauguration Stitchell?? (@GarryStitchell) January 20, 2017You know, it is probably appropriate that Trump would quote a deranged killer who took control of a city, emptied the prisons, proclaimed martial law, and threatened to blow everyone in the city up if they didn t comply with his authority. It s going to be just like the movies.Unfortunately, Batman is not real and will not be here to protect us from Trump. It is up to each of you to do all that you can to ensure that this real-life villain does not win. Oppose him at every turn, or we lose Gotham America as we know it.Featured image by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images/screengrab | 1real |
Trump Still Isn’t Convinced Russia Interfered In Our Election Despite All The Evidence | Despite all the evidence otherwise, Donald Trump is still claiming that he doesn t believe Russia actually hacked our election. A report in the Wall Street Journal reveals that even though 17 intelligence agencies agree that Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election, Trump still isn t convinced.According to the WSJ, sources say that there is a memo of conversations between Trump and NSA Director Adm. Rogers which detail Trump s refusal to acknowledge that Russia meddled in the presidential election. This memo reveals that the president questioned the veracity of the intelligence community s judgment that Russia had interfered with the election and also tried to persuade Adm. Rogers to say there was no evidence of collusion between the campaign and Russian officials. But On June 7, just one day before fired FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee all about how Trump tried to obstruct justice in every way he could, Adm. Rogers said he felt zero pressure from Trump to push back against allegations of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump refuses to say that Russia interfered with our election for obvious reasons. Admitting that Russia did all they could to rig the election in his favor is the very last thing he wants to do.There hasn t been any doubt that Russia meddled in the election for months now. Way back in January, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report that pins responsibility for the election attack directly on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, ruling out the possibility that it was ordered by intelligence officials or simply carried out by Kremlin supporters. A whopping 17 intelligence agencies agree on this matter. It isn t up for debate anymore. Russia. Hacked. Our. Election.However, Trump just can t bring himself to say that. I guess it s too close to a confession.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
NAILS IT! MIKE ROWE On Why Trump Won…Hillary Supporters Won’t Like This! [Video] | This is fantastic! Mike Rowe tells a fan why Trump won nails it! Here is Rowe s post from his Facebook page:Hey Mike. You ve been very quiet. Everything OK? I just wanted you to know that I voted for you. I was also hoping you might explain what the hell happened on Tuesday, and say something to make me feel better about my fellow man. Thanks,Carol SavoyWell, Mike answered Carol and he did so in a very thorough fashion.Hi CarolLast Friday, my dog posted a video that featured a man licking a cat with the aid of a device that s designed for the specific purpose of making it easier for people to lick their cats.I ve been silent ever since, because frankly, I couldn t think of a better way metaphorical or otherwise to express my feelings about this election cycle. The entire country it seems, has been preoccupied with finding a way to lick a cat without actually putting their tongue on it.Too oblique? Too weird? Ok, how about this analysis:Back in 2003, a very unusual TV pilot called Dirty Jobs, Forrest-Gumped its way onto The Discovery Channel and found an audience a big one. For Discovery, this was a problem. You see, Dirty Jobs didn t look like anything else on their channel. It wasn t pretty or careful. It took place in sewers and septic tanks, and featured a subversive host in close contact with his 8-year old inner child who refused to do second takes. Everyone agreed that Dirty Jobs was totally off-brand and completely inappropriate for Discovery. Everyone but the viewers. The ratings were just too big to ignore, so the pilot got a green-light, and yours truly finally got a steady gig.But here s the thing Dirty Jobs didn t resonate because the host was incredibly charming. It wasn t a hit because it was gross, or irreverent, or funny, or silly, or smart, or terribly clever. Dirty Jobs succeeded because it was authentic. It spoke directly and candidly to a big chunk of the country that non-fiction networks had been completely ignoring. In a very simple way, Dirty Jobs said Hey we can see you, to millions of regular people who had started to feel invisible. Ultimately, that s why Dirty Jobs ran for eight seasons. And today, that s also why Donald Trump is the President of the United States.I know people are freaked out, Carol. I get it. I m worried too. But not because of who we elected. We ve survived 44 Presidents, and we ll survive this one too. I m worried because millions of people now seem to believe that Trump supporters are racist, xenophobic, and uneducated misogynists. I m worried because despising our candidates publicly is very different than despising the people who vote for them.For what it s worth, Carol, I don t think Donald Trump won by tapping into America s racist underbelly, and I don t think Hillary lost because she s a woman. I think a majority of people who voted in this election did so in spite of their many misgivings about the character of both candidates. That s why it s very dangerous to argue that Clinton supporters condone lying under oath and obstructing justice. Just as it s equally dangerous to suggest a Trump supporter condones gross generalizations about foreigners and women.These two candidates were the choices we gave ourselves, and each came with a heaping helping of vulgarity and impropriety. Yeah, it was dirty job for sure, but the winner was NOT decided by a racist and craven nation it was decided by millions of disgusted Americans desperate for real change. The people did not want a politician. The people wanted to be seen. Donald Trump convinced those people that he could see them. Hillary Clinton did not.As for me, I m flattered by your support, but grateful that your vote was not enough to push me over the top. However, when the dust settles, and The White House gets a new tenant, I ll make the same offer to President Trump that I did to President Obama to assist as best I can in any attempt to reinvigorate the skilled trades, and shine a light on millions of good jobs that no one seems excited about pursuing.Like those 3 million shovel ready jobs we heard so much about eight years ago, the kind of recovery that Donald Trump is promising will require a workforce that s properly trained and sufficiently enthused about the opportunities at hand. At the moment, we do not have that work force in place. What we do have, are tens of millions of capable people who have simply stopped looking for work, and millions of available jobs that no one aspires to do. That s the skills gap, and it s gotta close. If mikeroweWORKS can help, we re standing by.If not, I suppose we ll just have to find another way to lick the cat.MikeBe sure to check out Mike s Facebook page. | 1real |
Is Donald Trump Actually A Fascist? Here Is What Experts Are Saying (VIDEO) | Another fact that allowed Fascism to gain power over men was their blindness. A man cannot believe that he is about to be destroyed. The optimism of people standing on the edge of the grave is astounding. Vasily Grossman. I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn t lose voters. Donald Trump.In the United States, people prove Godwin s Law to be true way too often. Not every politician needs to be compared to Hitler, Mussolini, or any other well-known fascist. It s especially obnoxious when right-wingers call leftists fascists. Fascism is a right-wing ideology.Except when discussing Donald Trump. Trump is definitely a fascist. Or, at the very least, he is acting the part of one. That way he can gain support from actual fascists, and to dominate the vapid corporate media with his atrocious rhetoric.There is a great video going around the internet that asks the question, Is Donald Trump a fascist? The answer is yes. Trump is a fascist. The video doesn t overtly state that conclusion, though it does a great job of explaining why he might be, and why people are asking the question in the first place. Here s the video:https://www.facebook.com/HuffPostPolitics/videos/10153699583882911/Is Donald Trump going to lead America into a completely fascist state, where Muslims and other minorities are rounded up and exterminated? No. The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin struck gold when he coined the term inverted totalitarianism to describe the rise of the United States predominately right-wing, corporate run, neoliberalist government. I d highly recommend every progressive read Wolin s book, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. The real danger of Trump s fascism is that he is normalizing the ideals of fascism. Facsist hate groups are loving every minute of Trump s campaign. They have their own bully, bellowing the hatred and intolerance that is largely considered taboo to speak of. This normalization of hatred and state violence is one of the first steps towards acts of genocide, and other horrific human rights abuses.Featured image from video screenshot via Facebook | 1real |
Trump will accept election results if it's fair, his son says | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will accept the results of the U.S. election if it is fair, his son Eric Trump said on Sunday. “My father will accept it 100 percent if it’s fair,” Eric Trump told ABC’s “This Week” program. | 0fake |
Giant Coral Reef in Protected Area Shows New Signs of Life - The New York Times | In 2003, researchers declared Coral Castles dead. On the floor of a remote island lagoon halfway between Hawaii and Fiji, the giant reef site had been devastated by unusually warm water. Its remains looked like a pile of drab dinner plates tossed into the sea. Research dives in 2009 and 2012 had shown little improvement in the coral colonies. Then in 2015, a team of marine biologists was stunned and overjoyed to find Coral Castles, genus Acropora, once again teeming with life. But the rebound came with a big question: Could the enormous and presumably still fragile coral survive what would be the hottest year on record? This month, the research team finished a new exploration of the reefs in the secluded Phoenix Islands, a tiny Pacific archipelago, and were thrilled by what they saw. When they splashed out of an inflatable dinghy to examine Coral Castles closely, they were greeted with a vista of bright greens and purples — unmistakable signs of life. “Everything looked just magnificent,” said Jan Witting, the expedition’s chief scientist and a researcher at Sea Education Association, based in Woods Hole, Mass. Global climate change is wreaking havoc on corals worldwide. Coral bleaching has caused extensive damage to regions extending from the Great Barrier Reef to the Caribbean and nearly everywhere in between. “Threats to tropical coral reefs worldwide have escalated to a level that imperils the survival of these complex, diverse and beautiful ecosystems,” Janice M. Lough, an Australian researcher, wrote in a February opinion piece in Nature. Coral can be severely damaged by rising water temperatures, which cause acidification, as well as by pollution and human activity like tourism, fishing and shipping — prompting some governments to restrict such activities. If Coral Castles can continue to revive after years of apparent lifelessness, even as water temperatures rise, there might be hope for other reefs with similar damage, said another team member, Randi Rotjan, a research scientist who led and tracked the Phoenix Islands expedition from her base at the New England Aquarium in Boston. No one actually knows what drives reef resilience or even what a coral reef looks like as it is rebounding. In remote, places, our understanding of coral is roughly akin to a doctor’s knowing only what a patient looks like in perfect health and after death, Dr. Rotjan said. Coral Castles’s revival might be an isolated situation, a fluke in a faraway place. But Dr. Rotjan and her team are on a quest to find out why this coral and other reefs nearby came back to life. “There’s a recipe book that can be developed out of what we’re learning here,” Dr. Witting said. “You need to make a strong case that this can work before anyone else will try it. ” The lagoon sits in the middle of the largest of the Phoenix Islands, which are inhabited by just a few dozen people, part of the island nation of Kiribati (pronounced ). The chain has been listed as a World Heritage Site for its beauty and abundance of wildlife: birds, sea turtles, schools of fish, deepwater sleeper sharks and 200 species of coral. The area has also been a cemetery for sunken ships since voyagers first set out across the Pacific. To understand the stresses facing corals — from pollution and climate change, for example — researchers would like to isolate each problem. Almost everywhere on Earth, corals must endure climate change and human activity. But not in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, created by the government in 2008. Shipping lanes skirt the preservation area. Commercial fishing there ceased last year. Dr. Rotjan, who is also the chief scientist for the area’s conservation trust, said the recent protections might have fostered the coral rebound. The algae that live in corals may also be evolving to cope with warmer temperatures, or hardier coral species may be supplanting others, she said. In a letter published in Nature earlier this year, another global team of researchers reported a similar coral recovery after they reduced the acidity in three lagoons in the southern Great Barrier Reef, off Queensland, Australia. Carbon emissions increase the acidity of seawater. “It’s encouraging, because if we do the right things, health might restore in a pretty responsive manner,” said Rebecca Albright, one of the paper’s authors and a postdoctoral scientist at Stanford University. But few creatures are more vulnerable to ocean acidification from climate change than corals, which have been declining for decades. About a quarter of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans, measurably lowering their pH levels, Dr. Albright said. Forecasters predicted this year would be the warmest on record, driven by the El Niño weather event that started relatively close to the Phoenix Islands. Late last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared the global coral bleaching event, affecting corals in every tropical ocean, and declared that the was being prolonged by El Niño. The crisis has made the work in the Phoenix Islands even more crucial, said Verena Schoepf, a coral expert at the University of Western Australia. “It’s critical that we understand what happened there, because that would help us understand how corals might be able to cope with climate change in the long run,” she said. Corals are “animal, vegetable and mineral all rolled into one,” Dr. Rotjan said as she held up displays. The mineral part, beige with white patches, resembles a featherweight stone full of holes. In a small vial of liquid, she points to the animal part: small beads linked by connective tissue. These living beads act as mouths, drinking in nutrients, and make the calcium carbonate that forms their protective home. The animal shares this structure symbiotically with algae that photosynthesize sunlight, producing food that the animal eats. Warming water can cause the coral to expel its algae, leading to bleaching. Acidic water weakens a coral’s calcium carbonate skeleton, so it cannot contain the coral and grow. And when the nutrients in the surrounding water change, the coral may have trouble getting food. Adjusting to climate change, Dr. Rotjan said, is not just about getting used to warmer water. A coral depends on its entire context — its ecosystem, the mineral content of the surrounding water, the sociopolitical climate of nearby human populations. (Reefs off the coast of Somalia, in Africa, may be unusually healthy, for instance, because most boaters have been scared away by pirates, she said.) Even old shipwrecks make a difference. As the Pacific grows warmer, rusting hulks alongside the Phoenix Islands seem to be releasing more iron oxides. The corals nearest the wrecks are not rebounding as well as those farther away, suggesting that the minerals interfere with coral resilience, according to another member of the team, Sangeeta Mangubhai. Climate change isn’t just about heating water, Dr. Rotjan said. “It’s about the little sparks along the way that no one is expecting. We flipped the switch, and now we’re watching the fireworks. ” The difference between this year and last is striking, Dr. Witting said. Last fall, in the thick of El Niño, the team’s boat had to use its motor for the whole journey from Hawaii this year, there has been enough wind for the team to sail. “Last year, the whole place was holding its breath,” Dr. Witting said. This summer, it has sprung to life with plankton visible everywhere, he said, comparing it to a garden that is six times as productive as usual. “The whole ocean’s in bloom this year. ” The fluctuations of nature are a part of life, of course, and the corals adapt to these variations. Last year, after visiting Coral Castles, the research team headed to American Samoa to see another giant coral, known as Big Momma, genus Porites, which is among the planet’s largest and oldest, and had been on Dr. Rotjan’s bucket list. “It is 40 meters in circumference, bigger than the size of this room” she said in a conference room. “She was around and now she’s around for the world’s biggest bleaching event. ” It’s still unclear how Big Momma weathered El Niño, which came just a year after another bleaching event. “Are we the last ones to see her alive and healthy?” Dr. Rotjan asked. “I hope not. ” | 0fake |
Convicted 'bookkeeper of Auschwitz' challenges jail time | BERLIN (Reuters) - A 96-year-old German convicted over his role in the murders of 300,000 people at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp has challenged his four-year prison sentence, arguing that imprisonment would violate his right to life, German media reported on Tuesday. A German court on Nov. 29 ruled that Oskar Groening, known as the bookkeeper of Auschwitz , was fit to go to prison and rejected his plea for the sentence to be suspended. Groening, who is physically frail, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2015, in one of the last cases against a surviving Nazi, but he has not been incarcerated since then because of the legal argument about his health. Broadcaster ntv quoted Groening s lawyer, Hans Holtermann, as saying that the latest legal challenge asked Germany s constitutional court to determine if imprisonment would violate Groening s right to life, given his medical condition. He told the broadcaster that an expert had concluded that Groening was not fit enough to be imprisoned. Holtermann could not be immediately reached for comment. The Nov. 29 court ruling had said that enforcing Groening s sentence would not breach his fundamental rights and added that special needs related to his age could be addressed in prison. Groening, a former Nazi SS officer, did not kill anyone himself while working at the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. But a court convicted him in 2015 of aiding and abetting mass murder there through various actions, including by sorting banknotes seized from arriving Jews. He admitted during his trial that he was morally guilty and said he had been an enthusiastic Nazi when he was sent to work at Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of 21. Some six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust carried out under Adolf Hitler. | 0fake |
