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Raqqa campaign in final stages, SDF says | BEIRUT (Reuters) - The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Wednesday its campaign to capture Raqqa from Islamic State (IS) was in its final stages and its fighters had seized 80 percent of the city. In its fight against a separate operation waged by the Syrian army and its allies, Islamic State has collapsed along the west bank of the Euphrates downstream of Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday. IS has lost swathes of territory in Syria this year, attacked from the north by the SDF and from the west by the Syrian army, which has pushed it back across the desert to its last strongholds in the Euphrates valley. The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, launched its offensive on the jihadist group in Raqqa city in June, backed by U.S.-led air strikes and special forces on the ground. The city had served as Islamic State s de facto capital in Syria. In a statement on Wednesday, the SDF said it had opened a new front against IS on the northern edge of Raqqa. This was a feature of the final stages of the Euphrates Wrath campaign, which is nearing its end . We can say that 80 percent of the city of Raqqa has been liberated, the statement said. An SDF media official said the main obstacles facing the alliance in Raqqa are avoiding civilian casualties and a high concentration of mines. He estimated that 700 to 1,000 IS fighters remain in the city. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that Islamic State now controls only 5 percent of the city and its remaining militants there have nearly run out of food and munitions. In Deir al-Zor province of eastern Syria, Islamic State is battling two separate offensives, launched by the SDF on one side and the Syrian army and its allies on the other. The Syrian army, backed by Russian and Syrian war planes, has captured about 100 km (160 miles) of the west bank of the Euphrates this month, reaching Raqqa provincial border on Wednesday, the Observatory reported. Syrian troops also crossed to the eastern side of the river on Monday. The SDF s advances have been on the eastern bank of the river. The convergence of the two rival offensives has increased tensions in Deir al-Zor. The U.S.-backed militia on Monday warned against any further Syrian army advances on the eastern riverbank. On Tuesday, Russia s Defence Ministry said the Euphrates had risen as soon as the Syrian army began crossing it. The only way that could have happened was if upstream dams held by the U.S.-backed opposition had been opened, it said. A fire at a major gas field known as Conoco raged through Tuesday night and into Wednesday, the Observatory said, after Syrian state media reported that the army was advancing toward it. Islamic State had fled the area, the Observatory added. The hardline militants lost their main stronghold in Iraq, the city of Mosul, in July to Western-backed Iraqi forces. | 0fake |
House adopts massive defense bill, sees changes under Trump | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a defense policy bill on Friday without some controversial provisions that had worried Democrats, but Republican lawmakers said they expect to revisit the issues once Republican Donald Trump is in the White House. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed by 375-34, sending it to the U.S. Senate, which is expected to vote next week on the $618.7 billion measure setting policy for the Pentagon. After months of negotiation, the House and Senate Armed Services committees unveiled a compromise version of the NDAA this week that did not include provisions such as the Russell Amendment, a “religious freedom” measure that Democrats said would have let federal contractors discriminate against workers on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, overturning an executive order by Democratic President Barack Obama. During debate before Friday’s vote, some Republicans said they wanted to revisit the issue. Republicans will control both houses of Congress and the White House after Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20. “We look forward to working directly with the incoming administration to address the concerns, not just for the DoD. (Department of Defense), but for the government nationwide,” said Republican Representative Mac Thornberry, the House Armed Services Committee chairman. The NDAA also includes $3.2 billion more for the Pentagon than Obama requested in his budget bill. Some Democrats objected to the increase, part of a continuing debate between the two parties over whether defense spending should be matched by non-defense spending. Thornberry also said he hoped the Trump administration would send Congress a supplemental budget request to provide even more money for the Pentagon. | 0fake |
WHY TRUMP IS RIGHT To Recognize Jerusalem As Israel’s Capital | After it was announced that President Trump was seriously considering moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, he was roundly criticized by the anti-Trump media. Today, Democrats have announced they are drawing up the impeachment papers. Pope Francis appealed to President Trump to reconsider his decision so as not to offend anyone. In his appeal, Pope Francis said, Jerusalem is a unique city, sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims who venerate the holy places of their respective religions, and has a special vocation to peace. And yawn in Gaza, where the more things change, the more they stay the same, Palestinians burned the U.S. and Israeli flags.The media will try to make everyone believe that Palestinians loved us when Obama was President, even though there is no truth to that fantasy. (See image below)Daily Mail President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that America formally recognizes Jerusalem as Israel s capital city, changing decades of U.S. policy in a brief afternoon speech and casting the move as a bid to preserve, not derail, aspirations for regional peace.Appearing in the White House s Diplomatic Reception Room against an elaborate backdrop of Christmas decorations, He also said the United States embassy in Israel would, over time, be moved there from Tel Aviv.Israel is the only country where the United States has an embassy in a city that the host nation does not consider its capital. I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Trump said. While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today I am delivering. When I came into office I promised to look at the world s challenges with open eyes and very fresh thinking, he said, leaning heavily on a mid-1990s federal law that demanded the embassy s relocation. We have declined to acknowledge any Israeli capital at all, Trump added. But today we finally acknowledge the obvious, that Jerusalem is Israel s capital. This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It is something that has to be done. Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon seems to think so. Continetti wrote the best piece on Trump s bold decision to move the embassy that we have seen to date.Not only is President Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and begin the process of moving the U.S. embassy there one of the boldest moves of his presidency. It is one of the boldest moves any U.S. president has made since the beginning of the Oslo peace process in 1993. That process collapsed at Camp David in 2000 when Yasir Arafat rejected President Clinton s offer of a Palestinian state. And the process has been moribund ever since, despite multiple attempts to restart it.That is why the warnings from Trump critics that his decision may wreck the peace process ring hollow. There is no peace process to wreck. The conflict is frozen. And the largest barriers to the resumption of negotiations are found not in U.S. or Israeli policy but in Palestinian autocracy, corruption, and incitement. Have the former Obama administration officials decrying Trump s announcement read a newspaper lately? From listening to them, you d think it would be all roses and ponies in the Middle East but for Trump. In fact, the region is engulfed in war, terrorism, poverty, and despotism; Israel faces threats in the north and south; its sworn enemy, Iran, is growing in influence and reach; and the delegitimization of the Jewish State proceeds apace in international organizations and on college campuses. I forget how the Obama administration advanced the cause of peace by pressuring Israel while rewarding the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Maybe someone will remind me.A similar form of doublethink is present in our discussions over Jerusalem. Every Israeli knows Jerusalem was, is, and will remain his capital. Every recent president has agreed with him. And the U.S. consensus has been bipartisan. The last four Democratic platforms have said the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel s capital. The Senate voted 90-0 only six months ago urging the embassy be moved to the ancient city. Were we to take seriously neither these platforms nor that vote? Was it all virtue-signaling, a bunch of empty gestures in the kabuki theater of U.S. diplomacy?It is a sign of the disingenuousness of American foreign policy that it required someone from outside this system to behave as if words have meaning. President Trump has no background in or admiration for the routines, manners, and norms of the U.S. foreign service, especially that part of it which specializes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This has enabled him to state unequivocally the fact others would prefer to avoid: Jerusalem is Israel s capital, full stop. His transactional nature also brought him to this fateful recognition. In March 2016, at the AIPAC policy conference, he pledged that We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem. His remarks today make clear his intention to fulfill that promise and to cement his support within the pro-Israel community.I wonder about the journalists and flacks and politicians criticizing this literal reading of U.S. law as disruptive. Have they not paid attention to this man? Donald Trump s purpose in office is to disrupt if not overturn the patterns of governance and ideological consensus that have dominated the U.S. capital for decades. In this sense, his Jerusalem policy is his presidency in microcosm. He is acting on a common sense appraisal of the world and satisfying the wishes of his supporters without regard to global or domestic elite opinion. What Trump knows more than the art of the deal is the art of the bluff and how to call one. By keeping his campaign promise today, he has called the bluff of everyone who thought the United States could have its cake and eat it too on the question of Israel s capital. And by moving our embassy to Jerusalem, the United States will acknowledge Israel s right to determine its own capital city. That is not something to condemn or fear. It is something to be proud of. | 1real |
Kenya election campaigns turn personal after court orders fresh polls | NAIROBI (Reuters) - The president calls the chief justice a cheat. A lawmaker denounces the head of the opposition as the devil and says he needs a whipping. The opposition leader accuses the president of making a public speech while drunk. The gloves are off as Kenya s ruling party and the opposition battle for votes ahead of new elections, tentatively scheduled for Oct. 17 by the Supreme Court after it voided last month s presidential results. Last Friday s historic decision, the first of its kind in Africa, was welcomed by many as a rare sign of independence from Kenya s judiciary. It means voters will again have to choose between President Uhuru Kenyatta, 55, and veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, 72. But others feared that after a relatively peaceful election campaign, it could open the door to political instability, reviving memories of the violence that followed a disputed 2007 election when more than 1,200 people died. Despite being prone to occasional unrest, Kenya is viewed by the United States and other allies as an anchor of stability in the region. East Africa s richest country per capita and main trade route between the coast and the interior, it has avoided the civil wars that for decades plagued neighbors such as Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda. After the verdict by the Supreme Court ... I m worried about the upsurge of hate discussion amongst Kenyans, said Francis Ole Kaparo, the chair of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, the government body in charge of preventing hate speech. As of yesterday morning we were investigating 273 cases of hate-mongering in the social media. I believe the number has probably doubled as we are sitting here, he told a press conference. They had less than a third of that number for the whole ten-week campaign period leading up to Aug. 8 elections, he said. Lawmakers from both sides are under investigation. Opposition lawmaker Paul Ongili Owino, whose Twitter account suspended, is among them. Kaparo did not respond to a message seeking more details. So is ruling party lawmaker Moses Kuria, who gave a fiery speech on Tuesday denouncing Odinga. Kuria is already facing hate speech charges brought by the commission more than a year ago. Raila is a demon. He needs to be whipped by a man and whipped by a woman. Support us, including all parliamentarians, so we can hold him, Kuria told cheering crowd in a speech in the Kikuyu language peppered with coarse words in Kiambu county on the outskirts of the capital. We went and gave birth to a baby (the election). That baby did not die during pregnancy or during delivery. The baby had started to suckle. Raila then came and stuck his finger in the baby s arse and killed it, he said during the speech, which was filmed and posted on YouTube. Later, he posted on his Facebook page, Manhunt is on tonight for the 200,000 people who did not vote and the 70,000 that voted for that other demon. The biggest worry in Kenya is violence taking on an ethnic dimension, as in 2007. President Kenyatta is from the largest of Kenya s 44 tribes, the Kikuyu, while many of Odinga s supporters believe his Luo ethnic group has been locked out of power. Police denied reports, which were posted online and repeated by opposition politicians, that following Kuria s speech buses had been stopped in the area and passengers questioned about their ethnicity. Reuters was unable to verify the accuracy of those reports. Raphael Tuju, the secretary-general of the ruling Jubilee party, denounced Kuria s speech to a local news channel hours after it was reported. That is completely out of order and I would not accept that kind of language. I will take it up with him because it is unacceptable, he said. Tuju did not return calls from Reuters seeking comment on what disciplinary action Kuria might face. Manoah Esipisu, a presidential spokesman, said State House does not comment on comments by people like Moses Kuria. Kuria s speech came days after Kenyatta repeatedly criticized the Supreme Court for nullifying the August election results. Official results showed that Kenyatta had won by a comfortable margin of 1.4 million votes, but the court ordered the poll re-run because it said there were irregularities by the election board. In a speech immediately after the ruling, Kenyatta said he disagreed with the ruling but would accept it. But in a public rally later he referred to the judges as wakora, a Kiswahili term for a cheat. The next day, Kenyatta promised to fix the judiciary. Esipisu, the spokesman, said the president used the term wakora to criticize a judgment he views as subverting democracy. Anything that doesn t express the will of the people is wakora, Esipisu said. At another rally, Kenyatta told a crowd that Odinga was a witchdoctor because he was insisting on being consulted on the date of new elections. Odinga told Reuters in an interview that the statements were unpresidential. When the anger settles, we should have a sober campaign without insults, he said in an interview. These campaigns will be fought on the basis of serious issues, not who can shout loudest, who can insult more than the other person. But later he couldn t resist adding a personal dig at Kenyatta, saying that the president was probably drunk. It was irresponsible for the president to address the nation when he appeared to have taken one too many, he said. I think it is an insult to the nation. Asked about that comment, presidential spokesman Esipisu said: We don t comment on rubbish. (For a graphic on Kenya's presidential election click tmsnrt.rs/2vENDRp) | 0fake |
Bombing of Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Yemen Kills at Least 15 - The New York Times | SANA, Yemen — At least 15 people were killed on Monday in northern Yemen when warplanes bombed a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders, according to hospital and local health ministry officials. The airstrike hit Abs Hospital in Yemen’s northern Hajjah Province, and three Yemeni staff members of Doctors Without Borders were among the dead, said the hospital director, Ibrahim Aram, who was reached by telephone. He said that three foreign doctors at the hospital were also wounded, and that three other staff members had limbs amputated. The bombing came two days after Saudi airstrikes killed at least 19 people, mostly children, in a residential area and a school in northern Yemen. The coalition fighting Houthi militias has stepped up its bombing campaign in recent weeks after peace talks collapsed between the rebels who control the capital, Sana, and the largely exiled government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which is backed by the coalition and by Western powers. Ayman Ahmed Mathkoor, the health director for Hajjah Province, said the airstrike on Monday had destroyed the emergency department of Abs Hospital, killing 15 people and wounding 20. In a news release on Monday afternoon, Doctors Without Borders — often known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières — said that at least 11 people, including a member of the organization’s staff, had been killed in the attack on the hospital, and 19 wounded. Nine people were killed immediately, and two more died while being moved to another hospital, according to the news release. Mr. Aram said he was unsure how many patients had died. Hospitals in Yemen supported by Doctors Without Borders have been hit by coalition airstrikes at least four times in the country’s war. Saudi officials have insisted that they have struck only at military targets, and have accused the Houthis of using civilian facilities to carry out attacks against the government and its coalition partners. Ban the United Nations secretary general, condemned the attack in a statement, emphasizing that antagonists in the Yemen conflict had damaged or destroyed more than 70 health facilities since the hostilities began 17 months ago. Ibrahim Jafari, a health ministry official who went to the hospital on Monday, said the emergency room had been full of patients when it was hit. Many of the victims were badly burned, he said, and body parts were scattered around the site. Mr. Jafari said there were no military forces near the hospital. The nearest military activity involving the Houthi militias was more than 35 miles away, he said. Amnesty International in the United States condemned the attack, and an Amnesty official said in a statement that the targeting of medical facilities could constitute “a serious violation of international humanitarian law, which would amount to a war crime. ” Mr. Aram, the hospital director, said the three Doctors Without Borders staff members who were killed were a guard, a logistician and an electrician. In addition, another guard, an technician and a nurse had limbs amputated because of their wounds, he said, adding that the three foreign doctors had relatively minor injuries. “Today’s airstrike appears to be the latest in a string of unlawful attacks targeting hospitals, highlighting an alarming pattern of disregard for civilian life,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, an Amnesty official. Other hospitals supported by Doctors Without Borders that are known to have been hit in Saudi strikes include Shiara Hospital in Razeh, in Sada Province, struck on Jan. 10 Taiz Hospital in the city of Taiz, struck on Dec. 2 and Haydan Hospital in Haydan, Sada Province, struck on Oct. 26, according to statements from the aid organization as well as government health officials. Mr. Aram said that Doctors Without Borders had not begun supporting Abs Hospital until it was assured that the Saudi coalition was aware of the hospital’s geographical coordinates, in line with the organization’s longstanding policy for hospitals in war zones. Maj. Gen. Ahmed Asseri, the spokesman for the coalition, said a statement about the airstrike would be issued. Efforts to reach spokesmen for the Yemeni government supported by the Saudi coalition were unsuccessful. | 0fake |
Literally Election Fraud: Trump Tells Followers To Vote ‘Four Or Five Times’ To Ensure Race Isn’t ‘Rigged’ Against Him | By Thamiel Rosenkreuz Election 2016 , Politicians Behaving Badly , Politics October 30, 2016 Literally Election Fraud: Trump Tells Followers To Vote ‘Four Or Five Times’ To Ensure Race Isn’t ‘Rigged’ Against Him
The Republicans’ fear of voter fraud may yet come true — mostly because it looks like the Republicans are going to be the ones instigating it, thanks to Donald Trump, who basically told his followers on Sunday to go out and steal the election. “Four or five times”
There’s been a lot of digital ink spilled this election on the delusional claims of voter fraud, but what I think is interesting is that this highlights just how ready the right-wing is to divorce itself from the electoral process entirely . They’ve lost the popular vote five of the last six elections, and if things go the way they’re going and American liberals get out to vote, it’s going to be six of the last seven on the morning of November 9.
Trump and the Republican Party would like their followers to believe that this isn’t because their ideology is painfully out of step with the country in modern times. Instead, Trump claims the election will be stolen from him – whether by “Mexicans,” or the media, or a “cabal of international bankers.”
But see, here’s the thing: there is a self-proclaimed billionaire who’s working to undermine the election, and it’s not Carlos Slim — it’s Donald J. Trump and his paranoid loony bin followers, which include a disturbing number of white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazis, and John Birch dropouts.
While speaking to a crowd at a rally in Greeley, Colorado late Sunday, Trump once again cast doubts on the mail-in ballots , encouraging people to get another ballot and mail that one in , too. Over and over:
“Who has sent their ballots in? And do you think those ballots are properly counted?” Trump asked the audience, to which they replied “No!”
Trump continued by expressing his skepticism and telling supporters to go get new ballots to ensure their vote is counted.
“ If you go to university center, they’ll give you a new ballot, they’ll void your old ballot, in some places they do that four or five times, so by tomorrow, almost everyone will have their new ballots in. ”
CNN said the comment was “stoking skepticism” because they don’t have the wherewithal to call this what it really is: encouraging voter fraud.
“Liberal media” my ass.
And it appears to be having an effect. Some of Trump’s followers have already taken this message to heart, and at least one has already been arrested for it .
Between these clowns and the clowns that are going to “make sure there isn’t any illegal voting at the booths”— i.e, instigate voter intimidation against Hispanics, Arabs, African-Americans and anyone else who doesn’t look like a white Trump supporter — one gets the feeling that election night is going to be a chaotic one.
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images Share this Article! | 1real |
For Aaron Krickstein, and a Reporter, a Covered Open Brings Closure - The New York Times | Shut the roof, and closure will finally and deservedly come for Aaron Krickstein. When it next rains during the United States Open, there will be no lengthy delay or complete washout at Arthur Ashe Stadium — and no more reason for a television producer seeking to fill time to consider reminding Krickstein of his long, lugubrious Labor Day in 1991. “Part of me feels like it’s really a long time ago,” Krickstein said in a recent telephone interview. “And part of me feels like it was yesterday. ” He is not the only one. Krickstein’s loss to Jimmy Connors — the ultimate crasher in a sport — was a seminal match in the tournament’s modern history and the first significant story to break on my live watch for The New York Times after I was hired in April 1991. This year’s event will be my last assignment as a staff reporter. Just in time, the tournament will unveil a $150 million retractable roof over the court named for Ashe, who died in 1993 and with whom I happened to watch the fifth set of the classic in the press box high atop what used to be the main court, Louis Armstrong Stadium. “It’s all come full circle,” Krickstein said, unintentionally speaking for us both. I was not exactly a kid out of college, or a tennis newbie, when Connors whipped the Armstrong crowd into a panting frenzy in that match on his 39th birthday. I had covered my first Open in 1978 for a newspaper that existed for a few weeks during a protracted strike by New York’s three dailies. Connors had destroyed Bjorn Borg in the final that year, as Ashe reminded me after seating himself close by while Connors chased Krickstein, 15 years his junior, across the evening shadows to emerge with a tiebreaker victory. “He was unbelievable that day,” Ashe said of the Borg demolition, recounting the scores — — as if they were flashing on the glass enclosure in front of us. “If you’re talking about Connors’s performances here, to me, that was first. This is second. ” In a paean to career resurrection, Connors later called his highly improbable run to a semifinal trouncing by Jim Courier in 1991 as “the best 11 days of my career. ” Like no other tournament, that Open fortified the working man’s ethos Connors proudly and sometimes obnoxiously embodied throughout his career. For years, Krickstein chafed at the thought of Connors’s birthday theatrics and body gyrations, and how behaviorally dismissive he had been of a friendship that began as a mentorship. Krickstein was so deflated after the match that he could barely lift his head when facing reporters. He and Connors would not speak more than a few words for almost 24 years. They did play once more on tour, months later in Memphis. “I was up a set and a break — lost that one, too,” Krickstein said. “Never did beat him. ” Connors being an great, Krickstein could live with that, but what most annoyed him was the reputational residue of their Labor Day epic. Krickstein was cast in too many reruns as a chronic loser, in perpetuity. Years later, when Krickstein was playing at a senior event in Long Island, the woman on the public address kept introducing him as Connors’s hapless 1991 sparring partner. The typically reserved Krickstein took a moment to inform her that he had actually been a player, the winner of nine ATP events and the conqueror of Andre Agassi at that 1991 Open. Alas, even the Agassi triumph was obscured by Connors, who summoned his inner Houdini in a night match against Patrick McEnroe, rallying from two sets down and behind in the third. “Did you talk to Patrick?” Krickstein asked me. “He started the whole thing. ” To which McEnroe said, “Yep, still rubs me the wrong way. ” He, too, had a relationship with Connors, who would occasionally call him to practice, “probably to tick off” McEnroe’s older brother, John, a bitter Connors rival. But the worst part of Patrick’s coughing up a match he believed he had won — “the kiss of death against Jimmy,” he said — was that he was having his best year as a singles player, having survived his own deficit against a Swede named Thomas Hogstedt on the way to the Australian Open semifinals. McEnroe went into a monthslong funk after his nightmare, struggling to watch Connors and the tournament proceed. Except he remembered John, on a network broadcast, saying, “My brother unleashed a monster. ” Patrick McEnroe did get another shot at Connors the following spring in Florida, finally beating the Jimbo in straight sets. Krickstein had to wait more than two decades to reconfigure an old conversation. As the tennis director of St. Andrews Country Club in Boca Raton, Fla. he had begun a custom of staging annual events for members, summoning old tour friends to come entertain them by hitting a few balls. He took a deep breath and called Connors near the end of 2014. “It was a little awkward, to say the least,” Krickstein said. “First we just talked about our families. I told him where I was working, what I liked to do for our members, how it would be a great honor to have him come down. ” Krickstein proposed that they play a set for old times’ sake, carefully describing it as “a reunion match,” not one for revenge. “Jimmy asked a few questions, little details, but he couldn’t have been nicer,” Krickstein said. At 62, with both hips replaced, a few reporters in attendance and the former American tour player Jimmy Arias poking fun in the chair, Connors dropped an pro set to Krickstein in February 2015. He cast it as his last public match while Krickstein called it “a cool way to reconnect. ” Adulthood happens. Middle age sneaks up on you. Krickstein is 49, a father of two, more reflective on what he can now admit was “an iconic match. ” Yes, he hated when people told him they had seen it during United States Open rain delays, in one depressing stretch over four consecutive years. Over time, “it’s bothered me less and less,” Krickstein said, but he still found himself nodding in agreement when he read somewhere recently that “nobody will be happier about the U. S. Open roof than Aaron Krickstein. ” He has plans to visit the tournament during the first week, meet sponsor obligations, stroll the grounds in Flushing Meadows, maybe take in a match or two. If the clouds happen to burst and the two fabric panels roll across the opening to meet above Ashe while he is there, Krickstein won’t complain. These days he has little to grouse about, he said. Life has been good, very good. But he’ll still happily accept full closure on Connors, along with the roof, after 25 years. He also won’t be alone in wondering, where have they gone? | 0fake |
Trump's lean campaign machine relying mostly on donor cash, not his own | Donald Trump is running a relatively lean campaign machine and, despite pledges to self-fund, so far has been able to rely more on outside donations than his own deep pockets.
Campaign finance filings this week offered a glimpse into how the billionaire businessman is running his breaking-the-mold campaign.
The third quarter report showed that Trump raised $3.9 million over the period between June 30 through Sept. 30. Of that, $2.8 million came from individual donations of $200 or less. In addition, he's put up about $1.9 million of his own money, in loans and contributions, since officially launching his bid in mid-June.
The totals show he's raised $5.8 million and spent $5.4 million to date -- which means he's spent more contributor money than his own money.
Trump, though, repeatedly has said his campaign does not want to be beholden to big-money donors. So whether he will eventually have to dig deep into his personal fortune remains to be seen.
“There is a general perception that he has all the money he needs,” however, “he’s spending less -- he hasn’t had to open his wallet – because of all the attention he’s received,” said Anthony Corrado, professor and campaign finance expert at Colby College in Maine. “His standing in the polls has allowed him to essentially ride this wave of support.”
While Trump is not doing high-dollar fundraising events like other candidates, his website solicits donations all the way up to the individual limit of $2,700. Much of his financial support is coming in this way, and appears to be going a long way as Trump spends (and raises) far less than his competitors.
The money mostly has been spent on travel, lodging, telemarketers, event staging, and campaign consultants in the early caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
"The Trump Campaign will continue to accept small dollar donations as people across the country proudly invest in Mr. Trump's vision to Make America Great Again," the campaign said in a statement following the public filing of the FEC numbers Thursday.
Corrado noted that this was “reminiscent of Ross Perot, who self-financed, but asked people to send in five dollars just to have skin in the game.”
Texas billionaire Perot spent $63.5 million of his own money to wage a formidable third-party race for president in 1992.
Trump told Fox News this week that he only spent “a couple of million” on his campaign so far, and “zero” on advertising due to all the free air time he has received. “I’ve spent the least money and I’ve got the best poll numbers. This is a tribute to business,” he said.
Trump has been the poll front-runner in the GOP pack for weeks, despite spending less than his competitors.
Republican candidate Sen. Ted Cruz took in $12.3 million in the third quarter, but also has spent nearly $18 million to date. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton took in $29 million and spent $25.7 million in the third quarter alone.
As the campaign draws closer to the early 2016 primary contests, however, Trump will need to spend more money, Corrado said. “We will start to see this change in the fourth quarter,” he said, pointing to Trump’s announcement that he plans to spend upwards of $20 million in the next phase of his campaign on advertising.
So far, "his expenditures are revolving around his travel, spending the money to put on viable campaign events, gathering intelligence in the early primary states" and promoting his brand, said Corrado. "It reflects a grassroots approach to campaigning ... Therefore he has been able to conserve his resources to spend more as they get closer to the actual voting."
Trump will either have to raise more or keep dipping into his personal reserves, as, according to the FEC report, his campaign only had $255,000 cash on hand as of Sept. 30.