Rain, Rain Go Away: Toddler Trump Throws Record-Breaking Tantrum Because He Can’t Golf | Donald Trump is vacationing in New Jersey right now, but he s rained in. Naturally, he s throwing a titanic fit over it.Rather than use the bad weather as an opportunity to get some executive branch work done, Trump would rather sit on his ass and watch television while rage-tweeting.Trump has repeatedly claimed that his 17-day golfing vacation is not a real vacation because he says he ll be working hard. Well, golfing nor tweeting fit the definition of hard work. And since Trump s tee time got rained out on Monday, he decided to spend the day watching cable news and throwing hissy fits on Twitter despite White House chief of staff General John Kelly s effort to reduce Trump s social media use.In all, Trump has posted 13 tweets, most of which attacked the media and the military service of a sitting U.S. Senator. The rest were boasts about himself, taking credit for economic successes achieved by President Obama, and one hypocritical mention of Purple Heart Day.Here is the entire Twitter tantrum.The failing @nytimes, which has made every wrong prediction about me including my big election win (apologized), is totally inept! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017The Trump base is far bigger & stronger than ever before (despite some phony Fake News polling). Look at rallies in Penn, Iowa, Ohio . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017 and West Virginia. The fact is the Fake News Russian collusion story, record Stock Market, border security, military strength, jobs .. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017 Supreme Court pick, economic enthusiasm, deregulation & so much more have driven the Trump base even closer together. Will never change! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017Hard to believe that with 24/7 #Fake News on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYTIMES & WAPO, the Trump base is getting stronger! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017Working hard from New Jersey while White House goes through long planned renovation. Going to New York next week for more meetings. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017Interesting to watch Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut talking about hoax Russian collusion when he was a phony Vietnam con artist! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017Never in U.S.history has anyone lied or defrauded voters like Senator Richard Blumenthal. He told stories about his Vietnam battles and . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017 conquests, how brave he was, and it was all a lie. He cried like a baby and begged for forgiveness like a child. Now he judges collusion? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017On #PurpleHeartDay?I thank all the brave men and women who have sacrificed in battle for this GREAT NATION! #USA?? pic.twitter.com/QmfdLSLp6p Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017The Fake News Media will not talk about the importance of the United Nations Security Council s 15-0 vote in favor of sanctions on N. Korea! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017How much longer will the failing nytimes, with its big losses and massive unfunded liability (and non-existent sources), remain in business? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017I think Senator Blumenthal should take a nice long vacation in Vietnam, where he lied about his service, so he can at least say he was there Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017Trump cannot possibly be working if he has enough time to post this many whiny tweets. His tweets also prove that he must be sitting in front of a television since his attack on Blumenthal came after Blumenthal talked about the Russia investigation on CNN.It s clear that Trump is doing anything except his job right now. He would be golfing if not for the rain and that s just as bad since he constantly whined about President Obama playing golf.We have a five-year old as president right now who desperately needs to be given some crayons and a White House coloring book as a distraction. His staff could even turn off the television and take his phone away while he s coloring the White House gold and adding his name to the top of it.Seriously, if Trump is too busy tweeting, who is running the country?Featured Image: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images | 1real |
2016 Election: The Political Elite Establishment vs. Social Justice? | 21st Century Wire says Is this year s US election a story of the political elite establishment going to war with social justice?In the following episode of CrossTalk, three experts discuss how social justice is a rising force in American election politics.With the rise of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, a movement is definitely emerging that is calling for a radical change to how things are currently being done.Do you think that this election cycle will bring about the real change that people are so obviously desperate for, or will the political establishment find a way to crawl back into power?Watch the episode here: . GET THE FULL STORY ON THE ELECTION: 21st Century Wire 2016 Election Files | 1real |
Senators urge Trump administration to act on Myanmar Rohingya | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Republican and Democratic senators urged the Trump administration on Thursday to use the full weight of its influence to help resolve the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar and Bangladesh, in which over 480,000 people have fled their homes. A letter seen by Reuters and signed by four Republican and 17 Democratic members of the 100-seat Senate also calls on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Mark Green to provide more humanitarian aid. Despite international condemnation, the Burmese authorities incredibly continue to deny the atrocities, said the letter. It also notes that current U.S. law, including the Global Magnitsky Act, allows Trump to impose sanctions on people responsible for gross violations of human rights. | 0fake |
No Irish border deal before EU trade agreement: British minister | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will not resolve the question of the Irish border after Brexit until it has also agreed the outline of a trade deal with the European Union, the country s International Trade Minister Liam Fox said on Sunday. The EU has said sufficient progress needs to be made on the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland, along with two other key issues, before EU leaders meeting at a summit on Dec. 14-15 can approve the opening of trade talks next year. However, Fox said it would be very difficult to address the issue of the border while Britain s relationship with the EU after Brexit remains unclear. We don t want there to be a hard border but the United Kingdom is going to be leaving the customs union and the single market, he told Sky News. We can t get a final answer to the Irish question until we get an idea of the end state, and until we get into discussions with the European Union on the end state that will be very difficult. Dublin wants a written guarantee that there will be no hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Earlier on Sunday Ireland s EU commissioner said Dublin would continue to play tough over its threat to veto talks about trade after Brexit unless Britain provided guarantees over the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Phil Hogan, the EU s agricultural commissioner, said that Britain, or Northern Ireland at least, should remain in the single market and the customs union to avoid a hard border dividing the island. If the UK or Northern Ireland remained in the EU customs union, or better still the single market, there would be no border issue, he told the Observer newspaper. Irish and EU officials say the best way to avoid a hard border - which could include passport and customs controls - is to keep regulations the same north and south, but the Northern Irish party that is propping up May s government will oppose any deal that sees the province operate under different regulations to the rest of the United kingdom. We will not support any arrangements that create barriers to trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom or any suggestion that Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the UK, will have to mirror European regulations, the Democratic Unionist leader Arlene Foster said on Saturday. Ruth Davidson, leader of the Conservatives in Scotland, said on Sunday that the Irish border was one of the really difficult bits of the negotiations. She said Britain s unique future position as the only country that had left the European Union meant its did not need an off-the-shelf solution, although she did not specify how the issue should be resolved. She said any delay in moving onto trade talks would have serious repercussions for businesses. I think that it is really important that we get the transitional deal nailed down; that s not for government, that s for businesses so they know what they are doing next year and they are able to plan, she said. If we don t make it through in the next two weeks to move onto that next phase, then we are rapidly going to run out of time in terms of getting us to a good position at the time that transitional deal is supposed to take place. | 0fake |
WOMEN IN FRANCE Fight Back After Muslim Men BAN Them From Sharing Public Spaces [VIDEO] | These women aren t sitting back and waiting for their leftist government to come to their rescue in these no-go zones which are spreading across France. A women s rights campaign group is organizing marches and protests in a bid to retake streets in predominantly Islamic neighborhoods which they say have become entirely male dominated.La Brigade des M res, which is aiming to restore gender equality in France s troubled banlieues , says women in many communities are now too scared to go out because gangs of young men rule the streets.And a shocking undercover report, compiled by the TV channel France 2, shows how women are not welcome in bars and cafes in Muslim majority areas, with many men openly hostile to their presence in public at all. Express UkThank God we finally have a leader who is brave enough to take the arrows on our behalf, as he takes a tough stand against open-border immigration and unvetted refugees flowing into America. Our nation will never be 100% safe from Islamic terrorism, but for now, we can at least stop the bleeding. We must resist these lawless pockets of resistance in our nation filled with people who have no interest in our rule of law and the freedoms we Americans hold dear. | 1real |
Chelsea Manning Asks Obama to Cut Sentence to Time Served - The New York Times | Chelsea Manning, who confessed to disclosing archives of secret diplomatic and military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010 and has been incarcerated longer than any other convicted leaker in American history, has formally petitioned President Obama to reduce the remainder of her sentence to the more than six years she has already served. In a statement accompanying her petition, a copy of which her lawyer provided to The New York Times, Ms. Manning again said she took “full and complete responsibility” for her actions, which she called “wrong. ” She also described her difficult life, including the turmoil she faced at the time of her leaks as she came to grips with gender dysphoria while deployed to Iraq, her treatment in prison, and her multiple suicide attempts. “I am not asking for a pardon of my conviction,” she wrote. “I understand that the various collateral consequences of the conviction will stay on my record forever. The sole relief I am asking for is to be released from military prison after serving six years of confinement as a person who did not intend to harm the interests of the United States or harm any service members. ” Ms. Manning’s petition was accompanied by letters of support from Daniel Ellsberg, who is famous for leaking a classified history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers Morris Davis, a former military commissions chief prosecutor and Glenn Greenwald, a legal commentator and journalist who has been an outspoken supporter. While military prosecutors portrayed Ms. Manning — formerly known as Pfc. Bradley Manning — as a traitor, many advocates consider her a and a hero. In interviews, both Mr. Davis and Mr. Ellsberg said they hoped that Mr. Obama would give special consideration to her request in light of the election of Donald J. Trump, suggesting that the would be less likely to give her favorable consideration. “I believe now, in the six and a half weeks we have remaining, we all have to ask President Obama to do with his powers good things before he leaves, before a new president comes in, and I really believe that he should commute Chelsea Manning’s sentence to time served,” Mr. Ellsberg said. A member of Ms. Manning’s volunteer support network said that a formal announcement and publicity campaign were scheduled for Monday. Several celebrities, including Michael Stipe of R. E. M. and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, are coordinating efforts aimed at building public support for Ms. Manning’s release. Both have previously made videos in support of her. While working as an intelligence analyst in a secure information facility at a forward operating base in Iraq, Ms. Manning copied and later sent to WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of incident logs from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a diplomatic cables from American embassies around the world, dossiers about Guantánamo detainees, and a video showing an American helicopter strike on a group of people in Baghdad in which two Reuters journalists were killed. WikiLeaks later made the documents public, working with various traditional news media organizations, including The New York Times. After her arrest, Ms. Manning was tried by a where she confessed to the leaks and pleaded guilty to a lesser version of the charges against her without any plea deal to cap her sentence. Military prosecutors pressed forward with the trial and convicted her of most of the more serious versions of the charges, including multiple counts under the Espionage Act, a World War law that makes it a crime to disclose potentially harmful military secrets to someone not authorized to receive them. The law applies even if the defendant’s motivation was to inform the American public, rather than to help a foreign adversary. A military judge imposed a prison sentence of 35 years, dramatically longer than the sentences other accused leakers have received. While only a few leakers have been successfully prosecuted under the Espionage Act — the first such conviction came in 1985 — most of those convicted have received sentences of between about one year and three and a half years. In some leak cases, Espionage Act charges were dropped as part of plea deals. John Kiriakou, a former C. I. A. official who was accused of discussing with journalists the identities of fellow intelligence officials involved in interrogating terrorism suspects, was initially charged under the Espionage Act, but those charges were dropped as part of a plea deal in which he was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Mr. Kiriakou, who has finished serving his sentence, has applied for a pardon, the Justice Department said. Still, Ms. Manning is different from him and most other accused leakers because she disclosed a large volume of documents covering many topics, rather than one or two particular secrets. In that sense, her case more closely resembles that of Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who came forward in June 2013 as the source of a leaked archive of classified documents about surveillance. Mr. Snowden has also been charged under the Espionage Act, but he is living as a fugitive in Russia. In September, a group of Mr. Snowden’s supporters asked Mr. Obama to pardon him, although the White House has already ruled that out. Ms. Manning had petitioned for a full pardon three years ago, shortly after she was convicted and announced that she was transgender and was changing her name. She wrote in her statement that she now understood that her request had been premature and that “the relief requested was too much. ” | 0fake |
WATCH: Karma Strikes Disgusting Voyeur At Target When Woman Confronts And Chases Him | What would you do if you had a known video voyeur come up to you? Well, Candice Spivey of Jacksonville, Florida just laid a verbal smack down on one guy named Jeffrey Polizzi when he forgot he had approached her before. She took her own phone out, called him out on video and then proceeded to chase him right out of the Yulee, Florida Target.Spivey wrote in a Faceboo post: When he approached me yesterday he did not remember who I was, until I called him out on it in this video. Adding: He starts out his conversation with the same punch line he uses here in the very beginning of this video saying, Hey there I don t mean to bother you but I just bought this maxi dress for my wife at Ross and I was kinda worried about the sheerness of it. Spivey explains what happened the first time she got approached by Polizzi: Whiles he s asking these questions he s filming you with his cell phone, and I knew he was by the way he was holding his phone. I had this feeling there was way more to what he was doing than just asking questions, it was very routine for him like he s been doing this for a long time. So I went immediately to the front and reported him, they called the cops and he was banned from that publix. It was NOT illegal what he was doing. When Spivey was approached by Polizzi again in Target, she sprung into action. She confronted him, and as she was chasing him, shouted for someone to call the police. Unfortunately, he s still out there, so Spivey asks that if you run into him to contact the Nassau County Sheriff s Office, who is currently looking for possible victims.According to The Daily Mail: Police confirmed Polizzi has previously been charged with video voyeurism and issued an appeal last week for any other potential victims to come forward.Since then, scores of women have complained that they were approached by the man in similar scenarios. The biggest thing Spivey wanted out of this video and confrontation was to make sure this slimeball s face gets out there to the public to warn them. It s unbelievable, yet believable, that a man like this is free to walk around and not be taken into custody with several victims claiming it was him.Let s hope he gets caught soon by more than just Spivey, but by the police.Watch the confrontation here:Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Korean peninsula draws range of military drills in show of force against North Korea | BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military staged bombing drills with South Korea over the Korean peninsula and Russia and China began naval exercises ahead of a U.N. General Assembly meeting on Tuesday where North Korea s nuclear threat is likely to loom large. The flurry of military drills came after Pyongyang fired another mid-range ballistic missile over Japan on Friday and the reclusive North conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3 in defiance of United Nations sanctions and other international pressure. A pair of U.S. B-1B bombers and four F-35 jets flew from Guam and Japan and joined four South Korean F-15K fighters in the latest drill, South Korea s defense ministry said. The joint drills were being conducted two to three times a month these days , Defence Minister Song Young-moo told a parliamentary hearing on Monday. In Beijing, the official Xinhua news agency said China and Russia began naval drills off the Russian far eastern port of Vladivostok, not far from the Russia-North Korea border. Those drills were being conducted between Peter the Great Bay, near Vladivostok, and the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, to the north of Japan, it said. The drills are the second part of China-Russian naval exercises this year, the first part of which was staged in the Baltic in July. Xinhua did not directly link the drills to current tension over North Korea. China and Russia have repeatedly called for a peaceful solution and talks to resolve the issue. On Sunday, however, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the U.N. Security Council had run out of options on containing North Korea s nuclear program and the United States might have to turn the matter over to the Pentagon. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the most pressing task was for all parties to enforce the latest U.N. resolutions on North Korea fully, rather than deliberately complicating the issue . Military threats from various parties have not promoted a resolution to the issue, he said. This is not beneficial to a final resolution to the peninsula nuclear issue, Lu told a daily news briefing. U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed that North Korea will never be able to threaten the United States with a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile. Asked about Trump s warning last month that the North Korean threat to the United States would be met with fire and fury , Haley said: It was not an empty threat. Washington has also asked China to do more to rein in its neighbor and ally, while Beijing has urged the United States to refrain from making threats against the North. The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a U.S.-drafted resolution a week ago mandating tougher new sanctions against Pyongyang that included banning textile imports and capping crude and petrol supply. North Korea on Monday called the resolution the most vicious, unethical and inhumane act of hostility to physically exterminate its people, system and government. The increased moves of the U.S. and its vassal forces to impose sanctions and pressure... will only increase our pace toward the ultimate completion of the state nuclear force, the North s foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency. Gasoline and diesel prices in the North have surged since the latest nuclear test in anticipation of a possible oil ban, according to market data analyzed by Reuters on Monday. The international community must remain united and enforce sanctions against North Korea after its repeated launch of ballistic missiles, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in an editorial in the New York Times on Sunday. Such tests were in violation of Security Council resolutions and showed that North Korea could now target the United States or Europe, he wrote. Abe also said diplomacy and dialogue would not work with North Korea and concerted pressure by the entire international community was essential to tackle the threats posed by the north and its leader, Kim Jong Un. However, the official China Daily argued on Monday that sanctions should be given time to bite and that the door must be left open to talks. With its Friday missile launch, Pyongyang wanted to give the impression that sanctions will not work, it said in an editorial. Some people have fallen for that and immediately echoed the suggestion, pointing to the failure of past sanctions to achieve their purpose. But that past sanctions did not work does not mean they will not. It is too early to claim failure because the latest sanctions have hardly begun to take effect. Giving the sanctions time to bite is the best way to make Pyongyang reconsider, the newspaper said. Pyongyang has launched dozens of missiles as it accelerates a weapons program designed to provide the ability to target the United States with a powerful, nuclear-tipped missile. It says such programs are needed as a deterrent against invasion by the United States, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea. On Saturday, it said it aimed to reach an equilibrium of military force with the United States. The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty. | 0fake |
The Chinese Who Saw the Perils of Westernization | Posted on October 28, 2016 The Chinese Who Saw the Perils of Westernization Sacco Vandal, American Renaissance, October 28, 2016 They cautioned their countrymen 100 years ago.