He acknowledged as much when he told Fox News he would not be averse to taking outside money should he get the nomination. “I don’t mind spending the money. Once we get through that [primary], that’s when the party kicks in and then billions of dollars come in, everyone wants to support it and that’s a great thing.” | 0fake |
Trump Gets HUMILIATED After Declaring His Poll Numbers ‘Higher’ Than Obama’s | Donald Trump got hilariously owned on Twitter again.On Sunday morning, Trump took a break from playing golf to post a Twitter rant. First, he bragged about his presidency.The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm,.. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017 massive regulation cuts, 36 new legislative bills signed, great new S.C.Justice, and Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax Cuts in works! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017And then he insanely declared that his poll numbers are better than President Obama s.The new Rasmussen Poll, one of the most accurate in the 2016 Election, just out with a Trump 50% Approval Rating.That s higher than O s # s! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017As you can see, Trump used a poll taken by Rasmussen, which notoriously leans to the right-wing. Plus, it s the only poll that shows Trump s approval rating being this high. All of the others show Trump s approval rating at historic lows.But Trump is not only embarrassing himself by ignoring the other polls, he s wrong about having higher numbers than President Obama.At this time in his presidency on June 18, 2009, Rasmussen took a poll and found that 55 percent of Americans approved of how President Obama was doing his job.That s not even true. On June 18, 2009, Obama had 55% overall approval, with 35% strong approval. You can check here https://t.co/Ug3LolDloS pic.twitter.com/4ShoOt3kzD Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) June 18, 2017So Trump is either lying or he is bad at math. Or both.Of course, Twitter users mercilessly mocked Trump for it.Dude Rasmussen is a right wing org lol Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) June 18, 2017Rasmussen constantly has the highest approval rating for you. If you look at other polls your numbers are much lower https://t.co/U01aLAGEub pic.twitter.com/aI6ESllrw3 Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) June 18, 2017Obama typically has 3 to 4 times as many twitter likes for his tweets. Has about 3 times the followers. (Even without the fakes) Robert Belcher (@bobbelcher) June 18, 2017Even though that s way higher than the real figure (37%), 50% is still *TERRIBLE* for a recently elected president! Jules Suzdaltsev (@jules_su) June 18, 2017Every other polls says 35-40%. Also, since when was Obama s 55% rating lower than 50%. Can you do math even? Impeach Donald Trump (@Impeach_D_Trump) June 18, 2017He s the so called commander in chief that just lost seven sailors, and he s tweeting about ratings instead? SAD! Tom Woodward (@topcattcw) June 18, 20177 US servemen are dead & you re tweeting about approval rating pollsResign Emailz (@eimzkavanagh) June 18, 2017.@RealDonaldTrump is lying to the American people. Data from this date in June 2009 same poll shows Obama 55% https://t.co/pNtHAx9qTW West Wing Reports (@WestWingReport) June 18, 2017Fake news. Try again. June 18 2009. Obama approval at 55%. That s by your pals @Rasmussen_Poll. Bigly accurate. pic.twitter.com/1vE7R8hNbD Aled Phillips (@aledsavedlatin) June 18, 2017It was 62% when he left office in January. Math is hard for the Donald SheBikesLikeABoss (@heather0415) June 18, 2017Rasmussen says more strongly disagree than strongly agree with Trump Chris (@MrMurder37) June 18, 2017pic.twitter.com/VT2cBUqw0z Cody Keenan (@codykeenan) June 18, 2017Featured Image: Pete Souza/White House | 1real |
U.S. lobbying trade group urges Congress to revamp disclosure laws | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An industry group for lobbyists on Tuesday called on Congress to overhaul the transparency laws that govern their activity in the wake of indictments of two lobbyists, including Paul Manafort, a former campaign manager for U.S. President Donald Trump. Charges filed by Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller alleged Manafort and business partner Rick Gates failed to properly disclose lobbying for a foreign government. After the indictment was made public, Washington lobbyist Tony Podesta, a longtime powerbroker, stepped down from the firm bearing his name as the company came under scrutiny in the investigation for work it did with Manafort. “Today is another unnecessary black eye for the lobbying profession,” said Paul Miller, a lobbyist who heads the National Institute for Lobbying and Ethics (NILE). “The indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates should send a message to the lobbying profession that this type of activity cannot be tolerated and to Congress that its time to take a hard look at the (Lobbying Disclosure Act).” Manafort, a longtime Republican operative, and Gates pleaded not guilty on Monday to a 12-count indictment that contained charges ranging from money laundering to acting as unregistered agents of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government. NILE has previously encouraged Congress to close loopholes in the Lobbying Disclosure Act, known as LDA, to make lobbying more transparent by subjecting more activity to disclosure and requiring lobbyists to reveal when an intermediary hires them on behalf of another organization. Two separate laws require lobbying disclosure: The LDA, which covers domestic interests, and the Foreign Agents Registration Act, under which Manafort was charged and requires disclosure for lobbying on behalf of foreign entities. “Today, we hear the echoes of crickets when we go to the Hill asking for reforms that will have a direct and immediate impact,” Miller said. | 0fake |
Trump starts paying his own legal bills on Russia probe: attorneys | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has begun paying his own legal bills related to the Russia investigation and will no longer cover the costs using political donations to his re-election campaign or the Republican Party, his attorneys confirmed on Friday. Trump defense lawyer John Dowd said that following payments by the Republican National Committee, the president began paying the bills and now wants to make the party “even.” The RNC confirmed it is no longer paying the bills. The expenses cover personal lawyers representing Trump in special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s probe of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in last year’s election. Moscow has denied meddling in the election, and Trump has denied any collusion. The investigation has hounded Trump’s presidency. Mueller already has secured an indictment of Trump’s former campaign chief and another aide, while a third former adviser pleaded guilty. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has offered shifting accounts of his Russia contacts while he was a campaign adviser, including with Moscow’s former ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, and his knowledge of contacts between the campaign and Russian intermediaries. But Sessions made light of the investigation during a speech on Friday before a conservative lawyers’ group. “Is Ambassador Kislyak in the room? Before I get started here, any Russians?” Sessions said, prompting applause and laughter from the crowd at the Federalist Society event. “Anybody been to Russia? Got a cousin in Russia or something?” Special White House counsel Ty Cobb said the administration was working with others to establish a legal fund for current and former staffers. Dowd said White House counsel Don McGahn and campaign lawyer Ben Ginsberg of Jones Day are working to structure that fund, which would be subject to rules that prohibit staff from receiving gifts or pro bono legal service. The president is exempt from those rules, Dowd said. “The geniuses are working on it,” Dowd said. “If it passes muster with the tax lawyers and accountants, then it has to pass muster with the Office of Government Ethics.” During former President Bill Clinton’s administration, private funds were raised to cover Clinton’s legal expenses related to the Whitewater investigation. Under former President George W. Bush, a legal fund was set up to help former Bush staffer Lewis “Scooter” Libby, but only after he had left White House employment. In August, Reuters first reported that the RNC was paying Trump’s legal bills, which amounted to more than $230,000 that month. The payments were made to Trump’s outside legal team, which includes Dowd. Additionally, Trump’s re-election campaign paid more than $300,000 this year in bills to lawyers representing his son, Donald Trump Jr., according to public disclosures. The campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether it will continue to pay for Trump Jr’s legal expenses. The Federal Election Commission allows use of private campaign funds to pay legal bills arising from being a candidate or elected official. While previous presidential campaigns have used these funds to pay for routine legal matters such as ballot access disputes and compliance requirements, Trump is the first president in the modern campaign finance era to use such funds on the costs of responding to a criminal probe, said election law experts. | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton calls for U.S. to bomb Syrian air fields | NEW YORK (Reuters) - In her first interview since her stunning presidential election defeat by Republican rival Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton on Thursday called for the United States to bomb Syrian air fields. Clinton, in an interview at the Women in the World Summit in New York, also called Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election a theft more damaging than Watergate. MORE FROM REUTERS Exclusive: Mexico opens up its heroin fight to U.S., U.N. observers Macau billionaire's aide pleads guilty in U.N. bribe case Slideshow: Top photos of the week Asked whether she now believes that failing to take a tougher stand against Syria was her worst foreign policy mistake as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, Clinton said she favored more aggressive action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “I think we should have been more willing to confront Assad,” Clinton said in the interview, conducted by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. “I really believe we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them.” Clinton noted that she had advocated for a no-fly zone in Syria after leaving government, something that Obama opposed. Her remarks came two days after a poison gas attack in Syria that killed at least 70 people, many of them children. The U.S. government believes the chemical agent sarin was used in the attack. The United States and other Western countries blamed Assad’s armed forces for the worst chemical attack in Syria in more than four years. Trump said on Thursday that “something should happen” with Assad after the attack, as the Pentagon and the White House studied military options. When asked about Russian interference in the presidential election she lost as the Democratic candidate in November, Clinton called for a bipartisan investigation. “I don’t want any Republican candidate to be subjected to what I was subjected to....I don’t want anybody running campaigns to have their communications stolen,” she said. U.S. intelligence agencies have said that Russia provided hacked material from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks through a third party. Russia has denied the hacking allegations. “It was a more effective theft even than Watergate,” Clinton told Kristof before an audience of about 3,000 people at New York’s Lincoln Center, referring to the U.S. political scandal of the 1970s that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. “We aren’t going to let somebody sitting in the Kremlin, with bots and trolls, try to mix up our election. We’ve got to end that and we have to make sure that is a bipartisan, American commitment.” Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican, earlier on Thursday stepped aside from the congressional inquiry into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election because he is under investigation for disclosing classified information. Representative Mike Conaway, the second-ranked Republican on the House of Representatives intelligence committee, will now lead the probe. Clinton attributed her White House loss to both Wikileaks and FBI Director James Comey’s sending a bombshell letter to Congress only days before the election announcing he was reinstating an investigation into her emails. Asked whether it was bittersweet to watch the stumbles of the Trump administration in its early days, she declined to agree. “I don’t take any pleasure in seeing the kind of chaotic functioning,” Clinton said. Clinton said she has no intention of another run for public office and said she is writing a book that, in part, delves into just what derailed her attempt to become America’s first woman president. “For people who are interested in this, the nearly 66 million people who voted for me, I want to give as clear and as credible an explanation as I can.” | 0fake |
Third Piece of Debris Confirmed to Be From Missing Malaysian Jet - The New York Times | SYDNEY, Australia — The Australian government said on Friday that a piece of debris that washed up on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius in May was from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The debris, identified as part of the trailing edge of the rear spar on the left wing of the plane, contained parts and serial numbers specific to the missing jet, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement. The plane disappeared after taking off from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, on an overnight flight to Beijing in March 2014. It inexplicably turned south and continued flying for more than six hours, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. The authorities believe it finally went down in the southern Indian Ocean. The latest debris is the third part to be formally identified as from the plane, although the Malaysian government has said additional pieces of flotsam have washed up along the coast of several African nations. Some of those may still be identified as coming from the jet. In its statement, the transport safety bureau said the debris found on the shore of Mauritius on May 10 had serial numbers and identifying marks similar to those on another piece of debris identified in September as part of the right wing flap of the missing plane. That debris, found in late June, washed up on the Tanzanian island of Pemba. The first confirmed piece of debris from the plane was found in July 2015 on the French island of Réunion, also off the east coast of Africa. Although searchers scoured hundreds of thousands of square miles of the southern Indian Ocean from the air in the first weeks after the plane disappeared, no debris was found during those surveys. Since then, ships fitted with deepwater sonar equipment have swept nearly 43, 000 square miles of sea floor along a remote, narrow arc of water off Australia’s west coast. In July, ministers from Australia, China and Malaysia agreed that unless credible evidence of the plane was found on the seabed, the search would be suspended in December. None of the debris has so far helped the authorities refine the search area for the missing jet. | 0fake |
Bill Maher: Tax The Churches, Why Are We Paying For A ‘Homophobic Magic Act’? (VIDEO) | It s no secret that the comedic host of HBO s Real Time, Bill Maher, is no fan of religion. In fact, it s safe to say that he really pretty much hates the practice. He is one of America s most outspoken celebrity atheists, and Friday night s edition of his show saw him once again ripping religion for the amusement of his largely secular audience. What Maher had to say this time, though, wasn t just making fun of people who believe in god(s). He actually called for the Internal Revenue Service to make these institutions pay taxes.During his New Rules segment, Maher began: Why, in heaven s name, don t we tax religion? A sexist, homophobic magic act that s been used to justify everything from genital mutilation to genocide. You want to raise the tax on tobacco so kids don t get cancer, OK. But let s put one on Sunday school so they don t get stupid. Maher went on to say that the fact these churches owned billions in property got him, quote, hopping mad. He also pointed out something that likely has most religious people either panicking or in complete denial: religious belief is largely on the decline in the United States, which is traditionally seen as the most religious country in the developed western world. In fact, the youngest generation of Americans Millennials largely not only aren t actively religious, but they are uncomfortable with most mainstream religion, mostly due to the homophobia, misogyny, and other harmful ideas and practices therein.Maher continued on his rant: Almost a quarter of us are being forced to subsidize a myth that we re not buying into. Why am I subsidizing their Sunday morning hobby? They don t subsidize mine. After that brilliant closer, Maher flashed a photo of himself getting high with a friend on what is presumably one Sunday morning.The thing is, Bill Maher is right. We shouldn t be subsidizing churches. These people push all kinds of horrible things, including lobbying, at least indirectly, to enshrine bigotry into law against people they believe to be sinners. Our tax dollars should not be spent to uphold religion. People can believe what they like, but the rest of us shouldn t be paying for it.Thank you, Mr. Maher, for another hilariously brilliant and oh so true monologue on the truth about the tax-free status of America s religious institutions.Watch the video below, via Raw Story:https://youtu.be/Mw8MLub4siUFeatured image via video screen capture | 1real |
WOW! AMERICA IS UNDER ATTACK By These 187 Organizations Directly Funded By George Soros | There have been many articles written about George Soros and his collectivist activism. Soros is a business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author who is of Jewish-Hungarian ancestry and holds dual citizenship. He is chairman of Soros Fund Management. Discover the Networks has published a comprehensive list of organizations funded by Soros and his Open Society Institute.Some of these groups have actively opposed Donald Trump for president and may be part of the recent levels of violence and chaos seen at his rallies. Many of the groups favor: open borders, amnesty, giving illegals voting rights, Muslim migration and social justice.Advancement Project: This organization works to organize communities of color into politically cohesive units while disseminating its leftist worldviews and values as broadly as possible by way of a sophisticated communications department.Air America Radio: Now defunct, this was a self-identified liberal radio network.All of Us or None: This organization seeks to change voting laws which vary from state to state so as to allow ex-inmates, parolees, and even current inmates to cast their ballots in political elections.Alliance for Justice: Best known for its activism vis a vis the appointment of federal judges, this group consistently depicts Republican judicial nominees as extremists. America Coming Together: Soros played a major role in creating this group, whose purpose was to coordinate and organize pro-Democrat voter-mobilization programs.America Votes: Soros also played a major role in creating this group, whose get-out-the-vote campaigns targeted likely Democratic voters.America s Voice: This open-borders group seeks to promote comprehensive immigration reform that includes a robust agenda in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens.American Bar Association Commission on Immigration Policy: This organization opposes laws that require employers and persons providing education, health care, or other social services to verify citizenship or immigration status. American Bridge 21st Century: This Super PAC conducts opposition research designed to help Democratic political candidates defeat their Republican foes.American Civil Liberties Union: This group opposes virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by the U.S. government. It supports open borders, has rushed to the defense of suspected terrorists and their abettors, and appointed former New Left terrorist Bernardine Dohrn to its Advisory Board.American Constitution Society for Law and Policy: This Washington, DC-based think tank seeks to move American jurisprudence to the left by recruiting, indoctrinating, and mobilizing young law students, helping them acquire positions of power. It also provides leftist Democrats with a bully pulpit from which to denounce their political adversaries.American Family Voices: This group creates and coordinates media campaigns charging Republicans with wrongdoing.American Federation of Teachers: After longtime AFT President Albert Shanker died in in 1997, he was succeeded by Sandra Feldman, who slowly re-branded the union, allying it with some of the most powerful left-wing elements of the New Labor Movement. When Feldman died in 2004, Edward McElroy took her place, followed by Randi Weingarten in 2008. All of them kept the union on the leftward course it had adopted in its post-Shanker period.American Friends Service Committee: This group views the United States as the principal cause of human suffering around the world. As such, it favors America s unilateral disarmament, the dissolution of American borders, amnesty for illegal aliens, the abolition of the death penalty, and the repeal of the Patriot Act.American Immigration Council: This non-profit organization is a prominent member of the open-borders lobby. It advocates expanded rights and amnesty for illegal aliens residing in the U.S. American Immigration Law Foundation: This group supports amnesty for illegal aliens, on whose behalf it litigates against the U.S. government.American Independent News Network: This organization promotes impact journalism that advocates progressive change. American Institute for Social Justice: AISJ s goal is to produce skilled community organizers who can transform poor communities by agitating for increased government spending on city services, drug interdiction, crime prevention, housing, public-sector jobs, access to healthcare, and public schools.American Library Association: This group has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration s War on Terror most particularly, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which it calls a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users. The American Prospect, Inc.: This corporation trains and mentors young leftwing journalists, and organizes strategy meetings for leftist leaders. Amnesty International: This organization directs a grossly disproportionate share of its criticism for human rights violations at the United States and Israel.Applied Research Center: Viewing the United States as a nation where structural racism is deeply embedded in the fabric of society, ARC seeks to build a fair and equal society by demanding concrete change from our most powerful institutions. Arab American Institute Foundation: The Arab American Institute denounces the purportedly widespread civil liberties violations directed against Arab Americans in the post-9/11 period, and characterizes Israel as a brutal oppressor of the Palestinian people.Aspen Institute: This organization promotes radical environmentalism and views America as a nation plagued by deep-seated structural racism. Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now: This group conducts voter mobilization drives on behalf of leftist Democrats. These initiatives have been notoriously marred by fraud and corruption.Ballot Initiative Strategy Center: This organization seeks to advance a national progressive strategy by means of ballot measures state-level legislative proposals that pass successfully through a petition ( initiative ) process and are then voted upon by the public.Bill of Rights Defense Committee: This group provides a detailed blueprint for activists interested in getting their local towns, cities, and even college campuses to publicly declare their opposition to the Patriot Act, and to designate themselves Civil Liberties Safe Zones. The organization also came to the defense of self-described radical attorney Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in 2005 of providing material support for terrorism.Black Alliance for Just Immigration: This organization seeks to create a unified movement for social and economic justice centered on black racial identity.Blueprint North Carolina: This group seeks to influence state policy in North Carolina so that residents of the state benefit from more progressive policies such as better access to health care, higher wages, more affordable housing, a safer, cleaner environment, and access to reproductive health services. Brennan Center for Justice: This think tank/legal activist group generates scholarly studies, mounts media campaigns, files amicus briefs, gives pro bono support to activists, and litigates test cases in pursuit of radical change. Brookings Institution: This organization has been involved with a variety of internationalist and state-sponsored programs, including one that aspires to facilitate the establishment of a U.N.-dominated world government. Brookings Fellows have also called for additional global collaboration on trade and banking; the expansion of the Kyoto Protocol; and nationalized health insurance for children. Nine Brookings economists signed a petition opposing President Bush s tax cuts in 2003.Campaign for America s Future: This group supports tax hikes, socialized medicine, and a dramatic expansion of social welfare programs.Campaign for Better Health Care: This organization favors a single-payer, government-run, universal health care system. Campaign for Youth Justice: This organization contends that transferring juveniles to the adult criminal-justice system leads to higher rates of recidivism, puts incarcerated and detained youth at unnecessary risk, has little deterrence value, and does not increase public safety. Campus Progress: A project of the Soros-bankrolled Center for American Progress, this group seeks to strengthen progressive voices on college and university campuses, counter the growing influence of right-wing groups on campus, and empower new generations of progressive leaders. Casa de Maryland: This organization aggressively lobbies legislators to vote in favor of policies that promote expanded rights, including amnesty, for illegal aliens currently residing in the United States.Catalist: This is a for-profit political consultancy that seeks to help progressive organizations realize measurable increases in civic participation and electoral success by building and operating a robust national voter database of every voting-age American. Catholics for Choice: This nominally Catholic organization supports women s right to abortion-on-demand.Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good: This political nonprofit group is dedicated to generating support from the Catholic community for leftwing candidates, causes, and legislation.Center for American Progress: This leftist think tank is headed by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, works closely with Hillary Clinton, and employs numerous former Clinton administration staffers. It is committed to developing a long-term vision of a progressive America and providing a forum to generate new progressive ideas and policy proposals. Center for Community Change: This group recruits and trains activists to spearhead leftist political issue campaigns. Promoting increased funding for social welfare programs by bringing attention to major national issues related to poverty, the Center bases its training programs on the techniques taught by the famed radical organizer Saul Alinsky.Center for Constitutional Rights: This pro-Castro organization is a core member of the open borders lobby, has opposed virtually all post-9/11 anti-terrorism measures by the U.S. government, and alleges that American injustice provokes acts of international terrorism.Center for Economic and Policy Research: This group opposed welfare reform, supports living wage laws, rejects tax cuts, and consistently lauds the professed achievements of socialist regimes, most notably Venezuela.Center for Reproductive Rights: CRR s mission is to guarantee safe, affordable contraception and abortion-on-demand for all women, including adolescents. The organization has filed state and federal lawsuits demanding access to taxpayer-funded abortions (through Medicaid) for low-income women.Center for Responsible Lending: This organization was a major player in the subprime mortgage crisis. According to Phil Kerpen (vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity), CRL sh[ook] down and harass[ed] banks into making bad loans to unqualified borrowers. Moreover, CRL negotiated a contract enabling it to operate as a conduit of high-risk loans to Fannie Mae.Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Reasoning from the premise that tax cuts generally help only the wealthy, this organization advocates greater tax expenditures on social welfare programs for low earners.Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS): Aiming to redistribute wealth by way of higher taxes imposed on those whose incomes are above average, COWS contends that it is important that state government be able to harness fair contribution from all parts of society including corporations and the wealthy. Change America Now: Formed in December 2006, Change America Now describes itself as an independent political organization created to educate citizens on the failed policies of the Republican Congress and to contrast that record of failure with the promise offered by a Democratic agenda. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: This group litigates and brings ethics charges against government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests and betray the public trust. Almost all of its targets are Republicans.Coalition for an International Criminal Court: This group seeks to subordinate American criminal-justice procedures to those of an international court.Common Cause: This organization aims to bring about campaign-finance reform, pursue media reform resembling the Fairness Doctrine, and cut military budgets in favor of increased social-welfare and environmental spending.Constitution Project: This organization seeks to challenge the legality of military commissions; end the detainment of enemy combatants ; condemn government surveillance of terrorists; and limit the President s executive privileges.Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund: Defenders of Wildlife opposes oil exploration in Alaska s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It condemns logging, ranching, mining, and even the use of recreational motorized vehicles as activities that are destructive to the environment.Democracy Alliance: This self-described liberal organization aims to raise $200 million to develop a funding clearinghouse for leftist groups. Soros is a major donor to this group.Democracy 21: This group is a staunch supporter of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act.Democracy Now!: Democracy Now! was created in 1996 by WBAI radio news director Amy Goodman and four partners to provide perspectives rarely heard in the U.S. corporate-sponsored media, i.e., the views of radical and foreign journalists, left and labor activists, and ideological foes of capitalism.Democratic Justice Fund: DJF opposes the Patriot Act and most efforts to restrict or regulate immigration into the United States particularly from countries designated by the State Department as terrorist nations. Democratic Party: Soros funding activities are devoted largely to helping the Democratic Party solidify its power base. In a November 2003 interview, Soros stated that defeating President Bush in 2004 is the central focus of my life a matter of life and death. He pledged to raise $75 million to defeat Bush, and personally donated nearly a third of that amount to anti-Bush organizations. America under Bush, he said, is a danger to the world, and I m willing to put my money where my mouth is. Demos: This organization lobbies federal and state policymakers to addres[s] the economic insecurity and inequality that characterize American society today ; promotes ideas for reducing gaps in wealth, income and political influence ; and favors tax hikes for the wealthy.Drum Major Institute: This group describes itself as a non-partisan, non-profit think tank generating the ideas that fuel the progressive movement, with the ultimate aim of persuading policymakers and opinion-leaders to take steps that advance its vision of social and economic justice. Earthjustice: This group seeks to place severe restrictions on how U.S. land and waterways may be used. It opposes most mining and logging initiatives, commercial fishing businesses, and the use of motorized vehicles in undeveloped areas.Economic Policy Institute: This organization believes that government must play an active role in protecting the economically vulnerable, ensuring equal opportunity, and improving the well-being of all Americans. Electronic Privacy Information Center: This organization has been a harsh critic of the USA PATRIOT Act and has joined the American Civil Liberties Union in litigating two cases calling for the FBI to publicly release or account for thousands of pages of information about the government s use of PATRIOT Act powers. Ella Baker Center for Human Rights: Co-founded by the revolutionary communist Van Jones, this anti-poverty organization claims that decades of disinvestment in our cities compounded by excessive, racist policing and over-incarceration have led to despair and homelessness. EMILY s List: This political network raises money for Democratic female political candidates who support unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.Energy Action Coalition: Founded in 2004, this group describes itself as a coalition of 50 youth-led environmental and social justice groups working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement. For EAC, this means dismantling oppression according to its principles of environmental justice.Equal Justice USA: This group claims that America s criminal-justice system is plagued by significant race and class biases, and thus seeks to promote major reforms. Fair Immigration Reform Movement: This is the open-borders arm of the Center for Community Change.Faithful America: This organization promotes the redistribution of wealth, an end to enhanced interrogation procedures vis a vis prisoners-of-war, the enactment of policies to combat global warming, and the creation of a government-run heath care system.Feminist Majority: Characterizing the United States as an inherently sexist nation, this group focuses on advancing the legal, social and political equality of women with men, countering the backlash to women s advancement, and recruiting and training young feminists to encourage future leadership for the feminist movement in the United States. Four Freedoms Fund: This organization was designed to serve as a conduit through which large foundations could fund state-based open-borders organizations more flexibly and quickly.Free Exchange on Campus: This organization was created solely to oppose the efforts of one individual, David Horowitz, and his campaign to have universities adopt an Academic Bill of Rights, as well as to denounce Horowitz s 2006 book The Professors. Member organizations of FEC include Campus Progress (a project of the Center for American Progress); the American Association of University Professors; the American Civil Liberties Union; People For the American Way; the United States Student Association; the Center for Campus Free Speech; the American Library Association; Free Press; and the National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups.Free Press: This media reform organization has worked closely with many notable leftists and such organizations as Media Matters for America, Air America Radio, Global Exchange, Code Pink, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the Revolutionary Communist Party, Mother Jones magazine, and Pacifica Radio. Funding Exchange: Dedicated to the concept of philanthropy as a vehicle for social change, this organization pairs leftist donors and foundations with like minded groups and activists who are dedicated to bringing about their own version of progressive change and social justice. Many of these grantees assume that American society is rife with racism, discrimination, exploitation, and inequity and needs to be overhauled via sustained education, activism, and social agitation.Gamaliel Foundation: Modeling its tactics on those of the radical Sixties activist Saul Alinsky, this group takes a strong stand against current homeland security measures and immigration restrictions.Gisha: Center for the Legal Protection of Freedom of Movement: This anti-Israel organization seeks to help Palestinians exercise their right to freedom of movement. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: This group contends that when a state proves either unable or unwilling to protect civilians from mass atrocities occurring within its borders, it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene peacefully if possible, but with military force if necessary.Global Exchange: Established in 1988 by pro-Castro radical Medea Benjamin, this group consistently condemns America s foreign policy, business practices, and domestic life. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Global Exchange advised Americans to examine the root causes of resentment against the United States in the Arab world from our dependence on Middle Eastern oil to our biased policy towards Israel. Grantmakers Without Borders: GWB tends to be very supportive of leftist environmental, anti-war, and civil rights groups. It is also generally hostile to capitalism, which it deems one of the chief political, economic, and social systems that give rise to a host of social ills. Green For All: This group was created by Van Jones to lobby for federal climate, energy, and economic policy initiatives. Health Care for America Now: This group supports a single payer model where the federal government would be in charge of financing and administering the entire U.S. healthcare system. Human Rights Campaign: The largest lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender lobbying group in the United States, HRC supports political candidates and legislation that will advance the LGBT agenda. Historically, HRC has most vigorously championed HIV/AIDS-related legislation, hate crime laws, the abrogation of the military s Don t Ask, Don t Tell policy, and the legalization of gay marriage.Human Rights First: This group supports open borders and the rights of illegal aliens; charges that the Patriot Act severely erodes Americans civil liberties; has filed amicus curiae briefs on behalf of terror suspect Jose Padilla; and deplores the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities.Human Rights Watch: This group directs a disproportionate share of its criticism at the United States and Israel. It opposes the death penalty in all cases, and supports open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens. I lam: This anti-Israel NGO seeks to develop and empower the Arab media and to give voice to Palestinian issues. Immigrant Defense Project: To advance the cause of illegal immigrants, the IDP provides immigration law backup support and counseling to New York defense attorneys and others who represent or assist immigrants in criminal justice and immigration systems, as well as to immigrants themselves.Immigrant Legal Resource Center: This group claims to have helped gain amnesty for some three million illegal aliens in the U.S., and in the 1980s was part of the sanctuary movement which sought to grant asylum to refugees from the failed Communist states of Central America.Immigrant Workers Citizenship Project: This open-borders organization advocates mass immigration to the U.S. Immigration Advocates Network: This alliance of immigrant-rights groups seeks to increase access to justice for low-income immigrants and strengthen the capacity of organizations serving them. Immigration Policy Center: IPC is an advocate of open borders and contends that the massive influx of illegal immigrants into America is due to U.S. government policy, since the broken immigration system [ ] spurs unauthorized immigration in the first place. Independent Media Center: This Internet-based, news and events bulletin board represents an invariably leftist, anti-capitalist perspective and serves as a mouthpiece for anti-globalization/anti-America themes.Independent Media Institute: IMI administers the SPIN Project (Strategic Press Information Network), which provides leftist organizations with accessible and affordable strategic communications consulting, training, coaching, networking opportunities and concrete tools to help them achieve their social justice goals. Institute for America s Future: IAF supports socialized medicine, increased government funding for education, and the creation of an infrastructure to ensure that the voice of the progressive majority is heard. Institute for New Economic Thinking: Seeking to create a new worldwide economic paradigm, this organization is staffed by numerous individuals who favor government intervention in national economies, and who view capitalism as a flawed system.Institute for Policy Studies: This think tank has long supported Communist and anti-American causes around the world. Viewing capitalism as a breeding ground for unrestrained greed, IPS seeks to provide a corrective to unrestrained markets and individualism. Professing an unquestioning faith in the righteousness of the United Nations, it aims to bring American foreign policy under UN control.Institute for Public Accuracy: This anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-Israel organization sponsored actor Sean Penn s celebrated visit to Baghdad in 2002. It also sponsored visits to Iraq by Democratic Congressmen Nick Rahall and former Democrat Senator James AbourezkInstitute for Women s Policy Research: This group views the U.S. as a nation rife with discrimination against women, and publishes research to draw attention to this alleged state of affairs. It also advocates unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, stating that access to abortion is essential to the economic well-being of women and girls. International Crisis Group: One of this organization s leading figures is its Mideast Director, Robert Malley, who was President Bill Clinton s Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs. His analysis of the Mideast conflict is markedly pro-Palestinian.J Street: This anti-Israel group warns that Israel s choice to take military action to stop Hamas terrorist attacks will prove counter-productive and only deepen the cycle of violence in the region Jewish Funds for Justice: This organization views government intervention and taxpayer funding as crucial components of enlightened social policy. It seeks to redistribute wealth from Jewish donors to low-income communities to combat the root causes of domestic economic and social injustice. By JFJ s reckoning, chief among those root causes are the inherently negative by-products of capitalism most notably racism and gross economic inequality. Joint Victory Campaign 2004: Founded by George Soros and Harold Ickes, this group was a major fundraising entity for Democrats during the 2004 election cycle. It collected contributions (including large amounts from Soros personally) and disbursed them to two other groups, America Coming Together and the Media Fund, which also worked on behalf of Democrats.Justice at Stake: This coalition calls for judges to be appointed by nonpartisan, independent commissions in a process known as merit selection, rather than elected by the voting public.Latino Justice PRLDF: This organization supports bilingual education, the racial gerrymandering of voting districts, and expanded rights for illegal aliens.Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: This group views America as an unremittingly racist nation; uses the courts to mandate race-based affirmative action preferences in business and academia; has filed briefs against the Department of Homeland Security s efforts to limit the wholesale granting of green cards and to identify potential terrorists; condemns the Patriot Act; and calls on Americans to recognize the contribution of illegal aliens.League of United Latin American Citizens: This group views America as a nation plagued by an alarming increase in xenophobia and anti-Hispanic sentiment ; favors racial preferences; supports the legalization of illegal Hispanic aliens; opposes military surveillance of U.S. borders; opposes making English America s official language; favors open borders; and rejects anti-terrorism legislation like the Patriot Act.League of Women Voters Education Fund: The League supports taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; supports motor-voter registration, which allows anyone with a driver s license to become a voter, regardless of citizenship status; and supports tax hikes and socialized medicine.League of Young Voters: This organization seeks to empowe[r] young people nationwide to participate in the democratic process and create progressive political change on the local, state and national level[s]. Lynne Stewart Defense Committee: IRS records indicate that Soros s Open Society Institute made a September 2002 grant of $20,000 to this organization. Stewart was the criminal-defense attorney who was later convicted for abetting her client, the blind sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, in terrorist activities connected with his Islamic Group.Machsom Watch: This organization describes itself as a movement of Israeli women, peace activists from all sectors of Israeli society, who oppose the Israeli occupation and the denial of Palestinians rights to move freely in their land. MADRE: This international women s organization deems America the world s foremost violator of human rights. As such, it seeks to communicat[e] the real-life impact of U.S. policies on women and families confronting violence, poverty and repression around the world, and to demand alternatives to destructive U.S. policies. It also advocates unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.Malcolm X Grassroots Movement: This group views the U.S. as a nation replete with racism and discrimination against blacks; seeks to establish an independent black nation in the southeastern United States; and demands reparations for slavery.Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition: This group calls for the expansion of civil rights and liberties for illegal aliens; laments that illegal aliens in America are commonly subjected to worker exploitation ; supports tuition-assistance programs for illegal aliens attending college; and characterizes the Patriot Act as a very troubling assault on civil liberties.Media Fund: Soros played a major role in creating this group, whose purpose was to conceptualize, produce, and place political ads on television, radio, print, and the Internet.Media Matters for America: This organization is a web-based, not-for-profit progressive research and information center seeking to systematically monitor a cross-section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation. The group works closely with the Soros-backed Center for American Progress, and is heavily funded by Democracy Alliance, of which Soros is a major financier.Mercy Corps: Vis a vis the Arab-Israeli conflict, Mercy Corps places all blame for Palestinian poverty and suffering directly on Israel.Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund: This group advocates open borders, free college tuition for illegal aliens, lowered educational standards to accommodate Hispanics, and voting rights for criminals. In MALDEF s view, supporters of making English the official language of the United States are motivated by racism and anti-immigrant sentiments, while advocates of sanctions against employers reliant on illegal labor seek to discriminate against brown-skinned people. Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, PC: This influential defender of Big Labor is headed by Democrat operative Harold Ickes. Midwest Academy: This entity trains radical activists in the tactics of direct action, targeting, confrontation, and intimidation.Migration Policy Institute: This group seeks to create a North America with gradually disappearing border controls with permanent migration remaining at moderate levels. Military Families Speak Out: This group ascribes the U.S. invasion of Iraq to American imperialism and lust for oil.Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment: This group is the re-branded Missouri branch of the now-defunct, pro-socialist, community organization ACORN.MoveOn.org: This Web-based organization supports Democratic political candidates through fundraising, advertising, and get-out-the-vote drives.Ms. Foundation for Women: This group laments what it views as the widespread and enduring flaws of American society: racism, sexism, homophobia, and the violation of civil rights and liberties. It focuses its philanthropy on groups that promote affirmative action for women, unfettered access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, amnesty for illegal aliens, and big government generally.NARAL Pro-Choice America: This group supports taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, and works to elect pro-abortion Democrats.NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund: The NAACP supports racial preferences in employment and education, as well as the racial gerrymandering of voting districts. Underpinning its support for race preferences is the fervent belief that white racism in the United States remains an intractable, largely undiminished, phenomenon.The Nation Institute: This nonprofit entity sponsors leftist conferences, fellowships, awards for radical activists, and journalism internships.National Abortion Federation: This group opposes any restrictions on abortion at either the state or federal levels, and champions the introduction of unrestricted abortion into developing regions of the world.National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty: This group was established in 1976 as the first fully staffed national organization exclusively devoted to abolishing capital punishment. National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy: This group depicts the United States as a nation in need of dramatic structural change financed by philanthropic organizations. It overwhelmingly promotes grant-makers and grantees with leftist agendas, while criticizing their conservative counterparts.National Committee for Voting Integrity: This group opposes the implementation of proof of citizenship and photo identification requirements for eligible electors in American elections as the means of assuring election integrity. National Council for Research on Women: This group supports big government, high taxes, military spending cuts, increased social welfare spending, and the unrestricted right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.National Council of La Raza: This group lobbies for racial preferences, bilingual education, stricter hate-crime laws, mass immigration, and amnesty for illegal aliens.National Council of Women s Organizations: This group views the United States as a nation rife with injustice against girls and women. It advocates high levels of spending for social welfare programs, and supports race and gender preferences for minorities and women in business and academia.National Immigration Forum: Opposing the enforcement of present immigration laws, this organization urges the American government to legalize en masse all illegal aliens currently in the United States who have no criminal records, and to dramatically increase the number of visas available for those wishing to migrate to the U.S. The Forum is particularly committed to opening the borders to unskilled, low-income workers, and immediately making them eligible for welfare and social service programs.National Immigration Law Center: This group seeks to win unrestricted access to government-funded social welfare programs for illegal aliens.National Lawyers Guild: This group promotes open borders; seeks to weaken America s intelligence-gathering agencies; condemns the Patriot Act as an assault on civil liberties; rejects capitalism as an nonviable economic system; has rushed to the defense of convicted terrorists and their abettors; and generally opposes all U.S. foreign policy positions, just as it did during the Cold War when it sided with the Soviets.National Organization for Women: This group advocates the unfettered right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; seeks to eradicate racism, sexism and homophobia from American society; attacks Christianity and traditional religious values; and supports gender-based preferences for women.National Partnership for Women and Families: This organization supports race- and sex-based preferences in employment and education. It also advocates for the universal right of women to undergo taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand at any stage of pregnancy and for any reason.National Priorities Project: This group supports government-mandated redistribution of wealth through higher taxes and greater expenditures on social welfare programs. NPP exhorts the government to redirect a significant portion of its military funding toward public education, universal health insurance, environmentalist projects, and welfare programs.National Public Radio: Founded in 1970 with 90 public radio stations as charter members, NPR is today a loose network of more than 750 U.S. radio stations across the country, many of which are based on college and university campuses. (source)National Security Archive Fund: This group collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to a degree that compromises American national security and the safety of intelligence agents.National Women s Law Center: This group supports taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; lobbies against conservative judicial appointees; advocates increased welfare spending to help low-income mothers; and favors higher taxes for the purpose of generating more funds for such government programs as Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, foster care, health care, child-support enforcement, and student loans.Natural Resources Defense Council: One of the most influential environmentalist lobbying groups in the United States, the Council claims a membership of one million people. New America Foundation: This organization uses policy papers, media articles, books, and educational events to influence public opinion on such topics as healthcare, environmentalism, energy policy, the Mideast conflict, global governance, and much more.New Israel Fund: This organization gives support to NGOs that regularly produce reports accusing Israel of human-rights violations and religious persecution.NewsCorpWatch: A project of Media Matters For America, NewsCorpWatch was established with the help of a $1 million George Soros grant to Media Matters.Pacifica Foundation: This entity owns and operates Pacifica Radio, awash from its birth with the socialist-Marxist rhetoric of class warfare and hatred for capitalism.Peace and Security Funders Group: This is an association of more than 60 foundations that give money to leftist anti-war and environmentalist causes. Its members tend to depict America as the world s chief source of international conflict, environmental destruction, and economic inequalities.Peace Development Fund: In PDF s calculus, the United States needs a massive overhaul of its social and economic institutions. Recently, explains PDF, we have witnessed the negative effects of neo-liberalism and the globalization of capitalism, the de-industrialization of the U.S. and the growing gap between the rich and poor People for the American Way: This group opposes the Patriot Act, anti-terrorism measures generally, and the allegedly growing influence of the religious right. People Improving Communities Through Organizing: This group uses Alinsky-style organizing tactics to advance the doctrines of the religious left.Physicians for Human Rights: This group is selectively and disproportionately critical of the United States and Israel in its condemnations of human rights violations.Physicians for Social Responsibility: This is an anti-U.S.-military organization that also embraces the tenets of radical environmentalism.Planned Parenthood: This group is the largest abortion provider in the United States and advocates taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.Ploughshares Fund: This public grant making foundation opposes America s development of a missile defense system, and contributes to many organizations that are highly critical of U.S. foreign policies and military ventures.Prepare New York: This group supported the proposed construction of a Muslim Community Center near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan a project known as the Cordoba Initiative, headed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.Presidential Climate Action Project: PCAP s mission is to create a new 21st-century economy, completely carbon-free and based largely on renewable energy. A key advisor to the organization is the revolutionary communist Van Jones.Prison Moratorium Project: This initiative was created in 1995 for the express purpose of working for the elimination of all prisons in the United States and the release of all inmates. Reasoning from the premise that incarceration is never an appropriate means of dealing with crime, it deems American society s inherent inequities the root of all criminal behavior.Progressive Change Campaign Committee: This organization works to elect bold progressive candidates to federal office and to help [them] and their campaigns save money, work smarter, and win more often. Progressive States Network: PSN s mission is to pass progressive legislation in all fifty states by providing coordinated research and strategic advocacy tools to forward-thinking state legislators. Project Vote: This is the voter-mobilization arm of the Soros-funded ACORN. A persistent pattern of lawlessness and corruption has followed ACORN/Project Vote activities over the years. Pro Publica: Claiming that investigative journalism is at risk, this group aims to remedy this lacuna in news publishing by expos[ing] abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing. Proteus Fund: This foundation directs its philanthropy toward a number of radical leftwing organizations.Public Citizen Foundation: Public Citizen seeks increased government intervention and litigation against corporations a practice founded on the notion that American corporations, like the capitalist system of which they are a part, are inherently inclined toward corruption.Public Justice Center: Viewing America as a nation rife with injustice and discrimination, this organization engages in legislative and policy advocacy to promote systemic change for the disenfranchised. Rebuild and Renew America Now (a.k.a. Unity 09): Spearheaded by MoveOn.org and overseen by longtime activist Heather Booth, this coalition was formed to facilitate the passage of President Obama s historic $3.5 trillion budget for fiscal year 2010. Res Publica: Seeking to advance far-left agendas in places all around the world, RP specializes in E-advocacy, or web-based movement-building.Secretary of State Project: This project was launched in July 2006 as an independent 527 organization devoted to helping Democrats get elected to the office of Secretary of State in selected swing, or battleground, states.Sentencing Project: Asserting that prison-sentencing patterns are racially discriminatory, this initiative advocates voting rights for felons.Social Justice Leadership: This organization seeks to transform an allegedly inequitable America into a just society by means of a renewed social-justice movement. Shadow Democratic Party: This is an elaborate network of non-profit activist groups organized by George Soros and others to mobilize resources money, get-out-the-vote drives, campaign advertising, and policy initiatives to elect Democratic candidates and guide the Democratic Party towards the left.Sojourners: This evangelical Christian ministry preaches radical left-wing politics. During the 1980s it championed Communist revolution in Central America and chastised U.S. policy-makers for their tendency to assume the very worst about their Soviet counterparts. More recently, Sojourners has taken up the cause of environmental activism, opposed welfare reform as a mean-spirited Republican agenda, and mounted a defense of affirmative action.Southern Poverty Law Center: This organization monitors the activities of what it calls hate groups in the United States. It exaggerates the prevalence of white racism directed against American minorities.State Voices: This coalition helps independent local activist groups in 22 states work collaboratively on a year-round basis, so as to maximize the impact of their efforts.Talking Transition: This was a two-week project launched in early November 2013 to help shape the transition to City Hall for the newly elected Democratic mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio.Think Progress: This Internet blog pushes back, daily, by its own account, against its conservative targets, and seeks to transform progressive ideas into policy through rapid response communications, legislative action, grassroots organizing and advocacy, and partnerships with other progressive leaders throughout the country and the world. Thunder Road Group: This political consultancy, in whose creation Soros had a hand, coordinates strategy for the Media Fund, America Coming Together, and America Votes. Tides Foundation and Tides Center: Tides is a major funder of the radical Left.U.S. Public Interest Research Group: This is an umbrella organization of student groups that support leftist agendas.Universal Healthcare Action Network: This organization supports a single-payer health care system controlled by the federal government.Urban Institute: This research organization favors socialized medicine, expansion of the federal welfare bureaucracy, and tax hikes for higher income-earners.USAction Education Fund: USAction lists its priorities as: fighting the right wing agenda ; building grassroots political power ; winning social, racial and economic justice for all ; supporting a system of taxpayer-funded socialized medicine; reversing reckless tax cuts for millionaires and corporations which shield the wealthy from paying their fair share ; advocating for pro-consumer and environmental regulation of corporate abuse ; strengthening progressive voices on local, state and national issues ; and working to register, educate and get out the vote [to] help progressives get elected at all levels of government. Voto Latino: This group seeks to mobilize Latin-Americans to become registered voters and political activists.We Are America Alliance: This coalition promotes increased civic participation by immigrants in the American political process.Working Families Party: An outgrowth of the socialist New Party, WFP seeks to help push the Democratic Party toward the left.World Organization Against Torture: This coalition works closely with groups that condemn Israeli security measures against Palestinian terrorism.YWCA World Office, Switzerland: The YWCA opposes abstinence education; supports universal access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; and opposes school vouchers. Secondary or Indirect Affiliates of the George Soros NetworkIn addition to those organizations that are funded directly by George Soros and his Open Society Institute (OSI), there are also numerous secondary or indirect affiliates of the Soros network. These include organizations which do not receive direct funding from Soros and OSI, but which are funded by one or more organizations that do. -Dr. Rich SwierFor the entire list of secondary groups affiliated with George Soros, go HERE | 1real |
Benjamin Netanyahu Just Snubbed Obama AGAIN – And In The Scummiest Way Possible | It s no secret that there is little love lost between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but this is ridiculous.Somehow unsatisfied by his pathetic use of an unprecedented speech delivered to Congress at the behest of the Republican Party in an attempt derail sensitive Iranian nuclear negotiations, Netanyahu has found a new low. Out of the blue, and with no official statement to the White House, Netanyahu cancelled a trip to Washington and a meeting with the president. The Pope met with the President. The Denver Broncos met with the President. A 106-year-old lady danced with the President. But Netanyahu, a supposed American ally in the Middle East will snub him in what is likely the pair s last opportunity to meet face-to-face.Netanyahu didn t even attempt to hide his contempt for Obama, either. Rather than do the respectable thing and give the White House a heads up, the president and his staff learned of Netanyahu s snub from media outlets like CNN.The White House said Israel had proposed two dates for a meeting between the leaders and the U.S. had offered to meet on one of those days. We were looking forward to hosting the bilateral meeting, said Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House s National Security Council. We were surprised to first learn via media reports that the prime minister, rather than accept our invitation, opted to cancel his visit. Classy.According to Israeli news networks, insiders in the Netanyahu administration told reporters that he was unwilling to meet with Obama. However, the Israeli government publicly disputed those reports.Ironically, Netanyahu s own defense for cancelling was so that he did not sway the upcoming U.S. election something he didn t mind doing in the past. For instance, Netanyahu spoke with Obama on Super Tuesday in 2012. He didn t seem concerned that his actions would throw a wrench in the Democratic process or perhaps more accurately, he rather hoped it would. And two years later during the mid-term elections, his love for Republicans was so obvious, that it was discussed with casual openness in Israel. Here, for example, is a typical report from the time.It s no secret that Netanyahu and his aides are praying for control of the U.S. Senate to fall to the Republicans, who already hold the majority of the House of Representatives. Based on recent U.S. polls, there s a fairly good chance those prayers will be answered. However, Netanyahu won t break open any champagne prematurely. He did that two years ago, before the presidential elections, only to see his favored candidate, Mitt Romney, lose to incumbent President Barack Obama.Unfortunately for the prime minister, he got his wish and still lost the battle. They really tried, but Republicans were unable to stop the Iranian nuclear agreement even after skirting America s treason laws to try to elbow their way in.It seems apparent that the Israeli Prime Minister is still livid over the fact that Obama went ahead with the Iranian nuclear disarmament instead of listening to his calls for war. The two world leaders have never exactly seen eye-to-eye on the issue of Iran or anything else. Netanyahu, a right-wing hardliner, has resented Obama s calls for peace, including chastising Israel for its policies towards Palestinians. The fact that the United States still provides financial and military support to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars a year doesn t seem to calm him down, either.So rather than swallow his pride, Netanyahu has resorted to shameful displays of pettiness. What that means for the future of U.S.-Israel relations will be better known after the election.Featured image via Flickr | 1real |
How (and Why) to Camp in the National Parks - The New York Times | Chris Santella says he wasn’t raised by “outdoorsy” parents. But as a young man growing up in Connecticut, with grandparents who lived in Maine, he developed a kinship with nature — in particular, a love for standing in rivers and . The East Coaster ultimately moved West, settling in Portland, Ore. and put aside a corporate career in marketing to write about his outdoor adventures, including trips to at least a dozen national parks. His new book, “Fifty Places to Camp Before You Die” (Abrams Books) showcases some of the world’s most beautiful campsites. More than half of the book is devoted to American national parks, including Denali in Alaska, Big Bend in Texas and Crater Lake in Oregon. Below are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Santella, 53, conducted just before he was heading out on his next camping adventure in Oregon. Q. What do you love about camping, particularly in the national parks? A. When I’m out camping, and visiting places such as the national parks, my system slows down. I spend a lot of time sitting and observing rather than just doing. It just wakes you up — in a different way. Is that why you love taking your two teenage daughters camping as well? Yes, young people today are so engrossed in their digital networks. And taking them out of it is a process. The first day, it’s a bit rough. But they need that jolt. I love going to spots where there’s limited cell coverage — and there’s plenty of them in our national parks. Why visit a national park now? To begin with, it’s worth seeing certain natural phenomena — glaciers, endangered — before they are gone, or so isolated and distant that encountering them would require an expedition. A more hopeful answer would be that being in nature is good for you there have been studies that illustrate that time in nature can reduce stress and depression. We also can’t hope to preserve precious elements of nature if people don’t love them. And we can’t get people to love them if they don’t get exposure to nature. Are there protected areas that are overlooked? Yes, Redfish Lake in Idaho, which is part of Sawtooth National Forest, is a gem. It’s perfect for campers who aren’t ready to take the plunge and want some creature comforts. On one side of the lake, there’s a beautiful lodge. On the other side of the lake is open wilderness. You can go on day hikes, or go on a hike and be in very primitive country. Do you have any tips for adventurers? Take as little as possible — just what you need. I’m not a big gear guy. The basics for me are: a good rain jacket made of fleece rather than down, a durable sleeping bag or a collapsible cot (if you’re not keen on sleeping on the floor) and a meal, prepared and frozen. And lastly, a small portable light so you can find your way out of the tent at night if nature calls. One thing you take on every trip? Aside from my family? My favorite sleeping bag, a Sierra Designs Backcountry 600. It doesn’t have zippers, and provides for a more comfortable sleeping experience. | 0fake |
Trump, Republicans to showcase tax cut for businesses | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and top Republicans in Congress are about to show how aggressively they intend to cut the corporate tax rate, while trying to avoid the appearance of favoring the wealthy. The “Big Six” team of Republican tax policy makers is expected to release a plan on Wednesday targeting tax cuts for businesses, but offering few clues about how to replace reduced federal revenues, said lobbyists and congressional sources. Under pressure from corporate America, the team is expected to call for a corporate income tax target rate possibly within a range of 18-23 percent, down from the current rate of 35 percent. But the Big Six, which includes top Trump aides and congressional Republican leaders, is expected to refrain from cutting the top individual tax rate of 39.6 percent, in a risky step that many Republicans in the House of Representatives could find hard to swallow. “They’re not going to cut the highest income tax rate. They’re not,” predicted Stephen Moore, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. Moore helped write Trump’s campaign tax plan. Overhauling the tax code was a key pledge for Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign. But after eight months in office, he has made only limited progress. Washington has achieved no major tax overhaul since 1986. Trump portrays lower corporate taxes as a boon to workers, saying they would lead to more jobs and higher salaries. A rate cut on corporate profits could also be used to benefit shareholders and to offer up more executive bonuses, however. “The details leaking out of the Big Six meetings paint a clear picture of an unprecedented tax giveaway for the most fortunate and biggest corporations,” Senator Ron Wyden, top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said this week. The Big Six — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and two tax committee chairmen — have been working on their plan for months. But they are still undecided on key issues, including whether to let businesses write off new investments immediately; how to lower tax rates for small businesses; and whether to cut middle-class taxes simply by doubling the standard deduction for individuals and families, according to lobbyists. Resolving such issues will help determine how aggressively Republicans can cut corporate taxes. Lobbyists said they do not expect the Big Six to offer many details about the tax loopholes and deductions that could be eliminated to help pay for tax cuts. “Our expectation is that it will be a bold transformative tax reform. That would mean a dramatic corporate rate cut, an aggressive stripping out of set-asides and special interest carve-outs and simplification,” said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, a political group backed by billionaire conservatives Charles and David Koch. White House spokeswoman Natalie Strom declined to comment on the blueprint. “We have always said that tax reform will include lowering rates, closing loopholes and broadening the base by ending special interest tax breaks. Those priorities will be reflected in the plan,” she said. The Big Six will likely address the estimated $2.6 trillion in U.S. corporate profits held overseas by requiring companies to bring the money home at rates of 3.5 percent for reinvested profits and 8.75 percent for on cash and equivalents, lobbyists said. To offset lost revenue, the Trump administration plans to forecast a flood of new tax revenue in coming years, based on aggressive assumptions of tax-fueled economic expansion. But Senate Republicans have shown signs of moving away from such “dynamic” scoring of any tax legislation impact. Two senators, including a prominent fiscal hawk, agreed this week to a “static” score that could allow tax reform to lose up to $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Senate Republicans also are likely to avoid budget baseline changes to generate savings for tax reform on paper. That could well mean the Big Six plan would balloon the federal budget deficit. “Without those, the price goes up. There’s no other way to look at it,” said John Gimigliano, a former House Ways and Means Committee tax counsel who leads federal legislative and regulatory services at KPMG LLP. | 0fake |
Iraqi Kurdish referendum to trigger new crises, says Turkish official | ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The planned independence referendum in northern Iraq s Kurdish region is a terrible mistake that will trigger new crises in the region if it is not canceled, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan s spokesman said on Saturday. If the referendum is not canceled there will be serious consequences. Erbil must immediately refrain from this terrible mistake which will trigger new crises in the region, spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote on Twitter. | 0fake |
House tax panel chair says expects vote on plan next week | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Republicans plan to bring their tax overhaul bill for a vote next week, U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said on Tuesday, adding that he expects the plan to pass. “We’ll bring to the floor next week,” Brady told Fox News in an interview. “Our goal is to pass it next week out of the House.” | 0fake |
U.S. Senate Leader McConnell opposes lifting Russia sanctions: Politico | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate’s Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday he opposes lifting any sanctions on Russia, a day before President Donald Trump is to have his first official telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “These sanctions were imposed because of their behavior in Crimea, eastern Ukraine and now we know they’ve been messing around in our elections as well,” McConnell said in an interview with Politico on Friday. “If there’s any country in the world that doesn’t deserve sanctions relief, it’s Russia.” | 0fake |
Donald Trump v Bernie Sanders: confusion reigns over possible debate | Confusion reigned on Thursday over a possible debate between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
After kicking off a media frenzy by accepting an offer to debate Sanders, Trump changed his mind at least twice in the same day when pressed about whether he was serious about the prospect.
Addressing reporters on Thursday in his first press conference after crossing the threshold of delegates needed to become the Republican nominee, Trump reiterated his willingness to debate Sanders for charity to the tune of at least $10m.
This came after Trump’s campaign said earlier in the day that the Republican was only joking when he first expressed his openness to debating Sanders during an appearance on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday.
“I’d love to debate Bernie – he’s a dream,” Trump said at the press conference in Bismarck, North Dakota, on Thursday.
“The problem with debating Bernie is he’s gonna lose [the Democratic race] … but I’d debate him anyway. We’ve already had a couple of calls from the networks, so we’ll see.”
He added: “If I debated him, we would have such high ratings, and I think we should take that money and give it to some worthy charity.” Trump refused to take part in any further Republican debates after the Florida primary when the field winnowed down to three candidates.
Trump’s comments echoed his remarks to Kimmel in an interview the night before, when he told the late-night talkshow host: “If I debated him [Sanders], we would have such high ratings, and I think we should take that money and give it to some worthy charity.”
Sanders, the leftwing senator from Vermont who is lagging behind Clinton in the delegate race to clinch the Democratic nomination, responded immediately in a tweet, writing:
Sanders’ campaign confirmed he was serious about the opportunity if Trump was, but an aide to Trump clarified on Thursday that the former reality TV star was joking and had no intention to actually debate Sanders.
A debate between candidates from both parties before the conclusion of the nominating process would have been highly unusual and a potential headache for Clinton, who turned down an invitation from Fox News to debate Sanders earlier this week – citing the need to shift gears toward the looming battle with Trump in November.
“We believe that Hillary Clinton’s time is best spent campaigning and meeting directly with voters across California and preparing for a general election campaign that will ensure the White House remains in Democratic hands,” Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jen Palmieri said in a statement.
A debate during the remainder of the primary season would indeed serve as more beneficial to Sanders, offering him another public platform to make his case in what has been a grueling contest against Clinton. The senator has often referred to poll numbers on the stump that show him faring better than Clinton in a hypothetical match-up against Trump, although Clinton has countered that she has spent more than two decades in the public eye whereas Sanders has yet to be vetted at the national level.
Trump, although evidently unwilling to debate the senator, has made overtures toward Sanders’ supporters by echoing their complaints that the establishment is working in Clinton’s favor.
“The system is rigged against him,” Trump told Kimmel, referring to Sanders. “I think it’s very unfair.”
Sanders and Clinton last faced off on the debate stage on 9 March in Miami. Since then, Clinton has marched significantly closer to sealing the nomination but has still lost a series of contests to Sanders along the way.
Sanders has routinely charged that the DNC, which remains officially neutral in the primary, is aiding Clinton by limiting debates and scheduling them on weekends when there would be less of an audience.
The senator’s disdain for party leaders escalated last week, when Sanders said he would not reappoint Debbie Wasserman Schultz as chair of the DNC if elected president and endorsed her primary opponent as she seeks re-election to Congress in south Florida.
Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist and founder of the center-left thinktank New Democrat Network, wrote in a column this week that the California debate should proceed as initially planned between Clinton and Sanders.
“For the DNC to walk away from the debate now, given that Sanders has signaled his desire to proceed, will only confirm the worst suspicions of Sanders partisans,” Rosenberg wrote. | 0fake |
House Republicans Turn Off Cameras So Americans Can’t Watch Democrats Fight For Gun Control (VIDEO) | This is disgraceful and it is an insult to every American who has ever lost a loved one to gun violence.Democrats are sick and tired of Republicans offering nothing more than thoughts and prayers instead of doing something substantial to prevent mass shootings, so they took to the House floor on Wednesday to protest GOP inaction in order to force House Republicans to allow a vote on gun control bills that Senate Republicans rejected on Monday.Led by legendary civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, Democrats were preparing to hold a sit-in when Texas congressman and NRA shill Ted Poe called for a recess. We have been too quiet for too long, Lewis declared. There comes a time when you have to say something. You have to make a little noise. You have to move your feet. This is the time. Lewis and 60 Democratic colleagues sat on the House floor, recited the Pledge of Allegiance, and chanted, no bill, no break. But Republicans called for a break anyway and then they censored the sit-in by literally shutting off the video feed that allows Americans to see what is happening in the people s House.Here s the video via YouTube.Afterwards, Rep. Karen Bass told MSNBC that Republicans are running scared because they fear the NRA more than they fear the voting public. If you are constantly shut down, if if your voice cannot be heard, then it s time to take extraordinary measures, Bass said of the sit-in. I think the NRA s influence is very profound. A lot of times, people think of it as an individual campaign contribution, that s not the issue. The issue is the fact that for a lot of members, if they do not have an A from the NRA, they re concerned about the NRA running campaigns against them, supporting their opponents or running independent expenditure campaigns against them. That s the fear. Indeed, Republicans in the Senate fear the NRA so much that they literally rejected a measure that would have banned suspected terrorists from legally buying guns. We re not talking about la -abiding citizens who are not being investigated for having ties to terrorist groups. We re talking about people who may have been radicalized and are being looked at by law enforcement. Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was a suspected ISIS sympathizer, but he was able to buy his assault rifle legally because the FBI was powerless to ban him from doing so because Republicans are apparently just fine with terrorists buying guns in America to kill Americans with.That s outrageous and should rally every voter in the country to throw Republicans out of office. Because the GOP and their NRA puppet masters are now just as much a threat to national security as the terrorists.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
Arkansas Republicans Pass Bill Giving Rapists The Power To Stop Victims From Getting An Abortion | A vicious new law in Arkansas proves that Republicans are on the side of rapists.Two months ago, Republicans fast-tracked a brand new anti-abortion bill through the legislature and Governor Asa Hutchinson signed it last week.Arkansas Act 45 bans the most common and safest abortion procedure available to women known as dilation and evacuation, which is used for abortions performed during the second trimester. That means Arkansas Republicans are openly defying the framework set up by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade which says states can t interfere with a woman s right to choose until the fetus becomes viable. 50 percent viability rate is achieved at 24 to 25 weeks. But the new law would ban safe abortions after 14 weeks and creates a burden for women because it forces them to choose less safe options to end their pregnancies.Doctors who perform the abortion procedure would be charged with a felony that carries a $10,000 fine or six years in prison.But the bill also has a terrifying clause that rapists are going to love.The bill gives rapists the power to deny their victims an abortion if they sue the abortion provider.According to The Daily Beast,A clause in the Arkansas law allows a woman s spouse, parent or guardian, or health care provider to sue an abortion provider for civil damages or injunctive relief that could stop the abortion. And because Act 45 does not provide any exceptions for cases of rape or incest, the clause could allow the fetus s father to sue an abortion provider even in cases of spousal rape or incest.Some lawmakers, like Democratic state Senator Will Bond, had a problem with the bill because the way it is drafted seems to allow any family member of the pregnant woman to file a lawsuit to stop the abortion and could actually end up severely disabling women who are forced to choose a riskier abortion procedure. There is an injunctive relief section in the bill that, in my reading of it, would seem to allow litigation among family members. If one spouse sought injunctive relief to prevent a certain procedure, or possibly other family members have the possibility for injunctive relief, that was a concern of mine. There is an exception for women s health in the bill, but it required irreparable harm [to the point of] permanent disability of a woman. The way it was drafted, I had concerns that the women s health exception is way too narrow, and there s no exception for rape and incest. The fact that rapists have a new tool to use to torture their victims is totally unacceptable and demonstrates that Republicans are totally anti-woman.Of course, these kinds of bills have been blocked in other states, so it s likely this one will be blocked from going into effect as well. But women cannot rely on the courts to protects their rights. They need to vote and kick Republicans out of office if they truly want to guarantee that government will not try to dictate what decisions they make about their own bodies.Featured image via Woman Survival | 1real |
NEW EMAILS SHOW HILLARY Asking How Meeting On Libyan War Would Impact Hamptons Vacation…And MORE | These grifters have no shame. How much more evidence do Americans need to see before they understand Hillary has no interest in our nation s security? How much more evidence do we need before the Everyday American Queen of the Clinton Crime Syndicate is sent to prison? Judicial Watch today released nearly 70 pages of State Department records that show that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aides, Deputy Chiefs of Staff Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan, received and sent classified information on their non-state.gov email accounts. The documents, also available on the State Department website, were obtained in response to a court order from a May 5, 2015, lawsuit filed against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) after it failed to respond to a March 18 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking:All emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non- state.gov email address.The new documents show that Hillary Clinton used the clintonemail.com system to ask Huma Abedin (also on a non-state.gov email account) to print two March 2011 emails, which were sent from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (using the moniker aclb ) to Jake Sullivan on Sullivan s non-state.gov email account. The Obama State Department redacted the Blair emails under Exemption (b)(1) which allows the withholding of classified material. The material is marked as being classified as Foreign government information and foreign relations or foreign activities of the US, including confidential sources. Another email shows that Clinton wanted to know how meetings in Washington, including a four-hour meeting concerning America s war on Libya, would impact her Hampton vacation. Responding to an email that details the sensitive meetings in DC, Clinton emails Abedin on August 26, 2011, Ok. What time would I get back to Hamptons? Again, this email discussion takes place on non-state.gov email accounts.The documents also include advice to Clinton on Libya from Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton Foundation employee who, according to a Judicial Watch investigative report, also had business interests in Libya. Clinton wanted Blumenthal s March 9, 2011, Libya memo to be printed without any identifiers. The newly released Abedin emails include a lengthy exchange giving precise details of Clinton s schedule using unsecured government emails. The email from Lona J. Valmoro, former Special Assistant to Secretary of State Clinton, to Abedin and Clinton reveals exact times (including driving times) and locations of all appointments throughout the day. Another itinerary email provides details about a meeting at the United Nations in New York at 3:00 on Tuesday, January 31, 2012, with the precise disclosure, that would mean wheels up from Andrews at approximately 12:00pm/12:15pm. These emails show that Hillary Clinton isn t the only Obama official who should be worried about being prosecuted for mishandling classified information. Her former top State aides (and current campaign advisers) Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan should be in the dock, as well, said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. The Obama State Department has now confirmed that Clinton, Abedin, and Sullivan used unsecured, non-government email accounts to communicate information that should now be withheld from the American people in the interest of national defense or foreign policy, and properly classified. When can we expect the indictments? Via: Judicial Watch | 1real |
U.S. Representative Levin says he will not run for reelection | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Sander Levin of Michigan said on Saturday he would not run for reelection next year, stepping down after more than three decades in Congress. The 86-year-old Democrat is a member of the House of Representatives’ powerful Ways and Means committee, which deals with tax and economic policies as well as spending on programs such as Social Security and unemployment. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi praised Levin in a statement acknowledging his decision to step down. “Since his days as a student activist, Congressman Levin has been a fearless and dedicated voice for justice and progress,” Pelosi said. | 0fake |
PROMINENT DEMOCRAT CLAIMS Old, White, Leftist Males Are Waiting In The Wings For Hillary To Fall | The party of diversity waits for Hillary to be dragged out of the primary in handcuffs kicking and screaming Former GOP presidential candidate George Pataki is predicting that Democrat Hillary Clinton s legal issues will force an outside candidate to jump into the 2016 White House race as a white knight. People talk about the problems in the Republican Party, but I think Democrats have a bigger problem, the former New York governor told host John Catsimatidis on The Cats Roundtable on New York s AM-970 on Sunday. Hillary Clinton is cratering, the scandals just keep coming. She has grave legal issues that could totally prevent her from continuing her campaign, and the alternative is a self-avowed socialist who has never run anything. Pataki added that it would not surprise him to see an outsider jump into the race like Vice President Joe Biden, California Gov. Jerry Brown or Secretary of State John Kerry. Despite his previous pronouncements that Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has no chance at the GOP nomination, Pataki conceded that his prediction isn t borne out by reality. He s just tapped into anger towards Washington, anger towards politicians, he said. I understand the anger, but the solution is not to get behind someone who expresses the anger but does not have the necessary solution. I hope people coalesce around somebody who has a positive vision about how to bring Americans together. Via: The Hill | 1real |
Progress in Protecting Fetuses From Zika | For the past 18 months, pregnant women have lived in fear as Zika, a virus they had never heard of, spread throughout much of the world leaving behind thousands of babies born with underdeveloped brains and other birth defects. Medical researchers are aggressively trying to develop a vaccine or treatment that is effective in stopping the virus or protecting fetuses in wombs if their mother gets Zika. The good news announced this week is that scientists have had encouraging results.
Clinical Trials of a Vaccine The first of five clinical trials in humans to test the safety and effectiveness of a Zika vaccine began, according to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) announcement Monday. Called the Zika Purified Inactivated Virus (ZPIV), the vaccine was developed using inactivated virus particles. The basic shell of the particles is intact to the particles evoke a response from the recipient’s immune system creating more antibodies. This technology and approach was successfully used in developing a vaccine for Japanese encephalitis.
The NIH trial involves 75 people between the ages of 18 and 49 who have not had any sort of flavivirus. (Zika is a flavivirus. So are dengue, Japanese encephalitis and West Nile.) Participants will be randomly split into three groups. The first will receive two injections of either the test vaccine or a placebo 28 days apart. The other two groups will get the Japanese encephalitis vaccine or a yellow fever vaccine prior to receiving the two-dose ZPIV vaccine. A subgroup of 30 participants will receive the two-dose a third dose of the vaccine being tested a year later.
The NIH announced that four other trials involving the ZPIV investigational vaccine within months. These vaccine studies are being fast-tracked, but it will take a few years to know the results.
Antibody Tests While the NIH research deals with a vaccine against the virus, other research has been under way to protect fetuses from the virus. An antibody that prevents a fetus from becoming infected with the virus has been identified and tested in mice. It also prevents damage to the placenta. Lastly, the antibody appears to provide protection against the virus for adult mice. The research conducted by teams from the medical schools at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., was published Monday in “Nature.”
The research study in mice may not translate directly to humans. However, it suggests that scientists are on the right track studying antibodies from former Zika patients as a solution. The researchers actually screened 29 anti-Zika antibodies they gathered from people who recovered from the disease. One of them efficiently counteracted the five strains of the virus circulating worldwide in the lab tests. The antibodies identified “represent the first medical intervention that prevents Zika infection and damage to fetuses,” according to co-author James Crowe Jr., MD, of Vanderbilt.
To test the antibody in live animals, the scientists gave it to pregnant mice either the day before or after being infected with Zika. In both instances, the antibodies successfully reduced the virus levels in the pregnant mice and their fetuses. They compared the results with those of pregnant mice infected with the disease but not given the antibody.
The placentas seemed normal in the mice treated with the antibody, showing they were protected from the disease. In the untreated virus-infected mice, however, there was noticeable placental damage. “The anti-Zika antibodies are able to keep the fetus safe from harm by blocking the virus from crossing the placenta,” noted co-author Indira Mysorekar, PhD, a Washington University associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology.