Many Westerners fear the decline of their own society while they foresee Chinese ascension and impending dominance–with alternating tones of fear or enthusiasm. The United States is growing demographically and may remain a viable cultural entity, but the consensus is that Europe faces demographic disaster. China and the West seem to be approaching an inversion of their relationship of just over a century ago, during the late Qing period, when the West was dominant and China was peripheral. [1]
Patrick Buchanan described the Western dilemma in 2008:
What happened to us? What happened to our world? When the twentieth century opened, the West was everywhere supreme. For four hundred years, explorers, missionaries, conquerors, and colonizers departed from Europe for the four corners of the Earth to erect empires that were to bring the blessings and benefits of Western civilization to all mankind. . . . Whatever became of those men? Somewhere in the last century, Western man suffered a catastrophic loss of faith–in himself, in his civilization, and in the faith that gave it birth. [2]
Although the United States remains the strongest–but not the sole–superpower, European peoples are in decline everywhere. In another book, Mr. Buchanan points out that “In 1960, people of European ancestry were one-fourth of the world’s population; in 2000, they were one-sixth; in 2050, they will be one-tenth. These are the statistics of a vanishing race.” [3] Mr. Buchanan is hardly the first to warn of impending doom for the West. The lamentations of Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) are well known. Less known, however, are the Chinese from the same period who dreamed of a resurgence for China and warned of Western decline. These voices from the late Qing Dynasty may now seem prescient.
Spengler saw the First World War as a sign of the West’s inevitable decline. Many of the Chinese literati who had at first been smitten with the dynamism of the West also came to see the war in the same way: Western civilization was in a state of crisis that would lead to its destruction. Today, Mr. Buchanan also calls the First World War a “mortal wound” that was “inflicted upon our civilization.” [4] Meanwhile, the Chinese, who have resurrected many of the tenets of their traditional civilization after decades of Maoist rule, argue that Western liberalization and democratization are not the True Way by which they will inherit the Earth. As China begins to return to traditional Chinese pragmatism and the West implodes, certain late Qing intellectuals now appear vindicated. Devastation after WWI.
First among them were Yan Fu (1854–1921) and Liang Qichao (1873–1929). The dynamism of the West at first impressed them, leading them to promote Westernization in China. However, by the end of their lives, both men had come to see the dynamism of the West as self-destructive. They exhorted China to take a middle path between traditionalism and modernization, hoping that this might by the key to supplanting the West.
China in trouble
In the latter half of the 19th century, China was at a technological and military disadvantage. It lost a series of wars with Western powers and was forced to accept unequal treaties. This led various ministers of the Qing Dynasty, such as Li Hongzhang (1823–1901) to advocate mild forms of modernization. Meanwhile, the Meiji government in Japan had started an ambitious effort of full-scale Westernization beginning in 1868. And in 1895, after Japan defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War, it became obvious to most Chinese intellectuals that their nation’s program of limited modernization was not enough.
Until the mid 19th century, Europe had been an inconsequential backwater for China. As late as 1793, a British attempt to establish a greater amount of trade with the Qing was rebuffed with the assertion by the Qianlong emperor (1711–1799) that China “possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no products within its own borders,” and thus had “no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians.” [5] By the mid 19th century, industrialization had made the West vastly more rich and powerful. However, some Chinese thought the sudden dynamism of the West also had intellectual origins. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, China found itself at the mercy of the Western powers that it once looked down upon.
Darwin’s dangerous idea
In 1895, Yan Fu was superintendent of the Beiyang Naval School. In an explanation of Western civilization to fellow Chinese intellectuals, he focused on the theory of evolution. As a young man, he had studied in England and become familiar with social Darwinism, and came to see it as the cultural fountainhead of wealth and power. “Since the publication of [Darwin’s The Origin of Species ],” wrote Yan, “of which nearly every household in Europe and America now has a copy, there has been a tremendous change in the scholarship, politics, and religion of the West. The claim that the revolution in outlook and intellectual orientation occasioned by Darwin’s book exceeds that of Newtonian astronomy is hardly an empty one.” [6] Yan spent the next ten years translating works on English evolutionist thought by men such as Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) and Thomas Huxley (1825–1895) in the hope of converting his colleagues to social Darwinism. Yan Fu was attracted to social Darwinism while studying in England.
Perhaps it took an outsider to see the power of evolutionary thought. Darwin’s theory shook Westerners but it also gave them a certain will to power. Herbert Spencer, who coined the term “survival of the fittest,” led the transformation of Darwinism into social Darwinism, which called upon Western man to glorify victory in social competition. Victory in competition was the purpose of all life everywhere.
Yan quickly saw the winning-at-all-costs ruthlessness of social Darwinism as a remedy for China. Writing in his work on Yan’s life, Benjamin Schwartz writes:
What interests [Yan] is not so much the Darwinian account of biological evolution qua science. It is precisely the stress on the values of struggle–assertive energy, the emphasis on the actualization of potentialities within a competitive situation. The image of ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ does not depress him. It exhilarates him. [7]
Yan nevertheless worried that it might be too late for China to adopt social Darwinism, and that his country would be overwhelmed by the nations that had. In a 1895 newspaper essay, “On Strength,” he wrote:
Months and years slip by, and with rapacious neighbors all around, I fear that we will be too late, that we will follow Poland and India, providing an example of Darwin’s [elimination] before we have been able to implement Spencer’s methods. . . . Alas, our individual lives are not worth the worry, but what of our descendants, and the 400,000,000 of our race? [8]
The battle for reform
After defeat in the Sino-Japanese war, many Chinese intellectuals, such as Yan, began to advocate full-scale Westernization. Japan had already adopted social Darwinism in its pursuit of Western wealth and power, and the Chinese intelligentsia began to believe that China should follow suit. In 1898, the Guangxu emperor (1871–1908) appointed the minister Kang Youwei (1858–1927) to head a reform movement after Kang had requested permission to imitate Japan:
As to the republican governments of the United States and France and the constitutional governments of Britain and Germany, these countries are far away and their customs are different from ours. Their changes occurred a long time ago and can no longer be traced. Consequently I beg Your Majesty. . . to take the Meiji Reform of Japan as the model for our reform. The time and place of Japan’s reform are not remote and her religion and customs are somewhat similar to ours. Her success is manifest; her example can easily be followed. [9]
The emperor agreed, and the minister initiated a flurry of Meiji-style reform. A bright young man named Liang Qichao worked with Kang as his protégé, and he became one of the most influential Chinese advocates for Westernization. However, Kang and Liang’s efforts were quickly aborted after an imperial coup under the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908). Liang Qichao
After the Empress Dowager cut short what later became known as the Hundred Days Reform, Kang and Liang escaped political persecution by fleeing to Japan. Once there, Kang continued to support the Qing dynasty and to justify an agenda for Chinese reform via cautious appeals to Confucianism. Liang, however, ultimately broke with Kang and–like Yan–began to espouse “a new view of world history strongly colored by social Darwinism: a struggle for survival among nations and races.” [10]
He wrote:
If we wish to make our nation strong, we must investigate extensively the methods followed by other nations in becoming independent. We should select the superior points and appropriate them to make up for our own shortcomings. [11]
Liang increasingly came to see social Darwinism as the fuel of the West’s dynamism, one of the “superior points” that China would do well to “appropriate.” Writing from Japan, he exerted great influence on young Chinese. Together, Yan and Liang instilled in an entire generation of Chinese students a fervent desire for change. But this influence did not bring social Darwinism to China. Instead, it brought the 1911 Revolution, the New Cultural Movement (1915–1921), and the May Fourth Movement of 1919–perturbations that would spin China into over half a century of upheaval.
Accommodative versus transformative thought
Despite their attraction to social Darwinism and their sometimes radical calls for reform, Yan and Liang were not revolutionaries. Indeed, although Liang and–especially–Yan attacked various instances of Chinese backwardness, they continued to support the Qing Dynasty, advocating slow transition into a constitutional monarchy based on the British model. Once the 1911 Revolution succeeded, however, Liang grudgingly threw his support behind the new republican government, but Yan continued to support monarchy.
Questioning the West
The First World War was a shock to reformers who wanted to embrace the West. As the war dragged on, aging reformers such as Yan and Liang became increasingly disillusioned with not only transformative revolution, but Westernization and even the West. Yan wrote that the carnage of the war was a consequence of Western traits: “Such has been the effect on the human race of civilization and science! When I look back on our [Chinese] sacred wisdom and culture, I find that it foresaw this even at that early date. . .” [12]
Yan explained further:
As I have grown older and have observed the seven years of republican government in China and the four years of bloody war in Europe–a war such as the world has never known–I have come to feel that [the West’s] progress . . . has lead only to selfishness, slaughter, corruption, and shamelessness. When I look back upon the ways of Confucius and Mencius, I find that they . . . have profoundly benefited the realm. This is not my opinion alone. Many thinking people in the West have gradually come to feel this way. [13]
Liang wrote that “recently many Western scholars have wanted to import Asian civilization as a corrective to their own,” and, indeed, the latter half of the 20th century saw the importation of philosophical, religious, and cultural curiosities from the East and into the West. In the meantime he stated his goal for China:
I therefore hope that our dear young people will, first of all, have a sincere purpose of respecting and protecting our civilization; second, that they will apply Western methods to the study of our civilization and discover its true character; third, that they will put our own civilization in order and supplement it with others’ so that it will be transformed and become a new civilization; and fourth, that they will extend this new civilization to the outside world so that it can benefit the whole human race. [14]
Because of the devastation of the First World War, these two thinkers who had once promoted modernization and Westernization instead advocated a modernization without Westernization (or at least minimal Westernization). They seemed to believe that the course of the West was not sustainable and that the West could be supplanted by China if it modernized in a way that was compatible with its nature and culture. They seem to have realized that social Darwinism was a false promise, and that the forces it unleashed could destroy the West.
China and the West today
In the end, China did not follow Japan down the path of Westernization. A burgeoning Chinese nationalism grew up around anti-Japanese sentiment, and this enmity was extended to the West after Japan instead of China was awarded Germany’s Chinese concession at Versailles in 1919. Ultimately, communism on the Soviet model provided the Chinese with an alternative to both Chinese traditionalism and the West. China entered a period of socialist tyranny under Mao Zedong (1893–1976).
After Mao’s death, China began to abandon Maoism. It is still nominally communist, but since the 1980’s, it has followed the example of Hong Kong and Taiwan and has increasingly returned to the teachings of Confucius and Mencius. Chinese now praise Yan and Liang for their wisdom and prescience. The post-Mao leadership of the People’s Republic of China–beginning with Deng Xiaoping–has espoused views nearly identical to those advocated by Liang over a century ago. [15] Statue of Liang Qichao in Tianjin.
At the same time, Westerners are now studying the warnings of Yan and Liang about the inherent instability of the West. As Western liberals such as Martin Jacques herald the coming Chinese domination, there may be a generation of European and American scholars who find themselves in a position similar to that of Yan and Liang: struggling to understand why their civilization has fallen behind that of a rival whose inferiority was once taken for granted.
Thus, while China has found its way back to the middle path, balancing its modernization and Westernization with pragmatism, caution, and Confucianism, the West is disintegrating in a chaos of heterogeneity and decadence. The warnings of Spengler have come true, and Patrick Buchanan forecasts the death of the West. Russia and parts of Eastern Europe are trying to save themselves from liberalism and democracy, but success is not guaranteed.
Thinkers in the Alt-Right are wrestling with the question of how to save our own white civilization. The old order is collapsing due to challenges from abroad and the immigrant invasion. Non-whites are chopping up the West the way the West once chopped up China. We are Yan Fu and Liang Qichao. We must forge a plan for the preservation of our race.