Written and Edited by Dyanne Weiss
Sources:
Nature: Neutralizing human antibodies prevent Zika virus replication and fetal disease in mice
Washington University School of Medicine: Antibody protects developing fetus from Zika virus, mouse study shows
National Institutes of Health: Testing of Investigational inactivated Zika vaccine in humans begins
TIME: Zika Vaccines Are Growing More Promising
Photo courtesy of NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – Creative Commons license microcephaly , Vaccine , Zika | 1real |
4th of July: Why the Shadow Government Hates Independence Day | SARTRE 21st Century WireThe only conclusion any honest American citizen can come to is that the Republic is dead. Once again the flags wave and the songs play as the parades march to celebrate another 4th of July.Picnic meals are eaten while children frolic in the warn sunshine of summer. Few people reflect on the true meaning that established the solemn commemoration of the nation s birth. The reality of this post federation of independent state sovereignty is that a centralized federal behemoth has superseded the original intent of Thomas Jefferson s vision: That government is best which governs least .Today the society that exists demands compliance or compels obedience by way of punishment.The empire that emerged after World War II has established an Amerika Imperium. With the consistent dumbing down of the youth, indoctrinated in government schools and the mind control impact from the mass media, the culture has abandoned the timeless principles that our country was founded upon.In the essay, Independence Day for Whom?, the struggle for freedom and liberty was fought against the British empire. Most citizens acclaim this revolution as the greatest achievement of a besieged population. Ponder just how far the promises from a rebellion of Englishmen has deteriorated into a dumping ground for foreigners, who do not believe in the values and responsibilities upon which this struggle was fought.For a more precise view of The Meaning of Independence Day, the true reasons for waging a war to create a beacon of hope in the New World has a history that fewer people understand, much less devote their allegiance to its preservation.Just how has a country of freedom loving patriots allowed the systematic destruction of their once beloved nation? A primer on some of the reasons for this betrayal can be reviewed in the End of Independence Day essay. With the internationalism of foreign policy, the traditional America First viewpoint of the Founding Fathers was abandoned.The end result is that The Death of Independence, is now upon us. Over the decades, a replacement aristocracy emerged that transplanted the elected representation of the public will. The real control behind the legislative office holders and certainly the executive branch under any president, demonstrate that ignoring the canons within the Declaration of Independence is a prime requirement to wield power in Washington DC.Frustrated and disenfranchised citizens voted for Donald Trump based upon his articulation on the issues that genuine patriots would support. No matter what anyone thinks of the man or believes about the inordinate attacks directed at him and his administration, the indisputable fact is that the establishment wants to see him fail.Simply put, the actual rulers of the global supremacy wants the financial dominance of the central banking system to continue and perfect their governance. Amerika is pivotal in maintaining their forced submission. The basis of the Shadow Government surreptitiously functions in the darkness of public exposure.Routing out any effort or initiative for independent representation is the standard modus operandi. The populace is generally ignorant of the existence of this empowerment cabal. People are led to believe that the Deep State is simply the technocrats that never leave their positions of administrating agencies. Regretfully, it is not realistic to facilitate a clean sweep of the careerists who routinely sabotage any directive that compromises the interests of the permanent bureaucracies and their masters.Trump may prove to be a dragon slayer, but the hatching of genetically rotten eggs continues. The column, Can the Swamp Really be Drained? addresses this issue. The single most persistent element that drives authorities away from the maxims of the American Revolution, centers within the attitude that government acts in the interests of the people.Such deficiencies in understanding of the vile nature and the actual record of coercive regimes, stands as a major obstacle to the liberation of the mind. Rejecting the legitimacy of the criminal syndicate that purports to be the lawful authority is essential.Examine the book review, American Amnesia the Liberal Case for Government, which debunks the lunacy that rationalizes the worship of government control over society. Such a demented academic viewpoint logically concludes that the celebration of Independence Day must be based upon the triumph of the all powerful leviathan government over a decentralized autonomous and local accountable authority.Authentic nationalism must rest upon the pillars of individual liberty. When the 4th of July becomes a cartoon carnival of the Deep State, the only beneficiary is the Shadow Government.President Trump is not the cause nor is he the solution to reinstitute an American Renaissance Revolution. However, to the degree that he can raise the consciousness within the country, his presence in the oval office becomes a peril to the comrades, who want to destroy our national independence.When the hypocrites from the political class and the treachery from the fake news purveyors is confronted, then and only then, will a real independence celebration become a true national commemoration.The enemy is not just at the gate, they have become the jailers for the deplorable resistance. The intent is to isolate and eliminate the heartland dissenters because they are the only threat that has the ability to win the infowar of ideas. Since the establishment is hell-bent on waging a civil war against the faithful, the remnant and torch guardians must commit to the purging of the fifth column subversives that occupy the government.As the establishment and mainstream media sharks continue to encircle the Trump agenda, their blood thirsty appetite quickens. Their Dracula heritage has drained the inherent vital courage from the masses that subsist in a pseudo reality imposed by a hostile New World Order.This perceptibility is categorically opposite to the fundamental precepts that were universally accepted when the country was founded. Independence Day deserves a proper reverence. Before the nation can earn that privilege, it must mature and own up and admit that the de facto foe of the populist is the very government that so many celebrate.[Let us not forget, it s meant to be a government by the people, and for the people]See more of SARTRE s original work at BATR.netDiscuss or comment about this essay on the BATR ForumREAD MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire TRUMP FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
WATCH CRAZED LEFTIES PROTESTING TRUMP Shut Down Syrian Refugee Who Disagrees [Video] | THIS IS SO IRONIC! CRAZED LEFTISTS with an anti-Trump agenda had a hard time relating to reason from a Syrian refugee who actually has skin in the game. They claim to be speaking to protect this guy and other Syrians, but they actually don t care about what he has to say. They don t care about the facts!A Syrian refugee shut down by protestors, trying to make his point in a polite way. Is this really acceptable? #stopthewar #syria pic.twitter.com/yvEgNfuPZZ Tehmoor Khalid (@TehmoorKhalid) April 7, 2017Is anyone surprised?Watch the crazy lefty shake her finger in his face and yell at him. Of course, she knows more about what s going on in his country than he does. He asks the woman if he could speak, when the head guy who s probably a Soros employee, tells her to keep chanting What these people forget is that we are supposed to have the right to free speech in America! Why is it the left that continuously silences anyone and everyone they disagree with?ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE LEFT TRYING TO FRAME THE NARRATIVE:A set up by CNN to try and push the anti-Trump narrative experienced a major detour today when a survivor of a gas attack in 2013 didn t follow the line of propaganda that CNN was pushing. CNN pundit Brooke Baldwin had interviewed this victim of the 2013 attack just 3 days ago. This survivor spoke of the attacks on innocents setting up the liberal humanitarian perspective.Fast forward to today when we have the aftermath of last night s airstrike, Ms. Baldwin brought Kassem Eid back to frame a narrative about President Trump launching an airstrike in Syria, but being unwilling to accept Syrian refugees. They wanted to make Trump out to be a hypocrite.To set up the attack on Trump, CNN producers showed Hillary Clinton saying, we cannot speak of protecting Syria s babies, and in the next breath close America s doors to them .What happened next shocked Baldwin and she couldn t shut this guy down fast enough Epic!Kassem Eid, who survived a 2013 chemical gas attack in Syria, expresses his gratitude to President Trump for his missile strike of a Syrian airbase. | 1real |
Taking Care of Your Eye Health the Natural Way | Taking Care of Your Eye Health the Natural Way Ad 728×90 – HBS Account – 2149237058061490 http://blogs.naturalnews.com/taking-care-eye-health-natural-way/
By Jade Rich
Posted Monday, October 31, 2016 at 12:09pm EDT
Keywords: best foods for eye health , beta-carotene , Cataracts , eye health , foods that contain antioxidants , Free Radicals , lutein , macular degeneration , maintaining healthy eyes , meso-zeaxanthin , natural vision training , naturally occurring antioxidants , ocular migraines , optic nerve damage , protect your eyes , vitamin C , Vitamin E , zeaxanthin
When most people think about their eye health , the first thing that comes to mind is whether or not they need to wear glasses. Although your vision is a major part of your overall eye health, there are actually many more things that you need to be concerned about. For example, there are a staggering 56 common disorders that can plague your eyes. These issues range from cataracts to ocular migraines. Fortunately, there are many natural methods you can utilize to help keep your eyes healthy.
Nutrients Your Eyes Need
There are three nutrients that are known to be critical for maintaining healthy eyes: Lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin. Each of these nutrients serves as an antioxidant that helps protect your eyes from the damaging effects of free radicals. As Natural News has pointed out before, free radicals are the main basis of all injuries, illnesses and deaths.
Antioxidants are the only way to fight free radicals, so it’s a good thing that these three nutrients are found naturally in the human eye. But what happens when something interrupts this process? Sadly, you can end up with a long list of eye health problems that may even lead to blindness.
Instead of merely sitting back and allowing this to happen, you can be proactive and start taking supplements. The good news is that lutein and zeaxanthin supplements are easy to find. Research has discovered that most of these supplements also contain meso-zeaxanthin, although this isn’t usually disclosed on the label. In fact, it sounds likely that this recently discovered eye nutrient is a natural byproduct of lutein and zeaxanthin.
Of course, this doesn’t absolve the supplement companies of their duty to report whether or not meso-zeaxanthin is present in their products. However, their negligence also doesn’t reduce the natural reliance that your eyes have on all three of these nutrients. In addition to stocking up on these supplements, it is also wise to increase your intake of other naturally occurring antioxidants, including Vitamin E, Vitamin C and beta carotene.
Food Sources
There are many foods that contain antioxidants . Carrots are perhaps the most well-known resource for eye health because they are so rich in beta carotene. It would be a mistake to think of carrots as the prime resource, though. You can also turn to oranges, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and dark berries for a mixture of necessary vitamins. These are some of the best foods for eye health. Even better, you can derive lutein and zeaxanthin directly from food sources such as eggs, pistachios, corn, peppers and kale. With enough of these food items in your diet, you can avoid the cost of supplements while still keeping your eyes extremely healthy.
Additional Eye Health Tips
If you are a smoker who is also concerned about eye health, now is a good time to carefully consider quitting. Unfortunately, people who smoke have an increased risk of developing macular degeneration, optic nerve damage and cataracts. If you begin abstaining from tobacco products now, though, your odds of ending up with one of these eye health complications will begin to decline.
Other easy steps you can take to protect your eyes include always wearing sunglasses during sunny days and steering clear of computer screens as much as possible. If you use a computer for work, take a 20 second vision break every 20 minutes.
Ultimately, combining the proper nutrients with easy tips such as wearing sunglasses will help keep your eyes healthy throughout your life. If you’re currently dealing with issues such as light sensitivity and vision loss, you may also be able to naturally regain control of your eye health by using natural vision training and other eye exercises. This is definitely a better option than undergoing a surgery that has an extensive list of serious risks and usually leaves patients still needing eyeglasses. As usual, the natural way is better!
About the author:
Jade Rich is an LPN and Director at an Inpatient Rehabilitation Center. As a mother of three children, she is always looking for natural ways to keep her kid’s eyes healthy. She knows from experience that another way to do this is by scheduling them for routine eye exams. This helps with early detection and prevention. It’s best to schedule this during the back-to-school season. During the visit, their pediatrician examines their eye alignment and gives a test for visual acuity.
Sources: | 1real |
Russia launches naval bombardment of targets in Syria | Washington (CNN) Russia launched a naval bombardment Wednesday of ISIS targets in Syria, a senior Russian official said, ramping up a newly muscular presence in the Middle East.
Shoigu said the strikes were launched from the Caspian Sea using precise long-range missiles that flew 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) to their targets.
Russia says it launched missiles at Syrian targets from the Caspian Sea.
Wednesday also appeared to mark new and closer military cooperation between Russia and the embattled Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad
Russia and Syria launched coordinated attacks Wednesday on Islamist factions in towns in Hama and Idlib provinces in western Syria , with the Syrian shelling apparently conducted in concert with Russian airstrikes, according to an opposition group.
If the report is correct, it could offer fresh evidence that Russia's primary goal is propping up al-Assad rather than fighting terrorism.
Even as its ships and warplanes conducted fresh strikes, Russia said it was willing to cooperate with the United States in carrying out attacks in Syria.
However, speaking to reporters in Rome, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called the Russian campaign of airstrikes in Syria a "fundamental mistake." He said the United States was not ready to cooperate with Russia on operations in Syria.
A ministry spokesman, quoted by Russia's Tass news agency, said the ministry responded to a Pentagon request. It then "swiftly considered" the U.S. proposals to coordinate.
"We just need to specify some technical details that will be discussed today by representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry and the Pentagon at the expert level," Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov told Tass.
The U.S. military recently had to divert one aircraft over Syria to ensure it could maintain a safe flying distance from a Russian fighter, a Pentagon representative said. Until the two countries agree on mutual flight safety rules in Syrian airspace, U.S. pilots are under orders to change their flight path if a Russian plane is within 20 nautical miles, a senior defense official told CNN.
Russian warplanes conducted heavy airstrikes Wednesday on Islamist factions, accompanied by shelling from government forces, according to the UK-based, anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The head of the observatory said there were no ISIS positions in the areas targeted and that fierce clashes were taking place on the ground between regime forces and their allies and armed Islamist rebel factions, including the Ahrar al-Sham and al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front.
Wednesday's clashes are the fiercest in the last month, the observatory said.
"According to our data, about 40 percent (was destroyed). In addition, a lot of terrorists have been killed. Now, they are retreating toward the Turkish border," Sputnik quoted Haddad as saying.
But Turkey, Syria's neighbor to the north, cast fresh doubt Wednesday on whether Russia's goal was to go after SIS.
A fraction -- 3.5% -- of Russia's airstrikes in Syria so far have targeted the terror group, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
"These air raids are not against ISIS. There were 57 air raids by Russian air forces. Fifty-five of them were against moderate opposition and only two were against Daesh, according to military information we received," Turkey's Anadolu news agency quoted Davutoglu as saying, reflecting government thinking. Daesh is another name for ISIS.
The U.S. Embassy in Syria also questioned Russia's targets.
"Russia can play a constructive role in this effort but that doesn't mean hitting moderate Syrian forces that are in opposition to Assad who has carried out a brutal, brutal crackdown on his own people."
"So we have seen a substantial military buildup by Russia in Syria, both in the air with the combat planes and air defense systems, but also an increasing number of ground troops," Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. "In addition to that, they have deployed naval assets, a large number of naval assets close to the Syrian shores. And they continue to do so."
Russian planes have also incurred into Turkish airspace twice, he said.
"It's unacceptable, it's dangerous, and it's reckless behavior and it adds to the tensions," Stoltenberg told CNN.
Stoltenberg said he doubted that Russia was interested primarily in fighting ISIS.
"I'm also concerned that Russia is not targeting ISIL but instead attacking the Syrian opposition and civilians," he said.
The Pentagon shares the same worries.
The latest U.S. assessment indicates that Russia has moved ground combat weapons and troops to areas of western Syria where anti-regime forces are, according to two American defense officials. The United States sees the move as Russia "stepping up its ground activity" in Syria to attack those forces, rather than ISIS elements, according to one of the officials.
But Russian officials deny ramping up military activity. Officials quoted by state media said there would be no ground operation in Syria and -- in contrast to what officials had said earlier -- Russia would try to prevent any "volunteers" from going to Syria. | 0fake |
DEMOCRAT SENATOR AL FRANKEN Thought It Would Be Hilarious To Do An SNL Skit About Drugging and Raping 60 Minutes Reporter: “when Lesley’s passed out, I take her to the closet and rape her” | Democratic Senator Al Franken who has been accused of kissing a woman without her consent and pretending to grope her in a photo once pitched an SNL sketch about raping a journalist, it has emerged.The remarks were made in 1995, when Franken and other writers on the show were working up a sketch about then-60 Minutes host Andy Rooney finding a bottle of pills in his desk, New York Magazine reported at the time.As the team batted ideas around, Franken suggested that the pills might be used by Rooney to drug Lesley Stahl at which point he would take her to the closet and rape her .The sketch was part of an ongoing series in which Norm Macdonald portrayed Rooney as an out-of-touch misanthrope with a tenuous grasp on reality.Macdonald had suggested that Rooney could say I don t know what the pills are for what I do know is, the bottle is mostly filled with cotton. Franken then chipped in with: And, I give the pills to Lesley Stahl. Then, when Lesley s passed out, I take her to the closet and rape her. Or, That s why you never see Lesley until February. Or, When she passes out, I put her in various positions and take pictures of her. Stahl was a contributor to 60 Minutes at the time. Macdonald then asked, What if Rooney rapes Mike Wallace? And then says, I guess that makes me bad. Is it funnier with a black guy? Or two old white guys? Franken responded: What about, I drag Mike into my office and rape him. Right here! I guess that makes me bad. The sketch never made it to air, and it s questionable whether it was ever intended to do so.But the 1995 report has now resurfaced as it did in 2008, when Franken made his successful run for Minnesota Senator.At the time, his campaign said: Al understands, and the people of Minnesota understand, the difference between what a satirist does and what a senator does. But newly emerged claims that Franken kissed a woman without her consent in 2006, and pretended to grope her in a photo while she was sleeping have been tougher for the comedian to address. Daily MailWatch Leeann Tweeden talk about Senator Franken s repulsive sexual assault against her: | 1real |
Saudi king receives Palestinian president Abbas | DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia s King Salman received Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Riyadh on Wednesday and reiterated the kingdom s support for the Palestinian people, state news agency SPA reported. The king reassured the Palestinian leader that Saudi Arabia continues to support the right of Palestinians to an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital, SPA said. The two leaders also discussed the latest developments in the Palestinian territories, it said. A dozen Saudi princes and officials also attended the meeting. Saudi Arabia condemned U.S. President Donald Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and said any decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem before a permanent peace settlement is reached would inflame the feelings of Muslims, official media reported. | 0fake |
Surprise! Insurance Paid the E.R. but Not the Doctor - The New York Times | Doug Moore was out of town at a Florida conference on information technology in October 2015 when he was struck with terrible abdominal pain. He tried to go to an urgent care center and called several local doctors. No one could see him. So he headed to the nearest emergency room. On the way, he called his insurance company to make sure the visit would be covered. Once he got to the Palms of Pasadena Hospital emergency room, a doctor gave him some medication and tests, and let him go. A month later, feeling better and back at home in Baton Rouge, La. Mr. Moore, 34, received an bill from the doctor who treated him — for $1, 620. “That really makes me mad, and kind of breaks my heart,” he said. When people go to the emergency room, they are often stunned to discover that doctors who treated them are not employed by the hospital and bill their insurance company separately. These doctors negotiate separate deals with insurance companies for payment. If the doctor and the insurance company never strike a deal, the visit is billed at much higher rates. While the insurance company sometimes pays the higher amount, unlucky patients like Mr. Moore can be caught in the crossfire. They receive care and have no idea what it will end up costing them. New research published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday found that more than one in five patients visiting the emergency room may face the same financial shock. The study looked at billing data from one large national insurer and found that 22 percent of the time, patients who went to a hospital covered by their plan still received a bill from a doctor who was not in the insurance company’s network. The average such bill cost more than $900, though there was a wide range the highest was for more than $19, 000. This is not the first time researchers have examined surprise medical bills, but it’s the broadest analysis to date of the problem nationwide. The study found wide variation across the country over the likelihood that someone would get a surprise medical bill. In McAllen, Tex. for example, the rates of surprise billing were 89 percent, compared with Boulder, Colo. where it was near zero. Once patients get to the emergency room, they have little choice over who treats them. “To put it in very, very blunt terms: This is the health equivalent of a carjacking,” said Zack Cooper, an assistant professor of health policy and economics at Yale University, and a of the paper. Mr. Cooper argues that the problem could be solved by Congress, which could make the visit a package that includes both the doctor and hospital. Consumer advocates, and scholars like Mr. Cooper, see the surprise bill as unfair. It’s nearly impossible for patients to uncover the contract arrangements of individual physicians once they walk into an emergency room — or are brought by ambulance. “People are, by and large, not aware that they’re playing that type of financial roulette,” said Chuck Bell, the programs director at Consumers Union, an advocacy group that has been urging states and Congress to help solve the problem. “They follow the rules, and they go to the hospital, and then it’s just like a . ” Several states have passed legislation aimed at tackling the problem, including New York, Florida and California, where a law recently went into effect. But the state laws affect only a fraction of insurance customers. Insurance offered by large companies, like Mr. Moore’s employer, is regulated under federal law. And most of the laws work by setting up a dispute resolution system for patients, which means they need to know they can go to state authorities to fight a big bill. Congressman Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas, introduced legislation last year to tackle the practice nationwide, but he said he experienced “a healthy dose of indifference” from his colleagues on the Ways and Means committee. Mr. Doggett had heard complaints of surprise bills from constituents, and it turns out that the new study found that Texas is a hot spot for the practice. Mr. Doggett said he would introduce the legislation again next year. “I think that there’s got to be a way to get consumers out of this trap,” he said. President Obama included proposals to limit emergency room bills in his budget proposal, and recent regulations have made it more difficult for doctors to collect certain bills, though those rules are being fought in court by physicians. The acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has said that surprise bills are a policy priority for him. The data in the study come from one large commercial insurer, but the researchers agreed not to name it in exchange for access. Mr. Cooper said there was only a little difference in the share of surprise bills in places where the insurance company had a lot of customers, compared with those where it did less business. Emergency room doctors criticized the study’s findings and were quick to blame the insurers. The American College of Emergency Physicians, the medical society that represents the doctors, said patients are much less likely to face large unexpected bills than the study suggested, citing an analysis the group did in Florida of patients who were “balance billed,” or asked to make up the difference between what the insurer pays and what the doctor bills. “Our balance bills are less than a couple of hundred dollars, on average,” said Dr. Rebecca Parker, the group’s president. She said that most doctors want to be included in networks but that they are not being offered reasonable fees. “This is insurance company bad behavior,” said Dr. Parker, whose group this week put out a parody video that accuses the insurers of paying too little for their work. Insurance companies like to blame the physicians, arguing that while they can reach a deal with the hospitals, there are many doctors who refuse to be part of the network they offer under a plan. And the insurers argue hospitals have a responsibility to make sure the outside doctors they use to staff their emergency rooms sign contracts with the same health plans they do. “This would go a long way to reduce and prevent consumers from receiving a big surprise balance bill,” Kristine Grow, a spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said in an email. The new paper’s authors agree. When Mr. Moore received his doctor’s bill, he tried appealing the charge to his insurance company. “We understand that you went to a preferred provider facility and did not have a choice of the emergency room physician who treated you,” his insurer wrote back — but denied the claim. Then he went to the private practice that had sent him the bill. It was willing to negotiate. “They knocked off half the bill,” he said. “Which is great. It’s like, would you rather get punched four times or two times? I guess two times is better. ” | 0fake |
Factbox: Trump to meet with U.S. House Speaker Ryan, U.S. Senator Manchin | (Reuters) - Donald Trump was scheduled to hold additional meetings on Friday and Monday as he forms his administration before taking over from Democratic President Barack Obama on Jan. 20. The Republican president-elect has held more than 85 meetings so far, according to his transition team. Trump was to meet with the following people in coming days, according to his team: * U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican * U.S. Senator from West Virginia, a Democrat * Meeting originally scheduled for Dec. 9 Technology industry leaders invited for a meeting with Trump, according to media reports citing transition officials. | 0fake |
‘BUBBA’ BAFFLES With Claim Of Very Few Murders By Muslims…How Influx of Muslims Has ‘Deeply Enriched’ Us [Video] | Bubba Bill Clinton celebrated his election 25 years ago at very liberal Georgetown University. He made the usual slams against President Trump that we expect nowadays and then turned to gun violence in America He bemoaned the state of gun violence and then he pivoted to made this very baffling claim about Muslims and native-born Americans:President Clinton also said: In spite of the horrible killings in San Bernardino and Fort Hood, and what happened in New York City just a few days ago, the aggregate murder rate of Muslims is one third that of the native-born. How many people know that? If all your neighbours knew it, would it make a difference? How nice except it s NOT TRUE!(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.11'; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));Bill Clinton: 'Good news is important to make good decisions' The aggregate murder rate of Muslims is one third that of the native born. How many people know that?"Bill Clinton gives his view that when talking about immigration "good news is important to make good decisions .Posted by Channel 4 News on Tuesday, November 7, 2017It s an eye-catching statistic. But we can t find any evidence that it s true.channel4 reported:President Clinton appears to be blurring two different concepts when he talks about a murder rate of Muslims compared to the native-born . He is confusing religion with immigration status here, and the two groups are not mutually exclusive. Clearly, you can be a native-born American Muslim. So it s not absolutely clear what he means, but we can only presume from the context that he is saying Muslims perhaps Muslim immigrants specifically are less likely to murder people than others.There are two official sources of national homicide statistics in the US: the FBI and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Neither of these organisations records the religion of the offender. So it s not possible to construct a murder rate of Muslims from official figures.So did Clinton just read this and deduce what he wanted to or did some low level staffer offer this as fact? we ll probably never know but this calls attention to the blithering BS that the Clinton grifters dole out on a regular basis. Another recent gem was on a late-night talk show where he claimed that we must fill America with more third world refugees so we can truly feel sufficiently diverse as a nation What is he smoking? Our State Department has issued over 30,000 foreign visas to people from terror-sponsored nations since 2007. Yes, we re covered up in Muslim refugees We get it: The goal is to change America s demographic which will change elections so more democrats will win Correct? It s that fundamental change Obama was working on for 8 years open borders, refugees, diversity lottery We get it and that s why we voted for Donald Trump .JUST LISTEN TO THIS GLOBALIST ELITIST CONTINUE THE NARRATIVE THAT MASS MIGRATION IS GREAT:Does he really believe this? We don t know if he does but we do know that he wants YOU to believe it so the Dems will have more votes and cheap labor. Yes, those Democrats they really have your back, don t they?Read more: channel4 | 1real |
Syrian Rebels Launch Chemical Attack In Aleppo | Russia Today reports:
RT Arabic’s crew in Aleppo reports 36 cases of suffocation.
“A couple of hours ago we received some 35 patients, all mildly hurt. Their symptoms match those that appear when a person is poisoned by chlorine gas,” doctor Yazan Sarmani told Ruptly at Al Razi hospital in Aleppo.
“The victims are soldiers but there are also civilians among them. They all suffered from chlorine gas [poisoning], that is why they showed intensive lacrimation and breathing difficulties. We took care of them, administered oxygen and gave them medicine. Some of them had to be hospitalized,” he added.
Al-Mayadeen earlier reported that all the victims of the attack are civilians.
“The symptoms the victims showed were the same, but of different severity: watery eyes, frothing at the mouth, vomiting, nausea. All were either lightly or mildly hurt,” doctor Zahir Hamdi Hadzhu, a medical examiner from Aleppo, also told RT Arabic over the phone. “We asked some victims what they smelled… Their responses were the same: after the fall of the shell they [smelled] the odor which is often met at swimming pools.”
“The symptoms and the smell indicate that chlorine gas was used. The final confirmation will be available after lab tests,” he said, adding that there may be more than 40 victims of the gas attack, as patients keep coming in.
Militants reportedly used the poisonous gas in an attack on the Assad Military Academy in the Assad Suburb in western Aleppo, as a part of a broader offensive against government positions in the city which was launched on Friday.
Victims at the hospital described the gas attack to Ruptly video agency.
“They fired at us from mortars and attacked our positions with armored vehicles. We were circled. Shells were falling like rain. They also fired some poisonous substance at us. Then we were brought here,” a man wearing army camouflage said.
“The whole world should now see what is going on in the south-western part of Aleppo where the terrorists are using the chemical weapons again,” says political analyst Bassam Abdullah. “We should know that we are in front of terrorist groups, not moderate opposition, which are not respecting international law. Every day and night they are attacking the western part of Aleppo, while at the same time, the Syrian Army with the Russians… opened aid exits for civilians from the eastern part to go outside. We know that terrorists are preventing anyone to leave the eastern part of Aleppo.”
It is not yet confirmed what gas was used in the attack, but Al Mayadeen claims that fighting near the academy continues.
The head of the political office of the Aleppo-based rebel group Fastaqim denied the report of gas being used in the attack, according to Reuters.
According to RT reporter Murad Gazdiev, who is in Aleppo, nine people were killed and 50 more injured in militant shelling on Sunday morning.
“As part of this rebel offensive in Aleppo we are also hearing that they are utilizing suicide bombers. Four apparent infiltrators blew themselves up inside Aleppo city,” Gazdiev said.
He added that 10 other similar cases are said to have occurred at the frontline with “armored personnel carriers, trucks packed with explosives blowing their way through the Syrian defenses.”
Rebels launched a major offensive against government forces in Aleppo this week, attempting to break the siege on the eastern part of the city which they now control. Rebels from various groups are taking part in the assault, including those fighting under the FSA (Free Syrian Army) banner and Islamist militants.
Last week, Russian and Syrian government forces halted strikes on the rebel-held positions in the city, hoping the initiative would lead to a long-awaited ceasefire. But according to military intelligence, militants used this period to transfer reinforcements to the area of Khan Tuman in the south and Kafr Hamra in the north of Aleppo, amounting to about 8 thousand fighters.