“Sacco Vandal is a founding editor of VandalVoid.com and coauthor of The American Militant Nationalist Manifesto .” See Patrick Buchanan, The Death of the West (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002); David Goldman, How Civilizations Die (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2011); Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World (New York: Penguin Press, 2009); Larry Kelley, Lessons From Fallen Civilizations (Austin: Hugo House Publishers, 2012); Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2009); and Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008). Patrick Buchanan, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War (New York: Random House, 2008), ix-x. Patrick Buchanan, Death of the West (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002), 11-12. Patrick Buchanan, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War (New York: Random House, 2008), 502. “Modern History Sourcebook: Qianlong: Letter to George III, 1793” Internet History Sourcebooks, accessed March 20, 2014, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1793Qianlong.asp . Yan Fu, “On Stength” in vol. 2 of Sources of Chinese Tradition , edited by William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 256. Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 46. Yan Fu, “On Stength” in vol. 2 of Sources of Chinese Tradition , edited by William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 258. Kang Youwei, “The Need for Reforming Institutions” in vol. 2 of Sources of Chinese Tradition , edited by William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 270. William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano, ed., Sources of Chinese Tradition , vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 288. Liang Qichao, “Renewing the People” in vol. 2 of Sources of Chinese Tradition , edited by William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 290. Yan Fu, quoted in In Search of Wealth and Power , Benjamin Schwarz (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 235. Yan Fu, quoted in In Search of Wealth and Power , Benjamin Schwarz (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 235. Liang Qichao, “Travel Impressions from Europe” in vol. 2 of Sources of Chinese Tradition , edited by William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 378-379. See Max Ko-wu Huang, The Meaning of Freedom (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2008), Chapter 1; and Orville Schell, Discos and Democracy: China in the Throes of Reform (New York: Panteon Books, 1988), chapter “Liang Qichao: China’s First Democrat.” | 1real |
Trump administration moves to make tougher U.S. visa vetting permanent | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration moved on Thursday to make permanent a new questionnaire that asks some U.S. visa applicants to provide their social media handles and detailed biographical and travel history, according to a public notice. The questionnaire was rolled out in May as part of an effort to tighten vetting of would-be visitors to the United States, and asks for all prior passport numbers, five years' worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers and 15 years of biographical information including addresses, employment and travel history. (See: bit.ly/2v0qsR2) A State Department official declined to provide data on how many times the form had been used or which nationalities had been asked to fill it out since May, only stating that it estimates 65,000 visa applicants per year “will present a threat profile” that warrants the extra screening. President Donald Trump ran for office in 2016 pledging to crack down on illegal immigration for security reasons, and has called for “extreme vetting” of foreigners entering the United States. On Wednesday, he threw his support behind a bill that would cut legal immigration to the United States by 50 percent over 10 years. The Office of Management and Budget, which must approve most new federal requests of information from the public, initially approved the form on an “emergency” basis, which allowed its use for six months rather than the usual three years. The State Department published a notice in the Federal Register on Thursday seeking to use the form for the next three years. The public has 60 days to comment on the request. (See: bit.ly/2uZNXJD) The questions are meant to “more rigorously evaluate applicants for terrorism, national security-related, or other visa ineligibilities,” the notice said. While the questions are voluntary, the form says failure to provide the information may delay or prevent the processing of a visa application. Trump ordered a temporary travel ban in March on citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. After months of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court in June allowed the travel ban to go forward with a limited scope. The form does not target any particular nationality. Seyed Ali Sepehr, who runs an immigration consultancy in California serving Iranian clients applying for U.S. visas, said that since late June, all of his clients who have been referred for extra security checks have also been asked to fill out the new form. Kiyanoush Razaghi, an immigration attorney based in Maryland, said he knows of Iraqis, Libyans and Iranians who have been asked to fill out the form. Immigration attorney Steve Pattison said one of his clients, who is not from one of the six travel ban countries, had been asked to fill out the new form when applying for a visitor visa, indicating that consular officers are using it broadly. “It could be that everyone is missing another consequence of the use of the form – its deployment in a far wider sense to cover all sorts of individuals,” Pattison said. | 0fake |
Cotton: GOP Health Care Plan Is ’Not Going to Work to Bring Down Premiums’ - Breitbart | Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” while discussing the current Republican House bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, Sen. Tom Cotton ( ) said, “I simply think that it’s not going to work to bring down premiums in Arkansas or for working Americans around the country. ” Partial transcript as follows: TAPPER: Turning to Obamacare, you’ve been very critical of the bill supported by our previous guest Dr. Price, President Trump, House Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare. You’ve warned that this bill could put the House Republican majority at risk. One major concern about the plan is the way it might impact lower income Americans. You come fromArkansass which is one of the poorest states in the country. If you were designing the plan on your own, would you get rid of theMedicaidd expansion that brought coverage to 250, 000 people in your state? COTTON: Jake, first, let me say I served with Tom Price in the House of Representatives and consider him a good friend. He had legislation as a congress congressman that I think is a lot better than the house bill currently under consideration. TheMedicaidd expansion I think needs to be part of Medicaid transformation and that’s what the house bill moved forward. It can be improved to some degree, but it’s about a 70% or 80% solution, Jake. the bigger problem with this legislation is on the private insurance market. I simply think that it’s not going to work to bring down premiums in Arkansas or for working Americans around the country. We need to roll our sleeves and fix those problems rear than trying to rush to some arbitrary deadline. Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
Trump Just Offered The Most BIZARRE Excuse For Russian Prostitute Urination Scandal (VIDEO) | With President-elect Donald Trump s inauguration just days away, it seems like he s still trying to clean up his most recent messes and scandals.One of the most recent bombshells to shake up Trump s deeply flawed transition was the public release of an unverified report that Trump had paid prostitutes to urinate on a bed President Barack Obama had previously slept in while visiting a hotel in Russia. In an interview with Fox News s Ainsley Earhardt, it seems like Trump is still trying to convince America that he didn t do it and his excuses continue to get more pathetic. Trump said: It s fake news. It s all fake news. You know, I can say something about George Washington, I can say something about Abraham Lincoln, I can say something about you. I can just fake news and [the CIA] shouldn t have been a part of it. Clearly nervous about the fact that Penthousehas recently offered a $1 million prize to anyone who could produce the tapes of the scandal, Trump s insecurity and panic came right through as he went into a weird denial-infused rant. Trump said: It s made up. Never existed. Never happened. And the reason I say that so strongly because nothing is ever going to show up. There s never going to be a tape that shows up. There s never going to be anything that shows up. Now, I would be very embarrassed if a tape actually showed up, saying something like that. It would be double embarrassed because I m saying there is no tape. There is no event. I was never even in that room for that period of time. Then, Trump ripped everyone from the GOP to the Democratic Party to the media: It started with the Republican Party when they tried to beat me in the nomination and it went on. The Democrats took over the work, supposedly. And by the intelligence giving it credence by just even talking about it it was very inappropriate. So I don t know who the leaker was. I have no idea, but it s fake news. You can watch Trump miserably fail at doing damage control below:Featured image is a screenshot | 1real |
Karma In All Its Glory: Republican Chairwoman Forced To Resign Over ‘Obama Is A Chimp’ Facebook Post | A little over a month ago, Linda Sorenson, the Republican Chair for Delta County, Colorado, posted the following Facebook meme:Oh those wacky Republicans and their unbelievable racism!At first, Sorenson was defiant in the face of public condemnation, stating, I really don t care if people are offended by it, she told me of the post, which was sent to me by a source. Un-friend me. Stop looking at me on Facebook. After all, this is a new day in America. This is Donald Trump s America and gosh darn it! White people won t stand for being oppressed by the PC Police any longer! Let freedumb ring!But a funny thing about Trump s America it doesn t actually exist. At least not yet. And certainly not in the very purple state of Colorado. Clearly, Sorenson thought the people would rally to her bigoted side. Instead, according to the The Daily Sentinel:That posting not only prompted calls of her resignation from fellow Delta County Republicans, but also from several outside groups, including the Colorado branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance.Whoops.In the face of all of this pressure, Sorenson changed her story from, I m racist and I m proud! to the perennial favorite of politicians who make a social media blunder: Someone hacked my account! I m the victim here! After four accountability meetings though, including an investigation into Sorenson violating party rules by endorsing a local Republican primary candidate, Sorenson saw the writing on the Facebook wall and resigned. The Republicans Central Committee was quick to distance themselves:Suppes, who is not a member of the central committee, said it was an appropriate move. There s no room for racism, intended or unintended, in society, he said. It s best for the party, best for the county, that she step down. On the one hand, bravo to the Colorado GOP for dealing with this appropriately. On the other, Sorenson is hardly an outlier. Republicans have spent decades turning their party into a haven for racism and bigotry in all its many forms. Sorenson was simply stupid enough to say it out loud; a trend that has been exacerbated, but certainly not started, by Donald Trump.I wonder who she ll blame for her downfall? I m going to guess Obama. What do you think?Featured image via screencap | 1real |
Senate Republican leader says still aiming for long-term government funding bill | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Republican in the U.S. Senate said on Tuesday he hoped to reach agreement “in the next few days” on a bill to fund the government through Sept. 30, saying it was too soon to talk about a short-term fix to avert a government shutdown at midnight on Friday. “We’re hoping to reach an agreement in the next few days on how to process the entire bill through September 30th,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters. “I don’t want to speculate about whether that can actually clear this week.” | 0fake |
JUDGE JEANINE SCORCHES HILLARY: “You don’t support women…you destroy them!” [Video] | 1real | |
UnReal Primer: Everything you wanted to know about demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 | Tweet (Image via intoday.in)
This week, the Central government proved what the philosophers have been saying for ages: Change is the only constant.
The announcement that the existing Rs.500 and Rs.1000 notes will no longer be valid tender has created a huge confusion among the general public, especially among the poor and lower middle class, the section that mostly doesn’t get to see those two denominations.
Here at Crank’s Corner , which is always clearing misgivings of people on matters of public importance, we have come up with yet another primer on the whole issue answering some questions on money and economics with our usual yen for irresponsibility. The answers will be so irresponsible and totally false that they would soon be WhatsApped to you by your well-meaning friends and relatives as confirmed news.
1. Why were Rs.500 and Rs.1000 demonetised ?
The Central government and the Finance Ministry had credible intelligence inputs that black money hoarders and terrorist networks had somehow managed to figure out that the existing Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes didn’t have special computer chips to track them, and hence the government has had to come up with new rupee notes that are so technologically advanced that, quite frankly, you can use them as a debit card in all places, even in places that doesn’t have a card-swiping facility.
No, just kidding. The new currency doesn’t have any special feature. But you can rest assured that all Indian legal Indian tender come with the ultimate guarantee of the Indian Constitution: “I hereby promise the bearer of this currency the unfettered right to scribble stuff like ‘I love Priyanka‘ in the blank space provided for the explicit purpose”
2. Can you give us some historical background to currencies?
Before the advent of metal coins and paper rupees, as you would doubtless know barter system was in vogue where people exchanged goods and services for goods and services. For example, people with cattle exchanged them with those who had, say, knife or axe. And having got a knife or axe, they used the same to threaten and get the same cattle back. Life was mostly simple and straight forward then.
But the problem was there were many who had nothing to offer. They all became economists and eventually came up with the concept of money.
Okay, this is not entirely true. Some of them also became journalists.
India, of course, was one of the earliest users of coins in the world, its history dating back to around 6th century BC, a period which — all Historians are unanimous on this — was very, very long back.
Closer back in time, the Reserve Bank of India — keeping in mind its essential character — was set up on the April Fool’s Day of 1935. In those non-technological days, every rupee, except Rupee one, used to be painstakingly signed by the RBI Governor, which to this day remains his only major work. The issuance of one rupee is outside the purview of RBI, and the minting of coins has been outsourced to a metal company in Guindy Industrial Estate.
3. In the aftermath of demonetisation , gold prices have shot up, Your views on investing one’s savings in gold
Gold has always been a traditional hedge investment against other instruments that are prone to various vagaries. The government itself has invested hugely in gold, which it uses during times of economic contingency like when having to pay bonuses for government employees during Deepavali or to meet out expenses of the President or the Vice President who have to fly to other countries on emergency goodwill mission.
The government is said to have reserves above 550 tonnes of gold and during Indira Gandhi’s time there was a smart move to store them as ornaments, especially in the form of kangan sets and ottianam . But the matter didn’t move forward because to this day no one knows how jewellers actually price their stuff.
4. Enough of history. What should I do in case I am unable to withdraw cash from my bank?
The important thing is not to panic, at no point should you…no wait, drop that knife. Also, slapping bank employees is banned under the Income Tax Act.
5. A friend has given me a few 1000 and 500 rupee notes to pay them in my account. Can I?
Remember you are not supposed to remit in your account somebody else’s money, also you should not give your place in the ATM line to anybody else. If you do, 250% fine will be levied on you and your spouse. In which case, it is your sole responsibility to prove to the IT authorities that you don’t have a spouse at all.
6. If I still have some queries on demonetisation , whom should I approach?
You may approach the control room of RBI by telephone (your secret pin number is written on your new notes) and the RBI will be only too happy to put your call on hold. Urjit Patel personally would like to answer your call, but at the moment he is busy signing some rupee notes. | 1real |