The Syrian government has been recently accused of using chemical weapons, including chlorine gas, in its attacks on militants. Several reports by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN’s joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) claimed that Syrian Arab Air Force helicopters used chemical weapons in a number of cases in 2014 and 2015. Moscow, however, dismissed these accusations, pointing to the lack solid proof and substantiated evidence that it was in fact the Syrian Army that conducted the attacks in question. The use of chlorine as a weapon is prohibited under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which Syria joined in 2013, after a Russian diplomatic effort. In January of that year, OPCW confirmed the destruction of all chemical weapons declared by the Syrian Arab Republic. | 1real |
Trump’s Broke, So He’s Breaking The Law To Raise Money | It s sort of unbelievable that the wealthiest person in the presidential campaign, the person who swore he would self-fund and that he d never be owned by anyone, is hitting up foreign dignitaries to boost his campaign coffers, and that s highly illegal.Several members of the British Parliament have received emails from Donald Trump, mostly sent by Donald Trump, Jr., begging for money. Here s one from Natalie McGarry, with her brilliant response, basically telling the Trump s, in very British terms, to f*** off.May be Donald Trump bought lists bizarre for grassroots campaign but how does he opt out of foreign donations? pic.twitter.com/jVwfdFnI6U Natalie McGarry MP (@NatalieMcgarry) June 27, 2016 Forgot to include @realDonaldTrump. why your son is contacting us is beyond bizarre. pic.twitter.com/QGiArA8YWD Natalie McGarry MP (@NatalieMcgarry) June 23, 2016It is bizarre.McGarry, wasn t the only MP to receive the solicitations. Stuart McDonald said he received the same. He called Trump pathetic. Dear @nytimes, could you pass a message to @realDonaldTrump for me? Please stop sending campaign begging letters to MPs. It s pathetic! Stuart McDonald MP (@Stuart_McDonald) June 27, 2016Scottish politicians complained of the same. Apparently, he s been hitting up liberals, which shows that Trump s fundraising machine is seriously flawed.It s also illegal and Trump and/or his son, could go to prison, if the Justice Department decided to pursue it. Here s what the Federal Election Commission has to say about it:The ProhibitionThe Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly. It is also unlawful to help foreign nationals violate that ban or to solicit, receive or accept contributions or donations from them. Persons who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may be subject to fines and/or imprisonment.Who is a Foreign National?The following groups and individuals are considered foreign nationals and are, therefore, subject to the prohibition: Foreign governments; Foreign political parties; Foreign corporations; Foreign associations; Foreign partnerships; Individuals with foreign citizenship; and Immigrants who do not have a green card. Hopefully, someone will pursue legal channels, but in the meantime, we can laugh at the hypocrisy that the campaign built on nationalism and xenophobia feels they have to leave the country to raise money. Is this how he plans to make America great again?Featured image via Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images | 1real |
Peru's Congress passes law to target Odebrecht's partners | LIMA (Reuters) - Peru s opposition-ruled Congress voted 55-21 late on Thursday to pass legislation that expands a raft of new financial restrictions to the local partners of scandal-plagued Brazilian builder Odebrecht. If signed by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, the law would deliver a fresh blow to Peru s biggest construction group, Grana y Montero, just as the company s shares have been climbing back from a sharp drop after partner Odebrecht admitted to a decade-long bribery scheme last year. Supporters of the bill said Odebrecht s partners might have had a hand in the graft and must be included in anti-corruption rules passed early this year that restrict the transfer of company assets abroad until civil reparations have been paid. The legislation would also seize companies ill-gotten gains made from government contracts. Grana declined to comment on the legislation. The company has repeatedly denied knowing about or being involved in Odebrecht s bribes and said last week that a 6-month internal probe it commissioned turned up no evidence of wrongdoing. Lawmakers in Kuczynski s party voted against the bill and his government will likely send it back to Congress saying it violates the presumption of innocence, a former deputy justice minister in Kuczynski s government, Edgar Carpio, told Reuters. The justice ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The bill taps growing impatience in Peru with criminal investigations related to Odebrecht that have yet to yield any convictions or broaden to target additional companies. It s been a year and nothing, opposition lawmaker Victor Andres Belaunde said. We re disappointed with the lack of courage of many who don t want to confront corruption. Right-wing opposition party Popular Force, which dominates Congress, has slammed Kuczynski s government and the attorney general s office as soft on graft. Opposition lawmakers have demanded Kuczynski face questioning in Congress about what he knew about Odebrecht s bribes when he was part of the cabinet of former president Alejandro Toledo, whom prosecutors allege took $20 million from the company in exchange for lucrative highway contracts. Grana partnered with Odebrecht on two of the highway contracts and a $5 billion natural gas pipeline project that was canceled this year as the bribery scandal unfolded. Kuczynski has denied wrongdoing and has answered lawmakers questions about his knowledge of Odebrecht in writing, but he has said he would not do so in a congressional commission because it would be a circus. | 0fake |
In Unprecedented Endorsement, Non-Partisan Humane Society Has BRUTAL Words For Trump (VIDEO) | The Humane Society of the United States pretty much never weighs into politics, unless, of course, it s about an issue that directly affects animals. This is no normal election, though, and after a series of pictures in which Donald Trump s sons gleefully show their murdered animal trophies, and after seeing Trump s potential nominees, the animal rights group had to weigh in, calling Trump a threat to animals everywhere. The next president will have an enormous impact over animal protection in this country for the next four to eight years, and the stakes are high with policy decisions overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Institutes of Health, and other executive agencies. When you consider the potential for advancing animal welfare reforms at the federal level, or rolling back the recent gains and rulemaking actions, there could not be a greater contrast among the White House hopefuls. One ticket has a clear, compelling record of support for animal protection, while the other has assembled a team of advisors and financial supporters tied in with trophy hunting, puppy mills, factory farming, horse slaughter, and other abusive industries. The names that Trump s campaign has floated for engagement on Interior and Agriculture department issues are a who s who of zealous anti-animal welfare activists.The photos of Trump s trophy hunting sons were bad enough. The pictures show the two men with their trophy kills, which include Cape buffalo, waterbuck, a leopard and even an elephant tail. African elephants and leopards are nearly extinct. The group compared the two to Walter Palmer, the dentist who shot Cecil the lion.This might just be symbolic, but Donald Jr. has been floated as possible Interior Secretary.The risk of having a globe-trotting trophy hunter at or near the helm at Interior, or having the ear of the President, should be a terrifying prospect for any animal advocate. The administration is responsible not only for policies involving hundreds of millions of acres of federal lands, but also wildlife law enforcement, international treaties on trade and conservation, and import policies for wild animal parts and trophies.They also note several other potential cabinet members, including oil tycoon Forrest Lucas, who is anti-animal welfare. For Secretary of Agriculture, Trump has mentioned pork farmer Bruce Rastetter, who is known for building the very same pig gestation crates that the state of New Jersey tried to ban and Trump surrogate Chris Christie vetoed the bill.Several other possible candidates also worry the Humane Society, but they are very favorable toward Hillary Clinton.While Trump has advocates for trophy hunting, puppy mills, factory farming, and horse slaughter on his side, Hillary Clinton has a strong record of taking a stand against many of these issues. She published an animal welfare statement on her campaign website, noting that [t]he way our society treats animals is a reflection of our humanity. Clinton highlights the humane issues she plans to tackle as President, as well as her strong record on animal protection in the U.S. Senate and as Secretary of State. She pledges to crack down on abuses such as wildlife trafficking, puppy mills, and horse slaughter, and to support a federal anti-cruelty statute and more humane treatment of farm animals.It s not just who he advocates that makes Trump so dangerous for animals, it s also what he advocates, and that is the near total elimination of regulations. One of Trump s least favorite regulatory agencies is the Food and Drug Administration, which he laughs at, because they regulate dog food. The strong implication is that Trump doesn t care about any animals, not even pets. The Humane Society is right. He is a threat to animals everywhere, even the two legged kind.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images. | 1real |
Saudi Arabia welcomes new U.S. strategy toward Iran | DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia welcomed the new U.S. policy toward Iran and said lifting sanctions had allowed Iran to develop its ballistic missile program and step up its support for militant groups, state news agency SPA reported on Friday. The kingdom said Iran took advantage of additional financial revenues to support for the Lebanese Shi’ite movement Hezbollah and the Houthi group in Yemen. | 0fake |
Trump tells Abbas intends to move embassy to Jerusalem: Abbas spokesman | JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump informed Palestinian President Mahmolud Abbas on Tuesday that he intends to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, Abbas s spokesman said. The statement did not say whether Trump elaborated on the timing of such a move. President Mahmoud Abbas received a telephone call from U.S. President Donald Trump in which he notified the President (Abbas) of his intention to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said in a statement. The statement did not say whether Trump elaborated on the timing of such a move. President Abbas warned of the dangerous consequences such a decision would have to the peace process and to the peace, security and stability of the region and of the world, Abu Rdainah said. | 0fake |
‘Girls’ Finale: Is It Just Us, or Did the Show Get Better? - The New York Times | HBO aired the final two episodes of the fifth season of “Girls” on Sunday, which found Hannah (Lena Dunham) bonding with her college classmate and frenemy Tally (Jenny Slate) Marnie (Allison Williams) trying to understand her romantic impulses toward Ray (Alex Karpovsky) Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) embracing her role as a marketer, and Jessa (Jemima Kirke) and Adam (Adam Driver) trying to make sense of their budding relationship. Amanda Hess, a staff writer, Margaret Lyons, the TV critic for Watching (the Times newsletter) and Jenna Wortham, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, discuss the entire season, and where the show might be headed in its sixth and final season. This conversation contains spoilers. JENNA WORTHAM I haven’t cried this much watching television since rewatching the second season of “Grey’s Anatomy. ” Even Hannah Horvath, who at one point felt like a monstrous caricature of a millennial, has been cracking me up this season. And the look on her face when she realized Adam and Jessa were together … whew. Everyone is growing in a way that feels so painful, and honest and real. “Girls” has suffered a little as it’s become less of a unicorn. In the last few years, there are so many new and interesting television shows and story lines about women (and by them and for them) on television, so the show hasn’t been as special or as singular since its debut in 2012. But having a little breathing room has gone a long way. I started watching this season when a few friends mentioned how good it’s gotten and I agree: The writing is stronger than ever, and episodes, especially the ones directed by Jesse Peretz, have beautifully poignant arcs. I’m so glad this isn’t the final season, that we get a few more episodes before the . How did the show get so good? What do we think changed since last season? [ You don’t like the girls in “Girls”? That’s its genius. ] MARGARET LYONS: I liked last season! I liked this season, too, though I’m in the minority because I absolutely hated “The Panic in Central Park,” where Charlie and turns out to be a heroin addict. And I did not love “Homeward Bound,” last week’s episode where Hannah dumps Fran, jumps on Ray, and eventually hitchhikes back to New York. But I wanted “Hello Kitty,” the Kitty Genovese episode, to last for nine hours I was riveted, and the closing moments, when Hannah realizes that Jessa and Adam are together, just knocked me out. I would have called it the best acting moment of the “Girls” season, but Elijah’s slow crumple as he realizes his Dill is rejecting him might best it. JW: Margaret, that scene with Elijah walking toward the window in Dill’s apartment, with the glittery New York scape spilling out below, right as “iT” by Christine and the Queens swells behind him — it slayed me. It was absolutely devastating, a sign of how much the show is pushing its characters to confront their desires — and ask themselves if the shiniest things are necessarily the best things. It wrenched my heart right open — and showed off Lena Dunham’s creation at its best. This season also really brought home how good “Girls” is at capturing the spirit of New York, and its power to transform everyone that lives here. It is so good at filling that “Sex and The City” shaped hole in my heart. AMANDA HESS: I’m feeling it, you guys. As the series had marched on, something had become unbelievable about this foursome staying glued together as a friend unit. They aligned in college or just after, but many of these relationships tend to unstick by the time women reach 30. Unlike “Sex and the City” — where the regular brunch date served as a kind of otherworldly purgatory for staging boozy debates about feminism and sex — “Girls” is not timeless. These girls change. And so it was satisfying to see them head off on their own this season — Shoshanna in Japan, Hannah at her mom’s retreat, Marnie on her lark with Charlie, even Jessa kicking around with Adam on Coney Island. And to see them hang out with new girls, too! Watching Tally and Abigail, played by Jenny Slate and Aidy Bryant, step in as emergency contacts for Hannah and Shosh was a highlight of the show for me. Also, finally giving honorary girl Elijah the romantic subplot he deserves. JW: Was it just me or does Shoshanna in Japan feel a little like when Don Draper went to California? Similar Draper dream vibes when Marnie put on the red dress … . AH: Japan has been working double time this year as the destination for white indie girls who need a life change. In “Master of None,” Dev’s girlfriend Rachel torpedoes their relationship by announcing her exit to Tokyo. (She even dyes her hair, too! ). But there was something really appropriate about seeing Shosh in Harajuku, a place that in all of its aesthetics, so perfectly reflects Shoshanna’s intense, girlie drive. I agree with her Abigail: I’d watch the Shosh and Yoshi show any day of the week. JW: Yes, we seriously need a Yoshanna spin off. Side note — Dunham’s as a salty coffee barista have been so great. ML: “Girls” really benefited from the change of scene. (I’d loop Hannah’s time in Iowa in with that, too.) I’ve never been a big Shosh person, but seeing her bob around in Tokyo gave her new context: What would Shosh be like if being “the weird one” wasn’t what defined her? She’d be more confident, maybe, and more grounded. The big question of this season, posed to each character in a different way, was: How do you know you are growing up? For Shosh, that answer was professional success her little victory dance with Colin Quinn at Ray’s coffee bar was as happy as we’ve ever seen her. For Marnie, her answer was getting married. She turned out to be wrong of course marriage is almost always a bad answer, but that doesn’t mean people don’t think it’s the answer. I think her ultimate move might be getting divorced. For Jessa, it’s being in a real — and sober — relationship. (I wish we saw more of her schooling I bet she’s an interesting classmate.) For Elijah, it’s being vulnerable. For Hannah’s dad, Tad, it’s being out. Out out. For her mom, Loreen, maybe it’s being on her own after all. So what is it for Hannah? I think she declared it for herself in her story for the Moth. It’s being free, even just for a little bit. Free of her own bad behavior: Not flashing anyone, not sneaking off to have sex at the spa, not throwing herself at — or on — Ray, not scolding her parents. Just chill. For 10 minutes. Whether any of these characters actually wants to grow up is a different story … AH: But Hannah’s behavior was so bad this season, it kind of felt like she was going to end up in a jail cell, or else in the neurologist’s office: You have 10 episodes to live. The “Basic Instinct” flash, the lesbian gymnastics, the Ray … thing — it all went beyond the edge of delicious discomfort for me, to the point where I had to fight the urge to through her scenes. (Desi’s dopey yet magnetic narcissist was more my speed — Ebon is so good at dancing right on the edge of comedy and tragedy.) The Moth bit was a refresher that Hannah can actually be quite charming in those precious moments when she chooses to reflect. And the ending, where we freeze on her leaping to action, felt like such a psychic correction from the Season 2 finale, when Adam raced to sweep Hannah off her feet to the tune of Fun — my personal “Girls” moment. What do we think Hannah is running toward in Season 6? JW: Earlier this week, I made the joke that the Lena (with Hannah) and Kanye (his bars in The Life of Pablo) are the worst things about their current creations. I hated Hannah in the first two episodes, and I warmed up to her as the season progressed. “Girls” has always excelled at illustrating the diverse taxonomy of uncomfortable youthful sexual encounters and Hannah’s encounter with the lesbian yoga teacher at the retreat was so perfect for that — plus I loved her flash scene. It was hilarious! I could not stop laughing. The nude photo shoot was as excellent, just so classic Hannah Horvath. And even though I loved Jenny Slate’s cameo, the dance scene felt a little gratuitous (but maybe I’m just holding it up to the instant classic Robyn scene from Season 1). But I let out a little whoop when she and Tally went into hysterics at seeing Jessa and Adam (whose union feels so satisfying) in the apartment hallway on their way outside. Maybe Hannah’s biggest revelation will be that the world doesn’t revolve around her, that friendships fade and that we survive. Life does go on. And isn’t that enough? It could be. The more I think about it, the more I love how grotesque Hannah has become. Jessa’s passionate speech in the episode really cut to the quick for me — maybe there’s something redemptive in the hot mess that is Hannah Horvath, even if we can’t see it yet. Maybe there won’t be a payoff. Maybe there doesn’t need to be a grand revelation. If there is, it might be inauthentic to who Hannah has been this entire time. I think I want to root for terrible, narcissistic women to take up as much space as terrible, narcissistic men. ML: I would be so sad if Hannah suddenly became an ordinary or healthy person at the end of next season. And I can’t picture that happening — that’s just not what the show has ever been about. What I liked most about Hannah’s interaction with her former nemesis Tally was her gentle realization that she didn’t have to stay friends with her friends. Like Amanda, I too feel like our main four characters wouldn’t really be a crew anymore, and while Jessa, Marnie, and Shosh have seemingly decided the direction they want their adult lives to take, Hannah hasn’t — and doesn’t seem like she wants to. She still wants to be impulsive (steal a bike!) or unreliable (I’m not going on this road trip after all! ). If her current friends don’t want to do those things anymore, well, she can find new friends. And maybe she should find new friends at this point — given that she has shared sexual partners with all of them. The final scene of Hannah running — complete with freeze frame — was not a new Hannah. She was just her giving into her “do this thing right now” reflex. Hannah doesn’t want to plan, she doesn’t want to lock things down, and she doesn’t want social responsibilities (though she wants others to be responsive to her own needs). She’s flaky, and she has no whatsoever. She didn’t even research The Moth story slam enough to know you can’t use notes! But unlike lots of other “Girls” viewers, I don’t hate Hannah. I love the character, and I want Hannah to have a life she wants. But in the last two seasons, what became clearer was that her path toward happiness wasn’t going to come from the cessation of bad behavior it was going to come from accepting it and not trying to change anymore. You want to be a demanding, inappropriate narcissist forever? Embrace it. AH I somewhat hate all of these people. (Except for maybe Shosh, who is annoying but strikes me as a fundamentally good person). One of my favorite moments of this season was when the thrift store shopgirl in “The Panic In Central Park” episode, played by the wonderful Lane Moore, openly judges Marnie’s life choices, and Marnie is too to even notice. I salute you, shopgirl! You are me, watching “Girls. ” And part of the deranged joy of Marnie’s arc has been witnessing the garbage fire that is her personality ignite her nascent music career. My biggest laugh of the season came right on the heels of Marnie’s breakup with Desi, when they got news that their indie song had been selected for a death montage on “Grey’s Anatomy” and the pair mirthfully united in the name of their shared cause: Fame. Similarly, it was fun watching Hannah get and then squander her book deal, get a gig at GQ (as a native advertiser!) and then enroll and implode at Iowa. But this season she bottomed out by teaching at a private school and squabbling with her boyfriend. This is Hannah’s nightmare scenario: Doing normal person stuff. In the next and final season of “Girls,” I’m ready for her to get back in the game. If she’s going to be a narcissistic monster, I want her to try to eat New York. | 0fake |
Venezuela frees 36 jailed opponents in Christmas gesture | CARACAS (Reuters) - Three dozen opponents of Venezuela s socialist government were released from prison and reunited with their families on Sunday as part of a wider Christmas release, a local rights group said. Lambasted by critics at home and abroad for holding around 270 activists in prison, President Nicolas Maduro s administration said on Saturday it was freeing 80 of them with alternative sentences like community service. Thirteen were paraded in front of TV cameras at a meeting with a senior official, Delcy Rodriguez. She harangued them for violence and subversion, but also wished them a happy Christmas. Alfredo Romero, whose Penal Forum group tracks the detention of activists and protesters, said 36 political prisoners had been freed by Sunday morning. But he criticized the government for not giving a blanket amnesty. They should release not just some but all of them, and not imprison any more, he said. The best-known among the released prisoners were former provincial mayor Alfredo Ramos, opposition electoral adviser Roberto Picon and a dozen policemen who worked for the opposition-run Chacao district of Caracas. I m happy to be free. I m with my family, Ramos was quoted as saying in local media. It was a tough ordeal, very difficult. It was an arbitrary detention, unjust. I didn t commit any crime. Maduro, the 55-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez, refutes the term political prisoners , saying all of the jailed activists were there on legitimate charges of plotting to overthrow his government and promoting violence. Some 170 people died during two rounds of anti-Maduro street protests in 2014 and earlier this year. Opponents say they are fighting for freedom against a dictatorship that has destroyed the OPEC nation s economy and democracy. Maduro accuses them of being part of a global right-wing plot to topple him in a coup. U.S. lawmaker Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a fierce critic of both Venezuela and Cuba s Communist government, called the pre-Christmas releases in Venezuela a hypocritical gesture. Maduro in Venezuela cynically releases 80 political prisoners who were actually innocent, parades and humiliates several on state TV ... and expects thanks for Christmas mercy , tweeted the Republican U.S. representative from Florida. What a cruel farce. Nevertheless, the releases could inject life into stuttering mediation talks between Venezuela s government and opposition due to resume in the Dominican Republic in early January. The releases concretely demonstrate the Revolution and President Nicolas Maduro s firm desire for dialogue, Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said. Let s hope the opposition knows how to interpret this and isolate its violent factors. Venezuela s best-known detained politician is Leopoldo Lopez, who remains under house arrest in Caracas, accused of spearheading violence in 2014. Though they have turned his house into a jail, I know his mind is strong and he will keep fighting tirelessly for a better Venezuela, said his mother Antonieta Lopez, lamenting he was spending a fourth Christmas detained. | 0fake |
Shots Fired at Climate Skeptic’s Office During March for Science - Breitbart | A leading skeptical scientist has reported that seven shots were fired at his workplace during the weekend’s Earth Day and March for Science events — likely as a threat and warning. [Dr Roy Spencer, meteorologist and noted climate skeptic at the University of Huntsville, Alabama, reports at his website that the shots were aimed at the office of his colleague and fellow sceptic, Dr John Christy: A total of seven shots were fired into our National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) building here at UAH over the weekend. All bullets hit the 4th floor, which is where John Christy’s office is (my office is in another part of the building). Given that this was Earth Day weekend, with a March for Science passing right past our building on Saturday afternoon, I think this is more than coincidence. When some people cannot argue facts, they resort to violence to get their way. It doesn’t matter that we don’t “deny global warming” the fact we disagree with its seriousness and the level of human involvement in warming is enough to send some radicals into a tizzy. Our street is fairly quiet, so I doubt the shots were fired during Saturday’s march here. It was probably late night Saturday or Sunday for the shooter to have a chance of being unnoticed. Maybe the “March For Science” should have been called the “March To Silence”. Campus and city police say they believe the shots were fired from a passing car, based upon the angle of entry into one of the offices. Shell casings were recovered outside. The closest distance a passing car would have been is 70 yards away. Both Spencer and Christy have long incurred the wrath of climate alarmists for the work they do debunking the junk science behind the global warming scare. What they have shown is that the “global warming” recorded by accurate satellite measurements is considerably less dramatic than that shown on the heavily adjusted earth surface temperature datasets preferred by climate alarmists. Christy has made himself especially unpopular by testifying in Congress last month that the climate establishment is corrupt and untrustworthy and that a Red Team needs to be created to correct false “Consensus Science. ” He told Congress: I’ve often stated that climate science is a “murky” science. We do not have laboratory methods of testing our hypotheses as many other sciences do. As a result what passes for science includes, opinion, dramatic press releases, and fuzzynotions of consensus generated by preselected groups. This is not science. I noticed the House passed an amendment last year to the U. N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.) We know from Climategate emails and many other sources that the IPCC has had problems with those who take different positions on climate change than what the IPCC promotes. There is another way to deal with this however. Since the IPCC activity is funded by US taxpayers, then I propose that five to ten percent of the funds be allocated to a group of scientists to produce an assessment that expresses legitimate, alternative hypotheses that have been (in their view) marginalized, misrepresented or ignored in previous IPCC reports (and thus EPA and National Climate Assessments). Such activities are often called “Red Team” reports and are widely used in government and industry. This is not, it would appear, a message that those in the Climate Change industry — sometimes known as the Climate Industrial Complex or the Green Blob — want to hear. Especially not the more extreme elements, it seems. | 0fake |
Arizona first in nation to require patients be informed of abortion-reversal option | Arizona will become the first state in the nation to require doctors to tell patients that abortions may be reversible, under a controversial bill that deals with an equally controversial method.
The highly debated abortion-reversal procedure is done to try and reverse the effects of the so-called abortion pill. It involves a woman being injected with progesterone to counteract the effects of mifepristone – a.k.a., the abortion pill.
Doctors say a patient must undergo the hormone treatment within 72 hours of taking the pill if she decides to keep her baby.
“Women who have initiated a medical abortion process and who change their minds for whatever reason should not have their babies stolen from them because Planned Parenthood or any abortionist withheld life-saving facts or withheld information,” anti-abortion advocate Dr. Allan Sawyer said in testimony before the legislature.
The relatively new procedure was pioneered by Dr. George Delgado, the medical director of California-based non-profit Culture of Life Family Services. He co-authored the first-ever medical literature detailing how progesterone could reverse an abortion in 2007.
That same year, his organization completed its first successful reversal.
“I received a call about a woman who had taken mifepristone, RUU 486, and changed her mind. She wanted help and I offered it,” he told Fox News. “Then I received calls from across the country of doctors and others seeking advice. In 2012, we established Abortion Pill Reversal and its attendant website and hotline.”
News eventually spread to Arizona Republican state Sen. Nancy Barto, who included the provision about disclosing information on abortion reversals as part of broader insurance legislation to prevent women who receive federal subsidies under Affordable Care Act exchanges from being able to buy optional abortion coverage with their plans.
Ducey signed the legislation Monday evening, but stayed mum on the abortion reversal provision, which would require doctors to inform patients about the option when they seek access to the abortion pill.
"The American people overwhelmingly oppose taxpayer funding of abortions, and it's no different in Arizona, where we have long-standing policy against subsidizing them with public dollars," Ducey said in a statement. "This legislation provides clarity to state law."
Critics of the bill have been vocal in their disappointment.
"Instead of delivering on his campaign promises to reduce the negative stigma our state has taken on because of extreme and out-of-touch politics, Gov. Ducey has put Arizona once again in the national spotlight for interfering in the medical decisions of women," Planned Parenthood of Arizona President Bryan Howard said in a statement.
Opponents also say there isn’t enough documented evidence on abortion reversals.
“We like to practice medicine that is evidenced based, and unfortunately the protocol that has been suggested for reversing a medication abortion has no evidence to support it,” Dr. Ilana Addis said in testimony against the bill.
But Delgado says his organization has a success rate of 60 percent, with 87 births since 2007 and 75 women currently still pregnant after successful reversals.
“There have been negative reactions from those who seem to have an agenda and can’t seem to imagine that a woman might change her mind after taking mifepristone … [but] many are relieved to know they have a second chance,” Delgado said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Aalia Shaheed is part of the Junior Reporter program at Fox News. Get more information on the program here and follow them on Twitter: @FNCJrReporters | 0fake |
[VIDEO] Hillary Channels Southern Drawl While Addressing Black Democrats In Alabama…Plus Throwback Video Bonus: Hillary’s Accent Evolution | Hillary, the first female, black, flat-broke southern President Of course, its not the first time Mrs. Bill Clinton channeled her husband s southern roots. Here s a great montage of Hillary s accent flip-flops:And this viral video showing Hillary s ridiculous attempt at playing to a black crowd in the South: | 1real |
Food security in Middle East, North Africa deteriorating, says U.N. agency | CAIRO (Reuters) - Food security in the Middle East and North Africa is quickly deteriorating because of conflict in several countries in the region, the United Nations said on Thursday. In those hardest hit by crises Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Sudan an average of more than a quarter of the population was undernourished, the U.N. s Food and Agriculture Organization said in its annual report on food security. A quarter of Yemen s people are on the brink of famine, several years into a proxy war between the Iran-aligned Houthis and the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi that has caused one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in recent times. The report focused on changes to food security and nutrition across the region since 2000. It said that undernourishment in countries not directly affected by conflict, such as most Gulf Arab states and most North African countries including Egypt, had slowly improved in the last decade. But it had worsened in conflict-hit countries. The costs of conflict can be seen in the measurements of food insecurity and malnutrition, the FAO s assistant director-general Abdessalam Ould Ahmed said. Decisive steps towards peace and stability (need to be) taken. Several countries in the region erupted into conflict following uprisings in 2011 that overthrew leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Syria s civil war, which also began with popular demonstrations, has killed hundreds of thousands of people and made more than 11 million homeless. | 0fake |
White House accuses media of playing down inauguration crowds | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Saturday accused the media of framing photographs to understate the crowd that attended Donald Trump’s inauguration, a new jab in a long-running fight between the new president and the news organizations who cover him. In an unusual and fiery statement on Saturday night, White House spokesman Sean Spicer lashed out about tweeted photographs that showed large, empty spaces on the National Mall during the ceremony on Friday. “This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period. Both in person and around the globe,” Spicer said in a brief statement. “These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm about the inauguration are shameful and wrong.” Washington’s city government estimated 1.8 million people attended President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, making it the largest gathering ever on the Mall. Aerial photographs showed that the crowds for Trump’s inauguration were smaller than in 2009. Spicer’s rebuke followed a larger-than-expected turnout for women’s marches protesting Trump across the United States on Saturday, including at the flagship event in Washington, where a crowd of hundreds of thousands clogged the streets and appeared to be larger than those who came for Trump’s inauguration. Spicer, who did not take questions from reporters, said spaces for 720,000 people were full when Trump took his oath. He also said the National Park Service does not put out official crowd counts. “No one had numbers.” Washington’s Metro subway system said 193,000 users had entered the system by 11 a.m. on Friday, compared with 513,000 at that time during Obama’s 2009 inauguration. On Saturday, Metro reported ridership of 275,000 at 11 a.m. as it struggled to handle the crowd converging on downtown Washington for the protest march. Trump has long used the media as a foil during his unconventional climb to the White House. On Saturday, he blamed the media for making up his feud with the CIA over its investigation into Russian hacking. Spicer also criticized a reporter who made an error in a pool report during a brief ceremony in the Oval Office on Friday. Earlier, Trump called out the reporter by name at the CIA headquarters. “There’s been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable, and I’m here to tell you it goes two ways. We’re going to hold the press accountable as well,” Spicer said. | 0fake |
LAUGHABLE! EVELYN FARKAS Blames “Russia” And “Fake News” For The Media Bashing Over Spying On Trump [Video] | Evelyn Farkas: ..dark campaign of fake news you know that s still ongoing. We see um even someone like myself get swept up in all of this you know when people like me are speaking on behalf of process, people spin it to uh suit their needs and I think maybe the Russians may be behind such fake news today. There s a total distortion about what I said I was outside of government. I had no access to intelligence on this whatsoever, but I was concerned because I knew how the Russians operate and I was reading these reports about them hacking into the elections then giving the information to Wikipedia. Evelyn Farkas now blames Russia for saying what she said & for giving surveilance intel to Wikipedia! #FridayFeeling #Tucker #Hannity pic.twitter.com/peglrZW47t Banning me is racist (@this1isno1) April 1, 2017Yes, she said Wikipedia Think she was nervous? | 1real |
Friday Mailbag: Mar-a-Lago, Assassins, Migrants and Drugs - The New York Times | This week, when The Times ran a photograph depicting an assassin standing next to the body of his victim, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, readers wrote to the public editor with questions. Some wanted to protest the photo’s publication, some simply were curious about the thinking behind the decision to run it so prominently. We took these concerns to The Times’s standards editor, Phil Corbett, and because the comments section on the resulting interview was particularly lively, we decided to highlight some of the conversation here. Many commenters stood behind The Times’s decision. Others worried that the photo’s prominence lionized the killer and would inspire similar acts. Still other commenters wondered whether the dead ambassador ought to have been included in the photo. An astute commenter immediately answered the question: The commenter also included a link to a blog post by the public editor’s predecessor on the subject, which addressed that choice, and stood by the editors’ decision. In other news, Donald Trump held an holiday party for the press at on Sunday, and a Times journalist was in attendance. Readers wrote in to object to The Times’s presence at the meeting. Elisabeth Bumiller, the Washington bureau chief, discussed The Times’s attendance at the gala with Erik Wemple of The Washington Post earlier this week. “Our policy on with presidents and is to push long and hard to do things on record,” she said. “With journalists, you need some insight into the ’s thinking. We have found in the past that this has helped us with Obama,” and she said sessions gave The Times “thought and direction to pursue stories afterward. ” The public editor’s take: This is a case where I believe The Times was right in agreeing to the meeting. Such sessions with the president are somewhat infrequent but common through the history of White House reporting. They offer a chance for the media to get to know the president they cover a little better, without sacrificing that much. After all, it isn’t that often that some information of great public import is revealed at these sessions. That said, pressing for sessions is always the preferred route. After the terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin on Monday, a reader wrote in concerned about The Times’s use of the word “migrant” rather than “refugee. ” We asked Corbett whether there have been internal discussions around these terms. “The International desk has indeed wrestled with this question, which is complicated and sensitive,” he said. “Migrants is the broader term, including both refugees and others. ” Joe Kahn, the current managing editor and former international editor, also addressed this question in a blog post the public editor’s predecessor wrote last year. “While imperfect, it is accurate to refer to both migrants and refugees as ‘migrants,’ because they all belong to the class of people moving from one place to another,” he said. “It is not accurate to refer to all migrants as refugees, however, as refugees have a special status under international law that does not apply to all migrants. ” Another reader noticed an issue with a story about a nightclub in T, The New York Times Style Magazine. The reader, Danny Cohen of Los Angeles, put it bluntly: “How could you not mention the problems with Tenants of the Trees?” He linked to a story that reported that multiple men and women claim to have been drugged at the nightclub earlier this year. The public editor’s take: I’m with the reader on this one. Seems like a shadow hanging over the place that the readers should have been told about. Happy holidays to our loyal readers. The public editor’s office will be shuttered next week as we take a quick breather. See you in the new year. | 0fake |
THE FRENCH FLEUR DE LIS OF NEW ORLEANS JOINS THE LIST OF “RACIST” SYMBOLS | Wow! The list just keeps getting longer and longer! We can all find something to be offended by but should we ban all those things? I doubt anyone really gives any consideration to the history of the flour de lis as it is used in many different ways. Our history is just that so let it be and move forward already!The fleur de lis, a French symbol used by royal families dating back to the 13th century, and emblazoned on the New Orleans Saints helmet, is now being called a symbol of slavery, drawing comparisons to the recent uproar against the Confederate battle flag. As an African I find it painful, and I think people whose ancestors were enslaved here may feel it even harder than I do as an African, said slave historian Dr. Ibrahima Seck to WWLTV.He connects the usage of the fleur de lis, to code noir, or black code, which was adopted in Louisiana in 1724, and used to govern the state s slave population.Seck said a slave caught running away, would be taken before a court and the sentence would be being branded on one shoulder and with the fleur de lis, and then they would crop their ears. Seck isn t alone. Tulane history professor Terence Fitzmorris said, It was a brutal way of scarring someone and also identifying someone as a particular troublemaker. The symbol is also used currently in the coat of arms for the King of Spain. Via: The Daily Caller | 1real |
OBAMA FIGHTS TO KEEP RADICAL AGENDA ALIVE: Asks Crooked AG Loretta Lynch To Find Way To Challenge Supreme Court Decision That Blocked His Executive Order Amnesty Scheme | This is a good reminder of how important it is to prevent Obama from anointing another radical on the Supreme Court. It might also be a good time for every American to call their representatives in Washington. Keeping another radical Obama appointee off our Supreme Court could literally be the only thing standing between a free America and one that looks more like Venezuela. This is also a reminder for anyone in the Republican party who considers themselves part of the never Trump movement. The Democrat party has never been more serious about, or closer to, fundamentally changing America forever The Obama administration is looking into whether it can challenge the Supreme Court s decision to block President Barack Obama s plan to spare millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Tuesday. We will be reviewing the case and seeing what, if anything else, we need to do in court, Lynch told Reuters in an interview.Lynch did not say what legal options the Obama administration may pursue following a split decision by the Supreme Court justices last week that left in place a block on the executive action by a lower court.She said any future executive actions Obama may take on immigration would be left to the White House.In a wideranging interview on topics from gun control to the effect of the planned exit of Britain from the European Union, Lynch identified espionage from foreign nationals on U.S. companies as a tremendous problem. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has reported a 53 percent increase in cases of economic espionage between 2014 and 2015 and the majority of cases involve Chinese nationals as culprits.Most recently, Xu Jiaqiang, 30, was charged with economic espionage and theft of trade secrets, for stealing software source code from his U.S. employer with the intent of benefiting the Chinese government. It is a matter of priority for us, Lynch said. When companies or industries are preyed upon by others, be they individuals, be they state actors who literally steal the fruit of their intellectual labors, essentially they are stealing from future generations also. Via: Yahoo News | 1real |
Brexit Ruling Just Latest Tactic to Block Will of the People | Brexit Ruling Just Latest Tactic to Block Will of the People November 3, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
After the referendum made Brexit possible, I warned that the establishment would do everything possible to stop it. That should not come as a surprise to anyone. Brexit was very much a popular rebellion whose centers were well outside the centers of power. The establishment is culturally and politically hostile to it. And one of the most basic ways that the system has of sabotaging policies it doesn't like is to swamp them in procedural red tape and as much politicking as possible so as to make them unviable. Doing that to a Brexit is trickier, but it's still happening. The same old game plan is to just bog it down as much as possible until its motive energy runs down. It's worked in the past. It may not work this time. But that won't stop them from trying.
Rerun Brexit through Parliament and maximize the wrangling. The Court's ruling is certain to do that. Keep it going through the grinder long enough and maybe it'll go away. | 1real |
CONSERVATIVE Has Message For “DREAMERS” Screaming “He’s not my President!” and It’s HILARIOUS! | Remember when illegal aliens, students, and residents of Berkeley took to the streets to march in solidarity, and publicly affirm that President Donald Trump is Not my President! ? It s really not surprising to see ILLEGAL ALIENS boldly chanting He s not my President! after our former president promised them unconstitutional citizenship rights. Should anyone really take an illegal alien seriously who shouts that President Trump is not my President, when in fact, their president is actually in another country? But then again, what difference does law and order make to students and non-citizens who are used to living under a president, like Barack Obama who openly defied both?Conservative Twitter user Brooks Brown hit the nail on the head with his tweet to Dreamers standing on our soil belching that Trump s NOT MY PRESIDENT' by reminding them that their dreams have gladly come true. https://t.co/9ZLjdyRFSEAll you "Dreamers" standing on our soil belching that Trump's "NOT MY PRESIDENT" your dreams have gladly come true! brooks brown (@bbusa617) September 5, 2017The photo Brown used in his tweet was taken from a video that was filmed during the 2016 campaign season. A group of illegal aliens gathered together to protest Trump on a corner in advance of his arrival at a campaign event in Arizona. | 1real |
White House to make decision on 9/11 report by June: Bob Graham | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House will likely make a decision by June on whether it will release some classified material withheld from the public 9/11 Commission Report, a former U.S. senator who co-chaired the congressional inquiry into the attacks said on Sunday. The withheld section of the official report on the 2001 attacks is central to a dispute over whether Americans should be able to sue the Saudi Arabian government for damages. The Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence is reviewing the material to see whether it can be declassified. Former Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, has been pressing for the release of the information and said that it may shed light on the financial backers for 19 hijackers who killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept 11, 2001. Graham told NBC’s Meet the Press that he believed that some of the withheld classified material could soon be released. “The president’s staff at least has said that they will make a decision by June, and I hope that decision is to honor the American people and make it available,” Graham said. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said last week that he also supported releasing the material. “The release of these pages will not end debate over the issue, but it will quiet rumors over their contents,” Representative Adam Schiff said in a statement. “As is often the case, the reality is less damaging than the uncertainty.” | 0fake |
Highlights: The Trump presidency on April 21 at 6:12 p.m. EDT/2212 GMT | (Reuters) - Highlights for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday: Trump promises a big announcement about tax reform next week and orders an administration review of Obama-era tax rules written to discourage U.S. companies from relocating overseas to cut their tax bills. Trump tells the Treasury Department to examine two powers given to regulators to police large financial companies following the 2008 financial crisis. South Korea says it is on heightened alert ahead of another important anniversary in North Korea, with a large concentration of military hardware amassed on both sides of the border amid concerns about a new nuclear test by Pyongyang. Trump, striving to make good on a top campaign promise, is pushing fellow Republicans who control Congress to pass revamped healthcare legislation but the same intraparty squabbling that torpedoed it last month could do it again. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says Syria has dispersed its warplanes in recent days and that it retains chemical weapons, an issue he says will have to be taken up diplomatically. The Department of Justice threatens to cut off funding to California as well as eight cities and counties across the United States, escalating a Trump administration crackdown on so-called “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The United States will not make an exception for American companies, including oil major Exxon Mobil Corp, seeking to drill in areas prohibited by U.S. sanctions on Russia, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says. Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress face their first major budget test next week, with the threat of a government shutdown potentially hinging on his proposed Mexican border wall as well as Obamacare funding. The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee says it has invited FBI, National Security Agency and Obama administration officials to testify as it restarts its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres meets with Trump at the White House for the first time since both took office earlier this year and amid a U.S. push to cut funding to the world body and its agencies. The United States has offered to help fund Mexico’s efforts to eradicate opium poppies, a U.S. official says, as Mexican heroin output increased again last year. | 0fake |
PELOSI Lied About “Affordable” Healthcare And Now Threatens Republican “Cowards” For Ditching It: “You break it, you own it” [Video] | Via: WT | 1real |
NOT SO “Funny Guys” Carl Reiner And “Meathead” Son “Feel Sorry For Obama” After “Racist” Americans Elected President Trump [VIDEO] | As father and son comedy writers and liberal activists Carl Reiner and Rob Reiner appeared as guests on Friday s Tavis Smiley Show on PBS, the two lamented that former President Barack Obama whom Carl called the smartest President we ve had since way back was replaced by President Donald Trump whom Rob derided as clearly mentally unstable. A bit later, Rob Reiner blamed racism that was unleashed after Obama s election for the Republican-controlled Senate blocking him from appointing Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, as he seemed to tie in birtherism and declared that all of that is about delegitimizing an African-American person and everything that s followed from that. Carl fretted: He s working very hard now to take away everything from poor people so that rich people can get a tax break. Smiley, who last week likened possible ObamaCare repeal to a drive-by shooting, agreed, Oh, yeah. And to go from having the smartest President we ve had since way back, to this guy, is like, it s crazy. It s nuts. I mean, I feel so sorry for Obama. I can t believe how he must feel today. MRCTV | 1real |
CNN’s Zeleny: Press Isn’t ’Going to Shut Up,’ But Bannon Is ’Absolutely Right’ That ’We Should Listen More’ - Breitbart | On Friday’s broadcast of PBS’ “Washington Week,” CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jeff Zeleny stated, “we’re not going to shut up, obviously. But I think we should listen more to what America’s doing. Zeleny said, “Steve Bannon said the media should shut up, but he also said in that same sentence they should listen more. And I think he’s absolutely right about that. I think we should listen more. We didn’t necessarily see this election coming. So the shut up thing, OK, we’re not going to shut up, obviously. But I think we should listen more to what America’s doing. But they should too listen more to what their voters are saying and, you know, if he’s going to be able to sort of, keep them motivated and alive. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 0fake |
Soul-searching at France's FN: far-right party polls activists | NANTERRE, France (Reuters) - Who are you and what do you want? Seeking to rebrand itself and bounce back from electoral defeat, France s far-right National Front on Tuesday sent a questionnaire to party members asking them whether it should change its name and policies. Six months after party leader Marine Le Pen suffered a crushing defeat against centrist Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election run-off, the poll is part of the 45-year-old National Front s (FN) efforts to relaunch itself. We need to ask ourselves why we didn t win the presidential election and how we can improve our political offer, said FN lawmaker Sebastien Chenu. We want to win elections, we owe it to our members. The FN s 81,000 cardholders - which includes those up to a year late on party dues - are asked to say what type of job they have and where they get their news from. More crucially, they are asked if they want to ditch the euro and hold a referendum on France s membership of the European Union and if they think the party should focus less on immigration. Opposition to the euro and immigration have long been at the heart of the party s policies, but in the six months since her defeat, Le Pen has progressively watered down her anti-EU stance, which is unpopular and widely considered to be one of the reasons why the FN does not win major elections. Party officials will use the results of the questionnaire to help prepare a party congress to be held in mid-March. Members are also asked if they want to change the party s name. While the FN is a well-known brand throughout France, it is largely associated with Le Pen s father Jean-Marie, the party founder, who was several times convicted for incitement to racial hatred. While the FN got more votes than ever in the presidential election, the lower-than-expected second round score as well as the parliamentary election that followed were a huge disappointment for the party and its cardholders. Opinion polls over the past months have shown Le Pen s popularity has taken a hit even among party members and it is the far-left France Insoumise (France Unbowed), not the FN, that voters see as Macron s strongest opponent. Le Pen said the party needed to learn from its errors and rebrand itself. Her willingness to water down her opposition to the euro lead to the eviction of Florian Philippot, who had been her closest aide since she took over the party in 2011 and an architect of her policy plans. | 0fake |
Ann Coulter: Rome Burns - Nero Worries About Pyrophobia | The latest Muslim terrorist attack ripped apart little girls at a concert in Manchester, England, on Monday, killing 22. The death and count is still rising. [This is not a game. When young British girls are the targets of a suicide bombing, can we take a short break from the posturing, political correctness and Russia conspiracy theorizing? Won’t the hatred of Trump keep for a few weeks? on Monday night was like watching broadcasts from different countries. While Fox News and CNN covered the terrorist attack, MSNBC concentrated on the real news of the night — TRUMP’S COLLUSION WITH RUSSIA — as children screamed in the background in footage from Manchester. It was a big enough step for MSNBC to stop claiming that the “explosion” was just popping balloons. The hosts reasoned, We know that Islam is a religion of peace, so what else could it be? CBS and NBC News finally produced the name of the suicide bomber — the next day. (After any terrorist attack, the media like to keep us in suspense for as long as possible about whether it was a Muslim or a Christian.) Even then, the answer was difficult to find on either network’s Twitter feeds, which were bristling with updates on former CIA Director John Brennan’s congressional testimony about Russia and Trump: Yes, collusion was investigated. No, Brennan is not aware of any evidence to support the theory. BREAKING NEWS! The media didn’t gaudily broadcast the bomber’s name, religion or ethnicity in their headlines, but at least they finally coughed up the information. He was Salman Abedi, son of Libyan “refugees. ” Apparently, the media think you can’t be trusted with that information. You might notice that the West is deliberately importing people who enjoy killing kids. According to ABC News, the bomber’s father, Ramadan Abedi (not to be confused with Huma Abedin) was a member of an Islamic group in Libya. For this, he was accepted as a “refugee” by the British government. Liberals’ main reaction to the attack was not to demand the toppling of the British government, but to worry about an upsurge in Islamophobia. They say there’s nothing we can do about terrorism and we probably shouldn’t do anything anyway, because we deserve it. These were teen and preteen girls! Is there any fuel left in the gas tank of humanity, or are we just running on fumes now? While liberals are impatient to get back to their murderous immigration policies, conservatives are pining for war. And really, who wouldn’t want to send ground troops to Syria after our tremendous successes in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why do we need to fight ISIS in Syria again? I forget. How about we NOT send U. S. troops to some godforsaken nation of primitives? My reasoning is: It will cost us trillions of dollars we will sacrifice the lives of an untold number of our best young men in combat (and little girls — thanks, liberals!) and we will accomplish absolutely nothing, apart from creating a new stream of “refugees” and making the primitives even angrier with us, if that’s possible. Historically, starting wars in the Third World has not proved salutary. Trump was elected for one reason: Because he promised to put Americans’ interests first. If only he’d stuck to his campaign promises, he’d be a hero right now. The one promise Trump has kept is the “Muslim ban” — and he’s looking prophetic on that. The Ninth Circuit was probably just about to release its opinion affirming a Hawaii judge’s revocation of Trump’s travel ban, but after Manchester, they’ll have to sit on it for a few weeks. Wouldn’t you rather be defending Trump for imposing a travel ban, building a wall and deporting “Dreamers,” than for idiotic leaks about nothing? If Trump started removing undesirable foreigners, liberals would rush back to the airports, en masse, and forget all about Russia. The most humane response to terrorist attacks in the West is to kill a bunch of them for revenge, and then concentrate on our own problems. Instead of sending ground troops to Syria, we should be sending them to San Diego. Our policy following every Islamic terrorist attack anyplace in the West should be the following: 1) We drop a nuke on some city involved in terrorism. 2) We add six months to the immigration moratorium (which Trump promised us in his Aug. 16, 2015, immigration policy paper, the greatest political document since the Magna Carta). 3) We deport one Ninth Circuit judge. Since Trump, politics has become a game to liberals. The media is a game. Hollywood is a game. Islamic terrorists are killing little girls in England. This isn’t a game. | 0fake |
Venezuela doctors in protest urge stronger WHO stance on health crisis | CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela s doctors, fed up with what they called the World Health Organization s passive attitude toward the country s deep medical crisis, protested at the agency s Caracas office on Monday to demand more pressure on the government and additional assistance. Venezuela is suffering from a roughly 85 percent shortage of medicines, decrepit hospital infrastructure, and an exodus of doctors during a brutal recession. Once-controlled diseases like diphtheria and measles have returned due in part to insufficient vaccines and antibiotics, while Venezuelans suffering chronic illnesses like cancer or diabetes often have to forgo treatment. Malnutrition is also rising, doctors say. Rare government data published in May showed maternal mortality shot up 65 percent while malaria cases jumped 76 percent. The former health minister was fired shortly after the bulletin s publication, and it has not been issued since. In the latest protest by an umbrella group of health associations, dozens of doctors and activists gathered at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the WHO s regional office, urging the agency step up pressure on Nicolas Maduro s leftist government and provide more aid during its 29th Pan American Sanitary Conference this week. There s been a complicit attitude because they haven t denounced things, Dr. Rafael Muci said during the rally. This is an unlivable country, and no one is paying attention, he said, adding he earns about $8 a month at a state hospital. In a statement on Monday, PAHO stressed its main role was to provide technical cooperation and highlighted recent help in providing vaccines. The Venezuelan government, which accuses activists of whipping up panic and the business elite of hiding medicines, did not respond to a request for comment. Venezuelans seeking certain drugs often have to scour pharmacies, seek foreign donations or turn to social media. Sociologist Maria Angelica Casanova, 51, has struggled to find psychiatric medicines for a year. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don t. It s serious, she said, as passers-by shouted Down with Maduro! Measles, which were controlled after a mass immunization in the 1990s, has returned to Venezuela s jungle state of Bolivar, PAHO data show. As the crisis stokes emigration, Venezuela s health problems could be exported, doctors warned. We don t know how many people who are emigrating could have some of these pathogens in incubation period, said Andres Barreto, an epidemiologist who had participated in the measles vaccination drive. | 0fake |
Donald Trump Retweets One Of His Fans, A ‘WhiteGenocide’ Neo-Nazi Account (IMAGES) | Donald Trump woke up this morning, sleepily grabbed his phone off his nightstand, saw one of his supporters had tweeted an anti-Jeb Bush picture at him, and hit Retweet. Unfortunately, that supporter happened to be a racist neo-Nazi with the account name WhiteGenocideTM. Seriously.The love for Trump from racist xenophobes is startling, but not exactly surprising. Trump s current presidential run quite literally started with a racist screed against Mexicans, and has been sustained by a torrent of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant smears. His rallies regularly feature his supporters beating people of color who come to protest his ugly rhetoric.You can almost feel the sense of excitement in the racist, Nazi-loving dark corners of the country: Finally, a candidate for us! And even better if you happen to be a toxic racist Trump won t hesitate to give you free publicity if you just tweet something to stoke his ego.It would have taken all of two seconds for Trump to realize that the man he was tweeting was a despicable monster. If the WhiteGenocide name based on the racist belief that white people are being systematically edged out of American society by minorities didn t give it away, the account s biographical details should have.Even worse, just scrolling through the account s tweets shows a pattern of racist filth. Some of it advocates for the deaths of political figures, particularly those on the left. Last week, for instance, he tweeted a picture of Trump in a Nazi uniform with Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders inside a gas chamber.As of this writing, and more than an hour after he retweeted this scumbag, Trump still has the tweet up, including a link to WhiteGenocideTM s account, giving him more exposure.Donald Trump has surged in the Republican polls, with even many of what we consider mainstream conservatives applauding his appalling comments. At the root of his support, however, is a thriving neo-Nazi and white supremacy contingent that believe Trump might be the leader they were looking for. Just hinting at racist ideology wasn t enough for them, they like a guy who will openly admit to it and never apologize.Certainly Trump will eventually excuse the tweet and, likely, blame a young intern for the mistake. We shouldn t let him get off the hook that easily. This is a pattern of disgraceful behavior that puts real lives at jeopardy. It is extremely telling that the most toxic, violent people in society are cozying up to Trump. Clearly, what he s saying is right up their alley. Trump may try to excuse his behavior, but his actions and followers speak louder than his words ever will.Featured image via Twitter | 1real |
Hillary Clinton’s Anti-Israel E-mails Raise Questions About Influence On Foreign Policy | Hillary Clinton s new e-mail release exposes her relationship to some very anti-Israel people. Sydney Blumenthal is a very close friend of the Clintons and exchanges quite a few e-mails with Clinton that are disturbing. Did he have much influence of foreign policy and the inner workings of the State Department. While Clinton claims Blumenthal was a minor character, the e-mails reveal a different story entirely:As Hillary Clinton s email scandals goes nuclear with more and more classified material coming to light (including some described as explosive ), one disturbing trend is coming to light: Hillary s deep contempt for the state of Israel in general, and Prime Minister Netanyahu in particular.When the State Department released more than 5000 pages of Clinton s emails from her private server on New Year s Eve, it included correspondence with her one-time advisor Sidney Blumenthal. The communications revealed an exchange regarding Israel, and Blumenthal cited the work of his son, journalist Max Blumenthal, a self-described anti-Zionist known for his radical anti-Israel views.According to the Times of Israel, In March 2010, Blumenthal plugged his son s work this time, playing up links between evangelical Pastor John Hagee and Netanyahu in the context of an article (written by a different writer) discussing a controversial Pentagon briefing on U.S. relations with Israel and the Arab world. The briefing had dealt with the lack of progress in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and American concerns over a growing perception among Arab leaders that the US was incapable of standing up to Israel. The senior Blumenthal sent several articles written by his son and referenced the younger man s plans to move to Israel for several months to write a book. He tracks a lot of things that do not appear in the mainstream press, he wrote to Hillary.Just in time for the 2016 election, hear Hillary Clinton say she would NOT run for president, in Hillary Unhinged by Thomas KuiperHillary then took the articles in question and instructed a staffer to print five copies without the heading from Sid. She noted the articles came from Max Blumenthal s book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, a widely criticized and rabidly anti-Semitic volume that castigated Israeli policies. The Nation s media editor Eric Alterman referred to it as the I Hate Israel handbook and wrote Blumenthal s case against the Jewish state is so carelessly constructed, it will likely alienate anyone but the most fanatical anti-Zionist extremists, and hence do nothing to advance the interests of the occupation s victims. According to the Times of Israel, Blumenthal also sent Clinton a piece by leftist Israeli Uri Avnery, who also analyzed the Pentagon briefing by leveling a damning critique against Netanyahu. Clinton asked Blumenthal, in response, how she should use this material in an upcoming talk she was supposed to have with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Blumenthal speculated on Netanyahu s psychological makeup by suggesting his actions were motivated by a desperate attempt to live up to his father s expectations.In an email sent immediately after the May 2010 Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound Turkish ship Mavi Maramara in which nine activists were killed, Blumenthal referred to the operation as Bibi s Entebbe in reverse. Noting that Netanyahu s brother Yoni was heroically killed in the 1976 hostage rescue mission, he said the brothers father Benzion adored Yoni, while the younger Benjamin has always lived in his brother s shadow. Bibi desperately seeks his father s approbation and can never equal his dead brother (he) has never measured up, Blumenthal suggested.The senior Blumenthal continued to push his son s anti-Israel views on Hillary. As noted by the Times of Israel, In 2012, Blumenthal sent his son s article in al-Akhbar, The Bibi Connection, to Clinton, who then relayed it onward. The article emphasized Netanyahu s intent to campaign against Obama s reelection in 2012, arguing that Netanyahu s shadow campaign is intended to be a factor in defeating Obama and electing a Republican in his place. The article reflected upon Netanyahu s ties to prominent Republicans such as Newt Gingrich, as well as the prime minister s right-wing pedigree. It noted that when his father, Benzion Netanyahu, returned to Israel to launch a political career, the elder Netanyahu was rejected by Menachem Begin, the (then-)Likud Party leader, who, as right wing as he was, considered him dangerously extreme. Hillary offered a terse response on some of Sidney Blumenthal s policy suggestions regarding Israel, upon which he backed off. However, Blumenthal could not keep Netanyahu out of his semi-retraction, hinting at missed peace opportunities by the Israeli leader: Of course, if Bibi were to have engaged Syria in negotiations taking its previous gestures seriously he wrote, before changing the subject without concluding the hypothetical. The email dump revealed Blumenthal was not the only one commenting on Middle East policy. Foreign-policy analyst Anne-Marie Slaughter, formerly the State Department s director of policy planning, wrote to Clinton the time was right for the U.S. to recognize Palestine during the emerging of the Arab Spring. It would allow you and POTUS to have accomplished the goal POTUS laid out at UNGA last year and would make it much harder for Syrians, Iranians, even Saudis to use this issue to divert domestic opposition, strengthening the seismic shift across the region to create fault-lines around reform/no reform instead of Arabs/US-Israel, wrote Slaughter.The Times of Israel notes, The emails also indicate the existence of a lengthy correspondence over attempts to reconcile Israel and Turkey following the events of the 2010 Gaza flotilla, but the emails are so heavily redacted as to expunge any clue as to what was actually discussed. Another series details attempts in 2010 to broker direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with significant input from the parties involved in the Arab Peace Initiative. Learn more about the Hillary Clinton Investigative Justice Project, conceived by two veteran investigative journalists who plan to take their findings to state attorneys general in jurisdictions in which the nonprofit, tax-exempt Clinton Family Foundation does businessClinton s hostility toward Israel is well documented.Read more: wnd | 1real |
Clinton names Obama veterans to White House transition team | WEST HARRISON, N.Y. (Reuters) - Looking to lay the groundwork for her presidency if she wins the White House in November, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton named several veterans of President Barack Obama’s administration for her transition team on Tuesday. Ken Salazar, a former interior secretary and U.S. Senator from Colorado, will lead a team of four co-chairs including one-time national security adviser Tom Donilon and Neera Tanden, a former Obama aide who now leads the progressive Center for American Progress think-tank, the Clinton campaign said. The other co-chairs are former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Maggie Williams, director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics, the campaign said in a statement. The announcement came as Clinton has gained momentum in the opinion polls against Republican rival Donald Trump, whose campaign has struggled after he made a string of controversial remarks since formally winning his party’s nomination last month. Clinton leads Trump in the Nov. 8 presidential election by more than 5 percentage points in a Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll released on Friday. The current RealClearPolitics average of polls shows her 6.7 points ahead. Clinton has been a former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady and her transition team includes old names from her long tenure in Washington, some of whom have also served Obama. Tanden, who played a key role in shaping Obama’s health care overhaul, is a longtime friend and adviser to Clinton who worked on her Senate campaign. Williams was the 1992 transition director for Clinton when she became first lady, and then her chief of staff in the White House when Bill Clinton was president. Two policy advisers on the campaign, Ed Meier and Ann O’Leary, will also move full time to the transition team. Heather Boushey, the executive director of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, will be the chief economist, the campaign said in a statement. Boushey has advised the campaign on economic policy. Transition teams oversee personnel appointments and help develop an administrative framework during the period between the November election and the inauguration in January, to make it easier for a new president to begin implementing policy agendas. Trump, a New York businessman who has never held elected office, picked New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to head his own transition team in May. More establishment Republicans, alarmed by Trump’s inability or unwillingness to rein in his provocative remarks, have distanced themselves from the candidate in recent weeks. The Wall Street Journal, a leading conservative voice, said in an editorial on Monday that he should fix his campaign in the next three weeks or hand over to his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Trump drew heavy criticism after engaging in a prolonged spat with the parents of a Muslim U.S. Army captain killed in Iraq. Last week, he suggested gun rights activists could take action against Clinton, a statement critics found alarming but which he later said was aimed at rallying votes against her. Trump also called Obama and Clinton the “co-founders” of Islamic State, a false claim he later said was sarcastic but did not wholly abandon. Despite Clinton’s lead in polls, Obama warned Democrats against over confidence, telling a fundraising gathering on Monday in Massachusetts, “If we are not running scared until the day after the election, we are going to be making a grave mistake.” | 0fake |
Fires destroy more villages in Myanmar's Rohingya region: sources | YANGON (Reuters) - Several more villages were burned down on Saturday in a part of northwest Myanmar where many Rohingya Muslims had been sheltering from violence sweeping the area, two sources monitoring the situation said. The fires, which started on Friday when up to eight villages went up in flames in the ethnically mixed Rathedaung region, have increased concerns that more minority Rohingya will flee to neighboring Bangladesh. Blazes started on Saturday engulfed as many as four more settlements in Rathedaung, likely destroying all the Muslim villages in the area, the sources said. Slowly, one after another villages are being burnt down - I believe that Rohingyas are already wiped out completely from Rathedaung, said Chris Lewa of the Rohingya monitoring group, the Arakan Project. There were 11 Muslim villages (in Rathedaung) and after the past two days all appear to be destroyed. It was unclear who set fire to the villages, located in a part of northwest Myanmar far from where Rohingya insurgents attacked 30 police posts and an army base last month, triggering an army counter-offensive in which at least 400 people have been killed. Independent journalists are not allowed into the area, where Myanmar says its security forces are carrying out clearance operations to defend against extremist terrorists . Human rights monitors and fleeing Rohingya say the army and ethnic Rakhine vigilantes have unleashed a campaign of arson aimed at driving out the Muslim population. Some 290,000 people have fled across the Bangladeshi border in less than two weeks, causing a humanitarian crisis. Rathedaung is the furthest Rohingya-inhabited area from the border with Bangladesh and aid workers are concerned that a large number of people were trapped there. The sources said that among the torched villages was the hamlet of Tha Pyay Taw. They were also concerned about the village of Chin Ywa, where many people sheltering from other burnings in the area had been hiding and two other settlements. On Friday, the villages of Ah Htet Nan Yar and Auk Nan Yar, some 65 km (40 miles) north of Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state, were also burned along with four to six other settlements. One source, who has a network of informers in the area, said 300 to 400 Rohingya who had been hiding at Ah Htet Nan Yar were now in the forest or attempting a perilous, days-long journey by foot in the monsoon rain toward the River Naf separating Myanmar and Bangladesh. Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Thursday her government was doing its best to protect everyone, but she has drawn criticism for failing to speak out about the violence and the Muslim minority, including calls to revoke her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. The country s Rohingya Muslims have long complained of persecution and are seen by many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar as illegal migrants from Bangladesh. | 0fake |
WATCH: Trump Admits America Will Pay For His Dumb $25 Billion Wall | Donald Trump just broke his biggest promise to his supporters in a BIGLY way.During his speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on Saturday, the Republican nominee listed some of the things he plans to do in his first 100 days in office if he is elected to the presidency on November 8th.One of those things is a draconian anti-immigration policy that includes deporting millions of immigrants, whom Trump called criminals and killers, back to Mexico. He also said he would cut off funding to cities that give immigrants sanctuary.But his main point, as usual, was all about his damn wall along the Mexican border.Trump has repeatedly declared that Mexico will pay for this massive structure, which experts estimate will cost up to $25 billion.But during his speech, Trump changed his tune in a way that suggests America will actually be picking up the tab and merely hoping that Mexico will reimburse us for the cost. The End Illegal Immigration act fully funds the construction of a wall on our southern border, Trump said. Don t worry about it. Remember I said that Mexico is paying for the wall. However, he then added this remark. With the full understanding that the country of Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such a wall, okay? Here s the video via YouTube. Trump s remarks on the wall are at the 32:46 mark.In other words, America will be paying for Trump s wall if he becomes president, NOT Mexico.Because in order for there to even be a need for Mexico to reimburse us, it means America would have to pay for the wall first. And that means American taxpayers would be on the hook.But just like his insistence that Mexico will pay for the wall outright, Trump has no way of forcing Mexico to reimburse us either. So Trump just promised to INCREASE the national debt by billions of dollars within his first 100 days.In short, the central promise Trump made to his supporters has just gone up entirely in smoke.The question is are Trump s supporters too dumb to notice that their hero just admitted that he has been lying to them this whole time? Probably not.Featured Image: Screenshot | 1real |
Poll: 56 Percent of Democrats Want All of Trump’s Nominees Blocked - Breitbart | A majority of Democrats and liberal voters want Democrats in Congress to block every nominee and bill from the Trump administration, a Morning Consult poll released Wednesday finds. [Building off the Democrats’ vows of “resistance,” pollsters asked: “Democrats in Congress should stick to their principles when it comes to working with President Trump, even if that means blocking all legislation or nominees for government posts?” percent said Democrats in Congress should block all of Trump’s nominees and bills, while 34 percent said they should find a way to work with the administration and get things done. Similarly, 62 percent of liberals said Democrats should obstruct Trump by any means necessary. A majority of independent voters, 59 percent, said Democrats in Congress should work with Trump. So did 82 percent of Republicans. Another 57 percent of moderates agreed. “The survey — conducted Feb. 2 through Feb. 4 — is instructive, as Trump and Republicans begin to plot their legislative plans on everything from repealing and replacing Obamacare to tax reform. Democrats, in the minority in both chambers, are being squeezed by their base to stop Trump’s agenda in its tracks, even if they lack the power to do so,” Politico reports. Democrats hold 46 seats in the Senate while two independent senators caucus with them, so they’re powerless to stop the confirmation of Trump’s nominees unless Republicans break rank to join them. Pollsters questioned 2, 070 registered voters from Feb. 2 to Feb. 4, with a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points. | 0fake |
‘Long and Genuine’ Hugs: Shooting Victims’ Relatives Recall Obama’s Empathy - The New York Times | ORLANDO, Fla. — It was a wrenching ritual that has become all too familiar for President Obama. One by one on Thursday, inside an arena in downtown Orlando where friends and relatives of the victims of the nation’s deadliest mass shooting had congregated, Mr. Obama embraced mourners sick with loss. He told them that the nation stood with them and that his own heart was broken, offering words of comfort for a tragedy that he confessed he could not fathom. “Their grief is beyond description,” Mr. Obama said after a meeting with the mourners. “Through their pain and through their tears, they told us about the joy that their loved ones had brought to their lives. ” Behind closed doors, Mr. Obama told the grieving that it was the 15th time during his tenure that he had had to offer these sorts of condolences after a shooting, according to those who attended. “There were times when he choked up,” said Angelica Jones, a performer at the Pulse nightclub, where a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 on Sunday. “And it’s a hard thing to do when you’ve got mothers crying out. He was up to it. ” Mr. Obama has had plenty of practice for this particularly grim task. The settings vary, but the pattern is chillingly constant. Mr. Obama’s armored limousine deposits him at a nondescript building big enough to hold a large number of families whose loved ones have died in a mass shooting somewhere in America. Away from the news cameras that normally track his every interaction, he enters rooms thick with grief and the hushed voices of people in shock. He grasps for words of sympathy, comfort and condolence and offers long, tight embraces that the mourners will remember far more vividly than his words. His visit to Orlando came four days after the massacre. Accompanied by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. the president entered the Amway Center, about two miles from the club, and the two men took turns hugging and grieving with the scores of people who lost sons, daughters, siblings, partners and friends. “Our hearts are broken, too,” Mr. Obama said he told them, after placing 49 white roses at a makeshift memorial nearby to commemorate each of those killed. In an emotional statement to reporters before he returned to Washington, Mr. Obama said the encounters with mourners underscored his determination to change the debate over gun restrictions and enact the sort of measures that might have prevented the tragedy. “As has been true too many times before, I held and hugged grieving family members and parents, and they asked, ‘Why does this keep happening? ’” Mr. Obama said. They pleaded for more to be done to stop the carnage, he said, adding, “Those who defend the easy accessibility of assault weapons should meet these families. ” Beyond politics, the trip was a moment for the president to play the somber official role of consoler in chief. It was also the setting for a deeply personal and private set of encounters in which Mr. Obama, better known for his cool and unruffled temperament, dispenses with the trappings of his office and becomes an emotional father identifying with parents who have lost children. “The president understands that he is a symbol of the country, and when he travels to a community and meets with a family that has endured a terrible tragedy, he’s offering a message of condolence and comfort on behalf of the American people,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday. “But it would be impossible for him to not be personally affected by these kinds of conversations and these kinds of interactions,” he added. In such instances, Mr. Earnest said, the president “draws on his faith. ” As Mr. Obama comforted the mourners, his critics in Washington were blaming him for Sunday’s tragedy. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and his 2008 presidential rival, told reporters on Capitol Hill that Mr. Obama, through his policy decisions, was “directly responsible” for the carnage because he had failed to thwart the rise of the Islamic State. The president has called visits like the one to Orlando among the most difficult duties he performs. Spending time with families who lost young children in the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. in 2012, was the “hardest day of my presidency,” he said afterward. “And I’ve had some hard days. ” So over and over again on Thursday, the president hugged the mourners tightly, relying on body language almost more than words to convey his support. “He took time to go to each family individually and embrace them, and there was no rush or a sense he wanted to be anywhere else,” said Azsia Finn, a manager at Pulse. “It was embracing, hugging, just very warming. It felt like he cared. ” Amid a blur of sorrow and disbelief, these embraces have stood out to many of the mourners Mr. Obama has met after earlier tragedies. “He hugged each one of us individually — and I mean hug, so that I was able to smell his cologne,” said the Rev. Sharon Risher, 57, who lost her mother, Ethel Lance, and two cousins in the shooting in Charleston, S. C. last year, and met privately with Mr. Obama the next week. “It was not a little pat on the back. The intimacy of that hug is what I’ll always remember. ” Mr. Obama takes his time with each family, listening to details that mourners are eager to offer about their lost loved ones. It is at once intimate and awkward he is aware of how disorienting it is for people to be meeting the president of the United States at the worst moment of their lives. Many of them forget they are talking to the president. At a high school in Newtown, Conn. in 2012, Mark Barden, whose son, Daniel, was among the 26 killed at Sandy Hook two days earlier, decided, in what he now calls a fog of shock and trauma, to lecture Mr. Obama on the importance of spending time with his children. “He looked me in the eyes and said, ‘I’m coming from a recital right now,’ ” Mr. Barden said in an interview, adding that he now finds the episode “horrendously embarrassing. ” But Mr. Obama could relate, he said. “He was looking at this 100 percent as a father,” Mr. Barden said. “He feels it in his heart as a human being, and it transcends his role as the leader of our country. ” Roxanna Green — whose daughter, Green, was one of six people killed in a 2011 shooting in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson where Representative Gabrielle Giffords was holding an event — said she had campaigned for Mr. Obama with her daughter and mother and had often dreamed of meeting him. “But you never want to receive a visit like that from anybody,” Ms. Green, 50, said in an interview. “He said she was a beautiful girl, and he’s so sorry, and it was just a horrible loss, and his girls are about the same age,” she recalled. | 0fake |