Buchanan on Trump: After the Coup, What Then? | By Patrick J. BuchananThat the Trump presidency is bedeviled is undeniable.As President Donald Trump flew off for August at his Jersey club, there came word that Special Counsel Robert Mueller III had impaneled a grand jury and subpoenas were going out to Trump family and campaign associates.The jurors will be drawn from a pool of citizens in a city Hillary Clinton swept with 91 percent of the vote. Trump got 4 percent.Whatever indictments Mueller wants, Mueller gets.Thanks to a media that savages him ceaselessly, Trump is down to 33 percent approval in a Quinnipiac University poll and below 40 percent in most of the rest.Before Trump departed D.C., The Washington Post ran transcripts of his phone conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia.Even Obama administration veterans were stunned.So, it is time to ask: If this city brings Trump down, will the rest of America rejoice?What will be the reaction out there in fly-over country, that land where the deplorables dwell who produce the soldiers to fight our wars? Will they toast the free press that brought down the president they elected, and in whom they had placed so much hope?My guess: The reaction will be one of bitterness, cynicism, despair, a sense that the fix is in, that no matter what we do, they will not let us win. If Trump is brought down, American democracy will take a pasting. It will be seen as a fraud. And the backlash will poison our politics to where only an attack from abroad, like 9/11, will reunite us.Our media preen and posture as the defenders of democracy, devoted to truth, who provide us round-the-clock protection from tyranny. But half the nation already sees the media as a propaganda arm of a liberal establishment that the people have rejected time and again.Consider the Post s publication of the transcripts of Trump s calls with Mexico s president and Australia s prime minister.When reporter Greg Miller got these transcripts, his editors, knowing they would damage Trump, plastered them on Page 1.The Post was letting itself be used by a leaker engaged in disloyal and possibly criminal misconduct. Yet the Post agreed to provide confidentiality and to hide the Trump-hater s identity.This is what we do, says the Post. People have a right to know if President Trump says one thing at rallies about Mexico paying for the wall and another to the president of Mexico. This is a story.But there is a far larger story here, of which this Post piece is but an exhibit. It is the story of a concerted campaign, in which the anti-Trump media publish leaks, even criminal leaks, out of the FBI, CIA, NSA and NSC, to bring down a president whom the Beltway media and their deep-state collaborators both despise and wish to destroy.Did Trump collude with Putin to defeat Clinton, the Beltway media demand to know, even as they daily collude with deep-state criminals to bring down the president of the United States.And if there is an unfolding silent coup by the regime Americans repudiated in 2016 to use security leaks and the lethal weapon of a special counsel to overturn the election results is that not a story worth covering as much as what Trump said to Pena Nieto?Do the people not have a right know who are the snakes collaborating with the Never-Trump press to bring down their head of state? Is not discovering the identities of deep-state felons a story that investigative reporters should be all over?If Greg Miller is obligated to protect his source, fine. But why are other journalists not exposing his identity?The answer suggests itself. This is a collaborative enterprise, where everyone protects everyone else s sources, because all have the same goal: the dumping of Trump. If that requires collusion with criminals, so be it.The Justice Department is now running down the leaks, and the ACLU s Ben Wizner is apoplectic: Every American should be concerned about the Trump administration s threat to step up its efforts against whistleblowers and journalists. A crackdown on leaks is a crackdown on the free press and on democracy. That s one way to put it. Another is that some of these whistleblowers are political criminals who reject the verdict of the American electorate in 2016 and are out to overturn it. And the aforementioned journalists are their enablers and collaborators.And if, as Wizner s asserts, protecting secrets is tantamount to a crackdown on the free press and democracy, no wonder the free press and democracy are falling into disrepute all over the world.By colluding, the mainstream media, deep state, and the special prosecutor s button men, with a license to roam, may bring down yet another president. So doing, they will validate John Adams s insight: Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. This story was originally published at Lew Rockwell.comAuthor Patrick J. Buchanan is co-founder and editor of The American Conservative. He is also the author of Where the Right Went Wrong, and Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. His latest book is Nixon s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever See his website. READ MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Do Cholesterol Drugs Have Men By Their Gonads? | Statins my disrupt vascular function On the Greenmedinfo.com Statin Research database we have cataloged over 15 studies from the National Library of Medicine indicating the heart-damaging properties of this class of supposedly ‘heart friendly’ drugs. View our professional data page here , or if you are not a member, view the open access reference page for public view and linking here . Statins do not only reduce lipoprotein production but have so-called pleoitropic properties, which include immune system down-regulating and anti-inflammatory properties, which is why they are believed to have a small benefit in reducing the inflammatory burden caused by autoimmune processes in the artery that can precipitate myocardial infarction (heart attack) in some individuals — but not without having the unintended, adverse effect of increasing cancer risk (at all sites) and contributing to congestive heart failure, effectively cancelling out the small, mostly theoretical benefit of reduced heart attack risk. For instance, it has been estimated that “…at least 23,000 low-risk people would have to take statins for five years to prevent one death from heart disease.” [ Source ] Statins are also clearly diabetogenic , increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes by about 50% in some populations , with the FDA now requiring drug manufacturers to include a warning of diabetes risk on statin drug labels . Considering morbidity and mortality from type 2 diabetes is caused not by the elevated blood sugar in and of itself, but the damage glycated sugar does to the vascular system and the subsequent cardiovascular harm it produces, the case against using statins for primary and secondary prevention of heart disease seems clear as day. Moreover, cardiovascular harm is not the only concern. Statin drugs have been linked to over 300 adverse health effects. We issued a consumer alert on the topic several years ago . For the more technically minded, here is the database page on Statin drugs listing 300+ adverse health effects based on 465 published studies. Heart Disease Is Not Caused By A Lack of A Drug Should we be surprised to find so much research on this drug class’s adverse health effects? After all, cholesterol is fundamental for the health of each cell in the human body, and low cholesterol has been found to cause a wide range of health problems , including psychiatric states such as violence against self and other. The food and drug industries have used cholesterol phobia to manipulate health professionals and the lay public into believing that the cause of heart disease is genetic, and can only be addressed through the use of synthetic, patented, essentially toxic chemicals, i.e. pharmaceuticals, or eating semi-synthetic ‘low fat,’‘low cholesterol’ foods with very little nutritional value. This latest study speaks to why we must exercise the precautionary principle when considering taking a patented chemical – technically a xenobiotic alien to human physiology – for suppressing a symptom of a much deeper and more complex problem. While oxidized cholesterol forms a significant part of the problem of atherosclerotic build-up in the arteries, it is not the primary cause of the damage to the inner lining of the arteries (endothelium), and the pre-existing endothelial dysfunction that can go on for many decades silently in the background. Ox-LDL deposits in atheromatous lesions have been viewed as an epiphenomenon, generated as part of a cascade of immune-mediated events the body activates in order to attempt to heal arterial damage. In certain respects, cholesterol deposits in the arteries at the site of damage can be likened to a Band-Aid. Do we blame the Band-Aid for causing the injury upon which it is placed? It is important to point out that oxidized cholesterol (ox-LDL) can be toxic and harmful to the vascular system, but the problem with modern blood testing for ‘cholesterol’ is that it does not take into the quality of the lipoproteins, only their quantitative dimensions. Depending on one’s diet, environmental factors, and overall bodily health, LDL particles will oxidize at different rates. If you are eating an antioxidant rich diet, full of healthy fats, phytocompounds, etc., your properly functioning LDL will be less susceptible to conversion to ox-LDL. On the other hand, eating a diet full of non-essential, oxidized fats, deficient in phytonutrients, antioxidants, etc. – and adding in environmental toxins and toxicants, e.g. smoking – will produce more ox-LDL, rendering it artherogenic. Obviously, therefore, diet and lifestyle form the basis for a sound preventive approach if the ‘ lipid hypothesis ‘ of cardiovascular disease is even deemed truly relevant. [For more research on natural substances which inhibit cholesterol oxidation, view our database on the topic: Prevent Cholesterol Oxidation .] Furthermore, there are many ways to address underlying vascular pathologies without suppressing the production of a vital building block and signaling molecule, which is what cholesterol is. Pomegranate , chocolate , and many other natural substances, have been confirmed in research to have profound heart disease preventive and reversing properties . You can explore our database sections relevant to the topic within our Heart Health guide , to find hundreds of studies proving this point. Basic nutritional incompatibilities, including the consumption of wheat which has cardiotoxic properties in genetically susceptible individuals, and excessive consumption of omega-6 versus omega-3 fats can profoundly increase the risk of heart disease. One groundbreaking study published last year, in fact, indicates that statins actually reduce the health benefits of omega-3 fats in the diet – adding another mechanism by which statin drugs exert heart disease promoting effects . Beyond the Pharmaceutically-Driven Medical Paradigm If statin drugs are toxic to human sperm, and if the men within whom this statin-induced damage is occurring are of reproductive age, the implications of this latest study on statins and fertility are potentially devastating to the health of future generations. Changes in our species germlines – sperm or egg – are carried on to future generations, possibly forever. With recent research indicating that even changes to somatic cells in this lifetime are capable of transferring information to the sperm , what we do here and now – our chemical exposures, our nutritional status, and even our psychospiritual and mental orientation (which gear into real physiological and genetic/epigenetic processes – can have critical and irreversible affects on our offspring. Clearly, the time has come both to re-evaluate the role of pharmaceuticals in ‘preventive’ health care, as well as the effects these novel new chemical compounds will have on the next generation, and the next. For alternatives to lipid lowering chemicals, take a look at the following, evidence-based natural interventions: | 1real |
Paul Ryan Says Government Won't Shut Down Because Republicans Are In Control | WASHINGTON -- Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is confident there will be no government shutdown this fall because Republicans are in charge on Capitol Hill, he said Friday.
"I’m not worried about that because we control both sides of the rotunda, the House and the Senate," Ryan, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a briefing with reporters.
Ryan is optimistic despite the fact that the House has only passed about half of the 12 appropriations measures that are required to keep the government running through September, the Senate hasn't passed any yet, and Congress is on vacation for most of August.
Democrats in the upper chamber are blocking the funding measures there because they are angry that the GOP decided to boost military spending above levels set by the 2011 Budget Control Act and its sequestration rules, while leaving in place steep cuts to domestic programs that are Democratic priorities.
President Barack Obama has threatened to veto appropriations bills that don't deal with both military and domestic programs, and his allies in the Senate are demanding that Republicans open up a process now to resolve the impasse. Ryan managed to cut a deal with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash) two years ago, when both were chairs of their respective budget committees, that eased sequestration cuts evenly.
Neither Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) nor House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) have suggested any willingness to do something similar this time around, and Senate Democrats are vowing to stand firm until Republicans start negotiating.
Ryan said that he thought a new version of a Ryan-Murray deal could be struck under the leadership of the current budget chairmen, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.).
But he stuck by his party's line that Congress should keep passing its regular funding bills before starting to negotiate, pointing to the Department of Defense bill that is currently being blocked.
"If they filibuster DOD approps over there in the Senate, I think it's a shame if they do that, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it," he said.
Asked if he could support raising the spending caps set in 2011's deal -- as he and Murray did in 2013 -- he didn't say no, but insisted such a move would have to be paid for in some way.
"The precedent that Patty and I set was mandatory savings in excess of discretionary add-backs to result in deficit reduction -- net deficit reduction," he said.
"These things have to be paid for," Ryan added, "What's the point in having spending caps if they don't enforce fiscal discipline?"
Asked why Republican control made him optimistic about passing appropriations bills, especially considering the poor functioning of the Senate, Ryan merely replied: "It's functioning a whole lot better than it did a year ago," when Democrats were in charge.
When Congress did shut down the government for two weeks in 2013, Republicans only controlled the House, but they got the blame because they had insisted on trying to use government funding to gut the Affordable Care Act. | 0fake |
Victims in Istanbul Airport Attack Reflect City’s International Character - The New York Times | ISTANBUL — One man worked as a Turkish translator and was escorting tourists back to the airport. One woman, an airport worker, was looking forward to her wedding in 10 days. There were taxi drivers and a customs officer. And there was a Turkish couple who worked together, and died together, in the suicide attack Tuesday night at Istanbul Ataturk Airport that killed dozens of people and wounded more than 200. As officials said on Wednesday that the death toll from the attack had risen to 41, details about the victims began trickling out. At least 23 of them were from Turkey, according to a Turkish official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the attack publicly. The victims reflected the cosmopolitan and international character of Istanbul, whose airport is among the world’s busiest, a hub for tens of millions of passengers connecting to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and beyond each year. Among the victims were five Saudis, two Iraqis and one citizen each from China, Iran, Jordan, Tunisia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, the Turkish official said. Hours after the attack — which has not been claimed by any group, although Turkish officials said they suspected it was the work of the Islamic State — a limited number of flights resumed, and workers continued clearing debris and replacing shattered windows at the airport. Unlike Brussels, where a terrorist attack in March closed the airport for days, Istanbul appeared determined to get back to business as usual. Under a sunny sky on Wednesday morning, cars streamed into the airport’s international terminal, where the attack occurred, almost like on a normal weekday. But traces of the blasts lingered: Police tape marked off the site of one of the explosions on the lower arrivals area. And workers in yellow vests pounded long support bars into the concrete sidewalk, erecting a metal fence dividing the road from the airport entrance. An elderly woman, who said she was a refugee from Afghanistan, sat on gravel in the shade, near a pile of her belongings, and watched them. Even as the airport reopened, scenes of grief played out at a nearby hospital. A young woman, wearing a brown and pink head scarf, rocked softly back and forth as an older woman embraced her, sobbing. The young woman’s husband was among the injured, and doctors had told her to prepare for the worst. “My God, why did you take him from me?” she said, her voice breaking. Those who survived spoke of panic and confusion, and of gunfire aimed directly at them. A young man said he was going through a metal detector on Tuesday night when he heard shooting. He said he came under fire as the assailants advanced, shooting. He saw one person fall to the ground and dove under the machine. Adnan Ersoy, a cabdriver at the hospital, said that three of his friends had been killed, and that eight had been wounded. “They were just taxi drivers,” he said. “Good people, people who were trying to survive and earn their money. ” Passengers making their way through the first airport security checkpoint on Wednesday seemed shaken. “It was only God’s grace that separated us from the tragedies that happened here,” said Tanika Golota, 26, a school counselor from Chicago, who was holding her Mila. The Golotas, on their way home from a vacation in Portugal with a layover in Istanbul, had left the airport just 40 minutes before the explosion on Tuesday night. “You see it on TV and you know it happens, but we are naïve to the fact that it could happen to us,” she said. A majority of the victims appeared to be Muslims, either Turks or visitors from Muslim countries. If the bombings are confirmed to be the work of the Islamic State, it will show once again that the group, which portrays itself as defending Islam and fighting Western powers, kills far more Muslims than on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria or in terrorist attacks in the region. The attack cast a pall over a city that until recently was brimming with projecting itself as a rambunctious, multicultural hub for the arts, with great cuisine and a dazzling history as a former imperial capital. But a series of terrorist attacks over the last year, some attributed to the Islamic State and others to Kurdish militants, have destroyed Turkey’s image as a haven in a dangerous region, and they have damaged its tourism industry. The chaos enveloping Turkey — including the attacks and an enormous influx of refugees that has strained resources — vividly illustrates how the civil war in Syria has rippled outward and destabilized neighboring countries. Turkey is grappling with growing domestic strains as well, with deep divisions between Islamists who support President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and secular and nationalist Turks who oppose what they regard as his increasingly authoritarian grip on power. Making matters worse, a war that Turkey had fought for more than three decades against Kurdish militants resumed last year, turning cities in the southeast into war zones. On Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that early indications suggested that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, was behind the latest attack, although officials had not released any information about the assailants by the afternoon. After other attacks, Turkish officials have equivocated, citing as potential culprits either the Islamic State or Kurdish militants. This, critics have said, provided the government with the pretext to crack down further on Kurdish militants, which has been a greater priority for Turkey than fighting the Islamic State. However, some analysts said the airport attack might be a for Turkey’s approach to the Islamic State. The United States and other allies have accused Turkey of not doing enough to fight the militant group, and even of contributing to its rise by allowing fighters and weapons to pass through Turkish territory as part of a policy of supporting Syrian rebels. “I was impressed with the rapidity with which the government said it was Daesh,” said Soli Ozel, a Turkish columnist and professor at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “It suggests to me that finally maybe they have learned what the hell they have done. ” John O. Brennan, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said on Wednesday that the attack “bears the hallmark of ISIL’s depravity,” but he did not confirm that the group was responsible. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Mr. Brennan added that the Islamic State typically does not claim responsibility for attacks in Turkey in order to send the Turkish government a grim warning but not alienate sympathizers and potential recruits in the country. The attack came days after Turkey, which has suffered ruptures in relations with many of its neighbors in recent years, took steps to reconcile with Israel and Russia. Turkey’s relationship with Israel fell apart six years ago after Israel commandos stormed an aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip in violation of a blockade, killing several Turkish activists. In November, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet that strayed into its airspace across the Syrian border, raising tensions to a boil. But Mr. Erdogan sent a letter to the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, this week expressing remorse for shooting down the jet, and on Wednesday, the two leaders spoke by telephone. At least part of the reason for patching up relations with Israel and Russia was to help improve Turkey’s beleaguered tourism industry, and it bore quick results: On Wednesday, Russia announced that it would lift a ban on travel to Turkey and was moving toward normalizing economic relations. More than four million Russians went to Turkey in 2014, second only to Germans, but millions of Russian tourists stayed home this year. Moscow also banned most imports of fruits, vegetables and other agricultural goods from Turkey, but that ban is due to be lifted, as well. President Obama telephoned President Erdogan from Air Force One on Wednesday to express his condolences for the loss of life and offer America’s help. The White House did not confirm that the Islamic State was responsible for the attack, but the press secretary, Josh Earnest, said the assault illustrated the challenge that Turkey faces because of its shared border with Syria. Subways and streets in Istanbul were quiet on Wednesday, with tourists who had come despite previous violence — the airport bombings were the fourth suicide attack in Istanbul alone this year — trying to enjoy themselves. “It’s really sad,” said Alex Afridi, 50, from Sacramento, who was visiting Turkey with his family and staying in a hotel in the Beyoglu neighborhood of Istanbul. “This city was already hurting. It’s an amazing city. ” Turks said they felt stunned at the dismal turn their country had taken. “I was in a crying mood this morning, looking at the news,” said Osman Serim, 60, a businessman drinking coffee in Beyoglu. “What is going to happen? What is the hope? What is the future for young people?” | 0fake |