Trump ally Christie calls criticisms of slain soldier's family 'inappropriate' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chris Christie, a close ally of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, distanced himself on Tuesday from Trump’s feud with the Muslim family of a slain U.S. Army captain, according to Politico. Christie, the governor of New Jersey, said criticisms of the family of Captain Humayan Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004, were “inappropriate.” “I didn’t see Mr. Khan’s speech at the DNC, but I’ll just say this: I’m a father and I just cannot imagine the pain of losing a child under any circumstances,” said Christie, who endorsed Trump after ending his own White House bid, according to Politico, which quoted Christie’s comments from a news conference at the New Jersey State House in Trenton. | 0fake |
MMA FIGHTER JAKE SHIELDS Embarrasses Cowards In Masks For Violent 20-on-1 Beating of Trump Supporter [VIDEO]: “I was in Berkeley and watched a man getting beat by a mob with no police help…I was the only person to jump in and help” | Opposing views and beliefs has much of this country in a heated feud. With Donald Trump being recently inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States of America, citizens have been going to war with one another with their polar points of view.On Wednesday, Milo Yiannopoulos, a strong right-wing social figure, was scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley. However, protests that grew into violence between members of opposing sides broke out causing Yiannopoulos speech to be canceled.In the midst of the violence being carried out in the area, Jake Shields was present and apparently helped a man from being severely beaten. BjPennWatch MMA fighter Jason Shields embarrass the cowards with their faces covered who were part of the mob of 20 men from a domestic terror group, that identifies with an anti-fascist movement, severely beating an innocent man attending Milo Yiannopoulos speech.Following Shield s brave act that could have saved the life of an innocent man being attacked by 20 cowards, one of the anti-fascists involved in beating walks up to Shields to ask if he s okay?Shields tells the cowards in the masks: There s no f*cking reason (to have beaten this man). Dude, you guys have your faces covered, you re attacking people, you re being f**king fascists. Look at you guys. You re f*cking embarrassing. You don t let 20 people jump a man. It s not okay! The coward in the mask answers: There s a f*cking Nazi thing at the University, that why everybody s here. Shields responds: What Nazi thing? Who s a Nazi? The Jew guy that was speaking? The gay Jew? Coward in mask responds: He s not a Jew, he s Greek! what exactly did he say? Every kept saying he's a nazi but know knew why. They call everyone with a different opinion a nazi Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) February 2, 2017The idiocy of these violent people just looking for a fight can pretty much be summed up with that one completely uneducated sentence. These freaks are apparently there protesting a Nazi, yet have no idea what a Nazi is or that when you say someone is Jewish, you are speaking about their religion and not their nationality.Watch:The aftermath of me helping a guy after being jumped by thugs. The police and 100's of civilians stood and watched. pic.twitter.com/7hN2iJ4kkf Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) February 2, 2017I was in Berkeley and watched a man getting beat by a mob with no police help. I was the only person to jump in and help Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) February 2, 2017Shields tweeted, it was sad to watch 20 people beat a man with no one helping. it was sad to watching 20 people beat a man with no one helping Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) February 2, 2017 | 1real |
Fears of dam collapse add to Puerto Rico's misery after hurricane | SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - Puerto Rico s governor met mayors from around the ravaged island on Saturday after surveying damage to an earthen dam in the northwestern part of the U.S. territory that was threatening to collapse from flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Some 70,000 people who live downstream from the compromised dam, which has formed a lake on the rain-swollen Guajataca River, were under orders to evacuate, with the structure in danger of bursting at any time. We saw directly the damage to the Guajataca dam, Governor Ricardo Rossello said in a Spanish-language Twitter message on Saturday while reinforcing his request that people leave the area as soon as possible. The fissure has become a significant rupture, Rossello said separately at a news conference on Saturday. The U.S. National Weather Service said on its website the dam was still in danger of failing and triggering life-threatening flash floods. Stay away or be swept away, it warned. Meanwhile, people across the island were struggling to dig out from the devastation left by the storm, which killed at least 25 people, including at least 10 in Puerto Rico, as it churned across the Caribbean, according to officials and media reports. To all Puerto Ricans, please know we will get back up, the governor tweeted as he met mayors in the territory to identify their most urgent needs. Together with the mayors, as one government.4Puerto Rico In a development that could help the recovery effort, the Port of San Juan reopened, according to a Twitter message from the agency that operates it, allowing ships to unload supplies. Severe flooding, structural damage to homes and virtually no electric power were three of the most pressing problems facing Puerto Ricans, said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo during a tour of the island. It s a terrible immediate situation that requires assistance from the federal government - not just financial assistance, said Cuomo, whose state is home to millions of people of Puerto Rican descent. It is a dangerous situation today and it s going to be a long-term reconstruction issue for months, Cuomo, a Democrat and potential 2020 presidential candidate, told CNN. Maria, the second major hurricane to savage the Caribbean this month and the most powerful storm to strike Puerto Rico in nearly a century, carved a path of destruction on Wednesday. It knocked out electricity, apart from emergency generators, on the island of 3.4 million inhabitants. Near the rain-swollen Guajataca River, in the northwest part of the island, floodwater littered with branches and debris engulfed the first floor of a number of homes and swamped vehicles that were left behind. We lost our house, it was completely flooded, said resident Carmen Gloria Lamb. We lost everything, cars, clothes, everything. The storm has resulted in 10 confirmed fatalities on the island so far, Rossello s office told CNN on Saturday. The governor s office could not be reached for comment by Reuters. Signs of the strain on Puerto Ricans were evident throughout San Juan, the capital. Drivers had to wait up to seven hours at the few filling stations open on Saturday, according to news reports, and lines of cars snaked for blocks. Hotels warned that guests might have to leave soon without fresh supplies of diesel to keep generators operating. Water rationing also began on Saturday. Signs posted throughout San Juan s Old Town informed residents that service would return for two hours each day, between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., until further notice. Telephone service was also unreliable, with many of the island s cell towers damaged or destroyed. People swarmed under some of the towers, holding up their devices in the hopes of getting a signal. The governor also extended a nightly curfew on Saturday, the Caribbean Business newspaper reported. At San Juan s Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, Mary Ann Arciola, her 32-year-old daughter and two young grandchildren slept in a rented van hoping to get a flight home to the United States. There s nobody at the desks. There s nothing on the screens, said Arciola, 62. There s a ton of people. They are starting to fight. It s not good. Maria struck Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale as the island was already facing the largest municipal debt crisis in U.S. history. The storm may have caused an estimated $45 billion in damage and lost economic activity across the Caribbean, with at least $30 billion of that in Puerto Rico, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research in Savannah, Georgia. Elsewhere in the Caribbean, 14 deaths were reported on Dominica, an island nation of 71,000 inhabitants. Two people were killed in the French territory of Guadeloupe and one in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Two people died in the Dominican Republic on Thursday, according to media outlet El Jaya. Maria still had sustained winds of up to 115 miles per hour (185 km per hour) on Saturday, making it a Category 3 hurricane, but was expected to weaken gradually over the next two days as it turned more sharply to the north. Dangerous surf and rip currents driven by the storm were expected along the southeastern coast of the U.S. mainland for several days, the National Hurricane Center said. Maria hit about two weeks after Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean and the United States. It followed Hurricane Harvey, which also killed more than 80 people when it struck Texas in late August and caused flooding in Houston. | 0fake |
Kansas House Narrowly Upholds Governor’s Veto of Medicaid Expansion - The New York Times | TOPEKA, Kan. — The Kansas House of Representatives voted narrowly on Monday to uphold Gov. Sam Brownback’s veto of a bill to expand Medicaid, ending a quest that came improbably close to succeeding in this deep red state despite Mr. Brownback’s unyielding opposition. In spite of a torrent of phone calls and pleas from constituents over the weekend, and lobbying by hospital leaders who said that expanding Medicaid would help save a number of rural hospitals from closing, the vote was 81 to 44, three short of the majority needed for an override. The effort to expand Medicaid to cover 150, 000 additional people in Kansas had been closely watched nationally, in part because it came just after President Trump and Republicans in Congress tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Success might have provided momentum in some of the other 18 states that have not yet expanded Medicaid under the health law to cover far more adults. While two Republican lawmakers who had originally voted against expanding Medicaid switched sides and voted to override, two others who had supported the expansion bill when it passed the House in February voted to sustain the veto. One of them, Representative Clay Aurand, a Republican from Belleville, said he hoped Kansas could find a way to expand Medicaid in “a more way. ” Supporters of the expansion had argued that it could save lives and jobs. “We have the ability to help people who truly need it the most,” Representative Cindy Holscher, a Democrat from Olathe, told her colleagues. “We have the ability to make a decision today that will save lives — not just one, but potentially thousands. ” Representative Susan Concannon, a Republican from Beloit and a leading proponent of the expansion bill, said, “What we know most of all is that if we do this, it will prevent closures of hospitals. ” Opponents of expansion questioned whether Kansas could afford it, expressed doubts about whether the federal government would continue to pay for most of it if the health care law eventually is repealed, and suggested the promised benefits to rural hospitals were overstated. Mr. Brownback vetoed the measure almost as soon as it reached his desk on Thursday, saying that the cost to the state would be “irresponsible and unsustainable,” and that it would be “unwise” to expand Medicaid while President Trump and Congress were still vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He also said the bill was unacceptable because it did not include a work requirement for beneficiaries of the Medicaid expansion. While the federal government has never allowed states to require that people have jobs in order to receive Medicaid, the Trump administration has hinted that it may. Some states are considering asking for changes to their Medicaid programs that could reduce recipients, including work requirements, premiums and even lifetime limits on Medicaid coverage. The vote in Kansas came five months after an election in which moderate Republicans and Democrats replaced a number of conservatives in the Legislature, breathing new life into an effort that had stalled for years. The House of Representatives voted 81 to 44 in February to expand Medicaid. The Senate followed last week with a vote health committees in both chambers heard often emotional testimony from uninsured Kansans and from medical providers. The Affordable Care Act originally required all states to expand Medicaid to all adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, but the Supreme Court ruled that states could opt out if they wished. Still, the law has played a major role in reducing the number of Americans without health insurance, with about 11 million adults gaining coverage in the 31 states that have chosen to expand the program. In the 19 states that have not expanded Medicaid — including some of the biggest, such as Florida and Texas — millions of people are stuck in a “coverage gap,” earning too much for Medicaid under their states’ stringent guidelines but too little to qualify for subsidized coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. David Jordan, executive director of Alliance for a Healthy Kansas, an advocacy group that formed last year to push for expanding Medicaid, said supporters were not giving up. “The problem of 150, 000 Kansans not having access to health care doesn’t go away,” he said. | 0fake |
‘Zero Knowledge’ Systems Not Hostile to Data Privacy, says Snowden | 21st Century Wire says It s been almost two years since the cloud storage provider Dropbox appointed former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to its board. A move Edward Snowden, at the time, called hostile for data privacy. Snowden s comments on the matter first appeared in a video interview conducted by the Guardian, and were published in a July 17, 2014 article: Dropbox is a targeted you know wannabe PRISM partner, he told the Guardian. They just put Condoleezza Rice on their board who is probably the most anti-privacy official you can imagine. She s one of the ones who oversaw Stellar Wind and thought it was a great idea. So they re very hostile to privacy. PRISM: The NSA s data collection surveillance program that every citizen should know about. PRISM and Stellar Wind were both approved and implemented during President George W. Bush s administration. (Image: (c) Adam Hart-Davis)Dropbox and other popular cloud storage providers hold the encryption keys to hand over to the NSA should a request for your data be approved.Snowden endorses zero knowledge systems. In layman s terms, this means that cloud storage providers NOT hostile to data privacy don t just encrypt your data, but actually host your data without their ability to access it ever. They have zero knowledge of the contents of your data. It s a big distinction, but one easily missed by a public inundated with confusing doublespeak on data privacy.Snowden adds that s the only way they can prove to the customers that they can be trusted with their information, and makes specific reference to one cloud company, SpiderOak, as a provider of zero knowledge systems. READ MORE SCI-TECH NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Sci-Tech FilesSEE ALSO: 21st Century Wire NSA Files | 1real |
null | David Brock went from a Right Wing CS to a Left Wing money laundering CS. That's quite odd, but then David is quite odd. | 1real |
How Ben Carson Could Undo a Desegregation Effort - The New York Times | President Obama’s legacy looked on track, not long ago, to include a major push against America’s deeply entrenched housing segregation. In 2015, his administration rolled out a rule requiring local communities to assess their own patterns of racial and income segregation and make genuine plans to address them. The move followed years of debate and came as segregated cities like Baltimore and Chicago faced renewed bouts of racial unrest. The federal government, advocates hoped, was finally trying to repair a promise of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Now that rule is likely to be undermined — and possibly erased — by a Department of Housing and Urban Development headed by Ben Carson. On Monday, Donald J. Trump officially offered the cabinet post to Mr. Carson, a neurosurgeon and a former presidential candidate, who grew up poor in Detroit but has no experience in housing policy. While we know little about what Mr. Carson would do at the agency, he has played down the role of government in his own story. (“If you don’t succeed,” his mother taught him, according to his autobiography “Gifted Hands,” “you have only yourself to blame. ”) And he has specifically criticized the Obama housing rule. Known as “affirmatively furthering fair housing,” the rule has been politically contentious. Its backers argue that it is essential to remedying the long history of government and discrimination that has resulted in poor, segregated neighborhoods persisting to this day. Critics say that the rule amounts to government overreach into the decisions — and demographic makeup — of individual communities and a free housing market. Republicans in Congress have tried to defund its implementation. Mr. Carson wrote last year that the new policy followed the government’s history of failed “mandated schemes,” and would redirect housing primarily into wealthy, white communities that oppose it. If he is confirmed by Congress, Mr. Carson would have wide latitude to shape or slow the rollout of the rule, along with broader enforcement of the Fair Housing Act. Diane Yentel, the president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said Mr. Carson’s interpretation of the rule as a social experiment “reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of obligations that have been around since 1968. ” The Fair Housing Act passed that year included two mandates: one banning discrimination in the housing market, and the other requiring local communities to “affirmatively further” the goal of integration. The latter language means that it’s not enough to punish landlords or communities who intentionally deny minorities housing. Communities also have a responsibility to actively ensure open housing markets, which exist today neither in public housing clusters on Chicago’s segregated South Side nor in exclusive New York City suburbs that use zoning laws to outlaw multifamily housing. George Romney and Jack Kemp, past Republican HUD secretaries, acknowledged that second implication of the law. But for much of the time since the Fair Housing Act was passed, this “affirmative” mandate has been largely ignored by both local communities and HUD itself. The Obama administration rules were an effort to address that oversight. And some advocates have spent just as long fighting for it. Mr. Carson recently told Fox News that “we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities. ” “That is the very insight that motivated Senator Edward Brooke — another Republican — to include a provision in the 1968 Fair Housing Act requiring cities, counties and states to ‘affirmatively further fair housing’ as a condition of receiving federal funding,” Michael Allen, a lawyer with the law firm Relman, Dane Colfax, wrote in an email. The Obama administration rule “looks nothing like the partisan caricatures that have sprung up around it,” said Phil Tegeler of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. Many advocates wanted the rule to be much tougher than what emerged from several years of debate with local communities. In practice, the rule provides those communities with detailed data on factors like racial demographics, poverty rates, school quality and housing voucher use to help them determine whether and minority families are isolated from good schools or segregated from opportunity. The rule requires communities to use that information to draft plans to reduce segregation where it exists. Those that habitually defy the requirements risk lose funding from the agency. The first round of communities scheduled to complete the process have been at work on assessments due over the coming year. Before they’re done, a new administration hostile to the idea could begin writing another rule that would reverse this one, or it could simply halt implementation. Or Congress could pass a law defunding it, even as it remains on the books. For all the years that went into shaping the rule, a new administration could relatively easily set it aside. That would also fundamentally change the conversation in Washington about how poor, segregated communities came to exist in their current incarnation. Mr. Carson and other critics call efforts to dismantle them “social engineering,” but these places were created through policies that can themselves be labeled social engineering: redlining that denied blacks mortgages policies that concentrated public housing in poor, minority communities government decisions to locate highways that isolated them further. While many of these policies were first put into place decades ago, communities remain shaped by them today. The “affirmatively furthering” mandate was based on the idea that this history of active government intervention requires an active government remedy, too. A theme of Mr. Trump’s campaign was that structural forces hinder American workers in the Rust Belt and beyond (like the decline of manufacturing, the lack of educational opportunity, the opioid epidemic). At HUD, Mr. Carson would have ample opportunity to show whether he believes that structural forces undermine poor urban minorities (housing segregation, historic disinvestment, troubled schools) — and if government should take an active role in pursuing a remedy. | 0fake |
California ballot has record number of local revenue measures | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A record number of local tax and bond measures will fill the California ballot this November, including over $32 billion of proposed funding for education, infrastructure and homeless services. Some 650 local measures will go before voters, including 427 revenue measures. That is considerably more than the number proposed during any of the last five gubernatorial or presidential elections, according to data compiled by the local government finance consulting firm CaliforniaCityFinance.com. Previously, the most measure-packed election was in November 2014, with 268 local revenue measures. California is one of 24 states that allow initiative rights to its citizens. Voter-approved measures are used to raise revenues for specific construction projects, change tax policy, or create new laws. In the Golden State and nationwide, a boom in bond proposals follows years of federal cutbacks to state and local programs, continued low interest rates and years of unmet infrastructure needs. The largest monetary requests by local municipalities in California include $3.5 billion for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), $1.2 billion for Los Angeles homeless housing and services, and $950 million for affordable housing in Santa Clara County. There are 184 local measures to fund public school and community college projects, totaling more than $25 billion. Michael Coleman, head of CaliforniaCityFinance.com, said the surge in education bond measures coincides with statewide Proposition 51, which authorizes $9 billion in general obligation bonds for public school facilities. Proposition 55 aims to increase education funding by extending upper income tax rates. “There’s a lot of folks that think this is the time to go for a new school bond,” said Coleman. “They see it as a synchronous message, and time to get in line for matching funds.” The Nov. 8 election is a focus for statewide propositions as well. There are 17 in total, regarding issues ranging from marijuana legalization to the public cost of prescription drugs, tobacco taxes and the death penalty. The surge of ballot measures comes during an election year in which the presidential race is sure to draw large crowds to voting booths. There is also the lingering effect of low voter turnout during the November 2014 election that reduced the signature threshold for a proposition to qualify. Across the country, 74 citizen-initiated measures fill state ballots, more than double the number certified in 2014, according to Natalie Cohen, senior analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. Growing populist sentiment and frustration with traditional government contributed to the groundswell, Cohen wrote in a recent report about upcoming ballot measures. In California, some local measures are reactive to state propositions. For example, Proposition 64 aims to legalize recreational cannabis, and 37 local measures would create marijuana taxes for local cities and counties. Thirteen countywide measures would fund transportation improvements. “That’s coming from an acknowledged, pent-up demand for badly needed infrastructure repairs,” Coleman said. Eighty-eight measures would increase or extend local sale taxes. Another 39 support parcel taxes for road improvements, fire and emergency services, hospitals and police. Parcel taxes are flat taxes on properties that originated after Proposition 13 severely limited property taxes in 1978. Three Bay Area measures would tax sugary beverages. | 0fake |
‘Nobody Cares’: Watch Ted Cruz’s Humiliating Shun At Swanky NY GOP Fundraiser (TWEETS) | Thursday night saw the three remaining candidates for the GOP 2016 presidential nomination trying to woo high rolling donors at a swanky $1,000 per plate dinner at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan. This particular endeavor did not go well for creepy Texas Senator Ted Cruz. In fact, it was downright humiliating for him.You see, it seems that Cruz s New York values comment from the GOP debate when he was trying to slam Donald Trump has come back to bite him in the ass. While many people many have let the comment go, as it happened quite a few debates ago, Trump made sure that the New Yorkers at the dinner remember it clear as a bell. Trump, who spoke first, reminded the crowd, as he shamelessly used 9/11 to bolster the donors pride in their city, as well as to slam Cruz: In our darkest moments as a city, we showed the world the very, very best in terms of bravery, heart and soul of America. These are the values we need to make America great again to bring America together again to heal America s wounds. To his detriment, Cruz was the last candidate to go on stage, and social media site Twitter lit up with photos and videos of the appalling lack of attention people were paying while he was speaking. There were people chatting, walking around, playing on their cell phones, and doing everything but listen to Cruz speak. Buzzfeed reporter Rosie Gray, who was at the event, tweeted: It s legitimately loud in here with people talking and eating and ignoring Cruz while he speaks. The Daily Beast s Olivia Nuzzi tweeted, It s sort of painful to watch someone speak passionately to a crowd who wouldn t even notice if he killed himself onstage, with a picture of an attendee paying no attention to Cruz and surfing the web on his phone. Nuzzi went on to say, Nobody cares. The Washington Post s Philip Rucker tweeted: Reaction at #nygop dinner to Cruz is embarrassing for both Cruz and the guests. Folks walking around, chatting w/ each other as he speaks. Here are shots of those tweets, complete with video:Reaction at #nygop dinner to Cruz is embarrassing for both Cruz and the guests. Folks walking around, chatting w/ each other as he speaks. Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) April 15, 2016@Olivianuzzi @BLUIZK81 A journalist should never use "sort of" ever. What "sort of" painful is it? Kinda? Itty-bitty? a lotta? Slang is lazy Tom Lynch (@yzest5121) April 15, 2016Cruz is speaking in the background. Nobody cares. pic.twitter.com/8wLpAkrV23 Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) April 15, 2016it's legitimately loud in here with people talking and eating and ignoring Cruz while he speaks Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) April 15, 2016 The scene as Cruz speaks at NYC GOP Gala pic.twitter.com/Pwx8I0Ci25 Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) April 15, 2016To get an idea of how hard it is to hear Cruz at this NY GOP dinner pic.twitter.com/0r7XckAXmB Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) April 15, 2016Let it suffice to say that it looks like Ted Cruz can give up any hope he might have had of winning the New York GOP primary. Seriously, this is proof that nobody cares about him.Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 1real |
ICELAND’S STUNNING ELECTION OF ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT Political Novice Should Have Hillary Shaking In Her Pants Suit | The anti-establishment tide is rolling across Europe. You really can t blame the citizens for being furious at their leaders for allowing the invasion of Muslim immigrants into their hometowns and major cities. If this sentiment catches fire in America this summer, it will not likely bode well for Crooked Hillary at the polls in November, given that Trump is the ultimate non-establishment politician History professor Gudni Johannesson won Iceland s presidential election after riding a wave of anti-establishment sentiment, final results showed Sunday, although the vote was eclipsed by the country s eagerly-anticipated Euro football match.The political newcomer, who won with 39.1 percent of votes, was trailed by businesswoman Halla Tomasdottir, also without party affiliation, who took 29.4 percent, according to results announced on public television channel RUV.Johannesson only decided to run for the presidency after the so-called Panama Papers leak in April which detailed offshore accounts and implicated several senior Icelandic politicians, including the prime minister who was forced to resign.Throughout the campaign, Johannesson emphasised his non-partisan vision of the presidency, and vowed to restore faith in the political system after years of public anger toward politicians over scandals and financial woes.The victory was especially sweet for the history professor and political commentator, who has never held public office and has no party affiliation, as he celebrated his 48th birthday Sunday.David Oddsson, a former conservative prime minister who had been Johannesson s closest rival throughout most of the campaign, garnered just 13 percent of votes. The representative of the old era has been rejected, people are looking to the future, University of Akureyri political science professor Gretar Eythorsson told AFP.The president in Iceland holds a largely ceremonial position. More important legislative elections are due in the autumn.But the outrage that fuelled mass street protests in April and led to ousting of premier Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson appeared to have dissipated somewhat as euphoria erupted over the Icelandic football squad achieving a historic feat in the Euro 2016 football tournament.A North Atlantic island of just 334,000 people, Iceland beat Austria 2-1 on Wednesday to qualify for the last 16 in its first major international competition, and will face off against England on Monday.Britain s vote to leave the European Union also headlined the news on the eve of the election in Iceland, which itself had applied for EU membership in 2009 after suffering a devastating financial crisis in 2008, but abandoned the bid six years later.Like most of Iceland s voters, Johannesson is opposed to EU membership. Via: Yahoo News | 1real |
Hollywood, Media Mercilessly Mock Kellyanne Conway’s Trump Inauguration Outfit | Media and Hollywood elites were among the many who mocked incoming senior Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, over the outfit she wore for President Trump’s inauguration on Friday. [What Conway told NBC News was her “Trump revolutionary wear” is actually a red, white, and blue Gucci coat. Conway wore the $3, 600 coat with a bright red hat and red gloves. It didn’t take long for the internet to notice Conway’s outfit, and she was mercilessly mocked. Below is a sampling of some of the sexist insults hurled at Trump’s incoming senior strategist, many of them from the very media tasked to cover the Trump White House. The Daily Show Twitter: Kellyanne Conway dressed as the era Trump wants to take America back to. #InaugurationDay pic. twitter. — The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) January 20, 2017, blog Jezebel: Haha what the fuck is Kellyanne Conway wearing #inauguration2017 https: . pic. twitter. — Jezebel (@Jezebel) January 20, 2017, The Huffington Post Lifestyle: Kellyanne Conway really loves America. Just ask her outfit. https: . pic. twitter. — HuffPost Lifestyle (@HPLifestyle) January 20, 2017, The Hollywood offshoot : Kellyanne Conway dresses like court jester for #TrumpInauguration: https: . pic. twitter. — (@pretareporter) January 20, 2017, NBC, Today Show reporter Ronan Farrow: My aesthetic is Kellyanne Conway revolutionary war cosplay. pic. twitter. — Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) January 20, 2017, Staff writer for The Hollywood Reporter Ryan Parker: pic. twitter. — Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) January 20, 2017, Managing Editor, Video for Mic Slade Sohmer: ♫ Guns. And ships. And so the balance shifts. ♫ pic. twitter. — Slade Sohmer (@Slade) January 20, 2017, New York Time SundayStyles reporter Katie Rosman: Because I can’t stop tweeting about Kellyanne Conway’s awful $3500 Gucci coat: please salute the Homewood, Alabama HS drum major team! pic. twitter. — katie rosman (@katierosman) January 20, 2017, Assignment Editor for New York Daily News Joseph Barracato: Ready, Set, Inaugurate! @KellyannePolls wears ‘Trump Revolutionary Wear’ coat to inauguration https: . pic. twitter. — Joseph Barracato (@JoeBarracato) January 20, 2017, Columnist, Opinion Producer, CBC Robyn Urback: For inauguration day, Kellyanne Conway debuts the uniform of the new Trump guard pic. twitter. — Robyn Urback (@RobynUrback) January 20, 2017, The Huffington Post reporter Matt Fuller: Can’t believe Steve Bannon didn’t wear a matching outfit with Kellyanne Conway. pic. twitter. — Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) January 20, 2017, NFL Draft analysts Tyler Brooke: Why does Kellyanne Conway look like the old New England Patriots logo? pic. twitter. — Tyler Brooke (@TylerDBrooke) January 20, 2017, Late Night With Seth Meyers writer Dina Gusovsky: Here’s Kellyanne Conway fresh from defeating the Hessians at the battle of Trenton CC: @jeffkbell pic. twitter. — Dina Gusovsky (@DinaGusovsky) January 20, 2017, | 0fake |
WOW! VIDEO CAPTURES Angry St. Louis Protesters Turning On Media…TV Reporter Calls Unprovoked Attack: “The Scariest Moment Of My Career” | KTVI Fox 2, the TV station that appears to be sympathetic of the Black Lives Matter riots in St. Louis, found themselves on the wrong side of angry protesters today, after the innocent verdict for St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley came down today in the murder trial of Anthony Lamar Smith. KTVI Fox 2 News showed their solidarity with the BLM movement when they retweeted a couple of tweets by one of the leaders of the BLM terror group, Deray McKesson. Both of McKesson s tweets were intended to mock the decision made by Judge Timothy Wilson to exonerate Stockley.#JasonStockley is a murderer. #AnthonyLamarSmith should be alive today. pic.twitter.com/UmJmaEpeHJ deray mckesson (@deray) September 15, 2017Here is the second McKesson retweet by KTVI Fox News:And this, from the judge in the case of Officer #JasonStockley who killed #AnthonyLamarSmith. pic.twitter.com/1wIvZBZ2hL deray mckesson (@deray) September 15, 2017KTVI Fox News also pointed out in a seperate tweet that St. Louis police officers were using mace to control the crowd:Police use mace in confrontation with protesters in downtown St. Louis https://t.co/mUGAaVhLtb pic.twitter.com/gdjIBM9NfK FOX2now (@FOX2now) September 15, 2017KTVI Fox 2 News got a surprise however when they attempted to infiltrate the protesters and found themselves in the middle of a situation that could have very easily ended very badly:Scariest moment in my career. Protesters upset about not guilty verdict for an officer accused of killing a suspect, turn on me and media. pic.twitter.com/iZyvg3gX0p Dan Gray KTVI Fox 2 (@DanGrayTV) September 15, 2017 | 1real |
UK counter-terrorism police arrest four, send in bomb disposal team | LONDON (Reuters) - An army bomb disposal team was sent to a house in northern England after police arrested four men on Tuesday on suspicion of planning acts of terrorism. Three men, aged 22, 36 and 41, were held after raids at their homes in Sheffield and a 31-year-old was detained at an address in nearby Chesterfield. The arrests were intelligence-led and pre-planned as part of an ongoing investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing North East and (domestic security agency) MI5, West Yorkshire Police said in a statement. They added: The public may have heard loud bangs at the time police entered the properties. We would like to reassure them that this was part of the method of entry to gain access. Police said the bomb disposal unit had been sent to the Chesterfield house and that nearby residents had been evacuated as a precaution. There were no details about what the men were suspected of planning. They are being questioned on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Britain has suffered five militant attacks so far this year, four of which led to loss of life, while security chiefs say another nine have been thwarted. The country remains on its second-highest threat level meaning an attack is considered highly likely. | 0fake |
Trump, after talk with China's Xi, says North Korea faces more sanctions | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said additional major sanctions would be imposed on North Korea after Pyongyang said it had tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile and that its nuclear weapons could reach the U.S. mainland. Just spoke to President Xi Jinping of China concerning the provocative actions of North Korea. Additional major sanctions will be imposed on North Korea today. This situation will be handled! Trump wrote in a post on Twitter. He gave no other details about the sanctions. | 0fake |
Obama shortens prison sentences for 98 convicts: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama shortened the prison sentences for 98 convicts serving time for drug-related offenses in his latest round of commutations, including for 42 people serving life sentences, the White House said on Thursday. Obama has granted 688 commutations this year, for a total so far of 872 during his presidency, which ends on Jan. 20. “These are individuals - many of whom made mistakes at a young age - who have diligently worked to rehabilitate themselves while incarcerated,” White House Counsel Neil Eggleston said in a statement. The commutations are part of Obama’s push to reform the criminal justice system to reduce the number of people serving long sentences for non-violent drug offenses. Obama and a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. Congress had tried to work on legislation to reduce mandatory minimum sentences, but those efforts stalled ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. | 0fake |
BREAKING: OBAMA CAUGHT ON LIVE TV Telling Illegal Aliens It’s OK To Vote…Promises The Law Will Not Come After You! [Video] | 1real | |