Chart Of The Day: In Lieu Of Growth, The Tech Sector Is Throwing Massive Cash At Wall Street | Chart Of The Day: In Lieu Of Growth, The Tech Sector Is Throwing Massive Cash At Wall Street | 1real |
Every Single Lady On ‘The View’ Just SHREDDED Donald Trump For Obvious LYING (VIDEO) | If there s one thing that has been made one-hundred percent certain throught the course of this presidential election, it s that Donald Trump is a liar. A huge liar.Recently, he may have likely told his biggest whopper yet, and no one, and I mean no one, besides maybe some of his most devout followers, is falling for it.During one of his latest rallies, Trump went on and on about how President Obama handled a protester at one of Hillary Clinton s campaign rallies. Trump said that Obama was shouting and unhinged, but in reality, the president was calm, cool and collected and treated the protester with the utmost respect.Pointing out this utter fallacy were the ladies on ABC s The View. Not one of the women could defend Trump s lies. Not even the most conservative in the bunch.It was also pointed out that Trump has gotten as far as he has by lying and bullying his way to the top and that never should have been allowed to happen.And that s exactly what Trump is a liar and a bully.Trump cannot be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.Watch all the women tear Trump apart here: That s not just a little misleading that s false, @SaraHaines says of how Trump criticized Pres. Obama s treatment of a protester. pic.twitter.com/EmxpwK0X8t The View (@TheView) November 7, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
Cuba changing, but only slowly, since Obama's policy shift | HAVANA (Reuters) - Saul Berenthal has waited for decades for a chance to do business in Cuba. Despite the astonishing breakthroughs in U.S.-Cuban relations under President Barack Obama, he must wait some more. Berenthal and business partner Horace Clemmons of Alabama are close to becoming the first U.S. businessmen to manufacture in Cuba with a plan to build low-cost tractors designed for Cuban farms, largely run by private cooperatives. Their project has U.S. approval and Cuba’s Communist government has given positive signals about the proposed plant but has yet to bestow permission. “It’s a little bit of a test of loyalty. Are we willing to go through obstacles to achieve what we believe is a good thing for the Cubans and ourselves?” said Berenthal, who was born in Cuba in 1944 and left for the United States as a student in 1960, a year after Fidel Castro’s revolution. After more than half a century of antagonism between the two countries, Obama has redefined relations with Cuba in the last 15 months, and Cuba is changing. But its leaders are wary of moving too quickly. “What is perceived on the outside as slow progress is really the way of Cubans assuring themselves of the trust that is necessary to be built,” Berenthal said. Obama arrives in Havana on Sunday for a historic visit that seals a rapprochement he and Cuban President Raul Castro agreed in December 2014 after 18 months of secret negotiations. Since then, Havana has changed noticeably. The number of U.S. visitors soared 77 percent in 2015, swarming hotels and restaurants that have been booked to capacity. Obama this week issued sweeping regulations to promote even more U.S. travel and trade to Cuba. It was the fifth time he has used executive powers to boost ties with Cuba, sidestepping the Republican-controlled Congress which has refused to lift a 54-year-old economic embargo against the island. Cuba’s government has yet to fully reciprocate. Cuba did agree to roaming deals with U.S. telecommunications operators and restoring scheduled commercial airline service, two deals that bring more revenue to the government. When it comes to Obama’s overtures to the Cuba’s small but growing private sector, however, the government has been more deliberate. It has yet to accept U.S. sales of farming equipment and construction materials to private businesses, which were authorized by Obama. Market-style reforms, introduced by Raul Castro in 2011 to “update” Cuba’s socialist model, have been implemented haltingly, even reversed in some areas. The government recently attempted restoring price controls on fresh food markets in Havana. Many traits of communism remain. Political dissent is repressed, commercial property cannot be bought and sold and the government still controls imports and exports. There is no wholesale market for most private enterprises, forcing shopkeepers to buy inventory at state retail prices or resort to trickery or the black market. “Cuba has already changed, but needs more,” said Niuris Higueras, owner of the Atelier restaurant, one of the trendiest spots in Havana’s dining scene. She said business grew 50 percent over the past year. “We need to link up with the U.S. market,” Higueras said. “There needs to be more access to U.S. products here in Cuba. We need Home Depot, a Walmart, a Costco. A Restaurant Depot would be fabulous.” While the ice has been broken on commerce, Castro insists there will be no change to one-party rule. U.S.-backed dissidents are still detained for attempting unauthorized political demonstrations and opponents of Obama’s opening to Cuba say he has rewarded Castro without receiving concessions in return. The White House counters that helping stimulate a vibrant private sector is good for ordinary Cubans and offers a more promising path toward political change than the decades-old policy of isolation. While the date of Dec. 17, 2014, marks the most significant turning point in U.S.-Cuban relations, the Obama policy that has so far had most impact on the lives of ordinary Cubans was implemented in 2009, just three months into his presidency. It was then he ordered the lifting of travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans visiting relatives in Cuba and the removal of limits on remittances to relatives on the island. Cuban-Americans can now come and go freely and send as much money as they want to their families. That has financed a boom in small businesses and home repairs and jolted the nascent real estate market. Castro’s own reforms have also helped grow the private sector. Today some 500,000 Cubans, or 10 percent of the workforce, are registered to work in private businesses, including restaurants, car repair workshops, homes rented out to tourists, beauty parlors and English language schools. Some 70 percent of the 1-million-strong agricultural workforce is private with many Cubans working on state farms that have converted into cooperatives and owning equal stakes in the business. John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which has been tracking Cuba for more than 20 years, says the changes have lifted expectations, especially inside the budding middle-class. “There is now additional pressure from within for structural changes to the ideological foundation of the country. Cuba must do more than reform the commercial and economic sectors of the country. It must aggressively redefine the revolution,” Kavulich said. While Cuban dissidents and Obama’s critics at home prioritize the issue of human rights, others are more concerned about economic growth and better living conditions. “No one is talking about the visit in terms of democracy, human rights or the opposition. There is still no culture around freedom of expression,” Anaida Gonzalez, a retired nurse in central Camaguey province, said in a telephone interview. “People have too many problems in their daily lives. What they want is for their lives to improve and they associate that with the embargo,” she said. Most Cubans live on state salaries that average $25 a month plus a monthly ration card that provides about a week’s worth of food and household supplies. “It would be a mistake to assume most Cubans prioritize political questions and are scared to express themselves,” said Carlos Alzugaray, a retired Cuban diplomat and professor specializing in U.S.-Cuban relations. “They hope to live better. Change, political and economic, is coming to Cuba anyway, but on our own terms.” | 0fake |
White House aide sees temporary funding fix for children's health program | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A short-term fix to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program into January will likely be part of a stop-gap government funding bill Congress is expected to approve this week, White House legislative affairs director Marc Short said on Wednesday. In an interview with MSNBC, Short also said a measure to protect immigrant youths known as “Dreamers” would probably not be considered until January. | 0fake |
FAKE NEWS! RIGGED NBC/WSJ POLL Claims Trump Hits “Historic Lows”…100% FALSE! | The poll below is why people shouldn t trust polls EVER! Always look at the sample size and breakdown of the people. Are they mostly Democrats? This popped up when top news was Googled. THIS IS FAKE NEWS THAT EVEN FOX NEWS IS REPORTING TODAY!The lead story this morning from NBC is that Trump has hit historic lows for a president in the first 100 days FALSE! When we looked a little closer, we found this poll is truly bogus!Here s what we know:The sample size was only 900 people!Please note the number of people who are Strong Republicans 19% If you add the people who consider themselves to be Republicans, it s 38%. Does this sample size reflect a fair sample size? We think not!Here s the take from NBC that s totally skewed:Forty-five percent of respondents in the survey believe Trump is off to a poor start, with an additional 19 percent who say it s been only a fair start. That s compared with a combined 35 percent who think the president s first three months in office have been either good or great. Trump s 100th day in office takes place on April 29.By contrast, in the exact same question from April 2009 NBC/WSJ poll, 54 percent of Americans said that Barack Obama s first 100 days had gotten off to either a good or great start, while 25 percent said they were fair, and 21 percent called them poor.Trump s overall job-approval rating stands at 40 percent down four points from February. It s the lowest job-approval rating for a new president at this 100-day stage in the history of the NBC/WSJ poll.At this same point in time of their presidencies, Obama s overall rating stood at 61 percent in the poll, George W. Bush s was at 56 percent and Bill Clinton s was at 52 percent.By party, 82 percent of Republicans approve of Trump s job, versus just 7 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of independents who give the president a thumbs-up.How can this poll NOT be false when over 54% of the people they polled are Dems?Listen to this ridiculous video saying Trump is scrambling total lies! | 1real |
BREAKING: FLORIDA GOV RICK SCOTT ENDORSES DONALD TRUMP…Says It’s Time For GOP To Come Together | 1real | |
New Report PROVES Voter Suppression Handed Trump Wisconsin And Possibly The Whole Election | In a brand-new expos on Mother Jones, investigative journalist Ari Berman delves into an aspect of the 2016 election that has been largely ignored in the shadow of controversies over internal DNC politics, shifting blame, and what is now known to be concrete Russian interference: Voter suppression.On the heels of a report Berman summarized back in September, his article for the November-December issue of the liberal stalwart magazine continues where he left off. Anecdotal evidence of individual voters who were prevented from voting in Wisconsin during the presidential election all adds up to a picture that explains the numbers in the University of Wisconsin-Madison study that Berman cites in his summary.The study, completed by UW-Madison s professor of Political Science, Kenneth Mayer, shows a survey in two large counties in Wisconsin that asked whether respondents were either prevented or deterred from voting in 2016 by the new Voter ID law in effect for the first time in that election. The results of the survey were stunning: More than 11 percent of respondents said they were deterred, and that 6 percent more than half of the nonvoters were prevented entirely. If those sound like small numbers, bear with me.In the course of research, voters were asked why they didn t vote, how engaged they were in the election, what types of ID they possessed, how confident they were in the final vote count, and their general demographics. The survey never required any respondent to answer who they may have voted for.Possibly the most distressing part of the findings was how disproportionately the Voter ID law affected low-income and minority voters: More than 21 percent of households under $25,000 of income per year were deterred; that number dropped to just over 7 percent for those above that line. The demarcation between white and black voters was even more stark, with just of 8 percent of white voters reporting trouble and 27.5 percent of African-Americans reporting the same.What does all that add up to?As Berman notes in the new piece for MJ, Wisconsin showed the second-highest voter turnout in the United States in both 2008 and 2012, but just four years later, participation was the lowest it had been in 16 years.So let s get back to those numbers.In just the two counties that were surveyed, Dane and Milwaukee, the percentage of registered voters who were adversely affected by the new Voter ID law represents a low estimate of nearly 17,000 and an upper estimate of 23,252 voters. In fact, the study points out, the 11.2 percent nonvoter estimate is actually low in itself, as it doesn t take into account voters who were deterred from even registering by the new law.If every single one of those in the study who answered that they were deterred or prevented from voting had actually cast a vote that counted, voter turnout would have increased by 2.24 percent. And that seems like an incredibly small number, until you extrapolate that across the state. The Wisconsin Election Commission estimated that 3.1 million voters turned out for the 2016 presidential election. That means 69,440 voters under a conservative estimate were disenfranchised entirely by the new Voter ID law.Donald Trump s margin of victory in the state? Less than a third of that.Given that the vast majority of disenfranchised voters, although they were not asked their political affiliations, were demographically more likely to vote for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump, it hardly requires extrapolation to conclude that, at least in the state of Wisconsin, Trump was right.The vote was rigged.Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images | 1real |
Former Drug Industry Executives Charged in Kickback Scheme - The New York Times | A secret relationship had made the two men rich: one, the head of a pharmacy, the other, an executive at a major pharmaceutical company who had promised to funnel millions of dollars to his partner in exchange for receiving millions of his own. They celebrated over email like characters in a classic western movie — with one saying that they would soon “ride into the sunset” together. Those were the details laid out in a complaint announced on Thursday by federal prosecutors, which brought that cinematic tale to an inglorious end. The prosecutors charged the two executives — Andrew Davenport, the chief executive of the pharmacy Philidor Rx Services, and Gary Tanner, an executive at Valeant Pharmaceuticals International — with multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy for what prosecutors described as a scheme to enrich themselves. The arrests represent the first charges in multiple state and federal investigations into Valeant’s business practices, including inquiries by Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission. As the questions have mounted over the last year, shares of Valeant, a major drug maker that was once a Wall Street darling, have fallen precipitously, putting the company’s future in doubt. In a statement, Valeant noted that the company and its top executives had not been charged in the case, and said it was cooperating with the investigation. A lawyer for Mr. Davenport said his client intended to defend himself, and a lawyer for Mr. Tanner said his client’s innocence would be demonstrated at trial. Of all the questions surrounding the company, its relationship to the small pharmacy Philidor drew perhaps the most scrutiny. In October 2015, Valeant revealed that it had bought an option to acquire Philidor in 2014 but had never disclosed that detail to investors. Several media outlets reported on a host of tactics Valeant was said to have used to steer its products through Philidor and increase sales, including altering prescriptions to specify that Valeant’s drug, and not a cheaper generic, be dispensed. It cut ties to Philidor that same month. According to the complaint, filed Wednesday in Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, Mr. Tanner and Mr. Davenport were at the heart of this relationship. The government said the two concealed from Valeant a secret pact they had made to promote the pharmacy’s interests inside Valeant, including persuading Valeant to buy an option to acquire Philidor. The government contends Mr. Tanner used a secret email account, under the name “Brian Wilson” to communicate with Mr. Davenport. Prosecutors said Mr. Tanner and Mr. Davenport initiated their plan while Mr. Tanner was in charge of what was known at Valeant as “alternative fulfillment,” or the practice of using pharmacies to increase prescriptions for its drugs that otherwise might have been filled by cheaper generic alternatives. As the scheme developed, prosecutors said, Mr. Tanner resisted efforts by Valeant’s senior leadership to seek out relationships with Philidor’s competitors, and his efforts were critical in leading Valeant into the agreement in December 2014. Philidor profited handsomely from the relationship — prosecutors said it grew to an enterprise with 450 employees and tens of millions of dollars in revenue at the end of 2014 from a tiny in 2013. Until Philidor was shut down in January, at least 90 percent of the drugs it dispensed were sold by Valeant, the federal complaint said. Mr. Tanner also benefited from the arrangement, the authorities said. According to the complaint, Mr. Davenport used a series of shell companies — including one called End Game — to secretly transfer a kickback payment to Mr. Tanner after the agreement went through. According to prosecutors, about $40 million from the deal between Valeant and Philidor went to Mr. Davenport, who, they said, sent about $10 million of that to Mr. Tanner. The complaint said that Valeant officials questioned Mr. Tanner several times about whether he had any financial relationship with Philidor — and that he said he did not. Howard M. Shapiro, a lawyer for Mr. Tanner, said his client had simply been doing his job. “It was Gary Tanner’s job at Valeant to grow and promote Philidor,” he said in a statement. “He performed that job exceptionally well, greatly benefiting Valeant’s shareholders, and regularly communicated to his superiors what he was doing. ” Mr. Davenport’s lawyer, Jonathan Rosen, said Mr. Davenport had worked “with full transparency” and added, “Philidor also benefited Valeant, which is why Valeant and its highly sophisticated and active management team sought to buy it. ” Mr. Tanner was forced out of Valeant in 2015. Mr. Davenport remained at Philidor until the company shut down. Regardless of whether Valeant’s top executives were aware of the arrangement between Mr. Tanner and Mr. Davenport, Valeant benefited significantly from its ties to the pharmacy, allowing it to increase sales of ailing products and obscure more significant problems with the business, said Vicki Bryan, a senior analyst with Gimme Credit, a bond research firm. She noted that Valeant paid Philidor $100 million to enter into the purchase agreement, then quickly paid it $33 million more, according to the complaint. “This is how much Valeant valued this relationship, right off the bat,” Ms. Bryan said. When Valeant disclosed its relationship to Philidor last year, it said that the pharmacy had accounted for about 7 percent of its sales in the third quarter of 2015, or about $196 million. Beyond the relationship between Mr. Davenport and Mr. Tanner, Valeant has said in public filings that the government investigations into Philidor could include looking into whether it improperly used its ties to the pharmacy to bill third parties, such as insurers. Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a news conference on Thursday that the investigation was continuing, but he declined to discuss specifics. He would not say whether his office was looking into Valeant’s accounting practices. A spokesman for Mr. Bharara said the office did not have any agreements with cooperating witnesses to make public at this time. His office has tended to make cooperation agreements public when an investigation is largely complete. The criminal complaint also refers to interviews with several unnamed former Valeant executives, but does not identify any of them as cooperating witnesses. The series of negative developments over the last year have pummeled Valeant’s stock — pushing it down to its current $17 a share from nearly $100 a share last November. Its chief executive, J. Michael Pearson, stepped down in the spring, and the problems also led to a of the board. The precipitous decline has punished a number of big hedge funds that hold large positions in Valeant — firms like Pershing Square Capital Management, Paulson Company and ValueAct Capital Management. No hedge fund may have been hurt more than Pershing Square, the $11. 6 billion firm led by the investor William A. Ackman. Mr. Ackman began buying Valeant shares in early 2015, when the stock was trading around $190, and he has remained a true believer. This year, well after concerns about Valeant’s business dealings with Philidor became apparent, he continued to argue the company had value and secured two board seats for his firm, holding one of them himself. Just last week, Mr. Ackman told his investors that he foresaw a comeback strategy for Valeant as it moved to sell off business divisions to reduce its debt obligation. He has even suggested that the company may rename itself in an effort to rebuild its reputation. Yet he has conceded that he and his firm could have done better due diligence on Valeant’s aggressive practices — another business strategy that has prompted controversy and protests from federal legislators. Mr. Ackman, in an email statement on Thursday, declined to comment on the criminal charges beyond the Valeant statement. | 0fake |
Dave Chappelle Accused of Making ’Homophobic, Transphobic’ Jokes in Netflix Specials | Comedian Dave Chappelle’s highly anticipated comedy comeback has sparked accusations of homophobia. [The comedian’s new Netflix specials, The Age of Spin: Live at the Hollywood Palladium and Deep in the Heart of Texas: Live at Austin City Limits, include jokes about homosexuality that have some social media users outraged. One punchline that apparently rubbed fans the wrong way, according to at least one report, involved prison inmates performing oral sex: “L. G. B. T. Q?! I was like what the f*ck is the Q? Does that even make sense, Q? Turns out Q is like the vowels, that sh*t is sometimes ‘Y’. It’s for gay dudes that don’t really know they’re gay. you know what I mean. like prison f*gs who are like: “What I’m not gay n***a I’m just sucking these d*cks to pass the time. ” The former Comedy Central star also cracked jokes about Caitlyn Jenner and transgender people. “Whenever I see one of them Ts on the street I’m like ‘I don’t mind them but man I miss Bruce,’” he said to laughter from the audience. “I knew before you guys knew,” he says of Jenner’s sexuality. “I heard things on the street in Hollywood, you know you used to be out, see people: ‘Hey what’s up Kanye, why the long face?’ ‘N*gaa you’ll see, I’ve got two mother in laws now. ’” Outrage on social media over Chappelle’s jokes came swiftly: Dave Chappelle is a funny dude, but that homophobic and transphobic nonsense just derailed the whole thing for me. Major bummer. — KeenAnvil (@keenanvil) March 22, 2017, Lots of weird, disappointing in the Dave Chappelle Netflix tbqh, — Soma🌹 (@darkroomdoor) March 22, 2017, But Chappelle’s material was homophobic and transphobic and involved rape culture. I’ve grown too much not to speak up about it now. — April (@ReignOfApril) March 22, 2017, You can find Dave Chappelle funny and still say his homophobic behavior isn’t okay (as someone who has paid to see him, I would know) — ¯_( ツ) ¯ (@morganslegit) March 22, 2017, Chappelle, for his part, had warned audiences during his special, saying “Ladies and gentleman, man the f*ck up or you’re not going to make it through this show. ” And some Twitter users downplayed the idea that the comedian’s set was offensive. Good lord people saying Dave Chappelle was trans or homophobic are fucking reaching. Does everyone just desperately need someone to hate on? — Angry CanadianGinger (@Weatherbee79) March 22, 2017, Dave Chappelle’s comedy is refreshing.. I miss people saying whatever they want. — Sean The Triggerer (@SeanTheTerrible) March 22, 2017, The Chappelle complaints kinda make me glad the greats like Pryor and Carlin never did a standup in the social media era. — Suge Night Shyamalan (@B_Effin_G) March 22, 2017, Chappelle’s new comedy specials debuted on Netflix March 21, and a third special is slated for release on the streaming platform later this year. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 0fake |
Mississippi Baker Who Made Cake For Republican Governor Publicly Humiliates Him | Mississippi Republicans should worry about the billions of federal dollars they are about to lose but they should also worry about the Christian bakers they have pissed off.Just a few days ago, bakery owner Mitchell Moore blasted Republicans in his state for passing an anti-LGBT law that allows bigoted Christians to discriminate against employees and customers at will for any reason as long as they hide behind a so-called sincerely held religious belief to do so. The assumption that they think that they re looking out for us that s not what they are doing, Moore said during an interview about the new law, known as HB 1523. We rank number one our state government is the most dependent on federal money. We are the third most obese state. We rank at the bottom in unemployment, in education. We ve got crumbling infrastructure. None of them are being tackled. Instead, we are passing, hey-let s-discriminate bills. And now, a baker who made a cake for Governor Phil Bryant s inauguration is humiliating him and his Republican allies for making it difficult to be proud of Mississippi. Look Governor Bryant, we will make cakes for anyone! Biloxi Cake Artist Extraordinaire Jennifer Noble wrote on Facebook underneath an image of her posing with Bryant. Including backwards thinking politicians that make it hard to be proud of being a Mississippian. We never wanted this. Quit using our industry as an excuse to deny the separation of church and state. She then announced that she had removed the picture she took with Bryant and said she regrets posing for the photo now and is embarrassed she ever posted the picture on her page.Here s the full post via Facebook:So far, Noble s Facebook post has drawn nothing but positive responses and applause while Governor Bryant is still getting hammered for signing the discriminatory bill into law.And rightfully so. Bryant and his fellow Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for passing such a law and they should work to repeal it as soon as possible before Mississippi businesses decide that denying services to Republican lawmakers is their own sincerely held religious belief. Featured Image: Facebook | 1real |
“My Trampoline Addiction Hell” Buster The Boxer Tells All | 0 Add Comment
THE STAR of a heartwarming Christmas ad which is bringing joy to countless millions, Buster the boxer was thrust into the limelight and our hearts earlier this week.
Despite being universally loved ever since he leapt onto a trampoline on our TV screens, Buster hides a terrible struggle which still affects him to this day.
Barking exclusively to WWN through an interpreter, Buster told us that there was more to his trampoline hijinks than meets the eye.
“It’s an addiction,” the adorable dog explained, “you’re always chasing the buzz of your first bounce. I loved it, I still can’t enough of it. But it’s tearing my life apart”.
Such was Buster’s preoccupation with the trampoline, he lost interest in walks and even stopped marking his territory.
“There was a time you couldn’t stop me from pissing on a tree. You name a tree in my area and I’ve cocked a leg over it, but once I took to bouncing nothing else mattered, I even lost contact with my mates in the dog park. My life is being controlled by this addiction,” woofed Buster, flanked by his owners.
Distraught, his owners contemplated removing the trampoline, but Buster would growl at any mention of it.
Cautioning all owners and dogs not to make the mistakes he has made, Buster warned that there are many gateway hobbies which can lead to an all out trampoline addiction.
“Tennis balls, they seemed fun at the time, but I see now that my constant fetching of them was a troubling sign of things to come”. | 1real |
(VIDEO) UNBELIEVABLE! BLACK JUDGE BERATES VICTIMS OF HOME INVASION AND YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHY | You won t believe this judge and how he berates a family that was terrorized in a home invasion. Can a three-year old help how she feels after this traumatic event?The reason Judge Olu Stevens of Louisville, Kentucky berated a family that was terrorized by two black home invaders in court and on Facebook will knock your socks off. In all my years, I don t think I ve ever seen such an egregious example of race-card abuse.The judge was troubled and offended by the fact that a three year victim was so traumatized by a violent home invasion, she is now fearful of black males.Jordan and Tommy Gray s 3-year old daughter was watching SpongeBob when two black armed men broke into her home and robbed her family at gunpoint one of the perps pointing a gun in her father s face.Mom and dad honestly noted on the their victim impact statement that she is still afraid of black men 2 years later. Whenever we are running errands, if we come across a black male, she holds me tight and begs me to leave, the mother said. It has affected her friendships at school and our relationships with African-American friends. Tommy Gray also wrote that since the crime, his daughter had been terrified of black males and that probation was not sufficient punishment for Gregory Wallace, 27, who had pleaded guilty to robbery. If holding a little girl at gunpoint gets you probation, then our system is flawed, Gray said.But when Wallace was brought up for sentencing Feb. 4 in Jefferson Circuit Court, it was the parents, not Wallace, who suffered Judge Olu Stevens wrath. I am offended. I am deeply offended that they would be victimized by an individual and express some kind of fear of all black men, he said. This little girl certainly has been victimized, and she can t help the way she feels, he said. My exception is more with her parents and their accepting that kind of mentality and fostering those type of stereotypes. The Grays were not in court as Stevens denounced their statements and granted probation to Wallace, whom he said deserved the opportunity to redeem himself.But they did see when Stevens condemned their statements again, in a post on Facebook. Do three year olds form such generalized, stereotyped and racist opinions of others? he wrote. I think not. Perhaps the mother had attributed her own views to her child as a manner of sanitizing them. That a supposedly unbiased judge would ask such an ridiculously biased leading question does not speak well of him.It s obviously true that three year olds generally don t develop generalized, stereotyped and racist opinions (as if you could call her fears those things) on their own. This young tot had a little help She was traumatized when a couple of black home invaders terrorized her family. Is this judge stupid?The family is obviously unhappy that the ordeal has negatively impacted their daughter s view of blacks. How did he miss that? It s why they listed it it on the impact statement.Later Stevens said, I wasn t criticizing the victims, I was criticizing a statement that I thought was a generalization against an entire race of people. He was criticizing the feelings of a three year old victim of a crime. Shame on him. #SMDHMeanwhile Wallace and his accomplice, Marquis McAfee, both 27, were arrested about three weeks after the robbery. Both pleaded guilty and McAfee, who was on probation for a prior crime, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, which he is serving.Assistant Commonwealth s Attorney Richard Elder objected to probation for Wallace, who pleaded guilty to a 20-year sentence, saying he was guilty as hell and put a gun in that little girl s father s face. Via: nice deb | 1real |
Trump Doubles Down, Says Obama LITERALLY Created ISIS | After a completely unhinged speech in Florida in which Trump claimed President Obama and Hillary Clinton were the founder and co-founder of the terrorist group ISIS, the media rightfully hounded him for his stupidity.And what did he do? He doubled down, this time using literal terms.When Hugh Hewitt, on his conservative talk-radio show, tried to clarify Trump s statement, the Republican presidential nominee doubled down and told the host that Barack Obama, in his official capacity as President of the United States, literally created ISIS:Hugh Hewitt: I ve got two more questions. Last night you said the President was the founder of ISIS. I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.Trump: No, I meant he s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I gave him the most valuable player award. I gave her too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.Hugh Hewitt: But he s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He s trying to kill them.Trump: I don t care, he was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okayAnd just like that, Trump resorted back to his typical dog whistle insanity that won him the nomination of the crazy party. In Hewitt s defense, he did warn Trump that such comments would welcome even more media scrutiny that would hurt his chances of winning over independent voters.But Trump doesn t care. He says he s made no mistake in pinning the founder label on President Obama.Politifact fact-checked two claims from Donald Trump when he tried to tie Clinton and Obama to ISIS exclusively, and both times it was discovered Trump was shocker a big fat liar.Regardless, facts are no match for the red-meat politics Trump likes to throw to his rabid supporters.Luckily no one is believing him, and no matter how much he tries to push the narrative, he can t get out of the 40 percent zone with polling.Democrats are loving the Trump implosion. It seems nothing he does can distract from the sheer stupidity that comes out of his mouth.Featured image via Joe Readle/Getty Images | 1real |
Ted Cruz Names Who He’ll Pick As Ambassador To The UN, And You May Vomit (VIDEO) | Sometimes you could wonder if some of the people running for the Republican nomination for president are actually serious. When people like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are leading the pack two men who if not in positions of power would be considered certifiably crazy are able to say the darndest things and get away with it, it makes one wonder if they re stupid, or if the people they re convincing have the mental capacity of a stone.While at a campaign event on Friday, Ted Cruz invited his prized endorser Duck Dynasty star and bigot extraordinaire Phil Robertson to speak. Cruz also, in a lame attempt at humor (sadism?), decided that if he were to be president he may name Robertson as Ambassador to the United Nations. This suggestion was probably in jest, but really, who knows anymore.When talking about Robertson, Cruz says: You know there s a reason he terrifies the mainstream media. He says the things you re not supposed to say. He actually remembers who we are as Americans and just speaks it with a joy, not with an anger, not with a hatred, with a joy in who we are. Then after saying he d name Robertson to the coveted position of UN Ambassador, he said: How much would you pay to see the Russian ambassador s face when Phil says, What is wrong with you people?' Okay, here s the thing: Russia would probably really like Robertson because they have the same stance on homosexuality. So, who knows, maybe it would be a budding bromance.If Robertson s views are who we are as Americans then, quite frankly, we re up shits creek without a paddle. Most folks who admire common sense and decency for all humans regardless of race, gender of sexual orientation would tend to disagree with the horrendous statements both Robertson and Cruz regularly state.However, it is not at all surprising that Cruz would pander to his idiot base of voters with such a moronic suggestion as Robertson at the UN. His pandering knows no bounds, as was evident when he went full camo in Robertson s official endorsement of him.Needless to say, this is something we should not fret over, because Ted Cruz will not be president if the American voters have anything to say about it.Featured image via flickr | 1real |