Delusional ‘Dilbert’ Cartoonist Thinks He’ll Be Murdered If He Doesn’t Endorse Hillary Clinton | Scott Adams, who s best known as the creator of the Dilbert cartoon, is endorsing Hillary Clinton, but not because he agrees with her policies, or even because he likes her. He s endorsing her because he believes, somewhere in his twisted little mind, that he ll be murdered if he doesn t.In his blog (did you know there was a Dilbert blog?), he says that his politics don t match up with any of the candidates, but he does credit Trump with extraordinary persuasion skills. It gets worse, and don t feel bad if you have trouble keeping up with his theory.This past week we saw Clinton pair the idea of President Trump with nuclear disaster, racism, Hitler, the Holocaust, and whatever else makes you tremble in fear.The only downside I can see to the new approach is that it is likely to trigger a race war in the United States. And I would be a top-ten assassination target in that scenario because once you define Trump as Hitler, you also give citizens moral permission to kill him. And obviously it would be okay to kill anyone who actively supports a genocidal dictator, including anyone who wrote about his persuasion skills in positive terms. (I m called an apologist on Twitter, or sometimes just Joseph Goebbels).If Clinton successfully pairs Trump with Hitler in your mind as she is doing and loses anyway, about a quarter of the country will think it is morally justified to assassinate their own leader. I too would feel that way if an actual Hitler came to power in this country. I would join the resistance and try to take out the Hitler-like leader. You should do the same. No one wants an actual President Hitler.Then, it gets even weirder. Adams predicts that Trump will win in a landslide, but he believes that by endorsing Clinton, he will insulate himself from any backlash, because, according to Adams, one of the first people targeted when people try to assassinate Trump, will be the creator of Dilbert.So I ve decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for President, for my personal safety. Trump supporters don t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as myself, so I ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me and here I am being 100% serious that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. So I m taking the safe way out and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.Uh huh. So, that would be a backdoor endorsement of Trump. Believe us when we say, Scott Adams, if Trump is elected, you ll likely be one of the last people anyone thinks about.Featured image via YouTube video screen shot. | 1real |
WATCH: Cartoon DESTROYS Trump, Shows Why He Shouldn’t Be President | Donald Trump is winning states and if his momentum continues, he will be the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States. That statement is hard to write, harder to say, and the idea of Trump becoming the most powerful man in the world is the hardest to fathom. That s because Trump is textbook demagogy at its finest and he is decisive and narcissistic.Trump doesn t want to be president to help America. Proof for that statement is the fact that his call for violence, his racism, and his divisive nature have already hurt America. Rather, Trump wants to be president so he can be called president.Mark Fiore sums up Trump s demagogy very well in his new cartoon. He said: I m not saying he s Hitler or anything, but there is definitely something chilling about his cadence, his toying with demagoguery and longing for the days when we could sic the dogs on protestors and be done with these unseemly interruptions. This used to be funny but is now getting a little too close for comfort. (Although tactically, this may be the best thing for a more reasonable alternative because people in the United States would never vote for this guy for real, right? Right?) After watching this cartoon, one can t help but be puzzled at how this individual, who does not seem bright by any stretch of the imagination, and is clearly dangerous, has a shot at the most powerful position on earth. It s a frightening prospect. That s why it s so important to vote in November.Here s the video: [vimeo 159170550 w=500 h=281] Featured image via video screenshot. | 1real |
WATCH: SEAN HANNITY FANS Make HILARIOUS Videos Showing How They Destroyed Their Keurig Coffee Makers…Sean Responds With Awesome Award For Best Video #BoycottKeurig | When Keurig decided to side with Soros against Sean Hannity and Roy Moore s right to defend himself against serious, and shady sex allegations, they released a genie that they re not going to be able to put back in the bottle Three days ago, a Twitter user by the name of Angelo Carusone tried to shame Keurig for adverising on the Sean Hannity Show after Sean interviewed the Repbulican Alabama Senate candidate, Roy Moore, allowing him to tell his side of the story, after 4 women came forward 4 decades later to announce that he sexually abused them when they were teens. The stories of at least 2 of his accusers have been unraveling after non-mainstream media uncovered that one of the anti-Trump accusers worked for Hillary and openly promoted Moore s Democrat opponent on her Facebook page. The mother of another accuser is challenging the truth behind the Washington Post s hit story as well.Curiously, the person who sent the tweet that Keurig responded to is none other than Angelo Carusone, the president of GEORGE SOROS Media Matters of America. Here is Carusone s tweet to Keurig.Angelo, thank you for your concern and for bringing this to our attention. We worked with our media partner and FOX news to stop our ad from airing during the Sean Hannity Show. Keurig (@Keurig) November 11, 2017Hannity followers were quick to defend him, while calling for a boycott against Keurig:Throwing my Keurig unit and all the coffee in the trash was the first thing I did today after getting back to London where I base. @seanhannity made it very clear he was NOT defending Moore and his exclusive interview was not to clear him BUT to interrogate him thoroughly. Jenifer Stevens (@JeniferStevens) November 12, 2017Twitter users like Kaya, slammed Keurig for thir decision to pull their advertising from the Sean Hannity show:Well good luck with the people. We don t support companies who play politics @Keurig Should have stayed neutral! @seanhannity has an army behind him. You ll see that this holiday season #BoycottKeurig https://t.co/Z0dcxupyTo KAYA (@KayaJones) November 12, 2017Even actor James Woods got into the game of helping to boycott Keurig on social media with this hilarious tweet:You re going to be so unhappy you made this decision. #BoycottKeurig https://t.co/VFHm4VVZuZ James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) November 13, 2017Watch:Join me & @AngeloJohnGage in the #KeurigSmashChallenge & learn how to crush your drives as a bonus.#BoycottKeurig#IStandWithHannity#BuyBlackRifleCoffee#MAGA pic.twitter.com/WH3unkpADI Snoop Bailey (@vol80) November 12, 2017Another conservative Twitter user, Colin Rugg posted a video of a Keurig Green Mountain coffee maker being dropped over the railing from the second story of a apratment building. The tweet was accompanied by a message asking Twitter users to retweet the video to offend a liberal . Liberals are offended by this video of a Keurig being thrown off of a building. Please retweet to offend a liberal. Liberals are offended by this video of a Keurig being thrown off of a building.Please retweet to offend a Liberal.#BoycottKeurigpic.twitter.com/0qbHlmyqcA Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 12, 2017This video is hiarious, but comes with a ***Language Warning***. Black Rifle coffee company is a company dedicated to selling coffee that s produced and sold by American veterans. Fresh roasted freedom . To order Black Rifle coffee, go HERE :#BoycottKeurig Make Coffee Great Again! #StandWithVets BUY #BlackRifleCoffee Stay woke with patriotism, guns and a double shot of humor. #SundayFunday #StandWithHannitypic.twitter.com/2hTpojmF35 gh -or- c (@NiaMAGA3X) November 12, 2017Here s another great video (Rap song accompanying video has language warning):I pulled an "Office Space" with my Keurig Would be a shame if everyone else joined me in the Keurig Smash Challenge #BoycottKeurig #IStandWithHannity #SundayMorning pic.twitter.com/yEADeRC006 Angelo John Gage (@AngeloJohnGage) November 12, 2017Sean Hannity loved the videos so much, that he s buying 500 Keurig coffed makers for his followers toDeplorable friends, I am buying 500 coffee makers tomorrow to give away!! Details on radio and TV. Hint; best videos!! Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) November 13, 2017Apparently, Green Mountain Coffee (Keurig) is a top corporate sponsor to Senator Bernie Sanders:Keurig is a top corporate donor to Communist Senator Bernie Sanders pic.twitter.com/nP90rRLC4K Jacob Wohl (@JacobAWohl) November 13, 2017 | 1real |
null | Parts 7 & 8 CONSTANTINE AND THE CROSS & THE RELICS OF ROMANISM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw2x1PQGh-8 | 1real |
Trump Administration Is Already Talking About Withholding Harvey Aid | On the National Day of Prayer, Donald Trump lashed out at South Korea and North Korea, while his administration wants Congress to attach aid for victims of Hurricane Harvey to a bill that would increase the federal debt limit. So, Trump is now at war with an influential group of House conservatives who have warned GOP leaders not to connect the two funding initiatives. This move might cause a looming conservative uprising. Usually, with Republicans, they want a debt limit increase tied to spending cuts but now, with an entire city underwater and thousands in shelters and at least 45 dead, Conservatives will have to battle it out.On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that he and the former reality show star believe that raising the U.S. debt limit, which Congress must do within the next few weeks in order to avoid defaulting on its bills, should be tied to disaster relief funding for Hurricane Harvey. Without raising the debt limit I m not comfortable that we d get the money we d need this month to Texas, Mnuchin said on Fox News Sunday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin revealed the administration s approach Sunday morning when he was asked whether the White House could guarantee that funding for the disaster would not be attached to the fight over the debt ceiling. No, I can t. Quite the contrary, Mnuchin said, adding, The president and I believe that it should be tied to the Harvey funding. Watch:NEW: Sec Mnuchin tells Chris Wallace on @FoxNewsSunday that if the debt limit isn't raised, it will interfere w/ the #Harvey relief effort. pic.twitter.com/EfxtOowH8C Pat Ward (@WardDPatrick) September 3, 2017Mnuchin warned of a delay in recovery funding for Texas if the debt ceiling is not raised, according to the Washington Post. Our first priority is to make sure that the state gets money, it is critical, and to do that we need to make sure we raise the debt limit, he said. Without raising the debt limit, I m not comfortable that we will get the money that we need this month to Texas to rebuild. In 2011, congressional Republicans brought the country to the brink of default after refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agreed to a series of future spending cuts. And now, Conservatives and Republicans will have to slap fight each other in order to get aid to Texas.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
CATHOLIC PARTIAL BIRTH-ABORTION SUPPORTING DEMOCRAT Steals Pope’s Water To Drink And Splash On Grandkids [Video]…You Won’t Believe What He’s Doing Next | He did the same thing at Obama s inauguration Sounds like someone needs a trip to the confessional (and/or a psychiatrist) Rep. Bob Brady, a Democrat, supports partial birth abortion.h/t Gateway PunditBut wait the story gets even better:This is not the first time Brady has pulled a stunt like this, with the Philadelphia Daily News reporting he did the same thing after President Obama s inauguration, though he just saved that glass and did not drink from it.They also spoke to Representative Brady who said he had saved the cup and would have police dust it for fingerprints to prove it was used by Pope Francis.He also had police dust President Obama s glass as well.Via: Daily Mail | 1real |
WATCH: Trump Campaign Manager Lies About Abortion, So Anderson Cooper Humiliates Her With Facts On The Air | If you want to watch Trump s campaign manager crash and burn, this is the interview you ll want to see.Kellyanne Conway may be a new name and face to most Americans, but she has been peddling lies on behalf of Republican candidates for years now. She also been getting called out for it, too.In 2012, Conway attempted to defend Todd Akin of legitimate rape infamy on CNN during an interview with Anderson Cooper.During the interview when it came time for Conway to explain Akin s outrageous blunder, she tried to change the subject by spouting off a big abortion lie that sex-selective abortions are rampant in this country. You ve got all these little baby girls being killed just because they re girls in this country, she said before citing Guttmacher Institute as her source.A shocked Cooper informed Conway that there s really no evidence that sex-selective abortions are occurring in the United States. But statistically, there s not really much evidence that that is actually occurring in the United States. Amongst some immigrant groups in small numbers it may be occurring but in no statistical measure is it significant. Conway insisted that she is correct and told Cooper to check her source.Here s the video of Conway s lie via YouTube.And that s exactly what Cooper did during the commercial break and when the show resumed he took a moment to thoroughly humiliate Conway with the facts. Before the break, Kellyanne, you mentioned the Guttmacher Institute information on sex-selective abortion in the United States. Here s what they actually say in a May 30 press release titled Sex Selective Abortion Bans: A Disingenuous New Strategy to Limit Women s Access to Abortion. The study acknowledges the practice does go on overseas, as we mentioned, and perhaps in certain Asian-American communities in the United States in small numbers, Copper continued. But, quote, In the United States, meanwhile, there is limited data indicating that sex-selective abortion may be occurring in some Asian communities. Although the U.S. sex ratio at 1.05 males for every female is squarely within biologically normal parameters. So I just wanted to put that out there. Here s the video of Cooper smacking Conway down via CNN.In short, Kellyanne Conway got totally owned on the air for lying about abortion statistics.Clearly, when Donald Trump was searching for a new campaign manager he was looking for someone is lies and is allergic to facts like himself.Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 1real |
Racist Attacker Accuses Sikh Family Of Terrorism, Holds Them At Knife Point | On July 9, a 28-year-old Washington man broke into the home of Sikh/Hindu family, holding them at knife point.Preet Moudgil manages the Kettle Falls Inn, located in Kettle Falls, Washington. He and his family, including his parents and three-year-old son, also live on the premises.According to the Spokesman-Review, Moudgil was working the desk at the motel when Kilgore first approached him. He made several racist comments during the encounter, and asked him if he knew about Guantanamo Bay. Later Kilgore attempted to break down the door that separates Moudgil s apartment from the motel office, but was unsuccessful. He then tried to enter through a second door, located on the first floor. Moudgil locked all the doors and windows to the apartment. Kilgore managed to get inside through a sliding glass door, which he reached by going to the roof of the motel.Once inside the apartment, Kilgore began threatening the family at knife-point. He said I m going to cut you up because you are a terrorist, Moudgil told the Spokesman-Review. All he saw was brown skin. Kilgore shoved Moudgil s elderly father, turning the knife on him. He told the family, I was trained to kill people like you. Moudgil s father eventually managed to escape the apartment. His mother fled through a back entrance as well, taking the three-year-old child with her.According to the Spokesman-Review, a neighbor finally managed to subdue the man, wrestling the knife away from him before he was able to seriously injure someone.Kilgore was arrested and is facing two counts of second-degree assault, one count of burglary and one count of malicious mischief. Additional charges may be added in the future. He is currently being held on $100,000 bond.Moudgil says that he has lived in the Kettle Falls community for years. This community is very small. Everybody knows everybody, he told the Spokesman-Review. Yet he says that he has never heard anything like this happening in the community before.The rise of racist, right-wing hatemongers like Donald Trump, who spew anti-Muslim ignorance and bigotry on a national platform, is undoubtedly linked to the growing number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the U.S.As The New York Times reported here, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of attacks against members of the Muslim community over the past 10 months.As long as people like Donald Trump are allowed to spew their hateful, racist views on a national stage, the situation will only continue to get worse.Image credt: Viktoria-Lyn Deviant Art CC 3.0 | 1real |
Recovery Finally Yields Big Gains for Average Worker’s Pay - The New York Times | It has been a long time coming — eight years, in fact — but the economic recovery is finally showing up in the average American worker’s paycheck in a big way. There have been plenty of winners in the recovery, which began in : companies, homeowners, investors and, especially, households at the apex of the economic pyramid. But the paucity of gains in pay has stoked anxiety and frustration for many others, a factor in the wave of discontent that Donald J. Trump rode to victory in November. But even as Mr. Trump prepares to succeed President Obama in two weeks, the Labor Department reported on Friday that average hourly earnings rose by 2. 9 percent last year, the best annual performance since the recovery began. And many economists expect the trend to gain momentum this year, as a tighter labor market forces employers to pay more to hire and retain workers. “This is a turning point for the overall economy,” said Diane Swonk, a veteran independent economist in Chicago. While wage growth was robust last year, government data for December showed a more tepid increase in employment, with 156, 000 jobs added during the month, and a slight uptick in the unemployment rate to 4. 7 percent. Until recently, a rise in salaries one month would peter out the next, but the upward trajectory in 2016 reflects wage gains even for Americans at the low end of the pay scale, Ms. Swonk said. Leisure and hospitality workers, for example, saw hourly earnings jump 4. 4 percent from a year earlier, equal to the increase enjoyed by employees in the surging technology sector. To be sure, a number of the economic problems cited by Mr. Trump during the campaign remain: millions of former workers not even looking for jobs, ebbing factory positions and fewer opportunities for the 55 percent of Americans without college degrees or other school credentials. “Strong economic growth doesn’t really matter if it’s not widely distributed,” Ms. Swonk said. “You can have a better economy but still not good enough for people who aren’t participating at all. ” A more comprehensive government barometer of unemployment, which includes workers forced to take jobs because positions were not available, stood at 9. 2 percent in December, a much higher level than at this point in past recoveries. But rising wages should counter the economic undertow, especially if the gains remain . And while a 2. 9 percent increase may not sound like much, it goes much further because inflation is about 1. 7 percent. Economists expect wages to rise by up to 3. 5 percent in 2017 — still below the gains many workers saw in the recovery of the and in the boom of the late 1990s. Although not reflected in the December figures, many workers are getting raises this year because of state increases in the local minimum wage. Some of the increases were substantial, with Arizona, Maine and Washington each raising the floor by $1. 50 or more an hour. Even in California, where, at 50 cents an hour, the wage gain is not as steep, one in 10 workers has gotten a raise. And gains can have a spillover effect, pushing up pay for workers just above the bottom salary tier. For all his criticism during the campaign of Mr. Obama’s economic stewardship, Mr. Trump will inherit an economy that is fundamentally solid. Consumer sentiment, corporate profits and the stock market are all at or near multiyear highs. On Friday, Wall Street embraced the labor market figures, lifting the Dow Jones industrial average close to 20, 000 and a new nominal record. Investors and traders are watching the jobs data closely for clues about when the Federal Reserve Board may next raise interest rates. Last month, the Fed increased interest rates for only the second time in a decade, and policy makers signaled that three more increases could come this year. The wage gains are among the reasons the Fed is likely to stick to that plan, Ms. Swonk, the Chicago economist, said. Monthly job creation last year was well below the 236, 000 average for hiring in 2014 and 2015. But with the economy close to what Fed policy makers and other experts consider full employment, employers are increasing wages, to retain workers and to attract new ones. While the minimum wage increases provide a floor when it comes to pay, the ceiling continues to rise in fields like financial services, sales and technology, said Tom Gimbel, chief executive of LaSalle Network, a Chicago staffing company. “Across the board, I see more aggressive salaries being offered by corporations than at any time in the last 10 years,” Mr. Gimbel said. Seasoned sales representatives are drawing base salaries of $150, 000 a year, compared with $125, 000 two years ago, according to Mr. Gimbel. software developers who once started at around $50, 000 a year can now command $70, 000. Other executives in the Midwest also report upward pressure on wages, including in grittier settings than the fields where engineers and financial professionals cluster. At Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria, which has 46 restaurants in the Chicago area and one in Phoenix, pay in hourly positions like server, cook and dishwasher is now about $11. 50 an hour, compared with $10 an hour three years ago. Mark Agnew, the chain’s president, said most of the increase was a result of the steady rise in Chicago’s minimum wage, which has gone from $8. 25 in 2014 to $10. 50 now. It is set to hit $13 by summer 2019. “We want to stay ahead of the minimum wage because we want to attract the best talent,” Mr. Agnew said. A substantial portion of the chain’s 3, 000 workers have been with the company for more than 10 years, a rarity in the restaurant industry that is another benefit of the slightly higher wages. Economists and politicians have long debated whether raising the minimum wage ultimately hurts workers as companies cut positions or leave them unfilled in the face of rising labor costs. So far, that has not been the case at Lou Malnati’s, Mr. Agnew said. The chain has opened about a dozen new locations in the past three years, adding about 600 workers to its payroll over all. “It’s very tricky, and I know the minimum wage may erode job creation in some industries,” he said. “But in my own company, it hasn’t hurt hiring. ” | 0fake |
Jury Rejects Federal Case Against Malheur Wildlife Refuge Defandants | Jury Rejects Federal Case Against Malheur Wildlife Refuge Defandants
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/verdict-near-in-malheur-wildlife-refuge-standoff-trial/
From this account in the Voice of Idaho, it seems the Feds took out their loss on the defendants’ attorney:
“Ammon Bundy’s attorney Marcus Mumford sought the release of Ammon Bundy based upon the verdict of not guilty. The Federal Marshals refused to release him. Mumford insisted that they show the paperwork that allowed them to keep Ammon in custody. They wouldn’t show the paperwork. When Mumford refused to accept that as an answer, about eight federal marshals attacked Attorney Mumford IN THE COURT ROOM! They tasered him and arrested him!!”
During the trial the attorney was told by the judge that he could not mention the defendants’ spokesperson who was shot down by police for no reason. http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/judge-threatens-to-fine-ammon-bundys-lawyer-in-malheur-refuge-case/
The high-handedness of the Feds apparently was more than the jury could accept.
The post Jury Rejects Federal Case Against Malheur Wildlife Refuge Defandants appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org . | 1real |
The Anti-Trump Activist Taking On Retailers - The New York Times | SAN FRANCISCO — Sitting in a basement office that she rents by the hour, Shannon Coulter ticks off the activities she gave up in defiance of President Donald J. Trump: renting movies with her husband on Amazon, and shopping at Nordstrom, Macy’s and other retailers that sell Ivanka Trump’s products. A Nordstrom bag sat on a nearby table. It represents a victory lap of sorts for Ms. Coulter, who has almost spearheaded a retail revolt against the president and his family. She was wearing a new silver Elizabeth and James lariat necklace purchased at the department store soon after it scrubbed Ms. Trump’s name from its website. “The goal,” Ms. Coulter said, “came originally from a place of really wanting to shop the stores we loved again with a clear conscience. ” It’s been a wild ride these past few months for Ms. Coulter, who runs her shoestring movement from her home, or from cheerfully decorated work spaces like this one — surrounded by furniture, clam chairs and decorative pillows that feel more Silicon Valley than war room. Enraged by a video that emerged last October of Mr. Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, Ms. Coulter began a boycott of any sort of product connected to Mr. Trump. At first, it was just a tweet — a list she had compiled of companies that sold Trump products — but the ember quickly turned into a blaze. Thousands of people have contacted the stores Ms. Coulter has on her boycott list, including Macy’s and Amazon. Retailers including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and T. J. Maxx have backed away from products connected to Ms. Trump, the president’s oldest daughter, since Ms. Coulter’s efforts began. A herd of activists and celebrities, including the feminist writer Gloria Steinem, the Olympic diver Greg Louganis and the actress Lucy Lawless of “Xena: Warrior Princess,” have expressed support. The attention has transformed Ms. Coulter, 45, a digital marketing specialist, into the unlikely general of the digital army now supporting her campaign, Grab Your Wallet. “People describe me as an activist in media coverage, I don’t know who they’re talking about,” she said. “I’ve never done anything this organized or structured or purposeful. ” The new role has taken up much of her time, and has made her the target of criticism and attacks from Trump supporters. She’s lost count of how many times she has been called a “bully” or a “disgrace. ” The abuse gets more menacing with each victory a recent email included her mother’s name in the subject line, with threats to publish more of her personal information. In the latest twist, the boycott has drawn Ms. Coulter, a progressive liberal, into a growing debate over whether targeting Ms. Trump is sexist. And she said she worries that people will think she is profiting from the venture. Ms. Coulter was particularly upset when a knockoff “Grab Your Wallet” group sold clothing and other merchandise on Facebook. “We don’t even have a we don’t have stickers, nothing,” she said, adding that she does not accept compensation from companies, or donations. “I don’t think either of us envisioned that some of the things that have happened would happen,” said Sue Atencio, who helped Ms. Coulter get the site started. In many ways, Ms. Coulter has embraced her new position. She answers emails at all hours and scours Twitter for tips on companies to add, or remove, from the boycott list. Then there are the phone calls — lots and lots of phone calls — from angry Trump supporters or journalists or the companies that want to get off her list. There is no doubt that it has changed her life. She doesn’t sleep or socialize as often as she used to. Most of her work on Grab Your Wallet is done after she eats dinner with her husband, taking up what free time she has. “She went underground, basically,” said Amie Penwell, a fellow San Francisco resident who hasn’t seen much of her friend of seven years recently. The negative attention has made Ms. Coulter careful about her privacy. She insisted on meeting at the work space for an interview, to avoid having a reporter at her home, out of fear that it could be targeted. She would not let her husband, whom she met online in 2010, be interviewed. Born in Indiana, Ms. Coulter studied journalism at Penn State. She said she began her career by “piggybacking” on the Bay Area’s technology boom, helping with their email marketing. A year ago she started her own agency, DoubleKnown, which helps executives and small businesses build their online presence through blog posts, social media feeds and other digital tools. The company has one other employee and a handful of education and technology clients, but has stopped taking on new accounts since Grab Your Wallet took off. Political activism has not been a big part of Ms. Coulter’s life since college, when she spoke at a rally raising awareness about violence against women. Her most recent organized effort came after the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon in 2015, when she circulated a list of lawmakers who had voted against tougher gun control measures. “Maybe that gave me a taste of what something like this would be like,” she said, describing herself as a chronic list maker. “I like the efficiency of them. ” After becoming incensed by the video, Ms. Coulter began searching retailers’ websites for products and collecting the names on a spreadsheet. Wondering who else might be interested in a boycott, she looked at Twitter, and found Ms. Atencio, who had tweeted “fashion not fascism. ”Ms. Coulter contacted her and suggested they announce the boycott together. Since then, most of the work has fallen to Ms. Coulter, though she refers to Ms. Atencio as her “spiritual guide” and sounding board. Ms. Atencio, 59, sees herself as the less visible half of a musical duo. “I feel like I’m the Garfunkel and Shannon is Paul Simon,” Ms. Atencio said. Grab Your Wallet now includes a list of places to shop and not shop, and a short script for people who want to call companies to complain. As many as 32, 000 people visit her site in an hour, Ms. Coulter said. When the women’s marches took place across the country in January, 350, 000 people arrived during a period. In early February, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus removed Ms. Trump’s name from their websites. Employees at T. J. Maxx and Marshalls were instructed not to display Ivanka Trump products and to throw her signs in the trash. None of the retailers credited Grab Your Wallet with their decision — the department stores blamed poor sales — and it is not possible to know to what degree Ms. Coulter and her followers have influenced the companies’ decision making. But in the waning days of January, complaints, many of which mentioned Grab Your Wallet, were Nordstrom’s most common customer feedback, according to a person with direct knowledge who was not authorized to speak publicly. Nordstrom said it did not have “specific numbers” on the number of customers it had heard from. “I attribute it directly to the Muslim ban,” Ms. Coulter said, referring to the executive order on immigration that Mr. Trump issued on Jan. 27. “I can see when the numbers spike when certain news events happen. ” Monitoring those spikes, updating her list and responding to emails, tweets and press inquiries have become Ms. Coulter’s second job. “My life is so completely here,” she said, gesturing to her MacBook, “that it all just sort of overlaps and is an endless stream of emails and tweets and Facebook posts. ” She does get some help from volunteers, like the woman who helps run the legitimate Grab Your Wallet Facebook group, which has more than 12, 000 members. But for the most part, Ms. Coulter is on her own. That means the threats and negative attention are also directed largely at her. People ask her why she’s “attacking another woman,” or call her a bully. People like the Fox host Jeanine Pirro have argued that Ms. Trump’s brand has nothing to do with the White House, and that she is being unjustly targeted. Defenders also point to a proposed maternity policy that Ms. Trump developed with her father’s campaign, and her brand’s hashtag, WomenWhoWork, as examples of how she promotes women. “We have to stop destroying women based on the men in their lives,” Ms. Pirro said during a recent episode of her show. S. E. Cupp, a conservative author and commentator, stopped short of calling the boycott of Ms. Trump’s products sexist. But in an email, Ms. Cupp said that it seemed “misdirected. ” “I’m never a fan of going after the kids, grown or not, of presidents,” she said. “Nor does it feel consistent with the argument — that he’s ‘ ’ — to economically punish his daughter, a working wife and mother. ” A spokesman for Ms. Trump’s brand declined to make someone at the company available for an interview. In a statement, the company said it had been “swept into the political fray, becoming collateral damage in others’ efforts to advance agendas unrelated to what we do. ” Ms. Coulter finds such comments perplexing. She pointed out that Ms. Trump moved to Washington and has taken on an informal advisory role in the White House. She frequently sits in on her father’s meetings with foreign leaders. Ms. Trump’s husband, the real estate developer Jared Kushner, is a top adviser to President Trump. In addition, Ms. Coulter said, Ms. Trump played a prominent role in the presidential campaign. “Someone who passionately campaigned for a man who likes to grab women by the genitals will never convince me that she’s on the side of women,” she said. “Ever. ” Ms. Steinem also said that Ms. Trump was fair game, particularly after the election, when it can no longer be argued that she is just doing her “filial duty” on the campaign trail. “It’s appropriate to boycott her not because he is her father,” Ms. Steinem said, “but because she supports his policies. ” Ms. Steinem specifically faulted Ms. Trump’s proposed policy for its exclusion of fathers and mothers. Despite the long hours, Ms. Coulter said she could continue running Grab Your Wallet indefinitely. She’s considering turning the campaign into a nonprofit and running it full time, and is struggling to figure out what to do with her fledgling business. “I’m trying to understand what the right next step is,” she said. “I think as long as he’s in office, this will be alive. ” | 0fake |
WATCH: ONE WOMAN Reports The Weather In Sweden, The Other In Iraq…What’s Wrong With This Picture? | Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet on Twitter) posted an interesting video that should cause alarm-bells to go off, no matter where, in the world you live. If you live in Sweden and have been watching your Swedish traditions and culture discarded and replaced with a radical Muslim culture, you probably won t be shocked by this video. If you live in a nation like Germany or the UK that s been importing unvetted refugees from Muslim majority nations for several years, you will probably not be surprised by this video. But for many Americans, who are foolish enough to think that inviting millions of Muslim refugees (who have no interest in assimilating) into your neighborhoods and communities, this video should serve as a warning to you of what a bleeding-heart nation looks like post-idiocy:The weather forecast in Sweden vs the weather forecast in Iraq. pic.twitter.com/t870JhVRSU Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) July 11, 2017So, why is Sweden starting to look like a majority Muslim nation? In 1975, the Swedish parliament unanimously decided to change the former homogeneous Sweden into a multicultural country. Forty years later the dramatic consequences of this experiment emerge: violent crime has increased by 300%.If one looks at the number of rapes, however, the increase is even worse. In 1975, 421 rapes were reported to the police; in 2014, it was 6,620. That is an increase of 1,472%.Sweden is now number two on the global list of rape countries. According to a survey from 2010, Sweden, with 53.2 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants, is surpassed only by tiny Lesotho in Southern Africa, with 91.6 rapes per 100,000 inhabitants.Data Also Suggests the Uptick Is Due to Immigrants More controversial is what explains these increases. Some contend the increase in rape is simply a statistical phenomenon due to the application of an expanded definition of rape in 2005 and again in 2013. Others suggest Swedish women have simply grown bolder about reporting things that happened previously but went unreported. Maybe, but in the same period, as Carlqvist and Hedegaard point out, the number of gang rapes [in Sweden] increased spectacularly. In rapes of this kind culprits and victims are most often young and in almost every case, the perpetrators are of immigrant background, mostly from Muslim countries. Finally, it s also worth pointing out that the rise of rape isn t peculiar to Sweden either. The same problem is plaguing Germany, Austria (more information here), Britain, and other EU nations. The Federalist | 1real |
NRA President Has Meltdown Over Voting Rights And It Was SO Hypocritical | National Rifle Association President Wayne LaPierre had an absolute meltdown at the organization s annual conference on Friday about voting rights. LaPierre is extremely pissed off that Democrats want to restore voting rights to ex-felons. Apparently, he doesn t think these people deserve the right to vote, but he s totally cool with violent felons owning guns.During his speech in Louisville, Kentucky, LaPierre said: There is no limit to how far the elites will go to put Hillary in the White House. They re even allowing convicted felons the right to vote, including violent rapists and murderers. It sounds outrageous, but it s true. The Democratic-led Maryland General Assembly did it for 44,000 ex-cons. In Virginia, Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe Hillary s longtime bagman did it for 206,000 convicted felons.Tentacles of the Clinton machine are out registering those felons right now. They re releasing them and then they re registering them! Heck, when they sign their release papers, they might as well just give them a Hillary bumper sticker at the prison door. The NRA president isn t wrong. Maryland and Virginia DID restore voting rights for that number of people and rightfully so. Unlike Republicans, we believe that everyone deserves the right to vote. Voting is in an inalienable right and it should not be taken away because someone was convicted of a felony. I personally believe that even my father s murderer should be allowed to vote. I loathe him, but my personal feelings should not have any influence over whether or not he performs his civic duty. He was convicted of killing my dad, went to prison, served his time and released. He was held accountable for his actions, paid the price and now is free to live his life.Republicans, on the other hand, are against restoring voting rights because felons are disproportionately likely to be minorities (my dad s murderer was white) and minorities tend to be Democratic voters. The GOP are notorious for voter suppression shenanigans targeting poor, minority and young voters because they know that the fewer people at the polls, the more likely they are to win. So, of course, LaPierre doesn t want felons to have their voting rights restored, but he does want them to own guns.According to the Huffington Post the NRA and the Republicans they have in their pockets have been fighting for decades to restore gun ownership rights to felons. In many cases, those felons were convicted of violent crimes and when they were allowed to own firearms again, they committed more offenses. That is of no consequence to the right or the NRA, because they believe in second chances! For gun owners, anyway.In 2015, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) sponsored an amendment that would have funded a program to restore Second Amendment rights to ex-offenders. During a floor speech, Buck said, America is a land of second chances. One mistake should not define your future. The NRA boasted about the amendment on their Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/NationalRifleAssociation/posts/10153506293466833 The land of second chances unless you would like to vote. The hypocrisy is breathtaking, isn t it? Now, the right could argue that we, too, are being hypocrites because we do not believe that ex-felons should be allowed to own guns again. I disagree. I m fine with ex-felons having their gun ownership rights restored IF they did not commit a violent felony. I m sorry, but if you hurt somebody and went to prison for it, you cannot be trusted with a gun. Period. Owning a firearm and voting is not the same thing.Wayne LaPierre and his followers only care about one thing: arming as many people as they possibly can so that gun manufacturers get richer and richer. They don t actually care about ex-felons, because is they did they d make sure the same people they wanted to give guns to, also had their rights to participate in their democracy restored.Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images | 1real |
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