Trump’s F.D.A. Pick Could Undo Decades of Drug Safeguards - The New York Times | President Trump’s vow to overhaul the Food and Drug Administration could bring major changes in policy, including steps to accelerate the process of approving new prescription drugs, setting up a clash with critics who say his push for deregulation might put consumers at risk. Mr. Trump has been vetting candidates to run the agency, which regulates the safety of everything from drugs and medical devices to food and cosmetics. Among them is Jim O’Neill, a former official at the Health and Human Services Department who is an associate of the Silicon Valley billionaire and Trump supporter Peter Thiel. Mr. O’Neill has argued that companies should not have to prove that their drugs work in clinical trials before selling them to consumers. Other candidates also have called for reducing regulatory hurdles. If the most significant proposals are adopted — and many would require an act of Congress — they will reverse decades of policy and consumer protections dating to the 1960s. Congress toughened the drug approval process in the wake of the worldwide crisis over thalidomide, which caused severe birth defects in babies whose mothers had taken the drug in pregnancy. Since then, the F. D. A. has come to be viewed as the world’s leading watchdog for protecting the safety of food and drugs, a gold standard whose lead other countries often follow. Mr. Trump’s most recent statements, made at a White House discussion last week with leaders of the nation’s top drug companies, have reverberated throughout the medical and pharmaceutical industries. Supporters of deregulation have long wanted to reduce bureaucracy and lessen oversight of drugs and devices, while critics say the market for drugs could be destabilized and the door opened to unproven products based on junk science. “Everyone depends on the agency, from the drugs in our medicine cabinet to the food on our dinner table, to our blood supplies,” said Dr. David Kessler, who was commissioner of the F. D. A. during the presidencies of the elder George Bush and Bill Clinton. “We are the envy of the world because our honey is our honey. Our foods are not laced with pesticides. Our drugs work. ” Mr. Trump said at the meeting that he was close to naming a “fantastic” person to lead the agency. In addition to Mr. O’Neill, candidates whose names have recently surfaced include Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former F. D. A. official with longstanding ties to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and Dr. Joseph Gulfo, a former biotech and medical device executive. All three have called for streamlining the drug approval process, but Mr. O’Neill’s stance has drawn the most attention. He is a managing director of Mithril Capital Management, an investment firm Mr. Thiel and previously led the Thiel Foundation, Mr. Thiel’s philanthropic organization. During the George W. Bush administration, Mr. O’Neill held a series of roles in the Health and Human Services Department, including as principal associate deputy secretary, where he worked on policy, including for the F. D. A. according to his LinkedIn profile. Mr. O’Neill is a libertarian who is on the board of the SENS Research Foundation, a charity that funds research, and until recently served on the board of the Seasteading Institute, an effort to create new societies at sea. At an conference in 2014, Mr. O’Neill advocated something he called “progressive” approval, in which drugs that were proved safe, but not yet proven effective, could be allowed on the market. “Let people start using them, at their own risk,” Mr. O’Neill said. “Let’s prove efficacy after they’ve been legalized. ” Companies have been required to prove that their drugs work since 1962, when Congress passed legislation requiring that licensing for sale be based not just on safety but also on “substantial evidence” of a drug’s efficacy. That law, and others passed since, forced companies to rigorously test their products, running them through a gantlet of clinical trials whose results are then vetted by the F. D. A. before any sales to consumers. Ninety percent of drugs that enter clinical development fail these trials. (The F. D. A. also regulates medical devices, but they undergo a separate approval process.) As a result, newly discovered drugs can take years to reach the market, a period that Mr. Trump said last week was too lengthy. “When you have a drug, you can actually get it approved if it works, instead of waiting for many, many years,” he told the pharmaceutical executives. “We’re going to be cutting regulations at a level that nobody’s ever seen before, and we’re going to have tremendous protection for the people. ” Some have suggested that a commissioner determined to weaken the efficacy standard need not seek congressional action, but could interpret existing regulations loosely so that requirements for certain clinical trials — particularly the costly, ones that can take years and involve thousands of patients — can be rolled back. That could have serious implications for patients. Last month, the F. D. A. released a study of 22 drugs that appeared promising in early studies but failed in final, trials. Drug safety watchdogs point to examples like the painkiller Vioxx, which was withdrawn from the market in 2004 over safety concerns, as proof of the high stakes involved in drug approval. While Mr. Trump’s call to cut regulations has been warmly received by other industries, some biotech executives have reacted to his remarks with alarm. Those affiliated with some smaller companies have privately described the choice of Mr. O’Neill as a scenario that could send the drug industry into chaos. The F. D. A. they say, is not perfect, but its standards provide a level playing field on which both big and small companies can compete. “We’re not selling and Pepsi, where patients can taste the and decide if they like it,” said John M. Maraganore, the chief executive of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a Massachusetts biotech firm. “Our products are lifesaving medicines. ” Industry executives said big changes to the agency would also be bad for business, making it difficult for companies with breakthrough treatments to distinguish their products from those that are shams. If standards at the F. D. A. are rolled back, “then we might as well be advertising in the middle of the night on how terrifically we can cure all your illnesses,” said Dr. Leonard S. Schleifer, the chief executive of Regeneron, a pharmaceutical company in Tarrytown, N. Y. “That’s not the business that I think most of us want to be in. ” Daniel Carpenter, a professor at Harvard University who studies the F. D. A. said its role is not just to ensure the safety of a drug. “The underpinnings of belief among patients, payers, even investors, is that somebody out there has tested these things and has shown, with some evidence, that they work,” he said. Mr. O’Neill did not respond to emails and a phone call requesting comment, and Dr. Gottlieb declined to comment. Dr. Gulfo, the former biotech executive, said he had spoken with several people on the president’s transition team about the F. D. A. job. He said he was in favor of keeping the efficacy requirement. But he said he believed the agency’s standards were too rigid and burdensome to companies with innovative ideas. He called on the agency to approve more drugs based on what are known as “surrogate endpoints” — showing that a diabetes drug lowers blood sugar, for example — rather than forcing companies to prove that the product improves outcomes like survival rates or lowering the chance for heart attacks. “Let’s bring the F. D. A. back to what its mission is, and its mission is to make sure that drugs can be labeled for safe use, and that they’re not snake oil,” said Dr. Gulfo, the former chief executive of MELA Sciences, who wrote a book about his company’s failed efforts to get its skin cancer detection device approved. (The agency eventually approved it for use in 2011.) Several drug company executives said the F. D. A. while not perfect, had sped up the approval process in recent years and had been responsive to requests to approve drugs based on interim measurements, particularly for diseases that have no other treatments. The agency sets a goal for approving standard drugs, and a period for those that have qualified for expedited approval one recent study showed it decides on drugs more quickly than its counterparts in Europe and Canada. A majority of recent new drugs were approved through expedited approvals, another recent study found. In December, Congress passed a law that further speeds approvals for certain drugs and medical devices. Drug industry leaders say that they want the F. D. A. to be more open to allowing new kinds of clinical trials, and that it needs to become more nimble in keeping up with the breathtaking pace of medical advances. They have also been prodding the agency to fill an estimated 1, 000 staff vacancies so that decisions can be made more quickly. But that is apparently delayed because the president ordered an hiring freeze. “The only way you would make it shorter is you staff up,” said Michael Gilman, an entrepreneur who has founded several biotech companies. “You certainly don’t do it by slashing staff. So the logic of the whole thing doesn’t compute for me. ” | 0fake |
Beyoncé Is Pregnant, and Twitter Loses It - The New York Times | The reaction on social media to the news that Beyoncé is pregnant with twins was by turns swift, sweet and strange. While Beyonce’s Super Bowl performance of the hit song “Formation” was seen as a pointed political statement, addressing issues like black pride and police brutality, it and the video drew anger from some in law enforcement who said they were an attack on their profession. Then there were others like the police officer in Virginia who recreated her formidable choreography to inspire high school students. A phone call to the Atlanta department seeking comment was not immediately returned on Wednesday. | 0fake |
Texas Restaurateur Accused of Harboring, Arming Illegal Aliens | REFUGIO, Texas — A local restaurateur has been charged with human smuggling after allegedly using his business to hide illegal aliens and providing them with firearms. [Federal agents with the help of local police raided two local restaurants and two mobile homes where they arrested 16 illegal aliens and found multiple firearms. At one of the restaurants, Taqueria Guadalajara, agents arrested Alfredo Plascencia Leon five illegal immigrants from Mexico and one from Honduras who were working at the restaurant. The other raids took place at the properties behind the store and at a second restaurant, Gumbo Seafood, owned and operated by Plascencia. Refugio is approximately 44 miles from Corpus Christi. Court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed that Plascencia would allegedly house illegal aliens in various mobile homes and collected rent. During the raids, authorities seized an “assault rifle” a shotgun, a . 45 caliber pistol, and a . 22 caliber rifle. Mario Rizo Melendez, one of the illegal aliens, told authorities that the . 22 caliber weapon was given to him by Plascencia and that the shotgun was loaned to him also. Breitbart Texas reached out to Gregory Palmore, a spokesman for U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who stated that the raid was part of a criminal investigation and not an immigration action, as some local outlets incorrectly reported. Alfredo Plascencia Complaint by ildefonso ortiz on Scribd, Tony Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas. | 0fake |
St. Louis Riot Police Reportedly Chant ‘Whose Streets? Our Streets!” After Arresting 80 Protesters | According to the Associated Press, a group of riot police reportedly chanted Whose streets? Our streets! Sunday night after arresting more than 80 violent rioters protesting the acquittal of an officer who shot a black man in 2011.A large group of rioters stayed after a dispersal order on the third day of protest against officer Jason Stockley s acquittal in the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith. After dispersing the group, police took a page out of the protesters book and began chanting Whose streets? Our streets! . A police commander at the scene claimed he hadn t heard the chant, but called it not acceptable. Here is a link to a video that confirms what journalists heard, police chanting Whose streets, our streets 2X. https://t.co/NwjEUEJ7LI David Carson (@PDPJ) September 18, 2017The three days of protest showed a common trend. Starting Friday, the protests remained peaceful throughout the day, only for violence to break out at sunset. Sunday night s protesters blocked roads, broke windows at two businesses, and threw trash cans into the street.TAKE BACK THE STREETS!ABOUT 11 POLICE OFFICERS HAVE BEEN INJURED SO FAR!Thank goodness the officers are actually doing a great job of arresting the violent protesters. It s about time and will help to stop the destruction to the city and violence to innocent bystanders.Police also reported that one officer was sent to the hospital with a leg wound and that protesters were spraying an unknown substance at officers. The hospitalized officer s condition is unknown. These criminals that we ve arrested should be held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, Police Chief Lawrence O Toole said at a conference. We re in control. This is our city and we re going to protect it. READ MORE: DAILY CALLER | 1real |
Desperate GOP LITERALLY Spreads Trump’s Wiretap Lies To Fleece Their Supporters | It was bound to happen as soon as House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes said that he had evidence people in Trump s transition team were recorded during foreign surveillance activities, Trump and his loyal subjects within the Republican Party pounced. Never mind what else Nunes said that the information collected was incidental and probably legal the GOP saw their opportunity to clear their president s name and paint Obama as the evil, criminal, dictatorial president they always knew he was.The National Republican Congressional Committee sent out emails this morning with the subject line, Confirmed: Obama spied on Trump. They quoted Politico: Trump transition members were under surveillance during Obama administration. And they quoted Nunes: Members of the Donald Trump transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under surveillance during the Obama administration following November s election. Here s the full letter:Whoa. as flagged by the DCCC, Republicans are now fundraising on the false claim that Obama spied on Trump pic.twitter.com/AKzw3jAAQJ Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) March 23, 2017Is there context? Of course not. That s nonexistent in their letter, but here s some: The quote from the Politico story is the caption on top of the video they posted of Nunes press conference. And here s some more relevant context from that story: Nunes set off the firestorm with a news conference earlier in the day in which he described the surveillance of Trump aides through what s called incidental collection, something he noted was routine and legal. Such collection can occur when a person inside the United State communicates with a foreign target of U.S. surveillance. In such cases, the identities of U.S. citizens are supposed to be shielded but can be unmasked by intelligence officials under certain circumstances. Furthermore, Nunes himself said: This is a normal, incidental collection, based on what I could collect. It alarms him anyway, for some reason.However, more significant than that is the fact that Nunes also said yesterday that he still has no evidence Trump, his team, or his campaign were wiretapped or otherwise the target of surveillance by the Obama administration. None. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. I have said this for many, many weeks, he told White House reporters.What we have now is a party that s actively and knowingly spreading Trump s lies to gain an edge they know they re losing. Should investigations conclude that not only did a sitting president level a demonstrably false accusation against his predecessor, but also that he colluded with Russia during the election cycle, the GOP is sunk.Featured image by Mark Wilson via Getty Images | 1real |
Australia's famed Uluru outback monolith to be closed to climbers | SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia s world-famous Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, will be closed to climbers from 2019, its management board said on Wednesday, ending a decades-long campaign by Aborigines to protect their sacred monolith in the Northern Territory. A board of eight traditional owners and four government officials voted unanimously to close the rock to climbers, a spokesperson told Reuters. The climb is a men s sacred area, the men have closed it, chairman Sammy Wilson added in a statement. It has cultural significance that includes certain restrictions. The UNESCO World Heritage-listed 348-metre (1,142 ft) rock, known for its shifting red-ochre colors, is a top tourist drawcard, attracting around 300,000 visitors each year, despite its remote desert location near Alice Springs. The traditional owners of Uluru, the Anangu people, have called for the climb to be closed since 1985, when the park was placed in indigenous hands. The rock s board said in a report in 2010 that they would close the attraction to climbers if the proportion of visitors who tried to climb it dropped below 20 percent. They took the matter to a vote on Wednesday after data showed the number of climbers had fallen below that threshold, from about three quarters throughout the 1990s to just 16.2 per cent between 2011 and 2015. The ban will take effect on Oct. 26, 2019, exactly 34 years after Uluru was handed back to its traditional owners. Australians are still the most common visitors to climb the rock, followed by the Japanese, according to Parks Australia. The climb is closed about 77 percent of the time due to dangerous weather or cultural reasons. There have been 36 confirmed fatalities at Uluru since records were first kept in the 1950s, with the most recent in 2010. (This story has been refiled to fix typo in first paragraph) | 0fake |
What 250 more Special Forces in Syria can do | ISIS is making enemies in Syria, and there's a need to ramp up efforts to train them. That's where the new Special Operations forces fit in.
President Obama’s announcement Monday that 250 Special Operations Forces will be headed to Syria suggests that a “start small” approach to combatting the Islamic State might be showing signs of promise.
Last fall, Mr. Obama sent 50 special operators to Syria as trainers as “a proof of concept of sorts,” says Melissa Dalton, a former intelligence analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency. The goal was to see if the United States could use the training to gain traction with Kurdish fighters and Arab Sunnis on the ground, she says.
On Monday, Obama offered his verdict, saying that the expertise of the Special Operations Forces already in Syria “has been critical as local forces have driven [the Islamic State] out of key areas.”
Monday’s decision, then, appears to be an attempt to hit the fast forward button.
It “seems to reflect that this proof of concept works,” adds Ms. Dalton. “There’s been some positive momentum built up, with the idea now being, ‘OK, if we expand that out a bit further – multiply the amount of trainers in the country – then perhaps we can multiply the effects.' ”
There are questions. At a time when a diplomatic cease-fire is faltering, the US seems to be doubling down on a military strategy, even as it has failed to define what a realistic end state might be, Dalton says.
“Where are we building to? Is this the first of many plus-ups happening incrementally – and to what end?”
But building out the program bit by bit makes sense, say others. It gives the US the potential to empower anti-Islamic State forces in a proven way without becoming embroiled in a Mideast war.
In this case, “incrementalism is the right approach,” says Nicholas Heras, a Middle East analyst at the Center for a New American Security.
Monday’s decision mirrored another made last week, with more US troops on their way to Iraq in newly-expanded roles that will bring them “closer to the action,” as Defense Secretary Ash Carter put it.
With Obama making no secret of his desire to keep US out of another war in the Middle East, this increase in Syria from 50 to 300 Special Operations Forces is seen as a relatively low-risk gambit.
In the past, the US has made much more grandiose efforts at fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Before the US sent over its 50 special operators last fall, it attempted a $500 million effort to train Syrian anti-ISIS forces. The result: “four or five” fighters on the battlefield, Gen. Lloyd Austin told Congress last September.
But still, the Syrian rebels in the program were “getting terrific training,” Christine Wormuth, the Pentagon’s policy chief, assured lawmakers.
The answer was to pivot to the 50 special operators, who have worked on refining their message to potential recruits.
“They are explaining the benefits: They get training, they get US airstrike support, US logistical support, and the tacit idea that while ISIS is the primary objective, the US isn’t going to complain if these groups fight back against” Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Mr. Heras says.
The trainers have also had some success in expanding the number of Syrian Arabs within the Syrian Democratic Forces, Heras adds.
That’s important in building some degree of trust among anti-ISIS forces. Kurds have proven to be US forces’ most-reliable partners, but Syrian Arabs distrust them – to the point that Sunni Arab families were fleeing deeper into ISIS-held territory for fear of Kurdish forces, Amnesty International reports. The Kurdish forces were accused of ethnic cleansing and forcibly removing Sunni Arabs from their homes.
Kurdish forces ultimately want an autonomous region of their own within Syria, a goal that many Sunni Arabs do not support, notes Jenny Cafarella, a fellow at the Institute for the Study of War.
But a greater ethnic mix of forces battling ISIS could help in the long run. If these troops can ultimately take back control of their hometowns, then they must find a way to live together and govern – an even trickier proposition than winning on the battlefield.
And the pool of recruits is growing.
In the first train-and-equip mission, the emphasis was on fighters that had been recommended by Syrians on the ground, often with the Turks acting as intermediaries.
Now, the latest pool includes “guys who were expelled from ISIS-controlled territory, so they have a sense of vengeance – they’re on a mission,” Heras says. “For them, it’s ISIS that’s the major impediment to them being able to go back home, to build up their own government,” he adds. “For them, it’s ISIS that’s the main enemy.” | 0fake |
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